Mendocino County Today: Tuesday, May 9, 2023

Clearing | Country Scene | Hospice AV | Plant Sale | Grocery Outlet | Senior Shuttle | Mo Reporting | Figure Drawing | Ed Notes | King Book | AV Events | Ancient Grader | Suspicious Circumstances | Loneliness | Life Sentence | Wavy Birthday | Wasteful Spending | Vida Snapshots | HREC Fundraiser | Will Buchanan | Yesterday's Catch | Do Something | Antibiotic Misuse | Jet Advisors | Game 4 | Longest Homer | After War | Man Fun | Current Media | Governor Grieve | Becoming Dead | Labor Movement | Dysfunctional Relationship | Landline Terror | Connie Converse | New Commercials

COOLER THAN NORMAL temperatures will continue through Wednesday. Isolated showers are possible each afternoon. A warming and drying trend will begin late in the week with above normal inland temperatures from Friday through Monday. Warm temperatures are also possible at the coast by the weekend. (NWS)

HOSPICE OF UKIAH SERVICES ARE COMING TO ANDERSON VALLEY

For over 41 years Hospice of Ukiah has been caring for "our community" (communities) in Mendocino County. They believe in life with comfort and death with dignity. They are funded entirely by donations and bequests, along with support of many volunteers in raising funds and providing care. Hospice of Ukiah accepts no government or private insurance and their services are without charge to anyone who needs them. Services beyond Ukiah are difficult to provide without donations to cover the medical staff, as well as the recruitment and training of volunteers.

Mark Apfel, MD and Judy Nelson, RN, have been providing services for Hospice of Ukiah in the Anderson Valley for many years. We want to expand services to the Anderson Valley to include a part-time nurse, a personal care assistant and more volunteers. The Anderson Valley Hospice Committee is under the auspices of Hospice of Ukiah. The committee currently is comprised of Judy Nelson, Lauren Keating, Donna Pierson-Pugh, Susan Bridge-Mount, Linda Murphy and Elizabeth Summers.

We are inviting community members who are interested to hear more about this program and possibly volunteer to join us, on Tuesday, May 23rd at the Boonville Fire House from 2:00 to 3:00 pm.

We ask that the community support our efforts with a donation to help Hospice of Ukiah provide services in Anderson Valley. Checks can be written to Hospice of Ukiah with a note “for Anderson Valley.” The address for mailings: Hospice of Ukiah, 620 Dora St., Ukiah, CA 95482.

JUDY VALADAO: As the Grocery Outlet meeting gets nearer, I’ve been wondering why anyone would oppose it. It’s not like it’s mandated that you have to shop there. If you don’t want to shop at Grocery Outlet simply keep your hands on the wheel and bypass it. Seems simple enough doesn’t it? 

Does anyone (including those opposed) remember during the fire emergencies when we had hundreds if not thousands of people coming to the coast for a reprieve from the heat and smoke? Does anyone remember how empty the grocery shelves were in all of the Markets/Stores in town? Have people so soon forgotten what the shelves looked like during covid? I have a feeling even those opposed would be banging on the door of Grocery Outlet to grab what they can if it wasn’t available any place else. Would they swallow their pride of not shopping at Grocery Outlet to grab a 4 pack of toilet paper off the shelf if it wasn’t available at any other location? I believe the answer to those questions is “yes, they would.” If they say they wouldn’t then I would gladly trade them a 4 pack for a bottle of Pink Whitney should it come down to that. 

Some of the same people opposed to Grocery Outlet are concerned about a way out of Fort Bragg should a disaster strike. Are they not concerned about what happens if they don’t get out during a disaster/emergency? They may as well be out in the middle of the sand dunes on a life raft waiting to paddle their way to safety. Within a day or two the grocery shelves will be empty. Seems to me having another store with supplies would be a good thing. It could be the very thing that gets people through another day until help can arrive. 

At the time the appeal was filed for the Grocery Outlet project Vice Mayor Jessica Morsell-Haye, councilmember Marcia Rafanan, and councilmember Lindy Peters voted to deny the appeal, while Tess Albin-Smith voted to uphold the appeal. Mayor Bernie Norvell recused himself. Before voting to uphold the appeal Albin-Smith stated “she wanted to have the EIR completed, and then move the project forward.” Well, now that the EIR has been completed and if the Planning Commission approves the project and we see yet another appeal filed, will Albin-Smith stay true to her words?

Town Hall on May 10, 2023 at 6:00 p.m. Even if you write, please show up to support this project.

The clock is ticking…get your letters (or simply say “I support the Grocery Outlet project” to cdd@fortbragg.com)

ATTENTION AV SENIORS! Escape the parking hassles at the Variety Show this weekend. The AV Senior Bus, driven by the one and only Lindsay Clow, will be shuttling folks to the show on Friday, May 12th and Saturday, May 13th. Pick ups will be starting at the Philo post office at approximately 5:15 pm and the AV Senior Center at approximately 5:30 pm. Lindsay will then drop you off at the Grange. $1 per rider donation to the Center is appreciated. Leave a message at the AVSC at 707-895-3609 by noon on Friday to get on the sign up list. Please leave your name, phone number, how many people in your party and the location where you wish to be picked up. OR: Come on in to the Boonville Senior Center on Thursday, have a nice lunch and sign up in person. To help streamline your show entry, Captain Rainbow recommends to get your tickets in advance if possible. Enjoy the show!

SUPERVISOR MULHEREN: I had about 50 folks at my Virtual Town Hall on Cannabis and 0 at my Town Hall on Mental Health and Substance Abuse. I know everyone has busy schedules so no need to have a Town Hall if you have all the information you need. Please let me know if you can attend this town hall in June and if you'd like an email reminder.

Mulheren Supervisors Report Excerpts:

March 1: When members of the Board bring an item forward there is often staff coordination, in order to bring my cannabis tax item forward I worked with several departments and on March 1st I had a meeting with Chamise Cubbison and Cheyanne Gordon to talk about the process of bringing the item forward and the workload impact on the department. 

