Mendocino County Today: Thursday, Oct. 20, 2022

WARM AND DRY conditions will persist into Friday. A cold front is expected to move across the region by early Saturday bringing cooler temperatures, northerly winds, and light rain. (NWS)

JULIE BEARDSLEY [President, SEIU Local 1021]: At Tuesday’s Board of Supervisor’s meeting, Chair Williams said he was worried that if the Board approved a reasonable COLA, it might result in lay-offs. I question who they would lay-off? Staffing levels that are funded out of the General Fund are so low if you laid anyone off there would literally be no one to do the work. County facilities would turn into a ghost town. On the other hand, the people who work in Social Services, Behavioral Health and Public Health are funded by State and Federal money and yes, there is a small contribution the county makes to each position, but those positions actually bring money into the county. So there is no excuse not to have those departments fully staffed. The dithering the CEO’s office and the Board of Supervisors are engaging in is totally unnecessary. And yes, it’s time to put your employees before a new parking lot!

THE BOONVILLE GENERAL STORE

Don’t Forget we will be selling this Friday and Saturday tacos on hand made tortillas and more Mexican Food!!!😍

ANDERSON VALLEY VILLAGE VOLUNTEER TRAINING: Tuesday, Oct 25th, 10 to 11 AM, at Mosswood Market

Join us for a short volunteer training and learn more about the Anderson Valley Village and how you can give back to the elders of our community. The work of volunteers is vital to our mission of supporting seniors as they age in place, providing all manner of help, from basic chores, transportation, tech support and errands to check-in calls and visits to skilled services. It’s up to you how, and how often, to volunteer. Because we are working with a vulnerable population, we require our volunteers to have the COVID vaccine, thank you (please bring your card). And if you would like to be a volunteer driver, please bring your Driver's License and proof of insurance card. Volunteer applications are available at the training, Senior Center, Health Center and/or our website.

andersonvalley.helpfulvillage.com/events/2715-anderson-valley-village-volunteer-training

A HALLOWEEN SPECIAL: Pin It and Carve It, an in-person workshop with Sulo Bee & Winchi De Jesus

Mendocino Art Center, October 29, 2pm — 5pm / For All Ages / $35

It’s spooky season and here at the Mendocino Art Center we love to celebrate our ghoulish pals! Join us for this Halloween workshop special in the jewelry studio where we will get up to all sorts of ghostly mischief! Together we will decorate a series of Halloween themed hand sawn copper shapes cut out by the current Artists in Residence! You are welcome to make simple dangle earrings or a pin for your favorite shirt! Closing out our spooky night, we will carve pumpkins and enjoy some tasty snacks! 

Register by October 28, 2pm

https://www.mendocinoartcenter.org/classes/halloween-special

ED NOTES

AS A STAUNCH admirer of Louise Simson's remarkable revival of the Anderson Valley schools, everything from the enhanced physical appearances of the two school sites to a renewed enthusiasm among students and staff, I hope she doesn't exhaust herself from the pure energy she puts into this unappreciative place. Ms. Simson functions as both district superintendent and high school principal, the latter function exhausting in itself in these especially trying times for young people, what with wholly negative cyber-idiocy raining down on them their every waking moment, not to mention the omni-presence of drugs and/celebration of them.

THE SUPERINTENDENT found thirty minutes for me Tuesday morning. She said ongoing work on a new septic system at the Elementary School is reimbursed by the state at not much more than half what it's going to cost, putting another hole in her budget as total enrollment declines.

(NOTE: I understand there are more pressing edu-issues than re-naming the Elementary School to something more specific than AV Elementary. I've always thought Blanche Brown Elementary School would be an upgrade in honor of the pioneer local teacher and gifted botanist who founded the annual Wildflower Show. From her home on Indian Creek, Miss Brown would commute by horse to her first school at Peachland, instilling the basics in generations of Valley people.)

I WAS SURPRISED to learn that all our teachers, K-12, have managed to find shelter in the housing-short Anderson Valley. Only Superintendent Simson and Elementary School principal, Cymbre Thomas-Swett, are forced to commute from Ukiah.

THERE ARE 225 junior high and high school enrolled at the high school campus, 198 students at the Elementary School.

SUPERINTENDENT SIMSON reports that there aren't major disciplinary problems at the high school while she keeps a close eye on vaping, the ingestion mode preferred by the more committed teen stoners.

SHE is on a continual hunt for two teachers at the high school — English and math, but with teacher shortages everywhere in NorCal and the unavailability of housing in the Anderson Valley (at least partially thanks to B&B conversions) attracting qualified people is difficult.

WITH ONE FOOTBALL game remaining in a learning season, coach John Toohey will soon be serving as tourney director for the Redwood Empire's oldest basketball tournament, the Redwood Classic, which kicks off in two weeks. The Panther basketball team, coached by Panther alum Luis Espinoza, is presently engaged in the Whipple Classic in Covelo.

BOYS SOCCER is enjoying a winning season at 8-3-3 while Girls Soccer is winless but having a good time, always the bottom line for any school sport.

