Mendocino County Today: Saturday, June 17, 2023

Pattern Shift | Gulls | Quinn Greene | Baseball Star | Ed Notes | Driftwood | Streetscape Project | Bike Handrail | Louise Comments | Mendo Tower | Battery Disposal | Volunteer Training | Covelo Astronaut | Historical Society | Yesterday's Catch | Favorite Redwoods | Bloomsday | Oakland Ass | Pillsbury Airstrip | Big Money | Walker Balls | Native Californians | All Wrong | Dem Favor | First Ever | Cartoony | Dirt Nap | Bunker Bought | Whisker Evidence | Marco Radio | Greetings | Prodigies | Shit Show | Not Knowing | German Elvis | Everybody Knows | Mechanic Priests | Sister Site | Riff Raff | Dybbuk | Daniel Ellsberg | Hole Puncher | NATO Membership | Ukraine | Burn Brightly

A PATTERN SHIFT will bring significant cooling, light rainfall for the northern half of the forecast area and chances for interior thunderstorms. Frost is likely in some of the colder valleys Monday and Tuesday mornings. A general troughing pattern will keep temperatures near or below normal and the potential for showers through the week. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): Forget everything I said about sunny skies going for the last couple days, I got fogged again. 53F under foggy (what else?) skies this Saturday morning on the coast. I'll go with a mix of clouds & sun for today then breezy & cooler conditions start tomorrow for the next few days.

WELL KNOWN MENDOCINO MAN DIES IN APPARENT FALL FROM BLUFF

by Frank Hartzell

A beloved resident of the village of Mendocino, who had recently been living on the streets, died when he fell into the ocean on Saturday night from the blufftops in Mendocino just north of Big River Beach. Quinn Thomas Greene, 38, was known as a kind and funny Native man who battled alcoholism. He attended the old Albion Whale School and has been part of the community much of his life.…

mendovoice.com/2023/06/well-known-mendocino-man-dies-in-apparent-fall-from-bluff/

---

DUSTIN LEE LA STOFKA, Goodbye, Quinn: 

When you step out of the redwoods, where a person feels small and magic is breath, onto the headlands where the oceans hammering on the shore can be felt in your very bones, A wandering man could lose his wander and grow roots. Many have and many more will. I lost a good friend last Friday, He was someone you always knew was around.. Loud, full of life I'd say... Goodbye my dear friend we'll toast once it's my turn, see ya later.

CONGRATULATIONS TO DEREK BILLY (Ponca/Pomo), out of Point Arena, California, who was selected to the 2023 Atlanta Braves Native American All-Star Baseball showcase to be held June 23-25, 2023 in Atlanta, GA. Derek was named as the NCL III league MVP.

ED NOTES

SUPERINTENDENT SIMSON WONDERS: "What the heck is up with the town's embracing this music festival? I had drunk, disrobed, disrespectful people on my campus today with the Sheriff having to respond. I have kids in summer school. I will not be approving the parking use permit in the future except for Saturday and Sunday. Is this really what Boonville wants to be known for? What a sad example for our youth..."

JUST IN! WEDDING BELLS rang today for Mendo DA Eyster and Lisa Welsh McCurley in ceremonies at the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego. The newlyweds will, of course, make their home in Ukiah. 

MARTHA GELLHORN wouldn't have been afraid. Matt Gutman of ABC told viewers he had been advised against appearing live from Union Square or the Westfield Mall in San Francisco for ABC's 4am Good Morning America segment last Thursday. The veteran broadcaster instead reported on the latest in a long series of downtown retail closures from a separate part of the “zombie city.” 

OLDER AMERICANS are losing $20.3 billion each year to “financial exploitation” by their friends and family, claims a vague and unattributed report wafting into Boonville early Friday morning. Having no money, I don't think I have to fear being stuffed into a freezer while my heirs and assignees go on drawing my social security checks, but if times get even tougher, I'll give them permission to exploit my remains however they choose.

JUST SAYIN’, but I got Covid after I'd been vaccinated so many times I'd lost track. This plague wasn't all that bad, no worse than the usual flu, which isn't a recommendation not to get vaccinated. (I believe in immunization and modern medicine generally.) But in retrospect it seems that Sweden had the correct strategy for out-enduring Covid — take every precaution but don't shut down the whole goddam country.

EVA CHRYSANTHE WRITES: “I don't know if you know this but Marin is using opioid settlement money to drug-test the wastewater. Seriously, it has to be the dumbest application of opioid settlement money on planet earth.”

AS RASTA FEST tunes up down the street right here in Boonville, it occurred to me that I haven’t seen or heard anything from or about Sister Yasmin lately. She has been a fixture at all these three-day musical events since they began. Yasmin even stayed at my place a couple of times, and she was an easy guest, thoughtful and gracious, which surprised some people given her often pugnacious personality. I hope the old girl is ok.

YEARS AGO, I invited Yasmin to lunch because she said she had something important to tell me. What followed was the back and forth as we tried to work out the logistics for the mother of all lunches, which never came off.

Yaz: If you ever take me out to lunch I can make hair grow on your head if I tell you everything I know about KZYX. But we can’t go to Bookends in Point Arena because I don’t want to be seen with you. If I’m seen at Bookends with you my reputation will be ruined. We have to go some place more hidden.

Editor: I beg your pardon? I offer to buy you lunch and you say you don’t want to be seen with me? 

Yaz: I said lunch! You have a public face and a private face, like most men. You’re different at home than you are when you’re doing horrible things to me and to KZYX in your so-called newspaper. I thought to myself, “This guy’s too weird to go out to lunch with.” I don’t have any sexual tensions. I put them into my spirituality and my creativity.

Editor: Who said anything about sex therapy? If I buy you lunch I’ll have to ask you not to say the word “spirituality” or talk about anything abstract. Agreed?

Yaz: Why do you mess with my press releases? Why can’t you just put them in the paper like I was Val Muchowski or Els Cooperrider?

Editor: I’m going to make you a star, kid!

Yaz: It’s called libel or slander and you even brought Allen Green’s name into it!

Editor: What possibly could be wrong with libeling Al Green?

Yaz: They’re going to know I told you the pizza story! It’s a yuppie KGB at KZYX!

Editor: One finger, Yaz. One finger. They put one finger on one hair of your pretty little head and I’ll, I’ll, I’ll. Why, I’ll go to the FCC, that’s what I’ll do.

Yaz: Why didn’t you pretend it came from someone else? You could have written it like this: “It was overheard at the KZYX programmer’s meeting the other night that some poor KZYX peon only got one slice of pizza while the playboy millionaire got to take a whole one home ostensibly to feed to his underpaid, overworked, pesticide-laden farmworkers who work for him for slave wages.”

Editor: That’s very good, Yaz. How’d you like to write for my paper?

Yaz: You’re going to get me fired!

Editor: They wouldn’t dare. It’s war if they go after you, baby!