March 2, 2023: At the regularly scheduled Emergency Medical Care Committee Meeting – Discussion regarding the presentation that was made to the BOS for continued funding for the $1,000,000 in PG&E Funding for the start up of an ambulance JPA. Fire Districts are calling for the completion of the JPA however there isn’t a position at the County that is currently working full time on this project so they are getting through it as quickly as they can. Director Emery is working with the LMSA and using the AP Triton study to try and get to a resolution. 

(ms notes: Supervisor Gjerde recently described this $1 million JPA boondoggle “a giant waste of dollars.”)

March 3, 2023: While MSWMA has been without a Director I have been doing more direct work with the staff, including signing checks etc. 

March 8, 2023: Meet with Chamise and Cheyanne regarding Cannabis Business Tax item 

March 13, 2023: Discussion re new courthouse with Janelle Rau, Steve Dunicliff, Shannon Riley from the City of Ukiah and Kim Turner from the Courts. We set up a regular meeting so that we (the County) can plan strategically for when the Courthouse relocates, and the City of Ukiah is interested in being an active participant due to the changes that will occur Downtown.

(ms notes: “Planning strategically should at least include demanding that the courts pay for any impact their giant concrete money-waster creates for the County. But it won’t.)

March 24, 2023 Meet re Skunk Train and the future Great Redwood Trail. 

(ms Notes: We’ve very curious about the “nexus” of the Skunk Train and the Great Redwood Boondoggle.)

ED NOTES

FOR MANY YEARS ending in 1972 when she moved to San Francisco at age 81, Agnes Fleming lived with her disabled son in the hills west of Mountain House Road between Yorkville and Hopland. She and her son, Charles, lived in a stone house they built for themselves out of river rock. Agnes had bought the Mountain House property when she returned from a life lived in Mexico. She was renowned in the Hopland area as a hermit lady who'd push a battered baby carriage into Hopland along the ridgetops once a month or so to re-supply, and then back again the onerous way she'd come. Her son died while they lived in the stone house and is believed to be buried on the property. The nature of his disability is lost to time but it is known he could not function independently. At age 81 Agnes, or Agnus in some spellings, sold the property with its unique and distinctive stone house to spend her last years in San Francisco. The sale occurred in 1972. Though all that is known of the intriguing Agnes Fleming comes to us in the faintest of rumors, one of which says that she moved in the highest circles of Mexican society when she was young, having lived a remarkable life before she bought her remote property in Mendocino County to live the life of a recluse. Her stone home, presumed to have been built in the 1940s, was decorated with replica parrots and other Mexican memorabilia. She is said to have earned some money by allowing outsiders to hunt feral pigs on her property. If someone, anyone out there can fill in some of the unknown parts of this interesting woman's life your information would help tell another chapter of Mendocino County's fascinating human history.

ONE ENCOURAGING national development is the push-back against the reverse bigotry launched by the pseudo-left. Veteran actor Richard Dreyfuss didn’t mince words the other day when he was asked about diversity rules for movies to be eligible for the Oscar for Best Picture. “They make me vomit,” the Jaws star said on PBS’ Firing Line. “No one should be telling me as an artist that I have to give in to the latest, most current idea of what morality is.” Dreyfuss went on to say he didn’t have a problem with an actor wearing blackface. “There shouldn’t be because it’s patronizing—Because it says we’re so fragile that we can’t have our feelings hurt,” he said. “We have to anticipate having our feelings hurt, our children’s feelings hurt. We don’t know how to stand up and bop the bully in the face.”

THE WILLITS WEEKLY celebrated its tenth year in business last week, and its success as a start-up independent paper-newspaper is rare in itself these days and certainly a testament to the optimism and perseverance of founders, Jennifer Poole and Maureen Moore. I knew they were going to make it when the hedge-fund owned Willits News did not contest legal adjudication for their upstart competitor. Legal adjudication earns a newspaper the right to print legal ads, a crucial source of income, an income newspapers have fought long, bitter battles over. The SF Chron and SF Examiner to name one famous dispute.

MY ONLY CRITICISM of the WW is its design. The front page looks like a bad acid trip, a jumble of vivid reds, toothy North County personalities, differing font sizes, and continued stories. 

THE REVIVED BOONTLING CLASSIC under a second generation of Colfaxes was a great success Sunday morning, drawing a crowd of runners and walkers from all areas of Mendocino County and even further abroad to run, walk, stagger a pleasant two-plus miles of Anderson Valley Way from the elementary school to the Philo end of the road and back. Zane Colfax assures me he'll have the full race results in time for next week's paper.

ANDROID TECH SUPPORT & FREE HOME ASSESSMENT

Join us this Wednesday:

Android Phone Support Presentation (https://andersonvalley.helpfulvillage.com/events/3247) Wednesday, May 10th 11-Noon Anderson Valley Senior Center. Join AV Village Coordinator, Anica, for a presentation on using your Android smartphone and tips to make it easier to use for seniors. Bring your phones and questions or better yet ask me beforehand so I can prepare. And we welcome people that are comfortable with Android phones to help support other participants —€“ thank you!

And

Schedule A Free Home Assessment Through Mendocino Fire Council

Free Home Assesments Are Available! Schedule a free Home Assessment to help you prepare your home to withstand a wildfire. They also offer free Defensible Space Assistance For Income-Eligible senior and/or disabled residents (DSAFIE, https://firesafemendocino.org/DSAFIE/). For other residents of any age, ability or income level, they are currently seeking funding for a cost-share program that will pay half of the cost of your defensible-space clearing. Stay tuned for updates! More information and To schedule a free Home Assessment: https://firesafemendocino.org/home-assessments/

MOM’S BURIED IN THE BACKYARD; SIS GOT THE BENNIES; NOW SIS IS DEAD TOO

On Monday, April 24, 2023, the Ukiah Police Department was contacted by a male subject wishing to report suspicious circumstances following the recent death of his 58-year-old sister. The male, who resided out of state, had traveled to Ukiah after receiving information that his sister had been hospitalized. His sister had passed away earlier that day. 

He explained that his elderly mother had been residing in the same Ukiah home as his sister when he last had contact with his mother in 2013. In August of 2013 he was advised that his mother had passed away. His mother had been in poor health, so being told of her death did not arouse suspicion. He was advised by his sister that his mother’s remains had been transported to a medical research facility in accordance with her wishes. His sister continued to live at the same Ukiah residence following their mother's passing. 

