Mendocino County Today: Saturday, Nov. 5, 2022

Rain | Cat | Caspar Vandalism | Print Shop | College Offerings | Robert's Landing | Handyman Help | Tree Legs | Mendo F&G | Tip Top | County Notes | Fishmobile | Pomo Weavers | Rape Convictions | 1881 Boat | Cannabis Control | Flour Mill | Wussy Valley | Hell's Cafeteria | Wes Questions | Spawn | AVHS Thanks | Oak Cove | Train Killer | Yesterday's Catch | Cheap Weed | Old Courthouse | Marco Radio | Wall Phone | Assfire | Ray Guy | Undercover Cop | Christian Lion | NBC Report | George Booth | StrucKout | Getting Up | Israel Gone | Graham Concert | Oster's Plea | Found Weapons | Fundamentally Evil | Women Republicans | Unelectable Crop | Welsh Miners

AS A STORM SYSTEM moves onshore today, rain will spread southeastward across northwest California. A colder storm system will bring more rain, mountain snow and gusty southerly winds to the area on Sunday, with precipitation potentially continuing into early next week. (NWS)

WHO DID IT?

Vandalism in Caspar, across from the Caspar Community Center, the water tower with the mosaic whale was viciously attacked. Bricks and rocks were scattered in the yard. Wow - way too close to home for our community to experience crazy rudeness. If anyone saw this happening or has information, Sheriff was notified. 

MENDO SPRING COURSE OFFERINGS on Wednesday

Happy Friday AVHS,

We will continue our Wednesday college offerings. All 9th-12th grade students are eligible. Please contact Chris Howard on Monday to obtain and complete the proper forms choward@avpanthers.org. 

We are providing transportation and covering all costs. Don't let your student miss this opportunity.

There are a limited number of spaces in each course, as sewing machines and access to vehicles is limited.

Take care,

Louise Simson, Superintendent

Anderson Valley Unified

LOOKING FOR ANOTHER PLACE TO LIVE…

I can pay $400 to $500 a month rent for my 20ft motorhome and little truck. I can be of help. Please call me at 707-962-7170.

Help is here…I want to be of help prepare for these hard times that are coming, I have a plan and I could make it happen if I had a decent place to live, or I can be part of someone else's plan. Prepping for food water garden solar energy etc. I have a little money to invest into it. I'm a handyman by trade and a mechanic, good carpenter too.

MENDOCINO COUNTY FISH AND GAME COMMISSION MEETING

Just a reminder that the Commission's next meeting is Tuesday, November 8, 2022, 6:00 pm. This meeting will be held at the Willits Museum, 400 E Commercial Street, Willits.

mendocinocounty.org/government/planning-building-services/fish-game

LAST CALL FOR TERRI'S TIP TOP LOUNGE, Fort Bragg, CA

Sunday, November 13, at 4:00 pm: Pot luck. Bring your favorite dish! Celebrate the last days of Terri's Tip Top with us!

County Notes

MENDO’S TOP SHERIFF’S OFFICERS accept no-raise arrangement — for now. But…

“Memorandum of Understanding July 1, 2022 through June 30, 2023. County of Mendocino and the Mendocino Law Enforcement Management Association (MCLEMA)— Hold on Across-the-Board Wage Adjustment. In view of the current economic uncertainties, there will be no across the board wage adjustments during the term of this MOU. During FY 22-23, the parties will continue to meet and confer on changes to the health plan to ensure its fiscal solvency, any compaction and alignment issues resulting from the changes made as a result of implementation of the Koff study, and such other non-economic issues as the parties mutually agree. The parties will also meet quarterly to discuss the County’s economic condition and steps being taken to address the County’s current economic challenges.” 

However, there’s also a side letter that says that if the County grants a wage increase to any other bargaining unit, they MCLEMA will get the same in a “me too” agreement.

Consent Item on next week’s agenda Item 3f) “Approval of Agreement with Renne Public Law Group in the Amount of $150,000 for Internal Investigations and Settlement of Pending Litigation for Mendocino County, Effective Upon Signing Through June 30, 2023.” 

Services: Advice CEO and HR on employment conditions, employer-employee relations and internal investigations. Provide legal advice and representation for the Sheriff’s case against the Couty. (Nothing in attachment about settlement of the “pending litigation,” however.)

* * *

FORMER COUNTY SENIOR AUDITOR STAFFER NORM THURSTON ASKS:

“I would like to know: From where is this animus against the Auditor-Controller-Treasurer-Tax Collector originating? Knowing the origin may provide some insight about the motives behind it. But from what I can see, the Board of Supervisors has failed to adequately justify their actions. And their actions may have happened in the past, but the consequences of those actions continues haunt them.”

