Mendocino County Today: Saturday, July 1, 2023

Hot | Puddingset | Water Project | RV Parade | Ambulance Staffing | Savannah Reminder | Rainfall | AV Groundbreaking | Barn Sale | Ukiah Mural | Haul Road | Riley Missing | Catfish Healing | Giauque Info | Paul Dolan | Op Way | Lawn Party | Cruisers | Ed Notes | Railroad Story | Skunk Refused | Streetscape Project | Remote Psychiatrist | AV Prices | Beacon Run | Yesterday's Catch | Perfect Record | Gods Diner | Earthworm Cultivation | Drunk Fireworks | Marco Radio | Godfather | Climate Challenge | ATM Daddy | Institute Sale | Saloon | Peripatetic | Draymond Extension | Primary Care | Buzzer Test | My Muhammed | Pay Ratio | Penguin Book | Old Joe | Lamped Me | Defending Noriega | Illuminated Tires | Wagner Fiasco | Erich Remarque | Ukraine | Sit

DRY, HOT WEATHER will prevail into next week. Temperatures will peak today, followed by a slow drop through the upcoming week. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A mostly clear 50F on the coast this Saturday morning. Sunny skies for the weekend then morning fog slowly rebuilds next week. Clear skies for the Ft. Bragg fireworks show are likely this year. The satellite view shows the fog is nearby though.

YESTERDAY'S HIGHS: Ukiah 106°, Yorkville 106°, Covelo 102°, Boonville 99°, Fort Bragg 62°

BOONVILLE WATER PROJECT UPDATE

(From the Minutes June 1st 2023 Water Projects Meeting)

The majority of the site work at the Valley Views site (in Boonville across from the Methodist Church) was completed on May 30, 2023. Engineer Steve Klick will return to the site tomorrow or early next week to take another round of groundwater level measurements and place protective covers over the monitoring wells. So far depth to seasonal high groundwater appears to be sufficient, but soil lab analysis may take an additional three weeks or so.

Drinking Water Project: Still awaiting water well acquisition contracts. Possibly three still out.

Public Outreach For Drinking Water: Third mailing to be sent out June 1 or 2. It asks for a response by June 15. Current count for 195 parcels in proposed water district is 86 ‘yes’, 38 ‘no,’ 3 ‘maybe.’ There was a discussion about whether the (Airport) Meadow Estate non-responders would be included in the third survey.

Next meeting:

Regular Meeting Of The Water Projects Committee

Anderson Valley Community Services District

To be held via teleconference Phone # 669 900 6833 

Zoom Meeting ID 845 5084 3330 

Password 048078

Public comments must be submitted by 10:00am on July 6, 2023 electronically to water.avcsd@gmail.com

Thursday July 6, 2023 at 10:30am

AV AMBULANCE STAFFING STRETCHED THIN

AV Fire Chief Andres Avila told the Community Services District last Wednesday (June 21): “Our volunteers were able to barely pull off staffing the ambulance for two recent large events, Bike Monkey Race and Sierra Nevada World Music Festival (SNWMF). District staffing was maintained but stretched thin during both events. Our backup ambulance was utilized during both weekends when the other was committed on an incident. On the other hand, the last week of June we may need to down-staff the ambulance due to several volunteers all becoming unavailable at the same time. Clay [Eubanks, Ambulance Manager] has sent in a request to MedStar [Ukiah private ambulance company] for personnel and Clay and I will be trying to fill the gap. Down staffing means that the ambulance does not have a person sitting at the ambulance quarters on shift and available to respond immediately. The ambulance will still likely respond but on a delay and if enough EMS volunteers are available.”

RAINFALL TOTALS from Jeffrey Streeter [location not mentioned]

AV UNIFIED: GROUNDBREAKING!

Friday morning was a day filled with expectation, joy, and chocolate donuts as students and the community celebrated the groundbreaking for the Anderson Valley Unified Measure M Bond construction work. Anderson Valley voters passed a $13 million general obligation bond overwhelmingly with 72 percent of the vote in June 2022. The district was able to receive the first $7 million dollars in funding, and broke ground today for the elementary septic replacement project.

Students, Kindergarten-6th grade, were front and center at the celebration with handmade signs thanking the voters for their generosity in upgrading their school system. Students joined Board Members Justin Rhoades and Linnea Totten, Bond Chairman Philip Thomas, Principal Thomas-Swett, Architect Don Alameida and contractors from Northwest Construction in the festive ground breaking including a golden shovel turning over the first spade of dirt while students cut the caution tape ribbon.

Louise Simson, Superintendent, reminded students they had an obligation to repay this generosity of their community by being the best students and people they can be. Simson noted that the district was able to pull out the first round of financing in September 2022 only two months after the bond measure passed, in an effort to avoid the rising interest rates.

The septic project, a portion of which is expected to be funded by the Office of School Construction, is the first phase of the bond funds. Plans for the major remodel for the high school science wings, library classroom wing, and the gym exterior bathrooms are in plan review with the State. Construction on these projects is expected to commence in June 2024.

“For all of the community members that supported this bond effort, on behalf of the students, staff, and the generation to come, we will do our utmost to repay your kindness and trust through Innovating excellence in our educational opportunities to make Anderson Valley Unified “the” place to be. We are grateful.”

Take care,

Louise Simson, Superintendent, Anderson Valley Unified School District

BOONVILLE BARN SALE this weekend! 12761 Anderson Valley Way, Boonville. Saturday, July 1, and Sunday July 2, 10 am to 3 pm. Lots of new items: linens, cookware, dishes, CDs, DVDs, books, games, puzzles, vases, glassware, clothing and much much more!

BIG RIVER HAUL ROAD CLOSURES [only in certain areas]

California State Parks and various park partners will project restoration along the Big River Haul Road in Mendocino Headlands State Park this summer. These projects will reduce sediment delivery as well as improve fish passage. Work will begin on July 10 and will continue through October 31 or until projects are complete, whichever comes first. To protect our visiting public, as well as the safety of workers, there will be no public access at several locations along the Big River Haul Road on weekdays throughout the project duration.…

mendocinobeacon.com/2023/06/29/big-river-haul-road-closures-announced/

LAST SEEN IN BROOKTRAILS on March 27, 2023

UCSB community brings awareness about missing UCSB alum

by Melea Maglalang (May 26, 2023)

UC Santa Barbara alum Riley Hsieh was reported missing on March 27. Now, two months into the search with no leads found, efforts to spread awareness continue throughout the UCSB campus and Isla Vista community in hopes of connecting others to the cause.