He stated he had gone to his sister’s residence over recent days to attend to estate matters. During his check of the residence, he found numerous financial documents in his mother’s name, including recent banking and checking account activity. This was odd as his mother’s accounts should have been closed for approximately ten years. Because of this, he contacted UPD. UPD Detectives were advised of the circumstances and assumed the investigation. 

During the investigation, detectives learned that there was no official record of the mother’s passing, such as a death certificate, as would normally be done for any reported death. Based on the recent banking activity and lack of any documentation of the mother’s death, it was suspected that the sister had possibly hidden the death from officials in order to keep her mother’s accounts open. This would allow her to maintain access to her mother’s finances. Documents located in the residence supported this suspicion. 

As part of the investigation, a search of the property was conducted. Skeletal remains were located on the premises. These remains were then collected by the Coroner’s Office and later positively identified as the mother’s. The County Forensic Pathologist examined the remains and determined the cause of death to be natural. 

Based on all evidence gathered in the investigation, it was believed the sister had concealed her mother’s death from authorities in order to financially benefit via fraud following her mother’s passing. Due to the fact the sister was now deceased, a lack of additional investigative leads, and no evidence supporting a homicide, this case is no longer under investigation. 

(Ukiah Police Department)

ED NOTE: Why the secrecy, officer? Both mom and her perp daughter are dead. Did you check the backyard for more bodies? Hell, dad might be back there, too.

On the other hand, as Sartre said, "Hell is other people."

DOUBLE MURDER DEFENDANT CONVICTED

A Mendocino County Superior Court jury returned from its deliberations Monday afternoon to announce that it had found the trial defendant guilty.

Originally charged in Count One with murder in the first degree (meaning “willful, deliberate and premeditated”), defendant Christopher Wayne Gamble, age 48 of Willits, was instead found guilty by jury verdict of the murder in the second degree of Ulises Andrade Ayala, a lesser homicide crime, occurring at a marijuana grow on Sherwood Road. 

The jury found true a special allegation charged by the District Attorney that the defendant personally and intentionally discharged a firearm causing the demise of Mr. Andrade Ayala.

In a second count, defendant Gamble was found guilty by jury verdict of the murder in the first degree of Anwar Ayala Rodriguez, said killing occurring at the same grow site on Sherwood Road. 

Again, the jury found true a second special allegation that the defendant separately, personally and intentionally discharged a firearm causing the demise of Mr. Ayala Rodriguez.

In a third count, defendant Gamble was found guilty by jury verdict of animal abuse, a felony charge relating to a number of roosters found by law enforcement in a burn pile, along with the headless bodies of the two human victims. 

The severed heads of the human victims were never located by law enforcement. 

Finally, the jury found true a special circumstance alleging that defendant Gamble committed at least two murders, with at least one of the two being murder of the first degree. 

As the death penalty had been taken off the table by the prosecution early in the case, the true finding on the special circumstance will result in a sentence of LWOP, the acronym used for denoting a state prison sentence of life without the possibility of parole. 

The true findings on the two allegations alleging use of a firearm to commit murder carry a sentencing enhancement of 25 years to life each.

The law enforcement agencies that developed the evidence supporting Monday’s jury verdicts and findings were the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office, Mendocino Major Crimes Task Force, the Department of Justice crime laboratory, and the District Attorney’s own Bureau of Investigation.

Special thanks are also extended to Department of Anthropology at Chico State for their forensic assistance in the investigation, as well as to the Ukiah Valley Fire Authority for their assistance. 

The attorney who prepared the People’s case against defendant Gamble and argued the defendant’s guilt to the jury was Senior Deputy District Attorney Scott McMenomey.

Mendocino County Superior Court Judge Keith Faulder presided over the two-week trial.

JONAH RASKIN: I went to Wavy Gravy's 87th birthday bash last night. Great Music. Wavy was in the audience but didn't speak and didn't appear on stage. Maybe he's in poor health.

STOP WASTEFUL SPENDING

Editor,

I am a lifelong resident of Mendocino County. I have been the owner of a trucking company, school business manager and caregiver, to name a few. I have attended each of the Board of Supervisor meetings for over a year and believe our county needs strong business leadership and direction, which I am capable, eager, and willing to give.

There needs to be a standard of accountability and follow-through on many current issues. My priority would be to scrutinize each line of the county budget to eliminate wasteful spending. Those dollars could be refocused into our neglected roads placing focus on the maintenance of our thoroughfares.

Another area of focus would be directing attention to business development in Mendocino County. We need to look to making our area attractive to potential businesses by advocating for the development of pro-business county regulations.

I want to speak on behalf of everyone. I will be a public servant for the People!

Please vote for me March 5, 2024

Votecarrie2024@gmail.com or call me (707) 489-5178

Carrie Shattuck

Ukiah

NORM CLOW: Saying goodbye to Bay Area pitching legend Vida Blue, one of the nicest guys ever. These are my sister's and my favorite baseball photo. First is myself at the Marianas Ballroom at the Guam Hilton with Vida at the MCI Legends of Baseball tour on their way to Japan, 1995. I rattled off the starting line-up of the first Giants game at Seals Stadium in 1959, against Cincinnati, and he started calling more Legends over to hear about it. (Orlando Cepeda won the game on a lead-off home run in the bottom of the 9th over that low left field fence.) Second is about two months later at the “Build The Ballpark” office on Mission Street in San Francisco with Janice, who was a volunteer on the campaign and got to be on the field on Opening Day five years later. She knew he would be there for that day's activities, and showed him the photo, and his eyes bugged out, while he exclaimed, “Where did you get that? That was on Guam. Who is that?” “My brother Norm.” He grabbed her camera and got somebody to take the photo, saying, “We'll get your brother.”

CELEBRATE SCIENCE AND NATURE AT THE UC HOPLAND RESEARCH AND EXTENSION CENTER FUNDRAISER

Wildflowers are still blooming across the rolling hills of the 5,358 acre UC Hopland Research and Extension Center (HREC), a perfect time to celebrate all the learning that takes place across this beautiful landscape. Celebrate Science and Nature, the annual fundraiser for HREC, will build scholarship funds for all programs for youth and adults at the Center.

