Mendocino County Today: Sunday, July 3, 2022

Cloudy Cool | 1911 Parade | Architectural Services | Hering Memorial | CSD Meeting | Pet Ember | PV Diversion | Cheese Band | Ed Notes | Skyhawking | Noyo 66 | New Hauler | Wagner Collage | Craig Suspended | Yesterday's Catch | Ukraine | Promised Land | Tax Relief | Civil Rights | Spangled Dames | Water Pipes | Continued Insanity | Rich Dems | Cage Tricks | Parade March | CA Sinking | Handmaid's Court | Rooster | Oil Price | Doll Show | AIPAC | Miss Liberty | Impenetrable Court | Little Song | Independence Day | Invasion Break | Marco Radio | Lost Dog

AN ENTRENCHED TROUGHING PATTERN will continue to provide unseasonably cool inland daytime temperatures, more persistent cloud cover and light precipitation. Heights will trend up by midweek as a strengthening Four Corners area ridge ushers the weakening trough north. (NWS)

LISTEN UP! Anderson Valley Unified School District is accepting Requests for Qualifications for Architectural Services. The link to the requirements is below: avpanthers.org/uploads/attachments/cl4t2lbup002v53dgd5jcssnj-rfq-architect-1.pdf

REGULAR MEETING of the Boonville Water Projects Committee

Anderson Valley Community Services District

To be held via teleconference Phone # 669 900 6833 Zoom Meeting ID 845 5084 3330 Password 048078

Public comments must be submitted by 10:00am on June 2, 2022 electronically to water.avcsd@gmail.com

Thursday July 7, 2022 at 10:30am

• Call To Order And Roll Call:
• Recognition Of Guests And Hearing Of Public:
• Consent Calendar: (No Meeting Last Month) 
• Changes Or Modification To This Agenda: 
• Report On Drinking Water Project:
• Report On Wastewater Project:
• Public Outreach:
• Concerns Of Members:
• Adjournment:

UKIAH SHELTER PET OF THE WEEK

Ember is very social with people and other animals. She loves to play with toys and is always in a good mood! Ember will be an amazing addition to her new family. Ms. Ember is an ALL AMERICAN D-O-G! If you can’t adopt right now, think about fostering. 

Visit http://www.mendoanimalshelter.com/ for information about our Foster Program, the on-going Summer Dog Adoption Event, and our other programs, services and updates. 

Visit us on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/mendoanimalshelter/

For information about adoptions, please call 707-467-6453.

THE POTTER VALLEY DIVERSION, HISTORY OF…

Open letter to Supervisor Gjerde

A little more than one hundred years ago a group of very smart people built a diversion dam on the main stem of the Eel River, tunneled through the hill at the north end of Potter Valley and built a hydroelectric facility to supply power for Ukiah, and in doing so supplied water to the East Fork of the Russian River.

The small farmers in Potter Valley soon realized that the tailrace flow from the new powerhouse could be used to irrigate their pastures and orchards, so by 1925 an Irrigation District was established to deliver water to agriculture in the valley. The bulk of the water coming through the tunnel continues through Potter Valley and constitutes the majority of the water in the East Fork Russian River. By the 1950s it was obvious that this resource would be invaluable to the ways of life and cultures along the entire Russian River watershed, and therefore, Lake Mendocino was formed to provide reliable supplies of water for the region benefitting municipalities, agriculture, tourism, recreation and fisheries.

Mr. Gjerde: This is a project that should be celebrated as well as protected for its agricultural, environmental and recreational value, and not derided and chastised by a member of the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors.

But on June 5 of this year you sent a memo to your colleagues on the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors in which you trashed the Potter Valley Irrigation District for its conduct regarding water coming through the Potter Valley Project as released by Pacific Gas and Electric Company. I find your tone offensive, dismissive and unnecessarily combative as well the fact that you base your recriminations on faulty information and misunderstandings of the issues at hand.

You contend that the “agricultural interests” served by the PVID “pay virtually nothing for their irrigation water” and compare what the more than 200 customers of the PVID pay to what citizens of Ukiah, Fort Bragg and Willits pay for their water. These “agricultural interests” are mostly small farmers and your snide suggestion that they should be paying $150 per acre foot is insulting.

First of all the PVID supplies water by gravity flow from a system that has been developed, refined and paid for for almost 100 years. The delivery systems of Ukiah, Fort Bragg and Willits are relatively modern, are delivered under pressure and treated for use as potable, all of which involves expense, so comparing the systems is unrealistic.

Another piece of misinformation in your memo implies that all of the water coming through the Potter Valley Project is for the benefit of these greedy ag interests, not so. Over the years, of the water coming through the PG&E powerhouse, PVID has received a small percentage of the total, the balance flowing into the East Fork of the Russian River and thence to Lake Mendocino; and of the water entering the PVID system some 20 percent is used for delivery purposes and this also goes into Lake Mendocino.

Last week on June 15 during a discussion of the medical system in the county you remarked that when there is a problem in one part of Mendocino County it’s a problem for all of the county. I would hope that that attitude on your part would spill over to this water issue. I’m reminded of last summer when the coast was hurting for water, trucks left the inland valleys carrying needed water supplies to our neighbors on the coast.

