Mendocino County Today: Friday, June 23, 2023

Cloudy Morning | Cabrillo Point | Water Diversion | Savannah Memorial | Body Found | Alvarez Me-Hauls | Rossi Storefront | Ed Notes | Mobile Adoption | School Sale | Mackerricher Beach | Historical Society | Fresnel Lens | Missing Library | Endless Stone | Wagon Ride | Nivette Update | Foggy Landing | Water Witches | Camp Navarro | Summer Beer | Windmill Removers | Pink Zone | Rancheria Creek | Gallery Bookshop | Cabrillo Lighthouse | Sherwood Stories | Yesterday's Catch | Wine Shorts | Re-Elect Zombies | Exciting Enough | Fake Believe | Opera Heaven | First Date | SF Collapse | Lesser Evil | Native Reparations | MRI Fun | Sub End | Supreme Corruption | In America | Ukraine Project | Trust Bond

COASTAL CLOUDS will persist through much of the next week. Across the interior, isolated to scattered thunderstorms are expected today, with gradually decreasing chances through the weekend. Temperatures along the coast will remain slightly below normal. Temperatures across the interior will gradually warm through the coming week. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): On the coast this Friday morning another foggy 54F. That is a BIG fog bank out there. Our forecast is calling for "partly sunny" thru the weekend, then "mostly sunny" early next week. Right. There are hints of warmer temps for early July, we'll see.

NOTICE OF WATER RIGHT Minor Change in Mendocino County

Please be advised that a minor change has been initiated under Water Code section 1700.4 to make minor changes to water right permit application A030794 of Duckhorn Wine Company. The project associated with the application is in Mendocino County and would divert water from the Navarro River stream system.

The notice for the minor change can be viewed on the Division of Water Rights' website at: waterboards.ca.gov/waterrights/water_issues/programs/petitions/minor_changes.html

If you have any questions regarding the minor change, please contact Mark Matranga at (916) 327-3112 or mark.matranga@waterboards.ca.gov.

SAVANNAH’S “CELEBRATION OF LIFE” will be on Saturday, July 1st at Barra in Redwood Valley at 1:00pm. To those who have offered to help, please contact me, and I will let you know what you can help us with: (707) 391-8614.

Thank you all. I hope to see you there to celebrate our sweet girl.

A DEAD BODY has been located near Portuguese Beach in the coastal town of Mendocino this afternoon [June 22] prompting a multi-agency response…

mendofever.com/2023/06/22/dead-body-found-on-the-rocky-shore-of-the-mendocino-county-coast/

ALVAREZ ME-HAULS A U-HAUL 

On Friday, June 16, 2023 at approximately 2:24 PM, a Ukiah Police Officer was dispatched to the area of Honey Fluff Donuts (1296 N. State St) for a report of an unknown disturbance. UPD Dispatch further advised that the California Highway Patrol was responding to the same general area for a possible carjacking incident that could be related to the same call for service. 

An Officer arrived on scene a short time later and observed a California Fish and Wildlife Warden with a subject detained in handcuffs (Travis Alvarez). Through the investigation, it was determined that a shipping company was transporting multiple large U-Haul box trucks to a destination and had stopped in the dirt lot directly north of KFC (1139 N. State St) to take a break. During that time Alvarez entered one of the trucks without permission and fled the dirt lot northbound on N. State Street in the truck. 

One of the employees transporting the U-Haul trucks jumped into one of the other vehicles and began to pursue Alvarez. As they approached N. State Street and Ford Road in the right lane, the victim positioned the vehicle in front of Alvarez to prevent him from getting away. Alvarez accelerated ramming the victim’s vehicle causing damage. Alvarez then put the vehicle in reverse and accelerated rapidly ramming an uninvolved victim’s vehicle. 

The employee who blocked Alvarez from escaping exited his vehicle and forcefully removed Alvarez from the stolen U-Haul truck. Alvarez began fighting with him until a California Fish and Wildlife Warden who happened to be in the area observed the altercation. The Warden exited his marked vehicle in full uniform and ordered Alvarez to stop. Alvarez began to flee on foot when the Warden physically attempted to detain him. During that time an off-duty Ukiah Police Department Detective was driving by and observed the altercation between Alvarez and the Warden. The UPD Detective exited his personal vehicle and assisted the Warden placing Alvarez into handcuffs without further incident. The Warden sustained minor injuries during the course of his duties detaining Alvarez. 

Due to the initial vehicle theft occurring in Ukiah City limits, UPD took over the investigation from CHP and California Fish and Wildlife. Alvarez was arrested for the applicable offenses and later booked into the Mendocino County Jail. 

The Ukiah Police Department would like to thank the California Fish and Wildlife Warden who assisted in the apprehension of Alvarez to prevent any further crimes or injuries. We would also like to thank CHP for their assistance with the scene and traffic control as this was a busy time of day. 

ED NOTES

A THANK YOU to Gary Miles of Ukiah for the gift of Edward Abbey’s amusing collection of shotgun opinions and aphorisms called, ‘A Voice Crying in the Wilderness.’ Abbey was crying for wildernesses lost and, as we know, inspired millions of others to not only cry with him but defend wilderness at the risk of jail and worse to themselves. This little book is the first I’ve read from the Abbey oeuvre, but I read somewhere that he recommended taking out billboards, which I thought was a right-on suggestion. When I was more mobile and energetic I removed some roadside blight myself as a form of night time exercise.

ON A TRIP to Ukiah the other day, a street guy, against the light, dashed across the busy intersection at Talmage and South State, and only the lightning reflexes of a woman making a left turn saved the street guy from being hit. He continued on a fast walk oblivious, or uncaring, how close he came to the emergency room. At two businesses, the clerks were tweeked, one more or less functioning, the other so loaded, (and scantily clad) she was galloping in place, much to the snarling displeasure of her fellow clerk. 

UKIAH probably has more “helping professionals” than any other town its size in America, yet there is always at least a platoon of people on the street who are obviously unable or unwilling to care for themselves, among them, to be sure, “non-reimburseables,” as the hopeless cases are known among the cash and carry helping pros, and. here we are. 

FORMER SUPERVISOR Johnny Pinches used to carry a County budget with him which he’d thoroughly annotated, noting all the unnecessary expenditures the County doles out. Redwood Valley’s candidate for 2nd District supervisor, Carrie Shattuck, seems to be in the cost-saving Pinches tradition. She has promised to take only half her Supe’s salary if elected, a promise that undoubtedly caused silent panic in the sitting supervisors, each of them collecting a hundred grand a year plus benefits for part-time “work.” I like Ms. Shattuck’s ferocity, her no bullshit approach to the supervisor position. In the twittering context of the nambo pambo crew in the job now, she’s especially interesting, exhilarating even.