The event takes place on May 21, inviting the public to join scientists and staff as they enjoy a morning of field experiences, a farm-to-table luncheon from Black Dog Catering, live music from The Back Porch Project and a live auction of unique experiences. The event offers the community the chance to learn about the research being conducted, support HREC’s programs, and enjoy the best in local produce. 

“From 10 a.m. to 12 noon there will be optional field tours of some of our key research and education projects, where visitors can meet the scientists, see what tools they use and what they are learning about our environment, followed by a delicious lunch and a chance to meet our Hopland Scholars Fund recipients” said Hannah Bird, community educator at HREC.

Participants can choose from six field experiences, including drones for fire research, oak woodland regeneration, wildlife, sheep, fire science, and hiking with the Blue Zones walking Moai. A three-course luncheon runs from 12 to 3 p.m. and includes presentations from HREC director John Bailey.

“Since we created the Hopland Scholars Fund we’ve been able to welcome so many more students, researchers, and community members to the site. The fund supports access to educational programs including our signature events such as our youth summer camps and training for adults on a variety of topics from building a climate resilient community to living with wildlife. Hopland Scholars also supports scientific scholars in their quest to understand and interpret our natural world. Both discovery and outreach are necessary to form valuable and impactful programs. We welcome everyone to celebrate science and nature with us on May 21 and to help build our fund for future scholars of all ages” said John Bailey, HREC Director.

Auction items are unique experiences including a catered picnic lunch at one of the most beautiful areas of the site with an accompanying tour, a stay at a coastal vacation home, a guided Mendocino wine tasting with a winegrower, and an art workshop to learn how to depict the beautiful oaks which are such a feature of the site.

Tickets cost $80 for adults and $25 for children. Register online by visiting the HREC website https://bit.ly/celebratehrec23 or by calling Hannah Bird at (707) 744-1424, Ext. 105. The registration deadline is by May 12. The event will be at the Rod Shippey Hall, 4070 University Road, Hopland. 

REST IN PEACE WILL BUCHANAN

On this date, May 8th 1915, in Fort Bragg, Will was crushed to death by a log rolling over him on this log dump. It was his job to knock the blocks out of the way so the logs would roll off the cars into the pond. This photo was taken four months later, so the man at the far end of the log cars was probably his replacement. It was near the end of his shift and the accident was not witnessed by anyone. He was missed at a baseball game and his brother James went in search of him.

CATCH OF THE DAY, Monday, May 8, 2023

WILIBALDO ALCANTOR, Elk. DUI, suspended license.

KARL BARTH, Fort Bragg. Probation revocation.

RAYMOND BOWES, Covelo. Domestic battery.

LAWRENCE FREASE, Covelo. Controlled substance, ammo possession by prohibited person, probation revocation.

DILAN GREGORY, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

SHANNON KIDD, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-under influence, controlled substance, vandalism, parole violation.

MARK LYNCH, Willits. Under influence.

ANGEL MILLER, Ukiah. Parole violation.

WILLIAMS OWENS, Ukiah. Parole violation.

MATTHEW PATEREAU, Willits. Assault with deadly weapon not a gun, DUI, wilful cruelty to child, criminal threats, no license.

RICKEY PATEREAU, Willits. Failure to appear.

RICKY RENICK, Ukiah. Metal knuckles, failure to install ignition interlock device, suspended license.

BAD BUGS FROM YOUR BEEF?

by Steve Heilig

As soon as antibiotics were discovered in the 1940s, they were shown to be about the most effective medications known so far and thus were rapidly mass-manufactured and used by doctors, curing countless illnesses and saving countless lives. One lesser-known development was the soon-expanding use on livestock farms. Many animals were saved too. Thus the practice of adding antibiotics to animal feed soon spread too. But larger-scale farms noticed that some animals also grew faster if fed in this manner, and it became standard practice in industrial agriculture - so much so that by the 1990s approximately three-quarters of all antibiotics manufactured were being used in farm animals rather than human medicine. 

This was worrisome to some of us in healthcare. As a student working at our college health center I’d seen tests of infections in other students that were resistant to most or even all generally used antibiotics. This was becoming increasingly common, and was frightening. I wrote a 100-page thesis on antibiotic resistance titled “Bad Bugs Bite Back” that got me into a top public health graduate school despite my less-than-impressive grades. In my subsequent career the threat of antibiotic resistant bacteria kept resurfacing in journals, but linked to overuse in human medicine. Still, reports of bad bugs bred on farms infecting humans were increasing.

So, I asked the two most prestigious figures I’d encountered in public health if they’d join in a small conference to assess the science and risk of bad bugs being bred on farms, and to my surprise they both said yes. Phil Lee MD had been Chancellor of UCSF medical center, United States Assistant Secretary of Health for both Presidents Johnson and Clinton, and professor at Stanford and UCSF medical schools. Lester Breslow MD had been Dean of the UCLA School of Public Health and president of the American Public Health Association. These were living icons. Now I had to step up for real. We had our all-day meeting, got even more alarmed, wrote policy adopted by the AMA urging more attention and prevention, and authored this piece in the Western Journal of Medicine (when I presented the draft to Phil and Les, with my peon’s name listed last per usual academic publishing tradition, they each insisted I be first listed; true gentlemen, albeit both certainly with nothing left to prove). 

Here it is:

* * *

Curtailing Antibiotic Use In Agriculture

Steve Heilig, Philip R. Lee, and Lester Breslow

“Antibiotics are arguably the single most important and widely used medical intervention of our era. Almost every medical specialty uses antibiotic therapy at some point. These drugs have prevented incalculable suffering and death and are perhaps still the closest medications we have to a “magic bullet.”

Of course, bad bugs can bite back, and bacterial adaptation and resistance were reported soon after antibiotics were first used. The struggle to stay one step ahead of pathogens has been widely described and debated. Correcting the overuse of antibiotics in human medicine has gradually become a priority, with slow but heartening progress being gained in this darwinian race. Still, the rise of multidrug resistance and the ready transfer of resistant traits among pathogens require heightened action if we are to prevent increasing outbreaks of infections that become more difficult, or even impossible, to treat.

