Mendocino County Today: Saturday, May 27, 2023

Gradual Clearing | Full House | Driftwood Removal | Open Mic | AVCSD News | Young Entrepreneurs | Shelter Closure | Dog Adoption | Albion Farmstand | Gnome Plant | Local Discount | Beach Flora | Science Retreat | Pottery Hut | Carlile Acquitted | Barn Rafters | Broken Government | Cable Creek | Bemused | Quintessence | Bragg Pride | Yesterday's Catch | Creating Realities | Anti Gravity | Marco Radio | Whistle Video | SF Sad | Dealing Drugs | Be Green | Real Whitewater | Not Haunted | Degenerate Society | Detroit 1950 | Atomic Bombing | Ooh Aah

SCATTERED AFTERNOON SHOWERS and thunderstorms will occur on a daily basis over the interior mountains today through much of next week. Otherwise, periods of stratus will be common along the coast, and temperatures will be seasonable across the region. (NWS)

WEATHER REPORT FROM STEVE DUNLAP (Fort Bragg):

Yep, another foggy 50F on the coast this Saturday morning. The NWS now agrees with good buddy Steve about a chance of drizzle & showers thru tomorrow. A slight chance but..... We might also see a bit more sun in the afternoon but as always predicting the fog is tricky at best.

A foggy 52F in the valley with cool temps for the holiday weekend. Clear skies & 39F for Lake Tahoe where afternoon showers & thunder remain in the forecast well into next week.

Some thunder along the N. Mexico & Texas border while the holiday soaker is gaining steam on the Carolina's coast.

RENEE LEE, AV Senior Center Director: We had a full house and parking lot Thursday night for our rib dinner tonight at the Senior Center. We served over 80 dinners—BBQ’d ribs, baked beans, potato salad, cole slaw and ice cream with Girl Scout cookies for dessert donated by DA Eyster and our local group! Special thanks to Steve & Terri Rhoades, Beth Swehla, Elizabeth Wyant, Philip Thomas and AVSC staff and board for making this happen!

DRIFTWOOD REMOVAL AT NOYO BEACH

In preparation for this year’s Fireworks event, the City is authorizing individuals to hand remove driftwood washed ashore at Noyo Beach. In years past, wood has been removed through a variety of ways including removal by City Public Works Crews, controlled burns by Parlin Forks or the Volunteer Fire Department, and by individuals who obtained permits to remove wood debris from the beach.

Beach wood removal will be allowed between the date of this notice [May 26, 2023] and Friday, June 30, 2023 by persons who abide by the following conditions:

• Wood removal from the beach may take place during daylight hours.
• Persons removing wood shall follow all park rules displayed on beach property signage at all times.
• Persons removing wood shall be respectful and cautious of all citizens on the Noyo Beach and shall use safe work practices at all times, especially near citizens and pets.
• Persons removing wood shall do a site cleanup at the end of each day to ensure that any litter or debris gets removed from the site.
• This notice does not permit any closures of the beach or give persons removing wood any more right to any area of the beach or trails than other citizens using the beach and trails.
• No person shall drive any motorized vehicle beyond the limits of the paved parking areas regularly accessible by private vehicles.

Any persons wishing to collect wood in any manner beyond those conditions listed above shall submit a Noyo Beach Access Permit application and provide proof of liability insurance to the City of Fort Bragg to receive authorization from the Public Works Department prior to commencing any activity not described herein.

Questions regarding this information should be directed to Chantell O’Neal, Assistant Director; Engineering, at (707) 961-2823 ext. 133.

REGULAR MEETING OF THE WATER PROJECTS COMMITTEE

Anderson Valley Community Services District

To be held via teleconference Phone # 669 900 6833 Zoom Meeting ID 845 5084 3330 Password 048078

Public comments must be submitted by 10:00am on June 1st , 2023 electronically to water.avcsd@gmail.com

Thursday June 1st, 2023 at 10:30am

* * *

From the Minutes of Last Month’s Water Projects Committee meeting

Clean Water (Waste) Project: Dave Coleman sent in a report: May 30-31 is scheduled for the “free boring” wells, which will be set up for monitoring the ground water. The immediate results obtained are the most important. The bored soil samples will be sent to a lab to for percolation tests. The study results will be sent to the State for their concurrence as to suitability of the site. Once the soil study is done and the State has responded, Dave can finalize the plan at the site. The next step would be developing the rate that we would use for the Proposition 218 process (public approval). We are still waiting for the amendment clearance for the funds to pay for the studies, etc.

Drinking Water Project: We are finished with most of the negotiations. We met with the AV Historical Society Board at the Museum site on April 20, 2023 to explain the impact of using that CSD well on the Museum parcel. They authorized one of their Board members to continue interacting with the engineer to work out any details. At the meeting their Board, Val, Kathleen, and the Engineer (Jack Locey) walked and discussed their preferred siting of the treatment building. As the Drinking Water municipal system needs to be flushed at that far end to keep the water fresh, Jack proposed that the dispersal system be for irrigating the Museum lawn and garden areas. The operation and expense of the well would be the responsibility of the CSD. We must still finalize the Meadow Estate Water Company negotiation. Norval Johnson was able to be introduced to Brent Beazor, the Brelje and Race engineer who is taking over from Jack Locey as Jack is retiring as they were both in attendance at the meeting. 

