Mendocino County Today: Thursday, June 29, 2023

Interior Heating | Quinn Greene | Lilies | Ground Breaking | River Algae | Pelicans | Mendo Fireworks | City Gate | AV Football/Cheer | Boonquiz | Homeland Security | Collecting Taxes | Boonbarn | Elk BBQ | Paul Dolan | Boonset | Seeking Roommate | Mental Flyer | Ed Notes | Dogaballoo | Adelman Sentenced | Yesterday's Catch | Southern Monuments | Barking | Social Oppression | Video Magazine | Patriotism | You Men | Carpetbagger | Tit Tat | Prigozhin's March | Sharked | Ukraine | Burned Out | America 2023 | Apes | Iraq Invaders

INTERIOR HEAT will increase this week with triple digit temperatures for some interior valleys Friday through this weekend. The entrenched coastal low clouds will begin to show weakness by later Friday. Inland temperatures will lower throughout next week as the ridge progresses east and weakens. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): Here we go again, a rough forecasting week at hand. Yes, a foggy 53F on the coast this Thursday morning. The fog is mostly right along the coast. I'll go with "gradual clearing" & let the fog decide when that might happen. I had clear skies coming home from Boonville yesterday even to the Navarro River bridge, but fog right over the river mouth.

QUINN THOMAS GREENE 

Quinn Thomas Greene was born at dawn on June 7th, 1985. He met a tragic end after a fall from the headlands at Big River in Mendocino at sunset on June 10th, 2023. Quinn had just celebrated his 38th year. After twelve days lost at sea, his body was recovered on June 22nd on a beach not far from where he fell.

Quinn was a local man, raised with the loving support of the Albion community for most of his youth. He went to the Albion Whale School, the Greenwood/Elk School as well as the Mendocino Elementary , Middle and Academy Schools.

Quinn had Native Alaskan, Hungarian and Irish heritage. He loved living outdoors and fishing. He was beloved by his family, friends and community for his big heart and welcoming smile.

Quinn Greene is survived by his parents, Thomas Greene and Sheila Dawn Tracy; his brothers, Jack Bush with wife Natalie and Lance Fabian with partner Melissa and his two nephews, Maverick and Leo.

Quinn is survived by his godmother Daphne Martin, godfather David Hiroshige and cousin, Kellie Meek.

He is also survived by his extended family of aunts, uncles and cousins from the Greene, Tracy, Cody, Fabian, Hart and Helm families.

Quinn was preceded in death by his grandparents, Solomon and Margaret Killigvuk of Point Hope, Alaska and John and Marie Tracy of New York. Quinn lost his beloved partner and soulmate, Allison Green, who died unexpectedly on April 10th, 2023. She was sorely missed by Quinn and continues to be missed both of their families and friends.

A graveside service will be held on Saturday, July 8th at Hillcrest Cemetery on Lansing St. in Mendocino from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

A memorial and celebration of Quinn's life will be held on Sunday, July 16th at Crown Hall, 45285 Ukiah St. in Mendocino from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. All are welcome to attend both the graveside service and memorial.

* * *

PASTOR MATT DAVIS'S REMEMBRANCE OF QUINN

Sheila,

This is Pastor Matt Davis over here at Mendocino Presbyterian Church. My arms are wrapping around you as you grieve the death of your son Quinn. Over the last eight years, I have gotten to know Quinn giving thanks for his presence and leadership on good days and also my heart aching for him on those rough days.

There is one specific day where I am so thankful for Quinn for literally having my back.

I was standing on the steps of the church and I was talking with Quinn and about four other people. It was a beautiful, Mendocino day with the sun shining. I recall some music playing and people just enjoying themselves except for one particular individual. I was aware of him standing behind me and knew that he was messed up on something but chose just to say focussed on the conversation before me. Quinn was sitting on the steps and I was looking in his eyes. Suddenly his eyes got wide and he sprung up and inserted himself between me and this other individual who was ready to tackle me. Quinn protected me from being forcibly assaulted. Quinn had my back protecting me with his body. I am ever grateful for his instinct to protect at this moment. That instinct to love others was just a part of him…part of his DNA…part of his heart.

I will be forever wrestling with why addiction can so profoundly impact some and not others. I will be ever reading the prophets and books like Job asking God the "why" questions.

However, on my more faithful days, I will trust that God makes a way saving all of us from the waters. Quinn--Child of God, Child of Blessing--has blessed us with his heart and I will never be the same.

If you ever want to talk or pray or cry or get mad…give me call and I will join you on the steps of the church. I remember how Quinn protected me and I will hold his name dearly.

If you would like to hold a gathering in our sanctuary, celebrating Quinn's life…say the word! We would have to coordinate with the calendar but Quinn is one of the MPC Family and for that I give thanks. As a member of the family, we would want to honor his spirit and support your family. As a family member…there would of course be no fee associated.

Lifting you up tonight.

Grace and Peace,

Rev. Matthew Davis, Pastor

* * *

BODY OF MAN who fell off Mendocino Cliffs recovered; no foul play suspected

The man was identified by one of his siblings, according to authorities

by Madison Smalstig

Authorities recovered the body of a man last week on a Mendocino County beach, a short distance from where about two weeks earlier he fell off cliffs into the Pacific Ocean.

A citizen walking Thursday afternoon on bluffs about 100 feet above Portuguese Beach spotted what a body partially in the water and called authorities, Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Quincy Cromer said Wednesday.

The Mendocino Volunteer Fire Department’s water rescue team recovered the body. Deputies contacted a sibling of the man they believed had fallen off cliffs June 10 in Mendocino Headlands State Park.

The sibling identified the body as Quinn Greene, 38, of Mendocino County.

The Sheriff’s Office had been in contact with the family member since a resident reported that Greene had tripped and fallen into Big River Beach around 8:15 p.m. June 10. He had identified himself to the reporting party as the two sat talking and drinking alcohol before Greene walked too closely to the cliff’s edge, Cromer said.