Yaz: The next two weeks is pledge drive. They’ll all be nicey-nicey for the pledge time, then they’ll go after me! They’ll say I fed you private information! Margaret Thatcher will bury me alive in teacups!

Editor: Theresa Simon as Margaret Thatcher? Dividing up a pizza is private information?

Yaz: You don’t know these people like I do! OK. We can’t have lunch at Bookends. How about Sea Ranch?

Editor: Sea Ranch?!!! What about my reputation?

Yaz: How about St. Orr’s?

Editor: The place that looks like a Russian mausoleum?

Yaz: Yes. They have great big plates and tiny bits of food. How about dinner at St. Orr’s?

Editor: I see things are escalating here. I had the bean sprout special at Bookends in mind, and here you are talking about dinner.

Yaz: I’ll see if I survive the pledge drive. Then we’ll talk about it. I have to raise $2,000 in two weeks. They’re after me at KZYX! And don’t mess with my press releases! 

DOWNTOWN STREETSCAPE PROJECT

Construction Updates for the Week of June 19^th

No work will occur on the south side of the project (Mill to Cherry) until about August.

On the north side, work has begun to replace the sewer lines. The sewer lines are located along the east side of State Street; through traffic will be allowed in both directions, though the travel lanes may be pushed a bit toward the west side of the street.

Sewer work will continue into the middle of July. (Currently, replacement of the sewer lines on the 100 block of Scott Street is scheduled for middle of July.) Please note that this section of State Street (formerly Highway 101) is constructed out of concrete, which is slowing work down a bit. It is also significantly noisier. Sorry! We wish there was an easy, quiet way to do this work.

Where will the work occur? 

Sewer work (trenching, etc.) will occur on North State Street, starting at the north end (Norton) and progressing south.

What are the construction days/hours? 

Construction hours will be Monday-Friday, 7 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Will there be dust and noise? 

Yes. There will be some dust and fairly significant noise while trenching and breaking up concrete.

Will there be any disruptions to parking access or streets? 

Yes. On-street parking in the construction zone will be closed. Driveways and pedestrian access to businesses will be maintained at all times.

More information can be found online on the City’s website at ukiahstreetscape.com; plus, follow our Facebook page for updates and project photos at www.facebook.com/UkiahStreetscape/.

Upcoming Downtown Events from the Greater Ukiah Business and Tourism Alliance:

…also, save the date for the Grand Opening event for our new California Welcome Center at the Ukiah Valley Conference Center! Tuesday, July 11th, 4-6, 200 South School Street. More info to follow!

Have a great weekend!

Shannon Riley, Deputy City Manager, City of Ukiah

A BOONVILLE READER WONDERS: Do we have a major bike issue in the Valley that I don’t know about? Of course the rail is for seniors but are people leaving their bikes here for long periods of time? Inquiring minds want to know.

THIS & THAT

To the Editor,

I was a fan of T.R. Factor’s writings in the AVA for many years. That was a beautiful obituary that someone wrote in her honor, but no byline was given. I will honor her final request and find an underprivileged person here on the Mendo Coast and treat them to a nice lunch, and then some…

I enjoyed Ms. Cooney’s articles about early TV shows, most of which I watched, and in particular “The Twilight Zone” which I had to watch against my mother’s insistence that it would warp my mind.

I was disturbed by an inmate’s account of the filth at the County Jail. If even a portion of that is true, what is the Sheriff doing about it?

I know Bruce and Mark aren’t spring chickens any more, but they still have astute mental abilities. Who will take their place when the inevitable happens and they have to cease their publishing? That will be a sad day for American journalism.

Louise Mariana

Mendocino

THE MORGAN-MULLEN TOWER, located behind the last house on the right as you walk down Little Lake Street towards the ocean. This tower was constructed in 1991, after the historic water tower on this property was taken down due to damage sustained during a fire in the 1980s. 

BATTERY DISPOSAL

Yesterday, I check out the ‘rumor’ that O’Reilly’s Auto parts store in the Boatyard is accepting old, dead AA, AAA, C, D batteries. It’s true. I dropped off three years’ worth. 

— Ginny, Little River Improvement Club, <lric@mcn.org>

AV VILLAGE VOLUNTEER TRAINING

Friday, June 23rd, 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM, Anderson Valley Senior Center

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

Please RSVP with the coordinator - Hope to see you there, thank you!
Anica Williams
Cell: 707-684-9829
Email: andersonvalleyvillage@gmail.com

ROUND VALLEY INDIAN TRIBES is proud to announce that we will be hosting Tribal Member and NASA Astronaut Col. Nicole Mann for California Indian Days. She will be featured in our parade Saturday morning and at the ampitheatre to speak to our community at 2 PM on Saturday, September 23rd.

If you have questions that you would like her to answer, they must be submitted in advance.

Please send questions to Monica Sayad by Friday, June 23rd at msayad@rvit.org 

Hope to see you all there!

THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY of Mendocino County will be hosting our June Membership Meeting in Covelo. Join us for a presentation from Dr. Victoria Patterson, and a reception with pie and coffee service.

Dr. Victoria Patterson is an anthropologist and author who has focused her studies relating to the indigenous people of this region. She will be discussing her book, “The Singing Feather- Tribal Remembrances from Round Valley.”

Click Here to RSVP or call (707) 462-6969.

NOTE: There are limited places to eat in Covelo, and we will not be serving lunch at this meeting. Please pack a picnic to enjoy in any of Covelo's many public spaces. There are picnic tables available at the library.

CATCH OF THE DAY, Friday, June 16, 2023

DEREK ALDRICH, Rio Dell/Ukiah. Harboring wanted felon, parole violation, false ID.

TRAVIS ALVAREZ, Ukiah. Assault with deadly weapon not a gun, taking vehicle without owner’s consent, resisting.

GABRIEL BAUTISTA, Covelo. DUI, no license.

RYAN DICKERSON, Ukiah. Domestic abuse.

KEVIN KINCAID, Laytonville/Ukiah. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, concealed dirk-dagger, county parole violation.

AMY MILLER, Fort Bragg. Domestic battery.

LEROY ROBLES JR., Fort Bragg. Failure to appear.

NICOLE RUIZ, Ukiah. Protective order violation, child endangerment.

LILLIAN SAYAD, Willits. Failure to appear.

JOSEPH SCALERA III, Rio Dell/Ukiah. Domestic abuse.

KRISTOFF SUBA, Laytonville. Protective order violation.

BRANDON WAGNER, Boonville. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs, resisting, failure to appear.

CHRISTINE WHITEHEAD, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

NYT TRAVEL TIP:

My two favorite state parks are Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park and Humboldt Redwoods State Park.

Henry Cowell is close to Santa Cruz, where I play in the symphony and love to hike in the hills. It has a 45-minute, very easy trail that has some giant old-growth trees. There are trees up to 1,800 years old, and the tallest is 285 feet tall. It’s five minutes off the freeway but feels isolated and quiet.

Every summer I teach at Cal Poly Humboldt, and even though it’s a six-hour drive for me, I drive the entire 30-mile length of the Avenue of the Giants both when I head up there and on the way home. I always have a car with a sunroof just so that I can drive the avenue with all my windows and the roof open.