One essential course of action is to minimize any and all causes and reservoirs of antibiotic resistance. Besides medical use in humans, there is the troubling issue of use in agriculture, specifically in livestock production. Antibiotics have long been routinely used not only for the treatment of infections, but also as a means of getting animals to market faster by growth promotion. Controversies about these practices have resulted in numerous reports, dating back decades, urging more caution or outright bans on the practice. The World Health Organization and other leading medical and public health bodies have advised that animals not be dosed with antibiotics used in humans—to little avail here in the United States to date, even though our own Food and Drug Administration (FDA) took this position as far back as 1972.

Still, many longtime observers of the issue were surprised—or even shocked—to learn the true extent of antibiotic use on farms. A recent report estimates that upward of 70% of all antibiotics manufactured are used in agricultural settings. Although the exact percentages are uncertain, agricultural antibiotic use is apparently more substantial than previously thought. And the type of use is worrisome because it involves continual, subtherapeutic doses that would seem to provide ideal environments for the selection of resistant pathogens.

The introduction of new molecular epidemiologic tools has heightened the worry because these tools have been used to show that resistant bacteria originating on farms are finding their way into humans. The extent of this epidemiologic “spillover” to date is uncertain— assertions of the extent of bacterial resistance arising from farms vary widely—and this needs to be a higher research priority. But there is no question that the phenomenon does exist.

Recognizing this risk, the American Medical Association's house of delegates recently adopted a policy stating that the association “urges that nontherapeutic use of antimicrobials in animals that are also used in humans should be terminated or phased out based on scientifically sound risk assessments.” Reaction from the pharmaceutical industry, in the guise of a trade association of manufacturers of animal drugs, was swift. The Animal Health Institute erroneously claimed that “The assertion that there is increasing evidence that resistance developed in animals is spreading to humans is not true,” and it went on to oppose any further restriction on agricultural use. 

As a case study of such profit-motivated opposition, Bayer Corporation is vigorously contesting the FDA's proposal to withdraw a widely used class of antimicrobial, fluoroquinolones, from agricultural use. These medications are used only therapeutically in agriculture, but they are used to combat some of the same bacterial pathogens that are treated with the same drugs in human medicine. Hence, there is a high risk of resistant strains finding their way from animals to humans. Abbot Laboratories, the other major manufacturer of fluoroquinolones, showed admirable scientific judgment and corporate responsibility in agreeing to the FDA's request. Unfortunately, judging from the Animal Health Institute's response to the AMA, we fear the drug industry's reactions may more closely mirror Bayer's shortsighted approach. Notably, even some forward-thinking agricultural leaders are now questioning the wisdom of such stonewalling.

Admittedly, we tend to give more credibility to those who do not have any financial interest in the status quo. Leading experts unequivocally state that our current practices of feeding antibiotics to animals goes against “a strong scientific consensus that it is a bad idea” and that the long stalemate on this issue constitutes a “struggle between strong science and bad politics.” The intentional obfuscation of the issue by those with profit in mind is an uncomfortable reminder of the long and ongoing battle to regulate the tobacco industry, with similar dismaying exercises in political and public relations lobbying and even scandal. As with tobacco control, science and health concerns should take precedence over profit in regulating the overuse of antibiotics in the production of meat and other agricultural products.

Antibiotics do have a place on farms, but the benefits of their use can likely be preserved while minimizing harm. We need to learn more about the extent of risk, but the delay tactic of allowing current practices to continue while “more research” is conducted is unacceptable. Enough is already known to justify a more cautious, preventive approach. Other nations are ahead of the United States in this regard and have banned routine agricultural use, with demonstrable benefit in reduced bacterial resistance.

We call on the FDA or legislators to, in the coming year, ban the nontherapeutic agricultural use of antibiotics. This ban should be lifted only if it is scientifically proved, in unbiased studies, that this use does not contribute to bacterial resistance in humans. Producers of agricultural antibiotics should be required to submit data on the specific antibiotics used, in sufficient detail to track usage and resistance trends. Bayer should reverse its opposition to the ban on fluoroquinolones. Finally, individual and business consumers of meat should begin to demand that the meat they purchase be grown without the routine use of antibiotics.

With newly heightened concerns about the threat of biologic terrorism, including the possible use of infectious agents, the need to preserve the efficacy and supply of our antibiotic tools becomes even more crucial. It is time for our government to act in the public interest on this important issue.”

This was published 20 years ago. It made newspaper and professional journal headlines. There has been incremental progress on decreasing mass use of antibiotics in agriculture. But the problem and threat has worsened. The pharmaceutical and agriculture industries fight anything that might curtail profits, even if human medicine and health are at stake, and I’ve often been reminded of Big Tobacco in this regard. The FDA has been too timid. This isn’t about the small residue of antibiotics that might be in the meat you eat, which is the reason some meat and dairy is labeled “antibiotic free.” That’s fine but not the bigger issue. When - not if - a pandemic of bacteria rendered “superbugs” kills millions of people due to doctors having no more effective medications, maybe we’ll realize how we brought it upon ourselves and learn something useful. I’ve sadly become convinced that humanity usually only learns from disaster. “Better safe than sorry” rarely prevails. Better wish us all luck.

STEPH CURRY ALWAYS GIVES WARRIORS A CHANCE, but in Game 4 those chances ran out

by Ann Killion

LOS ANGELES — Twice in the final 26.4 seconds, Stephen Curry had a shot you would want him to take on any possession, in any game, at any time.

And on the Golden State Warriors’ final play of the game, a scramble off a jump ball with 1.7 on the clock, the ball was briefly in Curry’s hands again.

When the ball is in Curry’s hands, the Warriors always have a chance.

But not this time.

The Warriors lost the most tightly contested (and most entertaining) game of this Lakers series, 104-101, and now face a three games-to-one deficit with Game 5 back at Chase on Wednesday night.

“It was a great basketball game,” said Steve Kerr. “It’s a great series. And there’s a long way to go.”

Maybe. Or the season could be over Wednesday. Or on Friday back in L.A. Or there could be a Game 7 on Sunday. All the questions about the future, about the end of an era, are lurking on the horizon, drifting closer into view.

We’ve seen the Warriors come back from a 3-1 hole before, but it is hard to be convinced this erratic version of themselves is capable of making that kind of surge.