Public Outreach For Drinking Water: We have around 30 ‘no’s’ at this point (12% no) and still have to hear from about 70 parcels. It looks as if we are on track to get 80% approval if we get back ‘yeses’ and ‘no’s’ at the same proportion. We are sending out a third letter by the end of May. This letter will have full translations in Spanish to be sure all owners have technical information. We can schedule a third meeting for Spanish speakers if we find there is interest. We would like to wrap up this phase but want to continue our attempt to contact everyone. Kathleen McKenna, Val Hanelt, and Kim Bennett (RCAC) are keeping track of contacts and responses and keeping Kim’s master database up-to-date. Herb Bowen suggested that people who do not elect to join could perhaps still be billed for availability of hydrants for fire suppression. This idea was discussed and perhaps it would be worth investigating further once we finish this phase. 

* * *

AV FIRE CHIEF Andres Avila reports that their new water tender is finally in service and is ready for the onset of wildland season. 

FORT BRAGG COUNCILMAN PETERS: 

County Animal Shelter Closure

This afternoon a special ad-hoc committee comprised of Council person Rafanan and I met with the Mendocino Coast Humane Society on how best we can collaborate to address the issue of the County closing their animal shelter facility July 1. The confusion of having two separately run animal shelters right next to each other is about to end. The County is spending roughly $235,000 a year to run their shelter with only $17,000 a year returning in revenue. The decision has been made to close it.

Today the Mendocino Coast Humane Society agreed to take the 5 remaining animals left at the County’s shelter and to also take over the building left behind. It houses 14 dog kennels and will provide additional space for quarantined animals and others that need to be isolated for various reasons. 

So no animals will be euthanized due to this closure. 

The County will continue to provide the Coastal area with an Animal Control Officer for vicious animals outside the City limits as is currently the case. 

The City owns the property where this is located and also provides partial funding to run the Humane Society. Right now that minimal assistance funding is $2,625 per month. A new contract to address these changes will be drawn-up for approval by the full City Council at their June 26th meeting ahead of the July 1st closure date. Just as aside, I saw the original contract with the City. It dates back to 1975 and appears to be either hand typed or mimeographed!

So great news all around. Our Mendocino Coast Humane Society has the full support and trust of our community. I am so glad they have stepped-up and decided to absorb this important responsibility. Their Director Judy is awesome!!

Our coastal animals will he sheltered in one of the few independently run no-kill centers found anywhere.

G ROAD JAN

Albion Farm Stands 2023

This is the first announcement for Albion Farm Stands for the 2023 season. At this time only one farm stand is open; we’ll have more soon.

Jan Hinson is opening her stand on ‘G’ Rd. North, this coming Sunday May 28th. Here’s her announcement:

JAN:

For Sunday May 28th, on ‘G’ Rd. North in Albion (first right turn, first right driveway, once on ‘G’ Rd. N.

In other words, take G Rd. N. until the road makes a right turn; then find the first driveway on the right after the turn in the road)

Hours: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

All grown/produced in Albion

COOL RARE FIND AT HENDY WOODS SP

The Gnome plant (Hemitomes Congestum)

Thanks Ashly Winchester!

SIERRA NEVADA WORLD MUSIC FESTIVAL BACK WITH LOCAL DISCOUNT FOR ANDERSON VALLEY RESIDENTS

Legendary Festival Returns June 16-18, 2023 to Mendocino County Fairgrounds

A locals-only discount is now available to Anderson Valley residents for Sierra Nevada World Music Festival (SNWMF), June 16-18, returning home to Boonville after a 5 year hiatus to the Mendocino County Fairgrounds, in Boonville. The festival features a world class music lineup in a family-friendly setting, and takes place on the long Juneteenth weekend, with Monday, June 19th being a federal holiday. 

The local discount applies to residents of Yorkville, Boonville, Philo and Navarro. Local discounted prices are $250 for each 3-day ticket; $70.00 for each Friday ticket; $90 for each Saturday ticket; and $90 for each Sunday ticket. (Non-local price are $275 for each 3-day ticket; $90 for each Friday ticket; a $105 for each Saturday or Sunday ticket). Camping can only be purchased on line.

The local discount tickets are available at the Mendocino County Fairgrounds administrative office. Photo ID and proof of residence is required, and there is a 4-ticket limit for each ticket order at the discounted prices.

Children 12 and under are FREE and do not require a ticket, when accompanied by a ticketed adult.

Lineup:

Friday, June 16 

• “Jah Messenjah” Luciano - conscious dancehall star in his first California performance in seven years. 
• Kabaka Pyramid - highly anticipated show from the 2023 Grammy winner for Best Reggae Album
• Kumar & The Original Fyah - uniting four members of the Grammy-nominated Raging Fyah band
• Warrior Sound International - German Soundclash Champion 
• Jah Warrior Shelter Hi-Fi - San Francisco Bay Area’s award-winning top sound system 
• More acts to be announced.
• Gates open at 5pm.