This water issue is a countywide and regional one. Besides Potter Valley, Ukiah Valley, Hopland, Northern Sonoma County, Healdsburg, Santa Rosa and Marin County, one way or another, rely on this water. We’ve been abandoned by our radical enviro Woke Congressman Huffman who recently implored the Federal Energy Regulatory Committee to “expedite” retiring the Potter Valley Project without due process of confirming the reliability of water supply for the 750,000 Russian River ag, commercial, municipal and individual interests, thereby putting to lie his so-called “two basin solution.”

We in the Russian River Basin are alone at the moment, Regardless of the outcome the upcoming vote on added one-quarter or three-eighths tax, it is important to put aside narrow interests, the kind of narrow interests that caused Mendocino County to lose control of the water when Lake Mendocino was formed, and think of the good for the entire region, a good that is being attacked by smart, well funded and relentless forces who want to completely eliminate the PVP.

Guinness McFadden

Potter Valley

THE SEA RANCH READER EDITORS are excited to host a unique 4th of July event at One Eyed Jacks!

We blew the last of our petty cash on an antique animatronic Chuck E. Cheese band. It's programmed to play the Jimi Hendrix, Mormon Tabernacle, and KISS versions of The Star Spangled Banner, on repeat, all Monday afternoon.

Jasper T. Jowel's gonna be smokin' on that guitar!

We'll also have something for everyone: several One Eyed Jack grills bursting with lighter fluid and flames. Bring hot dogs, your old draft cards, COVID-19 proof of vaccination, or select pages from the Book of Leviticus--whatever your political persuasion needs in order to release patriotic tension and unwind!

SCOTUS effigy crafting kits will available for the kiddos!

See you there.

— The Sea Ranch Reader Editors

ED NOTES

IT COULD HAPPEN HERE! Judge Wayne Culver is in trouble with the Florida Judicial Qualifications Commission. The Commission has recommended Culver complete an “anger management course and sensitivity training” after yelling at a defendant, “I asked you a fucking question, asshole.”

RE THE “WHITE LIGHT” AT/AFTER DEATH: 

(1) In the 1970s there were bestselling books about the commonality of people experiencing some sort of “tunnel” and then glorious warm welcoming light, interpreted as God, of course. The late great Carl Sagan had another take, positing that memories in the brain are laid down like layers of an onion, first/oldest ones in the center. As the brain shuts down as it dies, peeling off the outer layers, we can relive our first “memories,” eg, birth itself. The “light” is thus that of the delivery room, or wherever we were born.

(This also could be why aging humans so often forget more recent experiences but recall details from long-ago youth).

Some “Christians” didn’t appreciate his perspective. As for me, being born Caesarian, I expect to be shorted this fine experience. Can’t have everything…

 (2) I had to laugh about your comment about the light. My dad, a very hardheaded and crusty Old Crow drinker with no belief in religion, had a very rough time at the end and did code when he was in the recovery facility. They revived him, but he swore that he saw the light and it was good. My droll and comical best friend Marilyn was dying a couple of years later from Lung Cancer, and my dad just adored her. He asked me to go see her and tell her not to be afraid because it would be OK, and he earnestly wanted me to explain about the “light”. I’m visiting with her the day before she died, and I said, “OK Marilyn, my dad just wants me to tell you this and I leap into his description. While she’s sipping her milkshake that I had brought her, I explained in detail what he explained to me. After my long winded two minute explanation about how wonderful the light was, she looked at me very thoughtfully, took a long sip on the straw, and then said to me “Well then, why the hell is he still here? I think he wondered that some days too...

WRONG MESSAGE, JOE. Biden economic advisor Brian Deese said that Americans should “stand firm” on paying record-high gas prices because the “future of the liberal world order” is more important. “What do you say to those families that say, ‘Listen, we can't afford to pay $4.85 a gallon for months, if not years?’ the director of the National Economic Council was asked on CNN Thursday. ‘What you heard from the president today was a clear articulation of the stakes. This is about the future of the Liberal World Order and we have to stand firm,’ he replied, adding, ‘At the same time, what I would say to that family and Americans across the country is you have a president and an administration that is going to do everything in its power to blunt those price increases and bring those prices down.”

HOLD MY BEER. According to a recent poll out of the University of Chicago, a quarter of Americans say they are ready to take up arms against the government. The same poll found that more than a third of these revolutionaries own guns, and that 49 percent said they felt like strangers in their own country.

CHRIS SKYHAWK:

Well- I can’t believe its been 4 years! Since my you-know-what! I'm living proof that life can turn on a dime! Here, with the chainsaw just a few days b 4 the big event, and another from the campaign trail.

Although I am sometimes in difficulty with my physical limits - i am VERY happy with the things I am learning - in these pix - I could not even walk at all - I could only toddle myself along in a wheel chair - they used a Hoyer lift to get me out of bed, as I could not even sit up on my own! This puppy pile with Veronica Stevenson’s kids was a great moment!

