Mendocino County Today: Thursday, Nov. 3, 2022

Cold | Free Rides | Email Hacked | Crab Delay | Distant Quake | Noyo Bridge | AVCSD Notes | Abigail Blair | Candidate Forum | Drunken Menace | Steam Crane | Sheriff Says | Francis Rasmussen | Book Talk | Mendo Occupied | Skatepark Meeting | Dorr Bothwell | Studios Tour | County Notes | Symphony Concert | Christmas Trees | Rockport Bridge | Writing Class | Clifford Doolittle | Halloween Hangover | Yesterday's Catch | Nursing Career | Yolks | Bostrodamus | Budapest 1953 | Eco-Fascism | Plant Trees | Jerry Lee | DC People | Fall Back | Gratitude | Bomb Squad | Forceless Speech | Hair Impressions | Ukraine | Guardian Angel | A Hanging | Guitar Evangelist

SUNNY SKIES, dry conditions and below normal temperature is expected for today. A warm front will bring light rain late tonight and Friday, mainly for the northern portion of the region. Another storm system will bring widespread rain to the area on Saturday. A colder storm system will bring more rain and mountain snow to the area on Sunday, with precipitation potentially continuing into early next week. (NWS)

MENDOCINO TRANSIT AUTHORITY IS OFFERING FREE RIDES November 1st – 30th on all fixed route buses.

Mendocino County residents are encouraged to give MTA a try for free.

All public transit buses in the county are accessible to individuals with disabilities.

For more information on MTA and its services – visit www.mendocinotransit.org – (800) 696-4MTA.

WARNING!!!

On November 1, 2022 Anderson Valley Senior Center's email was hacked due to a breach with our provider, Pacific Internet. False emails that appeared to be from Renée at AVSC were sent out to our contacts with various requests such as Apple gift cards, Amazon account info and other financial queries. We apologize if you received one of these fraudulent emails. It most certainly did not come from us! Please delete the email immediately, empty your trash and change your password for your security--especially if you did in fact respond to the email and engaged with further dialog with these ruthless hackers. 

A million apologies for this inconvenience. Trust that we are equally frustrated about this and are working towards reinforcing our security protocols. 

Thanks for your understanding!

— Renée Lee, Executive Director, Anderson Valley Senior Center, 707.895.3609, avseniorcenter@pacific.net

TOO SMALL, TOO FAR AWAY 

A magnitude 6.0 earthquake struck off the coast of California in the North Pacific Ocean in the evening of Tuesday, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.

The quake, about 6 miles deep, hit about 743 miles west-southwest of Monterey shortly before 10 p.m., according to the USGS.

About 70 people from as far away as San Diego and San Francisco reported feeling the shake, according to the agency.

The quake was “too small and too far away ” to produce a tsunami, the National Weather Service Bay Area office tweeted.

Magnitude measures the energy released at the source of the earthquake, the U.S. Geological Survey says. It replaces the old Richter scale.

Quakes between magnitude 2.5 and 5.4 are often felt but rarely cause much damage, according to Michigan Tech. Quakes below magnitude 2.5 are seldom felt by most people. (NWS)

AV COMMUNITY SERVICES DISTRICT NOTES (from the October 19, 2022 Board meeting)

The AV School district voted to consolidate the Elementary School well into the project, so we now have our final boundary. Jack Locey, Brelje and Race engineer, has about 90% of capacity covered by new and existing wells that are in negotiations. He has recently had some additional offers of private wells and is looking into those. We have a new team from the California Water Board DFA (Department of Finance) that is tasked with helping low-income communities who lack safe, adequate, and affordable drinking water. SAFER stands for “Safe and Affordable Funding for Equity and Resilience”. They will work with us to develop an educational campaign, public meeting, and a participation survey to give us data about which parcels will be signing up. We will use approximated rates in the informational material. 

Fire Chief Andres Avila: Another AVHS student started his internship with AV Fire Department last week. He will participate with AVFD every Tuesday from 0900 to 14:15 as an off-campus class activity. Station cleaning, engine cleaning and checks, daily training, and other small tasks will be a part of his daily activities. Since his parents have already signed him off as a tier 3 Cadet, he can respond to calls during that time. In addition, the school has approved him and a different student to respond during regular school hours as long as their grades are not impacted and other rules are respected.

A FORT BRAGG CITY COUNCIL CANDIDATE FORUM will take place this Friday at 6PM at 1450 E. Oak St. (Grace Community Church). ‘Meet and Greet’ followed by questions & answers. Refreshments will be served.

THE CASE OF THE 5AM DRUNK

On Monday, October 31, 2022 at 5:26 A.M., Mendocino County Sheriff's Deputies were dispatched regarding a subject dressed in a reflective vest, swinging a metal pipe and uttering criminal threats in the 2400 block of North State Street in Ukiah.

The Deputies responded to the area and located the subject in the 2400 block of North State Street. The Deputies asked the subject to drop the metal pipe. The subject complied and the Deputies identified him as being Michael Lucas, 49, of Ukiah.

The Deputies observed Lucas was in possession of a short piece of hose and a small bucket. As the Deputies spoke with Lucas, they observed Lucas displayed objective signs and symptoms of being under the influence of a controlled substance.

Lucas was very hard to understand and continually made nonsensical statements. The Deputies determined Lucas was intoxicated to the point he was unable to care for his own safety or the safety of others. Deputies determined Lucas had stolen gasoline using the hose and bucket in his possession.

The Deputies continued their investigation and learned that Lucas was on active PRCS (Post Release Community Service). The Deputies arrested Lucas for Felony Violation Post Release Community Supervision and Misdemeanor Public Intoxication Drugs/Alcohol.

Lucas was booked into the Mendocino County Jail where he was held on a No Bail status.

SHERIFF MATT KENDALL

During the month of October the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office has been swearing in new personnel. Currently we are on track to hire 6 corrections officers by the end of the month, and this is exactly what we need to see. We have been working on recruitment of local people to help us meet the needs of our communities. As we continue to recruit we also have to retain in order to continue filling our ranks. 

Much if this is because our county is a wonderful place to live and work. For that I am grateful to all of our communities. 

Law enforcement across the United States has been suffering losses in numbers and California is no exception. Early retirements and people simply quitting the job is plaguing police departments and Sheriff’s Offices. This combined with fewer police academy cadets is creating a vacuum, people simply aren’t entering the law enforcement profession as they have in the past.

Over the past 30 years I have always enjoyed my job. It is challenging and fulfilling at the same time. Working with our communities which have completely different needs from one end of the county to another is very rewarding and the deputies who work for us often find their personal niche in the communities they serve. 

So we have to ask ourselves why is this happening. Exit interviews are revealing why this is occurring in policing. Much of it appears to be a lack of support by our leaders for those who serve us. There is a National narrative at work. 