Redwood forests are like no other place on earth. As soon as I smell the air, my blood pressure lowers and I can’t stop smiling. The feeling of standing at the base of one of the Giants is like standing before an impressive mountain; the feeling of smallness is overwhelming and restorative.

Scott Hartman

San Jose

NORM CLOW: 

For all you James Joyce devotees, and I know there has to be one or two here besides me, June marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of "Dubliners", and today, the 16th, is the date he chose for the setting of his masterwork "Ulysses", known in literary circles as "Bloomsday" in reference to one of the the novel's protagonists Leopold Bloom.

My senior English and art teacher at AVHS, AKA Boonville Tech, Ed Wolf, introduced me to the great writer via "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" in 1967, which I re-read periodically along with "Dubliners". As for "Finnegans Wake", I'm waiting for a Tasmanian translation, something a person could actually decipher, but my brother-in-law, Phi Beta Kappa in English Literature from UC Berkeley, says he's still waiting for an English translation. So hope lingers but does not tease.

THE OAKLAND ASS

by Lindy Peters

I went to a protest the other day and a baseball game broke out. A veritable demonstration. No, it wasn’t the players this time. Nor the umpires. And there was absolutely nothing political about it. That’s right. No politics. And I didn’t know any of these people. Not a soul. Yet here we were. Bonded together by a call-out on Twitter by some dude from Vacaville, we came from all over northern California and were now flocking to the Oakland Coliseum for the same reason. A reverse boycott. Instead of staying away, we’re all going to show-up instead . And this was no small demonstration either. No siree. How’s about 28,000 protesters. And non-violent to boot. It was both the strangest and possibly the most fun I have ever had at a Major League Baseball game. Let me explain.

It all started because Fisher, a blue blood rich kid who’s family made their fortune with The Gap clothing store, decided to move the team to Las Vegas rather than pony up some of his own money and build a nice new stadium near Jack London Square. He wants taxpayers to build it and if Oakland won’t play in his sandbox he’ll take his ball and go. Former A’s owner Charlie O. Finley once had a jackass for a mascot. The current A’s owner has become one.

Now he just needs a way to justify the move. Here’s an idea. Billy Ball on steroids. Let’s trade all our talent, cut payroll, field a team so bad that no one wants to pay to see them play. Kids don’t even want their baseball cards. Can it get any worse? Why sure. He’d keep them in the same venue that for decades tops the list as the worst stadium in all of baseball. Cue up John Cougar Mellencamp’s “Crumblin’ Down.”

Fisher’s scheme was working to perfection. The fans were staying away in droves. It was hard enough to get good attendance figures in Oakland even when they had good teams, but this group? By God they started the season with a Charlie Brown record of 15 wins and 50 losses. That is not a misprint. They were making the ‘62 Mets (the worst team in baseball history) look more like the ‘61 Yankees (one of the best). A typical weeknight game in Oakland was drawing maybe 1,500 people. It got so bad that the players could actually overhear loud conversations in the stands. Really?!?

So here we were. Thousands of kelly green shirts emblazoned with the large white letters SELL across the chest were handed out free in the parking lot. It was a party atmosphere to be sure. A’s games have always been like this though. The crowd noise on the radio at an exciting moment in an A’s game sounds like the audience is full of happy people, like maybe the studio bleachers on the old Bozo the Clown TV show. Lots of kids. Conversely the crowd noise at old Candlestick Park on the radio sounded more like a drunken frat party at a boxing match. Loud and dangerous. And so it was last Tuesday night. Despite the fact that anger had drawn us in, there was a collective sadness and common kinship that made us all feel safe. We were there for one reason. You can take the A’s out of Oakland but you’ll never take Oakland out of the A’s. We are here to show the owner that we will not go quietly into the night.

Except in the 5th inning.

The game itself was a good one, with a scoreless tie going in to the top of the 5th inning. As the A’s took the field everyone stood in silence. Though no scoreboard prompt had made any kind of announcement, all 28,000 stood up and did not say a thing as play began that inning. It was the strangest moment to be part of. Complete silence. Not even a vendor yelling “ Beer here!” Can you imagine? You could hear the players chatter out on the diamond. And then it happened. Slowly, methodically, gradually increasing in volume with every chant. Again, with no prompting or bullhorn, the crowd began chanting “ Sell the team! Sell the team! Sell the team!” It got so loud that the homeplate umpire stopped play and went to the mound. And then it got even louder. The players in the Rays dug-out looked awestruck. An incredible moment to be part of. And where was John Fisher during all this? Surely he must be paying attention somewhere. Get this. He was having a luxurious dinner with MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, who also has done nothing to stop this embarrassing moment in baseball history. Oh the irony.

Then something wonderful happened. Tampa Bay had taken a 1-0 lead late in the game. But to the delight of the fans, the A’s came back. Suddenly baseball was more important than the protest. The crowd got loud. The A’s tied it up 1-1 and then in a thrilling finish, scored the go-ahead run in the bottom of the 8th inning. The Coliseum was rocking like it was Day on the Green with Lynyrd Skynyrd! Closer Trevor May retired the Rays in the 9th and the night exploded in cheers. A’s win 2-1 to end an epic night in Oakland baseball history.

Did it do any good? Well that depends. Demonstrations and protests are designed to draw public attention to an issue that is currently not being addressed. Nearly every major news and sports network ran feature stories about the game, the fans and the issue. Word is certainly out and most agree the villain is Fisher and not the City of Oakland nor the players on the team. In fact, it was like a play-off atmosphere Tuesday night with the players responding to the crowd’s energy by winning a close game. It seemed as though Hollywood script writers somehow got involved.

So what happens next? Will Fisher sell the team? Surely there is an owner or a group of owners here in the Bay Area willing to invest. Does Fisher see dollar signs in Vegas because I’m not so sure the A’s have any fans in Southern Nevada. And if the City of Las Vegas isn’t cooperating with open arms and throws up a few roadblocks to Fisher’s scheme, does he return to Oakland officials with hat in hand? I think not. The gap he has created with the fans is much larger than The Gap that gave him all the money to buy the team to begin with. The A’s will be moving to Lost Wages. Bet on it. #ReverseBoycott#SelltheTeam

FRANK DOLLOSSO: The airstrip has some great history to it.

"The Gravelly Valley airstrip is historically significant for 2 reasons. First, it was used as a Navy airstrip, during the early 1940's" … "it was the site of the first Wildland Firefighting Forward Air Attack Base, using modified crop-duster airplanes. In 1955, on the Mendocino National Forest, Forest Service's Fire Control Officer Joe Ely tested modified crop dusters to carry and cascade up to 120 gallons of water. These trials became part of California firefighting force."

Here is a great article about the history: geocaching.com/geocache/GCKDBC_first-base

BIG MONEY PREVAILS

Editor: 

A’s fans can protest in Oakland and rural Nevadans can hate public funding, but that will make no difference to the big money boys. They will do whatever they want, including buying state legislators and building a new baseball stadium.