And watching my body learn how to do literally everything again - has been an amazing process - I’m sure its the same excitement as small children have when they start to build these skills- to experience that as a 59 y o man is an extraordinary privilege! Though it’s been hard on my family - the stroke got me out of a toxic marriage that I was in profound denial about, and now I’m getting to heal the childhood patterns that made me susceptible to these relationship patterns - is something I’m glad I'm getting to do (just barely) this side of the grave - I feel lucky, and blessed. I also feel lucky to have had an NDE and wish everyone would have one - our planet would be a completely different place if everyone had knowledge of their infinite selves..or infinite elves….

Back to the family - my twins are about to turn 14! I am thrilled out of my mind that these “children” are becoming beautiful young women right before my very eyes - they regularly take my breath away quite frankly! Although I still have some cognitive weaknesses that sometimes give me slight troubles remembering things - like appointments, bill due dates, etc….; After getting out of rehab, I had some Tibetan texts on meditation that I always had trouble understanding b 4 stroke - that was immediately, astoundingly clear to me post-stroke - same thing on this text about Shamanism - I previously did not understand why it always involves dismemberment and dark underworld journeys - now I do! Some strange, beautiful, alien, yet earthly creature is trying to get born through me…I am in transit! I will likely have to adopt new pronouns for myself - I’m thinking “we”, “they”, or even ”it!” I am excited to see what we might all birth together, in the face of these extraordinary crisis’ we are facing… What a lovely challenge each of us has decided to face by choosing to come here at this place and time…

ONWARD!

LISTEN UP!

The City of Fort Bragg and areas of Mendocino County currently served by Waste Management (WM) are transitioning to a new solid waste and recycling hauler (hauler). In preparation for the start of the new hauler effective July 1, 2022, Redwood Waste Solutions (RWS) recently delivered new containers to residents and businesses. WM is responsible for collecting their old containers and has provided the schedule below to help facilitate the collection. 

Carts (Blue, Gray & Green)

Zone: Inland Commercial & Residential CARTS
When: Pick-Up (Tuesday – Friday) July 5, 2022 – July 8, 2022

Zone: Fort Bragg & Coastal Commercial & Residential CARTS
When: Pick-Up (Monday – Friday) July 18, 2022 – July 22, 2022

BINS (Larger Commercial Bins)
When: Beginning the week of July 5, 2022, RWS will empty old bin, pick up old bin, and leave new bin. 

Roll off

When: RWS will pick up old box and provide new box if necessary when customers call for pickup. 

WM requests that residents leave empty containers out for the scheduled week of collection. In order to minimize the excess containers in the public right of way, residents are encouraged to continue using WM containers until they are picked up.

Questions regarding waste disposal through June 30, 2022 should be directed to WM at (707) 964-9172 or (866) 909-4458. 

Questions regarding waste disposal after July 1, 2022 should be directed to RWS at (707) 234-6400. Please expect longer wait times due to their high call volume. 

LARRY R. WAGNER: I recently composed a collage for the Lula Winery photo contest. I shot the still life of the wine bottle and glass with the cheese in my studio and combined it with shots around the vineyard. It won a third place. Notice the redwing blackbird on the post. I love doing these kinds of images.

“I'M READY”

Happy 4th Of July Postmodern America!

Warmest spiritual greetings, As America's annual celebration of national independence from King George III approaches on Monday, I wish everybody the absolute best in realizing that you are not constrained by the limitations of the body nor the mind. Identify with the Divine Absolute, which is your true nature or Self, and be free. 

Please know that I have no further need to be in California's Mendocino county. Secure as a guest at the Building Bridges homeless shelter in Ukiah, CA, all of the dental work has been done and paid for by the insurance. Health is good at 72 years. Accidentally got in shape again bottomlining trash & recycling at the shelter, hence the jeans did not fit tightly anymore, and today purchased a pair of suspenders! That, plus 50 years of spiritual practices, and I am ready to go forth and destroy the demonic with you and return this world to righteousness. I've got about two thousand dollars, and all belongings are contained in a traveler's suitcase on wheels and a duffel bag. I'm ready. 😁

Craig Louis Stehr

CATCH OF THE DAY, July 2, 2022

ESTABAN AHUMADA, Fort Bragg. DUI, suspended license, probation revocation.

NICOLAS ARREGUIN JR., Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, resisting.

MICHAEL CAIN, Covelo. DUI-alcohol&drugs, controlled substance, suspended license for DUI, paraphernalia, disobeying court order, smuggling controlled substance into jail, probation revocation.

REYANNA CHRISTOPH, Ukiah. DUI, suspended license for DUI, probation revocation.

THOMAS GALINDO JR., Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol. (Frequent flyer.)

JEFFERY HOCKETT, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

FERNANDO JOAQUIN, Covelo. Under influence, no license, county parole violation.

MICHAEL LOCKETT SR., Ukiah. Concealed firearm in vehicle with prior, felon-addict with firearm, county parole violation. (Frequent flyer.)

GEORGE MANSFIELD, Fort Bragg. Probation revocation.