Authorities do not believe there was any foul play or criminal activity involved in Greene’s death, Cromer said.

Local agencies, including the fire department, Sheriff’s Office and California State Parks, had searched Big River Beach and surrounding areas using helicopters, drones and water crafts on night of June 10 and most of the day following. Search efforts were suspended on June 11, 2023.

SIMPLE GROUND BREAKING on Friday at 9 at Elementary if you would like to come.

Some of you have already confirmed. We are doing a very simple kid centered ground breaking followed by a donut feast (how can you go wrong with that) at 9 at the elementary school. All are welcome to attend down by the playground.

Take care,

Louise Simson, Superintendent, Anderson Valley Unified School District, 707-684-1017

ERNIE PARDINI: I'm confused about something and I'm hoping someone out there help me. Last year and several years before, we had very little precipitation and lower than normal flow in the Navarro River. Temperatures were much warmer than we've had this year. Surprisingly, we had very little algae and moss in the river, even in late summer. This year we had higher than average rainfall and temperatures have been unseasonably cool so far. Yet the river is already full of algae and moss. Can anyone help me to make sense out of this?

ED NOTE: I suspect chemical runoff from the vineyards, especially nitrogen.

FIREWORKS ARE ILLEGAL IN MENDOCINO COUNTY!

The Mendocino County Office of Emergency Services would like to remind Mendocino County residents and visitors that all fireworks are illegal in Mendocino County.

As we approach the 4^th of July holiday, please remember that we are now in fire season, and it is dry in all areas of the County. The illegal use of fireworks poses a serious threat to the safety and well-being of everyone in our County.

CAL FIRE and local fire and law enforcement agencies are working together to enforce a zero-tolerance policy regarding the use and sale of illegal fireworks in Mendocino County this year. Please do your part to help protect Mendocino County from another devastating wildfire by celebrating the 4^th of July safely and responsibly.

For fireworks enthusiasts, there are safe, organized, professional fireworks displays scheduled in Fort Bragg, Point Arena, and Ukiah this year!

Fort Bragg Independence Day Fireworks:
Date: Saturday, July 1, 2023
Location: Todd Point, Fort Bragg, CA 95437

Point Arena Fireworks Extravaganza:
Date: Saturday, July 1, 2023
Location: Arena Cove, 810 Port Road, Point Arena, CA 95468

Fireworks Extravaganza at Ukiah Speedway:
Date: Saturday, July 1, 2023
Location: Ukiah Speedway, 1055 N. State St., Ukiah, CA 95482

Have a wonderful and safe Fourth of July!

AV FOOTBALL COACH, JOHN TOOHEY: I thought you might like to have a link to our athletics and football website. I have a number of dedicated TA's next year who will be working exclusively on content, reports, and media for all of our athletics programs.

Here is a link to our football page: https://www.avpanthers.org/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=3815652&type=d&pREC_ID=2469817

If you have any questions about the upcoming season, please let me know. 

We had 23 signed up and participated in spring practice and a lot of returning experience. We are expecting a lot of improvement this coming season. 

NEXT BOONVILLE QUIZ: JULY 6, 2023

This Thursday is the fifth Thursday of the month and the Quiz is held on the 1st and 3rd Thursdays. So there will be no quiz this week at Lauren’s at The Buckhorn. Looking forward to seeing you on July 6th. Cheers, Steve Sparks, The Quizmaster.

COLLECTING TAXES OWED

Editor,

Peter Boudoures posted this note to Adam Gaska on the AVA’s website, theava.com: “So far you want to collect more taxes. Moneys flowing in just manage it correctly."

I want the county to collect the money that is owed to it in entirety and promptly. I am not supporting new taxes.

Two years ago, I looked into the people who had donated money to Citizens for Sustainable Agriculture who were campaigning to defeat the two cannabis referendums. A few of the donors I noticed had purchased hundreds of acres, presumably to grow cannabis, and many of their parcels were grossly under assessed. I saw parcels of Covelo valley land that had been purchased within the last few years and were assessed for as little as $400 an acre. Generally speaking, the county should be updating assessments within two years. Even if land was purchased far under market value, the county can assess at market value. And vice versa. 

Initially I thought maybe someone(s) at the Assessor’s office were being bribed to look the other way. So then I looked into random real estate sales to compare. Vineyards, homes, etc. I noticed the same pattern. Vineyards sold for half a million dollars being assessed for $350,000 for years with no correction. Some had been longer than four years which is the cut off date where if the county has not billed for the correct amount, they cannot go further back. So money that the county should have been collecting was falling off. My estimate is millions have not been collected that should have been. So I emailed the Assessor's office and asked what the problem was. They called me to respond. They said that they were understaffed, having some software issues and that there was nothing they could do. I told them that they were letting hundreds of thousands of dollars, possibly millions, go uncollected. They apologized and shrugged their shoulders.”

Adam Gaska: Fast forward to today. They are finally catching up and have sent out 6,000+ corrections, termed supplementals and escapes (i.e., buildings that have “escaped” any assessment). Some people have received very large bills in the tens of thousands. They qualify for a payment plan but weren't notified of that. They were just told to pay by June 30. Even when people ask about payment plans, they are being told that they have to pay a large portion by June 30th to qualify for a payment plan. If they do not meet the deadline of June 30th, they will also be assessed penalties and interest until they pay. 

There are still properties that have not been corrected. I was doing some research and found another person buying hundreds of acres, being assessed at $7 an acre. So they are paying $800 for 111 acres per year. That's ridiculous. 

Why does this matter?

The county's entire budget is just shy of $500 million dollars. Most of this money is from the state and federal government and is non-discretionary meaning it can only be spent on specific things. The largest chunk of non-discretionary funding goes to funding health and human services. Almost $90 million is discretionary funds, meaning the county can spend it how it sees fit. This is the money that funds the sheriff's department, supplements funding for roads, capital improvement projects like maintaining county buildings, etc. About half, about $40 million dollars, of the discretionary funds comes from secured property taxes. 