JOAN VIVALDO REPORTING: “On October 4th, the scheduled date of the arraignment of Doug Stone, the Black Bart Trail Burglar, I drove to Ukiah. Caltrans had decided to resurface North 101 near Santa Rosa at peak commute time, so I entered the courtroom late.I looked around Courtroom H, and saw Mr. Mike Clough, Defense Attorney, Mr. Doug Stone, Defendant, and Ms. Heidi Larsen, Deputy DA. Doug gave me a chipper spread-fingered wave, which I returned, thinking it was an odd gesture for a man about to be charged with multiple felonies. 

The Court called the Stone case, and Attorney Clough entered a Not Guilty plea for his client. He maundered on to say that motions had been/may be/will be filed. After determining that Mr. Stone wished to waive his right to quick action, Judge Carly Dolan allowed an extension until November 15th, when the date for a jury trial will be set. Messrs. Clough and Stone immediately left the courtroom. 

As is the custom of the Stone contingent, perp, attorney and victim went to Schat’s coffee shop after the court proceedings, where people assemble in the ordering/pickup area. As I ordered a bran muffin and coffee, I was very near Mr. Clough. He volunteered that he would have bought my coffee, but better to wait until the case was settled. I was also within arm’s length of Doug Stone. The up-close view of Mr. Stone allowed me to see that he is actually a good looking guy. Bright blue eyes, trim, well groomed, well dressed, well mannered. The Mendo mug shot is a crime in itself.”

THE STONE MATTER is typical of the Superior Court's casual functioning. This case is two years old! And on it rumbles with yet another judge, Dolan, slagging it off another month. 

YOU KNOW you're hearing a rhetorical Hail Mary whenever someone rolls out Hitler to make a point. Or a nut. Or a nut-dummy. Former Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, neo-Republican, compared President Biden to Adolf Hitler at a rally in New Hampshire this week, claiming that the two men appear to share a “mindset” about how to lead a country.

BIDEN AS HITLER? If it's possible to insult The Fuhrer, comparing him to the doddering incompetent inexorably slo-walking us the globe's Final Solution, this is it. Tulsi fits right in with her new affiliation.

JASON GODEKE is a candidate for the Fort Bragg City Council who's garnered quite a bit of support for a first-time candidate. Mr. G, 55, is married. He returned to his home town of Fort Bragg in 2017 to teach art at Fort Bragg Jr. High School. (His finely wrought murals grace downtown FB.) He says he's running because he “loves this special place and wants to help it grow and thrive.”

AT TUESDAY'S meeting of the Supervisors, near the end of a long, confused riff on the eternal subject of the County's hopelessly unworkable marijuana regulation, County Counsel Christian Curtis, master of circumlocution, conceded, “Excuse me for talking in circles.” Nobody noticed.

THE ENVELOPE, PLEASE…

Boonville’s Pennyroyal Farm won the equivalent of an Oscar for goat cheese. Its Pepper Moldunes won Reserve Best in Show in the 2022 American Dairy Goat Association Goat Milk Products Competition. A smooth goat cheese rolled in Piment d’Ville (fine ground espelette pepper grown in Boonville).

HOWL-O-WEEN HAPPENINGS!

Visit Mendocino County for a spirited Halloween Season!  With activities for kids and adults, there is no shortage of FANG-tastic fun to be had! Check out our Calendar of Events for Halloween happenings, and make plans today!

MEET FIREFIGHTER MIKE ZAUGG

If you live in the High Roller Region, you may have seen Mike Zaugg around. He and Kelly, his wife, moved to Yorkville a few years back while still working in San Francisco. In 2017, Mike decided to come to training and check out the local fire department after encouragement from Tina Walter, (Yorkville resident, AVFD captain, and EMT - among other things!) Mike must have liked what he saw, because despite juggling life in Yorkville with a career in SF, he consistently made it to Tuesday night training. He took advantage of the big city amenities by taking an EMT class and doing his clinical time with SFFD, as well as taking fire behavior classes from SF City College. 

Mike’s career has focused on social services so it’s not surprising to hear this: “Community led services have tremendous value to the community. The people are more dedicated, more in tune with the mission, and they carry it out in a more caring way. They know the area, they know the people, and they have dedication that can combine in a value that money can’t buy.” 

What’s Mike found hard about being a first responder? “The call volume is low, but the range of skills is broad, so you have to be proactive about building up skills.” He also added that he has little experience with kids, and pediatric calls can be scarier. 

Mike made that statement last week, not knowing that this weekend he’d be dispatched to a pediatric call with one of the best outcomes an EMT can have. Sunday morning, around 3:00am, Mike responded as lead EMT to a medical aid at which a baby had been born just prior to the ambulance’s arrival. Was Mike nervous? “Not really! Mom and baby were super chill and engaged in care.” 

What would he say to someone thinking of volunteering? "My biggest regret is not starting sooner. It's wildly rewarding and interesting on a lot of levels. We really have a great department."

(AV Fire Department)

UKIAH BUYS HYBRID SUVS FOR POLICE

by Justine Frederiksen

At its regular meeting tonight, the Ukiah City Council will receive a report regarding the purchase of two hybrid SUVs for the Ukiah Police Department.

According to the staff report prepared for the Oct. 19 meeting, the vehicles purchased are “two new 2023 Ford Hybrid Interceptor Utility Vehicles from Redwood Ford for the amount of $166,540.52, (a purchase which was “approved in the 5-year Capital Improvement Plan for the annual purchase of two patrol-rated vehicles for fiscal year 2022-2023 in the amount of $150,000 for both vehicles.”)

