Mendocino County Today: Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2022

Below Normal | Mosquito Cloud | Strosa Quake | Support Dog | DA Dollars | Donoho Kids | Board Backdown | Begonias | School Property | Cardplayers | Trivia Quiz | Negie Update | Bee Robbers | Ed Notes | 16 Footer | KPFZ Moonalice | Fair Schedule | PA Survey | Atrium | Jivan View | Yesterday's Catch | Switzer Grocery | Motel Closure | Not Meth | Something New | Working Stiff | Going Out | Inherent Narcissism | Ukraine | Got Fired | Chuvalo 85 | Political Promise | Tonto's Revenge | Niner Scare | Homeschooling | Soviet Tanks | Black Cat

MOSTLY DRY CONDITIONS and below normal temperatures are expected through the end of the work week. A chance for rain showers is currently in the forecast for this weekend and possibly into early next week. (NWS)

NORTH BAY SHAKER

by Colin Atagi, Paulina Pineda & Kathleen Coates

A magnitude 4.4 earthquake shook the North Bay on Tuesday evening.

The temblor was centered about 2 miles northeast of central Santa Rosa, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. A preliminary map from the agency showed the epicenter off Parker Hill Road, north of Chanate Road, well within city limits.

It happened at 6:39 p.m. and was followed seconds later by another shaker.

Seismologist Lucy Jones tweeted that the quake was on the Rodgers Creek Fault and no tsunamis should be expected.

By 7 p.m., the Santa Rosa Police Department issued an advisory that no major damage or injuries had been reported.

A dispatcher with Redcom, Sonoma County’s fire and medical emergency dispatch agency, said “we’re slammed” when reached by The Press Democrat.

Numerous Sonoma County residents reported to The Press Democrat they felt the earthquakes. Reports on Twitter showed it was felt as far away as southwest San Francisco.

“I live in southwest Santa Rosa and both were quite significant,” Ginger Schechter said. “Nothing damaged but, similar to my experience with the Loma Prieta (in 1989), this was a rolling quake that undulated quite a bit and could be felt as I stood bracing myself in my doorway.”

Santa Rosa resident Cailyn McCauley said her family was having a Tuesday dinner of tacos when the shaking began.

“For approximately 20 to 30 seconds, we rode the dining room table like it was a roller coaster,” McCauley said. “After it calmed down, we got up to go outside when there was another quick jolt and the rumble was lower this time and the house shook for only about 10 seconds. We heard a glass crack but that was the extent of the damage.”

At Flagship Taproom in downtown Santa Rosa, the pergola covering the patio swayed and conversions stopped as patrons quickly registered what was happening. Some headed to the sidewalk to get distance from the swaying buildings.

As the tremors ended, many reached for their phones. Across B Street people near the Santa Rosa Mall followed suit.

Santa Rosa Mayor Chris Rogers said he spoke with city officials soon after and also verified there were no reports of major damage or injuries. The city has received an increased number of 911 calls but "it sounds like it was mostly bumps and scrapes being reported," he said.

The city's facilities team was dispatched to evaluate city buildings to ensure there was no major damage, Rogers said.

Sonoma County Supervisor Chris Coursey, who represents Santa Rosa in District 3, said it was too early to say if there was any damage to county facilities or across the city.

Coursey, who said the fault runs underneath his neighborhood, was on a phone call in his kitchen when the earthquake happened.

“I let out a couple of expletives and immediately got into a doorway as fast as I could,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever reacted to an earthquake that way.”

A couple of water bottles on his kitchen counter were knocked over and large paintings hanging on his wall had moved but his home wasn't damaged, he said.

Coursey, who has lived in Santa Rosa for 42 years and experienced other earthquakes, said this felt like the strongest he has experienced.

The supervisor said he hopes the earthquake was “just a wake up call” – reminding residents that they must prepare for earthquakes just like wildfires – but that there were no injuries or major damage.

Chris Godley, Sonoma County's emergency management director, said the county had received no initial reports of major damage, but that authorities were handling a high volume of 911 calls. He said he had heard no reports of major injuries, trapped people or significant structural damage.