When people aren't paying what they should, it makes it hard to afford things like public safety, better roads, COLA's for county employees, maintenance of county buildings/property, etc. 

There most likely are savings to be had by cutting out waste in the budget but that will only get us so far. 

I raise pigs. I liken it to that. You can't fatten pigs entirely by making sure the mice and birds aren't eating their food. It is important that you keep vermin out, but it is also important that you are feeding the pigs enough so they are fat and happy. Skinny pigs don't make bacon. I like bacon. I am willing to pay my fair share to get bacon, i.e., better roads, adequate funding for public safety, etc. I also want other people that I am raising the pig with to pay their fair share.

Unfortunately the assessor’s office hasn't been doing their job for quite awhile. A software program and understaffing is often blamed for their backlog but the problems predate the adoption of the new software. Until the assessor's office gets things in order, is properly staffed and running smoothly, the tax collector/treasurer's office can't adequately do their job collecting the taxes due to the county. If we aren't collecting taxes, we can't afford the services we would like.

Adam Gaska 

Redwood Valley

ELK VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT SUMMER BBQ, JULY 29

Editor,

Cindy Johnson from the “oppressive little place of Elk” here. I may be getting a little “feebleminded” but still have it in me to perform plenty of volunteer “civic” duties, and with real “niceness!”

Damn, another year goes by — much more full of news and events this year. We continue to enjoy and appreciate the AVA, maybe because we the support all geriatric endeavors, big and small.

So, if you could find the room in one or both of the printed and online versions of the AVA, here is a blurb about the EVFD BBQ coming next month. This is a shorter version of what I have sent in the past, thus more likely more likely to be included.

I look forward to contacting you at this time of year, as other opportunities just don’t seem to materialize. I hope you and the family are all doing well. We are doing pretty good, and Jim is hanging in there with all his medical and mobility issues. Oldest son, Chris, is nearby and works at Heritage House. Youngest son, Tim, is living in Stockton and works for Yolo County Health and Human Services. He’s coming over to Redwood Valley on Saturday to grieve with long-time friend, Sarah Summit, over her tragic loss.

Be well and keep up making trouble for yourself and others!

Cindy Johnson 

Elk

* * *

THE ELK VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT celebrates 67 years of service at its 17th Annual Summer BBQ on Saturday, July 29, noon to 4:00 p.m. at the Greenwood Community Center in downtown Elk. Savor tri-tip, chicken or polenta and mushroom entrees plus sides, dessert and coffee. Donation: $30 for adults, $15 for kids 7-12; 6 and under are free. Enjoy a no-host bar featuring Elk’s famous Margaritas, live music with the Caspar Kings, a raffle, and activities for kids. Gather wildfire and emergency preparation resources. Come out and support the firefighters who serve Elk and provide mutual aid to Anderson Valley. This year's proceeds will go toward upgrading the ambulance equipment. Kindly leave the dogs at home.

For more information, contact Sarah Penrod at 877-1607.

R.I.P. PAUL DOLAN

Paul Dolan has died. He was a leader in biodynamic farming and regenerative organic - truly regenerative - farming. He was a revolutionary. 

He put forth the simple but powerful management principles that enabled Fetzer Vineyards under Paul Dolan to become one of America’s biggest and best-known wineries even as it was turning into a model for sustainable businesses everywhere. 

After he left Fetzer, Paul continued to lead the California wine industry at Bonterra, then Paul Dolan Wine. 

Paul's own biodynamic vineyard and farming company, Dark Horse, continued to lead the way toward profound change in how wineries and grape growers preserve their environment, strengthen their communities, and enrich the lives of their employees, without sacrificing the bottom line. This was truly a management revolution in one of the most globalized, competitive industries on Earth. 

And his wine? As a matter of record, Paul Dolan Wine produces the best organic pinot noir, hands down. 

Paul was my friend. He was a guest of my show in my early years in public radio. And for many difficult years, Paul was a loving and supportive father to an adult son who died of cystic fibrosis. Paul taught me many things about fatherhood. 

Paul gave time and money to many local charities here in Mendocino County. He was a citizen of the world who knew that all politics, and all business, and all charity, start at home. 

— John Sakowicz, Ukiah

MEMO OF THE WEEK

Now, seeking a Roommate!

Well, I’ve negotiated with my landlady, and she’s changing the space to accommodate two individuals living in the house, instead of one. So sharing the rent with two people makes the space reasonably affordable! Hooray! I will be able to stay in the space where I’ve been living for six years. All I need now is to find an excellent roommate!

I’m looking for an employed person, who’s a good communicator, who likes order but is not fanatic. I’d love to share space with someone who enjoys occasionally, cooking, cleaning and possibly gardening together. They must be someone who enjoys my dogs (3 mature, well-trained huskies), and my occasional singing and dancing in the kitchen!

I am a community-minded person, of modest means — a yoga teacher, bodyworker, caregiver and a chaplain at the FB hospital. I am looking for someone who is a gentle, patient, kind, a  compassionate person. I prefer a spiritual friend. Someone who would like to share in self-discovery and growth.

The house is out Road 409 in Caspar, near the border of Russian Gulch State Park. It is a humble home, and now has 2 Bedrooms, 2 Baths, 2 Living Rooms, Dining Room, Kitchen, a small outdoor deck overlooking an open outdoors space and a large pond. Roomates rent is $875 includes utilities. Depending on utility usage this could be as much as $30 less.

FYI-Unfortunately, we cannot have any more animals living with us. I am not able to tolerate smoking of any kind, or intoxicated behavior.

If you are a good fit, please call or text me: Rainah (707) 326-2919

Rainah Dancing Waters <rainahhh@earthlink.net>

SUPERVISOR MULHEREN: If you or a loved one is experiencing Mental Health issues there are options available. Here is the printable flyer from each area of Mendocino County, please take a look and feel free to share. 

Ed note: The chart is blurry because the original is blurry.