It is quite a sight to see how the professional sports industry can shake its magic wand and send a wobbling state legislature into special session. There, duly elected representatives are called to consider a nine-digit proposal for a new stadium, because Las Vegans, you see, need more fun things to do. This new stadium will house a large portion of the host city and many visitors from out-of-state cities for 81 games a year, taking them away from the serious business of life for the remaining decades of their lives.

The good news is the proposed billion-dollar stadium, if built, will likely stand forever as a monument to Nevada’s once-sturdy existence, like the Coliseum in Rome, even long after American civilization implodes from within from too much emphasis on sport and too little emphasis on the health, education and welfare of its citizens.

Kimball Shinkoskey

Woods Cross, Utah

WHAT’S NEXT FOR NATIVE AMERICANS? A Report from the San Francisco Bay Area

by Jonah Raskin

I. Unceded Ohlone Land

If you’ve attended a recent public event at a library in San Francisco you’ve probably heard someone on stage tell the audience, “You are on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone land.” Last year, the public library commission issued a statement that reads in part: ”As uninvited guests, we affirm their sovereign rights as First Peoples and wish to pay our respects to the Ancestors, Elders and Relatives of the Ramaytush Community.” The uninvited guests have not behaved in civilized ways, though they have thought they were bringing civilization to “savages.”

Bay Arena Indians, including the Ramaytush, are doing more than affirming rights and paying respects, though they were nearly all exterminated. These days they emphasize sovereignty, responsibility and preservation of the past, including sacred places and shell mounds that their ancestors created and that still dot the Bay Area, though many have been long buried.

Historicans say that nowhere in the US was the genocide of Indians more brutal than in California, and nowhere were Indians more systematically bought and sold as slaves than in California. Now, that history is coming to light more than ever before, thanks to the Ramaytush and thanks to books like the recently published California, A Slave State by Jean Pfaelzer, a Professor Emerita of English, Asian Studies, and Women and Gender Studies at the University of Delaware.

Clear across the continent from Pfaelzer’s academic home, the City of San Francisco now has an “American Indian Cultural District” (AICD). Located in the Mission, a lively Latino neighborhood, it boasts a mural that shows the Golden Gate Bridge, a native woman with a basket and fish leaping out of the water. The mural’s words read “Welcome to Ramaytush Ohlone Land” and “Empowering the S.F. American Indian Voice.” The website for AICD calls it “the first established cultural district of its size in the United States dedicated to recognizing, honoring, and celebrating the American Indian legacy, culture, people, and contributions.”

The AICD office is located at the Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture. Mary Travis-Allen (Mayagna, Chortega, Seneca)— who has ties to the 1969-1971 Alcatraz occupation/liberation, the 1973 Wounded Knee Occupation, and the American Indian Movement (AIM)— serves as the president of the advisory board.

It’s an exciting time for her, for the Ramaytush and for other Indians in the SF Bay Area, as well as for Californians eager to acknowledge the history of colonization, slavery and genocide and eager, too, to propel the Native American cultural revolution forward.

Readers of CounterPunch might want to know that California has more Indians—nearly three-quarters of a million— than any other state in the U.S. Many of them are Navajo, Lakota and Cherokee. Some have lived in urban centers for decades and have shared stories and found common ground, though colonization divided them from one another with the aim of conquering them.

II. The California Native Ways Festival

Fifty-four years after the occupation/liberation of Alcatraz—an event that focused world wide attention on the plight and the resilience of tribes once deemed extinct— Indians are coming out, speaking out and demanding to be heard at events like the California Native Ways Festival held annually at Ohlone Park in Berkeley.

At the 2023 Festival, I observed, listened, reflected and learned a great deal. I was reminded that JFK noted in his 1960 introduction to a book titled The American Indian: “collectively their history is our history and should be part of our shared and remembered heritage.” Take that Ron DeSantis. Kennedy added that only through the study of Indian history “can we as a nation do what must be done if our treatment of the American Indian is not to be marked down for all time as a national disgrace.”

Malcolm Margolin, a Harvard grad like Kennedy, has probably done more than anyone else outside the tribe, to put the Ohlone on the map. He attended this year’s festival, but remained in the background, though he is the author of The Ohlone Way, which Alice Walker calls “beautifully imagined.” First published in 1978 it is still in print.

At the most recent Native Ways Festival in June, one Indian spokesman explained that “some woke people” came to his tribe and asked to borrow and use an Indian place name, thereby retiring the current “official” name. The spokesman explained to the woke folk that he couldn’t do that, that the tribe didn’t name the land and that the land named itself. That concept blew my mind, as did the news that in Berkeley, Indians are fighting to regain their territory.

Much the same is happening in San Francisco, where the Native Indian Cultural District is “dedicated to recognizing, honoring, and celebrating the American Indian legacy, culture, people, and contributions.” The indigenization—that’s a big word, isn’t it?— of the region is part of the agenda.

By executive order N-15-19, Governor Newsom created this year, “The California Truth and Healing Council that has begun to research and write a report “regarding the historical relationship between the State of California and California Native Americans.”

It’s due on the governor’s desk by 2025. Not that much time really to tell a complex story that began hundreds of years ago when European colonialists invaded and occupied what is now known as “The Golden State.”

Like many others in the Bay Area and elsewhere, I’m eager to read that report, which will likely “make recommendations aimed at reparation and restoration,” according to the Governor’s Office of Tribal Affairs. The SF board of supervisors recently approved a measure to pay reparations to African Americans, though it’s not clear where the funds might be found.

At the 2023 Native Ways Festival, I asked myself “What is my own relationship with Indians, and what role if any would I play in a world of reparations and restoration?” I had asked myself the same questions during the occupation/liberation of Alcatraz in 1969, 1970 and 1971, which announced the birth or rebirth of “Red Power.”

III. New Books About Native Americans

History buffs and readers who are inquisitive about the Indian past might not want to wait until 2025 to learn the story of genocide that has been well-documented in a spate of recently published books with provocative titles: Exterminate Them: Written Accounts of the Murder, Rape and Enslavement of Native Americans During the California Gold Rush by Clifford Trafzer and Joel Hyer; An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe by Benjamin Madley; and Murder State, California’s Native American Genocide by Brendan Lindsay. Anyway you slice the history, it’s ugly, it’s immoral and in Kennedy’s words “a national disgrace.”

In a recent article in The New York Review of Books, Ed Vulliamy, a longtime reporter for The Guardian and The Observer, writes about the massacre of Wintu on the banks of the Sacramento River in 1846 that was ordered by Captain John Fremont. One of the participant/ observers, Thomas E. Breckenridge, wrote that Fremont’s men “commenced a scene of slaughter which is unequalled in the West,” that “bucks, squaws and papooses were shot down like sheep,” and that the assassins didn’t stop shooting until there were no survivors.