The department immediately sent an extra staff member to the county's fire and medical emergency dispatch center to evaluate the reports and calls for help being received there, Godley said.

(Santa Rosa Press Democrat)

MENDO DA BACKS CASH STRAPPED AV AMBULANCE

Mendocino County's District Attorney David Eyster and Anderson Valley Ambulance are working together to help prevent drug abuse and related problems because of the current Opioid crisis in Mendocino County. This crisis has been growing at an alarming rate over the past couple of years. We have been fortunate in Anderson Valley, but we know it will eventually reach us. We have been training on the use of naloxone and overdoses within our department and carry it on our engines and ambulance. However, that is a reactive measure. We plan on being more proactive working with the schools and other agencies to help educate the community. The District Attorney reached out to Anderson Valley Fire’s Ambulance Service and contributed $20,042 of asset forfeiture money towards this effort and as support for the Anderson Valley FD ambulance. This contribution is both timely and appreciated. We hope to continue this partnership in the future. 

Anderson Valley Fire/Ambulance Service Presser

‘GET CUBBISON’ EFFORT FLOPS

by Mark Scaramella

THE BIG SHOWDOWN between the Supervisors and Auditor-Tax Collector Chamisse Cubbison devolved into another fizzle Tuesday morning after the feisty Cubbison gave the Board her blunt initial reaction to their catch-all list of things they wanted from the Auditor/Tax Collector. Much of the list reflected the ignorance and inexperience of the Board and the so-called “Budget Ad Hoc,” as they included things like Special District Audits and back up procedures which at best are low priority and at worst, as Ms. Cubbison noted, insulting to even ask. After Cubbison’s initial push-back blast, the Board backed off and insisted, Oh no, they don’t want to create any new additional work for Cubbison’s overworked office and they’re open to considering staffing increases and outside consultants or extra help. Supervisor Williams sheepishly insisted again that all he wanted was basic financial information and he didn’t care who did it. His fellow ad hoc committee member Glenn McGourty agreed that the County wasn’t providing what other Counties and local agencies routinely do: produce basic budget and financial information on a monthly basis. 

THE AIMLESS and overdetailed discussion could have ended when CEO Darcie Antle told the Board that: “The reports the Executive office has is out of the MUNIS software. So it’s all related to budget that we can run. You saw some of those reports, they were presented in prior CEO Reports. They were just budget to actual. Those are reports that we can run.”

WELL, RUN THEM THEN! SHEESH! Is the Board even listening to their CEO? Yes, there are caveats and explanations and formatting and so forth. But they’d be a good start. Instead, the Board rambled on through their overlong list of things they wanted, noting all along the way that they didn’t care who did it and they didn’t mean any criticism of their elected Auditor/Tax Collector. 

WE WERE DISAPPOINTED to hear from both Ms. Cubbison and Supervisor Mulheren that part of the reason they haven’t produced the reports in the past is that — gasp! — somebody might ask a question about them. Mulheren even implied that the last time they ran a budget vs. actual there was — gasp! — some criticism about it. There wasn’t. None. There’s no criticism except from us and we didn’t criticize that one-time summary. We’re pretty sure she’s (mis-)referring to the May of 2021 CEO report that included a departmental budget snapshot which we asked a few very ordinary questions about. They were not criticisms at all and then-CEO Carmel Angelo answered our questions with her usual half-assed replies which we let stand for readers to evaluate. No complaints, no criticisms. That’s when the CEO prefaced her answers with her now-familiar bogus claim that she was reluctant to produce budget vs actual reports because of questions like ours. And yes, we did complain about that, but not the reports.

IN THE END, having postured about how concerned they are about the County’s finances, the Board directed the Auditor and the CEO and their own ad hoc committee of Williams and McGourty to go back to the drawing board and do what they should have done the first time: looking at existing reports that are already available and comparing them to other counties and so forth. As usual, no dates were set, no objectives specified, no narrowing down of the list to its most essential parts. 

AFTER THE TRANSPARENT GET-CUBBISON exercise had failed miserably, the Board went into closed session to discuss “labor negotiations.” So, as before, they are sure to tell their employees that they still can’t offer them any wage or cost of living adjustments because they just can’t seem to get those gol-durn financial reports that they had just finished putting off indefinitely again. 