Police Officers and Deputy Sheriff’s are tied to the laws the legislators hand down along with the policies of the state. If the legislation is flawed, the people forced to enforce it will suffer the backlash, not the legislators. Much of this legislation has had a direct effect on crime. The felonious killing of police officers has risen by 57% in the United States, the job simply isn’t safe. The national narrative which continually pushes the police are the problem simply isn’t true.  

We have to find balance and currently we have become so polarized our in our nation that I am afraid it’s going to take some very strong and dedicated leadership to make this happen. We have to start here in our communities. 

George Floyd has become a household name in our nation, however when I mention the names of Michael Paredes and Joseph Santana, no one knows who they were. These men were police officers gunned down just a few months ago in California. If one person is to be remembered, all should be remembered.

The national narrative is telling us police violence is the problem however no one is talking about resisting arrest, assaults on officers or the personal responsibility of residents to obey the law. I don’t understand this, how did we get here.

Everyone is talking about our rights however no one is talking about responsibility. Rights and responsibility are connected to one another. No one will have their rights unless they exercise their responsibilities. It seems when a few refuse to excursive responsibility and aren’t held accountable, we all pay with the loss of our rights. 

If a felon has no fear of his intended victims, then he must have fear of the police, the judge and a jury. This is the way things have to work in order to keep peace in a chaotic time. When we detect the crime, the criminal is often the person who will dictate the outcome of this encounter. No one is talking about that and it’s high time we start.

I am seeing new narratives being spun every day. If a person is on drugs the narrative is “self medicating” if a person attacks a deputy the narrative is “behavioral health”. Believe it or not there are criminals out there who commit crimes because they are criminals. 

In the past few decades we have seen these narratives used in many cases as excuses to remove the personal responsibility we should all share. I have seen many cases in which the narrative is clearly asking people to simply outsmart their common sense, that never works out for anyone.

Let’s continue to do things better in Mendocino County than what is being done across the remainder of the state and the nation. Let’s continue to support each other, be good neighbors no matter what someone's background or political beliefs may be. Let’s continue to support our deputies and first responders. 

This has been very helpful in allowing more recruitment of the best candidates we can find. Don’t allow the national narratives and polarization of our nation to polarize Mendocino County. 

Remember we are still hiring for Dispatchers, Deputy Sheriffs, Corrections Deputies and Professional Staff. It’s a great place to work and a career one can be proud of.

Thank you.

Sheriff Matt Kendall

‘BLOOMING IN WINTER’ — BOOK TALK AT GRACE HUDSON

On Sunday, November 6th, from 2 to 3:30 p.m., Grace Hudson Museum presents writer Pam Valois, author of "Blooming in Winter: The Story of a Remarkable Twentieth-Century Woman." "Blooming in Winter" (2021, She Writes Press), discusses the long and fascinating life of Jacomena (“Jackie”) Maybeck in conversation with the author’s Ukiah-based friend, Susan Kanaan. Maybeck, who had strong family ties to Mendocino County, was somewhat of a Renaissance woman. She earned a Master’s degree in ceramics from the California College of Arts and Crafts in 1952, and taught there until 1978. She was especially admired for her glazes. She also worked closely with the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association and served on the group’s board of directors for many years. After the death of her father-in-law, the famous architect Bernard Maybeck, Jackie became steward of the family homes he designed and built in the Berkeley hills and was known as a patron of the world of architecture. 

The book will be available for sale, and the author for signing, with all proceeds going to the Museum. 

The Grace Hudson Museum is at 431 S. Main St. in Ukiah. For more information please go to www.gracehudsonmuseum.org or call (707) 467-2836. 

SKATEPARK SUPPORT SOUGHT

Next Tuesday, November 8 @ 5:30pm, our Anderson Valley youth need you to show up at our AVUSD Board Meeting to support their efforts to bring a skatepark to Boonville!

Come join us to prove to the board that the AV community stands behind a skatepark.

What: AVUSD School Board will decide whether to transfer community park property to AV Community Services District (CSD), making or breaking the possibility of a skatepark.

When: Tuesday, Nov 8, 5:30pm

Where: AV High School Cafeteria

How: Show up and wear green to show your support! Or show up early and buy an official AV Skatepark t-shirt!

Learn More : Visit avskatepark.org to learn more, sign the petition and donate.

ARTISTS OF ANDERSON VALLEY OPEN STUDIOS TOUR

Veteran’s Day Weekend, November 11, 12, & 13, 2022

by Marvin Schenck

Have you ever looked at a work of art or a finely crafted piece of jewelry and wondered how the artist made that? You can can get the answer to such questions while visiting the studios of some of Anderson Valley’ best artists throughout the Veteran’s Day Weekend, November 11th, 12th and 13th, 11 am to 5 pm. The Artists of Anderson Valley Open Studios event includes eight locations stretching from Boonville north to Navarro. This self guided tour is free to the public and open from 11 am to 5 pm. An online tour map at artistsofandersonvalley.org and signs along Highway 128 will guide the way.

This twentieth anniversary of Anderson Valley Open Studios again offers the unique opportunity to meet the artists and see the personalized environments in which their art is made. This year’s tour showcases the work of eleven artists working in a variety of artistic media, including: ceramics, jewelry, photography, textile, painting, printmaking, collage, and sculpture.

The artists paticipating this year are in Boonville and along Hwy.128 between Philo and Navarro. In Boonville, follow the map to the studio locations for Rebecca Goldie (paintings and found object sculptures) and Martha Crawford (collage works). Next, going north on Hwy. 128 take the second turnoff for Anderson Valley Way (at the history museum red schoolhouse) then turn left to visit the studios of Antoinette von Grone (paintings and photographs of animals, people, nature and whimsey) and Saoirse Byrne (intriguing one of a kind cordage works). Heading north past Philo, the action fans out from Hwy.128 at the intersection with Clark Road and Holmes Ranch Road. A turn onto Clark Road quickly brings you to the historic barn studio of Colleen and Marvin Schenck (jewelry, collage, painting and printmaking). Nadia Berrigan (photography) is also showing with them as her own studio is too isolated. Across the highway, about a mile up Holmes Ranch Road the visitor will find the marker for the forested driveway that takes you over Mill Creek to Jan Wax and Chris Bing’s porcelain and stoneware pottery studio. Back on Hwy.128 again, head north, after a mile, start looking to the left for Rebecca Johnson’s big studio barn filled with sculpture and paintings. A little further north on the highway, also on the left, Doug Johnson’s Pepperwood Pottery is marked by a large colorful ceramic mural.

For the artists, opening their studios is an opportunity to showcase their creativity and share the studio spaces lovingly developed to foster the creation of their art. Hopefully, you will take some of that creative energy home with a special new artwork for your own collection.