Saturday, June 17 

• Beres Hammond - The “King of Lovers Rock” 
• Tarrus Riley - second generation reggae star with chart topping songs
• Derrick Morgan - the original “King of Ska” who helped birth the genre
• Johnny Clarke - pioneer of reggae with his essential album “Rockers Time Now” and dozens of hit songs
• Soul Syndicate - top session band in Jamaica and creator of the Taxi riddim, a foundation of reggae music
• Blvk H3ro - exciting young Jamaican artist with a fervent following
• Rory Stone Love - original selector of the mighty Stone Love Soundsystem
• Brazilbeat Sound System - direct from New Zealand, bringing a mashup of roots & electronic with live percussion
• Soul Ska - The Bay Area’s top ska/rocksteady outfit
• Afrobeats Oakland featuring Juan G - the premiere Afropop collective in Northern California 
• Boonfire - Boonville’s local reggae band
• More acts to be announced.
• Gates open at 10am.

Sunday, June 18

• Burning Spear - reggae roots legend in his only California show this summer
• Protoje - the musical prodigy, blending hip hop, soul and jazz
• Lila Iké - stunning young breakout reggae artist on the pathway to greatness
• Bassekou Kouyate and Ngoni Ba - Malian griot considered the master of the ngoni
• Norma Fraser - Jamaican singer with numerous classic hits including "The First Cut Is the Deepest"
• The Clarendonians - rare vintage Jamaican act popular in the 1960s
• Wesli - thrilling rhythms and melodies from Haiti
• Las Cafeteras - Latin band from Southern California specializing in Son Jarocho
• The Steady 45s - ska and rocksteady revival band from Los Angeles, backing The Clarendonians and playing their own set
• More acts to be announced.
• Gates open at 10am.

Sierra Nevada World Music Festival features live music on two stages until 12 midnight, with the late-night DJ dance hall going until 2am, followed by a silent dance until 4am on the first two nights, offering two live DJ channels in dancers’ headphones, with a choice of reggae or world music.

The vendor village marketplace includes over 75 stalls with a wide range of international cuisine and carefully selected vendors of handmade arts, decor, apparel and accessories for your shopping and tasting pleasure… an “irie” ambiance of colors and tantalizing aromas.

Camping onsite is a great way to enjoy the full festival experience. Limited family camp and ADA-accessible camping are available.

The Kids Zone offers dedicated children's activities throughout the weekend, including face-painting, art projects, games, bubbles, and bouncy castles.

Percussion workshops, dance workshops, yoga classes, and a carnival-style parade with samba groups are among the many activities on offer for all ages.

For more information please visit www.snwmf.com. To book an interview with Gretchen Smith, who is leading the SNWMF team, please email info@snwmf.com.

More about Sierra Nevada World Music Festival

SNWMF founder Warren Smith envisioned a unique mix of authentic roots-reggae and global music trends, based on conscious music that brings together artists whose lyrics are life-affirming and embrace a positive message. This came to fruition with so many memorable performances over 25 years. With Warren’s passing in 2021 and the Covid-19 pandemic, the festival has been on hiatus. This year, Warren’s wife Gretchen Franz Smith has brought the team back together to make the festival a reality once more. “The time is right for us to gather again in celebration of Peace, Love & Music. SNWMF 2023 is for Warren,” she said. 

Sierra Nevada World Music Festival is excited to return to Boonville! The Covid-19 pandemic disrupted the live music industry and left behind a legacy of uncertainty. SNWMF faces all of this with optimism, knowing that conscious reggae and world music articulate and manifest what the world needs right now… inclusiveness, kindness, positivity and empowerment. 

With this 26th edition of the festival, SNWMF stays true to its roots: Sierra Nevada World Music is dedicated to nurturing a world family peacefully united in celebration of the universal spirit of music.

Calendar Listing:

MCOE SUPPORTS SCIENCE EDUCATORS THROUGH A UNIQUELY FORESTED OPPORTUNITY

This summer, Mendocino County Office of Education (MCOE) is hosting the 2nd Annual Science Retreat at Mendocino Woodlands State Park. Educators engaging students in science from transitional kindergarten through grade 12 are invited to join the three-day retreat July 24 through July 26. Participants will be nourished by nature and community as they collaborate and gain inspiration to tackle opportunities and challenges. 

As conversations about COVID-19 fade from daily life, educators are still deeply concerned about the long-term impacts on students and the education community. MCOE is taking a unique and creative approach to support science educators in addressing these concerns. 

What Mendocino lacks in box stores, it more than makes up for with spectacular nature and resourceful people. The 2nd Annual Science Retreat aims to leverage that wealth by focusing on relationships and belonging to engage students in science through outdoor learning. Activities and discussions will revolve around Next Generation Science Standards best practices, Universal Design for Learning and Social and Emotional Learning strategies, increasing environmental literacy, and service learning opportunities for students. 

Retreat facilitator and MCOE Continuous Improvement Specialist Dr. Maia Steward remarked, "Feedback from the inaugural retreat participants was overwhelmingly positive. Every educator expressed their desire to return, demonstrating the true value of the retreat. With the addition of an extra day this year, we look forward to hosting returning and new educators alike."

The retreat venue, Mendocino Woodlands State Park, is a National Historic Landmark nestled in 700 acres of redwood trees along both sides of Big River. Free time options include hiking, swimming, yoga, a challenge course, nature journaling, and evening bonfires.

Science educators are invited to register for the retreat here.

The Mendocino County Office of Education provides leadership, resources, services, and programs to improve the educational experience and outcomes for Mendocino County students.

CARLILE ACQUITTED OF BATTERY

A man on trial for a single misdemeanor charge was acquitted Wednesday by a Mendocino County Superior Court jury.