ED NOTES

I'VE OFFERED to debate the Fort Bragg Name Changers, which official Fort Bragg, in the form of Lindy Peters, thinks is a good idea. Lindy offered to MC the event, which he's good at because he's overseen a variety of public affairs events over the years. Lindy said he thought we could charge a minimum gate fee to raise some money for the local Humane Society. A Name Changer called Mikael Blaisdell promptly agreed to represent the Name Changers, although I hoped, and still hope, the group's pied piper, Professor Zwerling, would step up to argue his team’s dangerously misguided effort to re-write history simply to accommodate current political fashions. I doubt the Name Changers would attempt to suppress, say, the 1619 curriculum, a true history of slavery that the rightwing wants out of the public schools. These unhappy days, there's always someone, or groups of someones, trying to re-write history to jam it into ideological straitjackets. 

MR. BLAISDELL has withdrawn as quickly as he had agreed to debate, claiming that Lindy Peters, who is opposed to a name change for Fort Bragg, cannot be fair as moderator, which is not only insulting to Lindy but terminally wuss-worthy of Blaisdell. Dude, you either stand up for your convictions or you don't, and your withdrawal indicates a lack of faith in yours.

I SAY the Name Changers are “dangerous” because historical rewrites gnaw at the foundation of historical truth, and when you do that you threaten the pursuit of truth itself. Famous case in point: When Stalin assumed power in Russia he soon decreed that all references to Trotsky be removed from Russian history, right down to eliminating his photographs from Russian history books. Russians could be killed or exiled merely on the suspicion of being Trotsky-friendly. The Fort Bragg Name Changers are spiritually in the Stalinist tradition. 

BY ERASING consensus bad guy, General Braxton Bragg, a Confederate traitor and slaveholder, from any association with Fort Bragg by renaming contemporary Fort Bragg to excise him, logically you'd also have to excise the much grander George Washington and Thomas Jefferson from history, and I doubt even the most precious Name Changer would dare try that one.

HISTORY is complicated because human beings are complicated. I'd say that America is all the more glorious for not only having survived its murderous origins, but having tried, and is still trying, to make amends for its unforgivable crimes against two whole peoples. Just like our personal histories are what they are, complicated, so is the history of our country. Viva the pursuit of true history, Viva Fort Bragg!

JUST IN: As we went to press we received an email from The Professor who said he is willing to debate but will not appear if Lindy Peters is the moderator, managing in the same message to suggest that Lindy is an anti-Semite! Take it away, Professor:

PHILIP ZWERLING: "Mikael Blaisdell and I have each been contacted serially by Bernie Norvell to invite us to debate the Name Change of Fort Bragg with you. For my part, I would be happy to engage in such a debate. However, Bernie tells me that the Moderator of the debate must be Councilman Lindy Peters. Such a debate would require a strong and, most importantly, a fair Moderator. My last experience with Lindy was when he invited me to be a guest on his TV show to discuss the Name Change issue. Unfortunately I found him to be a verbal bully who made veiled anti-Semitic remarks and then stormed off the set of the very show he was hosting. Therefore, I have no confidence in his ability to Moderate such a public debate as you might envision. If you wish to move forward with this idea we can discuss other potential Moderators, of whom I can think of many, in whom we both have confidence."

ED REPLY: I have every confidence in Lindy's ability to moderate the event. Assuming you can stop vilifying him, let's go. This is hardly the Lincoln-Douglas debates. "Veiled anti-Semitic remarks" indeed!

PHIL comes back with: "I would then suggest as Moderator: Jason Godeke, Council member and Vice-Mayor or Tess Albin-Smith, Council member or Jessica Morsel-Haye, former Council member and Chair of the Citizens' Commission on the Name Change or Ted Williams, Supervisor or League of Women Voters President Karen Bowers or State Senator McGuire or former Supervisor Kendall Smith. What do you think?"

* * *

OPPONENTS of the Grocery Outlet proposed for Fort Bragg have appealed approval of the project to the Coastal Commission. 

Filed by: FB Local Business Matters

Mary Rose Kaczorowski, Leslie Kashiwada, Mitzi Rider, Lee Rider

I ONCE applied for a seat on the county’s Mental Health Board. An important part of the application process was an interview with the present Mental Health board whose composition included several persons officially adjudicated mentally ill with whom I went over boffo. Killed it. They loved me and promptly endorsed me, perhaps, as one of my many detractors commented, “Because you’re one of them.” Which I regarded as a compliment. There are worse groups, for sure, the Pacific Union Club, for instance. The Democratic Party Central Committee for another instance. The allegedly sane members of the board were less enthusiastic and voted an emphatic no. 

SO MY NOMINATION went to the Board of Supervisors where I had one vote from Supervisor Pinches, and four certain No votes from the perceived liberals on the board who, then as now, are hyper-sensitive to criticism. Not all that long ago in America, libs were fighters. Now they simply whine and knife you when your back is turned, which is why I recommend to Mendo newcomers that they wear their kevlar vests on their backs, not their fronts.

SUPERVISOR PINCHES, bless him all his days, raised, in public session, the matter of the editor’s brusque rejection by the Mental Health Board. Pinches wondered about the process. “Didn't the supervisors make these appointments? Did the Mental Health Board even have the right to reject Mr. Anderson?”

PINCHES told his colleagues that he personally would like to see Anderson, a county resident and taxpayer, on the Mental Health Board. His colleagues were not surprised to hear this, since they knew the editor supported Mr. Pinches' campaign for the state senate at the time and was also an admirer of the Laytonville cowboy.

ACCORDING to their rules, appointments to County committees came from recommendations by the nominee's supervisor, who, in my case, was then-Fifth District Supervisor Charles Peterson, an illiberal liberal who was a one term supervisor and immediately disappeared after leaving the position.

Peterson agreed, in part, with Pinches: "Whoever does it [the rejection], it has to be done appropriately,” said Peterson, an appropriateness monitor from way back. Peterson noted that Supervisors often rely on recommendations from the boards and commissions themselves.