LUIS MUNOZ, Ukiah. DUI.

LAURA PITTENGER, Ukiah. Robbery, domestic abuse, failure to appear.

AARON POPPLEWELL, Potter Valley. Forgery.

MONICA SAVIDAN, Ukiah. Under influence, probation revocation.

GERALD SIMPSON, Willits. Controlled substance, county parole violation. (Frequent flyer.)

UKRAINE, SATURDAY, JULY 2

Ukrainian separatists backed by Russia say they have “completely” encircled the key city of Lysychansk in the eastern Luhansk region.

Russian forces have destroyed five Ukrainian army command posts in Donbas and Mykolaiv regions with high-precision weapons and also struck three storage sites in the Zaporizhia region, the defence ministry says.

The mayor of the Ukrainian city Mykolaiv warns residents to stay in shelters as powerful explosions rock the city.

Moscow has denied targeting civilians in Ukraine.

The United States is sending Ukraine two NASAMS surface-to-air missile systems, four additional counter-artillery radars and up to 150,000 rounds of 155mm artillery ammunition.

(Al Jazeera)

GOVERNOR NEWSOM Signs Cannabis Tax Reform Initiative Killing Statewide Cultivation Tax

Governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation on Thursday to bring immediate tax relief to struggling cannabis farmers. AB 195, the cannabis tax reform trailer bill, permanently eliminates California’s cannabis cultivation tax – which increased from $154.40 per dry-weight pound to $161.28 per pound earlier this year – and guarantees three years of net tax relief to the cannabis industry as a whole.

lostcoastoutpost.com/2022/jul/1/governor-newsom-signs-cannabis-tax-reform-initiati/

THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1964: A LONG STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM EXHIBITIONS

July 2, 1964, President Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Library of Congress provides a portfolio of related events of the day:

loc.gov/exhibits/civil-rights-act/civil-rights-act-of-1964.html

WATER, an on-line comment: I don't know how many times i have to say this PIPE LINE. we can run oil pipelines all over the country we can run a water pipeline from the great lakes to lake mead and lake powell. we can run a pipe line from the columbia river on the washington oregon border to all or reservoirs all that water just goes in the ocean millions of qubit feet per minute wasted when we could divert to california. if fdr was alive we would have those 2 public work projects going already not when it's too late and when there's no power in arizona nevada new mexico and no lights or water in vegas is that what its going to have to happen to act. what happen to the american pride in our innovations in troubling times, let's get to work and get these reservoirs full it's all doable. i will vote for any president that water pipelines are on the agenda. it's a must do. America has water. there is no need or reason for the west to be dry.

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

48 million cars on the road this holiday weekend making one last drive to the beach or the lake to get drunk and indulge in food which is increasingly becoming more expensive. How long can this insanity continue?

RANT OF THE DAY, Highly recommended

https://twitter.com/RidinRoadsTX/status/1542254002716426241

RAIN, BLOW, RUSTLE

by Nick Richardson

On August 29, 1952, a crowd of avant-garde aficionados and local music enthusiasts filed into the Maverick Concert Hall near Woodstock to hear a piano recital by the young virtuoso David Tudor. Water Music by John Cage, a Californian composer whose recent work had been feted in New York, opened the program and baffled its audience. It involved Tudor performing various actions at seemingly random intervals: blowing a duck call, tuning a radio, shuffling and dealing playing cards. After subdued applause, Tudor sat back down at the piano. He played pieces by Christian Wolff, an 18-year-old student of Cage's, and by Morton Feldman, Cage's friend; and thundered through Pierre Boulez's fiendishly difficult first sonata. The penultimate piece on the program was Cage's latest 4'33”. Tudor shut the piano and sat still. The wind rustled in the maples. Half a minute later he reopened the lid, then shut it. The summer rain could be heard falling on the Maverick's wooden roof. Another couple of minutes — Tudor opened and shut the lid again — and muttering and broke out in the hall. People began shuffling towards the exit. Four minutes and 33 seconds without a note played and Cage had stamped himself on music history with the most radical contribution of his generation. At the end of the concert, a local artist drew himself up and bellowed: “Good people of Woodstock, let's drive these people out of town.”

(London Review of Books, August 19, 2010)

SINKING

by Mark Arax

The photograph of the man standing next to the telephone poll is making its rounds again. Every drought as the water table plummets it gets dusted off and recirculated. Every drought as the San Joaquin Valley sinks a little more the ghost of Joe Poland returns to point his finger. Poland understood better than anyone the granular nature of subsidence and the do-nothing of government when confronted by its hidden force. Steady, sedate, he was a geologist's geologist. Yet at the end of his long career he could not help wondering if his cautiousness as a scientist had been a mistake. More and more he found himself captivated by the idea of turning the quiet of subsidence into a drama. The sinking of the earth was like a termite that ate from the inside at the structure of things. You didn't feel the foundation crumbling. You didn't see the meticulous ravage until it was too late. But what if he could wake up the public to its destruction? What if those years measuring the earth's downward creep could be rescued from his files and turned into a provocation?