BOONVILLE QUIZ TOMORROW (THURSDAY)

This week sees the 3rd Thursday of the month (15th) and therefore we shall be presenting the General Knowledge and Trivia Quiz at Lauren’s at The Buckhorn beginning at 7pm. Hope to see you there. Steve, The Quizmaster.

NEGIE FALLIS, THE LEAD SUSPECT IN KHADIJAH BRITTON’S DISAPPEARANCE, IS OUT OF PRISON AND BACK IN LOCAL COURT

42-year-old Negie Fallis, the lead suspect in the 2018 disappearance of Round Valley’s Khadijah Britton, has been released from thirteen months in federal prison and now sits in the Mendocino County jail awaiting court.  

Khadijah Britton went missing over four-and-a-half years ago. During that time, Fallis, the man law enforcement suspects made her disappear, has spent nearly two-and-a-half years behind bars. Fallis has managed to elude criminal prosecution for his suspected role in the disappearance of Khadijah.

On the night of February 8, 2018, Fallis allegedly forced Britton into a vehicle at gunpoint outside of a Covelo residence. After this incident, Britton was never seen or heard from again. Since that night, Fallis’s alleged culpability in Britton’s disappearance has become public knowledge but remains untested in a court of law. …

mendofever.com/2022/09/13/negie-fallis-the-lead-suspect-in-khadijah-brittons-disappearance-is-out-of-prison-and-back-in-local-court

ED NOTES

KH: “…I was thinking recently someone should do a really long interview with the AVA editors (and some of their co-conspirators) about the business/ethics/life involved in running a community paper with worldly ambitions, what the future looks like to them, what they have learned and what they wish they had known when they started. Sounds silly when I write it out like that. But there’s so much institutional community knowledge in this group, and time is passing too fast.”

DOESN'T SOUND SILLY at all, KH. Your questions are the fundamentals of a vanishing enterprise — the newspaper in paper form. At one time, as you suggest, before techno-nirvana kicked in, we did have outsized dreams of taking on San Francisco, but without the capital to realize them. Around 1990, we were at peak sales, many of them in the Bay Area where our crew of writers was already well-known, hence the outsized ambition. With some money, I think we could have done it, but likely would have soon crashed with the advent of the internet as many of our sales outlets — bookstores and newsstands — also disappeared.

FAST FORWARD to 2022 and the End of Days for both paper-papers and perhaps everything else, the ava is a true non-profit in that it pays its bills while the people who produce it live off social security and random acts of cash kindness.

A PAPER-PAPER like this one requires a surprising amount of hand labor — bundling and packaging the outbound papers and getting them to the Boonville Post Office before dispatch time, hand-delivering them in the Anderson and Ukiah valleys, nevermind writing a hunk of it and assembling the beast into hopefully coherent form. Then there's all the bookkeeping, billing our handful of advertisers, keeping the subscription roster current, and so on. Five of us are involved, two of them, and the ever more expensive post office, are paid, as are some of our contributors. I assume Jim Shields in Laytonville and Steve McLaughlin in Gualala push a similarly-sized rock up the weekly hill.

AS YOU KNOW, K.H., we also produce a daily paper on-line. Our cyber-daily is running neck and neck in paid subscribers with our remaining paper-paper subscribers, most the latter, maybe even all of them, are Senior Citizens whose attention spans haven't been electronically destroyed. 

LOOKED at strictly as a business, weekly newspapers have NO value other than phoney-baloney “legal adjudication,” meaning we're legally qualified to print government announcements of various kinds, which annually amount to a nice income. (I remember when the Frisco papers went to war over the fair distribution of the city's legal advertising. And I lost money I didn't have going to court with the chickenshit Mendo supervisors — liberals of course — when they denied the ava the legal advertising that rightly belonged in the Boonville weekly.) If I were on a friendlier basis with their majesties of the Mendocino County Superior Court I'd petition them to legally adjudicate the on-line ava, which is far more widely read than the paper-paper ava. That would be hugely innovative of the Black Robes, which means it is not on. If the point of legal ads is public notification like, dude, it ain't happening anymore in paper-papers.