Editor of the Mendocino County Observer, Jim Shields — who, as it happened, was Pinches’ State Senate campaign manager — also spoke up for the editor of the AVA. He thought the Mental Health Board, had taken an unseemly “gleeful satisfaction” in rejecting Anderson, believed to be the only person ever turned down for a position on a county advisory board whose vacancies typically go unfilled for months and even years. “Is this any way to encourage public participation?,” Shields asked.

BUT WHEN PINCHES put my nomination before the full board of supervisors, my nomination was rejected 4-1, Pinches, as he often was on many matters, on the short end of the vote. But Pinches had anticipated my rejection and quickly nominated my wife to the Mental Health Board. In lib-think, she was impossible to reject, being not only a woman, but a woman of color whose origins were Third World. Mrs. Anderson was unanimously approved for the Mental Health Board. 

UNAWARE she’d even been nominated, let alone unanimously appointed to the board simply because she wasn’t me and that the libs were terrified to reject a third world woman of color my wife said, “Please tell them thank you, but no thanks.”

SPEAKING of my long-suffering missus as we approach our sixtieth year together, it was 1965 and we were just married in Sibu, Sarawak, a disapproving Anglican minister performing the ceremony, and not my first experience of Brit colonial attitudes rooted in their assumption of racial superiority. They didn't like Americans either. 

For our honeymoon we booked, or tried to book, a two-night's boat trip to Singapore. There were three of us in the honeymoon party — me, my new wife, my best man, Al Johnson, who happened to be black. We wanted to sleep in the open air on the ship's deck, not only to save money but for the experience. My bride was not enthusiastic about deck passage, but Al and I, both of us accustomed to sleeping on mats on floors wherever we went, were for it, and Ling reluctantly agreed. We were young and intrepid. But when I went to the ticket office I was told white men were not permitted to travel on the deck with the “natives.” So I bought a second class cabin for three for something like twenty bucks U.S. The day of the voyage, we were met by the captain standing at the head of the gangplank in crisp whites greeting the first and second class passengers like his old tub was the Queen's charter. When he met us he harrumphed audibly and said sarcastically, “I take it you three are traveling together?” “Yes,” I said, merry as could be and with a big smile “we're a wedding party.” He abruptly turned his back on us and that was the last we saw of him and the Brit crew for the rest of the voyage. 

SO-CALLED SERVICE DOGS

Warmest spiritual greetings,

Returned to the Building Bridges Homeless Resource Center yesterday evening, to a cacophony of condemnation for having published a one paragraph letter in The Mendocino County Observer. The one paragraph, which bore the heading "Ommmmmm", objectively detailed a typical morning in Ukiah, beginning at the shelter, walking to Plowshares, taking the MTA bus to the public library, etcetera. The intent was to jot down objectively an example of non-attachment amidst everyday life. In the first sentence, I referred to the "so-called service dogs" who were barking inside of the building. Apparently, offense was taken by some of the individuals there who have dogs. An attempt was made by me to clarify that "so-called service dogs" is the correct description, because although there are registered service dogs at the shelter, most dogs there are pets. However, irrationality was on display, and in loud voices vilification of my good self ensued, with one irate individual (who doesn't have a dog), informing me that it was "shitty for you to have written that", and further, that all of the good that I had done voluntarily at the shelter the past 14 months was now "wiped out". The shelter staff was shown a copy of the newspaper, featuring the one paragraph letter, and after reading it, could not figure out what all of the hullaballoo was about. My thanks to Jim Shields for his courage as an independent radical community publisher. N.B. Keep chanting OM, which guarantees detachment from the absurdity of postmodernism generally, and from the American experiment in freedom and democracy, which has clearly lost its way. Thanks for listening.

Craig Louis Stehr

1045 South State Street, Ukiah, CA 95482

Email: craiglouisstehr@gmail.com

Housing: I've got the Federal voucher.

Money: Paypal.me/craiglouisstehr

ED NOTE: I was never on his bus, but in SF (of course) the service animal phenomena got completely outta hand, with one guy lugging a python on board with him, and other loons a veritable Noah's Ark of other species. Guide dogs for the blind and that's it. If you need a huggy bear to get on the bus, stay home.

KNIFE-WIELDING MURDER POISED FOR PRISON

Defendant Leslie Alan Adelman, age 71, generally of the greater Ukiah area, was sentenced Tuesday morning in the Mendocino County Superior Court to state prison for a term of 12 years.

The defendant stands convicted by plea of voluntary manslaughter, a felony, and personally using a knife in the commission of that crime.

Voluntary manslaughter is committed when an individual, with the intent to kill, causes the death of another person, said death occurring while the perpetrator was acting under the influence of a sudden quarrel or heat of passion.

As background, the defendant was living in his truck in the shared parking lot of Social Services and the Wells Fargo Bank on South State Street.

Believing he had been victimized on March 27, 2022, the defendant pursued the victim, another homeless man, for supposedly stealing a box of spices off the back of the defendant’s truck. Catching the alleged spice thief, the defendant knifed the man, causing his death.

Because voluntary manslaughter is characterized as a violent crime by the California Penal Code, the release credits defendant Adelman may attempt to earn towards his early release on parole is capped by current state law at no more than 15 percent of the overall sentence, meaning he should be required by prison authorities to serve over 9 ½ years of his 12-year sentence.

The law enforcement agencies that developed the evidence that would have been used at trial against the defendant were the Ukiah Police Department and the District Attorney’s own Bureau of Investigations.

A special thank you is extended to Dr. Bennet Omalu, the forensic pathologist, who conducted the autopsy in this case and would have provided expert testimony on cause of death had this case gone to trial.

The attorney who has been handling the prosecution of this defendant is Senior Deputy District Attorney Scott McMenomey.

Mendocino County Superior Court Judge Victoria Shanahan accepted the defendant’s change of plea and admission in early May. Judge Shanahan also presided at Tuesday morning’s brief sentencing hearing.