Thus was born the iconic photograph of the man — Poland acting as his own droll model — standing in the baking sun next to the telephone pole. For the longest time I pondered the inspiration for this stunt. Then it occurred to me that Poland was a child of the roaring 20s and must have been a fan of 'Ripley's Believe It or Not!', a regular cartoon in the newspapers of the day. This photo might not carry the same capacity for marvel as the African with the foot-long horn growing out of his head or the six-inch mummified body of Atta Boy that Ripley himself held in the palm of his hand, but it does tell a story that's not easy to believe.

On a summer day in 1977 in the midst of the of a then-record drought Poland drove out Panoche Road toward the farm town of Mendota and stopped at the edge of a vineyard where a utility pole reached arrow straight into the pale blue sky. In the company of a photographer, he chose the spot with scientific care. He was the world's foremost expert on soil subsidence, the arcanum of how the Earth loses elevation when too much groundwater is taken by man. A geologist trained at Harvard and Stanford, Poland was revered in Venice, Italy, where he had figured out why the floating city was sinking and how to make it stop. He was less revered in the San Joaquin Valley where he had spent 35 years in the uniform of the US Geological Survey documenting the most dramatic alteration of the Earth's surface in human history. More than 5,200 square miles, an area nearly as large as Connecticut, had sunk at least a foot on Poland's watch.

What is the duty of a geologist when the earth beneath the people is collapsing? Where to tread when agriculture, a people's bread and butter, is extracting water from the ground at a rate far beyond what snowmelt and rain can replenish? For three decades, Poland answered the question with an inch by inch, season by season tracing of subsidence in the Valley. The stacking of scientific data he presumed would make its own case. But the pumping went on and no amount of earthfall was enough to persuade the state of California to regulate agriculture's bleeding of the aquifer. So Poland, taking a page from Ripley, set out to turn one telephone pole along a vineyard road into a marker of the worst subsidence in the world.

At the age of 69, his thin left arm leaning against the wood, Poland appears in the photograph as the furthest thing from a government scientist looking to make a subservient statement. He's wearing a gentleman's hat and a plain white short sleeve shirt with his eyeglass case stuck in his breast pocket. His belt cinches an old man's paunch and what looks to be a calculator of the early Texas Instruments variety. He did his measurements well in advance. Near the top of the pole is a sign that reads “1925.” Halfway down is a second sign painted with “1955.” At the bottom where Poland's clunky shoes touch the ground, a third sign says “1977.” It takes a second to figure out, but the pole is the geologist's yardstick. In a half century span the land here has sunk almost 30 feet — right down the length of the wood. It's a strange visual effect as if Poland is standing at the bottom of a mine shaft with no way to climb out while at the same time he's standing on top of the open earth. From here to there we can see that it's a long ways down, but we don't quite believe our eyes. We are left to ponder how it can't be that the pole, the vineyard and the road have all sunken in unison and valley earth has settled pancake flat again.

Forty years later on a drive through Mendota I try to locate the pole. If Poland were me — he died in 1991 at the age of 83, eulogized as “Mr. Soil Subsidence” — he would point out that the Earth's sinking isn't short-lived. Once the land contracts, it never finds its old elevation no matter how many floods might come to fill the aquifer back up. The Earth is a human face, I imagine him telling me, and the farmer has sucked out all the collagen. Young ground has been turned into old ground before its time. I drive up and down Panoche Road, but the utility poles lined up along the vineyards all look the same. There's no marker saying, “Here is the most famous utility pole in the West.” Like the record of a crime expunged, the sign with its base is long gone. Only the sinking remains.

THE HANDMAID’S COURT 

by Steve Heilig

The Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade after fifty years should surprise nobody at this point. But it should frighten and outrage everybody who cares about women’s health and welfare. Here in California the right to abortion is safe, but access is imperiled as a flood of pregnant “refugees” needing care is expected to head our way. We cannot fail them.

Decades ago, medical and public health students at UCLA were sometimes taken on a tour of an old hospital ward, previously dedicated to women suffering the aftereffects of illegal abortions. I believe there had been something like 70 beds then and the veteran professor who guided us on the visit said that the ward had always full of suffering and dying women. “We used to have to mop their blood from the floors here — it reminded me of serving in World War II,” said the old doctor. After abortion was legalized, he told us, the ward quickly emptied out and was no longer needed.

That historical lesson stuck with me as no lecture could -- as the professor surely intended. And when I came to San Francisco to start my career, another physician named David Smith soon became one of my mentors. Smith trained at UCSF’s School of Medicine, and promptly founded the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinics during the fabled 1967 ‘Summer of Love.” Recently I asked him to write about whatever patient case he felt most influenced his career, and here is what he recalled:

“In June 1964, right after I graduated from UCSF, I was on duty as an intern in the San Francisco General Hospital emergency department. A woman came in feeling “very sick.” She spoke Spanish, and the teenage daughter who accompanied her translated for me as I did the intake, took her vitals, and inserted an IV for fluids. She had shaking chills but no fever, which suggested she was in septic shock. I asked the daughter what had happened. Suspecting that I was seeing the aftermath of a botched abortion, I explained that this could kill her mother. The daughter her alcoholic father had left the mother raising three children alone. The mother became pregnant and, despite being a devout Catholic, had gone for an illegal abortion.