This Warriors team only seems in control when the ball is in Curry’s hands.  And it was for much of Monday’s game: Curry recorded the third triple-double of his postseason career, with 31 points, 14 assists and 10 rebounds. His assists were the main reason the Warriors outscored the Lakers in the paint, 52-46, a strategy that mostly vanished in the fourth quarter.

Curry’s heroics weren’t enough.

“We had good looks that didn’t go in,” Curry said. “We fought all the way down to the last second, to try to steal a win. We got a lot of good looks… we’ve got to live with it.”

A seven-point lead heading into the fourth quarter evaporated in a blink, and the Warriors only scored 17 more points on 35 percent shooting in the final period. Curry and Klay Thompson combined shot 5-for-14 in the quarter.

Did Curry think his two shots in the final 26 seconds — both contested by Anthony Davis — were going to go in?

“Absolutely,” he said.

He has reason for such confidence. If there’s such a thing as a Game 6 Klay, there has also often been a Game 4 Curry. There was last June in Boston, when he was magnificent. There were two such Game 4’s in 2015 (against New Orleans and Cleveland), two in 2016 (coming off the bench against Portland and again in Cleveland), another in 2018 against Cleveland, and a triple-double against Portland in 2019.

Curry looked in control for much of the game.  His distribution of the ball was breathtaking, as though he was channeling the Lakers’ own Magic Johnson.

“He’s a floor general,” said Gary Payton II, the beneficiary of many of Curry’s assists. “You take one thing away from him and he figures out a way to get his team the ball. He does a bit of everything.”

But Curry had another rough shooting night at Crypto.com Arena, the building where he has historically struggled with his shot. Curry hit just 3 three-pointers on 14 attempts. Thompson wasn’t much better, making 3-of-9 and missing two three-point attempts in the final minutes.

The lack of composure in the final helter-skelter seconds was uncharacteristic. Curry came down with the jump ball, Kerr was calling for a timeout from the bench but Curry didn’t hear him, Curry didn’t call a timeout and lost the ball out of bounds.

“I didn’t know how much time went off while I was in the air coming down, how long I was on the ground,” Curry said. “I actually felt like somebody was behind me. Bang-bang play. I wish I had a little bit more awareness to maybe call timeout knowing we had enough time.

“Just didn’t go our way.”

That has been the tale of much of the Warriors season. Things have not gone their way. They have struggled on the road. The key players they counted on to contribute, haven’t come through. Jordan Poole seems to have both lost the trust of Steve Kerr and his spot in the rotation, only playing ten minutes on Monday, and finishing with an 0-for-4 night.

And now the Warriors are left with this slim bit of hope.

“Someone has to win four times,” Kerr said. “We’ve got to go back and get a win at home.”

The Warriors have done it before, against Oklahoma City in 2016, with a much younger core three and a healthy Andre Iguodala. They were down 3-1 to Toronto in 2019 and we know how that turned out and the devastating injuries that were a part of it.

But if anyone knows that a team can come back from a 3-1 deficit, it’s the guy in the other locker room. LeBron James’ Cavaliers flipped the 2016 NBA Finals on the Warriors.

“We have confidence we can figure it out,” Curry said.  “We can take the good things from tonight, protect our home court.

“And maintain our positivity.”

When the ball is in Curry’s hands, the Warriors always have a chance.

(sfchronicle.com)

THE TWO ARMIES CAMPED; many in pistol shot of each other. After the first day the troops mingled freely. The hungry Confederates were anxious to trade or sell their money and the Yankees were willing to buy it for souvenirs. As soon as they received their greenbacks in exchange, they visited the sutlers’ wagons on the Union side of the line (which in some mysterious way had kept up with the rapid advance of the army), purchasing tobacco and food. The Southern soldiers had nothing to eat for several days except parched corn, and the Union men — their hate tempered by victory — divided their supplies with their former enemies. To everyone’s relief, the Civil War was over.

— Maj. Gen. T.M.Harris & Roster of the 10th West Virginia Vol.Inf.Reg’t, 1861-1865

THE CURRENT MEDIA sees the old system of serving public curiosity before the needs of law enforcement as dangerous. In a world rife with Russians, anti-vaxxers, and insurrectionists, it’s thought we must dispense with the adversarial idea and present a united front against Threats to Democracy. This started with the mania for attacking “fake news,” blasting even random web posters on Facebook, a Politifact specialty. The next step was hall-monitor media, e.g. Taylor Lorenz trying to catch billionaires saying the “r-word” in Clubhouse, or the Washington Post trying to out donors to Canadian trucker protests. From “misinformation” newspapers moved to malinformation, i.e. news that’s correct but politically wrong. Now we’re at the last step: true but criminal. A profession that once got off on informing the public now seems jazzed by correcting it and punishing its errors of character, like being a “gun enthusiast” or a “gamer,” or trading “offensive” jokes. It’s a short step from playing fact police to appointing oneself the real thing. People hated reporters when they thought we were just politically biased, power-adoring, elitist scum-liars. How low will our reputations sink when “snitch” is added to the mix? By the time these people are finished, we’ll be looking up even to Congress. 

— Matt Taibbi

THE NEXT BIG THING

by James Kunstler

Psychopaths and narcissists aren’t ‘mentally ill,’ they’re just horrible people, and they get worse with age, not better.

– Aimee Terese on Twitter

Now that the charm has worn off the transsexual craze — the idea that a person’s emotional distress can be cured by identifying as the opposite sex — we await the next ploy out of the Woke Transhumanist game-plan to destabilize the human project on earth. People-of-color, brown, indigenous, Pacific Islander, gay, lesbian, plus-size, differently-abled, all women (of course), have taken their turn in the batting order of intersectional oppressed minority groups, and each has walked off with a participation trophy. Who’s left now?

The dead! Their needs have not received sufficient attention. Inclusion has not come to them… yet. They are systematically kept out of all current activities and ceremonies. They are segregated in ghettos of grass and granite. The legal system stigmatizes them. Numerically, through human history, they are by far the largest demographic. Yet, they are routinely ignored, overlooked, disrespected. If anyone deserves to be Woked-up from the sleep of oppression, it’s them.

Don’t despair, a great grooming is underway. The next new thing will be for most of us to transition into the dead. Do you think it’s an accident that Hollywood has churned out zombie movies by morgue-full in recent years? Obviously, more and more Americans have come to identify as the walking dead. (And, judging by the behavior in our land, a lot of people’s brains have been eaten.) Even our businesses and banks have a walking dead kind of look to them.