(DA Presser)

Background: https://theava.com/archives/183583#7

CATCH OF THE DAY, Wednesday, June 28, 2023

LUCAS CASE, Fort Jones/Ukiah. Failure to appear.

ALDAR FRAGOSO, Redwood Valley. Vandalism, failure to appear.

ANTHONY KROPACZEWSKI, Ukiah. Protective order violation.

MICHAEL OLVERA-CAMPOS, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs, parole violation.

JUSTIN SLAGLE, Willits. Protective order violation.

KIMBERLEE THOMPSON, Ukiah. Vandalism.

DOWN WITH ’EM ALL

Editor,  

I’ve regarded Marilyn Davin as an intelligent, well-informed,  compassionate correspondent to your mighty paper, but she disappoints me in her defense of Southern monuments. Should Berlin erect a statue to Hitler to be viewed in “gratitude” that the WWII Nazis no longer exist? These structures do not honor our historical heritage in any way. They didn’t appear until after Reconstruction during the 1890s’ Southern movement, The Cult of the Lost Cause, and exploded under Jim Crow with the growth of the Klan, appearing as late as the 1940s.  

The specific intention was to rewrite history and celebrate a fictional sanitized Confederacy, ignoring the death, enslavement and terror it embodied. Their placements underscored that although the South  lost the Civil War militarily, White supremacy still reigned. For instance, Kentucky has two monuments to the 90,000 troops who fought for the Union; 72 for the 35,000 on the Confederate side.  

There are more than 700 of these monuments, each one  representing a traitor to the country and a standing abomination to efforts to end our enduring racism and the miseries it still inflicts.  

Bring them all down!  

Jayne Thomas  

Berkeley   

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY: 

I've spent the past few days in San Francisco. A few observations that may not be popular with today's sensationalist media--and the online crowd who exploit unhoused folks and post videos/photos to claim a narrative of a "failed" "destroyed" "zombie apocalypse" city--ruined by "woke" values. Nothing could be further from the truth. I walked the Tenderloin and pretty much the entirety of its surrounding community (several times over). At night and in the sunshine. I did not feel unsafe. I did not feel like the world was collapsing around me. What I saw was heartbreaking, yes. People are unhoused. People are chaotically using drugs. People are in the streets when they should have a bed to sleep in. It's sad to experience in-person. But I can report back that this city is not ruined. In fact, it's not much that different than any other big city you'll visit in Anytown, USA. What I can say is this: I've been coming to San Francisco since I was young. And the divide between the "haves" and "have nots" has only grown wider over time. It was on full display during this trip. Right next to a family living out of a tent (where I observed a man sweeping the sidewalk outside of it where he had a version of a table with his dinner set atop), there were $200k cars and self-driving vehicles speeding by, with the type of car doors you'd more likely see on a spaceship. People were crowding in and out of the nearby Apple Store, Burberry, and Supreme retail shops--some picking up their $2k hand bags, white t-shirts that cost $150, and Apple gadgets--all while ignoring the person on the curb outside the shop asking for spare change for something to eat. The median price for a single-family home in San Francisco is $1.2 million. Hedge fund and tech CEOs, along with a small (but loud) band of angry online activists of a certain political tilt, take to Twitter and Facebook everyday to scream that "leftist liberal" policies are ruining their city. That crime is up (which it's not, it's actually in a decline) and that harm reduction is "harm promotion." What these tech billionaires and keyboard warriors fail to tell you is that drug addiction doesn’t happen in a vacuum typically. Neither does mental illness. Catastrophic events, such as losing one’s stability and home can be driving factors. Approx. 9 out of 10 folks here lost their last housing as a result of economic hardship, not drugs. And as a result of the trauma of being unhoused, some will turn to drug use. At the same time, during this so-called decline in the the City, many of these same angry activists decry harm reduction principles, urging their state and local officials to deploy the national guard and more police to clean up their streets. They don't want "those" people here--they want them off "their" streets. They forced the city to shut down the Tenderloin Center which was offering harm reduction & supportive services to thousands of people in the area--leaving them with nowhere else to go. There are many lessons from my trip here--too many to fit into a single email (I'll have more, much more, to say in time). But to sum it up: what's happening in San Francisco is a microcosm of a much larger problem in this country. Extreme wealth disparity, lack of common decency and humanity, and a race to politicize what shouldn't be political: taking care of our own. This city is leaving it's most vulnerable out to dry. It's wrong. The cause--and the solution--are not simple. Displacing people will not solve the problem. It's not as simple as "treatment" and "recovery" as some will claim. The next time you visit San Francisco, instead of taking a video of someone on the streets and posting it online, maybe offer them your spare change or a kind word. Don't be a part of the problem. It's going to take an entire shift in what we think we know to dismantle the systems of social oppression that I believe are the root causes behind what I saw here.

THE PATRIOTISM OF KILLING AND BEING KILLED

by Norman Solomon

The Fourth of July -- the ultimate patriotic holiday -- is approaching again. Politicians orate, American Flags proliferate and, even more than usual, many windows on the world are tinted red, white and blue. But an important question remains unasked: Why are patriotism and war so intertwined in U.S. media and politics?

The highest accolades often go to those who died for their country. But when a war is based on deception with horrific results, as became clear during the massive bloodshed in Vietnam, realism and cynicism are apt to undermine credulity. “War’s good business so give your son,” said a Jefferson Airplane song in 1967. “And I’d rather have my country die for me.”

Government leaders often assert that participating in war is the most laudable of patriotic services rendered. And even if the fighters don’t know what they’re fighting for, the pretense from leadership is that they do. When President Lyndon Johnson delivered a speech to U.S. troops at Cam Ranh Bay in South Vietnam, he proclaimed that “you know what you are doing, and you know why you are doing it -- and you are doing it.”