SUPERVISOR MAUREEN MULHEREN uses her Supervisorial facebook page to cheerlead for various county and Ukiah activities. One frequent feature is County job postings. She posts openings in the Sheriff’s office, the Social Services Department, Public Health… Nearly every department. Except the Treasure-Tax Collector-Auditor-Controller. Although the Board talks endlessly and unanimously about how much they want to support TTCAC Chamise Cubbison. Of course, we doubt Superivsor Mulheren’s facebook postings do much to fill any of the many vacancies the County has — the problem is much deeper than simply making the vacancies public. But it’s another indicator of the Board’s inability to focus on their most important functions. 

* * *

Also, Mulheren’s always very late “updates” leave a lot to be desired. A typical entry for September (the latest one as of November 2) is:

“September 8, 2022: I am the alternate for the UVBGSA Board, I listened in to the meeting on the 8th.”

We know what the UVBGSA Board is — and how useless it is — but we doubt any of her readers do.

* * *

In an earlier update for August, Supervisor Mulheren wrote:

“8/15/22: At our regular meeting of the Great Redwood Trail Agency we approved the financials and received an update from Karyn Gear, Interim Director. Staff is reviewing the budget to see if there are additional funds coming in from the State and will bring that to the next meeting. Need to audit the former NCRA. This is a priority. Working on a fresh website for the GRTA. Alta Planning has been selected as the consultant and we are waiting for contracts to be signed to be able to move forward with the community engagement plan.”

“Need to audit the former NCRA”? Funny, we thought that was done as part of the Great Redwood Trail Agency legislation and that it was already completed so that former Congressman Bosco could make sure he got all that he was owed. Now we learn that there was no audit and it’s still not done? 

* * *

WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS CHP PRESSER TITLE

“CHP Offers Grants to Combat Sideshows and Street Racing.”

(Mark Scaramella)

FIRST SYMPHONY CONCERT of the Season

Cotton Auditorium, Fort Bragg

Saturday, November 12 at 7:30 pm – Sunday, November 13 at 2:00 pm

Pre-concert lecture by the conductor begins one hour before the performance

Program:

• Marquez, Danzon No. 2
• Mouquet, Flute de Pan featuring Kathleen Reynolds
• Brahms, Symphony No. 2

Tickets may be purchased in advance at Out of This World in Mendocino, Harvest Market in Fort Bragg or online at Brown Paper Tickets.

symphonyoftheredwoods.org for more info

CHRISTMAS TREE PERMITS AVAILABLE NOV. 4 AT RECREATION.GOV

WILLOWS, Calif., Nov. 2, 2022—The Mendocino National Forest will begin selling Christmas tree permits online at Recreation.gov on Friday, Nov. 4.

“Cutting your own Christmas tree on a national forest is a special experience for several reasons,” said Joseph Rechsteiner, Acting Forest Supervisor for the Mendocino National Forest. “The Christmas Tree Program helps people connect to our public lands and helps families create treasured memories together. It also benefits forest health by removing the small-diameter, over-crowded trees and opening more areas for wildlife foraging for food.”

To purchase a Christmas tree permit, visit Recreation.gov and search by forest name or use the interactive map to explore locations. Be sure to carefully read the overview, need-to-know information and other guidelines prior to purchasing the permit. Visitors will need to create or log in to a Recreation.gov account to complete the transaction.

A permit must be purchased, limited to one per household. On Recreation.gov, visitors have the option to purchase up to three trees. The cost for 2022 is $10 per tree, and with a $2.50 transaction fee. The number of permits is limited and will be issued on a first-come, first-served basis. Permits are good through December 31, 2022.

Persons must be at least 18 years old to purchase the permit. All Christmas tree permit sales are final; no refunds will be made. Christmas tree cutting will be allowed only in specific areas in the Mendocino National Forest.

When heading out to the forest to cut a Christmas tree, officials remind visitors to follow these important tips for a safe and enjoyable experience:

• Plan your trip and check the weather forecast.

• Bring plenty of warm clothes, water, food, tire chains, shovel, a saw or axe to cut your tree and a tarp and rope to bring it home.

• Keep vehicles on designated roads and be prepared for changing weather and road conditions. Be aware of safety hazards when travelling through a burned area.

• Remember cell phone service may be unavailable, so carry emergency equipment in vehicles.

• Cut the tree early in the season before favorite cutting areas can’t be reached because of snow.

• Make sure you are cutting a tree on the Mendocino National Forest within the designated Christmas tree cutting area and not on other federal, state or private lands.

• Cut the tree as close as possible to the ground and leave as short a stump as possible.

• Print your permit and make sure it is visible on your vehicle dashboard. If you purchase a permit in-person at one of our offices or vendors, you will receive a tag that needs to be tied to your tree when you transport it home.

Permits can be also purchased by mail or in person at the Willows or Upper Lake Ranger Stations. If purchasing in person, individuals can purchase one permit per household and one tree per permit. Several local vendors will also be selling Christmas tree permits. Officials recommend that visitors call ahead to check hours and availability at the following offices and vendors:

Covelo Ranger Station
78150 Covelo Rd.
Covelo, CA 95428
(707) 983-6118

M&M Feed
74540 Hill Rd.
Covelo, CA 95428
(707) 983-6273

Keith’s Family Foods
76201 Covelo Rd.
Covelo, CA 95428
(707) 983-6633

Covelo Volunteer Fire Department
75900 Covelo Rd.
Covelo, CA 95428
(707) 983-6719

Upper Lake Ranger Station
10025 Elk Mountain Rd.
Upper Lake, CA 95485
(707) 275-2361

INTERESTED IN TAKING A CREATIVE WRITING for Older Adults Class?

Info about the class:

Name: Creative Writing for Older Adults*

Teacher: Ginny Bucelli

Dates: January 31st - May 16th

Meetings: Weekly, Tuesdays 2-5 p.m. at the Adult School

Cost: $12 for the entire semester

*Note about "Older Adults"-  There is a special focus on older adults in the curriculum, but adults of all ages are encouraged to participate.

Course description: This course will introduce older adults to a variety of creative writing skills. The focus of the course is on preserving intellectual acuity through the writing of creative fiction and non-fiction. Written expression is explored through the development of memoirs, personal essays, stories, poems, and/or short scripts. Students will have the opportunity to sharpen creative writing skills, computer skills, and interact with a supportive community of fellow writers. This course provides older adults an opportunity to recall, organize, and share life experiences about events, family, health, or work, as well as by the use of imagination. The instructor will provide help as needed in the basics of plot, point of view, characterization, dialogue, setting, and revision.

If you're interested in taking this class, please email: mvonvogt@avpanthers.org 

Note: You don't have to fully commit now, but we are trying to get a sense of whether we will have enough participants for the class to run.

JUST IN!

Right Here! Right Now!!

Ukiah Report. 3:30PM November 2nd, ‘22 @ Ukiah Public Library: Awoke early at Building Bridges homeless shelter, fully recovered from an intense Monday evening of Halloween revelry. Bottom lined the trash & recycling, getting ready for the early Thursday morning collection, and then ambled southward to Plowshares for the free meal served by those dedicated Catholic Workers. Purchased LOTTO tix. About to read the New York Times. Still not identified with the body nor the mind. Immortal Self I am! News update at ten. 