With that information, we rushed her to the operating room for an emergency hysterectomy. It was too late. She died on the table. She lost her life because the law forbade the prompt medical care she needed, and because her family felt they had to delay treatment as her condition worsened. And now a teenage girl would be responsible to raise two children without a mother or a father.

I have been pro-choice ever since. I can’t fathom how anyone who has had to care for a woman brutalized in this way could ever be against the right to choose. I wasn’t prepared for this: I watched a woman die because judgmental others stood between her and medicine’s ability to save her life”.

Such stories are stark reminders of what banning abortion really means to women - it only makes abortion harder and more expensive to attain, and also more dangerous. That has already occurred in states such as Texas where severe restrictions have been enacted. 

What does work to reduce abortions? The equation includes good fact-based sex education, readily accessible and affordable contraception, and access to full healthcare for all who need it. Real family planning is also cost-effective, saving at least triple the amount of funding spent on it by preventing the need for more expensive services later.

We also need to train more health professionals in how to provide safe abortions – not only physicians, but also nurse practitioners who have been shown to be able to do this well. It’s a controversial idea in some quarters, but we are entering a time of emergency and a broader scope of trained abortion providers is crucial. 

Over half of abortions in the US are now completed using pills – “medical” abortion, as opposed to surgical – available in early pregnancy. These medications have long been shown to be safe and effective and it is time to loosen restrictions on them to make them more readily available via pharmacies, with access to clinicians as needed.

The majority of Americans believe that a pregnant women and her physicians should be the ones to decide what is best for them. So do our nation’s prestigious medical and public health associations, who do not consider an embryo or fetus a “baby.” But now, when we face a future resembling some version of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel “The Handmaid’s Tale.” We must heed the warnings of the bloody women's ward, and vow to not let such a place of suffering and horror again become reality.

GASOLINE PRICES, AN EXCHANGE

Tom Tetzlaff:

Keep the perspective Marie. Bitching about oil company profits and their ‘price gouging’ is always fun and it ‘feels good’ and all but by the numbers that scorn is misguided. The oil companies combined increase in profits is somewhere around 120 billion for the year. Note that the energy sectors customer base is the entire world. That is something like over 7 billion people plus industry and whatever else right?

Meanwhile, California ‘price gouged’ and overcharged the people of California with over taxation to the tune of $100 billion over the same time period. That huge number is close to all of the worldwide oil company profits which should raise an eyebrow at the very least. Cali is under 40 million people, so by comparison, the State of California deserves far more criticism for ripping people off than the oil companies do by a wide margin.

Cali just enacted another increase to the gas tax this month which seems unnecessary now and continues their effort to rip off the citizens of California.

* * *

Marie Tobias

The thing is Tom, folks sat down with the Exxon Mobil CEO for a conversation about the current state of Oil. He confessed that pricing oil at $55 a barrel would be an absolutely reasonable profit for the current cost of American produced oil. The only reason we're paying over a hundred is because we agreed to compete with global customers for our own oil (the oil companies feel even though it's our oil, that we subsidized both the discovery and production of, they should be able to get the same price from us, that they would from a global market... rendering the fact we are self sufficient in oil production completely moot.)

The fact that oil companies are raping us, doesn't excuse or alter that California taxes are excessive. These are two separate facts and they should be dealt with equal outrage and efficacy. The fact that Californians are paying top dollar for less than spectacular results demands serious oversight. That doesn't affect the national rate of inflation, or impact both price and availability of diesel fuel, upon which our economy runs. Again two significant, but separate issues ;-)

BERNIE SANDERS CRITICIZES AIPAC for Spending Huge Amounts of Money in Primaries to Defeat Progressives

Several prominent Democrats in US Congress have come out this week and rebuked AIPAC and pro-Israel groups for pouring millions of dollars into this year's primary elections against progressive candidates and incumbents, in favour of staunchly pro-Israel politicians.

While in previous years AIPAC enjoyed bipartisan support from Democrats and Republicans alike, it has recently begun to sour ties with some members of the Democratic Party after launching a Super PAC, the United Democracy Project (UDP), that has been spending heavily against progressives and has been funded by major Republican mega-donors.

Congressman Mark Pocan, a member of the House Progressive Caucus, warned on Tuesday to “proceed with great caution on AIPAC's endorsements. The candidates should renounce these efforts to be credible.”

Senator Bernie Sanders, a leading progressive voice, former presidential candidate, and critic of AIPAC, attacked the group in his latest endorsement for Congressman Andy Levin, who is currently facing a primary challenge from Haley Stevens. Stevens has received more than $270,000 from pro-Israel groups, according to OpenSecrets.

“The right-wing-funded super PAC run by AIPAC has found its newest progressive target in Congressman Andy Levin,” Sanders said in a statement.

“Once again, these extremists are pouring millions of dollars into a congressional race to try to ensure the Democratic Party advances the agenda of powerful corporations and the billionaire class.”