THANKS to the supervisors’ haste to anoint a Democrat to succeed Glenn McGourty in the 2nd District seat, they’ve again revealed the grip that Northcoast Democrats have on elected offices on the Northcoast, and not to the benefit of the people who live here. 

ON THE OTHER HAND, by prematurely anointing Trevor Mockel for the 2nd District seat, as directed by state senator McGuire via 5th District Supervisor Williams (presumably), the supervisors have probably doomed the candidacy of the beaming cipher.

MOCKEL’S only “qualification” is that he’s functioned as an aide to Democrat McGuire, a state senator and the man behind the mega-scam called The Great Redwood Trail, so far a redwood-free, two-mile stretch of pavement running through East Ukiah’s industrial wastelands. (The Democrats are also behind the new County Courthouse no one except the judges want, and they have also managed to destroy for all time the railroad that used to run from Marin to Eureka.) 

THE ACTIVE Democrats of Mendocino County — about 25 lockstep conservative liberals who pretend that Biden isn’t ga-ga — try to control every elected office in the county, from school board seats to the supervisors. 

WE ALSO LIKE the candidacy of Adam Gaska of Redwood Valley. Gaska’s a thoughtful guy who conscientiously studies the issues and would make a good, independent supervisor. Too bad Shattuck and Gaska are both running from the 1st District.

WHILE THE SUPES discuss budget cuts without seriously considering lots of stuff that should have gone years ago, how about eliminating their own travel and conference stipends? They make almost three times the average income of their constituents and should pay their own way here and there and to jive conferences in places like Las Vegas and Carmel.

DITTO for all department heads, including the DA and the Sheriff.

BACK A WAYS, my brother Rob, who has never been what you would call upwardly mobile, was working for Taco Bell in Ukiah when he decided to make a lateral career move and applied for a County job cleaning cages at the dog pound south of Ukiah. Hustling over to the Courthouse for an interview to hopefully become Dog Doo Sweeper Level 1, he hadn’t had time to change into his civies from his Taco Bell uniform. Ushered into a conference room, Rob was mildly shocked to find himself seated at a table around which were arrayed a half dozen or so Ukiah Nice People, all of them securely fixed to the public payroll. They were interviewing, you see. Not just anybody could sweep out kennels; it was very important to get a properly deferential person, an appropriately grateful one. It was also a plausible way in the context of public employment Mendo style for them to dick off for an afternoon. Needless to say, Rob didn’t get the job. They must have thought he had divided loyalties. Or maybe the Animal Shelter supplied Taco Bell’s meat. Who knows? 

PEACHLAND ROAD has always been a preferred destination for illegal dumping. The County really should devise a scheme for subsidizing free trash disposal for those unable to pay the nearly extortionate price of $7.50 a yard at the legal transfer stations. Don’t litter-free roadsides have value in themselves? 

GUALALA AND HOPLAND have undergrounded their utility lines. Boonville’s? We’ve been on a nebulous promise list for years, but no action.

FOLLOWING UP on the Redwood Valley Elementary School sale, Adam Gaska writes:

I talked to Marvin [Trotter]’s wife, Cassie, and she said the school would cost $10 million to tear down according to Ukiah Unified School District.

I did some digging and found this: 1.cdn.edl.io/JiQSQIIFXmUO3j9YfFazxf4kt57BfoUH022qDiqjw9Xisc1W.pdf

It’s the 7-11 committee report. Page 52, they say to bring the campus back up to par would cost $10 million in 2016. So demolition would probably be less. They probably got the numbers mixed up.

Here is a link to the sale information which includes the toxics’ report: uusd.net/apps/pages/RVES

The school has ADA compliance issues as well which would need to be addressed to reopen as a public school. They also mention water availability as an issue.

I have heard River Oak charter school is interested. I imagine they would need to deal with the ADA compliance. UUSD would have to sign off on them moving there. Where the money would come from to get it back to standard is anyone’s guess. It would cost more than $10 million today due to depreciation/continued neglect and inflation.

* * *

James Marmon commented on the situation as well:

A good portion of that school was renovated just about 2 years before its closure. The main building may be a problem but the newer structures (classrooms) should be fine. My stepfather’s grandfather donated that land to the “Redwood Valley Community” to be used for “School Purposes.” Cassie Trotter calls me now and then about the property and recently told me that some Charter School is interested in buying the property. Apparently, the Ukiah Unified School District can’t find the deed, that’s because they probably didn’t annex it legally when they took it over. In my mind the Redwood Valley Community still owns it.

The only deed on record for the property is recorded at the recorder’s office in what’s known as the “Book of Deeds”.

HISTORICAL SOCIETY Research Room Grand Opening

The Historical Society of Mendocino County for the Research Room Grand Opening as part of the First Friday Art Walk on Friday, July 7th! There will be a display of historic Mendocino County maps, a history book sale, and Husch Vineyards will be pouring wine.

The Research Room will be open to the public starting Saturday, July 8th, from 1-4pm. Regular, ongoing hours for the Research Room will be Thursday - Saturday from 1-4pm. New resources and collection items will be made available as we continue to catalog and digitize our collections.

What to look for now: a variety of local history books, Mendocino County directories, a selection of local journal publications and yearbooks, cataloged and digitized property tax assessment rolls through the 1920's, as well as compiled research on historical buildings in Ukiah, county government resources, historic obituaries, Mendocino County cemeteries, and City of Ukiah government resources.

Access to additional collections are available through research appointments with our staff.

Coming Soon! The Historical Society of Mendocino County is working on building an online database for the public to explore our collections and the Held-Poage Memorial Home Museum is set to open in 2024.

* * *

The Historical Society of Mendocino County is Searching for Docents!

As we prepare to open the Historical Society of Mendocino County Research Room to the public, we are looking for docents to support visitors in the archive lobby on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays from 12:30 - 4:30pm. If you are friendly, enthusiastic, willing to learn, and have great people skills we would love for you to volunteer!

Expectations:

* Commit to a four hour shift one day a week,

* Greet visitors when they arrive,

* Assist in setting up research appointments,

* Monitor the facility and help researches locate reference collections,

* Give visitors instruction on proper document handling,

* Sell items from our local history bookstore,

* Help visitors sign up as members.

HSMC June Member Meeting

June 25th, 2023, 1:00pm

Round Valley Public Library

23925 Howard Street

Covelo, California 95428

https://mendocinocountyhistory.us21

Our mailing address is:

Historical Society of Mendocino County

100 S Dora St

Ukiah, CA 95482

LITTLE FREE LIBRARY SITE

Anderson Valley? (Nope) There is a map and an app at littlefreelibrary.org that has most of them. I found one out Rd. 409 the other day. There is one in Gualala. Irish Beach is on the map. Some of them are beautiful. But AV has its own terrific library at the Boonville Fairgrounds.