Mark Scaramella Replies:

We’re into some serious tea-leaf reading here. But here are some tentative observations based on watching the Supes pretty closely for quite some time.

CEO Angelo once told the Board that she, and she alone, managed the budget by keeping a firm lid on hiring and vacancies. The weak boards during her time as CEO were mostly happy with that because it meant they could jabber about other stuff and not worry much about the budget. Angelo then used the vacancies as a de facto slush fund, without any concern for whether work got done, and at the end of each year she balanced the budget with the unspent staff money and put whatever was left over into “reserves” which she liked to brag about.

After Angelo’s reitrement a snowball of events brought the situation to a head. 

Auditor Lloyd Weer retired. 

Ms. Cubbison was denied the “Interim” Auditor position because of some petty gripes from the DA in response to which Cubbison pushed back. Instead of simply promoting Cubbison because the DA’s gripes were minor, the Board punted and started the consolidation process of merging the Auditor with the Tax Collector, a crazy idea to begin with because it’s unwise to put the same person in charge of revenues and expenses. 

Relations between Cubbison and the Board became strained and the Board chose the path of least resistance in the wake of Angelo’s retiremeent by trying to hold Cubbison responsible for the Board’s own negligence in not requiring financial reporting under the Angelo regime.

Added to that was a perfect storm of complications which excerbated and intensified the problems created by the historic lack of financial reporting. 

A new property tax system was installed with time-consuming implementation problems.

Covid

Abnormally high inflation.

Employee contracts expiring. 

A new CEO.

Several inexperienced and irresponsible new supervisors.

Resignations and retirements from the Auditor and Tax Collector offices.

Unplanned, accelerated and unjustified consolidation of Financial Offices and election of Cubbison as combo Auditor-Controller-Tax Collector-Treasurer.

These developments were in addition to many underlying, unattended-to pre-existing problems like local housing limitations, hiring delays, uncompetitive salaries, on top of Angelo’s carefully engineered long-standing staff shortages and vacancies. 

These expanding problems would have been challenging for even a competent and cooperative management team. But instead the Board got off on the wrong foot with Ms. Cubbison, creating a superficial and childish need to try to blame her for the financial shortcomings which have put the Board on the spot with their employees as months and months of delay go by, in turn putting the Board under more pressure from employees and outside agencies. 

But, lead by Williams and Gjerde who continue to insist that they bear no responsibility for the rift between the Board and Cubbison, the Board continues to try shift the blame to Cubbison who, correctly, refuses to accept it.

Unless Williams and Gjerde and McGourty stop pestering Cubbison about problems that she bears no responsibility for, this situation is not likely to improve. 

At the moment we’re supposed to get some very belated budget carryover info at the end of this month when last Fiscal year’s books close (five months after the fiscal year ended). If, as the union suspects, the systemic vacancies have created any budget cushion, the problem might ebb some. But if there’s no/not enough cushion, no COLA, no new employee contracts with somewhat competitive rasies, the pressure on the Board will increase and, if history is any guide, the “Get Cubbison” tendency will only worsen. 

POMO WEAVERS SOCIETY ARTISTS FEATURED AT UKIAH CORNER GALLERY

by Laura Fogg

November is Native American Cultural Awareness Month, which is the perfect time for the Corner Gallery to feature the Pomo Weavers Society in their front windows.

Silver Galleto, the founding member of the group, is very excited to have this opportunity for outreach with the public. He wants to let people know that Pomo weavers are active and trying to reestablish many of their traditions, especially basket making, that haven’t been fully practiced for decades.

This show will feature a wide variety of contemporary baskets made by Pomo artists from three counties: Mendocino, Lake and Sonoma. In addition, there will be other woven items such as a dowry bag, and photos of both the gathering process and PWS members who are restoring this part of their rich heritage.

Silver is a teacher who is passionate about Pomo weaving. He is always looking for more Pomo students so he can teach people the traditional skills and then allow them to teach others. Over the last three years the Pomo Weavers Society has created many mentors who are now actively teaching the skills to others. “This,” says Silver, “is my dream… as one person cannot do it all.”

The growing group of mentors represent a wide span of ages… the youngest is pre-teen and there are several elders. Silver affirms that it is never too late to learn. He adds, “I wish I had started teaching earlier, but it took me a while to get started.” Now he has been doing it for several decades.  Silver’s enthusiasm is contagious… he says,  “I’m truly excited that there are so many people who want to learn and gather now. We want hundreds of weavers continuing our traditional greatness.” He continues, “I’m huge on tradition and culture. I believe that reviving our traditional ways is not only going to strengthen our People but also make our ancestors proud in the process.”