Though she can’t help in the immediate area and is aware that this could be a long running case, Amanda Hsieh — Riley Hsieh’s older sister — continues contributing to the search efforts by regularly updating various social media accounts like Instagram, in hopes that it will reach a wider audience and spread awareness about the case.

“With missing persons’ cases, people could really be anywhere,” she said. “We’re just trying to use social media to reach more people, so that way somebody will spot him, and we can bring him home.”…

dailynexus.com/2023-05-26/ucsb-community-brings-awareness-about-missing-ucsb-alum/

CATFISH JACK CHAUVIN'S HEALING JOURNEY FUND

organized by Gary and Margaret Pace Howe and Sara McCamant

Catfish Jack Chauvin was recently diagnosed with cancer. A beloved music teacher, performer, father, and friend, he has touched the lives of people of all ages.…

Update, June 3, 2023, by Sara McCamant

Exciting news today - Jack is going to move back home.  His sister Karin and her husband Paul are coming to support him so he can be home!  He is still struggling with some pain and mostly lays in bed all day with a few short bursts of being up and about.  Yesterday he walked outside around the outside of our house - which was the first time he has walked that far and outside in probably 5 weeks.  He keeps saying he will be more up for visitors once he is home, so check in with him and see how he is feeling.  It is up and down how he feels, so some days he is just not up for much.  Thanks for all the love and support you are sending his way, it will be a long journey still as they are evaluating when he can start Chemotherapy - he needs to get stronger so that will probably be in the fall.  

gofundme.com/f/catfish-jacks-healing-journey-fund

PATRICK DUFF: I am an investigative journalist working on the cold case murder investigation of Chris Giauque, who disappeared on August 9th of 2003. There is a $200,000 reward for anyone that comes forward with information that leads to the recovery of Chris's remains, and another $200,000 reward for anyone with the information that leads to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for Chris's death. I am not a cop, I am a journalist who keeps my sources confidential, so please DM me [via facebook/twitter] if you have any information regarding the murder of Chris Giauque and or the whereabouts of his remains.

PAUL DOLAN: A Mover and a Shaker in Mendocino County Wines Lived a Life of Deep Roots and Forward-Thinking

by Mike Geniella

Legendary North Coast vintner Paul Dolan valued his Wine Country heritage. 

It traced back four generations to the historic Italian Swiss Colony vineyards and winery in northern Sonoma County. His great-grandfather Pietro Carlo Rossi and grandfather Edmund A. Rossi were presidents of the famed winery. In the 1950s Italian Swiss Colony, when Dolan as a boy played hide-and-seek among wine barrels, was one of the largest tourist attractions in California, widely promoted on early television as the home of the ‘Little Old Winemaker.’

Dolan decades later would regale his own family with fond memories of having spent summers as a child at the family’s villa southeast of Cloverdale with his mother Yvonne Rossi Dolan and her extended family. The dining table was always laden with food, and hearty wine.

Dolan’s deep ties to tradition combined with an innovative spirit eventually led him to become a leading voice for sustainable, organic, biodynamic, and regenerative farming practices as a means of nourishing the earth and advancing grape growing practices. Dolan spoke with passion and farmed enthusiastically. At heart, however, Dolan was a devoted father, grandfather, and an advocate of the community.

Dolan’s family was with him when he passed peacefully on June 26 at his home in Healdsburg from cancer. A memorial service is planned for early August at the Dolan family’s Dark Horse Vineyard on Old River Road south of Ukiah.

Heath Dolan recalled Thursday a father who valued family more than any of his accomplishments in the fiercely competitive world of grape growing and winemaking. 

“His heart was most at ease when surrounded by his children, grandchildren, siblings, nieces, nephews, and extended family at Asti Villa,” said Heath Dolan who worked alongside his father in the vineyards and later became his business partner. “His legacy is mine, and I hope to pass it along as he did with me.”

Heath Dolan said he has received hundreds of calls and notes of condolences as word of his father’s death spread in recent days.

“What I realized is that most speak of my father’s character, and how he helped so many people he worked with over the years. Sure, he was a fine winemaker and an informed grape grower. But clearly, he was a man who cared about the people around him. That’s the most powerful legacy any of us can leave.”

Family members recall Paul Dolan’s reverence for the mystery of life and death, and how he “found solace in the knowledge that death is not an end but a gateway to renewed life.”

During his lifetime, Paul Dolan would leave a large winemaking footprint in Sonoma and Mendocino counties. He helped lead Mendocino County’s Fetzer Vineyards to new heights during an era of ‘fighting varietals,’ while promoting a groundbreaking food and wine philosophy that Fetzer family members embraced in an era of fierce competition among locally based wineries.

Dolan’s brother-in-law Jim Fetzer at the time envisioned a food and wine center at Hopland, and hired Michael Malthus, a nationally recognized organic gardener, to help create a showcase garden at the then newly created Valley Oaks center. It has since been transformed into Campovida, but the garden has remained a centerpiece.

Dolan recalled in a 2015 interview with WineBusiness.com that the notion of a food and wine center “was very, very, very new thinking.”

The Valley Oaks venture proved wildly successful. Julia Child and James Beard came to lead cooking classes, pairing foods with the company’s wines. The Fetzer complex predated “Alice Waters, California cuisine and today’s foodie movement by decades,” according to WineBusiness.

Dolan, who married Diana Fetzer in 1986, became president of Fetzer Vineyards six years later after family members sold the iconic Mendocino County winery to Brown-Forman, a Kentucky-based liquor conglomerate. Dolan continued to expand Fetzer’s shift to organic grape growing practices, and he helped pioneer Bonterra Wines as the first national brand made from 100 percent organically grown grapes. He also established Mendocino Cooperage in 1994, a facility that produced oak barrels for Fetzer wines.

Dolan left Fetzer in 2004. Two years later, Dolan became chairman of the Wine Institute, the wine industry’s most influential voice.