THE ENDLESS MATTER OF DOUGLAS STONE, AKA THE BANDIT OF REDWOOD VALLEY'S BLACK BART TRAIL

JOAN VIVALDO WRITES: California's January 2023 Penal Section 1001.36 allows for mental health diversion for treatment before trial if certain conditions are met. If the treatment program is successfully completed, there is no trial. The Court's preliminary decision on the Mental Health Diversion motion for PTSD made months ago by Douglas Stone was to be given on June 12, 2023. The final ruling was to be given June 16, 2023. Neither occurred. Instead, on the 16th, Judge Faulder completed case paperwork for his final decision, and any future appeal. He queried participants for any objection to the diversion motion, and when there were none, set the hearing for August 21, 2023, at 9am. Mr. Stone requested six months mental health diversion; Assistant DA Heidi Larsen one year. The Court may impose two years.

Background: "The Unlikely Burglar of Black Bart Trail" (May 6, 2020)

FARM FUN FOR JULY 4TH WEEKEND: A special Estate Wagon Ride with Sophia Bates and her Fjord horses at Pennyroyal Farm. Recommend getting tickets early - great for families and groups!

DEB SILVA WRITES, re James Nivette

James Nivette is still in prison! He's at the Chino prison aka California Institution for Men (CIM).

I copied everything from his prison inmate locator page. His next parole hearing is August 1st of this year.

Inmate Name: Nivette, James Dewayne

CDCR Number: V08954

Age: 80

Admission Date: 10/06/2003

Current Location: California Institution for Men

Parole Eligible Date (Month/Year): 04/2012

The Parole Eligible Date displayed above is subject to change.

The parole eligible date shown above is the first date the inmate is (or was) eligible for a parole suitability hearing by the Board of Parole Hearings to determine if the inmate should be released. Inmates may earn credits for participating in rehabilitative programming, which may move their parole eligible dates to an earlier date. Inmates could also be found guilty of an institutional rules violation, which could result in a loss of credits that may move their parole eligible dates further into the future. Parole eligible dates may also change based on a variety of other reasons, including court orders, changes in law, and routine audits. Parole eligible dates displayed on this website are updated regularly.

For more information about the parole suitability hearing process, please visit the Board of Parole Hearings’ Parole Suitability Hearing

Overview<http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/BOPH/parole_suitability_hearings_overview.html>

Board Of Parole Hearings: For more information about the Board of Parole Hearings, please visit the Board’s website<http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/BOPH/>

August 01, 2023 Parole Suitability Hearing Tentative date for parole suitability hearing

Past Board Actions

March 22, 2023: Parole Suitability Hearing / Parole suitability hearing was postponed

September 09, 2022: Administrative Review / The administrative review to advance the inmate’s next parole suitability hearing date was approved August 25, 2021 Parole Suitability Hearing Inmate was denied parole for 3 years

January 29, 2021: Inmate Petition to Advance / The inmate’s petition to advance his or her next parole suitability hearing date was approved

September 24, 2020: Inmate Petition to Advance / The inmate’s petition to advance his or her next parole suitability hearing date was rejected because he or she is not eligible to file a petition at this time April 10, 2018 Parole Suitability Hearing / Inmate was denied parole for 5 years

October 17, 2017: Inmate Petition to Advance / The inmate’s petition to advance his or her next parole suitability hearing date was approved

September 29, 2017: Administrative Review / The inmate was ineligible for an administrative review to advance his or her next parole suitability hearing date

October 25, 2016: Parole Suitability Hearing / Inmate was denied parole for 3 years

March 16, 2016: Administrative Review / The administrative review to advance the inmate’s next parole suitability hearing date was approved

March 04, 2015 Parole Suitability Hearing / Inmate was denied parole for 3 years

July 13, 2012: Inmate Petition to Advance / The inmate’s petition to advance his or her next parole suitability hearing date was rejected because he or she is not eligible to file a petition at this time

March 15, 2012: Parole Suitability Hearing / Inmate was denied parole for 3 years

WATER WITCHES

Are you leaving town and would like the comfort of knowing that your garden is being watered?

Do you have a rental that needs a regular watering?

Are you tired of always hand watering but don’t want an UNSIGHTLY drip system?!

Are you worried your drip system will malfunction while you are away and everything will DIE?

The Water Witches are here to make sure your beautiful garden stays hydrated and happy!

Call today to get on our circuit, limited spaces available!

Light maintenance is also available.

Serving coastal areas from Elk to Cleone

707.877.6062

waterwitchesofmendo@gmail.com

SUMMER IN A CAN

More Sun Means More Beer

We’ve got good news and bad news. Starting with the good: Wednesday was the longest day of the year. And the bad: Wednesday was the longest day of the year. Whether you’re basking in the light, or already preparing for the shorter days ahead, make a toast today with our Summer Solstice Ale.

Goes with Gose Headlines

According to our google news alerts, we’ve been in the news recently. Ok, not necessarily for the third one, but we suspect Barkley was involved. What else goes with Gose? Anything, apparently.

Beer Cocktails

Sometimes it feels difficult to choose between a cold beer or a cocktail — but is it? What if you can have both? And at the same time? Join us as we travel through the magical world of Beer Cocktails.

https://avbc.com/beer/summer-solstice-ale/

BILL BRAZILL AND FRIENDS taking the mill off a tall tower on Pudding Creek Road, 1975. This windmill is now on a tower on the east side of Highway 1 in Mendocino. (Photographer: Bill Lemos)

PINK ZONE CELEBRATION of Philo Wellness Center POSTPONED

Organizers postponed Tuesday’s planned celebration of One Taste, Mendocino County’s first Pink Zones Project-approved service provider, due to a scheduling conflict. Building on the success of Blue Zones Project-approved restaurants, officials from Adventist Health selected One Taste’s Philo center as the first fully-authenticated Pink Zone Provider. AH had planned to publicly honor the center – which they claim leads the world in fostering sensual pleasure among its clients – at a small gathering of local business leaders and dignitaries.

On hearing of the honor some locals noted the prescience of the Adventist church, which loaned One Taste $2.4 million for the purchase of the Philo property. “They recognized [One Taste owner Nicole] Daedone’s commitment and vision and said, yes, we want to partner with you. This award proves to the critics that they picked a winner,” said neighbor and landscaper Henry Chinaski.

Recent controversy surrounding One Taste’s healing and wellness regimen, built on a foundation of daily fifteen minute genital stroking sessions called Orgasmic Meditation (OM), and the federal indictment of Daedone and ex-head of sales Rachel Cherwitz on charges of forced labor have not diminished its importance as a key sensual provider in the region, noted Mendocino County Pink Zone Project’s Chief Information Officer Phoebe Buffay-Hannigan.