Our project in Ukraine has been a tremendous grooming aid in preparing people to become dead. But that experiment is nearly complete now. Hence, we must seek a much bigger global project for transitioning humanity into the satisfactions of being dead. A war with China would be the ideal grooming opportunity. They outnumber us about ten to one. They’ve developed hypersonic missiles that can deliver nuclear payloads anywhere in our country, with the potential of transitioning millions of Americans at a time. And when they’re done with that, they can send an army over here to work the luckless survivors to death out in the soybean fields and the corn rows.

Perhaps in anticipation of this, America elected (so they say) a president in mid-transition to being dead. “Joe Biden” is celebrated for staying mostly out-of-sight, underground, for speaking a dead language that resembles 20th century American vernacular English, for lurching one way and another, zombie-like, on his way off-stage in fleeting public appearances, and for taking large sums of money from Chinese officials who support America’s transitioning program. Best of all, the president personally empathizes and identifies with the dead, encourages more Americans to become dead, offers cash incentives to hospitals that expedite death, and makes pharmaceuticals available — both legal and illegal — for inducing efficient transitions to the bliss of non-being.

In fact, there seems to be a rush now to transition, with the pace being set by professional athletes in their twenties and thirties who keel over in mid-play on the football pitches, by movie actors who undergo conversion as the cameras roll, TV news-readers who drop away from the mic with eyes rolling down like window shades in full view of multitudes, and other celebrities who surprise their loved ones by simply waking up dead in the morning. These are the edgy avatars of the next big thing. So hallowed are their transitions from living to dead, that the process is spoken of only in whispers, as in a church or a sepulcher. Doctors who come upon the scene are mesmerized to the point of silence, too much in awe to speak of what brought on the fateful transition — certainly nothing they did.

As the people go, so goes the nation. The USA is transitioning from a dynamic system of economic liberty, endeavor, and law to an entropic dystopia of chaos, corruption, and inertia. As suits a country of the walking dead, nothing works: telephone calls go dead, the bank won’t give you any money, your duties on-the-job have been eliminated, your food store has closed down, there are no parts available for your broken things, your flights are cancelled, your Facebook archive has been erased, your opinion is not wanted, your vote is meaningless, your children no longer need your permission to do anything, and, final insult, a martini now costs fifteen dollars.

Death is everywhere in America now, hovering over everything we do. Don’t fight it — celebrate it! Foster it wherever you go, among all you consort with! Welcome it as you slough off all the annoyances of being here and rise to your blessed platform in the perfect gnostic Elysium promised by the theurgists of Wokery. Become the dead you long to be!

(kunstler.com)

ONE OF THE MOST UNDER-DISCUSSED POLITICAL REALITIES OF OUR TIME is the fact that the shift in functioning commonly known as spiritual enlightenment (A) is a well-documented phenomenon that occurs all over the world, and (B) would solve all our world's problems if widely realized.

This isn't some woo-woo, out-there "the space aliens might come and save us" proposition. Researchers like Jeffery A Martin have studied this phenomenon clinically, and have collected mountains of data showing that this is a very real potentiality that exists within our species.

I call this a political reality because that's exactly what it is: it's a reality that's affecting our politics right now. The fact that our species has the ability to move out of its dysfunctional relationship with mental narrative, but hasn't yet done so, affects everything about our world.

Without our dysfunctional relationship with mental narrative, propaganda would have a much harder time functioning, and we wouldn't have the psychological strings of fear, greed and discontentment that propaganda pulls on. The propaganda-driven model of ruling would stop working. To quote Chomsky again, "Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state."

The problem of course is that the potential to awaken has always existed in humanity, but has only ever been realized in a fringe minority. What's different now is that we're at adapt-or-die time as a species; we're either going to awaken or we're going the way of the dinosaur.

Every species eventually hits a point where it either adapts to changing conditions or goes extinct. In our case both the "changing conditions" and the threat of extinction are born of our own minds: our ecocidal models of resource distribution and our plunge toward nuclear war. We'll either make the necessary adaptation to continue living on this planet by shifting out of our unwholesome relationship with mental narrative, or we won't. I personally think we have the complete freedom to either pass or fail this test together.

— Caitlin Johnstone

BEFORE DYLAN, THERE WAS CONNIE CONVERSE. Then She Vanished.

There’s a resurgence of interest in the pioneering singer-songwriter who disappeared when she was 50.

by Howard Fishman

Connie Converse was a pioneer of what’s become known as the singer-songwriter era, making music in the predawn of a movement that had its roots in the Greenwich Village folk scene of the early 1960s.

But her songs, created a decade earlier, arrived just a moment too soon. They didn’t catch on. And by the time the sun had come up in the form of a young Bob Dylan, she was already gone. Not simply retired. She had vanished from New York City, as she eventually would from the world, along with her music and legacy.

It wasn’t until 2004, when an N.Y.U. student heard a 1954 bootleg recording of Ms. Converse on WNYC, that her music started to get any of the attention and respect that had evaded her some 50 years before.

The student, Dan Dzula, and his friend, David Herman, were spellbound by what they heard. They dug up more archival recordings, and assembled the 2009 album, “How Sad, How Lovely,” a compilation of songs that sound as though they could have been written today. It has been streamed over 16 million times on Spotify.

Young musicians like Angel Olsen and Greta Kline now cite Ms. Converse as an influence, and musical acts from Big Thief to Laurie Anderson to the opera singer Julia Bullock have covered her songs.

“She was the female Bob Dylan,” Ellen Stekert, a singer, folk music scholar and song collector told me during my research for a book about Ms. Converse. “She was even better than him, as a lyricist and composer, but she didn’t have his showbiz savvy, and she wasn’t interested in writing protest songs.”

Seventy-five years ago, Ms. Converse was just another young artist trying to make ends meet in the city, singing at dinner parties and private salons, and passing a hat for her performances.

She knew that her songs did not jibe with the saccharine pop of the day. “This type of thing always curdles me like a dentist’s appointment,” she wrote to her brother before an audition at Frank Loesser’s music publishing company, where she predicted what executives would say of her songs: “lovely, but not commercial.”