Those vehicle were chosen after the city reportedly requested bids from “twelve new car dealers for two patrol-rated vehicles that included outfitting of the police vehicles,” and received only one bid from Redwood Ford.

Staff describes the vehicles purchased as “the first-ever, and currently the only, pursuit-rated hybrid police SUV. The hybrid powertrain on these vehicles is ideal for law enforcement due to the amount of idling that may be involved with these vehicles’ particular uses. On-board electrical equipment can be powered using the lithium-ion hybrid battery, allowing the gasoline engine to shutoff, and run only periodically to charge the battery. The vehicles will provide improvements in fuel economy over traditional patrol units and reduce engine idle time without sacrificing safety, officer protection, and other necessary features required for patrol vehicles.”

When asked Tuesday if the vehicles had been received, Interim UPD Chief Cedric Crook said that they were on order, but that “our Fleet Manager suspects it will be a year before we see them due to the current times (supply chain, etc).”

City staff noted that they “proceeded with the purchase … due to the urgency of meeting a window to place the order on time. The order window for the hybrid units was only open for a month and closed without notice due to demand. Had the purchase not been expedited, staff would have been looking at a 2024 model.”

Staff also note that they are currently seeking “all electric vehicles for the city’s fleet, but availability and continuing supply chain issues are limiting factors at this time. Hybrid options are also impacted by the same factors, and neither electric nor hybrid options are available for some of the city’s more specialized needs. The Ford F150 Lighting is currently the most promising all electric vehicle for general service truck replacements and patrol units. However, availability continues to be the constraining factor. The 2022 model year F150 Lighting ordered for the Parks Department in April of 2022 was canceled by Ford in September and the City had to place a reorder for the 2023 model year. There is no identified date for delivery of this unit and will likely be many months out (if not canceled again). The city will continue to defer replacement of vehicles when possible to hold out for electric and hybrid options.”

The Oct. 19 meeting of the Ukiah City Council will be held both online and at the Civic Center at 300 Seminary Ave. beginning at 6 p.m. To participate or view the virtual meeting, go to the following link: https://zoom.us/j/97199426600

A special meeting that includes only closed session items is scheduled for 5 p.m.

THE LEAST PAINFUL TAXES

Greetings,

This reply addresses two incorrect or misleading points in Dale Briggs letter published in the October 19, 2022 online edition regarding ballot Measures O & P.

Mr Briggs' main concern seems to be his belief that the Measures would increase the current sales tax. He states "do you really want to pay an additional .5% added on the current 9+% sales tax you currently pay on purchases." Mr Briggs statement is factually incorrect in two ways. First, the sales tax rate in Mendocino County is currently 7.875% (the bulk of which -- 7.250% -- is state tax), individual cities may be somewhat higher because they add some tax of their own. (See https://www.cdtfa.ca.gov/formspubs/cdtfa95.pdf). 

More importantly, if both Measures O and P pass the current sales tax level WILL NOT INCREASE. There would be no addition to the current level of tax as Mr. Briggs incorrectly asserts.

Mr. Briggs also points out that Measure P is a general sales tax and could therefore be spent on anything. That is correct, but misleading. Mr. Briggs fails to mention that, at the same time they sent Measure P to the ballot, the Board of Supervisors unanimously passed Resolution 22-159 which provides a detailed map of how the money should be spent to support the, desperate, needs of our emergency service agencies and for wildfire prevention efforts. See the Ukiah Daily Journal endorsement of Measure P for more detail. https://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/2022/10/16/in-our-opinion-yes-on-measure-p-2/

Mr. Briggs suggests that, instead of passing Measure O, there should be fees for services so that, e.g., children should start being charged to check out books. Notably Mr. Briggs does not suggest that there should be new fees for services each time a local department responds to an emergency. If our departments started receiving fair compensation for all of the, largely volunteer, work they do for us, including all of the training needed to be ready to provide it, that would be a huge fee/tax increase indeed. There is not likely to ever be a less painful way to get our fire departments some of the support they need than passing Measure P.

Scott Cratty, Mendocino Fire Safe Council, Ukiah

MEASURE P, MEASURE O & MENTAL HEALTH

Letter To Editor,

We’d have to look far and wide to find a citizen in our County against supporting or funding our firefighters, librarians, or mental health workers. I’m sure we agree how important and critical ALL of these folks are to our safety, well being, our daily lives. It follows then that if we intend to pass any tax on ourselves to fund these key services, it should be for all three entities = Fire, Library, Mental Health. Fortunately, we have exactly that opportunity on November’s ballot with Measures O and P to provide funding to these services through the mechanism of our sales tax. 

Take a look at this graph; it details what sales tax is sun-setting, what is proposed to be redirected, and where it will be refocused. More Good News – just5/8 of a centwill do more probably than we ever have before, providing essential financial support for these important needs. We won’t pay more tax, but the SAME tax. Plus this is Sales Tax paid by visitors who may use these services, and paid by us throughout the year. To me, it’s a good deal all around. 

Vote YES on both Measures P and O. Voting FOR Measures P & O does not take away from Mental Health. Get ALL these services without raising your taxes!