In February officials including Blue Zones founder and evangelizer Dan Buettner gathered in Ukiah for the crowning of the county seat as the world’s second fully authenticated Pink Zone, a geographic region found to have extraordinarily high incidence of orgasmic pleasure. Last year Loma Linda, California, made headlines when it became the world’s first Lavender Zone, a region that achieves Blue and Pink Zone status concurrently. Asked for comment regarding the award and postponement of the ceremony, a One Taste representative stated she was excited but unavailable and could respond in approximately fifteen minutes.

AH and Pink Zones Project have not released a new date for the celebration.

WONDERFUL THINGS ARE HAPPENING AT GALLERY BOOKSHOP

Friday, June 23rd

6:00 pm to 8:00 pm at Gallery Bookshop.

Silent Reading Party

Be alone together with a few of your favorite things: books!

$20 ticket includes tea, cookies, and $20 in store credit.

Optional: bring your own snacks, drinks, or pillows! The night begins with chat and building your reading nest, followed by an hour of reading silently without interruption and then maybe chatting more about your book if you'd like More information at 707.937.2665 or gallerybookshop.com

Saturday, June 24th

Meet the Author

1:00pm to 3:00pm at Gallery Bookshop

Come meet Laurie Melrose, author of Mendocino set novel, Willow Wood

Say Hi and get your copy signed

More information at 707.937.2665 or gallerybookshop.com

Rob Hawthorn, Events Coordinator

Gallery Bookshop

707-937-2665

WHITE MAN'S DEADLY ENCOUNTERS WITH INDIANS, Old Mendo Style: Growing Up Older on Sherwood Road

by Fremont Older, Editor of the San Francisco Call Bulletin, 1931

It happened at the moment of my deepest depression that A.E. Sherwood, my stepfather's brother, suggested to me that I could preempt 160 acres of redwood timberland adjoining his large ranch in Sherwood Valley, Mendocino County. He gave me a pleasant mental picture of what I would have to do to acquire the land, and how I could subsist.

In order to conform to the federal law, I must establish residence on the land and live their for six months. I could easily build a little cabin, clear a place for a garden, which would provide me with vegetables. I would have no difficulty in finding sufficient work in the neighborhood to piece out a livelihood.

The prospect appealed to me strongly, and while the idea was still fresh in my mind Sherwood and I left for the valley. The railroad at that time ended at Cloverdale. On his way down to the city, Sherwood had left his saddle horses at this point, and we finished the 65 mile journey on horseback. It took us two days. 

Sherwood and another white man had settled in this valley in 1852. They had gone bravely in among 800 Mendocino Indians, who were under the leadership of a chief that Sherwood later named “Captain Jack.”

As we rode along over the mountain road, Sherwood told me the story of the conquest. He and his partner had taken with them some gaudy trinkets, as presents, that they thought might capture the fancy of the chief and make him friendly. He did give them a cordial reception, but when he discovered that these two white men had designs on the valley be became suspicious and eventually hostile. Sherwood and his partner used strategy. Captain Jack had two daughters who at once became interested in the white men. Without their aid Sherwood and his partner would have been killed. Captain Jack's conspiracies and plottings were all revealed by the young women to the white men that they admired.

After establishing a camp, Sherwood and his partner hollowed out a big fallen redwood tree, built a strong door at the opening and used it as a jail. The “braves” who planned to kill the white men were thrown into the redwood log jail and fed on raw acorns and water until they promised to be good.

According to Sherwood's story, which was more exciting to me than any dime novel I had ever read, they had many hair's breadth escapes from death. Each one slept with a cocked rifle by his side, and their hearing soon became as acute as the Indians'. The young princesses, daughters of the chief, kept them informed of every contemplated move of the enemy. The Indians succeeded in killing the partner, but Sherwood went on with the fight alone.

In time he gained complete control of the tribe, took possession by preemption and outright purchase of several hundred acres of excellent cattle land. He finally compromised with Captain Jack, who agreed to take for his people a small area at the head of the valley as a reservation. There they lived for many years as Sherwood's neighbors, and under his kind protection.

When I arrived in the valley in May, 1878, disease had reduced the tribe to 50 or 60, and Captain Jack was dead. But the old jail in the hollow log that did such effective service during the conquest was still there. Jails have always been useful to conquerors.

The 160 acre claim that I had preempted bordered Sherwood Valley on the west. It was a beautiful virgin forest of large redwood trees, so close together and rising so high that they shaded the earth from the sun at midday. I found a small cleared space not far from the open land and began at once to build my cabin.

It was great fun splitting boards off a big fallen redwood tree that contained enough lumber to build a dozen cabins. It had evidently been blown over in a storm. Sherwood's boys helped me with the heavy pieces for the frame. I built four walls and roofed them, using the soft, mossy ground as a floor. When it was finished I made a crude bedstead in a corner, using a thick layer of green boughs instead of a mattress. The perfume of those boughs was delicious and with two pairs of blankets I slept like a lord.

I planted a small vegetable garden in front of the cabin, and watered it from a beautiful stream near by that sang a woodsy song as it leisurely rippled its way to the valley.

I felt like a king in my new home. But even kings need food and I set out to find myself a job. At a sawmill, a few miles away, I was employed to pile lumber. My pay was in orders on a general store in Willits. These orders served my purpose as well as money. Several weeks' work gave me sufficient food and clothing orders to last some time. Life then became easy.

My mother sent me newspapers and books, and I soon knew all of the neighbors. Sherwood's ranch house was only two miles away and the path leading to it from my cabin passed directly alongside the rancheria where the Indians lived. I soon became acquainted with those who could speak a few words of English. They were a simple, friendly people, with no more of our kind of morals than a jackrabbit. They were kind to each other, sharing everything they had as if they were one family. The younger ones knew nothing of their tribal history, but there was a very old man, no one knew how old, living at the rancheria. From him I learned that this group belonged to the Shebalne Pomos, meaning as nearly as I could learn “Neighbor People.”

The old man remembered the tribe in the days of its glory before the white man came. All of their old activities had been abandoned and forgotten, and this little remnant of the tribe, now leaderless, had settled down into a calm, listless despair. Their creed was “never do today what can be put off until tomorrow.” They had a deep seated aversion to work and as a result there was very little to eat, except acorns, huckleberries and blackberries. They dried the berries and they made a rather tasteless bread of the acorns.

Occasionally an old steer would die in the hills. When it has been dead a few days the wind would blow the odor over to the rancheria, and the Indians would fetch the carrion into camp and have a feast. The odor was so unpleasant that I had to hold my nose as I passed by, which brought laughter and derisive hoots from the happy banqueters.