Craig Louis Stehr

CATCH OF THE DAY, Wednesday, November 2, 2022

JOHN BOLTON IV, Willits. Domestic battery, cruelty to animals. (Frequent flyer.)

CLAY HAYDON, Ukiah. Domestic battery, battery with serious injury.

VICTORIA LOWE, Redwood Valley. Probation revocation.

DANIEL MEINECKE, Leggett. Parole violation.

CLINTON SALLEE, Ukiah. County parole violation.

JOSE SOTO-RUIZ, Ukiah. Unauthorized entry of dwelling wihtout owner’s consent, false ID.

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

In Arcata, the Hospital pays Nurses (RN) about $32/hr.

At Providence, if you work Nights for 8-10 years, and then somehow get a better shift, the Union might get you $55-75/hr…

Working at Providence, is not for little baby nurses or is it recommended as a premium employer of any kind…

In Garberville, RN’s get about $33/hr.

Trinity Hospital pays very low, but there’s always an opening…

In San Francisco, depending on specialty, a plain old RN is in high demand, and you might see a way to make $160,000/year, or more…

Nurses come to the North State as new grads, work 6 months somewhere, and then bail to LA or the Bay Area. Most Adventist Health Employees are poached by recruiters, from somewhere else, including Providers…

Everyone, especially clowns like McGuire, seems to think that “Nursing Education” is a great answer for staffing healthcare openings, but for every RN you meet today, who is working on her BSN, and will then go for an MSN, and then, she will end up in PA School or FNP classes…

I met a woman, an ER Nurse, and a freshly minted PA, in a facility so far out in the middle of nowhere, and she wanted to become a free-range ER Provider, in Idaho, at the age of 65!

Nobody goes into Nursing so they can sit at home and watch homeless guys and drug addicts in the streets…

Nursing is 30-40 years on your feet, no dignity or respect from your employer, a constant chain of “Travelers” coming and going, and, your facility is a “Training Center” for Temps from other countries, who just got their CA License…

At least, a windowless “Old Warehouse” with no windows, in a freezing cold Industrial Park, should approximate the working conditions in a modern hospital.

Of course, there’s always those single travelers, who move from place to place looking for another husband who has a job in a hospital!

If you want a great career, become a software engineer, a UI Designer, hell a MBA! An Attorney! 

Being a nurse is like a lot like being a maid, a new mother, a therapist, and sometimes, you get punched by a patient…

The paychecks are regular, the benefits are sometimes merely average, but sometimes, somebody actually thanks you!

One last thing, there’s no shortage of nurses, except in Humboldt, but there is a shortage of decent employers…

IDEAS, LOTS OF IDEAS

Editor,

I don't like this war in Ukraine. Since February 24 I have tried to figure out a way to stop it. Yesterday the United States announced that no more war materials would be sent to Ukraine. Several churches in North and South Dakota announced that they were sending groups of volunteers to repair schools and hospitals in eight different parts of the country. Mr. Putin was advised of the location of these repair crews. A week later German churches sent volunteers to eight schools and hospitals to help make them usable again. Pretty soon repair crews arrived from South Korea, India, Iceland, Mexico, etc. Mr. Putin was advised that every part of Ukraine was covered by foreign volunteers numbering in the thousands. There was no place left for him to bomb or invade. The war came to a stop. 

China sends businessman with large amounts of funds to "help" rebuild the economy. Before you could say Jack Robinson, China was taking back some of the profits home to China for Xi Jin Ping and friends. Chinese laundries and restaurants opened by the thousands in Ukraine. Three out of four businesses were owned by Chinamen. Mr. Putin doesn't monkey with Ukraine anymore and my project was concluded.

The headline said "Boonville editor picked to head federal agency." Former governor Dr. Kitzheben, Chairman of the search committee, announced that they had offered the editor the leadership of the new national service program, a one-year mandatory enlistment for all youth starting on their 18th birthday. The leader doesn't have to do anything, just issue a proclamation once in awhile. Dr. Kitzheben was asked: Why was it that the editor was selected? We wanted a famous person. One of the Mayfields? Owner of the Savings bank? Richard Shoemaker? And so it came to pass that the Editor became the most famous person in Mendocino County by default. Can he read and write? You can bet your sweet arse. Not only a good writer, but he is an interesting and entertaining writer. Why the hell do you think I read about the doings and people in Anderson Valley who I have no interest in? Because I might find and often do find something interesting to read. We don't know much about his reading habits but suspect that he has read all of Steinbeck's fiction. He may have read "Postcards", Annie Proulx's first novel. A Vermont farm boy's girlfriend dies under the same circumstances as did Nelson Rockefeller. He sealed off her body in a stone wall and then disappeared. Once each year the Vermont farm received a postcard from a remote address somewhere in the West — Wyoming, Idaho, Colorado — and the "Shipping News" tells about a guy who walks into a restaurant and says, "I'll have the fried bologna dinner." The "Shipping News" reserves one page each issue for "sexual assault." Is the editor often criticized? Reading the AVA for the past 15 years we find one mild fault finder every two years. 

A different story early in his career. Two dudes arrived, one in Redwood Valley and the Editor in Mendocino County. Nobody had ever seen anything like them before. They must be in Redwood Valley. The preacher Jim Kool-Aid Jones was soon bringing school bus loads of Negroes from the Bay Area to his church each Sunday morning. The charismatic Reverend Jones soon became the toast of the county. Women with no panties on were rubbing up against him wherever he went. 

The editor was playing the game of professional social worker by bringing young delinquents off the streets of Oakland. He was making no friends fast except a few lefties. When it was learned that he had bought the newspaper, people in Anderson Valley went "Jeezus, what's next?" The newspaper had 30 regular advertisers but after three months had lost them all. Mendo Mill sent him a telegram canceling their ads. He started pushing for socialism and is still doing it to this very day. Good on you, keep it up and soon we will have a public bank. 

From being almost 100% opposed with constant critics he has managed to soften up the residents of the county and now is admired by many people but they won't admit it. He is the best writer in his newspaper. Malcolm Macdonald was a pretty all right writer as long as he lasted. 

How is the mandatory year of public service supposed to operate? The boy patriots will engage in weeding out all of the dumb people under 21 years of age and see to it that they learn a trade. The rest will be required to attend two classes a week entitled "Adventures in Socialism." The girl patriots will teach classes in kitchen and bedroom skills such as opening a can of Campbell's tomato soup. (Safeway sells Campbell Soup at half price one week out of six.) Be careful not to burn it. No fat chicks. All fatties will be shunted off to fat farms and when they return minus the ugly pounds they will be anxious to engage in, ahem, new activities. Will the girl patriots be required to abstain from sexual activities? No, no, no. In the first place they can use the practice and in the second place there are an equal number of boy patriots when looking for sex.