Dolan held the first biodynamic symposium in the U.S. with winegrowers in Australia, California, and France. With son Heath, Dolan purchased the Dark Horse Ranch south of Ukiah and transformed the 156-acre hillside property into a showcase for biodynamic practices. WineBusiness.com said famed biodynamic consultant Alan York created Darkhorse vineyards ‘artfully designed insectary rows. Heath drove tractors running on biofuels, and (Paul) Dolan held biodynamic bootcamps to teach sommeliers about the benefits of biodynamics.”

In 2007, Dolan founded with friend Phil Hurst the Truett-Hurst Wine Company in Sonoma County’s Dry Creek Valley.

Monty Waldin, a leading international organic and biodynamic expert, told WineBusiness.com this week that Dolan preferred to describe himself as a “farmer who happens to make wine in Mendocino County.’

But Waldin said Dolan’s legacy is much more. “He demystified organics and biodynamics, not least via interesting labels that informed rather than confused consumers.’

Dolan is survived by his wife of 38 years, Diana Fetzer; his children Heath Dolan (Robin), Nya Dolan Kusakabe (Galen), Caia Dolan, and his daughter in law Carly Dolan, a Mendocino County Superior Court judge. He is also survived by grandchildren Megan, Emma, Sadie, Cash, Colin, and Clayton. Son Jason Dolan predeceased him.

KELLEY HOUSE CALENDAR - SKY-HIGH ON THE FOURTH OF JULY

by Marguerite O’Brien

The Kelley House invites you to join us at our annual Fourth of July Lawn Party on Tuesday, July 4th, from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. The beautiful Kelley House lawn provides the best parade viewing in town, and admission is FREE, though donations are greatly appreciated. In addition to an excellent view of the parade route, you can enjoy music and dancing courtesy of DJ Dylan while sipping on margaritas, wine, and beer from North Coast Brewing Company, plus non-alcoholic options. Popcorn will also be available, but bring your picnic lunch or pick up a hotdog from Rotary Park just down the street.

As you relax on the Kelley House lawn, take notice of the Mendosa-Flow Water Tower visible just past the Kelley House pond. This water tower, featured in the museum’s current exhibit, “Water Tower Wonderland,” has a fascinating history that is linked to the Fourth of July. The tower was originally built in 1904 behind Mendosa’s store, but it was sold in 1975 when it became too unstable to maintain. The tower’s price was $1.00, but the new owners were required to insure it, take it down, and remove it from the property. Barry Cusick, Jim Coupe, and Gus Costa salvaged what they could of the original materials and rebuilt the water tower where it currently stands on Main Street, just in time for the 1976 bicentennial parade.

We look forward to seeing you at the Kelley House this year. Thank you to our generous sponsors: North Coast Brewing Company, Old Gold Jewelry, and Harvest Market.

The “Water Tower Wonderland” exhibit and images of the Mendosa-Flow Water Tower reconstruction are on display until September 18th, 2023, during regular museum hours. The Kelley House Museum is open from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM, Thursday through Monday. If you have a question for the curator, reach out to curator@kelleyhousemuseum.org to make an appointment. Walking tours of the historic district depart from the Kelley House regularly; for a tour schedule, visit www.kelleyhousemuseum.org.

ED NOTES

IT CONTINUES to surprise me that lots of urban people don’t know that public forests like the little-visited Mendocino National Forest had been “managed” for years as tree farms for timber corporations. L-P, gone but not forgotten, logged the Mendo National Forest so thoroughly that its mills in Potter Valley and Covelo were closed after Big Timber had concluded its short-term profit blitz. Not only were the taxpayers picking up the expensive tab for destructive logging roads to the trees, the trees had been over-harvested and sold at bargain rates. 

I USED to hike in the Mendocino National Forest; the last time I was out there it was all welfare cowboys grazing their cows, skid trails and stumps. 

SMALL WORLD ETC. Bet you didn’t know it was Beth Bosk of Albion and the New Settler Interview who smuggled the manuscript for Robert Williams’ famous book, Negroes With Guns, out of Cuba way back in the middle 1960s. Williams, who was having none of this turn the other cheek stuff, fled to Cuba from North Carolina after winning a shootout with a gang of white supremacists who’d attacked his home. Somehow some bad writers took a very good book by an interesting and brave man and roboticized Williams’ prose with a lot of bludgeon-like Marxist phraseology that wasn’t nearly as vivid as Williams’ own writing. 

CASUAL REFERENCES to this and that liberal as “leftist” always irritates hell out of me. We get leftist, left-leaning, leftish, left-liberal, radical, activist, and even environmentalist — all deployed interchangeably. 

HOW ABOUT THESE DEFINITIONS? Leftist: A person hostile to competition, greed and pointless accumulation as the basis for social organization, i.e. a socialist of whichever tribe. Progressive: a person who has been to Cuba but is afraid to call him or herself a socialist and who votes mainstream Demo Party liberal at home as he or she cheers for socialist revolutionaries far away, the farther the better. Liberal: a person who believes capitalism as a form of social organization can be tamed to make it work for all the people living in the world. Environmentalist: Typically, a financially secure person alarmed at the physical destruction of the natural world but who, like liberals, manages to delude him or herself that natural resources can be preserved without fundamental political change of a leftist character. Anarchist: Historically ignorant persons who dress in leather jackets and drive pieces of metal through their tongues, ears, eyelids, noses, belly buttons, and peenies as if fashion statements and bold talk are political activity. Activist: Any person who takes a public stance on the gamut of contemporary affairs, and who devotes anywhere from ten seconds to 20 hours a week making the world a better place. Church people who anonymously succor the poor and the defeated don’t count as activists nor do kindly cops who coach youth sports on their own time, and many other varieties of volunteers who do much good without desire for public praise.

RECOMMENDED READING, and darned if I can find my copy: Greenfield Ranch, 25th Anniversary 1972-1997: A Celebration of a Quarter Century of Living in Community. This is an informal but nicely put together miscellany and photo collection describing Mendocino County’s largest experiment in cooperative living and, by extension, the hippie period of County history. Greenfield is the large chunk of rolling hills running north and west of Calpella which was settled in the early 70s by back-to-the-land idealists. I got my copy for $20 from the legendary Greenfielder, Troll Brandon. I hope Greenfielders donated copies of this crucial Mendo document to the County Library and/or the County’s historical society.