Corine Pearce also has a lot of baskets that will be in the show. She started weaving about the same time that Silver did when she was 9. Although they were both weaving for many years their paths never crossed. When they eventually met they were both surprised to learn that other people were weaving, as they both thought they were alone.

The Pomo Weavers Society is a new group that started in 2019, right before the pandemic. The group had only met in person twice before the pandemic hit and everything was shut down. “Out of necessity,” Corine explains, “we changed the way basket weaving was taught… we made online videos and held zoom calls instead of teaching with the traditional in-person mentor. “Somehow we survived and now we are looking forward to moving forward with a greater number of members committed to preserving this beautiful art form that is our heritage.”

(ukiahdailyjournal.com)

SERIAL COASTAL RAPIST CONVICTED

A Mendocino County Superior Court jury returned from its deliberations Friday with guilty verdicts and a true finding "across the board" against the trial defendant.

Defendant Anthony William Oakley, age 30, of Albion, was found guilty of felony assault with intent to commit rape on Jane Doe #1; forcible spousal rape, a felony, on Jane Doe #2; forcible rape, a felony, on Jane Doe #3; a separate forcible rape on Jane Doe #3; criminal threats, a felony, on Jane Doe #2; and criminal threats, a felony, on Jane Doe #3.

The jury also found true a special sentencing allegation alleging that defendant Oakley committed forcible sex crimes against more than one victim. 

The jury returned after its efficient deliberations Friday morning to render the above verdicts. 

After the jury was excused, the defendant was returned to Mendocino County Jail. 

Oakley will next appear in court on Monday morning where Judge Keith Faulder will determine the existence of aggravating factors. 

Thereafter, the case will be set for judgment and sentencing, and referred to the Mendocino County Adult Probation Department for a background study and sentencing recommendation. 

The attorney handling the prosecution of this defendant and presented the People's evidence to the jury was Assistant District Attorney Dale P. Trigg.

The law enforcement agencies that gathered the evidence underlying today's convictions were the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office and the District Attorney's own investigators. 

Special thanks are extended to the sexual assault expert who testified at trial as a prosecution witness.

Mendocino County Superior Court Judge Keith Faulder presided over the two-week trial and will continue to oversee future proceedings in this case. 

(DA Presser)

Previously: https://theava.com/archives/115777#3

ATTENTION, HILL MUFFS

Press release from Department of Cannabis Control (DCC):

This guidance is to remind all Department of Cannabis Control (DCC) licensees, regardless of license type, of their responsibility to comply with environmental laws and regulations related to the operation of generators.

Specifically, the use of internal combustion engine generators is generally prohibited for primary or supplemental power to a licensee’s building, facility, or premises. In limited circumstances, emergency internal combustion generators and turbines may be allowed if they are operated under an existing permit issued by the applicable Air District, or if they are registered under the California Air Resources Board’s (CARB) Portable Equipment Registration Program (PERP). The operation of such internal combustion generators and turbines must be on a temporary, emergency basis and must comply with the terms and conditions of the applicable permit or registration.

In addition to the above requirements that apply to all licensees, cultivators specifically must also comply with the requirements provided in California Code of Regulations, title 4, section 16306.

Please be aware that connecting unauthorized generators or using such generators in a manner that is inconsistent with the terms and conditions of the applicable permit or registration, may result in the shutdown and removal of the equipment. It may also subject the licensee to disciplinary action from the applicable Air District, CARB, and/or the DCC.

Specific questions regarding the operation of generators at your premises may be directed to your local Air District. Follow the links below for additional information.

Resources:

California Air Resources Board’s Portable Equipment Registration Program (PERP)

California Air Resources Board’s Frequently Asked Questions on PERP

Find your Applicable Air District

Air District Rules

Department of Cannabis Current Code of Regulations

* * *

BEN ROUNDS COMMENTS: At this time, this seems like a calculated move to put a nail in the coffin of all the off grid (legacy / “Dirty hippie pot farmers!”) in the hills. Many farms have failed due to the over regulation and the undermining of the small-medium industry by the government.

Now they go in for the kill! They know off grid farms can’t survive year ’round off alternative power sources. They have always wanted to get the growers out of the hills and onto flat (easily regulated and surveilled) lands.

I support changes to be made to protect the climate/planet. We all have to suck it up in our lifestyles and choices as best we can. And yes. If someone is running an indoor operation off grid, burning fossil fuels 10-12 months a year, that seems like a bad plan. But the agencies/ government are exploiting the climate issue to meet their agenda.

Lots of comments here reflect the truth about the contradictions of these rules. And while I agree to some point Redwood Dan, I disagree with one of your assertions: ‘The system isn’t broken’. It’s functioning just as planned, stab after stab, to kill the legacy farmers off!