Lisa Bauer

Yorkville resident & voter

Board Member, Mendocino County Fire Safe Council

Measure P Campaign Committee

VICTIMS

by Paul Modic

I'm trying to figure out why my neighbors are still driving fast on the little country road just outside my house despite my signs, and I refuse to believe that they are being intentionally rude. There's something deeper and it usually comes down to anxiety, which if not handled well leads to mental disturbance and illness, feeling like a victim, thinking rules of civility don't apply to them, and lashing out with hostility at those they don't trust.

We all have anxiety, it comes with life, but it doesn't translate to victimhood for everyone. (Even those who think they have it all: a nice home, loving family, and money in the bank, know they’ll lose it all someday.) A victim can be someone who thinks I or the system is “putting one over on them,” and that justifies their anti-social thoughts and actions: they can lie, cheat, steal, and feel completely justified. Trump and his believers, who think the election was stolen, are the current example of victims who are trying to destroy democracy (or the quietude of my road) with lies, along with politicians legislating to restrict voting rights to help them win elections.

The victims driving too fast by my house, generating excessive dust and noise, are linked by strands of anxiety gripping them, putting them in such a state of self-absorption that in my case they don't notice the signs or how fast they're going; and in the other case, they believe the lies of a demagogue who is their leader.

Each neighbor on this hill has had their victimhood and entitlement evolve from their very human anxieties; the younger they are the faster they drive, so let's take a look at them and examine the roots of their disorders:

One couple have been fighting for years with doors slamming and shouts of “Who are you? I don't even know you anymore!” disturbing the peaceful night. They have health crises to deal with as well as alarming conflicts with neighbors, which has led to police visits, restraining orders, and court cases. 

Another couple also fight loudly, often seem on the verge of breaking up, the power person in the relationship neglects the other, and as they're practically living together every day is an opportunity for more anxiety. No wonder they speed past, heedlessly if not recklessly, and drive quickly away from the stress at home with probably not even a glance at my signs, which say please slow down, ten miles an hour.

Then you have the arrogant big grower who everybody on the road hates (except me, but if he doesn't slow down soon...) who must still be making it, evidenced by the international mix of middlemen who regularly show up: Hispanics, Blacks, Asians, and others have been seen popping bags of weed into their trunks and leaving packs of twenties and hundreds in return. 

Being in the weed business is the definition of anxiety these days of over-supply and legalization but somehow he has a sweet girlfriend so maybe he's worried he'll fuck that up too? If he has any self-awareness he probably realizes he can be a thoughtless jerk as his conflicts with neighbors never end.

There’s also a single guy with a dog who has the usual worries like money, health, his kids, and the world situation. (He has just enough anxiety to believe that fifteen mph is slow enough and maybe he’s right.) He also has to deal with the thoughtless neighbor who sometimes forgets to turn the water off when he leaves and the whole road is without enough to take a shower for the rest of the day, until he returns. (If anxiety is universal then being a victim is a byproduct of existence.)

So onto the fool on the hill, yours truly, being victimized by all these self-absorbed people who would rather indulge themselves with reflective thoughts and feelings than see my signs and slow down.

Most of us grow out of our victimhood through time, therapy, the distractions of intellectual pursuits and being caught up in life with the complications of family, career, and other diversions from the omnipresent awareness of who we are and where we're going on this spinning ball called Earth.

Living alone in the woods for decades without meaningful relationships was a prime situation, a petri dish, for creating a victim. Smoking weed dealt with the anxiety of loneliness for a golden hour, then was subsumed by the daily habit which led to the munchies, obesity, and the confusing agitation of self-medication.

When I was living in that potent state of anxiety, depression, mental disturbance, and victimhood, I judged the contentment of others as fake, my envy placating years of cabin fever with distressing illusions. 

I drove the winding country roads like it was one Grand Prix, such as the time I floored it in my New York taxi trying to make fourteen green lights on Park Avenue. On our two-lane country roads it's courteous to pull over and let faster drivers pass but I challenged them to take it if they wanted it, earn it, drive like you're on a Mexican highway because I will not pull over for you!

The anxiety diminished, even the depression seemed to disappear, and now I meander slowly down our shared private drive and pull over for faster drivers elsewhere. I do like to speed on the paved roads but never drive fast by houses on a country lane like this.

My anxiety still explodes irrationally once or twice a year, I can't deny it, but mostly I'm content with the recognition that I know, accept, maybe even like myself, and haven't seen my therapist in a few years.

In conclusion: driving too fast past my house means you're unable to deal with your anxiety without annoying others. Yes, my neighbors aren't necessarily thoughtless and rude, more likely they’re mentally disturbed victims. 

(Or maybe they are just damned inconsiderate.)

MTA OFFERS FREE RIDES IN NOVEMBER, www.mendocinotransit.org

DELANO DELIVERY

AVA,

I paid for a year's subscription to the Advertiser. As of August 24 I have only received nine months worth. I am due September to November. Could you please send me the editions I paid for? Can I get some respect?

If the problem is this prison not delivering then please run a tracer to find out and send me the evidence so I can relay that to the California Supreme Court in my next appeal letter. This prison has no right to rob me nor withhold the AVA from me. Please, I need some help here. I have helped your papers sell tremendously especially in the Fort Bragg area. Could you please return the favor?