Kenneth Lee Carlile, age 56, of Ukiah, had been charged with misdemeanor battery on his nephew, the interaction in question having occurred on September 12, 2022 at a Ukiah home. 

At trial, Carlile testified that he battered his nephew in self-defense. This testimony was a different version of events from Carlile's original recorded statement to law enforcement and the trial testimony of the nephew.

When a claim of self-defense is asserted, California law places the burden of proof and persuasion on the prosecution to prove that the conduct in question was not lawful self-defense and to do so beyond a reasonable doubt. 

If the available proof fails to meet this burden, the jury is instructed to find the trial defendant not guilty.

The law enforcement agency that investigated the original 9-1-1 call was the Ukiah Police Department.

The prosecutor who presented the People’s evidence at trial was Deputy District Attorney Nathan Mamo.

Mendocino County Superior Court Judge Carly Dolan presided over the three-day trial.

There will be no further proceedings in this matter.

BILL KIMBERLIN: On the left is a painting by Yvonne Jacquette called "Barn Ceiling". On the right is my photo of the Guntley barn in Philo.

WHAT’S THAT SMELL?

To the Editor:

Mendocino County stinks of broken government. Let me count the ways:

Insider politics.

Handpicked candidates.

Cronyism.

Rigged elections.

Hidden deficits.

Inaccurate or incomplete –or totally nonexistent — county financial statements.

Lazy and lavishly overpaid bureaucrats, especially the county executive office and county counsel.

Incompetent and lavishly overpaid bureaucrats, especially the county executive office and county counsel.

Elusive and lavishly overpaid bureaucrats, especially the county executive office and county counsel.

A never-ending parade of expensive outside consultants.

A never-ending parade of expensive outside lawyers.

Too many ad hoc committees, too many plans, too much blah-blah-blah, and too little execution and implementation,

Too many disgruntled, isolated, overtaxed citizens simply shut out of the private club that is county government.

Time to vote for change! Elect Mendocino County’s 1st District supervisorial candidate Carrie Shattuck!

Candidate Trevor “Bullethead” Mockel is a joke.

No resume. No skills. No experience. Never held a job for long. No maturity.

In other words, no nothing.

And his five endorsements from all five sitting members of the Board of Supervisors — endorsements which were all pretty much worded the same and all released simultaneously — is a Brown Act violation and clear evidence of “business as usual” from a broken government.

Vote for change!

John Sakowicz 

Ukiah

TWK COMMENTS: 

“Wonderful story on Marie Helmey, complete with dogged research to establish her home folk. Loved it.

(I keep seeing the word “bemused” as synonymous with “amused” but in perhaps a more removed or remote fashion. I think bemused is closer to confused.) 

And let Fred Gardner know Satchel Paige first signed with the Indians, not the old Browns. When I was a kid I remember reading that Sal ‘The Barber’ Maglie never shaved before a game because the sweat would cause irritation on his face and neck, and that it was at least partially the reason for his nickname.”

VIRGINIA SHARKEY: A recent one of the midnight series. Working in a fairly small-for-me dark studio— hence…This is “Quintessence” acrylic on canvas, 40” x 31.25.”

SCOTT TAUBOLD (of Fort Bragg)

A letter to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

While in the process of refinancing my home I said to a lender on the phone, “I have to go to a zoom meeting, they want to change the name of my home-town” and he said, WHAT? Both shocked and alarmed. You see…

My home town was named after a military garrison minus a Fort, named after a Union Officer, who never set foot in the County, who later came out of retirement to join the Confederacy after our town was already named. Few in town really knew about Braxton Bragg and we were not aware of all of this until a few years ago as the name of our town suddenly became, politically incorrect.

I have always told others that I was a “Fort Bragg person” or “I was from Fort Bragg” since that was my cultural identity. With that explanation, most Californians knew that I came from a community, isolated by narrow highways, late in receiving technologies, such as Cable TV, Cell Phones, Internet, and I was also un-aware of the racism that was displayed in more urban areas of our United States. So hearing that some people did not like our name I educated myself.

Over the last 3 years I began to educate myself on the history of slavery, and racism which I have found is rampant throughout our History. I have also realized the seriousness of this issue and I believe that more education regarding racism needs to take place, as we have continued to exist, as a nation in denial of its own racism. However, we in were sheltered from it in Northern California.

Major changes need to take place through education, However, I don’t believe by erasing history and changing the names communities that are totally innocent of any crime is going to help your cause. History belongs to all of us. Tearing down monuments in the Jim Crow South may seem appropriate, yet using the standards set forth by yourself and the author of “Deconstructing the Myth of the Lost Cause,” you are out of line.

Our town was not named after a confederate, and if you are not open-minded enough to see that actively engaging in changing the name of our town you are oppressing a minority of the people who grew up in the small isolated community of Fort Bragg, California, and who learned to be proud of their schools, etc. and You are acting prejudicially and in that respect you are no better than the hate groups you wish to eradicate. Dr. King’s words and vision stand the test of time. “Injustice anywhere,” he warned, “is a threat to justice everywhere.”

CATCH OF THE DAY, Friday, May 26, 2023

EDUARDO ALVAREZ, Ukiah. Protective order violation.

ISMAEL ARREGUIN-AGUADO, Santa Rosa/Ukiah. Probation revocation.

JOSEPH BALLARD, Fort Bragg. Controlled substance for sale, false compartment, marijuana for sale, county parole violation.