WUSSY VALLEY

Editor,

I haven’t been to Boonville in 55 years. Back then we heard that the place was full of rough and tough loggers and millworkers and cowboys, hard working all day and hard drinking all night, smashing up the bar rooms and eating hippies for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And these rough cobs of men were descendants of people who walked across the country to hack homesteads out of the wilderness and killed bears just to have warm rugs! So it doesn’t really compute that today’s contemporaries whine about losing sleep to some rich bastards’ noisy machinery. The old boys would have taken care of business. Today? Sounds like Pussy Valley to me.

Ed Baines

Hood Mountain

QUESTIONS FOR WES

Esteemed Editors:

Wes Smoot’s AVA page one article two weeks ago on the history of AV Brewing Company was a killer. Wes is himself a historical artifact because of his deep knowledge of The Valley’s history. And he’s a great journalist too.

Two questions of fact: First, I believed Wiese’s Valley Inn burned down before my settlement here in 1971. Any number of bar connoisseurs and storytellers were mourning its demise in my first years here, and if it had still been alive, I would have visited it, along with the Lodge and the Hotel, in my own local socializing. 

Two: Wes, who’s the current AV Brewery owner? One rumor I heard recently said it was Sierra Nevada Company. True?

And, please, more stories.

Brad Wiley

Navarro

---

ms replies: We found an interesting answer to Question Two: northbaybusinessjournal.com/article/industrynews/kevin-mcgee-of-mendocino-countys-anderson-valley-brewing-wins-wine-beer/

THANK YOU LETTER FROM THE AV HISTORICAL SOCIETY TO THE WINEGROWERS GROUP

Before too much time goes by, the Board of Directors of the AV Historical Society would like to extend a sincere and public thank you to the Anderson Valley Winegrowers Association for including us in the their October 21, Harvest Tidrick Pig Roast Dinner, and especially for hosting a silent auction at that fun event to benefit the AVHS. The Winegrowers Association went out of their way to secure the majority of the auction items, and their efforts resulted in over $4,000 raised for the Historical Society/History Museum. 

Part of the fun of that outdoor Pig Roast dinner at the Fairgrounds was the Boontling Learning game that turned out to be so much fun. Guests at the dinner found a Boontling word with definition at each Wine Grower’s table, assembled sentences, and then came to the Historical Society table to read those sentences aloud to us. The game was a hit, and most of those sentences brought laughs all around. And so, again, we say thanks for bringing us into your event. 

Jerry Karp

Boonville

THE GREAT REDWOOD BOONDOGGLE

Editor: 

As a lifelong Democrat, I normally vote for Democratic candidates. In the case of state Sen. Mike McGuire, I’m not voting for him because of his sneaky politics and lack of understanding of the economy and transportation on the North Coast.

McGuire helped engineer the demise of the North Coast Rail Authority, which was created by the state to promote operation of the railroad line from the Bay Area to Humboldt Bay. McGuire has guaranteed that North Coast communities will be forever cut off from the rest of the country in terms of economic development for rail freight and passenger travel.

This, of course, is in the name of the Great Redwood Trail boondoggle, which will cost more to build than if the line were rebuilt to operate trains. McGuire will do everything in his power to remove any possibility to resurrect the railroad in the name of his trail project. Public officials are supposed to be impartial, but McGuire sold his soul to Friends of the Eel River in favor of trading the railroad for a trail.

Michael Strider

Santa Rosa

CATCH OF THE DAY, Friday, November 4, 2022

SUSAN ABEL, El Sobrante/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, resisting.

KALIA AVANSINO, Willits. Domestic battery.

JOHN BARRY, Covelo. Domestic battery, domestic violence court order violation, probation revocation.

ELLIOT COLYN, Forestville/Ukiah. Domestic battery, vandalism.

RONALD DAVIS, Fort Bragg. Controlled substance, contempt of court, failure to appear.

JAMES DODD JR., Willits. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, county parole violation, probation revocation.

LEGEN EDGE, Fort Bragg. Protective order violation, probation revocation.

BRADY GOFORTH, Willits. Controlled substance, stolen property, unlawful display of registration.

RITA LAVENDUSKEY, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol. (Frequent flyer.)

RAMON MACIEL, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol. (Frequent flyer.)

DANIEL MEDEIROS, Ukiah. DUI.

ROBERT NUTT III, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

JESSICA STEVENS, Willits. Failure to appear.

AMID STEEP INFLATION, One Thing Is Getting Cheaper: Cannabis

U.S. consumers continue to face the highest prices in decades for gasoline and other products, but if they’re in a state that allows sales of cannabis, at least they’re paying less for legal weed. Amid price rivalries — not only between legal cannabis companies but also against sales from the illicit market — the cost of wholesale pot has plunged and supply has climbed. The evidence is clear in the country’s largest legal cannabis market, California, which notched a whopping $1 billion in sales in the past year.