Five decades later, long after sending U.S. troops to invade Panama in 1989 and fight the 1991 Gulf War, former President George H.W. Bush tweeted that he was “forever grateful not only to those patriots who made the ultimate sacrifice for our Nation -- but also the Gold Star families whose heritage is imbued with their honor and heroism.” Such lofty rhetoric is routine.

Official flattery elevates the warriors and the war, no matter how terrible the consequences. In March 2010, making his first presidential visit to Afghanistan, Barack Obama told the assembled troops at Bagram Air Base that they “represent the virtues and the values that America so desperately needs right now: sacrifice and selflessness, honor and decency.”

From there, Obama went on to a theme of patriotic glory in death: “I’ve been humbled by your sacrifice in the solemn homecoming of flag-draped coffins at Dover, to the headstones in section 60 at Arlington, where the fallen from this war rest in peace alongside the fellow heroes of America’s story.” Implicit in such oratory is the assumption that “America’s story” is most heroic and patriotic on military battlefields.

A notable lack of civic imagination seems to assume that there is no higher calling for patriotism than to kill and be killed. It would be an extremely dubious notion even if U.S. wars from Vietnam to Afghanistan and Iraq had not been based on deception -- underscoring just how destructive the conflation of patriotism and war can be.

From Vietnam to Iraq and beyond, the patriotism of U.S. troops -- and their loved ones as well as the general public back home -- has been exploited and manipulated by what outgoing President Dwight Eisenhower called the “military-industrial complex.” Whether illuminated by the Pentagon Papers in 1971 or the absence of the proclaimed Iraqi weapons of mass destruction three decades later, the falsehoods provided by the White House, State Department and Pentagon have been lethal forms of bait-and-switch.

Often lured by genuine love of country and eagerness to defend the United States of America, many young people have been drawn into oiling the gears of a war machine -- vastly profitable for Pentagon contractors and vastly harmful to human beings trapped in warfare.

Yet, according to top officials in Washington and compliant media, fighting and dying in U.S. wars are the utmost proof of great patriotism.

We’re encouraged to closely associate America’s wars with American patriotism in large part because of elite interest in glorifying militarism as central to U.S. foreign policy. Given the destructiveness of that militarism, a strong argument can be made that true patriotism involves preventing and stopping wars instead of starting and continuing them.

If such patriotism can ever prevail, the Fourth of July will truly be a holiday to celebrate.

1957. SOPHIA LOREN AND JAYNE MANSFIELD - California, a dinner in Beverly Hills at the exclusive Romanoff's restaurant.

AND FOR THE LADIES (tat for tit):

PRIGOZHIN’S MARCH ON MOSCOW

by Greg Afinogenov

In late May, the pro-Kremlin political PR hack Konstantin Dolgov published a startling interview with Yevgeny Prigozhin, the commander of the Wagner private military company. Prigozhin said that the entire “denazification and demilitarisation” rationale behind the invasion of Ukraine was a sham; that the war was a failure; that the Ukrainian army was now among the strongest in the world; that the children of the Kremlin elite “allow themselves to live a public, fat, worry-free life applying face cream and showing it on the internet while ordinary people’s children are coming back in zinc [coffins]”; and that “this divide might end with a revolution, like in 1917, when first the soldiers rise up, then the people close to them” to “stick the elites on pitchforks.”

Last weekend Prigozhin appeared to put his money where his mouth was. After releasing an obviously staged video of an alleged Russian army artillery strike on a Wagner base, Prigozhin announced a “march of justice” to Moscow to punish the offenders, above all his bête noire, the defense minister, Sergei Shoigu. To everyone’s surprise, in the first few hours of the march Prigozhin’s mercenaries managed, almost without bloodshed, to capture Rostov-on-Don, the operational headquarters of Russia’s Ukrainian front.

With few units available in Moscow to repulse the uprising, only the poorly trained and ill-equipped national guard, it seemed possible that the Kremlin would get the worst of it: apparently caught on the back foot, Putin proclaimed his former caterer and close political ally a traitor and called on the military and the general population to resist him. Prigozhin was only a couple of hours from the capital when he abruptly stood down, disbanded the mutineers and agreed to depart for Belarus – apparently following mediation by Belarus President/Strongman Aleksander Lukashenko.

How much did Ukrainian and Western intelligence know about the uprising? Does it reveal Putin’s regime as a house of cards waiting to be toppled by an opportunist less scrupulous than Prigozhin? Will the Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who deployed his own Akhmat unit in Putin’s defence, replace his rival at the president’s right hand? All these questions may be settled in time. But the answers for now remain murky. Prigozhin’s failure, like the attempted coup against Erdoğan in Turkey in 2016, may ultimately provide a useful pretext for a regime-strengthening purge of the political elite, but Putin’s response has so far been muted: even the treason charges against Prigozhin have apparently been dropped.

What is already clear is that the attempted coup is a watershed moment for the Russian far right. It may be tempting to read Prigozhin’s criticisms of the invasion, which echo Western reporting, as a nod to antiwar sentiment. They are not. His actual view of the war is: “We didn’t start this special operation, but once the village has ended in a shitshow and you and your neighbors are fucking each other up, you’d better fuck them up to the end.” Thomas Friedman said something similar about Iraq, though he used a more genteel analogy.

Prigozhin’s admiration for the Ukrainian military, on the other hand, is real enough: he would like Russia to be what he thinks Ukraine has become in the crucible of conflict – a society single-mindedly devoted to mobilizing and sacrificing for ultimate victory. The main crime of Russia’s wealthy elites and bureaucrats like Shoigu, in Prigozhin’s eyes, is their failure to take the war seriously enough to achieve this end: instead of the frozen conflict in which the country now finds itself, Russia needs to “live for a certain number of years like North Korea, close all the borders, stop pussyfooting around.” These points are familiar touchstones of the Russian nationalist right, especially its most vocal representative, the video streamer and Telegram poster Igor Girkin, aka Strelkov.