Vulliamy reminds readers that Fremont, California, the East Bay City, is named after the Captain who ordered that slaughter. He asks, “Can Fremont still be called Fremont? Likewise other towns and sites?” One wonders, too, will San Francisco continue to be called San Francisco after the California Truth and Healing Council files its report? What might it be called? Perhaps the land itself will suggest a name. Words like “bucks,” “squaws” and “papooses” will have to be added to the dustbin of history, if they haven’t already been deposited there. It’s time for a new vocabulary and a new mindset to talk and think about California and Indians. Might we now consider what indigenization means?

ONE OF THE MOST CONSEQUENTIAL criminal trials in US history will be overseen by one of the least qualified judges to ever assume a seat on the federal bench, Aileen Cannon. But how did she get there? You guessed it, Democrats. 12 Democratic Senators voted to confirm Cannon’s nomination after the 2020 election as a favor to the GOP majority, which didn’t have enough Senators present that day. The 12 Democratic senators were: Biden’s two Delaware pals Carper and Coons, the two Nevada senators Cortez-Masto and Jacky Rosen, Dianne Feinstein (though who can tell if she even knew what she was voting on), the two Virginia senators Warner and HRC’s running mate Tim Kaine, Maggie Hassan, the now departed Doug Jones, Chris Murphy, Patrick Leahy(!), and Joe Manchin, naturally. 

— Jeffrey St. Clair

VAL MUCHOWSKI with a nifty bit of pure delusion from her Democrats: 

Biden-Harris 2024 Earns First Ever Joint Presidential Endorsement from Leading Environmental and Climate Organizations — Last night, President Biden earned the first ever joint endorsement from four leading environmental and climate organizations: the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) Action Fund, NextGen PAC, NRDC Action Fund, and the Sierra Club. As the groups noted in their endorsement, the Biden-Harris administration has done more to address the climate crisis and environmental injustice than any administration in our nation’s history, including creating good-paying clean energy jobs through the historic Inflation Reduction Act.

R.D. BEACON:

Some money posted be on the skill looking down if it had been from my father, my father passed away in 1968 when the dust finally settled I had to sell off 90% of the property to pay off all the inheritance taxes state and federal plus back income taxes and a whole lot of other bills, and then there is fact that my timber partners had been stealing from me and my father several hundred million dollars, but the Fed treated like we've gotten the money even though my saving partners told it all, it is a tough road to keep what I have but I've managed but most people that look on the outside can't see what's on the inside and have little or no, opinion without fax, it is easy for somebody to judge others financially without knowing the reality of the pain of trying to keep a piece of property together and pay the bills, most of the smart people in the state of long since moved away and never looked back, and most people don't want to fight to keep with was given to the other family, it is not an easy battle and it is wrong that the government takes money after you die in more taxes it's unfair because you already paid the tax and they go after you again, over the years I know that people think I have buckets of money stashed everywhere but not exactly true in his hand the mouse all the time and it 82 and still working to squeeze every dime nickel out of the woodwork so I can have a roof over my head in a couple of meals a day most people think we should all retire but I look at retirement is a dirt nap I'm not willing to leave yet it makes the truly sad and I think people give up and end up in a home somewhere staring at the wall waiting for the end that is no life for any human being it happens all the time there is no illusion in life, we're all going to end up the same way it's how long we managed to stay here and keep the door open so we can look out for sunshine and enjoy the sunset.

WHY DID A TECH TYCOON BUY A WWII BUNKER NEAR SAN FRANCISCO?

by Eric Brooks

Covered in colorful graffiti and sitting in solitude atop an odd rocky mound just off Highway 1, the Devil’s Slide military bunker is hard to miss.

It sticks out like a sore and haunting thumb on an otherwise gorgeous drive.

The site, located just south of Pacifica near the entrance to the Tom Lantos Tunnels, was used for coastal defense during and after World War II. Lately, it’s become somewhat of a perplexing tourist attraction. Vehicles often stop in a nearby parking lot so explorers can get a close look at the bunker. 

Unfortunately, no plaques or informational brochures can be found along the dirt path that leads to the lonely structure, often leaving visitors with more questions than answers.

Like its facade, time has eroded many answers. But the ones we could find — including its billionaire owner — may surprise you.

“It is very recognizable and mysterious,” San Mateo County Historical Society President Mitch Postel told SFGATE. “It hearkens back to a day when we were preparing ourselves for World War II. It’s got a lot of history attached to it, both locally and in a contextual way. It says a lot about the mind set of America at the time. An air attack on the San Francisco Bay was not very far fetched at the time after Pearl Harbor.”

The bunker was one of many military sites — 81 in total built from 1892 to 1949 between Point Reyes and Half Moon Bay — raised in the buildup to World War II and immediate aftermath, part of the effort to fortify the West Coast in the event of an invasion. 

Following the war, many of the sites remained active as the Cold War began. In San Mateo County alone, there were several such locations, including nearby Sweeney Ridge and Milagra Ridge (both housed Nike missiles at one point). Two lookout spots were built at Devil’s Slide, including this particular bunker surrounded by a few other buildings and facilities. The other bunker is found along what’s now the Devil’s Slide Trail at the end of a steep, fenced off staircase.

The two Devil’s Slide sites were tasked with directing gunfire from other locations, although neither housed actual munitions. The state-of-the-art facilities featured radar, lookouts and a communications system that would “assist the big 16-inch guns that were further north in San Francisco at Fort Funston,” Postel said.

There were also 6-inch guns in the Marin Headlands pointed seaward receiving directions from the bunker. “Those places had a pretty big staff,” he added. “People to operate the radar and people to operate the radio communications. It was a very sophisticated defense system. It required a lot of manpower.”

Ultimately, the batteries never fired on an enemy, nor were any invading ships spotted from here. Both World War II and the Cold War came and went, yet evidence of the Bay Area’s many military positions remain.

For its part, the Devil’s Slide military bunker became obsolete by the end of the 1940s as other more sophisticated systems took hold. The small piece of land and its wartime structure were eventually decommissioned and sold to a private owner, remaining untouched for a number of years as fog and wind did their best to bury the past. 

“Those things could withstand quite a big blast,” Postel said. “They were there to defend the coast against big ships carrying big guns that fired shells the size of steers. They were built to last.” Dirt and rock around the base of the bunker were reportedly removed for a planned construction project sometime before 1970, but that was never completed.

Nearby, Highway 1 was closed at Devil’s Slide in 1940 because of repeated landslides and erosion. The Tom Lantos Tunnels were christened in 2013. Devil’s Slide itself eventually came under the care of San Mateo County Parks, which today operates a busy multiuse, recreational trail there. The bunker, which sits on a tiny unincorporated parcel, was sold several times over the years. That is, until it was bought by its current owner.

Enter Andreas Bechtolsheim.

According to San Mateo County records, an “Andreas V. Bechtolsheim” bought the parcel and its weary, decommissioned military bunker on Aug. 18, 1988. 