VINCENT BERTAIN, Ukiah. DUI.

ANA CARRILLO-RIVERA, Boonville. False insurance claim, false workers comp claim.

LINDA DOAR, Fort Bragg. Protective order violation.

ANTHONY ESCOBEDO, Finley/Ukiah. Taking vehicle without owner’s consent.

KENNETH FREDRICK, Olivehurst/Ukiah. Under influence.

STEVEN GREEN, Fort Bragg. Assault with deadly weapon with great bodily harm, domestic abuse, criminal threats.

CHARLES HIGGINS, Cloverdale/Ukiah. Failure to appear.

GABRIEL LANG, Arcata/Ukiah. Failure to appear.

ZACKARY LAWSON, Ukiah. No license, county parole violation.

JULIO RODRIGUEZ-CHAVARIA, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-intoxication by drugs with alcohol.

SAMUEL SANCHEZ, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-under influence. (Frequent flyer.)

NATHANIEL SECKER, Fort Bragg. Probation revocation.

GERMAN TOBAR-CRUZ, Oakland/Ukiah. DUI, child neglect.

ANGEL VIVAS, Laytonville. DUI.

CREATING OUR REALITIES

by Paul Modic

A friend was telling me about a complicated land dispute he was in the middle of and I said, “Well, we all create our own realities.” He looked at me like he wasn't buying it or that he didn't want to hear that mystic crap from the likes of me, who believes in nothing. There are some exceptions but it does seem to be an immutable truth. 

Who we are, where we are, what we're doing, and who we're doing it with, because of decisions we all have made over the years, predicts our states of mind and living situation today. Maybe this concept is related to cause and effect or is cause and effect. 

In my friend's case thirty years ago he let someone drive through his land with the lumber to build his house (against my advice) telling him he would build a road in the other way around later. The neighbor built his house then refused to stop driving through, my friend was afraid to try to stop him as he could be violent, and for thirty years he's been subjected to all the bad feelings and regret generated from doing the guy a favor. Every time the guy, or his family and friends, drove past his house it stressed him out. (Now the couple and their kid are dead, there's no will, he's finally blocked off the road, and the heirs are circling.)

He is just a single example, of course, everyone has a backstory, a history of decisions which leads us to today: everyone is a living breathing example of this philosophy one way or another, including myself, as I have been an uptight person, an erratic boss at times, clueless in some ways and now I find myself alone with just the birds feeding on my deck for company here on a beautiful acre on the river, hmm, sounds idyllic.

Yet life is not bleak: today I awoke with a smile on my face, gave a whoop of pure joy, and danced into the living room to Latin jazz music with a big smile on my face. There is a lot to be said for not having to deal with other people in my space and I may just say it.

Another person I know has these cheap rentals he has to deal with and which may be a good investment for his old age but for some reason he's not making any money from them (which he intends to give away to good causes), or not what he planned. He's an absentee landlord who came back to get paid and his rental agent said the rent equals the expenses and there's no profit. 

Even if there were does he really want to deal with tenants? (I had the opportunity to be a landlord but I knew, though it would have been a good investment, that I would fixate on every little thing, never have peace, and so declined. Yeah, I do sort of regret that decision.) He's well-off from inheritance and probably doesn't need the aggravation but he insists on creating low-cost housing, as a moral imperative, for people who appreciate it even if they're not paying the rent, although if code enforcement were aware they would red tag and want to bulldoze the whole scene, and ten more people would be out on the street.

Maybe he's not aggravated and has developed the tools to just flow with a complicated life, something I'm not capable of. Maybe it's fulfilling and worth it to him to provide affordable housing—he might be the last socialist or communist.

This is an endless story, everyone has created their own reality, and those who disagree with this diatribe probably aren't happy or satisfied with life and need to blame outside forces rather than themselves. 

MEMO OF THE AIR: Good Night Radio show all night Friday night!

Fuzzy deadline to email your writing for tonight's (Friday night's) MOTA show is circa 6 or 7pm. If you can't make that, send it whenever it's done and I'll read it on the radio /next/ week. There's no pressure.

Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio is every Friday, 9pm to 5am PST on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg as well as via KNYO.org. Also the schedule is there for KNYO's many other arguably even more terrific shows.

Furthermore, any day or night you can go to https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com and hear last week's MOTA show. By Saturday night I'll put up the recording of tonight's show. And besides all that, there you'll find a number of wonders to goggle at until showtime, or any time, such as:

Crackhead magic, they call this. (via TackyRaccoons)

https://twitter.com/InsaneRealitys/status/1659423637068460035

Real magic. How your microwave oven works and why it is so cheap.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8IO9u9IuOs

And Bob Dylan lamenting, "Well, you can't do something forever, and I did it once... I can do other things now, but I can't do that." Awww.

https://nagonthelake.blogspot.com/2023/05/bob-dylan-talks-about-his-early.html

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

SAN FRANCISCO, state of, an on-line comment: 

Sadly we live in a city where many people feel entitled to steal from stores routinely and openly. Thieves often get aggressive and physical when confronted (how dare you!). I've seen it in Walgreens many times, BevMo, Target, Safeway. People openly sell stolen goods. Went to Westfield recently - first time in years - and every store has a guard at the door. There is no mystery about why so many retailers are closing - who wants to go shopping in such a contested environment? Not to mention the mess on the streets. City Hall is very late to the realization that "more has to be done" (per Mayor this week).