A SECOND (KINDA) RECOMMENDED BOOK is a mystery by Ruth Rendel called Road Rage based on an English environmental group roughly similar to Earth First! (but smarter and more creative than EF!) called Sacred Globe. They kidnap random citizens as hostages against a proposed freeway. It’s interesting, to me anyway, for its enviro setting but the mystery in the mystery is gone by page 115. Also, the main characters, a police inspector and his wife, were a little too nice to be completely believable.

AND A THIRD, Night Train by Martin Amis, a very interesting cop mystery of a literary high order. The only other Amis I’ve read is the wonderful novel Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis, Martin’s father. Martin Amis is a writer better known for all kinds of reasons unrelated to his work, but this big-little book, told by the woman cop who is its primary character, only misses a couple of times, it seems to me, when Amis has his very tough female protagonist lapse into brief reveries of the cliched heart-of-gold type. There’s a lot of very good writing on the contemporary big city cop experience, suicide, race relations, love, and even the nature of the universe. 

AS IT HAPPENED, as I was reading Ruth Rendel’s Road Rage, I was also plowing my way through my old Bummer Box when I read a paragraph from a ’97 Bay Guardian about how the FBI and some other overfunded, underworked federal agencies were holding maneuvers in San Francisco based on a fantasy scenario that has an American band of enviros kidnapping officials in their outrage at environmental atrocity. Alicia Bales, aka Alicia Little Tree, was quoted in the item as saying that the maneuvers were just another tax-supported slander of the environmental movement which, as we’re reminded practically on an hourly basis, is “committed to Gandhian non-violence.” Miss Bales implied that Judi Bari had been bombed by the FBI because they’d held a “bomb school” on L-P property in Humboldt County just before the bombing itself, which accounted for the FBI’s failure to find out who did it. 

HALF RIGHT. The FBI never conducted a real investigation of the 1990 attack on Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney. But for years the FBI had held classes on explosives at College of the Redwoods for NorCal cops. Why? Cops deal with bombs all the time. And for some time the cop trainees have played with explosives on L-P land as the field work part of these classes, which may be a sinister coincidence or, as is more likely, simply the usual confluence of corporate and cop. According to COR, a number of NorCal cops attended the 1990 bomb class on L-P property which would broaden a conspiracy to bomb Earth First! to include somewhere around thirty small-town police officers. In this country, conspiracies involving more than two persons seldom go undetected. In my opinion, the reasons the FBI never investigated the Bari bombing are (1) it has never been bothered by attacks on radicals, and (2) a real investigation would have revealed FBI informants working Earth First! at the time, (3) Judi Bari’s ex-husband was an FBI informant all the way back to the 1960s when he belonged to a Maoist cult at Stanford. The Bari Cult’s preferred suspects specifically excluded her ex-husband but included a crank-ridden Humboldt County gyppo family with Old Testament pretensions and criminal associations, and certain creeps within the environmental movement itself who crept in and out of the lunatic parts of the 60s fake left. But the Bari-ites favorite villain, and the one that the Bari-ites converted to lots of cash, was always the FBI.

BARI’S so-called friends never did her memory any good by diverting attention from the likely suspects to the FBI. The FBI may well have known that someone was trying to kill her and, as per its well-documented historical behavior, simply stepped aside and let the plot against JB proceed. The historical fact is, though, that the FBI has always gotten someone else to do its killing of unpopular persons. It’s also a fact that from 1989 on through Redwood Summer, the Northcoast was crawling with so-called “activists” who have since disappeared. I thought at the time and still think that several of these people were federal cops of one kind or another and several others were creeps associated with the “left.” 

MENDOCINO COUNTY JUDGE REFUSES TO SET ASIDE RULING against Skunk Train owner in eminent domain case

Superior Court Judge Jeanine B. Nadel had said she was disinclined to reconsider her decision in the case, involving Mendocino Railway’s disputed attempts to force a property owner to sell his land near Willits to the railroad.

by Mary Callahan

The owner of Fort Bragg’s popular Skunk Train will appeal an unfavorable ruling in an eminent domain case after a Mendocino County judge refused Friday to reconsider her decision in the high-profile suit.

Mendocino Railway had asked Superior Court Judge Jeanine B. Nadel to set aside her June 1 judgment in favor of landowner John Meyer, in which she determined the railway did not hold the power to condemn his property for its own use.

Nadel allowed limited arguments by Mendocino Railway attorney Glenn Block during a brief hearing Friday but quickly shut down his apparent efforts to school her on the complex area of railroad and public utility law at issue.

The judge had said she was disinclined to reconsider her decision in the case, involving Mendocino Railway’s disputed attempts to force a property owner to sell his land near Willits to the railroad.

And, in the end, she reaffirmed her ruling.

“Let’s not argue the case all over again,” Nadel said. “I’m not going to do that.”

But railway president Robert Pinoli said in an interview after the hearing that “it is very clear” the judge doesn’t grasp rail and public utility law. He said his company would file an appeal.

Pinoli said the railway’s regulation by the California Public Utility Commission should confirm its status as a public utility and common carrier, although the CPUC, in an Aug. 12 letter, stated that the railway was a “regulated railroad but not a public utility.” CPUCHartLetter.pdf

“All someone needs to do is read, and it’s pretty clear,” Pinoli said.

John Meyer, whose 20-acre parcel off Highway 20 west of Willits was at the center of the dispute, said he fully expected Mendocino Railway to appeal the ruling to a higher court.

But Meyer was gratified to have won the latest few rounds in the case.

“She really hammered them good, didn’t she?” he said of Nadel. “I’m very happy with that part of it.“

Meyer has been fighting for 2 1/2 years to deflect Mendocino Railway’s effort to buy land he doesn’t want to sell, at a price he believes is too low.

The railway claims it has authority as a public utility to acquire the property at a fair price for the greater public good.

But Nadel disputed their claim, saying it is unsupported by the railway’s function as an excursion train. She said a tunnel collapse outside Fort Bragg has precluded it since 2015 even from running the full length of the track between Fort Bragg and Willits, preventing its use for freight hauling, even if there was demand.

There were no indications of passenger travel either, beyond the out-and-back runs from each end of the line popular to tourists, she said.

Nadel also said there were no contracts, papers or other evidence to support Block’s assertion that the Mendocino Railway’s sister company, Northern Sierra Railroad, managed the freight operations sufficient to fulfill the railway’s obligations as a common carrier up until January 2022, when the railway took over.