The name might not sound familiar at first, but a simple online search highlights Bechtolsheim’s groundbreaking work as a tech pioneer in Silicon Valley. The 67-year-old German national co-founded Sun Microsystems and was an early-stage investor at Google, among many other extraordinary tech accomplishments. According to Forbes, Bechtolsheim is worth $9.4 billion, much of which is due to his Google investment. So, it’s no wonder he’d be in the business of acquiring cliffside land with a spectacular view of the Pacific Ocean.

But why? That’s not exactly clear. Bechtolsheim’s office said he was unavailable to comment for this story. However, there were rumors about a plan for large development on the site at one time.

“Whomever had [the land] had desires to try to figure out a way to make it useful,” Postel explained, but the effort was doomed from the start. “The infrastructure and bringing in the utilities became an impossibility.” 

Thus, the project was abandoned. It’s unclear who had the idea to build something on the land and whether that proposal predated Bechtolsheim’s ownership, Postel added.

As the years went on, fencing set up around the coastal parcel was torn down, and what had been a fortified bunker became a roadside tourist attraction. Graffiti artists made it their own, inside and out. Coffee cups, bottles, spray paint canisters and beer cans are found in the bunker’s accessible nooks and crannies. 

Visitors to the abandoned bunker — of which there are many each day — park in a lot on the south side of Devil’s Slide and scamper down a small section of Highway 1. What once served as a defender of the coast now enjoys a wildly different kind of attention in retirement.

(SF Chronicle)

MEMO OF THE AIR: Live on KNYO from Franklin St. all night Friday night!

Deadline to email your writing for tonight's (Friday night's) MOTA show is like 5:30 or so. Or send it whenever it's done and I'll read it on the radio next week.

I'll be in the clean, well-lighted back room of KNYO's 325 N. Franklin studio. To call and read your work in your own voice, the number is 707-962-3022. If you want to come in and perform in person, that's okay, but bring a mask to put on.

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

As always, at https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com you'll find plenty of things to mess with until showtime to keep yourself occupied, such as:

The sockerooni opening dance number at the Tony Awards. If you're eating dinner, put the fork down, so you don't reflexively clear the table and stab yourself in the eye when they fling her down the stairs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4oQeYx5INE

Luna Lee - Secret Agent Man on gayageum. 

https://laughingsquid.com/luna-lee-secret-agent-man/

They don't mention it here, and I don't know why they don't, but this actress was most famous for playing Vina (say VEEN-uh) in the pilot episode of the original Star Trek show. 

https://www.vintag.es/2023/06/susan-oliver.html

And youth sportsball choreography. Every time you watch, focus on a different kid. 

https://www.bitsandpieces.us/2023/06/09/chaos-kids/

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

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Has there ever been a study of prodigies — those pre-pubescent phenoms you read about from time to time lecturing on quantum mechanics at Oxford — and what becomes of them after they fade from the front page? Do they actually go forth and make a difference? Enquiring minds want to know…

A quick look at those running the show right now unearths none with “former prodigy” on their CVs. What does appear are the correct ivy league schools, and one presumes, having attended the exclusive cocktail parties — or put another way, networking. “It’s who you know, not what you know.”

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

In the Army, we spoke of three levels of chaos: Cluster fuck, Goat Rodeo and Shit Storm/Show.

A Cluster Fuck was just unplanned chaos you happened to find yourself in. A Goat Rodeo was an elaborately staged event that went South and turned chaotic. The king of all chaos was the Shit Storm/Show.

A Shit Show (a term used exclusively by combat veterans) was an event so disastrous that you were no longer a participant but a horrified observer that could do nothing.

This is where we find ourselves now in the USA. We are witnessing a Shit Show.

I THINK IT’S MUCH MORE INTERESTING to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of uncertainty about different things, but I am not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don’t know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we’re here. I don’t have to know an answer. I don’t feel frightened not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as I can tell.

– Richard Feynman

EVERYBODY KNOWS

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died
Everybody talking to their pockets
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long-stem rose
Everybody knows

Everybody knows that you love me baby
Everybody knows that you really do
Everybody knows that you've been faithful
Oh, give or take a night or two
Everybody knows you've been discreet
But there were so many people you just had to meet
Without your clothes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

And everybody knows that it's now or never
Everybody knows that it's me or you
And everybody knows that you live forever
When you've done a line or two
Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old Black Joe's still picking cotton
For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows

And everybody knows that the Plague is coming
Everybody knows that it's moving fast
Everybody knows that the naked man and woman
Are just a shining artifact of the past
Everybody knows the scene is dead
But there's gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
What everybody knows

And everybody knows that you're in trouble
Everybody knows what you've been through
From the bloody cross on top of Calvary
To the beach of Malibu
Everybody knows it's coming apart
Take one last look at this Sacred Heart
Before it blows
Everybody knows

— Leonard Cohen

RACKET'S NEW SISTER SITE, ‘THE WRITING LIFE’

On a new Substack, and instructions on keeping Racket sections separate, for those who don't want pseudoliterary nonsense

by Matt Taibbi

A few weeks ago, I missed one of my sons’ Little League games for work reasons. When my oldest finally saw me that night, bursting with excitement as he described one of the first strikeouts of his pitching life, he was met by the face of an touchy middle-aged man whose head was still spinning with Current Thing Outrages. There is no way to bring Old Yeller back to life in that moment. It was epiphany time about ten minutes later. 

I realized I not only needed to spend more time with people I love, but perhaps devote a bit less mental energy to the worst people in the universe, who tend to play starring roles in Racket articles. Considering also that I may be drooling in a cup by the time my sons are old enough to read my work, I thought it might also be a good idea to set aside some time to projects with happier messages, things they may be able to read and enjoy someday. 

This was the genesis of the “Writing Tips” project Racket subscribers have seen a bit of, and also another Racket readers haven’t, The Anthology of Funny —favorite stories that saved me as a depressed young man and, I thought, might help them someday, too. However, the mix of such writing with political material on Racket is a little odd, and the first few “Tips” items generated some complaints from subscribers who didn’t want their in-boxes clogged with pseudoliterary claptrap they didn’t pay to read. 

First, there’s a logistical fix! Racket readers who do not want to read certain sections from this site can click on this page to opt out of receiving email from those sections. So, for instance, readers who are not interested in reading about the animal adjectives list can simply turn off notifications from “The Writing Life.”

Then I then had what I thought was an ingenious idea, to create a separate Substack called The Writing Life that loosely speaking would only contain the types of things I’d write for fun, from the tips to the short story anthology to an old abandoned lexicographical project I may revive to essays on other topics far from reporting or news. My brilliant idea was to make this a much cheaper, more low-key Substack that people could either support financially or not, as they pleased. The same stuff would still appear on Racket for people who wanted it, but if you only wanted the cheery musings, it would be cut-rate. 

However, Substack has a minimum subscription fee of $5 a month. When I learned that I was going to scrap the idea, but decided I’ll still put material there. It will just be free for the foreseeable future. No matter what happens, no one who subscribes to this site will ever have to pay for anything else I produce. The generosity of Racket subscribers over the years has been truly life-changing for my family, for which we’re eternally grateful, and which I’m trying to repay by hiring contributors to produce more content for the site, among other things via things like FOIA searches. 