California has seen cannabis prices as low as $100 a pound, a fraction of the average cost of $786 for an untrimmed, dried pound in the state, according to a report released Tuesday by Leafly. As farmers in California increased pot production by 63 metric tons, the value of the state’s weed harvest has dropped in the face of price competition. “Consumers are seeing unheard-of-bargains in 2022, with $20 retail eighths [of an ounce] now the norm,” Leafly said in its Cannabis Harvest Report.…

marketwatch.com/story/amid-steep-inflation-one-thing-is-getting-cheaper-marijuana-11667587413

CHUCK WILCHER writes from Sydney, Ohio: "I love these old court houses"

MEMO OF THE AIR: GOOD NIGHT RADIO ALL NIGHT FRIDAY NIGHT!

Hi, Marco here. Deadline to email your writing for tonight's (Friday night's) MOTA show is around 7pm. After that, send it whenever it's ready and I'll read it on the radio next week. Or maybe even tonight anyway, if I remember to look at my phone.

Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio is every Friday, 9pm to 5am on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg as well as anywhere else via TuneIn.com or KNYO.org.

Any day or night you can go to https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com and hear last week's MOTA show. By Saturday night the recording of tonight's show will also be there. And you'll find a bazaar of wonders to browse among and occupy your amazement until showtime, or any time, such as:

It takes about one minute for a crook to arrive, jack up your car, chop the catalytic converter out from under it and get clean away. They sell it for $100 for the expensive metal it contains. It costs you anywhere from $1500 to over $3000 to get it replaced, because it's against the law for a shop to install a used one from a wrecking yard. You can add about $400 to to the cost of mere repair to add a shield over the part so next time the thieves come around, they'll look underneath, see that it will take them /ten/ minutes, give up and go to the next house and steal one there instead. What a world. Here, watch them work. Oh, wait, I forgot; there's a second guy here. He's the apprentice. His job is just to observe and to get the hubcaps. In the old days, on every trip to the city, you'd see a car here or there up on concrete blocks, that they'd taken everything off of and out of: lights, motor, seats, bumpers, wheels, brake parts, even the glass. You don't get that so much anymore. Now it's just this loaf-of-bread-size thing that is prized.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcE1_r51FmU

Witches going to their Sabbath. So soft and delicious looking. (via Everlasting Blort)

https://arthistoryproject.com/artists/luis-ricardo-falero/witches-going-to-their-sabbath/

And where would we be without the tireless and mostly thankless efforts of the Federal Occult Range Management Administration? In Hell, boys, that's where we'd be. Burning in Hell, on Earth. (via PerfectForRoquefortCheese)

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2022/10/federal-occult-range-management-administration/

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

IS THERE A FIRE EXTINGUISHER IN THE HOUSE?

Wake Up Postmodern America. Your ass is on fire!!! Am presently doing nothing of any crucial importance in California's Mendocino County. I am available for spiritually focused direct action, in response to the deranged earthly civilization's suicidal environmental behavior, war crazy societies, and general spiritual confusion. Otherwise, I am sleeping at the Building Bridges homeless shelter in Ukiah, California, and bottom lining the trash & recycling voluntary chore because it needs to be done. Freely eating at the Catholic Worker Plowshares dining room (Jesus doesn't care if you are a vegetarian), am enjoying an occasional beer at local sports bars to maintain balance, and constantly sending out these messages which get published online, read over a Fort Bragg, CA radio station, and posted on the Independent Media Center websites in San Francisco and Washington, D.C. which usually take them off and I have no idea why. I am accepting as much money as I can get. Go ahead and forward this out as far and wide as possible. 

Craig Louis Stehr, craiglouisstehr@gmail.com

RAY GUY, the first punter to be selected in the first round of the National Football League draft and, eventually, the first inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, died on Thursday in Hattiesburg, Miss. He was 72.

The cause was advanced-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, his son, Ryan, said.

It took until 2014, 28 years after his retirement, for Guy, who spent his entire career with the Oakland (and later Los Angeles) Raiders, to don the coveted gold Hall of Fame jacket. He was the first — and, to date, the only — member of the Hall whose sole job had been punting. Many people — including Guy himself — wondered aloud why it had taken so long.

He was “the best punter I’ve ever known,” Guy’s former coach John Madden, himself a Hall of Famer, once said. “When we first drafted him, it was a heck of a choice. I thought then he could be the greatest in the league, but I changed my mind. I think Ray proved he’s the best of all time.”…

nytimes.com/2022/11/03/sports/football/ray-guy-dead.html

SPIKE LEE’S MUCH PRAISED and overrated 2018 film “Blackkklansman,” about the Colorado Springs undercover cop who became a member of the Klan to spy on their activities comes across more as a ham-fisted and shallow black comedy instead of what the real story was: a clever undercover cop doing his job. 