PRODUCTION of a weekly paper-paper is pointless if you think you can earn even an austere living doing it, which means when the rapidly aging wheezes who do most of the paper-paper ava's work wheeze their last, the ava will die with them. I'll ask my heirs and assignees to turn the on-line paper over to those young electronic whipper-snappers, Matt and Danilla.

FINALLY, K.H., you mentioned ethics. Not sure what you have in mind, but the prevailing ethic here has always been suspicion unto enmity for government at all levels, whatever hostility we can inspire for capitalism as the basis of social/economic organization, and, natch, to have fun doing it.

RADIO KPFZ LAKE COUNTY FUNDRAISER

KPFZ is excited to present another benefit concert at 4:20 PM on Sunday, September 18 at Cache Creek Winery, with Moonalice, a band of world-class musicians. Moonalice features 82 year old icon Lester Chambers, lead singer of the famous Chambers Brothers in the 60’s and 70’s, and his dynamic son, vocalist Dylan Chambers. They play a unique blend of psychedelic soul, rock-tinged Americana, and 60’s rock, including some of the Chambers Brothers hits. 

Tickets are $20 in advance through Eventbrite and $25 at the gate the day of the concert. (Use Google search and type in “KPFZ Moonalice” and the Eventbrite page should appear.) Bring lawn chairs. Gate opens at 3:00 PM. There will be wine, beer, food and water for sale. No outside alcohol and no dogs, please.

Moonalice is an exuberant Bay Area band founded by Roger McNamee (guitar) that includes Pete Sears (bass), a founding member of Jefferson Starship who has played with Rod Stewart (on 4 of Rod’s albums), Jimi Hendrix, Dr. John, Hot Tuna, John Lee Hooker, and Jerry Garcia. Sears has also written and recorded the original score for several documentary films. 

Moonalice also features Barry Sless (lead guitar and pedal steel), who has played with the David Nelson Band, Kingfish, Rowan Brothers and Phil Lesh; Mookie Siegel (keyboards), who has played with David Nelson, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh and New Riders of the Purple Sage; and Grammy winner John Molo (drums), who has played with Bruce Hornsby, John Fogerty and Phil Lesh. 

Rounding out the 10 piece band are the T Sisters (Erika, Chloe and Rachel Teitjen), who add a refreshing, sassy and captivating presence, and flow seamlessly between styles and moods with their eclectic sound and soaring harmonies. 

Moonalice has a renegade spirit and an ethos of love, peace, and happiness that permeates their music. Their incredible chemistry shines through in their live performances and their most recent album featuring the Chambers Brothers classics Time Has Come Today, People Get Ready and Let's Get Funky. 

The band’s single, It’s 420 Somewhere, has been downloaded nearly 5 million times and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has certified it as the song with the most downloads from a band’s website. 

Don't miss this unique musical experience, and help support Lake County Community Radio (KPFZ). Cache Creek Vineyards and Winery, which has donated its beautiful venue, is located in Clearlake Oaks at 250 New Long Valley Road just off Highway 20 and 2.5 miles East of the Clearlake Oaks Roundabout (the roundabout is at the intersection of Highways 53 and 20). Bring your dancing shoes! 

POINT ARENA ROLLS OUT COMMUNITY HOUSING SURVEY

The City Of Point Arena Is Excited to announce the release of its Community Housing Survey. This marks the next stage of the City’s comprehensive update of its housing regulations to encourage more housing development.

The Survey, available in both English and Spanish, is an opportunity for community members to make their voices heard on an array of issues related to housing, including rising prices, barriers to development, and the future use of city-owned property. The Survey will illuminate key areas of concern across the community and will help inform decision-making on critical housing issues.

Point Arena is one of many communities across California that have been severely affected by steadily rising real estate and rental prices. According to Redfin’s aggregation of public data, California has seen housing prices rise by over 47% in the last 5 years. Increased housing costs negatively impact the well-being of residents, property owners, businesses, and institutions. With timely and thoughtful action, the City of Point Arena hopes to create new housing policies and regulations that will improve the quantity and quality of housing in the city, while responding to the concerns and aspirations of the community.