AIPAC launched the UDP in December, alongside the AIPAC PAC, giving the group the ability to donate to political campaigns.

Pro-Israel groups have spent millions so far in this year's primary election cycle, and have helped a number of moderate Democrats achieve victory over their progressive opponents who are more critical of Israel.

So far, the UDP has spent almost $12m in seven primary races this year, according to a tally by Haaretz.

This week, Congresswoman Marie Newman, one of the most vocal pro-Palestinian voices in US Congress, lost her primary election race to Sean Casten. Democratic Majority for Israel endorsed Casten, and its Super PAC spent more than $540,000 to support him against Newman.

Meanwhile, AIPAC has also endorsed more than 100 of the 147 Republican lawmakers that voted against certifying President Joe Biden's election victory over Donald Trump.

Middle East Eye reached out to AIPAC and UDP for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio no longer supports AIPAC

Even moderate and pro-Israel Democrats have taken to lambaste AIPAC and the UDP for funding negative campaign ads against their fellow party members.

Former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who in 2014 delivered a private and staunchly pro-Israel speech to the group, said last week that he was no longer going to support AIPAC.

“They have changed in a way that is unacceptable to me because they have attacked people I believe in,” said de Blasio, who is now running for an open seat in New York’s redrawn 10th Congressional District.

The former mayor was referencing Nina Turner, a progressive candidate who last year lost a primary campaign against Shontel Brown. The pro-Israel PAC Democratic Majority for Israel and AIPAC's UDP had spentaround $1.5m on television ads to support Brown's campaign.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been a longtime attendee of the pro-Israel group's annual conference in Washington and has also supported the same candidates that AIPAC has.

However, after the AIPAC-aligned UDP launched an ad campaign against former congresswoman Donna Edwards in a Maryland primary battle, Pelosi stepped in to defend Edwards.

“Donna fought hard for Prince George’s County - for jobs and investments in her community, to help constituents in need and to deliver results,” Pelosi said in a video.

(middleeasteye.net)

THE SUPREME COURT’s building has been closed to the public since the beginning of the pandemic. Then, not long after the leak in early May of a draft of the opinion that overruled Roe v. Wade, the courthouse was surrounded by an eight-foot fence. Always cloistered and remote, the court is now impenetrable.

The release of the decision in the abortion case highlighted another way in which the court has withdrawn from public scrutiny. For unexplained reasons, the justices have stopped announcing their decisions from the bench, abandoning a tradition that is both ceremonial and illuminating. In the old days, the author of the majority opinion would give a quick and conversational summary of the ruling that could be extremely valuable for a reporter on deadline and, by extension, for members of the public trying to understand a decision.

More important yet were oral dissents, reserved for decisions that the justices in the minority believed were profoundly mistaken. In ordinary times, one or more of the three liberal justices who dissented in the abortion case would have raised their voices in protest. These days, the court makes do with posting PDFs of its decisions, robbing the occasion of ceremony, drama and insight.

— Adam Liptak (NYT)

INDEPENDENCE DAY

by James Kunstler

The Party of Chaos is draping its narrow shoulders in black crepe this Fourth of July, putting on funereal airs, which is actually just another cynical act in their remorseless performance of pretending to care about our country, as everything they touch goes to shit, blood, and ruin. Anything not that, they would like you believe, is “right-wing extremism” and “domestic terrorism.” Such as reminding your fellow citizens that there’s an upside to the rule-of-law and free speech, two niceties of the constitution the Party of Chaos is working hard to dispose of.

Understand that this Party of Chaos is insane, and rejoice this holiday weekend that you are not them. Independence, after all, was not just throwing off the yoke of King George III, but of establishing conditions for a people to thrive and pursue happiness without nefarious interference by vicious authorities of a leviathan state. That was something worth fighting for in 1776 and worth fighting for now.

One such battle was decided this week in the US Supreme Court: West Virginia v EPA, about US government agencies under the executive branch usurping legislative and judicial prerogatives — in this case to enforce “Green New Deal” policies on the electric power industry by agency fiat, as if by law. No-can-do, the SCOTUS said in a 6-3 decision. The ruling will tend to quash the growing tyranny of the unelected federal bureaucracy issuing diktats that nobody has voted for, like the Department of Education’s increasingly insane use of the 1972 Title IX [nine] update of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to jam biological male transsexuals into women’s sports and locker rooms.

Much of this agency mischief has emanated in recent years from whoever is in the White House issuing executive orders to get around a recalcitrant Congress. Barack Obama was especially prolific at it and now the junta behind “Joe Biden” is trying to emulate Mr. O. The upshot is that the Green New Deal is dead because even a Democratic majority Congress is too chicken to vote for measures likely to bring down the electric grid and put an end to mass motoring (though current trends suggest exactly that outcome is in the cards even without government action).