I didn't realize it then, but I was really seeing the last of a race serenely passing from the face of the earth, and like ourselves, not knowing what it was all about.

The two daughters of old Captain Jack were living at the rancheria. One of them, Fanny, had a handsome little daughter nine years old. She also was named Fanny and was half white. She was the granddaughter of Captain Jack, the last ruler of the tribe. The gossips of the valley named as her father a hermit trapper, who lived alone in a cabin in the mountains six miles from the valley.

The trapper and I had become very good friends. I visited him often and occasionally spent the night with him enjoying his wonderful venison steaks, hot cakes, wild honey and huckleberry shortcake.

Something had happened in this trapper's early life that turned him against people and the world in general. I was the only one he would have at his cabin, or that he would speak with, except on business. He was very handsome with dark brown eyes. He had a long drooping brown mustache which he chewed at times to keep from laughing. He had evidently taken an oath never to laugh. When he forgot himself, he checked the laugh suddenly and bit the ends of his mustache violently.

In our many conversions the trapper never mentioned either the girl or her mother. One morning word came to the ranch house that little Fanny was badly burned. While asleep beside the fire in the wickiup she had rolled into a bed of live coals.

Several of us hurried to the rancheria and found the girl wrapped in a blanket and shrieking violently. Her mother was trying to calm her. One of the Sherwood boys and I took turns in carrying her to the ranch house a mile away. Her entire body was terribly burned. While we were applying such remedies as we had, the trapper suddenly appeared, the tears streaming down his cheeks. One of the Indians had told him what had happened. He was greatly agitated. “Get a doctor, quick,” he said. “For God's sake, save her life.”

A doctor came on horseback from Willits. Fanny was dying in great agony. The flesh on her poor little body was literally cooked. She lay writhing on a couch on the front porch. Her mother, and the other squaws, were grouped around her. All were moaning and swaying their bodies. One or two were shedding real tears. I saw her mother run into the wash room and dash water on her face so that she would seem to be weeping.

The trapper stood close by the bedside, grim, rigid and silent. After the doctor pronounced her dead, we laid her body out in the dining room. Then the trapper called me out, took me by the arm, and walked me into the orchard where no one could hear him. “I want you, and no one else, to sit with her body tonight,” he said. “Please do this for me. And I want you and no one else to dig her grave.”

I promised him. I would do as he asked. I kept my word so far as watching the body was concerned, but when it came to digging the grave on the hard hillside I had to have help. It was arranged that the burial was to be a three o'clock the following afternoon. At dark the trapper set out on foot for his cabin in the hills seven miles away. On the following morning a plain little unpainted coffin was brought from Willits by one of the boys.

A woman at the ranch house had made her a shroud out of cheese cloth. When this had been slipped over her ragged little dress, the trapper suddenly appeared, as if he had dropped from the clouds, grabbed me by the arm and pinched me hard. “You put her in the coffin,” he said. “Don't let any one else touch her.”

I lifted the poor tortured body tenderly and placed it in the crude box and nailed on the cover. We put it in a spring wagon and drove up to the open grave on the hillside, the entire tribe following. The trapper walked alone just ahead of the horses. When we were lowering the coffin into the grave my eyes sought the trapper. He stood a little distance away from the moaning and swaying Indians. He looked like a bronze statue. He never moved a muscle. His face was turned toward the mountains, and he was gazing at the sky. Without moving he seemed to sense when the grave was filled. Just on that instant, with a great sob that seemed to tear him to pieces, he struck out for his cabin in the mountains. I never saw him again.

Did the Indian mother, whose daughter was burned to death, love her child as we whites love our children? And did she suffer the same grief at her death that we suffer when our loved ones pass away? Fanny, unable to shed tears, had deliberately thrown water in her face so that she would seem to be weeping as the whites weep, and during the entire night that I sat by the dead body of her child, she did not once enter the room. In fact, I discovered that she was carrying on a flirtation with a white man in the next room.

I plied my old Indian friend with questions, hoping he might drop a thoughtless remark that would give me a clue to the emotional lives of these strange people. Indirectly, he did try to answer all of my questions by relating the story of the death of Captain Jack, the chief of the tribe and the father of Fanny.

Captain Jack must have had amazing strength. Many years before he died he shot a huge grizzly. Thinking the bear was dead, he walked toward him. Without warning, the animal sprang upon him and began tearing at his body. The chief never lost his presence of mind and with a superhuman effort drew his knife and cut the bear's throat.

Then he crawled three miles to the rancheria. He was covered with blood and mutilated almost beyond recognition. But his daughters, Fanny and Jenny, nursed him night and day until his wounds healed, and although both his eyes had been destroyed in his struggle with the grizzly, he was able to go about over the old familiar trails. His body was twisted and hideous but his spirit still survived.

One day news came to the sisters that their father, who was visiting a coast tribe, was dying. Those two sturdy young women set out at once to bring him home to die. It was 30 miles to the coast, but Fanny and Jenny walked it in a day, and took turns carrying their dying father on their backs on the trip home.

Those were long, weary miles. Two summits lay between the valley and the coast. The canyons were deep and the grades, a mile long, were very steep. But these plucky young princesses never faltered. They were two days on the return trip and when they dropped the body of their father on his blankets in the royal wickiup at the rancheria, they both fell to the ground utterly exhausted.

There was a fortitude and a devotion in this heroic act equal, if not superior, to the whites. But these sisters helped dig their father's grave while he was still alive. And when he stubbornly clung to life after his grave was dug, they carried him out and laid him alongside of the hole in the ground with his sightless eyes focused on his eternal home.

They moaned and swayed and chanted around the old chief but shed no tears. Did they hope he would take the hint and obligingly die? Or was this some fading remnant of a tribal religious rite? No one knew, not even those who performed it. Captain Jack drew his last breath with his head hanging over the side of his grave and when he died, the last hope of his orphaned tribe died with him.

It was autumn and there was a noticeable chill in the air. This was the important season for the Indians at the rancheria. It was the time of the acorn harvest when every squaw was expected to visit every oak tree in that vast forest and gather the winter's food for the tribe. As a rule the “braves” expected the women to do all of the hard work. But while the women were gathering the acorns, the men, aroused to sudden activity, were building a “sweat house” for the annual harvest festival.

The members of the Pomo tribe that lived on the coast were to be the honored guests. For many years this annual ceremony had been held by the coast Indians with the Sherwood Valley tribe as guests. This year the valley Indians had decided to return this hospitality and be the hosts for their coast neighbors.

I watched with great interest the erection of this structure. The name “sweat house” had been given it by the Americans. The Franciscan Fathers had named it “temiscal.” The Indians called it something like “pahcaba.”