The Community Housing Survey is just one step in a process that will unfold over the coming months, including community workshops, listening sessions, and City Council meetings. Everyone with an interest in the future of Point Arena and housing on the coast is encouraged to take the Survey. The Survey is available online in both English and Spanish using the links and QR codes below.

DOWN WITH THE DEMONIC

4th Dimension Anchor, 3rd Dimension Non-Attachment, Avatar Duty, Return to Godhead

Warmest spiritual greetings, The weather has cooled on the California north coast, as the Autumn season begins replacing the oven-like days, and rain, blessed rain, is forecasted to hydrate the parched region. Life at the Building Bridges homeless shelter in Ukiah goes on. The free meals at the Catholic Worker Plowshares Kitchen are sumptuous and open to all. Praise the Lord! Mendocino county social services continue to assist those in need of everything, from medical and dental to basic housing to employment to whatever it is that one requires in the American experiment in freedom and democracy, and for whatever reason one does not have. 

I am doing nothing of any crucial importance presently, and am available to intervene in history, in order to destroy the demonic and return this world to righteousness. If you are telling me that you are on the spiritual path, then you know that there is no other reason to be on the planet earth than to do this. For the liberated, it is the reason that we are here. And beyond that, we may drop these body-mind instruments and go up. This is the view of a Jivan Mukta. 

I would first and foremost like to exit the homeless shelter in order to give the bed up to one of the campers outside. I would like to hook up with others who realize that we must let the Dao work through us without interference, because realistically, this is the will of God. And this is the whole point of Self-realization. And this is the way to Immortality. I'd like to get this message out very far and wide. Please forward. Thank you very much.

Craig Louis Stehr, Email: craiglouisstehr@gmail.com

CATCH OF THE DAY, September 13, 2022

JACK ALVAREZ, Ukiah. Failure to appear. (Frequent flyer.)

CHRSTOPHER AVELINO, Ukiah. Throwing object at vehicle causing injury, vandalism.

NICHOLAS COCHRAN, Redwood Valley. Domestic battery, assault with deadly weapon not a gun.

SEAN DELCAMPO, Fort Bragg. Stolen vehicle, controlled substance.

VINCENT GALVAN, Fort Bragg. Parole violation. (Frequent flyer.)

JESSE MARTINEZ, Caspar. Domestic battery, contempt of court.

CHRISTOPHER MENDEZ, Chatsworth/Ukiah. Failure to appear.

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

KH: This is apropos nothing, but seeing as the Ukiah Daily Journal doesn’t seem to have a reporter interested in local news anymore, I thought I’d put it here. (It also doesn’t seem to have an active editor, but that’s another story).

Approximately 25-50 people are looking for housing in Ukiah as the Regency Motel on South State Street has been red-tagged by some agency or another. It’s near the Talmage intersection and the Building Bridges site where Mr Stehr resides. The motel been used as low income housing for the past few years. The parking lot has a chain link fence around it and is clearly in the process of being cleaned out. I spoke to a former tenant yesterday who was looking for housing in town anywhere he could find it. The school bus stopped there regularly, so there must have been families living there.

If anyone knows anything more about the situation, please chime in.

Coincidentally it’s my understanding the UDJ offices have downsized again, this time to the Talmage Office Park on Talmage Rd. I have not been the new location so cannot confirm 100%.

PEOPLE DEFEND CAPITALISM on the grounds that it creates abundance, and in a sense they're right: capitalism is an effective way to drive up production and consumption. The problem is there's no wisdom guiding it, so the world is being choked with garbage while people go hungry.

Haves exploiting the labor of have-nots will indeed get the gears of industry creating lots of stuff. But now we're creating too much stuff, so much that it's killing our biosphere, even as vast inequalities remain and far too many go without the basic necessities in life. The "invisible hand" of the free market is worshipped as a sentient deity who always knows what's best, but in reality it's completely bereft of wisdom and intelligence and cannot move in harmony with the real needs of the real world. It's a mindless force that is driving us to disaster.