Prominent people who would have liked the Editor: Eleanor Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Babe Ruth, Bernie Sanders. For the past 25 years I have been giving you new ideas which you have ignored. Here are two more: put all Republicans who are charming and all of the Democrats who are charming in a sack, shake it up and you will find the "24 presidential candidates." Biden and Desantis are not in the sack. A popular idea: Make a list of all of the Internet and television programs who appeal to conservatives and those who appeal to liberals (just a short list). Who will do it? Someone in the print world might. Washington, Oregon and California voters favored Trump in 2016 and 2020 except for the coastal counties. I like the way George Skelton is critical of the liberals. I don't like people who are all negative with no answers and let the chips fall where they may. Some of them are falling in downtown Boonville.

Keep the Aspidistra flying

Ralph Bostrom

Willits

THE FOURTH REVOLUTION

by Paul Kingsnorth

By now, you might have heard about the rising threat of ‘eco-fascism’. If you haven’t you soon will, because the number of people warning about this alarming new danger to civilisation seems to be growing exponentially. In publications right and left and neither you’ll be able to read long expositions of the origins and intentions of this frightening movement, which seems to be taking root all over the world. 

Those essays and articles could be rolled into one easily enough, and sometimes it seems like they have been. The formula is always the same, and can be usefully applied across the political spectrum. Start with talk of the ‘rising tide of authoritarianism’ all over the world, as evidenced by ‘populism’, Brexit, Georgia Melloni, Viktor Orban, Justin Trudeau, Donald Trump, Joe Biden or any other leader you don’t like. Move on to explore how much of this ‘rising authoritarianism’ is reflected in environmentalism, as evidenced by Just Stop Oil, Extinction Rebellion, the Green New Deal, the Great Reset, Bill Gates, Greta Thunberg or [insert name of bête noire here]

After this, list the historical inspirations for these new green authoritarians: Ted Kaczynski, Pentti Linkola and Dave Foreman should do for starters. Dig into the most miserable chans and reddits of the Internet and ‘expose’ a few anonymised avatars promoting race war in the name of the planet. Mention the Christchurch shooter. Use the phrase ‘dark undercurrent’ a lot. Quote Murray Bookchin. Chuck in the names of a couple of nature writers from the 1930s who became fascists. Mutter darkly about ‘blood and soil’ and how Hitler was a vegetarian. Did you know there was an organic garden at Dachau? It makes you think. If you’re lucky. 

Having got here, you can move on to the meat of the thing: sombrely intoning about the ‘new threat to democracy’ which is represented by this ominous movement. Depending on where you’re coming from, you can now explain how these new eco-authoritarians represent either [a] a threat to our God-given right to drive, mine, manufacture, fly, burn oil and freely enjoy the glories that only Western Progress can provide, or [b] a threat to diversity, equality, human rights, LGBTQIA++ people, refugees, ‘global justice’ and a woman’s right to choose. Either way, the conclusion will be much the same: a non-specific but ominous call for more monitoring of ‘problematic’ views, more work to tackle ‘radicalisation’, more ‘hate speech’ or anti-protest laws and probably more Internet regulation. For the safety of us all, of course. 

The problem, though, is that actual ‘eco fascism’ is notable mostly by its absence. Dark corners of the Internet aside - you can find any craziness there, after all - it’s hard to find a single ‘eco fascist’ anywhere out in the real world. No public intellectuals, no writers, no philosophers, no politicians, no popular movements embrace anything of the kind. Plenty of people get the label applied to them of course - without the prefix, the word ‘fascist’ has been a meaningless, all-purpose insult for decades - but they all reject it. I was in and around the green movement for a long time, but I never met an eco-fascist, though I did have the pleasure of being called one. 

So why all the dire warnings? I can think of two possible explanations. 

One is fairly straightforward: there is something we can’t bear to look at, and we are trying to distract attention from it by screaming at the people who are pointing it out. The thing we are avoiding is the thing that we used to call ‘nature’, and the reality that we are trying to distract attention from is that we are part of it, we live inside it and that everything we do to it we also do to ourselves. Change the climate out there and it changes in here. Erode the soil, erode your soil. Poison the oceans, poison your culture. This is how it works, and this is what we are now facing. 

And we cannot face it; even those of us who think we can. Whatever we think our politics are - and they are likely to be the least important thing about us - we have no idea what to do about the coming end of the brief age of abundance, and the reappearance, armed and dangerous, of what we could get away with denying for a few decades: limits. Those who point these limits out - and who point out, especially, that the very existence of industrial modernity might be the root cause of the problems we currently face - can expect to be smacked down with the worst insults our culture can conjure. 

This is one explanation for the mysterious rise of the ghostly eco-fascists. But I think there might be another. This is that the phrase ‘eco fascist’ is a label which is increasingly being applied to the wrong kind of environmentalist: those who offer up a vision of humanity and nature that involves roots, traditions, smallness, simplicity, a return to previous lifeways, or any other kind of challenge to Machine modernity. This in turn is contrasted with the right kind of green: that which is modern, global, progressive and - most importantly of all - friendly to the onward march of the technological society.

Nearly a decade ago, I wrote an essay called Dark Ecology, about the state of environmentalism. In it, I wrote about the emergence of a tendency in green circles which I labelled ‘neo-environmentalism.’ The neo-greens - who preferred to call themselves ‘ecomodernists’ - emerged as a reaction to the traditional green movement, which in its infancy had been relatively conservative, low-tech and focused on the human scale. The neo-greens rejected all this as backward, impractical and even dangerous. The ‘new environmentalism’ they declared, in manifestoes like this one, would be, as we might now say, ‘grown-up.’ 

In ‘Dark Ecology’ I described the neo-greens like this:

The neo-environmentalists are distinguished by their attitude to new technologies, which they almost uniformly see as positive. Civilisation, nature and people can be ‘saved’ only by enthusiastically embracing biotechnology, synthetic biology, nuclear power, geoengineering and anything else with the prefix ‘new’ that annoys Greenpeace. The traditional green focus on ‘limits’ is dismissed as naive. We are now, in [Stewart] Brand’s words, ‘as Gods’, and we have to step up and accept our responsibility to manage the planet rationally through the use of new technology guided by enlightened science …

Sucks to be right, as I believe the kidz say on the Interweb.

Since I wrote that essay, the neo-greens have, as I suggested they would, mounted an effective corporate takeover of most of the environmental movement. Examples of what we might call Machine Environmentalism have been embraced by the corporate sector, big NGOs, global institutions and most of the intellectual class, most obviously in the ‘Green New Deals’ that are popping up like summer daisies in all corners of the globe. Meanwhile, as I also glumly predicted, the green movement is splintering into camps, determined by attitudes to the kind of intrusive and novel technologies that the Machine Greens are pushing as our final means of salvation. 