Subscribers know my work ethic and should know by now that I’ll keep Racket as full of content as readers want. However, writing is also how I relax, and The Writing Life is a little experiment in making those more recreational efforts public. If you want to read these pieces, you’ll have access to them here on Racket. If you’d rather not see them, just click the link above once, and they will never darken your e-door.

CALL THE EXORCISTS!

by James Kunstler

“Modern states are powerful things, vast machines built of human components that act according to their own logic and towards their own ends.” — Eugypius on Substack

As a Jewish American, and a connoisseur of my people’s folklore, I bring to your attention the troublesome figure of the dybbuk (dih-bik), a disembodied demon that, because of its sins, wanders restlessly among us and can enter the flesh of a living person, who will then afflict and torment the community until properly exorcised by a minyan of rabbis garbed in white burial shrouds wielding sacred oaths.

Thus, I give you Andrew Weissmann, Esq., attorney at law, the American chief dybbuk, on the scene for decades now, sowing mischief and woe, leading an unholy host of fellow dybbukim calling itself Lawfare to infest the courts and meddle in elections. Think: Michael Sussman, an imp of RussiaGate; Michael Bromwich, former DOJ Inspector General (!) and then advisor to one Christine Blasey Ford (remember her?), David Laufman, erstwhile DOJ counter-intel goblin and Blasey Ford “beach friend” errand boy, Marc Elias, engineer extraordinaire of ballot harvesting operations in the 2020 election and many related pranks, Dan Goldman, lead counsel for the House Judiciary Committee’s impeachment against Donald J. Trump…dybbuks all!

The dybbuk Weissmann is best known, of course, for directing the Special Counsel’s “Russian Collusion” campaign (2017 – 2019) in the mental absence of its nominal chief, Robert Mueller, an endeavor that, in the end, could not find any instance of then-President Trump colluding with said Russians — but did, via a firehose of media leaks, succeed in casting a Trump derangement spell over half the US population. Dybbuk Weissmann lately haunts the MSNBC cable news channel as a “legal analyst.”

And yet, this shape-shifting fiend turns up again now in the Biden family global bribery matter, of all things. See if you can follow the convoluted tale coming out of Dybbuk Central a.k.a. Ukraine and the FBI. You may already know that in May, 2014, R. Hunter Biden, son of then-vice president Joe Biden, was appointed to the board of the Ukrainian natgas company Burisma, where he was paid $80,000-a-month for his expertise (he had none) in the global gas industry. As it happened, at exactly the same time Veep Joe Biden was appointed as then-President Barack Obama’s “point man” in Ukraine after the 2014 Maidan Coup, engineered by Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and the CIA, that ousted elected President Viktor Yanukovych.

By and by, Ukraine elected a new American-friendly president, Petro Poroshenko. Burisma was owned by an oligarch name of Mykola Zlochevsky. Apparently, the $80-K-a-month for Hunter Biden was not enough. The friendly American veep, Joe Biden, pressed Burisma’s Zlochevsky to provide $5-million payment each to Hunter and himself for additional Biden family services in Ukraine.

President Petro Poroshenko had a political confident and fixer (problem solver) named Oleksandr Onyshchenko, then a member of Ukraine’s parliament. In the 2015-16 time-frame, Onyshchenko conveyed a message to Zlochevsky that paying large sums of money to the Bidens might not be a good idea. Somehow, Onyshchenko’s complaints about the Bidens’ grift operation made it into the leading Kiev newspaper. As we all know, in November, 2016, Donald Trump was elected US President. Catastrophe! Freak-out in the US embassy in Kiev!

December, 2016, American Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanowicth, sent panicky emails to the folks back home about Onyshschenko’s allegations of Biden bribery. One of the recipients was a CIA agent implanted in the National Security Council name of Eric Ciaramella, later known as the Ukraine Phone Call Whistleblower.

Now, you may recall that in the summer of 2019, the owner of a Delaware computer repair shop, one John Paul Mac Isaac, came into possession of a laptop abandoned by Hunter Biden — under law, being left 90-days after repairs were made — and seeing its startling contents, tried to give it to the FBI, but was rebuffed. By then, CIA agent Eric Ciaramella had blown his whistle over a phone call Mr. Trump made to new Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky inquiring about the Bidens’ doings there. Later that fall, with impeachment proceedings started against President Trump, FBI agents came back at Mr. Mac Isaac and took the computer into the agency’s possession.

Consider that FBI Director Christopher Wray must have known about the laptop coming into his HQ and what it contained — and known that throughout the impeachment and Senate trial proceedings of Mr. Trump, And, of course, Mr. Wray did not volunteer any of this evidence about the Bidens to Mr. Trump’s defense attorneys. Nor did then-Attorney General William Barr, Mr. Wray’s superior. Odd, a little bit?

Spool back a few years now: turns out that in December, 2016, Oleksandr Onyshchenko, had gone to the FBI with a hoard of audiotapes made by Burisma chief Zlochevsky of phone calls between Veep Joe Biden and Ukraine President Poroshenko. Zlochevsky was now freaked-out that President-elect Donald Trump might have a whole different attitude toward Ukraine than the Obama-Biden admin had. The Burisma chief had gotten a hold of the tapes as, shall we say, an insurance policy in case his sketchy Ukrainian government and their even sketchier US State Department and CIA handlers happened to give him any guff about his operations. By then, Mr. Onyshchenko had been officially designated an FBI Confidential Human Source. Turns out he had been playing both sides, informing the American Intel Community about dark matters in the upper echelons of Ukraine for some time, was trusted, and was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by the US for his efforts.

Now, guess who got into the act at just moment (Dec 16, 2016) that Confidential Human Source Mr. Onyshchenko came forward with Zlochevsky’s Poroshenko-Biden tapes: the American Lawfare dybbuk Andrew Weissmann — of all people! What was poor naïve Mr. Onyshchenko thinking when he handed evidence of Democratic Party bigwig Veep Joe Biden’s moneygrubbing over to Barack Obama’s Department of Justice?

And guess what happened to the audiotaped evidence of the extravagant gifts to Hunter and Joe Biden: pffffftttttt…! It went up in a vapor. Dybbuk Weissmann, then working as the chief of the DOJ’s fraud division, made the whole thing go away. Just. Like. That. Dybbuk Weissmann made sure that the DOJ and the FBI officially discontinued having any interest in whatever the Biden family might have been up to in Ukraine.

And guess what happened next to Mr. Onyshchenko: he was charged with lying and corruption by his own (Ukrainian) government and became an international fugitive when the US Intel Community demurred to let him escape to the United States. And guess who is now in fear of his life.