This isn't a problem you can just ignore. You can't keep waxing on about how much stuff capitalism has been able to create while that stuff is destroying our ecosystem and making this planet uninhabitable. It's a problem that urgently needs solving, and capitalism can't solve it.

Capitalism offers no solution to the problems of ecocide and inequality. As long as exploitation remains profitable, exploitation will remain. As long as ecocide remains profitable, ecocide will continue. Human behavior cannot remain driven by profit. We need something new.

— Caitlin Johnstone

"I ALWAYS RESENTED ALL THE YEARS, the hours, the minutes I gave them as a working stiff, it actually hurt my head, my insides, it made me dizzy and a bit crazy — I couldn’t understand the murdering of my years yet my fellow workers gave no signs of agony, many of them even seemed satisfied, and seeing them that way drove me almost as crazy as the dull and senseless work."

— Charles Bukowski

I’M AT AN AGE where my back goes out more than I do.

— Phyllis Diller

UKRAINE, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13TH

Ukrainian troops have pressed deeper into Russian-occupied territory in a continuing counteroffensive that has inflicted a stunning blow on Moscow’s military prestige.

As the advance continued on Tuesday, Ukraine’s border guard services said the army took control of Vovchansk — a town just 3km (2 miles) from Russia, which was seized on the first day of the war.

Do not backtrack on climate goals amid energy crunch, UN tells EU list 2 of 4 Europe braces for hard winter, hoping for a political payoff list 3 of 4 UN denounces Russian ‘intimidation’ of Ukraine war opponents list 4 of 4 Russia post-Putin: What happens if the president suddenly dies? end of list Russian troops were also abandoning the southern city of Melitopol and heading toward Moscow-annexed Crimea, the city’s pre-occupation mayor said.

Columns of military equipment were reported at a checkpoint in Chonhar, a village marking the boundary between the Crimean Peninsula and the Ukrainian mainland, Mayor Ivan Fedorov wrote on Telegram, according to the Associated Press news agency.

Al Jazeera is unable to independently confirm military claims made by either side.

Since Moscow abandoned its main bastion in northeastern Ukraine on Saturday, marking its worst defeat since the early days of the war, Ukrainian troops have recaptured dozens of towns in a stunning shift in battleground momentum.

Speaking in the central square of Balakliia, a crucial military supply hub taken by Ukrainian forces late last week, Ukraine’s Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Malyar said 150,000 people had been liberated from Russian rule in the area.

Ukrainian flags had been raised and a large crowd gathered to receive bundles of humanitarian aid. A shopping centre had been destroyed but many buildings remained intact, with shops closed and boarded up.

Fighting was continuing elsewhere in the northeastern Kharkiv region, Malyar told the Reuters news agency, saying Ukraine’s forces were making good progress because they were highly motivated and their operation well planned. 

— Al Jazeera

'IF EVERY FIGHT WAS 45 ROUNDS, GEORGE CHUVALO would be the greatest boxer of all time.' - Rocky Marciano

Two time Heavyweight world title challenger and Canadian boxing legend, George Chuvalo celebrates his 85th birthday today.

Despite not capturing the Heavyweight World Championship during his career, Chuvalo is revered and widely respected, remembered as a man with an unbreakable spirit and willingness to face anybody in an era littered with legends.

Happy Birthday Champ, Many Happy Returns.

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY #2

When I was in the fifth grade in elementary school in San Francisco, we had a class president election. One of the candidates promised to get and place an ice cream vending machine in the school yard. I voted for him. He won but we did not get an ice cream vending machine. I learned my lesson. My point being that the candidates we elect to the City offices do the same: promises, promises. A lot of "performative politics". We get the same: nothing, nothing. For those of you dissatisfied with the City's state, housing, schools, law enforcement, economics, living conditions, you the voters need to look in the mirror. For each of the neighborhood districts with a Supervisor up for election, you need to ask the question, "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?" and vote accordingly.