In Britain, for example, this divide has been illustrated recently by attitudes to green pundit George Monbiot’s latest book, which embraces the neo-green vision. In the humbly titled Regenesis, Monbiot, an urban vegan intellectual, makes a case - based, naturally, on the ‘peer-reviewed science’ - for the ‘end of most farming’ and the replacement of much of its output with vat-grown, bacterial ‘food’ manufactured via ‘industrial biotechnology.’ The vast acreages of land which have been stripped of their farmers can then be ‘rewilded’ in various Monbiot-approved ways, which mainly seem to involve growing forests for always-on urbanites to go wolf-spotting in at weekends. 

In promoting a high-tech, globalised food system (perhaps overseen by the world government he has previously argued for), and casually calling for the destruction of the basis of post-Neolithic human civilisation, Monbiot offers a perfect example of what a neo-green future will look like: utopian, hyper-urban, technological, rational and most of all, ‘efficient’. What matters now, as he explains, is mathematics:

It’s time we became obsessed by numbers. We need to compare yields, compare land uses, compare the diversity and abundance of wildlife, compare emissions, erosion, pollution, costs, inputs, nutrition, across every aspect of food production.

Welcome to what the greens have become.…

paulkingsnorth.substack.com/p/the-fourth-revolution

IT’S BEEN CONFIRMED that Jerry Lee Lewis has passed. I want to focus on his music here. Certainly Jerry Lee is a divisive figure, but his music is what we’ll be discussing in this post. 

He was always my favorite Sun Studio rocker and with his passing, it is the end of that era. He truly was the last man standing. Obviously that era and that genre has been integral in my life. Even when I was in high school, I remember buying a best of Jerry Lee Lewis’s Sun recordings and sitting in the parking lot of Foothills Mall listening to that album cover to cover. I was in awe! Few could rock harder or put on a better show that JLL (maybe Little Richard or Johnny Burnette). Hell, even Elvis himself used to say that JLL was the real king of rock and roll. 

His album “Live at the Star Club Hamburg,” though only thirty minutes long, is in my opinion, the greatest live album that has ever been recorded. His cover of “Good Golly Miss Molly,” MY GOD!!! (I’ll be including that link in the comments and ask that everyone give it a listen)

Jerry Lee was also a character in Million Dollar Quartet, the Vegas show I was in. All my life I’d always said he was the ONE guy I needed to see live before he passed and in 2019 I was blessed with that opportunity when I saw him co-headline with Stray Cats at Viva Las Vegas. It was an incredible show and he still had it. 

His music has had tremendous influence on me. Bottom line, with his passing, two things hit me hard. My heart goes out to those that knew him and cared about him and I know many people who were close to him and though I didn’t know Jerry Lee personally, I have a lot of friends who are hurting tonight. The thing that especially hits me hard is that this is the end of living in the same time of those who created rock and roll. It’s done. It’s in the history books. Now there are many people still with us, great people who were there, but none lived the life and had the impact of those early rock and roll giants like Jerry Lee. It’s sad for me to more be in a time where this trailblazers aren’t around and we get most of our info from the history books. I’m just glad that I got to be alive at the same time he was.

WASHINGTON DC — It’s a city of half a million student council presidents, ready to adopt any opinion that advances their careers.

— Lee Smith

THANK WHO?

by William Davis

In Langston Hughes’s short story ‘Thank you, Ma’am’ (1958) a poor boy tries to steal a woman’s purse to buy some shoes. She catches him in the act and drags him off to her house, where – much to his surprise – she cooks him dinner and gives him the money he needs. The story ends with him standing on her doorstep after she’s said ‘good night’, wishing he could have said more than just ‘thank you’.

The queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations in June were coordinated and branded as a festival of thanks. There was an online thank you card for the public to sign, and the TV sketch of Paddington Bear having tea with the queen ended with Paddington saying: ‘Thank you – for everything.’

The official Paddington Bear Twitter account repeated the line on the evening of the queen’s death. Many of those standing in the five-mile queue to witness her lying in state have, when asked by journalists, expressed a desire – or need – to say ‘thank you’. The flowers, toy bears and marmalade sandwiches that have been left at Buckingham Palace and in surrounding parks are often accompanied by a message saying ‘thank you’.

This spirit of gratitude is a new phenomenon. Historically, it was far more important that a sovereign be viewed by their subjects as majestic and fearsome. People might have felt thankful for the monarch’s mercy, but not for their sense of duty. Other emotions might include pride, scorn, awe or resentment, depending on political persuasion and taste. And yet suddenly, perhaps only in the past year, gratitude has arisen as one of the dominant forms of affective bond between the public and the monarchy.

The royal family and its army of PR advisers are no fools, and we should assume they know what they’re doing. Public expressions of thanks had become commonplace before the jubilee because of Covid: the pandemic elicited various rituals of thanksgiving to NHS workers and other carers, from the pictures of rainbows that children placed in windows to the weekly doorstep clap. On the back of these new traditions, an annual Thank You Day was established to encourage people to hold neighborhood get-togethers and share in a spirit of thankfulness. This year it was on 5 June, pegged to jubilee street parties, and amplified by celebrities and publicists.

The official sponsors of Thank You Day are largely drawn from bodies responsible for health and physical activity: the NHS, Sport England, the Football Association, St John Ambulance and so on. In the 21st century, gratitude is not merely a matter of good manners but something to be actively practiced for your own wellbeing. The field of positive psychology, which seeks to understand the causes and conditions of positive emotions (and to combat negative ones), has for many years fed into an industry of self-help books, happiness gurus and wellness advice. And among the most common tips on offer, alongside spending time with nature and taking physical exercise, is to practice gratitude.

One piece of advice is to keep a ‘gratitude diary’ in which you list things you’re grateful for: family, health, good weather or whatever. Cynics may view this as just another self-help life-hack, but it can also be seen as a serious effort to wean people off consumerism and the constant status anxiety aggravated by social media. If you can focus on being grateful, you might spend less time looking at other people (or even other societies) and wishing you had what they have. Perhaps the deeper problem with such self-help tactics is not that they’re a scam or ineffective, but that they work by suppressing the rage and disappointment that makes them necessary in the first place.

It may be that saying thank you for things is now a component of health and happiness, a way of reminding yourself that things could always be worse. What’s weirder is the way the habit has reappeared in a period of national mourning. Thanksgiving services, which traditionally follow funerals, are opportunities to give thanks for somebody’s life, a means of converting loss into gratitude. Yet it’s not the departed who is thanked at such events, but whatever god or cosmic force mourners wish to credit for giving life in the first place. This is not the case in the thank yous now being expressed to the queen, which are aimed directly at her. As with the boy on the doorstep at the end of Hughes’s story, these thank yous seem too little, too late. The sorrow at her death seems tied up with regret that the queen was never adequately appreciated.