You need to understand that 18-to-life isn't a fun sentence to serve. What do you surmise of my crime? Ask yourself this. What would you have done in my place? My homeless camp was invaded by two woman haters, possibly rapers too, that possibly had robbed and killed two of my hobo pals! And you had the gumption to print slander about me in your paper. This slander was written by notorious crybabies Thomas Hanover Sr., Alan Crow, David Eyster and a punk name Humphreys.

I stand on my laurels for being the right thing. Those two sneak thieves have left Mendoland for good!

David Detective Youngcault Giusti BS 7708

No. Kern State Prison, B-234

PO Box 4999

Delano, CA 93216

PS. I was in Mendocino County jail most of 2021 and all of 2022 until July 25 with Alan Crow. He never once went to the doctor and received any medication. I was in a cell next to him most of this time so I know these facts to be true. Now all of a sudden he's dying of liver disease? He certainly isn't on the street long enough to drink himself into a bad liver. Did you ever find out how he was cured of the 2001 cancerous terminal brain tumor he claimed to have had?

I never see Alan Crow at this prison because he is in protective custody for being a big-time snitch. You haven't figured out he is a phony baloney? Or is he your long lost kid?

Psalms 31:24 -- be of good courage and he shall strengthen your heart, all of you who hope in the Lord.

PSS. Here's a photo of my first boss, A.A. Heeser from the Mendocino Beacon. He died around 1969 at the age of 99. A great boss. A bit ornery and always carried a nickel plated .38 pistol in his front pocket. My first pay for eight hours work was sweeping the entire Beacon building for five dollars. I was only six years old and that was the first time I ever saw Lincoln's photo. I have always worked for a living. I never snuck around homeless camps robbing and killing hobos. Me, my mother and Grandma Crow always helped feed hobos! See if you can publish this photo of August Heeser and write a byline on him.

ED REPLY: Since Mr. Giusti was sent to the Delano prison we have received several pieces of correspondence from him with his mailing address which we immediately entered. Subsequent mailings have added additional minor bits of information such as prisoner number and bed number. After each letter we sent bundles of back issues. We suspect the mailing difficulty has something to do with somebody on the Delano end being finicky about the address. The above is the latest address we have. But, of course, we don't know for sure what the problem is. Once the correct address is established we will replace back issues and extend the subscription.

CATCH OF THE DAY, Wednesday, October 19, 2022

ADRIAN AGUILAR-LOPEZ, Ukiah. No license, evasion.

MYQ ATTANASIO, Fort Bragg. Probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

SUSAN BROWN, Fort Bragg. Probation revocation.

JAMES CADLE, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

JASON GOWER, Eureka/Willits. Campfire without permit, pollution of state waters, paraphernalia. 

JAKE LEWIS-KODY, Ukiah. Disobeying court order, failure to appear.

JOSEPH MENDOZA, Lakeport/Ukiah. Leaded cane-billy club. 

CLIVE PIRKS, Chipping Norton, England/Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

HALEY TYRRELL, Willits. Trespassing, paraphernalia, refuse disposal in state waters. 

CHOICES

Editor,

If you don’t like abortions, don’t have one. Does that sound sarcastic? Yes, it is. The reason I said it is it’s none of my business, I’m a man. I don’t have the equipment to have a baby. But the man is responsible for the pregnancy. So here’s my suggestion: If you are a woman, you control your body and all its functions. If you are a man, control yourself if you don’t want to make a baby. If you are a person in government, it’s none of your business what a woman does with her body in the privacy of her home. It’s pretty simple.

Bruce Mallon

Petaluma

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Rape and incest, which is also rape, account for less than 1% of abortions. Abortions are 99% an after the fact birth control method resulting from consensual sex. Sex education has been around since I was in elementary school in the 50's. The overwhelming majority of 14 yr olds know pregnancy may result from having sex. Consensual sexual intercourse is, as Bruce Mellon suggest, a deliberate act by two people. Mr, Mellon is also correct that the government has no business controlling a women's body. The issue with abortion is that it is the act of taking another human's life and we have laws covering those situations. Unfortunately, we have created a permissive society where the respect and sanctity for a human life is secondary to immediate gratification and pleasures.

HABERMAN’S TRUMP

by Deborah Friedell

In 2015, Maggie Haberman was offered a scoop – Donald Trump was about to announce that he was running for president. But she didn’t write it up for her new employer, the New York Times, because it ‘was almost certainly bullshit’. Trump had been telling reporters that he was going to run for president at least as early as 1988, and had always ‘pulled back before he had to do any of the really difficult work of being a candidate’.

In 2011, Haberman had reported in Politico that Trump was ‘taking very concrete steps’ to be Obama’s Republican challenger in 2012. Although he might not seem like an obvious Republican candidate, she wrote, he’d ‘abruptly reversed’ his position on abortion to align with the party, and the leader of the Southern Baptist Convention had suggested that a ‘brash New Yorker’ wasn’t necessarily unappealing to evangelical voters: Trump was a ‘celebrity’, and ‘we live in a celebrity age.’ Haberman had followed Trump to New Hampshire, where he certainly seemed to be campaigning for the primaries; she thought he was for real. When he announced that he wasn’t actually running, she’d been embarrassed.