Zack Anderson effectively panned Lee’s movie in August of 2018: https://theava.com/archives/86506#5

In Lee’s barely watchable version, the Colorado Springs KKKers in the seventies were the stereotypical goofy bunch of semi-literates who blindly hate black people, and Ron Stallworth, the black cop who figures out a way to become a member, is a brave, crusading activist. 

But Stallworth’s memoir “Black Klansman: Race, Hate and the Undercover Investigation of a Lifetime” upon which the film is loosely based is much more nuanced and interesting, focusing mainly on the actual undercover operation Stallworth lead.

Of course there’s a humurous novelty to the idea of a black cop becoming a member of the Klan, but that’s mostly a passing, if unusual, feature of Stallworth’s memoir. 

In 1978 there was no internet and David Duke had not been Grand Poobah of the Klan for very long. But when Stallworth, then a rookie undercover cop, stumbled across a Klan recruiting ad in the local newspaper and followed up, he just wanted to keep an eye on the local Klan so that law enforcement would be aware of whatever actual illegal activities they might be up to. 

Along the way we learn about the history of the KKK, the not so clear line betweeen investigation and entrapment, the relationship between Stallworth and David Duke and his Colorado cronies, a few close calls when Stallworth narrowly avoided exposure…

The story/investigation unfolds into directions that become so absurd that they are hard to believe, but by all accounts, Stallworth’s memoir is a true story.

Lee’s film has a few predictable PC-style laughs, of course, and Lee inserts a love interest and a false ending that are irrelevant and not in Stallworth’s book. But the details of Stallworth’s unique Colorado Springs undercover operation are much more dramatic in their own right.

Reading Stallworth’s saga, one can’t help but wonder what kind of (presumably more modern) undercover operations might have been underway in the months and days leading up to January 6, 2021. If somebody like Stallworth had been involved, we doubt it would have played out the way it did.

Lee’s film is not recommended; Stallworth’s book is.

(Mark Scaramella)

NBC NEWS PULLS REPORT CLAIMING PAUL PELOSI DIDN’T INDICATE “EMERGENCY” TO COPS: REPORT

by Mark Lungariello

NBC News pulled a report Friday that claimed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband didn’t let on that he was in any danger when cops showed up at his home just prior to the hammer attack on him.

The now-deleted clip said Paul Pelosi, 82, answered the door for cops who responded to a 911 call at the San Francisco home, but the officers were “seemingly unaware they had been called to the home of the speaker of the House.”

Pelosi didn’t “declare an emergency” or try to leave, but instead walked several feet back into the foyer toward armed attacker David DePape, who had broken into the home last Friday and was carrying a hammer, sources told NBC.

The report, which cited sources familiar with the matter, said it wasn’t clear what Pelosi’s mental state was or if he had already been hurt.

The NBC report from Friday was taken down with the explanation, “The piece should not have aired because it did not meet NBC News reporting standards.”

The report contradicted court documents filed in DePape’s case that said Pelosi “nervously but calmly greeted” officers in a dimly lit foyer where both men stood.

An officer asked what was going on and DePape responded “everything’s good” before a flashlight revealed he was holding a hammer with one hand and Pelosi’s arm with the other. The account in the NBC report did not say whether DePape was holding Pelosi’s arm when cops arrived.

Mr. Pelosi had his hand “on the top of the handle near the hammer itself,” court documents said.

An officer yelled for DePape to drop the hammer and the madman replied, “Um nope” before he wrested the hammer free from Pelosi’s grip, stepped back, and lunged at the elderly man to strike him in the head, full-force, according to court papers.

According to reports, David DePape told prosecutors he was on a “suicide mission” and planned to take Nancy Pelosi hostage and break her kneecaps if she lied to him.

Pelosi was knocked unconscious and was unresponsive for three minutes until he woke up in “a pool of his own blood,” the documents stated. He suffered a fractured skull and was released from the hospital Thursday.

The court documents also outline how Pelosi — who was woken up by the intruder after 2 a.m. — tried to keep the attacker calm and even assured him cops wouldn’t be coming. He placed a 911 call where he appeared not to try to alarm DePape, according to the narrative. A dispatcher sent cops on a top-priority wellness check.

DePape had smashed his way into the home through a rear door looking for the House speaker, who was in Washington, DC. He was on a “suicide mission” and planned to take Nancy Pelosi hostage and break her kneecaps if she lied to him, he later told prosecutors.