The “sweat house” was always built close to a stream. The one I saw constructed was built conical shaped, with long poles leaning toward the center. A hole was dug in the ground for a fire, and the place was made as airtight as possible. The smoke from the fire passed out through an opening in the top. A small hatchery afforded an entrance.

Two selected groups of “braves” were chosen, one from the coast and one from the Valley, to test their endurance. A hot fire was built, every air hole was carefully stopped up. The contestants crawled in and each took a side of the fire. First one group would use their blanklets to fan the fire over the contestants. Then the opposing group would return the compliment in similar fashion. This was kept up until they were all nearly exhausted. One by one they crawled out more dead than alive and tumbled into the cold stream. The last one to leave the “sweat house” was declared the winner and the hero of the festival.

This was an old tribal custom and I doubt if any of those then living knew its significance. If they did they kept it a secret as they did all their racial customs. The endurance contest was the closing feature of the two weeks' festival. On the day following its close, the visitors prepared to leave for the coast. I was amazed to see the valley Indians bestowing upon their visitors the entire acorn harvest that I had believed they had gathered to keep themselves alive during the winter. When the guests left, their hosts, stripped of every ounce of food, waved them a carefree, affectionate farewell.

I asked my old Indian friend how his people expected to get through the winter. “Oh,” he said: “Some cattle die, maybe. We get some rabbits, some birds, some snakes, maybe. All heap good.”

When I left them early in December, they were all sitting around their fires with the same serenity they had always displayed. They were facing months of famine with no more apparent realization of it than their neighbors, the birds, the squirrels and the jackrabbits.

In contrast here was I, my preemption time finished and the owner of 160 acres of land, setting out for the city to renew the old struggle with its worries and failures. 

CATCH OF THE DAY, Thursday, June 22, 2023

LELAND BEAN JR., Willits. Probation revocation.

NICHOLAS COCHRAN, Redwood Valley. Misdemeanor hit&run, suspended license for DUI, resisting, failure to appear.

LARRY DAVIS, Willits. DUI.

BRANDON LASAN, San Francisco/Ukiah. DUI.

ANTONIO LOPEZ JR., Hopland. DUI, criminal threats, resisting, probation revocation.

JAMES MORRISON, Santa Cruz/Ukiah. Burglary, vandalism.

AMBER NELSON, Lucerne/Ukiah. Probation revocation.

OLENA ROMANO, Ukiah. DUI.

AARON STANDERFER, Ukiah. Domestic battery, robbery, false imprisonment, damaging communications device.

JEVIN WOLFE, Ukiah. DUI. 

ESTHER MOBLEY:

The owners of a Napa Valley vineyard have sued their vineyard management company for spraying sulfur on the grapes during a heat spike, allegedly causing “sulfur burn” that resulted in over $100,000 worth of damage. Kerana Todorov has more details in Wine Business.

Gallo has acquired Hahn Family Wines, a major player in the Central Coast whose brands include Smith & Hook, reports Kyle Swartz in Beverage Dynamics.

Tony Peju, co-founder of Peju Winery in Napa Valley, died last week at 85. Here’s an obituary by Eloise Feilden in the Drinks Business.

(SFgate)

TAP, TAPPING AWAY

Good Morning, America! 

Awoke late at the Building Bridges Homeless Resource Center in sunny Ukiah, California. Following morning ablutions, ambled southward to the Plowshares dining room, and afterwards, boarded an MTA bus, and then deboarded at the Ukiah Public Library. Am right here and right now on computer #3 tap, tap tapping away. I am not identified with the body. I am not identified with the mind. The Immortal Self I am. Shortly, I will read the New York Times, which details all of this world’s news that is fit to print. And then I will exit the library. Later, will drop by Safeway to purchase food, mostly from the 50% off manager’s special area, plus yoghurt and fruit juices to ensure a well supplied evening. Meanwhile, I have not heard from the caseworker at the Social Security Administration in regard to my question about being legally entitled to an additional $150 monthly, because as a senior citizen in a homeless shelter with no cooking facilities, I have been informed that I ought to be receiving more money to cover the cost of having to purchase food already cooked in area grocery stores. Additionally, I await a telephone call from the doctor who is away for the month of June, who will give me an appointment time in July, to switch out the pacemaker for an ICD. And if this isn’t exciting enough, I have been told that getting an apartment rental is basically my responsibility, although the housing navigators will help. Frankly. it will require divine intervention to pull this off in Ukiah, even with the Federal housing voucher. But then I may always leave Mendocino County. Whereas I do not have any particular reason to be living here, since the marijuana trimmers essentially put me out of the place in Redwood Valley, which could have been developed into something totally amazing, leaving Mendocino County is increasingly the only sane alternative. It’s probably preferable to being dead, although I am not certain of that. At the moment I am accepting money at Paypal.me/craiglouisstehr. There is $264.16 in the SBMC checking account, $12.02 in the wallet, and the food stamps are used up until the fourth of July. Speaking of the fourth of July, it’s too bad that the government didn’t shut down recently when it had the opportunity to do so. The entire insane spectacle could have been done away with. Lastly, if anybody is interested in doing anything on the planet earth of a radical environmental nature, contact me. After all, global climate destabilization remains the existential threat of these completely irrelevant times. Yours for Self Realization, Craig Louis Stehr

IN OPERA HEAVEN: El Ultimo Sueno de Frida y Diego

by Jonah Raskin

I love opera, especially Mozart’s, but I don’t love all operas. To the list of operas I do love, including The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni, I can now add El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego, which I recently heard and saw performed before an enthusiastic crowd in San Francisco. I sat in the last row of the balcony. A gay couple, who often attend the opera, urged me to see Madame Butterfly before it closed for the season. For a couple of hours, which went by quickly and pleasantly, I felt like I had been transported to opera heaven.

El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego is the first opera performed in Spanish at SF Opera, and the first to be written by a woman, Gabriela Lena Frank. It’s her very first opera. The libretto is by playwright Nilo Cruz, a Pulitzer Prize winner. The creative team is made up of individuals from nine different cultures, nationalities and artistic sensibilities. No wonder Lorena Maza, the stage director, says, “I believe projects like this one can help advance diversity and inclusion, helping us understand our different cultures and shared humanity.”

 El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego, which is translated as the Last Dream of Frida and Diego—their family names are unnecessary— tells a fabulous and a melodramatic story with comedy about Mexico’s two best known artists, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, who were husband and wife for a time and who also embraced other lovers. The opera takes place mostly in a cemetery on the Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, on November 2, 1957 when Diego died. It’s a big deal in Mexico and other parts of the world, including San Francisco where I make my home, and where Rivera and Kahlo lived and made art in the 1930s.