THE DRUG PLAGUE, an on-line comment:

"Drug dealers and users also need to stop saying they don’t want to be using and dealing. Of course they do… if they didn’t, they wouldn’t.

What they mean really is that being clean and working for a living stinks. They’d definitely rather be doing and dealing drugs than that. But if they had a choice to be rich and live in a mansion, THEN they don’t want to deal drugs. 

Sure, they don’t want to deal drugs if they could instead be a lazy millionaire. But deal drugs instead of working 40 hours at Starbucks? Yes, then they want to deal drugs. 

Dealing drugs is a choice made to avoid doing harder work. If they didn’t want to be a drug dealer, they would’ve never started, and would’ve obeyed the law and never become addicted." 

THE REAL WHITEWATER SCANDAL 

by Roger Morris

While a slow market prevented Whitewater Estates from becoming the boon its owners had hoped for in 1985, the development nonetheless had a sometimes brisk trade during the latter half of the 1980s. And it was in those transactions with ordinary people, as much as any intricate insider self-dealing at Madison Guarantee Savings & Loan or furtive political-legal favors in Little Rock, that the character of the Clintons’ operation seemed laid bare.

Advertising in publications like Mother Earth News and targeting low-income retirees and senior citizens looking for pleasant rural property to live out their years, the Clintons and McDougals always made a point of offering what seemed at first glance the most attractive terms. “Poor man’s real estate financing,” as a local Arkansas lawyer called it, the deals appeared to be the Whitewater application of Diamond Jim’s ‘‘populist banking”’ or Bill Clinton’s own perennial claim to be a champion of consumers. Elderly couples on fixed incomes might buy lots for low or token down payments, with no credit checks or appraisals and only modest monthly installments at low interest. Many did just that. They were generally retired blue-collar workers from Texas, Missouri, or Oklahoma, as well as Arkansas, husbands and wives planning to build a small fishing cottage or a place where grandchildren could come. Commonly they used the bulk of their savings for money down and barely scraped together monthly payments. It was they who provided much of the $300,000 that Whitewater collected in lot sales between 1979 and the summer of 1990. 

But what began as a modest dream often ended in painful nightmare.

Behind the Whitewater advertising lure was the fine print of a harshly punitive real estate contract. If the elderly buyers defaulted on their monthly installments for more than 30 days they found that all their previous payments were classified merely as ‘‘rent’’ and that they had no equity in the land at all, regardless of how much they had put down or paid in. The results could be devastating. 

Clyde Soapes, a grain-elevator operator from Texas, put $3,000 down and faithfully made 35 monthly payments of $244.69 to the Clintons and McDougals, altogether just short of the $14,000 price of the lot. When he fell desperately ill in 1987, however, he could no longer make his payments and quickly lost the land and all his previous investment.

Soapes was a typical case. More than half those who bought Whitewater lots from the future president, his wife, and their extravagant partners would lose their land and all their equity payments. Partial records showed at least 16 different buyers paying in more than $50,000 and never receiving property deeds. Meanwhile Whitewater carried on a flourishing traffic in repossessions and resales, selling some lots over and over when aged buyers faltered or when someone else simply came along and unilaterally bought out the purchasers and took the land by completing the payments. 

Typically, Clyde Soapes’s planned fishing retreat was resold to a couple from Nevada for $16,500, then taken back again after only a few payments, and resold to yet other buyers—all for the same middling but pitiless profit wrung from the struggling and the old. ‘‘That is clearly not a very consumer-oriented method of selling at all,’ an American Bar Association real estate expert would say. Others were less delicate. “They screwed people left and right,’’ said a local businessman who watched the sales. “Taking advantage of a bunch of poor old folks on a land deal… The future President and First Lady. That ought to be the real Whitewater scandal.”

It was all technically legal and not that uncommon in the Clintons’ Arkansas and in similar settings, especially in the South, though many states around the nation had long since moved to protect consumers in such ensnaring escrow or contract sales, making repossession and loss of equity at least more difficult as the buyer’s investment grew. 

Jim McDougal had used the same lure with the same summary penalty in other land schemes. He was a known quantity. The speculator would defend the practice as either affording lots to people who could not ordinarily qualify for bank loans or else as providing a safeguard against the “impulse buying” common at resort properties.

It was a rationalization that could embarrass even his profit-eager partners in the governor’s mansion. Hillary Clinton evidently had second thoughts in her own shuffling of lucrative Lot 13. The first owner, Hillman Logan, had defaulted before he went into bankruptcy and died, and Whitewater could have automatically repossessed the lot with all his payments. On behalf of Hillary, a Rose Law Firm lawyer and co-counsel with Hillary Clinton initially wrote to the executor of Logan’s will arguing that the estate should ‘‘consider abandoning” the dead man’s $8,000 equity. But then the future First Lady suddenly recanted in 1988 and paid the estate the $8,000 for the land—still going on to make a sizable profit in the resale, albeit less than she would have realized by merely seizing the model home like all the others. 

When the case became known after the Clintons had come to the presidency, the White House would explain simply that Mrs. Clinton paid the unnecessary $8,000 ‘‘to safeguard her interests in the property.’’ As always, there were other versions. “‘Logan was from Mississippi and had a lawyer involved in his affairs, which most Whitewater owners never came close to,’ said an attorney familiar with the case. ‘“This one could have gotten out of hand and been a little embarrassment, so she just paid that money to put it to sleep.”