Nadel also pointed to the railway’s early conception of creating a campground and RV park, along with a train station, at the park. The railway and its president, Robert Pinoli, said only last year the property was needed for maintenance and repair facilities, a rail yard, cargo transfer facilities, and office and train platform, she wrote.

In seeking to reopen arguments in the case, Block had offered as new evidence a May 2 letter from the U.S. Railroad Retirement Board received by Mendocino Railway after Nadel released her initial decision. He said it confirms the railway is an authentic, federally regulated common carrier and contradicts another letter from the same body offered at trial.

But Block finally said Friday, “Nothing I can say will change the court’s mind,” noted his objections were on the record, and the hearing was over.

(pressdemocrat.com)

UKIAH DOWNTOWN STREETSCAPE PROJECT Construction Update - week of July 3rd

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

No work will occur on Monday, July 3^rd or Tuesday, July 4^th.

Starting on Wednesday, work continues to replace the sewer lines, beginning at Norton and State and progressing southward. While work is occurring in the intersection at Norton and State, Norton will be closed to traffic between State and Main. 

Sewer work will continue into the end of July. (Currently, replacement of the sewer lines on the 100 block of Scott Street is scheduled for end of July.) The discovery of some additional sewer laterals has added about a week to this project. 

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

What are the construction days/hours? Construction hours will be Wednesday-Friday, 7 a.m. - 6 p.m.

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

Will there be any disruptions to parking access or streets? Yes. On-street parking in the construction zone will be closed. Driveways and pedestrian access to businesses will be maintained at all times. Through traffic on State Street will be allowed in both directions, though the travel lanes may be pushed a bit toward the west side of the street. While work is occurring in the intersection of Norton and State, Norton Street will be closed to traffic between State and Main.

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

City of Ukiah offices will be open Monday, July 3^rd, but closed on the 4^th for Independence Day. We wish all of you a safe and happy holiday!

Shannon Riley, Deputy City Manager, City of Ukiah

MCHC WELCOMES PSYCHIATRIC PROVIDER ROSHANDA GRAYSON-THOMAS

MCHC Health Centers is excited to announce the arrival of Roshanda Grayson-Thomas, a certified psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner who will provide telehealth to patients in both the Lake and Mendocino Counties while continuing to reside in her hometown in northwest Indiana.

“Mendocino County reminds me of the small community I come from,” Grayson said. “Places like Ukiah and Laytonville have the same issues as other small communities across the country.”

With her training, Grayson could work anywhere. She chose MCHC because she believes this is where her work will have the biggest impact. Grayson’s arrival doubles the number of psychiatric nurse practitioners at MCHC, which she hopes will make a big difference for the community. She also said she believes MCHC’s team-based approach allows patients to get better care because providers from various specialties can collaborate.

MCHC CEO Rod Grainger said he was pleased to be able to expand access to care, especially psychiatric health support, given the community’s ever expanding need.

“Roshanda is a great fit. She understands the challenges our patients face and is incredibly well trained to support them,” he said.

Grayson said her primary role is psychiatric medication management and is thankful MCHC’s system allows her to work hand-in-hand with therapists and other providers. She noted that no amount of medication can fix all of a person's problems, so for a patient to get the best care, providers need to understand what is going on physically, mentally, and socially.

“Mental health impacts physical health and vise versa. Having all the components of healthcare together in one place means patients don’t have to get a referral and wait two years to see someone. Instead, MCHC’s approach can get patients the care they need right away and providers can get a view of a patient's overall health instead of just one piece of it,” Grayson explained.

MCHC’s holistic approach to health makes it easier for multiple providers to work with a patient to create a common plan that helps them meet their goals and live a more productive life.

Helping people has been a lifelong passion for Grayson who became interested in medicine at the young age of 15 when she nursed her then-friend (now husband) back to health from a motorcycle accident that left him nearly paralyzed. Helping him through his recovery made her realize she wanted to “make a difference in people’s lives.”

Initially, Grayson planned to help others by becoming a teacher, but at age 19 she shifted to healthcare and has never looked back. She started as a certified nursing assistant and quickly became a licensed practical nurse. Working in a retirement community, she spent time with elderly patients whose families rarely visited. It was here that Grayson recognized the vast need in healthcare for greater mental health services.

“The patients I worked with at the retirement community didn’t have family to visit, so I became a family member to them. I would have conversations with them, look at pictures with them, and offer them the companionship they needed,” she said.

After going back to school to become a registered nurse, Grayson began working in a hospital psychiatric ward where she knew she was getting closer to her purpose. It became clear to Grayson that psychiatrists were getting older and retiring, and that there were fewer providers to meet the growing demand. Grayson went back to school in 2017 and became a psychiatric nurse practitioner in 2020.

Grayson is excited to start working for MCHC, and pleased she can continue to live in her community while providing all the benefits of telehealth to her patients.

“Telehealth means an internet connection or phone system is all a person needs to make their appointment. Consistency can be very important for patients who need refills of their medication or to have regular check-ins,” Grayson said. “Telehealth allows people to seek mental health services where they are comfortable, in their home. It allows for more privacy and doesn’t require them to come into the clinic for every office visit, which can be hard.”

Although Grayson believes the stigma around seeking mental health services has decreased in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, it still exists. She encourages people to seek care before their problem worsens.

“My motto is, ‘It’s ok to not be ok.’ The sooner someone notices their norm is out of whack and seeks mental health services, the better,” Grayson said. “Small depression isn’t small. It can start as two days in bed, then five, then a week. Mental symptoms get worse just like physical symptoms. Seek services before you are behind the eightball and it’s harder to recover.”

The ability to reduce the harm caused by serious mental illness, up to and including hospitalization, is one of the biggest reasons Grayson chose to work in outpatient care. Hospitalizations can be mentally and financially draining. Grayson enjoys getting people the psychiatric care they need early enough to avoid a hospital visit.

As an African American woman in healthcare, Grayson takes pride in helping communities that have been traditionally overlooked and underserved. It is one of the reasons she felt she would mesh well with MCHC and its mission as a federally qualified health center to provide culturally competent care.

“My approach is a little different. A lot of minority groups have never seen a colorful woman like me in healthcare,” Grayson said with a smile. Then, more seriously, she continued, “I know where they come from and I don’t judge.”