It doesn’t require a vast leap of psychoanalytic speculation to surmise that feelings may attach themselves to iconic public objects which are really about something or someone else altogether. Funerals can often be tied up with feelings of regret: lives not lived as they might have been, words not said when they could have been. The vast outpourings of public sentiment since 8 September are invariably connected to more intimate stories and sorrows. ‘She reminded me of my nan,’ the mourners say, and the image is of a selfless woman slogging through years of work for others because that’s her lot in life. This probably bears scant resemblance to the actual experiences of Elizabeth Windsor, but a great deal to those of many grandmothers over the past seventy years. It can be difficult to disentangle the patriarchal gender norms of the postwar era from the institutionalized generosity established during that time – the NHS and welfare state – which is also fading away in 2022. Were we sufficiently grateful? Is it too late?

In the deaths of Diana and Elizabeth, separated by a quarter century, two different matriarchal tragedies have been played out on the national stage, and become receptacles for a repressed rage: the woman who was never adequately loved, and the woman whose work was taken for granted. In both instances, it was men – an emotionally withdrawn father, an unfaithful husband, a disgraced son, a lying prime minister – who let them down and exploited their decency.

A more difficult but perhaps more honest emotional response to injustice is not gratitude to those who tolerate it but outrage. How much of what expresses itself in thank yous, marmalade sandwiches and clapping on doorsteps is really an avoidance of the fact that both in public and in private, as David Graeber put it, we have failed to take care of those who take care of us?

(London Review of Books)

BIDEN’S RIOT ACT FALLS FLAT

by John Podhoretz

Joe Biden wanted to give a stirring speech to rouse Americans to angry purpose about the threats to democracy represented by “election deniers” running for office across the country. He was, according to CNN’s reporting, spurred to action by the horrible attack last week on the husband of the speaker of the House, which Biden believes is a direct result of Donald Trump’s effect on the United States over the past seven years.

So … that’s what he wanted. But, as the great philosopher Mick Jagger once said, you can’t always get what you want.

The address he delivered Wednesday night wasn’t a forceful speech. It was a forceless speech. Biden didn’t appeal passionately to the better angels of our nature because there was no energy behind his words.

He seemed exhausted, spent — so much so that even in the course of making an argument I find repellent, he didn’t even get me mad.

Instead of being roused to rage by his cagey effort to turn the horrifying violent act of a paranoid schizophrenic into an implicit indictment of the very idea of voting Republican, I felt almost paternal toward Biden, who is 18 years older than I am. It was like he was one of my kids and he was showing signs of having stayed up too late and it was past time for him to go beddie-bye.

And there was much in the speech I found inarguable. Was the Jan. 6 attack horrendous? Yes. Are people who deny the results of the 2020 election wrong? Very wrong. Has Donald Trump “put the loyalty to himself above loyalty to the Constitution,” as Biden put it? Yes, and he deserves condemnation for it.

But is election denial itself a paramount threat to the very future of this country, as this speech would have you believe? Please.

If it were, then every person who stood by smiling and nodding as Stacey Abrams claimed the governorship of Georgia had been stolen from her — hundreds of elected Democratic officials across this country among them — would be every bit as guilty of a crime against our country’s foundation as the people who thought and think the same of Donald Trump’s loss in 2020.

They aren’t guilty of any substantive offense except being sore losers on someone else’s behalf. That stinks, and we’re a less civil polity because of it. But while election denial did play a role in inspiring the Jan. 6 attack, the shocking increase in political violence in the United States long preceded it.

Donald Trump encouraged people at rallies in 2016 to beat up protestors. That was evil. But it had nothing to do with election denial. Evil was also at work when Bernie-bro James Hodgkinson shot up the congressional baseball game in 2017, but not election denial.

Treating Nancy Pelosi as the personification of bad statist policy has been a feature of American politics since 2010. Doing so is not evil. It’s hardball negative politics, and it’s not all that special either — Democrats hated Newt Gingrich when he was speaker every bit as much in their time. And none of it was election denial.

Our politics is ugly, and that ugliness is probably going to get worse. But Biden’s assertions that we should blame the ugliness on a political opposition that is going to destroy America were belied by Biden’s own exhausted delivery of his lame attempt at a Ciceronian jeremiad.

More important, not a word he said will spare his party from an electoral reckoning next week.

(New York Post)

UKRAINE, WEDNESDAY, 2ND NOVEMBER

Russia has agreed to rejoin the Black Sea grain deal – designed to ensure safe passage for ships carrying vital food exports from Ukraine – after it withdrew from the agreement on Saturday.

The US is accusing North Korea of secretly supplying artillery shells to Russiafor use in Ukraine and trying to hide shipments, according to newly declassified intelligence.

A video has emerged purportedly showing the sabotage of military helicopters deep inside Russia. Subsequent satellite imagery shows several damaged helicopters at the base.

Russia's "partial mobilization" of citizens to fight in its war against Ukraine has been completed, President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday.

— CNN

A HANGING

It was in Burma, a sodden morning of the rains. A sickly light, like yellow tinfoil, was slanting over the high walls into the jail yard. We were waiting outside the condemned cells, a row of sheds fronted with double bars, like small animal cages. Each cell measured about ten feet by ten and was quite bare within except for a plank bed and a pot of drinking water. In some of them brown silent men were squatting at the inner bars, with their blankets draped round them. These were the condemned men, due to be hanged within the next week or two.

One prisoner had been brought out of his cell. He was a Hindu, a puny wisp of a man, with a shaven head and vague liquid eyes. He had a thick, sprouting moustache, absurdly too big for his body, rather like the moustache of a comic man on the films. Six tall Indian warders were guarding him and getting him ready for the gallows. Two of them stood by with rifles and fixed bayonets, while the others handcuffed him, passed a chain through his handcuffs and fixed it to their belts, and lashed his arms tight to his sides. They crowded very close about him, with their hands always on him in a careful, caressing grip, as though all the while feeling him to make sure he was there. It was like men handling a fish which is still alive and may jump back into the water. But he stood quite unresisting, yielding his arms limply to the ropes, as though he hardly noticed what was happening.

Eight o’clock struck and a bugle call, desolately thin in the wet air, floated from the distant barracks. The superintendent of the jail, who was standing apart from the rest of us, moodily prodding the gravel with his stick, raised his head at the sound. He was an army doctor, with a grey toothbrush moustache and a gruff voice. “For God’s sake hurry up, Francis,” he said irritably. “The man ought to have been dead by this time. Aren’t you ready yet?”

Francis, the head jailer, a fat Dravidian in a white drill suit and gold spectacles, waved his black hand. “Yes sir, yes sir,” he bubbled. “All iss satisfactorily prepared. The hangman iss waiting. We shall proceed.”

“Well, quick march, then. The prisoners can’t get their breakfast till this job’s over.”