The attacker is facing federal and state charges for the alleged attack.

(New York Post)

GEORGE BOOTH, the New Yorker cartoonist who created a world of oddballs sharing life’s chaos with a pointy-eared bull terrier that once barked a flower to death, and sometimes with a herd of cats that shredded couches and window shades between sweet naps, died on Tuesday at his home in Brooklyn. He was 96.

His daughter and only immediate survivor, Sarah Booth, said the cause was complications of dementia.

In a typical Booth cartoon, a lot happens at once. A stunned dog leaps three feet in the air. A shocked cat bounds for an open window, knocking a newspaper from the hands of a shaken man — all as his frumpy wife stands in a kitchen doorway with blackened eyes, announcing: “Eyeliner is back!”

Or, as a score of cats lounge in a parlor and a man in pajamas scowls into a newspaper in his easy chair, his wife in the kitchen says: “Edgar, please run down to the shopping center right away, and get some milk and cat food. Don’t get canned tuna, or chicken, or liver, or any of those awful combinations. Shop around and get a surprise. The pussies like surprises.”

Or, as a neighbor with a big nose peers over a backyard fence, 10 cats bound out of a back door to freedom and scatter in all directions as a woman at the open screen door shouts after them: “Everyone be home by two o’clock!”…

nytimes.com/2022/11/02/arts/george-booth-dead.html

WHY DOES ‘K’ STAND FOR A STRIKEOUT IN BASEBALL?

The box score of a baseball game is filled with all kinds of shorthand, which is necessitated by the desire for a concise encapsulation of the contest and by the constraints of print space, since box scores were found only in newspapers for the first century of their existence. As a result, baseball fans are familiar with the common abbreviations of the box score, such as E (error), HR (home run), DP (double play), and SB (stolen base). All of those have fairly obvious origins, but what about K, which stands for strikeout?

The use of K has arguably transcended the box score to a greater degree than any other shorthand notation. The letter is often chanted by fans in a stadium when an opponent has two strikes, and placards with K on them are frequently displayed around a stadium to count how many strikeouts the home team’s pitcher has tallied. However, most of these fans are likely not aware that the catchy abbreviation they’re using owes its origin to a 19th-century Englishman who simply ran out of letters.

That man, Henry Chadwick, was a writer who had transferred his love of cricket to baseball when he saw the new game played in 1856. While working as a baseball reporter, Chadwick created many of the now-common features of baseball scoring and statistics keeping, including the numbers used to denote defensive positions (1 for pitcher, 2 for catcher, etc.). He had already chosen S to stand for sacrifice in a box score, so he used K for a strikeout, since that is the last letter in “struck,” which was at the time the most popular way to refer to a batter’s being out after three strikes. (A backwards K has come to indicate that a batter struck out without swinging at the third strike.) Chadwick’s box score of an 1859 game has been recognized as the first box score ever (although there are a number of sources that dispute this claim), and his choices made in it have reverberated throughout baseball history. His impact on how we describe the game was so great that Chadwick became the only journalist officially enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

— Bill Bryson

"Life is going to beat the stuffing out of you. It is. You're going to fall to the ground over and over, and you have to know that the glory, the victory, is in getting up. Once you stand up after a defeat, the view is new and different and richer, and you have to want very badly to get up and see what's there. You may, forgive me, look forward to the beatings and the crashes."

— Harold Pinter/interview with James Grissom

2,747,943: NUMBER OF PALESTINIANS living in the West Bank.

0: number of Palestinians living in the West Bank who were permitted to vote in the Israeli elections.

687: the number of houses and buildings Israel has demolished in the West Bank this year.

Thomas Friedman took to his usual pasture in the NYT to graze over the re-election of Netanyahu and concluded that the “Israel We Knew is Gone.” Who’s this “we” you’re talking about, Friedman? And what “Israel”? The Israel of Sabra and Shatila? The Israel that ran over Rachel Corrie? The Israel of phosphorus bombs in Gaza? The Israel of an Apartheid Wall? The Israel that shot Linda Abu Akleh in the head? History ain’t changed. 

— Jeff St. Clair

EMILY OSTER’S PLEA BARGAIN

by James Kunstler

By now, everybody and his uncle has seen Emily Oster’s plea for “pandemic amnesty” in The Atlantic magazine, a house organ of the people in America who know better than you do about… really… everything. Emily’s wazoo is so stuffed with gold-plated credentials (BA, PhD, Harvard; economics prof at Brown U) it’s a wonder that she could sit down long enough to peck out her lame argument that “we need to forgive one another for what we did and said when we were in the dark about COVID.”