To get a better sense of Mendocino County, Grayson traveled out from Indiana to immerse herself in the community she will be serving.

Grayson did eventually fulfill her original dream of teaching. In addition to working directly with patients, she is an instructor at Ivy-Tech Community College where she teaches the next generation of nurses. She also passed on her passion for nursing and helping others to her four children. Her eldest is working as a registered nurse at the University of Chicago and her second eldest is currently studying to become a nurse.

Grayson, who is currently accepting new patients at MCHC, encouraged anyone who thinks they might benefit from behavior health support to call for an appointment without delay.

R.D. BEACON: 

It is hard to believe in the 21st century we still have secret organizations in Mendocino County, but it is so in comparison to the rest of the state and even the nation, are the group of individuals that make up, Mendocino County Fire Chief Association so ashamed of their organization they do not put it out to public view either using Facebook or any other media, too busy hiding under the desk, even though I've been a member of that and help created back in the 1960s always thought we were opened and above the table but in recent years, they seem to be hiding everything they do even though today there are incorporated as a nonprofit, what do they have to hide from the media?

They have done good work over the years but they should not be a secretive group of individuals, they should allow the public to watch what they do and to give feedback, as we passed approach our Independence Day shouldn't there be independence from the organizations within the county, when looking around the state of California about every other fire chiefs association displays himself proudly to the public letting the general public know about the good work they do and the members they have, they need to come out into the light of day and let the public know what they do, the other day I heard the passing conversation they didn't want to recognize or share money with whale gulch volunteer fire department just because they never showed up to a meeting, how can you show to a meeting when you don't advertise and let the public know and/or other departments know what's going on, in the past they've charged each member $300 for being a member yet of the late we haven't even gotten our bill yet all low we understand they want to be selective about the group and weed out the ones they don't want, even though it's the oldest member of the Association we can only think they have bad manners and probably even worse intentions toward small volunteer fire departments that will not drink from the public trough, but they do the city departments the bigger fire agencies have always had a bad view of volunteers as well as departments it won't play their particular game of squeezing money out of government, and I can understand why they don't much care for the Greenwood Ridge fire department, we were not in favor of their last system of squeezing money out of taxpayers, even though we are not tax supported and never wanted to be, our grievance was the fact they were taking money for the city's which didn't need it to them all the funding should of been aimed at the volunteers and the much smaller departments that don't have big tax dollars coming in but you know what they say, once you feed the little baby pig a lot of food he gets much bigger and way more greedy at dinner time just like public agencies that are tax supported they get a little bit of money that they want more there never satisfied. 

They find an excuse to come to the table and steal money from other agencies so they can get fatter, handing out finances to volunteer fire departments that get little or no money should be the priority, the other priority for public safety agencies, should come from the state, I have said for many years fuel taxes and sales tax should be exempt from public agencies of all kinds not just the fire departments, they should be exempt, the next thing that needs to happen the state of California, when they decommission equipment and offered for sale should work a program, that they can redistribute firefighting assets into the smaller volunteer departments that have terrible time finding enough money to buy equipment, this should be offered by the state at no charge, this should include all firetrucks that the state take out of commission because of mileage, and transports and bulldozers as well should be redistributed, to state where there is a particular problem with wildland interface, every small country fire department should have the advantage to be able to go out with a dozer, and pushed back and the fire lines, this could work like the title for excess property system like the Fed has been doing for years, I've known departments in large cities when they turned out get a bit dirty they scrap it the same proposes all the stuff should be redistributed to the volunteer fire departments statewide at no charge.

CATCH OF THE DAY, Friday, June 30, 2023

GONZALO ANGULO-GUZMAN, Willits. DUI while on court probation, suspended license. (Booking photo not available.)

EVAN FEEN, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs.

SIDNEY FOLEY, Ukiah. Domestic battery.

TYE HAMILTON, Clearlake/Ukiah. Obstructing student/teacher.

KEITH KERL, Willits. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, ammo possession by prohibited person, driving on sidewalk, resisting.

BRANDON KINNEY, Ukiah. Controlled substance while armed with loaded firearm, narcotics for sale, armed with fiream in commission of felony.

SHAUN LELL, Ukiah. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, county parole violation.

SHILA MARESH, Willits. Domestic battery.

VICTOR MARTINEZ, Boonville. Narcotics for sale, controlled substance, offenses while on bail.

RICHARD ORTIZ, Ukiah. Domestic battery, protective order violation, failure to appear.

DYAN RILEY, Mendocino. Protective order violation.

NOE SALDANA, Ukiah. DUI, leaving scene of accident with property damage.

RICHARD SUGGS, Ukiah. Parole violation.

TERRANCE THOMPSON, Santa Rosa/Ukiah. DUI.

DESTINY TURNEY, Ukiah. Battery. 

GIMMEE SHELTER, AMERICA!

God Realization in Ukiah, California June 30th @ 5:30PM Pacific Time

Warmest spiritual greetings, 

I am doing nothing of any particular importance in California's Mendocino County. I am not this body. I am not this mind. The Immortal Self I am! 

On July 10th, I am being driven to St. Helena at 3:30 in the morning for a 5:30AM appointment to have the Medtronic Pacemaker switched out for an ICD. Will remain overnight there, and return to the Building Bridges Homeless Resource Center in Ukiah, CA after the surgeon's examination.

I have a Federal voucher for subsidized housing. That includes a two thousand dollar incentive to any landlord, first and last, plus utility help is guaranteed. Also impeccable references are available. And the real miracle is that I have a perfect record, as I've never been arrested, am not in debt, have no liens nor lawsuits pending, And have a University of Arizona BA degree. And am published. And am forever Self-Realized. Where's the housing, America???

The Social Security SSI came in last night. The regular Social Security is due in on July 3rd. The food stamps are due in on July 4th. Happy Fourth of July? Say what? Hello?? 

Craig Louis Stehr

EARTHWORM CULTIVATION

I recommend using plastic garbage cans that have holes in the bottom. If you give the side of the can a swift kick and it doesn’t break into pieces it is usable. If pieces fall off it is too brittle, but minor splits and cracks are OK. 

Modest sized holes in the bottom are what you need, cracks need to have something to keep them spread, astick or whatever shoved through th crack is plenty. The top needs to be securable to protect from rain and sun. Always leave the top on except when working on it. The securable top and adequate drainage are very important to protect worms from drowning.