We set out for the gallows. Two warders marched on either side of the prisoner, with their rifles at the slope; two others marched close against him, gripping him by arm and shoulder, as though at once pushing and supporting him. The rest of us, magistrates and the like, followed behind. Suddenly, when we had gone ten yards, the procession stopped short without any order or warning. A dreadful thing had happened–a dog, come goodness knows whence, had appeared in the yard. It came bounding among us with a loud volley of barks, and leapt round us wagging its whole body, wild with glee at finding so many human beings together. It was a large woolly dog, half Airedale, half pariah. For a moment it pranced round us, and then, before anyone could stop it, it had made a dash for the prisoner, and jumping up tried to lick his face. Everyone stood aghast, too taken aback even to grab at the dog.

“Who let that bloody brute in here?” said the superintendent angrily. “Catch it, someone!”

A warder, detached from the escort, charged clumsily after the dog, but it danced and gambolled just out of his reach, taking everything as part of the game. A young Eurasian jailer picked up a handful of gravel and tried to stone the dog away, but it dodged the stones and came after us again. Its yaps echoed from the jail wails. The prisoner, in the grasp of the two warders, looked on incuriously, as though this was another formality of the hanging. It was several minutes before someone managed to catch the dog. Then we put my handkerchief through its collar and moved off once more, with the dog still straining and whimpering.

It was about forty yards to the gallows. I watched the bare brown back of the prisoner marching in front of me. He walked clumsily with his bound arms, but quite steadily, with that bobbing gait of the Indian who never straightens his knees. At each step his muscles slid neatly into place, the lock of hair on his scalp danced up and down, his feet printed themselves on the wet gravel. And once, in spite of the men who gripped him by each shoulder, he stepped slightly aside to avoid a puddle on the path.

It is curious, but till that moment I had never realized what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious man. When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide. This man was not dying, he was alive just as we were alive. All the organs of his body were working –bowels digesting food, skin renewing itself, nails growing, tissues forming–all toiling away in solemn foolery. His nails would still be growing when he stood on the drop, when he was falling through the air with a tenth of a second to live. His eyes saw the yellow gravel and the grey walls, and his brain still remembered, foresaw, reasoned – reasoned even about puddles. He and we were a party of men walking together, seeing, hearing, feeling, understanding the same world; and in two minutes, with a sudden snap, one of us would be gone – one mind less, one world less.

The gallows stood in a small yard, separate from the main grounds of the prison, and overgrown with tall prickly weeds. It was a brick erection like three sides of a shed, with planking on top, and above that two beams and a crossbar with the rope dangling. The hangman, a grey-haired convict in the white uniform of the prison, was waiting beside his machine. He greeted us with a servile crouch as we entered. At a word from Francis the two warders, gripping the prisoner more closely than ever, half led, half pushed him to the gallows and helped him clumsily up the ladder. Then the hangman limbed up and fixed the rope round the prisoner’s neck.

We stood waiting, five yards away. The warders had formed in a rough circle round the gallows. And then, when the noose was fixed, the prisoner began crying out on his god. It was a high, reiterated cry of “Ram! Ram! Ram! Ram!”, not urgent and fearful like a prayer or a cry for help, but steady, rhythmical, almost like the tolling of a bell. The dog answered the sound with a whine. The hangman, still standing on the gallows, produced a small cotton bag like a flour bag and drew it down over the prisoner’s face. But the sound, muffled by the cloth, still persisted, over and over again: “Ram! Ram! Ram! Ram! Ram!”

The hangman climbed down and stood ready, holding the lever. Minutes seemed to pass. The steady, muffled crying from the prisoner went on and on, “Ram! Ram! Ram!” never faltering for an instant. The superintendent, his head on his chest, was slowly poking the ground with his stick; perhaps he was counting the cries, allowing the prisoner a fixed number – fifty, perhaps, or a hundred. Everyone had changed colour. The Indians had gone grey like bad coffee, and one or two of the bayonets were wavering. We looked at the lashed, hooded man on the drop, and listened to his cries – each cry another second of life; the same thought was in all our minds: oh, kill him quickly, get it over, stop that abominable noise!

Suddenly the superintendent made up his mind. Throwing up his head he made a swift motion with his stick. “Chalo!” he shouted almost fiercely.

There was a clanking noise, and then dead silence. The prisoner had vanished, and the rope was twisting on itself. I let go of the dog, and it galloped immediately to the back of the gallows; but when it got there it stopped short, barked, and then retreated into a corner of the yard, where it stood among the weeds, looking timorously out at us. We went round the gallows to inspect the prisoner’s body. He was dangling with his toes pointed straight downwards, very slowly revolving, as dead as a stone.

The superintendent reached out with his stick and poked the bare body; it oscillated, slightly. “He’s all right,” said the superintendent. He backed out from under the gallows, and blew out a deep breath. The moody look had gone out of his face quite suddenly. He glanced at his wrist-watch. “Eight minutes past eight. Well, that’s all for this morning, thank God.”

The warders unfixed bayonets and marched away. The dog, sobered and conscious of having misbehaved itself, slipped after them. We walked out of the gallows yard, past the condemned cells with their waiting prisoners, into the big central yard of the prison. The convicts, under the command of warders armed with lathis, were already receiving their breakfast. They squatted in long rows, each man holding a tin pannikin, while two warders with buckets marched round ladling out rice; it seemed quite a homely, jolly scene, after the hanging. An enormous relief had come upon us now that the job was done. One felt an impulse to sing, to break into a run, to snigger. All at once everyone began chattering gaily.

The Eurasian boy walking beside me nodded towards the way we had come, with a knowing smile: “Do you know, sir, our friend (he meant the dead man), when he heard his appeal had been dismissed, he pissed on the floor of his cell. From fright. –Kindly take one of my cigarettes, sir. Do you not admire my new silver case, sir? From the boxwallah, two rupees eight annas. Classy European style.”

Several people laughed – at what, nobody seemed certain.

Francis was walking by the superintendent, talking garrulously. “Well, sir, all hass passed off with the utmost satisfactoriness. It wass all finished – flick! like that. It iss not always so – oah, no! I have known cases where the doctor wass obliged to go beneath the gallows and pull the prisoner’s legs to ensure decease. Most disagreeable!”

“Wriggling about, eh? That’s bad,” said the superintendent.

“Ach, sir, it iss worse when they become refractory! One man, I recall, clung to the bars of hiss cage when we went to take him out. You will scarcely credit, sir, that it took six warders to dislodge him, three pulling at each leg. We reasoned with him. “My dear fellow,” we said, “think of all the pain and trouble you are causing to us!” But no, he would not listen! Ach, he wass very troublesome!”

I found that I was laughing quite loudly. Everyone was laughing. Even the superintendent grinned in a tolerant way. “You’d better all come out and have a drink,” he said quite genially. “I’ve got a bottle of whisky in the car. We could do with it.”

We went through the big double gates of the prison, into the road. “Pulling at his legs!” exclaimed a Burmese magistrate suddenly, and burst into a loud chuckling. We all began laughing again. At that moment Francis’s anecdote seemed extraordinarily funny. We all had a drink together, native and European alike, quite amicably. The dead man was a hundred yards away.

— George Orwell