In two acts, with a large cast and a big orchestra, and colorful costumes, the opera oscillates between love and death, and between the redemptive power of art and the terrifying force of artistic impotence. Kahlo calls pot bellied Rivera “the frog”; he calls her “my dove,” He seems to need her as his lover and as his muse, far more than she needs him. Without her he’s next to nothing. Without him, she does quite nicely, thank you. This is a feminist production, though it wears its feminism lightly.

When the opera begins, Frida is confined to the underworld. Catrina, la Guardiana de los Muertos, (the Guardian of the Dead) coaxes her to return to the land of the living, not because she loves Diego and wants to live with him, but because she loves colors, wants to paint again and express herself.

The opera plays with the Greek myth of Orpheus, the singer, who descends into the underworld to retrieve Eurydice, the love of his life, reconnects with her briefly only to lose her forever. Frida and Diego come together in art and in death after he apologizes for the pain he has caused her. She accepts his apology and embraces him, thereby breaking Catrina’s rule about not touching and so she must return to the underworld. But she doesn’t return alone.

In real life, Kahlo experienced excruciating pain after a terrible and near fatal accident at the age of 18. Her relationship with the philandering Rivera brought her emotional suffering and psyche pain that sustained her art. His behavior was excused by the public and the critics. After all, he was a genius.

Frida was no less an original artist than he, though she lived in a misogynist culture. She painted herself again and again and documented her anguish, which has made her an international icon. Indeed, there’s a thriving industry that sells her life, her face, her body and her work to the extent that her fame has eclipsed Diego’s. The Ultimate Dream will make her even more famous than she is today.

It’s too bad that other Mexican muralists, such as José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueros, have been lost in the commotion to iconize Frida and Diego, who were both leftists and who rubbed shoulders with the exiled Leon Trotsky until he was assassinated in 1940. The opera says very little about the politics and the ideology that fueled Diego and Frida, though on one occasion she said, “I have a great restlessness about my paintings. Mainly because I want to make it useful to the revolutionary communist movement.”

Salma Hayek plays Kahlo and Geoffrey Rush plays Trotsky in the movie Frida, which boasts a screenplay by Clancy Sigal, among others. To do justice to Diego’s and Frida’s political passions would require another opera. It could have the same title as the opera I saw in San Francisco, only the dream would refer to their longing for a Mexican revolution that would end poverty and exploitation, colonialism and capitalism.

After it leaves San Francisco, the opera, which premiered in San Diego, moves in November to Los Angeles, where no doubt Diego and Frida will be viewed as the movie star celebrities they were in real life.

SAN FRANCISCO COULD BE ON THE VERGE OF COLLAPSE. What should California do about it?

(SF Chronicle Editorial Board)

Downtown San Francisco is at risk of collapsing — and taking much of the Bay Area with it.

Experts say post-pandemic woes stemming from office workers staying home instead of commuting into the city could send San Francisco into a “doom loop” that would gut its tax base, decimate fare-reliant regional transit systems like BART and trap it in an economic death spiral.

Who could have predicted such a fate?

Anyone who paid attention to what happened in New York after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Like San Francisco, lower Manhattan's Financial District was once a nearly exclusive daytime hub for suburban office commuters and the businesses who fed them lunch — and a ghost town after dark.

That all changed after 9/11.

The attacks not only devastated lower Manhattan physically, they also threw into question the very logic of the neighborhood’s urban fabric; commuters, it was assumed, would never again want to work in office towers over fears of terrorism. 

So, to stave off a doom loop of its own, New York came up with a vision for reinvention. 

The Financial District would become a place where people actually lived as well as worked. Local, state and federal officials rallied behind the plan. It took an estimated $20 billion in public and private investments to fund this vision, which included two new train stations, public parks, malls and once-in-a-generation tax breaks for developers to convert office buildings into apartments. The federal Housing and Urban Development Department also distributed $281 million to incentivize people to live in the neighborhood.

The area more than bounced back. It added over 60,000 residents who, perhaps unsurprisingly, needed little convincing to move to a climate-friendly, 24-hour neighborhood filled with pedestrians, restaurants, culture, nightlife and easy access to public transit.

The tragedy of 9/11 inadvertently revealed the glaring vulnerabilities and inadequacies of office-dependent, 9-to-5 business districts — and created a new model for making American downtowns more stable economic engines for local governments and fostering better, more compelling urban life.

Unfortunately, San Francisco didn’t get the memo.

REPARATIONS IN CALIFORNIA

Editor.

Recently the state’s Reparations Commission reported its findings to Gov. Gavin Newsom. It was a years’ long study which mainly centered on wrongs endured over decades primarily by the Black American community throughout the State of California. By so-called “red lining,” the restricting of Blacks from housing purchases, they suffered.

This Commission almost totally excluded California Indians from its report. During the so-called “contact period,” roughly from about the 1830s until approx. 1925, California Indians were decimated first by smallpox, murders, forced marches, genocide, persecution, and destructions or attacks to livlihoods thru destruction of the natural habitat. Mercury poisoning, pollution of the state during the Gold Rush (appr. 1848 thru 1870) left a trail of destruction unmet in scale until the more recent annual wildfires.

In 2005 I published a book, which took many years to write, entitled “Killing For Land In Early California.” The point is that unless present-day Californians first acknowledge the wrongs committed in the past, how can we ever begin to make any kind of meaningful apology?

While Blacks are certainly due some kind of reparations, Indians too deserve something.

Frank H. Baumgardner, III, Author, 

Santa Rosa

MAUREEN CALLAHAN: It's called the Abyssal Zone, from the Greek for 'bottomless' - the depths of the ocean, some 2.5 miles down, pure and perpetual darkness spanning 83 per cent of the entire sea. Lost was a tiny vessel carrying five souls, crammed into an area the size of a minivan, piloted with a $30 gaming console and built with some off-the-shelf parts, including lighting from Camping World and construction piping as ballast. That submersible, named Titan, was voyaging to the Titanic when it vanished. The parallels are all too poignant. More than a century after it sank, the Titanic still fascinates - the marvel of early 20th century technology branded 'unsinkable', its passengers ostensibly protected by their wealth and class, a ship named for the mythological Greek Titans, a triumph of human progress nonetheless dwarfed and destroyed by nature. Years to build, hours to break. And so it is with Titan.

JAMES CAMERON, who has visited the world's most famous seawreck 30 times, said the tragedy this week has parallels with the Titanic disaster, where the captain repeatedly ignored warnings about an incoming iceberg before it sank. The five men on the Titan were killed instantly when the submersible suffered a 'catastrophic implosion' just 1,600ft from the bow of the wrecked ocean liner, the US Coast Guard announced yesterday. The search for the men on the 21ft submersible operated by OceanGate Expeditions drew to a devastating close when a remotely operated submarine from a Canadian ship found debris on the ocean floor. Mr Cameron told BBC News that the coastguard search 'felt like a prolonged and nightmarish charade where people are running around talking about banging noises and talking about oxygen and all this other stuff'.