She came to think he never would put his name on the ballot – why would he? He had ‘little emotional investment in most issues’; he knew less about electoral politics than the average viewer of the West Wing; he didn’t like to travel or to work long hours. Above all, Haberman knew that he was terrified of being a loser, and she didn’t yet know that he’d devised a workaround. When Trump came in four points behind Ted Cruz in his first primary, he tweeted that the Iowa caucuses had actually been ‘stolen’ from him, and he threatened to sue Cruz for fraud. He didn’t mind losing so long as he never had to admit that he’d lost.

Haberman caught up quickly, and took Trump’s candidacy more seriously than almost anyone else at the New York Times: she sensed there was a market for what he was selling. Elisabeth Bumiller, the paper’s Washington bureau chief, has admitted that until Trump became president, she assumed Haberman’s accounts of his flaws was exaggerated: he couldn’t really be so ‘impulsive, unaware of the workings of government, with no real ideology’.

No other reporter would cover Trump more closely throughout the election, his presidency and – just when Haberman thought she’d get a break – the post-presidency; she often admits in interviews to being exhausted. She is, she likes to say, a ‘sources reporter’, not an investigative reporter: people call her up to burnish their reputation or to burn a colleague. It helped her that the New York Times is the paper Trump most respects, even as he pretends to hold it in contempt. It also didn’t hurt that she’d started at his favorite tabloid, the New York Post: she knew where he was coming from. Trump once told aides that talking to her was like opening up to a psychiatrist (though was quick to assure them he had no experience of talking to an actual psychiatrist).

In interviews, Haberman usually refuses to talk about her working methods: ‘sources reporting’ isn’t always pretty. The Trump White House might well have been the leakiest administration in American history, which infuriated the president and made him paranoid, obsessed with figuring out who was undermining him in any given press cycle; aides would try not only to cover their tracks when they talked to reporters, but also to make it seem as if a rival was the one who had spilled. One of Trump’s chiefs-of-staff, Mark Meadows, ‘told associates that he was deliberately telling some aides bad information to see if it became public’ – the Coleen Rooney maneuver.

Haberman was very often, she admits, used as a ‘cudgel’. It made her the most read reporter at the New York Times; in 2016 alone she had 599 bylines. Her stories would often be the basis of other reporter’s stories, or be repeated (rarely crediting her) in television reports. If the Trump who appears in her first book, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America, seems overly familiar, it’s probably because much of our sense of him was already hers.

Haberman’s Trump is a man who’ll say whatever he thinks will get him through the next ten minutes. He has no sense of humor and can’t be shamed. The best she can say about him is that he doesn’t enjoy giving people bad news; he’d rather someone else do it. Instead of learning how the federal government works (or is supposed to work), Trump ‘recreated the world that shaped him’: his father’s mid-century New York – tribal, corrupt. As president, he was shocked that a Democratic congresswoman from the Upper East Side wouldn’t side with him during his first impeachment trial; he’d once donated to her campaign. What did she think the money was for?

Haberman has been criticized for sitting on the story that White House aides would sometimes notice crumpled up pieces of printed paper in the toilet, but she says she didn’t know it when Trump was in office. What’s more disheartening is that the meat of Haberman’s book covers Trump’s life before he was president, in ground already well-covered in books by Gwenda Blair and Michael D’Antonio, and in articles by Wayne Barrett for the Village Voice, long before Trump ran for office, but their reporting wasn’t better known to voters before the 2016 election.

By 2022, it shouldn’t be any kind of revelation that Trump was never the sagacious tycoon he pretended to be on The Apprentice. Haberman describes him as a ‘narcissistic drama-seeker who covered a fragile ego with a bullying impulse’, and nothing in her reporting suggests otherwise. Yet she closes her book with the claim that the ‘truth is, ultimately, almost no one really knows him.’ Eh? Maybe in the Jamesian sense, that no one ever has ‘the last word about any human heart.’ But she’s more than made the case that we now know Trump only too well, for all the good it’ll do us. She’s almost certain he’ll run again.

(London Review of Books)

SIBERIAN REMAINS COULD REPRESENT FIRST-KNOWN NEANDERTHAL COMMUNITY

by James Ashworth

The first remains of a Neanderthal family may have been discovered, shedding light on the society of our ancient relatives.

A new paper reveals that the ancient hominins lived in small groups of around 10 to 20, with females moving between the different communities. 

The discovery of a group of Neanderthal remains dating back more than 50,000 years has almost doubled our genetic knowledge of the ancient humans.

Genetic analysis carried out on the bones and teeth of 13 individuals brings the number of sequenced Neanderthal genomes to more than 30, as well as providing insights into the social organisation of the species.

A new paper detailing the results reveals multiple families living as part of a small community in a Siberian cave, with women moving between nearby groups. The study compares this to similar observations from modern-day gorillas, though warn that direct comparisons carry many caveats.

The authors hope that future discoveries will reveal more Neanderthal communities and demonstrate whether their small size was the exception or the norm.

Dr Laurits Skov, the lead author of the study published in Nature, says, 'These individuals were living at the same time, which means that they likely came from the same social community. This is very exciting.'