It must have been galling for the likes of Strelkov to see their cherished slogans trumpeted by a man who exemplifies the cronyism and atrophy of Putin’s regime, using their rhetoric for positional advantage in an internecine elite power struggle. Prigozhin has long reaped the advantages of being a nominally private businessman responsible for essential state functions: beyond the military supply contracts that first earned him his billions, his Internet Research Agency carries out social media manipulation on behalf of the state, while Wagner PMC has been among the most effective tools of Russian hard and soft power in Africa and the Middle East as well as Ukraine.

Wagner’s participation in the fighting around Bakhmut, where the unit performed much better than its formal military counterparts, helped bolster Prigozhin’s position – but since then the military has improved while Putin and Shoigu have cut off Wagner’s access to ammunition and other supplies. Prigozhin was in a bind: he could either watch his independent role consign him to increasing irrelevance while the defense ministry regained the upper hand, or find a way to act.

His deployment of nationalist slogans was a poor fit with the audience he was trying to mobilize, however. Their nostalgia for a strong empire in the 1848 or 1948 mold (resplendent in either case with gold braid and muscular patriotism) doesn’t sit well with the kind of late Roman decadence represented by a private army marching on its own capital. Yet they also dream of a popular uprising against the regime, of the kind to which Prigozhin was gesturing – a March on Rome in which rank-and-file soldiers and junior officers would finally force their decrepit governing class to take their responsibilities to national greatness seriously.

But this was not the moment. Strelkov and the rest of the “war correspondent” right rushed to declare the rebellion premature, a Dolchstoss that was treasonous and irresponsible in the context of an ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive (though after the taking of Rostov, a few posts did start to appear that could be interpreted ambiguously, only to vanish when the curtain fell). Prigozhin would not be their Mussolini.

This outcome lays bare the predicament now facing the Russian right. Unlike the liberals, they are a real political force: much of the country in one way or another seems to share both their disgust at the elites who live as if nothing has changed, and their sense that the war might have been a mistake but fighting it halfway is worse than trying to win it. Yet everything that has brought the self-appointed tribunes of Russian nationalism to prominence since 2014 has been underpinned by the machinations of the Kremlin elite, and at every step they have been boxed out of decision-making or co-opted for their symbolic value. If they were ever to seize power for real, nothing good would come of it.

(London Review of Books)

UKRAINE, WEDNESDAY, 28 JUNE

Russian missiles struck the busy center of the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk and a nearby village on Tuesday, killing at least 11 people and injuring dozens, Ukrainian officials said. On Wednesday, shelling in the Kharkiv region killed three people, according to the head of the regional military administration.

Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin planned to seize two of Russia top military officials when he launched a short-lived mutiny on Saturday, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing Western officials.

Prigozhin is now in Belarus after a deal was brokered, according to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. While the Kremlin said charges against Wagner will be dropped, President Vladimir Putin also alluded to a potential investigation into claims that billions of rubles of state funds were spent on the group.

NATO has increased its preparedness and military presence along the eastern front of the alliance, according to Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

AMERICA 2023

Editor,

Re-state bleeding — democracy dying. America Bullet-blasted blood-soaked half-staff. America. Decades-long Limbaugh-poison drip-drip. America. Idiot-savant Elon electrocute America. Foxed and Tuckered America. Anger-outrage-fear paralysis. America 2023.

Nels Erickson, S/Sgt, Ret., USAF, 1952-1956

Veterans Home of California at Yountville

AGING IRAQ INVADERS Keep Accidentally Saying ‘Iraq’ Instead Of ‘Ukraine’

by Caitlin Johnstone

President Biden accidentally referred to Putin’s war in “Iraq” when answering questions from the press, a year after former president George W Bush made the same gaffe. Both men played crucial roles in the push to invade Iraq.

Asked on Wednesday whether the short-lived Prigozhin rebellion was a sign that Putin was weakening, Biden replied, “It’s hard to tell really. But he’s clearly losing the war in Iraq.”

During the 2020 presidential race, Current Affairs’ Nathan J Robinson wrote the following about Biden’s pivotal role in manufacturing support for the Iraq invasion:

In 2003, Biden was “a senator bullish about the push to war [in Iraq] who helped sell the Bush administration’s pitch to the American public,” who “voted for — and helped advance — the Bush agenda.” He was the war’s “most crucial” senate supporter. Biden repeated the myth that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, saying that “these weapons must be dislodged from Saddam Hussein, or Saddam Hussein must be dislodged from power.” The resulting war was one of the most deadly catastrophes in the history of U.S. foreign policy — the Iraqi death toll was in the hundreds of thousands or possibly even the millions, and 4,500 American troops died.

That Biden’s decomposing brain would find the word “Iraq” when reaching for the word which means “nation that has been illegally invaded by an evil government” is positively Freudian.

In May of last year during a speech in Dallas, George W Bush made a similar Freudian confession, saying, “The result is an absence of checks and balances in Russia, and the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq. I mean, of Ukraine.”

After correcting himself with a nervous chuckle, Bush broke the tension with the words, “Iraq too. Anyway.” He then quipped that he is 75 years old, leaning harder on his “Aw shucks gee willikers I’m such a goofball” persona than he ever has in his entire life.

I defy you to find me anything that is more quintessentially representative of the state of the US empire than these two clips. Two decaying empire managers fumbling around in their skulls for the name of nation that’s been invaded by murderous thugs, and coming up with the name of the nation they themselves invaded. It’s truly a thing of beauty.

It’s absolutely ridiculous that they’re trying to charge Putin with war crimes while these two mass murderers are walking free. As American law professor Dale Carpenter has said, “If citizens cannot trust that laws will be enforced in an evenhanded and honest fashion, they cannot be said to live under the rule of law. Instead, they live under the rule of men corrupted by the law.” This is all the more true of laws which would exist between nations.

It’s not a “whataboutism” to say it’s absurd to charge Putin with war crimes without charging men like Bush and Biden — it’s a completely devastating argument against the claim being made. If the law doesn’t apply to everyone, then it’s not the law, it’s just corruption. It’s a tool of the powerful.

(caitlinjohnstone.com)