LOSS GIVES 49ERS TRUE SCARE: What if the Trey Lance era is boring?

by Scott Ostler

After San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan got his first in-person look at Trey Lance last year, he reportedly boarded the plane home, buckled up, whipped out his tablet and started designing plays to utilize the kid’s skills.

Shanahan’s mission this week: Find those plays.

You know, the plays that featured razzle, or dazzle, or some combination thereof.

Shanahan must find that computer file, or the box in the garage, wherever those plays got filed away.

It was disappointing that the 49ers blew a 10-0 lead and lost to the unthrilling Bears in Chicago Sunday. The disappointment was more than doubled by the Boredom Factor, which works kind of like wind-chill factor. With the Boredom Factor, Sunday’s loss felt like 2.3 losses.

The scary thought for the week is, what if the Trey Lance Era turns out to be the one thing we did not expect it to be: Boring.

Sure, it’s hard to sizzle in the rain, but other than a triple-option play early, which became a pitch to Elijah Mitchell, the 49ers didn’t try much of anything Sunday that Jimmy Garoppolo didn’t recognize.

Lance threw a couple nice deep balls early. Then that play kind of disappeared in the second half. Nobody expected Lance’s debut to be Patrick Mahomes meets Stephen Curry, but wow, was that bland.

It makes sense that Shanahan was starting Lance slowly, in terms of plays specifically designed to feature his skills. Also possible: Expecting an easy win, Shanahan treated this more like a practice game, keeping the fireworks under wraps, to spring on tougher foes.

Well, now’s the time to go to the secret stash. The Seahawks are supposed to be lousy, but next Sunday’s game now looms as a “must” win, and a golden opportunity to light some fireworks. Because if there is one thing the 49ers cannot be this season, after pushing all the chips into the middle of the table on Lance, it’s boring.

Bay Area sports fans can take only so much. The Giants and A’s have combined to hit us with the most boring summer of baseball in recent memory. Unknown players, underachieving.

We are spoiled by the Warriors, possibly the most exciting team in sports. The only way the 49ers could equal the Warriors would be to win the Super Bowl with Lance completing 90-yard bombs, each punctuated with a “Bye Bye” gesture.

But even a decent football team can be exciting, if it has exciting players and an imaginative play-caller. The 49ers have Lance, and they also have Deebo Samuel, Brandon Aiyuk and George Kittle (who sat out Sunday). Their defense should be exciting, with Nick Bosa, Fred Warner and Drake Jackson.

That’s a strong thrill package. Potentially. But you have to turn it loose.

On Sunday, Lance connected early with Aiyuk on a 31-yard gain on a slant pass. But Aiyuk had only two other touches. Did Shanahan forget about the bond formed by Lance and Aiyuk over the summer? Flash back to last season’s NFC Championship Game loss to the Rams, when Samuel was carving up the Rams like they were a jack-o-lantern, then disappeared. Deebo got zero action on the 49ers’ final nine offensive plays in that loss.

Lance did run for 54 yards (13 carries) Sunday, something Garoppolo couldn’t do in a month. We saw what kind of trouble a mobile quarterback can cause. Bears’ young gun Justin Fields threw a 51-yard TD to wide-open Dante Pettis after a nimble back-door escape from the clutches of 49ers’ rushers Arik Armstead and Charles Omenihu.

It didn’t help the 49ers’ thrill package that rookie Danny Gray was a healthy inactive. He’s the guy Lance hit for a 76-yard touchdown in their first practice game. After which Lance explained the strategy: “Throw it to the fast guy.”

So dull was Sunday’s game that fans and media will have to spice things up this week with soap-opera stuff. Like, what’s the deal with the 49ers’ offensive linemen disrespecting their quarterback? Mike McGlinchey and Trent Williams took turns getting beat by Bears’ rookie defensive end Dominique Robinson on sacks of Lance. Both McGlinchey and Williams trotted off the field without giving Lance a hand up off the rain-soaked turf, a glaring breach of etiquette.

Sunday was probably an aberration. There’s no way the 49ers can be that bad, and that boring. But if the 49ers are going to live up to their potential as a Super Bowl-quality team, Shanahan has got to find a better way to use Lance.