And, by the way, subsequent phone call recordings dating from December 19, 2016, are now circulating freely in the US of then-Ukraine President Poroshenko thanking then-Veep Joe Biden for getting the US DOJ off the case. As reported by Stephen McIntyre on Twitter (@ClimateAudit): Biden re-assured Poroshenko that the FBI had “stopped” and there was “no reason [for FBI] to talk to him again.” Biden undertook to “check that [with FBI] and confirm that with you.”

So fast forward to the present moment. Senator Chuck Grassley made a speech on the Senate Floor this week revealing the existence of all these tape recordings that detail $5-million plus $5-million bribes from Mr. Zlochevsky to the Biden family. Podcaster Dan Bongino has played them on his show several times this past week (episodes 2020, 2031, and 2032). Go there and listen for yourself.

Note, too, that dybbuk Andrew Weissmann is still at large in our land dybbuking-up a storm again just this past week with an article in The Atlantic titled Jack Smith’s Backup Operation suggesting that if Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Mar-a-Lago papers case against Donald Trump happens to fizzle, yet another case can be opened against the former President in the New Jersey federal district court. Isn’t it about time to call in that minyan of rabbinical exorcists and expel this demon from America’s body politic?

(kunstler.com)

DANIEL ELLSBERG HAS PASSED AWAY. He Left Us a Message.

by Norman Solomon

When Daniel Ellsberg died on Friday, the world lost a transcendent whistleblower with a powerful ethos of compassion and resolve.

Ellsberg’s renown for openly challenging the mentalities of militarism began on June 23, 1971, when he appeared on CBS Evening News ten days after news broke about the Pentagon Papers that he’d provided to journalists. Ellsberg pointedly said that in the 7,000 pages of top-secret documents, “I don’t think there is a line in them that contains an estimate of the likely impact of our policy on the overall casualties among Vietnamese or the refugees to be caused, the effects of defoliation in an ecological sense. There’s neither an estimate nor a calculation of past effects, ever.”

And he added: “The documents simply reflect the internal concerns of our officials. That says nothing more nor less that that our officials never did concern themselves with the effect of our policies on the Vietnamese.”

Ellsberg told anchor Walter Cronkite: “I think we cannot let the officials of the Executive Branch determine for us what it is that the public needs to know about how well and how they are discharging their functions.”

The functions of overseeing the war on Vietnam had become repugnant to Ellsberg as an insider. Many other government officials and top-level consultants with security clearances also had access to documents that showed how mendacious four administrations had been as the U.S. role in Vietnam expanded and then escalated into wholesale slaughter.

Unlike the others, he finally broke free and provided the Pentagon Papers to news media. As he said in the CBS interview, “The fact is that secrets can be held by men in the government whose careers have been spent learning how to keep their mouths shut. I was one of those.”

Ellsberg’s mouth, and heart, never stayed shut again. For the 52 full years that followed his release of the Pentagon Papers, he devoted himself to speaking, writing and protesting. When the war on Vietnam finally ended, Ellsberg mainly returned to his earlier preoccupation -- how to help prevent nuclear war.

This spring, during the three months after diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, Ellsberg made the most of every day, spending time with loved ones and speaking out about the all-too-real dangers of nuclear annihilation. He left behind two brilliant, monumental books published in this century -- “Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers” (2002) and “The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner” (2017). They illuminate in sharp ghastly light the patterns of official lies and secrecy about military matters, and the ultimate foreseeable result -- nuclear holocaust.

Ellsberg was deeply determined to do all he could to help prevent omnicide. As he said in an interview when “The Doomsday Machine” came out, scientific research has concluded that nuclear war “would loft into the stratosphere many millions of tons of soot and black smoke from the burning cities. It wouldn't be rained out in the stratosphere. It would go around the globe very quickly and reduce sunlight by as much as 70 percent, causing temperatures like that of the Little Ice Age, killing harvests worldwide and starving to death nearly everyone on earth. It probably wouldn't cause extinction. We're so adaptable. Maybe 1 percent of our current population of 7.4 billion could survive, but 98 or 99 percent would not.”

During the profuse interviews that he engaged in during the last few months, what clearly preoccupied Ellsberg was not his own fate but the fate of the Earth’s inhabitants.

He was acutely aware that while admiration for brave whistleblowers might sometimes be widespread, actual emulation is scarce. Ellsberg often heard that he was inspiring, but he was always far more interested in what people would be inspired to *actually do* -- in a world of war and on the precipice of inconceivable nuclear catastrophe.

During the last decades of his life, standard assumptions and efforts by mainstream media and the political establishment aimed to consign Ellsberg to the era of the Vietnam War. But in real time, Dan Ellsberg continually inspired so many of us to be more than merely inspired. We loved him not only for what he had done but also for what he kept doing, for who he was, luminously, ongoing. The power of his vibrant example spurred us to become better than we were.

In a recent series of short illustrated podcasts created by filmmaker Judith Ehrlich -- who co-directed the documentary “The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers” -- Ellsberg speaks about the growing dangers of global apocalypse, saying that nuclear war planners “have written plans to kill billions of people,” preparations that amount to “a conspiracy to commit omnicide, near omnicide, the death of everyone.” And he adds: “Can humanity survive the nuclear era? We don’t know. I choose to act as if we have a chance.”

(Norman Solomon is national director of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His book ‘War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine* <https://thenewpress.com/books/war-made-invisible> was published this week by The New Press.)

JEFF BLANKFORT: What is extraordinary is that these veteran "journalists" nor any others in the warmongering US media, cannot bring themselves to tell the truth about requirements for NATO membership. Not only must the applicant not be at war or experiencing divisions but its membership must be approved by every single NATO member which would then, literally legally, mean that every single one of its members had declared war on Russia. It won't happen because it is clear that Hungary would not approve it and likely there are some others who have experienced war, like the Czechs, who, despite their dislike of Russia, are not about to put their lives on the line for Ukraine.

UKRAINE, FRIDAY, 16TH JUNE

Russia launched a “massive, combined air attack” on Kyiv on Friday, injuring at least six people, while at least 23 people were injured in Russian shelling in the city of Kherson, Ukrainian officials said.

US President Joe Biden is comfortable removing one of the hurdles for Ukraine to join NATO, a source told CNN, a small step toward easing Kyiv's accession into the defensive alliance.

The first tactical nuclear weapons to be stored in Belarus have arrived, according to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The US said it doesn't see "any indications" Moscow is preparing to use a nuclear weapon.

It is “highly likely” the collapse of the Nova Kakhovka dam in the Kherson region was caused by Russia, a team of international legal experts assisting Ukraine's investigation said.

I WOULD RATHER BE ASHES than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.

Up to a certain point, it is necessary for a man to live his life in the world in which he finds himself, and to make the best of it. But beyond that point, he must create a world of his own. And the greatest thing about life is that it is always giving us the opportunity to create something new. It is never too late to start over, to make a fresh beginning, to blaze a new trail.

Life is short, and we have but a brief time in which to explore, to learn, to experience, and to create. Let us make the most of that time, and let us burn brightly, like meteors across the night sky, leaving behind us a trail of light and inspiration for those who come after us. 

— Jack London