US COAST GUARD Rear Admiral John Mauge said the bodies of the five Titanic sub crew may never be recovered from the 'unforgiving' ocean where they perished after confirming that shattered pieces of the vessel have been found 500meters from the bow of the famous ship the men died trying to see. The nail-biting search for the Titan, a 21ft submersible operated by OceanGate Expeditions, drew to a devastating close when a remote operated submarine from a Canadian ship found debris on the ocean floor. Search and rescue officials say the men likely died on Sunday - before military planes using sonar buoys detected what they thought could have been SOS 'banging' sounds in the water. 'The implosion would have generated a significant, broadband sound that the sonar buoys would have picked up,' explained Mauger at a press conference today. It would have been an instant death for the men, some of whom had paid $250,000 each to see the famous shipwreck. The victims are OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, French Navy veteran Paul-Henri (PH) Nargeolet, British billionaire Hamish Harding, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, who was just 19. In a gut-wrenching blow for their families, experts say there is little prospect of recovering any of their remains. 'This is an incredibly unforgiving environment down there. The debris is consistent of a catastrophic implosion of the vessel.. we'll continue to work and search the area down there - but I don't have an answer for prospects at this time,' Paul Hankin, a deep sea expert involved in the search, said. 

NEVER KNEW WHAT HIT THEM: Dr Dale Molé, the former director of undersea medicine and radiation health for the US Navy, told DailyMail.com their deaths would have been quick and painless, dying almost instantly by the extraordinary forces exerted by the ocean at depth. Dr Molé said: 'It would have been so sudden, that they wouldn't even have known that there was a problem, or what happened to them. 'It's like being here one minute, and then the switch is turned off. You're alive one millisecond, and the next millisecond you're dead.'

HAVE THE CONSERVATIVES CORRUPTED OUR SUPREME COURT?

(My title for this portion of Heather Cox Richardson’s June 21 Letters from an American. — Tom Wodetski)

Just before midnight yesterday, ProPublica reporters Justin Elliott, Joshua Kaplan, and Alex Mierjeski published a story reporting that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito in 2008 flew on a private jet to a luxury fishing vacation in Alaska thanks to the hospitality of hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer, whose business was based on hard-hitting litigation. Since that trip, Singer has had that litigation before the Supreme Court at least ten times. Alito neither disclosed the gift of the flight on the private jet nor recused himself from ruling on those cases.

In the last decade, according to the authors, Singer has donated more than $80 million to Republican political groups. While in Alaska, Alito stayed as a guest at the lodge of another wealthy Republican donor, who had, in the past, entertained former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Lodging there cost $1000 a night.

This revelation adds to the many recently-revealed ties between the court’s right-wing justices and wealthy donors. In April, ProPublica, which is a nonprofit newsroom that focuses on abuses of power, began a series revealing that Justice Clarence Thomas had accepted lavish gifts from Texas billionaire and Republican megadonor Harlan Crow, as well as private school tuition for a relative and real estate deals. Thomas did not disclose those gifts.

Then it turned out that the wife of Chief Justice John Roberts made more than $10 million in commissions over 8 years as she matched top lawyers with top law firms, including some that brought cases before the court. Roberts misleadingly disclosed the money as “salary” rather than commissions. Then news broke that nine days after Justice Neil Gorsuch was confirmed to the court, a property in which he held an interest sold after two years on the market. The buyer was the chief executive of Greenberg Traurig, a law firm that routinely practices before the court. Gorsuch did not disclose the buyer’s identity.

Last night’s story got weirder, though, because Alito waded into it to attack ProPublica for their reporting. The reporters had reached out to the justice last week to get his side of the story. Yesterday, Alito’s office told the authors he had no comment and then several hours later — before the ProPublica story dropped — Alito published in the Wall Street Journal an op-ed “prebuttal” of what was to come. It was titled: “ProPublica Misleads Its Readers.”

Alito didn’t deny that he had accepted the gifts, but claimed that he didn’t need to disclose the valuable flight because it was a “facility” and that the vacation did not involve $1,000 bottles of wine (remember that no one had yet read the ProPublicastory, which quoted one of the lodge’s fishing guides as saying that a member of Alito’s party said the wine they were drinking cost $1,000 a bottle). He also said he did not know Singer was associated with the cases before the court.

Today Leonard Leo, the person who organized the 2008 fishing trip, also jumped in. In 2008, Leo was the head of the Federalist Society, which came together in 1982 to roll back the business regulations and the civil rights legislation of the post-World War II era by remaking the courts with judges who stood against what they called “judicial activism.” (Leo is now in charge of Marble Freedom Trust, a nonprofit organized in May 2020 with a $1.6 billion donation from donor Barre Seid to push right-wing politics at every level.)

Leo released a statement supporting Alito and warning: “We all should wonder whether this recent rash of ProPublica stories questioning the integrity of only conservative Supreme Court Justices is bait for reeling in more dark money from woke billionaires who want to damage this Supreme Court and remake it into one that will disregard the law by rubber stamping their disordered and highly unpopular cultural preferences.” (Justice Elena Kagan, one of the justices Leo suggests is being unfairly given a pass by ProPublica, reportedly declined to accept a basket of bagels and lox from her high-school classmates out of concern about the ethics of accepting gifts.)

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo observed that Leo seems to have used his extensive network to set up relationships between judges and donors in a reinforcing ecosystem.

IN AMERICA when the sun goes down and I sit on the old broken-down river pier watching the long, long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West Coast, and all that road going, and all the people dreaming in the immensity of it, and in Iowa I know by now the children must be crying in the land where they let the children cry, and tonight the stars'll be out, and don't you know that God is Pooh Bear? The evening star must be drooping and shedding her sparkler dims on the prairie, which is just before the coming of complete night that blesses the earth, darkens all the rivers, cups the peaks and folds the final shore in, and nobody, nobody knows what's going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old, I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty. 

— Jack Kerouac

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

It looks like the great spring Ukrainian Counteroffensive has dropped out of the news. (I suppose at this point it should be called the great summer Counteroffensive.) What we do hear isn’t good. I think any battlefield success at all would be highly touted & exaggerated; the fact that there is an information void doesn’t bode well for NATO. For it’s part Russia is showing video of scores of destroyed German & French tanks. So, $150 billion spent so far on the Ukraine Project, what have we gotten for our money (other than smashed Ukrainian infrastructure & thousands of dead Ukrainians). All this over an ancient border dispute.