Put broken up dirt at bottom and add compost. Avoid clay, but a little bit is fine. Can should drain and never pool water. 1/4 full is ideal to start. Add compost regularly. When they fill up stop adding compost for a while then shovel out the top half or so. 

Compost should vary in texture. If, for instance, you were to use only fine compost, like juicer leftovers, then it would be more important to add regularly, but a mix allows one to be less dedicated. In any event they won’t starve because they come and go, which is important.

Add worms. If you buy worms a pound is plenty. Worm farms cut tempting deals for multiple pounds, but more than a pound is a waste of money unless you are starting a commercial worm farm and have a strong demand already. They reproduce fast.

I recommend just gathering them. Or letting them find it on their own, especially in fall. Mix varieties, but the local green earthworms don’t survive in worm farms, so leave them where you find them.

Once well established there will be a lot more worm castings in the area around the can. Space them around the garden/yard. They are semi-portable.

Worms will take refuge from the winter rains so add cans in the fall and dump the extras after the rains to drastically increase the worm population in your garden/yard/whatever. Worms drown easily which is why they are all over roads and sidewalks when it rains. They take a big hit from rain season but then the survivors repopulate. 

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

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

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

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

Rerun: "Safe and sane fireworks. Light fuse, get away. Use only under adult supervision." https://boingboing.net/2023/06/29/terrifying-firework-disaster-shatters-peaceful-suburban-evening.html

This is from awhile ago, from the Colbert late-night comedy talk show. I think it's the best pop-sci explanation of gravity waves and their detection yet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajZojAwfEbs

And this year's Mountain of Hell race from the winner's point of view. Every year, the same guy wins. But every year it's noticeably less snowy and icy. In fact, this year it's all dry dirt and hard sharp rocks after the first quarter mile and from there until you get down below the grass-line. Full-screen for full effect. The huffing and puffing of victory. (20 min.) https://theawesomer.com/mountain-of-hell-2023-pov/709141/

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

NOAA ANNOUNCES $575 MILLION AVAILABLE THROUGH CLIMATE RESILIENCE REGIONAL CHALLENGE

NOAA has released a new Climate Resilience Regional Challenge (https://coast.noaa.gov/funding/ira/resilience-challenge/). Approximately $575 million is available for projects that build the resilience of coastal communities to extreme weather (e.g., hurricanes and storm surge) and other impacts of climate change, including sea level rise and drought.

Funding was made possible by the Inflation Reduction Act, a historic, federal government-wide investment that is advancing NOAA’s efforts to build Climate-Ready Coasts. This page is focused on the Climate Resilience Regional Challenge, which is administered by NOAA’s Office for Coastal Management. (For information on NOAA’s other Inflation Reduction Act investments, visit this webpage.)

The focus of this grant program is on collaborative approaches to achieving resilience in coastal regions. Proposed projects should address risk reduction, regional collaboration, and equity, and build enduring capacity for adaptation. Use this information resource, and view the video below, to learn more.

NOAA technical assistance is available for organizations applying for and receiving a grant. Many technical assistance options are available, including data, tools, training, and access to NOAA expertise. Visit the technical assistance page to learn more.

There are two funding tracks you can apply to with an emphasis on serving communities that are marginalized, underserved, or underrepresented:

Track One: Regional Collaborative Building and Strategy Development This track provides funding to initiate new, regional-scale collaborations or to advance existing partnerships focused on climate resilience, with a goal to collectively move more coastal communities closer to taking action.

20-25 projected awardees to receive between $500,000 to $2 million each; 3-5 year projects.

Track Two: Implementation of Resilience and Adaptation Actions This track provides funding for applicants to implement coordinated adaptation efforts that support a holistic vision for resilience and build the capacity of the communities in a region to sustain efforts into the future since reducing risk and vulnerability requires action. 15 projected awards to receive $15-$75 million each; 5-year projects. The First Step: Outline your proposed project and submit a letter of intent. NOAA will invite selected applicants to submit a full application. Details regarding the letter of intent and the application are provided within the funding announcement.

Due Dates: For the letter of intent: Monday, August 21, 2023. For the full application: Tuesday, Feb 13, 2024.

Eligible Applicants: Coastal states, territories, counties, cities, tribes, and tribal organizations; public or private nonprofit organizations; and institutions of higher education.

Matching Funds: There is no matching requirement for this funding.

Technical Assistance: NOAA may provide technical assistance for applicants developing letters of intent and full proposals. Visit our technical assistance page to learn more.

Virtual Information Sessions for Applicants: Dates and times for virtual information sessions will be

Tuesday, July 11, 3 to 4 p.m. Eastern Time Wednesday, July 12, 7 to 8 p.m. Eastern Time Previous Sessions

June 27 recording Erick Burres

Clean Water Team Coordinator

California Water Quality Collaboration Network Facilitator

Safe to Swim Network Co-facilitator

erick.burres@waterboards.ca.gov

213 712 6862 mobile

Mailing address:

Erick Burres, Clean Water Team

C/O SARWQCB

3737 Main Street, Suite 500

Riverside, CA 92501-3348

THE HISTORIC SAN FRANCISCO ART INSTITUTE CAMPUS IS LOOKING FOR A BUYER

by Aidi Vaziri

Just over two months since filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection, trustees at the 152-year-old institution have listed its nearly 2-acre tract at the edge of Russian Hill for sale. The campus at 800 Chestnut St., designated city landmark No. 85, has hit the market for an undisclosed price. 

But the potential buyer may pay a hefty sum, as the property contains an original 1931 Diego Rivera fresco estimated to be worth more than the buildings that house it. The real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield, which listed the campus, said the artwork is available for acquisition along with the real estate.

Chapter 7 bankruptcy requires the liquidation of assets to repay creditors, and the art school, which closed its doors in July 2022, has debts of more than $10 million. Most prominent among its creditors is the University of San Francisco, which claims it is owed around $6 million following the dissolution of a deal to acquire SFAI last summer.

The 74-foot-wide Rivera mural, titled “The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City,” is estimated to be worth approximately $50 million, according to the bankruptcy declaration. But some art critics have called the work priceless. It is one of three such pieces of Rivera’s work in San Francisco. 