The frequent repossessions and rolling profits continued through the decade and almost to the eve of the Clintons’ 1992 presidential campaign, well after Madison Guaranty had finally collapsed and ceased sluicing funds to Whitewater and other entities, well after the Clintons had taken over the records of the development and begun to shun a bankrupt and mentally ill Jim McDougal. 

For years, however, it had been routine—the sales bait for the elderly buyers, the repossessions and expropriated equities, the petty profit taking, the sick men or the widows who could no longer make the payments, the broken dreams. Like McDougal’s use of the savings and loan, Whitewater embodied business practices, morality, and ethics that the future president and his wife never questioned or even acknowledged openly, much less repudiated. 

At the end of a road so helpfully paved by taxpayers’ money, the scenic lots on the White River took their place in the long chain of advantages and subsidies the First Couple came to enjoy in Little Rock. In the end, there was a sense in which no one more than Bill Clinton himself symbolized the larger irony and mockery of Whitewater’s brochure assuring buyers of their private paradise.

“A feller,” it promised, “could live off the land.” 

(From ‘Partners In Power: The Clintons and Their America, 1996)

TRIAL BY ORDEAL

by James Kunstler

“Let’s put you in the dunking chair and we’ll figure out what nature says about your status in the next world, and then we’ll make a decision about what to do with your still-living body.” — Matt Taibbi

I’m sure you’re asking yourself: what’s up with the company CEOs like Anheuser-Busch’s Brendan Whitworth, Target’s Brian Cornell, and North Face’s Todd Spaletto? Did they green-light the disastrous Pride Month marketing campaigns based on transgender activism that are suddenly wrecking their businesses? Or do these things just happen down the chain-of-command while the top dogs are otherwise occupied, knocking golf balls around or reviewing their stock options’ strike prices?

I’ll tell you what you’re not seeing and hearing: the red-faced shrieking in the board rooms as boycotts kill sales and directors face the wrath of the share-holders. It was one thing when Bud Light hitched trans “influencer” Dylan Mulvaney to the beer wagon in place of the traditional Clydesdale horses. After all, every state has a drinking age, though it’s pretty astounding that anyone at Anheuser-Busch thought “Ms.” Mulvaney’s cringy Instagram antics would sell beer to grown men moving appliances and fixing pot-holes.

It’s another thing, in the case of Target, to aim sexually-loaded gear to little children, for instance a line of T-shirts that proclaim “Satan Respects Pronouns” made by one Erik Carnell’s Abprellen company out of London. “Mr.” Carnell expounded on that idea on his company’s website (now taken down):

Satanists don’t actually believe in Satan, he is merely used as a symbol of passion, pride, and liberty. He means to you what you need him to mean. So, for me, Satan is hope, compassion, equality, and love. So, naturally, Satan respects pronouns. He loves all LGBT+ people. I went with a variation of Baphomet for this design, a deity who themself is a mixture of genders, beings, ideas, and existences.

Would it surprise you to learn that children well beneath the age of puberty are not inclined to think about sex at all? In a well-ordered society that recognizes children as different from adults, they don’t. And if something sexual comes to their attention, they are generally perplexed by it. Unless they’re born into an era when adults are busy erasing boundaries, guard-rails, and cultural inhibitions, in which case I must imagine that young children exposed to, say, pornography in a chaotic household find it traumatically sinister. So, why the gleeful celebration about sexualizing children now?

I’ll tell you why: because we are living in a very badly-ordered society these days, a society in which anything goes and nothing matters, which is a poor principle for civilization. It’s the same principle that has people shitting all over the sidewalks of San Francisco, looting Walgreens stores in broad daylight, pushing ineffective and unsafe vaccines (and lying about it), and arresting people for thought crimes. It’s a degenerate society. Morally bankrupt. Wicked.

You might ask, how did it get that way? The concise answer is that a broken business model for daily life and a collapsing economy have so disordered millions of minds that values are seen as having no value. The scaffold for truth, beauty, honor, dignity, courage, prudence, generosity, etc., folded some time ago, in slow-motion, so we didn’t notice.

The keepers of our culture have replaced it with a tacky system of ritual virtue-signaling fakery that they don’t really believe in, that persists simply because the moral vacuum it stands for provokes such unbearable anxiety. The main lesson of the recent Durham Report — missed by even the most punctilious observers — is that our country does not want to fix itself, indeed the whole broken apparatus of fixing it is in the hands of the people who broke it.

This epic negligence leaves the doors wide open for the broad range of lower-order criminal mischief we’re seeing expressed all around us. Now I will venture into shadowland. There is a rumor floating around the Internet that this seemingly coordinated campaign to sexualize children and initiate them into marginal behaviors was started to soften up the public for forthcoming shocking revelations contained in the much-whispered-about Jeffrey Epstein archive of videos that show eminent international figures caught in compromising sexual situations that include sexual acts with children.

I wouldn’t commit to saying there’s anything to that, but there have been an awful lot of signs and portents pointing in that direction, and so I also wouldn’t dismiss it altogether. There can be little doubt that the videos exist, or did exist — we know that Epstein’s various mansions were rigged to the eaves with cameras, and that he was an “asset” of more than one nation’s intel service trafficking in blackmail — and I’d expect that there are at least a few copies of the videos out there, just like there are many copies of Hunter Biden’s laptop hard-drive out there.