Emily wasn’t “in the dark.” She had access to the same information as the Americans who recognized that everything the public health authorities, the medical establishment, and many elected officials shoveled out about Covid and its putative remedies and preventatives was untrue, with a patina of bad faith and malice — especially when it was used to persecute their political adversaries.

These dissenters turned out to be “right for the wrong reasons,” she declared, the main reason being that they were not aligned in good-think with the Woke-Jacobinism of her fellow “progressives” at Brown U, and academics all across the land, who were righteously busy destroying the intellectual life of the nation, making it impossible for the thinking class to think.

Let’s face it: every society actually needs a thinking class, a cohort able to frame important issues-of-the-moment that require vigorous discussion in the public arena to align our collective thoughts and deeds with reality. America used to have a pretty good thinking class, with a pretty good free press and many other platforms for opinion — all animated by respect for the First Amendment to the Constitution.

The thinking class destroyed public debate by zealously promoting a new censorship regime in every American institution, shutting down free speech and, more crucially, the necessary debate for aligning our politics with reality. Hence, America’s thinking class became the torchbearers of unreality, in step with the Party of Chaos which seized the levers of power. This included the powers of life and death in the matter of Covid-19.

These were the people who militated against effective early treatment protocols (to cynically preserve the drug companies’ emergency use authorization (EUA) and thus their liability shields); the people who enforced the deadly remdesivir-and-ventilator combo in hospital treatment protocols; the people who rolled out the harmful and ineffective “vaccines”; who fired and vilified doctors who disagreed with all that; and who engineered a long list of abusive policies that destroyed businesses, livelihoods, households, reputations, and futures.

How did it happen that the thinking class destroyed thinking and betrayed itself? Because the status competition for moral righteousness in the sick milieu of the campus became more important to them than the truth. In places like Brown U, what you saw was an escalating contest for status brownie-points, which is what virtue-signaling is all about. And the highest virtue was going along with whatever “experts” and people-in-authority said — the pathetic virtue of submission. Anything that got in the way of going along — such as differences of opinion — had to be crushed, stamped out, and with a vicious ruthlessness to teach the dissenters a lesson: dissent will not be tolerated!

Some thinking class. The case of Emily Oster should be particularly and painfully disturbing, since she affects to specialize, as an economist, on “pregnancy and parenting” (her own website declares), while the Covid regime of public health officialdom she supported instigated a horrendous pediatric health crisis that is ongoing — it was only days ago that the CDC added the harmful mRNA “vaccines” to its childhood immunization schedule for the purpose of conferring permanent legal immunity for the drug companies after the EUA ends, a dastardly act. Where’s Ms. Oster’s plea to the CDC to cease and desist trying to vaccinate kids with mRNA products?

The CDC is still running TV commercials (during World Series ballgames!) touting its “booster” shots when only weeks ago a top Pfizer executive, Janine Small (“Regional President for Vaccines of International Developed Markets”), revealed in testimony to the European Union Parliament that her company never tested its “vaccine” for preventing transmission of SARS CoV-2. The CDC under Director Rochelle Walensky is still extra-super-busy concealing or fudging its statistical data to obfuscate the emerging picture that MRNA “vaccines” are responsible for the shocking rise of “all-causes deaths” in the most heavily-vaxxed nations. In short, the authorities are to this minute still running their whole malign operation.

Notably, Ms. Oster’s plea for amnesty and forgiveness, showcased in The Atlantic, omits any discussion of accountability for what amounts to serious crimes against the public. A whole lot of people deserve to be indicted for killing and injuring millions of people. At the heart of her plea is the excuse that “we didn’t know” official Covid policy was so misguided. That’s just not true, of course, and is simply evidence of the thinking class’s recently-acquired allergy to truth. The part she left out of her petition for pandemic amnesty is: we were only following orders.

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

BASICALLY, anyone talking sense about Ukraine in Washington is being shut down by forces within the political parties themselves working together with a compliant national media that is mis-representing everything that is taking place on the ground. It is a formula for tragedy as the Biden administration has shown no sign of seeking diplomacy with Russia to end the conflict despite the president’s recent surprising warning that the world is now facing the highest risk of nuclear “Armageddon,” which he, of course, blames on Putin. Given all of that, in my humble opinion a government that is unable or unwilling to take reasonable steps to protect its own citizens while also avoiding a possible nuclear catastrophe that could end up engulfing the entire world is fundamentally evil and has lost all legitimacy.

— Philip Giraldi 

WHEN THE VOTES COME IN on Tuesday night and some of the most rancid characters we’ve ever seen get elected and the GOP takes back both the House and Senate, remember that Pelosi and Schumer funded many of the primary campaigns of these pied piper candidates, thinking–wrongly, as ever–they’d be unelectable–just as unelectable as Trump. 

— Jeff St. Clair