'It allows us, for the first time, to use genetics to study the social organization of a Neanderthal community.'

Dr Benjamin Peter, who co-authored the research, adds, 'Our study provides a concrete picture of what a Neanderthal community may have looked like. It makes the Neanderthals seem that much more human to me.'

What was Neanderthal society like?

While Neanderthals, more formally known as Homo neanderthalensis, are our closest relatives, there is a lot we don't know about them. Without written records, oral history or the remains of buildings, it's very hard to say what a Neanderthal society would have been like.

However, we can make a few inferences from what we do know. Neanderthals are thought to have grown up rapidly, with the quick emergence of teeth allowing them to eat energy-rich foods that could power their growth.

As a result, young Neanderthals would have weaned from their mothers and began eating solid food months before our own species, Homo sapiens, could. They would have grown into stocky individuals, which is believed to have helped them to conserve heat in the cold climates where they are known to have lived.

Their stockiness may have helped them in catching prey, with 120,000-year-old fossils of deer found in Germany showing evidence of spear wounds. As this is more than 60,000 years before the arrival of Homo sapiens, it suggests that Neanderthals could work in teams to hunt and kill the animals, as well as creating their own weapons.

This belies the fact that although their name has become a by-word for stupidity, the Neanderthals would have shared a number of activities with our own ancestors. There is evidence they developed complex tools, and some suggestions that they may have created their own forms of art and jewellery.

They were also something of a hit with their fellow hominins. While they were a distinct species, Neanderthals retained some ability to breed with other hominins, though it is uncertain how fertile the resulting hybrids were.

A 90,000-year-old bone of a girl discovered in Denisova cave, also in Siberia, contained DNA that showed the individual had a Neanderthal mother and a father from another ancient human species called the Denisovans.

Neanderthals and our human ancestors came into contact more recently, with fossil teeth in Jersey from around 48,000 years ago showing characteristics of both species. Genetic evidence, meanwhile, suggests as much as 2% of the DNA of non-African people living today was inherited from the Neanderthals.

Together, the evidence suggests that the Neanderthal society and culture was more developed than they have perhaps previously been given credit for. The discovery of a group of individuals believed to have lived at similar times to one another gives the opportunity to investigate their society further.

How were the Siberian Neanderthals related?

The Neanderthal remains were discovered in the Chagyrskaya and Okladnikov caves in Siberia, around 100 kilometres from Denisova Cave.

Neanderthals are known to have briefly occupied the cave 54,000 years ago, and the researchers extracted DNA from a combination of 17 bone and teeth specimens found at the site to see what could be learned.

Six of the specimens belonged to women, with the remainder belonging to men. Analysis of the genomes of both groups revealed that the males were more closely related than the females, with around 60% of the women thought to have joined the group from other communities.

The group showed signs of inbreeding, with individuals being more likely to have inherited copies of the same gene from both their parents – a state known as homozygosity. The researchers noted that the Neanderthals' level of homozygosity was similar to that in isolated mountain gorilla populations today.

Randomly selected genes were also compared to assess how related the different individuals were, which allowed the scientists to infer up to two degrees of relatedness. Second degree relatives include aunts and uncles, grandparents and half-siblings.

One individual, known as Chagyrskaya D, was a relative of a number of other individuals. In addition to a possible distant cousin, the researchers identified that Chagyrskaya H would probably have been his teenage daughter.

Meanwhile, a young boy known as Chagyrskaya A was likely to be the nephew or grandchild of Chagyrskaya L. The other individuals found in Chagyrskaya cave had no significant difference in genetic divergence from any other, which suggests they all probably lived at around the same time.

While the remains found in Okladnikov cave in this study were unrelated, tests on sediment DNA from the Chagyrskaya cave showed that two samples were more similar to Okladnikov individuals than those in the same cave. As a result, the communities in the different caves probably interacted.

In addition to relationships with other Neanderthals, the genetics of the Chagyrskaya individuals contained portions of Denisovan DNA, with the researchers estimating that a Denisovan relative existed around 12-48,000 years earlier in their family tree.

However, it appears that there was limited interaction between the inhabitants of Chagyrskaya and Denisova Cave after that point, with no evidence of cultural or genetic exchange in tens of thousands of years.

It may be that the remoteness of these sites, towards the edge of the area where Neanderthals are found, may have meant that the groups were unnaturally small or insular.

Finding other Neanderthal communities from other parts of Europe and Asia would help to clarify what these groups would normally have been like, and give us further clues about the personal lives of our ancient relatives. 

(nhm.ac.uk)

UKRAINE, WEDNESDAY, 19 OCTOBER

Pro-Kremlin officials said they would move tens of thousands out of the key southern city of Kherson as Ukrainian forces press forward.

Martial law will allow Russia to impose tighter restrictions in occupied Ukraine.

The relocation of civilians from the city of Kherson is a sign that Russia’s grip there is slipping.

As Ukraine intensifies pressure in the south, Russian missile strikes rain down across the country.

Ukraine’s advances have limited Russia’s options for a smooth pullback.

The E.U. agrees to place sanctions on Iran for supplying Russia with drones.

After hundreds of thousands fled or were called up to fight, Moscow is eerily empty of men.

Martial law will allow Russia to impose tighter restrictions in occupied Ukraine.