In January 1961, the same month that Dylan arrived from the Midwest, Ms. Converse left New York for Ann Arbor, Mich., where she reinvented herself as an editor, a scholar and an activist.

In 1974, a week after her 50th birthday, she disappeared and was never seen again.

Ms. Converse lived in New York from 1945 to 1960, and though she was intensely private, she kept a diary, scrapbooks and voluminous correspondence that were left behind after she drove away for good, offering clues about what the Manhattan chapter of her life was like. Here are some of the neighborhoods, venues and sites around the city that provided the musician with a backdrop for her short but trailblazing stint as a songwriter.

The 1940s: Bohemians of the Upper West Side

Riverside Park

In 1944, after dropping out of Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, Ms. Converse moved to New York. Her first job was at the American Institute of Pacific Relations, where she edited and wrote articles about international affairs. “I am struck by the breadth of the topics she covered,” said the contemporary international relations scholar Michael R. Anderson, who calls her writing and reporting “remarkable.”

She lived on the Upper West Side. The image of her in Riverside Park, above, was found in an old filing cabinet that belonged to the photographer’s widow. It is one of the first known images of Ms. Converse in New York.

The Lincoln Arcade

Some of Ms. Converse’s closest friends lived and hung around the bohemian enclave known as the Lincoln Arcade, a building on Broadway between West 65th and 66th Street. With a reputation as a haven for struggling artists, it had been home to the painters Robert Henri, Thomas Hart Benton and George Bellows, the last of whom had lived there with the playwright Eugene O’Neill.

The group was a hard-drinking lot, given to holding court late at night. One surviving member of that crew, Edwin Bock, told me that Ms. Converse would often be clattering away at a typewriter, at a remove from the rest, though sometimes she did things he found shocking, like climbing out the front window well past midnight to stand on a ledge, several stories above the street.

The 1950s: Making Music in the Village and Beyond

23 Grove Street

Ms. Converse lost her job when the institute landed in the cross hairs of the anti-Communist House Un-American Activities Committee. Sometime late in 1950, she moved to the West Village and began a new phase of her life as an aspiring composer and performer.

She bought a Crestwood 404 reel-to-reel tape recorder and began making demos of herself singing new songs as she wrote them. It was here, while living alone in a studio apartment at 23 Grove Street that Ms. Converse wrote almost all of her “guitar song” catalog (including everything on “How Sad, How Lovely”).

The Village at that time “was the Left Bank of Manhattan,” the writer Gay Talese told me, and it had “whiffs of the future in it” in terms of its permissiveness about lifestyle choices. Nicholas Pileggi, a writer and producer, suggested that given her address, Ms. Converse, a loner, would have had no problem hanging out by herself at Chumley’s, a former speakeasy.

The upstart book publisher Grove Press was also just down the block, and she was close to The Nut Club at Sheridan Square, where jazz musicians often played, as well as the more respectable Village Vanguard.

Grand Central

Her first and only television appearance was in 1954, on the “The Morning Show” on CBS (hosted that year by Walter Cronkite), though how Ms. Converse secured the appearance and what she played and talked about may never be known (shows at this time were broadcast live; no archival footage exists). Because the program was staged in a studio above the main concourse at Grand Central and shown live on a big screen in the hall, everyone bustling through the station that morning could have looked up and caught the young musician’s one and only brush with success.

Ms. Converse was extremely close to her younger brother, Phil. When he visited her in the city for the first time, Ms. Converse described the reunion in her irregularly kept diary, noting that the two “met like strangers at Grand Central, and fell to reminiscing over oysters.”

In 1955, Ms. Converse took up residence at 605 West 138th Street, in Harlem, several blocks away from Strivers’ Row. There, she shared a three-bedroom flat with her older brother, Paul, his wife, Hyla, and their infant child, P. Bruce, a situation she called “a cost-saving measure.” The new apartment had an upright piano, which Ms. Converse used to compose an opera (now since lost), a series of settings for poems by writers like Dylan Thomas, E.E. Cummings and Edna St. Vincent Millay, and a song cycle based on the myth of Cassandra who, according to Greek mythology, was given the gift of prophesy but was then cursed never to be believed.

Circle in the Square

An avid theatergoer, Ms. Converse attended Jose Quintero’s 1956 revival of “The Iceman Cometh,” which made Jason Robards a star and effectively launched the Off-Broadway movement. “Did I mention that I saw an in-the-round production of ‘The Iceman Cometh’ last month?” she wrote to Phil and his wife, Jean, that October. “Some four and a half hours of uncut O’Neill, but only the last 15 minutes found me squirming in my seat.”

The Blue Angel

At this erstwhile nightclub on East 55th Street, unique at the time for being desegregated, Ms. Converse met the cabaret singer Annette Warren, who expressed interest in covering Ms. Converse’s songs, and who would make at least two of them, “The Playboy of The Western World” and “The Witch and the Wizard,” staples of her show for decades to come.

1960: The Lost Tape; Goodbye, New York

National Recording Studios

National Recording Studios, at 730 Fifth Avenue between West 56th and 57th Streets, had been open for only a year when Ms. Converse showed up in February 1960 to record an album. It was a solo session that, because she did just one or two takes of each tune, only took a few hours. The recording was a rumor until 2014, when it was unearthed in Phil’s basement. An adman who was a fan of Ms. Converse’s music had procured the recording session for her for free. That album, the only one she made, remains unreleased.

Ms. Converse closed the circle of her peripatetic Manhattan existence by moving back to where she’d started: the Upper West Side. This time, she lived in a brownstone on West 88th Street, a half block from Central Park. This was her last known New York address; by 1961, she was gone.

Her music, mostly made in isolation or at small gatherings, was nearly lost but for the efforts of her brother Phil, who archived what he could; David Garland, who played her music on WNYC in 2004 and 2009; and Dan Dzula and David Herman, the students who, decades later, introduced her work to a new generation.

“The first time I played a Connie Converse song for a friend, she sat silently and cried,” Mr. Dzula said. “From that moment I knew Connie’s magic would reach at least a few more people in a deeply personal and special way.”

He added: “Could I have envisioned her blowing up like this when we first put out the record? Absolutely not. But also, yeah, kind of!”

(courtesy New York Times)

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