The ruling also tends to foil the World Economic Forum’s effort to re-set Western Civ as a transhuman technocratic “green” nirvana. Rather, the USA and Euroland are on the express track to a Palookaville of grubby, post-industrial, neo-medieval hardship. Try to imagine Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse minus reliable electric service. All you’re left with is an ill-dressed schmuck wearing goggles in a dark, empty room. Not to mention the technocrat elite’s wished-for boons of computer-enabled eternal life and never-ending orgasm. Fugettabowdit. Mr. Zuckerberg will be lucky months from now if he can avoid being clamped to a stake and torched by the angered new peasantry he helped to create.

War is not the glorious romp it used to be, either, in the days of caparisoned hussars and grenadiers in colorful enfilade. Now it’s more like being a swarm of gnats in a bug-zapper: pfffftttt… and you’re just one of ten thousand fellow gnats parlayed into the plane of ignominious nonexistence, sans accolades and salutes. Thus, our supremely stupid campaign against Russia in Ukraine, which is so not going well that it is hard to find a comparable strategic fiasco in history.

Of course, strategic fiascos are “Joe Biden’s” specialty. Even his former running mate, Mr. O, acknowledged that “you can’t overestimate [“JB’s”] ability to fuck things up.” The alleged current president wanted desperately to bog down his nemesis, Vlad Putin, in the Ukrainian buzzard flats, hoping that Russia would roll over and die. But, lo and behold, it’s not working, not even with that $50-billion “JB” supposedly wired to Kiev. Instead, it’s America and our NATO allies who are circling the drain. Remember all those humming factories we won the Second World War with? They don’t exist anymore. Try prosecuting an industrial war without any industry. Decreasingly, too, our oil production, thanks explicitly to “Joe Biden’s” policies. Next, he’ll beg Mr. Putin for a discount on Russian oil while threatening to punch him in the face. I hope you’re prepared to lose this one as badly as we lost Afghanistan.

Life for us will get simpler, for sure, but it doesn’t have to be a trip back to the eleventh century. Mere months remain before the Party of Chaos has its near-death experience at the polls and we can begin to contemplate a change of course that allows us to remain a civilized nation of law and liberty, despite all the damage done. I’m celebrating this Fourth of July by mindfully declaring the independence of the country I love from the regime of grifters, tyrants, and sadists temporarily occupying the power centers of Washington, DC. I hope you will join me and do likewise.

(Support Kunstler’s writing by visiting his Patreon Page.)

PATRIOTIC TREPHINATION.

Here's the recording of last night's (2022-07-01) Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio show on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg (CA): https://tinyurl.com/KNYO-MOTA-0495

Thanks to Hank Sims for all kinds of tech help over the years, as well as for his fine news site: https://LostCoastOutpost.com

Thanks go to the Anderson Valley Advertiser, which provided almost an hour of the above 8-hour show's most locally relevant material, as usual, without asking for anything in return. Just $25 a year for full access to all articles and features. While you're feeling generous, go to KNYO.org, click on the big red heart and give what you can.

Speaking of which, I'll be happy to see you personally at the massive though covid-safe KNYO Fourth of July outdoor musical party at Caspar Community Center, just like last year, but it's on Monday this time. Monday noon-thirty to almost night-time. Swings, games, facepainting (probably), food, drink, seven great local bands, count 'em, no waiting, and a cow field of soft green grass for a dance floor. Meet all the deejays, including Long John, formerly of KFAT, who I only just met last night at the storefront. In addition to his traditional western radio voice he also looks a lot like Sam Elliot in /The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot/, and has the same dignified manner of calm, reassuring competence. http://knyo.org/images/knyo-event.jpg

Besides All That, at https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com you'll find a fresh batch of dozens of links to not necessarily radio-useful but nonetheless worthwhile items I set aside for you while gathering the show together. Such as:

Fascinating mud-and-twig construction of a working waterpark mansion sculpture. (via Everlasting Blort)

https://homesandhues.com/p/luxury-villa-with-two-pools-and-water-slides-is-made-of-mud

The theme from Howl’s Moving Castle on theremin and glass harp.

https://theawesomer.com/howls-moving-castle-on-theremin-glass-harp/672975/

“My country is the best. Best is the country I call my own.” It does seem nice in the demo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-kuOwUAHIQ

And this is actually all the size that stores ever really need to be. They don’t need to be as big as a football stadium and take up half the town. /Try/ to tell me you don’t ache to go into these jam-packed candybox-like music stores and pick up and try one of the guitars in the window… Hmm... there used to be a pawn shop very like that in Ukiah, that I liked to go in whenever I was there for jury duty. It can’t still be there, can it? I have jury duty on the 6th, first time in many years. I’ll look, and report. Also there was a nice music store a few blocks south of the library... But what first comes to mind when I think of Ukiah is: one time, when I was on a print run, delivering my newspaper version of /Memo/, oh, thirty years ago, a jittery rail-thin woman sweating cartoon bullets in front of the Mendocino Environment Center tried to sell me drugs. She was hard to understand at first, but when I finally grasped her purpose I gestured at the courthouse across the street and said, “Did you know that's the hive of policemen, right there.” She said, “So?”

https://www.vintag.es/2022/06/new-york-old-storefronts.html

— Marco McClean, memo@mcn.org, https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com