FATALITY

No one, not even God, can put back a leaf on to a tree
once it has fallen off.

And no one, not God nor Christ nor any other
can put back a human life into connection with the living cosmos
once the connection has been broken
and the person has become finally self-centred.

Death alone, through the long processes of disintegration
can melt the detached life back
through the dark Hades at the roots of the tree
into the circulating sap, once more, of the tree of life.

— D. H. Lawrence (1932)

NATO & RUSSIA: REHEARSAL FOR 'ARMAGEDDON'

by Brett Wilkins

As NATO on Monday began its annual rehearsal for nuclear war in Europe and Russia prepared to conduct its own nuclear drill amid Cold War-like tensions inflamed by the invasion of Ukraine, peace advocates underscored the imperative for de-escalation in order to avert catastrophe.

“We are here though the graces of sheer luck. Sooner or later, our luck will run out.”

“All nuclear exercises imply willingness to mass murder civilians, wipe out entire cities, and risk all-out nuclear war,” the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) warned ahead of the NATO drill. “They also risk accidents and escalation, and will legitimize Russia’s dangerous nuclear rhetoric.”

NATO said the exercise — operation name Steadfast Noon — involves up to 60 warplanes from 14 members of the alliance, and is being carried out from Kleine Brogel air base in northeastern Belgium.

The U.S. military stockpiles dozens of B61-12 tactical nuclear warheads at Kleine Brogel, each up to 30 times as powerful as the atomic bomb that the United States dropped on Hiroshima, Japan in 1945, killing over 100,000 people.

According to Belgium’s VRT News, Belgian F-16 pilots will train how to drop the bombs, while ground crews will practice transporting the weapons from underground bunkers and loading them on warplanes.

U.S. B-52 bombers based at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota will also fly to Europe to participate in the drill, which will take place over Belgium, the North Sea, and the United Kingdom, according to NATO.

Russia has been informed of the exercise, which is scheduled to last until October 30.

While NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescu explained that Steadfast Noon “helps ensure that the alliance’s nuclear deterrent remains safe, secure and effective,” Ludo Debrabander of the Belgian peace group Vrede vzw told VRT News that “in a nuclear escalation military bases equipped with nuclear weapons like Kleine Brogel form the first potential targets. They don’t make us safer.”

Earlier this month, U.S. President Joe Biden responded to repeated threats by Russian President Vladimir Putin to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine by warning that even the use of tactical nukes was likely to “end up with Armageddon.”

More recently, Biden called Putin “a rational actor who has miscalculated significantly” by launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said during a press conference last week that “Russia knows that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”

Russian forces are expected to carry out their own annual large-scale nuclear exercise — called Grom, or “Thunder” — along Russia’s northwestern coast in the coming days or weeks, its second of the year.

While drills like Steadfast Noon and Grom don’t involve live nuclear warheads, they do have the potential for catastrophic escalation.

In November 1983, an extremely tense period of the Cold War, Soviet military officials initially mistook NATO’s Able Archer 83 war game for a possible preemptive strike and prepared their own nuclear missiles for launch.

“It was a vicious circle,” wrote Francine Uenuma for Smithsonian Magazine. “The Soviets refused to believe the Americans were bluffing; the Americans, meanwhile, suspected the Soviets were bluffing about not thinking the Americans were bluffing.”

Hans M. Kristensen, a nuclear weapons expert with the Federation of American Scientists, warned that NATO and Russia holding nuclear exercises during what many observers call a proxy war between them is inherently perilous.

“It’s a textbook example of what happens in a tense crisis where both sides escalate to demonstrate that they are serious about deterring each other, but therefore can’t de-escalate because it would make them look weak,” he wrote.

ICAN tweeted Friday that “we’re closer to nuclear war than we have been since the Cuban Missile Crisis, and no one can afford further escalation. All governments must condemn all nuclear threats and cease military preparations which simulate the use of nuclear weapons.”

In a Common Dreams opinion piece marking the 60th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis — during which the world came as close as it ever has to a major nuclear war — Robert Dodge of Physicians for Social Responsibility wrote that “nuclear weapons remain the greatest real and present danger to our future.”

(CommonDreams.org)

Planting angel eggs on a dying world,
at the feet of billboards,
in the clearcut wastelands,
by the rivers of tears from Yemeni mothers,
under highway overpasses where defective gear-turners sleep,
shambling from crater to crater on tree stump legs
wailing whale songs and praying to unprofitable gods,
planting them in the ashes whispering
"May there be kindness,
may there be seeing,
may there be artist lovers who are each other's muse."

Dancing a doomed dance,
a dance of holy futility,
the dance of madmen,
the dance of heretics,
the dance of censored saints,
of banished buddhas,
singing a song of hopeless hope,
irrational hope,
unscientific hope,
the hope of lovers and lunatics,
a lunatic's song sung to the moon.

Dance with us, gentle stranger,
through this world of Disney deforestation and unexplored abysses
with unauthorized choreography and wondermented eyes.
Let us hold the line against the empire of Earth eaters
for no other reason than that we're the only ones left
who are crazy enough to try.

There may be a hatching yet, gentle stranger.
Humanity is not broken
anymore than an egg
is a broken bird.

— Caitlin Johnstone (2022)