There’s something definitely programmatic about the way the drag queens were rolled out into the kiddie korners the past year. It doesn’t feel organic, shall we say, but rather directed, like a sinister grand opera. And the effort to enlist and initiate schoolchildren into a psychodrama of hyperbolic sexual confusion looks absolutely orchestrated.

What we might be seeing is the convergence of a world-beating political scandal with an economy-killing financial crisis that will destroy the entire post-WW2 armature of money and credit. That event would usher in a period of appalling turbulence in our everyday life, severing supply chains, killing businesses, and disturbing every imaginable social arrangement as well as public order. If that comes to pass, and it’s looking likely, then that will be the last we hear about personal pronouns and trans influencers for a thousand years.

(kunstler.com)

OUR DYSTOPIAN NUCLEAR WORLD

by Carol Bergman

As for the use of the bomb, she would say, “It was war and we had to expect it.” And then she would add, “Shikata ga nai,” a Japanese expression as common as, and corresponding to, the Russian word “nichevo”: “It can’t be helped. Oh, well. Too bad.” Dr. Fujii said approximately the same thing about the use of the bomb to Father Kleinsorge one evening, in German: “Da ist nichts zu machen. There’s nothing to be done about it.”

― John Hersey, Hiroshima, 1946

In May, 2015, I went to the United Nations to meet Sueichi Kido from Nagasaki. He is one of twenty survivors of the atomic blasts on Hiroshima and Nagasaki who traveled to New York for the opening of an exhibit in the UN lobby, discussions at the UN about the world’s nuclear arsenal, and a commemorative concert at Ethical Culture School. Now 83-years-old. Mr. Kido attended the G7 summit in Hiroshima, and was interviewed by the Associated Press. He remained hopeful, he said, that nuclear disarmament would be discussed at the summit. But both Mr. Kido and any talks about disarmament were upstaged by President Zelensky’s dramatic arrival. Forgive me if I missed it in the press handouts for the summit, but I don’t think that the United States was ever mentioned as the perpetrator of the first and only atomic blasts. Putin’s bomb rattling may be unsettling and dangerous, but that does not erase the disgrace of Hiroshima and Nagasaki:

A uranium gun-type atomic bomb (Little Boy) was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, followed by a plutonium implosion-type bomb (Fat Man) on the city of Nagasaki on August 9. Little Boy exploded 2,000 feet above Hiroshima in a blast equal to 12-15,000 tons of TNT, destroying five square miles of the city. Within the first two to four months of the bombings, the acute effects of the atomic bombings killed 90,000–166,000 people in Hiroshima and 39,000–80,000 in Nagasaki; roughly half of the deaths in each city occurred on the first day. During the following months, large numbers died from the effect of burns, radiation sickness, and other injuries, compounded by illness and malnutrition. In both cities, most of the dead were civilians, although Hiroshima had a sizable military garrison."

– Source, Wikipedia.

The survivors of the bombings are called hibakusha, a Japanese word that literally translates to "explosion-affected people." Hibakusha and their children have been stigmatized in Japan and it is only recently that the government has recognized their medical complaints as a consequence of the blasts. My husband’s uncle, Norman Cousins, the editor of The Saturday Review of Literature, used the platform of the magazine for an adoptions program. Subscribers sponsored Hiroshima and Nagasaki orphans and later brought twelve disfigured  “Hiroshima Maidens” to the United States for reconstructive surgery. You can read about the project here: hibakushastories.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Hiroshima-Maidens.pdf

There is a plaque dedicated to Norman Cousins at the Peace Park in Hiroshima, and members of our family, some of whom are descendants of Jewish Holocaust survivors and refugees, still attend ceremonies there every year. I am deeply proud to have married into this family who have worked for a just and peaceful world across the generations. And I am deeply concerned about the escalations in Ukraine as reported by Luke Mogelson in The New Yorker. The soldiers are enduring abhorrent conditions in the trenches, and they are dying in great numbers on both sides.

The Americans—President Truman and his advisers—who unleashed the atomic bombs, censored the press after the blasts and suppressed the stories of the military witnesses and survivors. Even General MacArthur doubted the wisdom of dropping the bombs, and feared it. He argued that the saturation bombing of Tokyo—200,000  killed—just prior to the nuclear blasts, would end the war just as quickly.

A small man with a cherubic face once badly burned, Mr. Kido, a retired history professor, has devoted his retirement years to telling his story. “There aren’t many of us left. We are getting old, we are sick,” he says. Five-years-old at the time of the blast and living within the 2km epicenter, his mother carried him away from the wind and flames in search of shelter. Flesh was melting off their bodies, they were thirsty. There was no water, no shelter, no medical facility. The city had been incinerated. Needless to say, there was no question of a normal childhood for Mr. Kido after this holocaust. He didn’t stop trembling until he was ten-years-old, or laugh, or play. PTSD doesn’t describe the implosion in his body and his soul. 

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who has an ancestral connection to Hiroshima, chose Hiroshima for the G7 to highlight nuclear nonproliferation efforts, and to give the rapidly aging and suffering survivors a chance to see each other, perhaps for the last time, at Peace Memorial Park. 

Carol Bergman is a journalist living in New Paltz, NY. She compiled and edited Another Day in Paradise; International Humanitarian Workers Tell Their Stories” with a foreword by John Le Carré.