Shanahan has always preferred a pass-first, game-manager quarterback. He got rid of Colin Kaepernick and he desperately wanted Kirk Cousins.

But this isn’t Shanahan’s first rodeo with a mobile QB. In 2012, as Washington’s offensive coordinator, he masterminded Robert Griffin III to an Offensive Rookie of the Year season. It fell apart the following season and in the wake of Griffin’s career-altering injuries, but Shanahan proved he could coach that kind of quarterback.

In 2017, Shanahan said of coaching a mobile quarterback, “You've got to make sure you tailor an offense that fits his skill set.”

It’s time for Shanahan to do some tailoring and dig out some of those killer plays, and not exploring the risk of turning this season into the snoozefest none of us expected or want.

(SF Chronicle)

MOTHER HOME SCHOOLS her children in Transylvania, Louisiana, 1937.

A MURDER WEAPON, NOT A MEMORIAL

by Sadakat Kadri

Sunday was Tankmen’s Day in Russia. At Patriot Park outside Moscow, children drew Zs in crayon on armored personnel carriers and raced toy tanks for prizes. In Chebarkul, adult re-enactors pretended to battle for their lives in Kursk, Kandahar, Georgia or Syria. As if to distract themselves from the vehicles currently smoldering across north-east Ukraine, crowds throughout Russia venerated antiques on pedestals, and the deputy defense minister presented Ivangorod with a T-34 from the Great Patriotic War.

Victory over Nazism was a central theme (the holiday was established in 1946), but so was Vladimir Putin’s claim that denazification hasn’t been fully achieved. Ivangorod is on the border with Estonia and the new monument was positioned, following Kremlin instructions, to greet foreign visitors. The tank’s muzzle points across the river frontier, along the Most Druzhby, or Friendship Bridge, towards EU immigration checkpoints in the Estonian city of Narva.

An uncompromising stance – but also a response. Until last month, Narva had its own T-34 on a plinth: a gift from the Kremlin in May 1970. It’s been a cause of angst for years. In a country where a quarter of people speak Russian as their first language, with a history shaped by collaboration with Nazis as well as victimization by Communists, the national relationship with Soviet tanks is complicated. Narva councilors hoped till the end for a compromise, but Estonia’s prime minister, Kaja Kallas, decided in August that the T-34 had to go. ‘A tank is a murder weapon, not a memorial,’ she said. ‘These same tanks are killing people on the streets of Ukraine right now.’

Having visited Narva in March, I followed the controversy with interest. On 20 August, I travelled from Poland to Prague, 54 years to the day since Warsaw Pact divisions had trundled down the same route, on a Moscow-ordered mission to end the Prague Spring. Three decades earlier, the region had been part of the Sudetenland, and Nazi militarized units had roared through the surrounding forests. Heavy weaponry was on my mind when I learned on 21 August that some of Narva’s Russian-speakers were missing their tank already, and had taken to gathering around a shrine made of candles in the shape of a T-34.

Tanks haunted my imagination for the rest of my time in Prague. Occasionally, the thoughts were positive. I can get as sentimental as the next anti-Nazi about 1945, and a propaganda poster I picked up in a junk shop revived fond memories of a conversation I had some years ago with a 93-year-old Czech woman. She told me how happy the sight of a Soviet tank on 9 May had made her. ‘The gunner was so handsome,’ she said. ‘All I wondered is when the dance halls would reopen.’ Darker history was never far off though. Ivan Goncharenko, a lieutenant killed at the head of the Red Army’s first armored column into Prague, is honored near the castle by a plaque. Two hundred meters away there’s a memorial to Marie Charousková, a 25-year-old engineering student shot dead by a Soviet soldier in August 1968.

Even as the Prague Spring was being crushed, apologists claimed that Moscow had come in peace. The best refutation of that lie I’ve come across is at Prague’s National Museum at the top of Wenceslas Square. The façade was so distinctively raked by tank fire in 1968 that it got a nickname. With due attribution to Andrei Grechko, the Soviet defense minister, the intricate pattern of bullet holes and craters became known as a work by ‘El Grechko’. The damage is still perceptible.

(London Review of Books)