The fresco could theoretically be sold on its own, but it may be challenging to separate the artwork from the real estate deal. When news of SFAI’s financial troubles first surfaced in 2021, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors swiftly voted to declare the mural a city landmark, meaning that it legally cannot be moved.

SFAI filed for bankruptcy on April 19, according to documents reviewed by The Chronicle. 

John Marx, who served as co-chair of SFAI’s board, told The Chronicle at that time that if the institution had been allowed to sell the privately commissioned mural, it would have saved the school that educated artists such as Ansel Adams, Annie Leibovitz and Kehinde Wiley.

The property listing also includes two buildings totaling approximately 93,000 square feet. The main campus, built in 1926 and designed by San Francisco architects Bakewell and Brown, features the iconic bell tower, interior courtyard, library, classrooms, galleries and offices. The addition, built in 1968 and designed by Paffard Keatinge-Clay, includes a rooftop amphitheater, interior theater, galleries and studios with bay views. 

“This is a very special landmark property and will make an inspiring home for another education institution, museum or other creative/innovative use,” Tom Christian, executive managing director of Cushman & Wakefield, said in a statement.

The total value of assets is just under $65 million, according to SFAI. 

(SF Chronicle)

MEGHAN MCCAIN: Never before in modern memory have so many Americans so desperately needed a break. “Wanna get away” used to be the slogan of Southwest Airlines. So catchy. And sadly, so relevant. After years of Covid, Trump and Biden, work-from-home and return-to-office, masks and Zooms, we are all in dire need of some rest and relaxation. But now that summer is finally here, it's almost unbearably cruel to see the many millions of people attempting to reach far-flung destinations, or simply return home to friends and family, having to subject themselves to the national embarrassment that is the American air travel industry. Since Monday, nearly 35,000 flights within the U.S. have been delayed and more than 7,000 have been canceled during one of the busiest travel periods of the year, the Fourth of July weekend.

DRAYMOND WILL BE BACK. He's signed a 4-year extension.

WILL THE DOCTOR SEE YOU NOW? The Health System’s Changing

The primary care landscape is changing in ways that could shape patients’ access and quality of care now and for decades to come. A solid and enduring relationship with a primary care doctor — who knows a patient’s history and can monitor new problems — has long been regarded as the bedrock of a quality health care system. But investment in primary care in the U.S. lags that of other high-income countries, and America has a smaller share of primary care physicians than most of its European counterparts.…

kffhealthnews.org/news/article/primary-care-health-system-changes-pcp

— Nate Duffy

CEO-TO-WORKER PAY RATIO AT:

(H/t Public Citizen)

JAMES KUNSTLER ON BIDEN

WHEN I ASKED her if she would go out with me, she lamped me like I was Quasimodo and gave me the full Fuller.

— Woody Allen, Apropos of Nothing

DEFENDING NORIEGA

by Alexander Cockburn

“You’re not going to defend Noriega, are you?” a features editor cried when I told him my topic would be Panama.

I told him I’d be happy to defend General Noriega against the charge that the stuff supposedly found by US soldiers in his private quarters marked him as a deviant and sworn foe of all that America holds dear.

The stuff in question was sex items, a picture of Hitler, lots of cocaine, bundles of cash, religious paraphernalia, including plastic frogs and a rotting tamale with Seymour Hersh’s name on it.

Leaving aside the Hersh tamale and the fact that General Noriega probably had more coke and more cash on hand than the average Joe, there’s nothing on that list you wouldn’t trip over in at least one-in-every-four American homes.

– December 23, 1989

THE LONG, HOT SUMMER

by James Kunstler

“Vladimir Putin is clearly losing the War in Iraq.” — “Joe Biden,” US President

Russian Revolution Two kicked off the long, hot summer freak show of 2023. Unlike Russian Revolution One (1917), which lasted over seventy years, RR2 clocked out in under twenty-four hours. It didn’t propel Russia into a political paroxysm as perhaps expected by crisis engineers in Langley, VA, and Washington’s Foggy Bottom. Rather, it energized the resolve of arch-nemesis Vlad Putin, solidified his support among the Russian populace (who turned out singing patriotic hymns along the Neva River when the revolt was quashed), and sunsetted the increasingly rogue Wagner private paramilitary company in its Ukraine duties, now to be taken over by regular Russian Federation army units.

According to commentator Andrei Martyanov — see yesterday’s colloquy on Tommy Carrigan’s Podcast — Wagner had already gone off the rails in Ukraine, inciting the costly Bakhmut operation on its own to fluff its reputation while preparing for the mutiny executed and aborted on June 24. The fate of Wagner’s business manager, Evgeny Prigozhin, remains murky now while he cools his heels in Belarus — a trial, perhaps, at some later date when Ukraine itself stops being a geopolitical psychodrama. He has been publicly branded a “traitor.”

It was perhaps the hope of America’s feckless Neocon war-dogs that Russia would fall into chaos. This has all along been the hope and expectation of our country’s official stated policy. And it turns out to be ever more at odds with the reality of the situation. Mr. Putin aims to conclude this tragic US-provoked misadventure as swiftly as possible now. This ain’t no Mud Club; this ain’t no foolin’ around. It looks more like the last days of disco in Kiev. The question for the people there is: just how much of Ukraine do you want to be left with intact when this thing is over? Go ahead… choose.

Despite its master-slave relationship with America, Euroland may not be so avid for World War Three as the “Joe Biden” regime seems to be. The Wagner coup fiasco marks the true crackup of NATO as the Ukraine project fizzles. Surely Europeans with some functioning brain cells must be asking: “what was the point of all this killing and waste?” The clear-eyed may suspect that the point was to get Europe to commit suicide, because that is the obvious result. No more natgas for you, Europe, meaning farewell to major industry and a comfortable standard of living. A lot less wheat and corn coming out of Ukraine to Euroland nations, too. When food costs too much, or is just plain scarce, governments fall. Wait for it.

Do you suppose that “Joe Biden” & Company can keep up this charade of a proxy war with Russia much longer? $150-billion pounded down the Kiev rat-hole, purchasing yet another foreign relations humiliation. Never has an American president been heaped with such an ignominious foundering and dishonor. He can only pretend to run for reelection as he wrecks the country. The DNC poohbahs, cross-eyed in transports of Woke-ism, must know that this bumbling grifter personifies a failing state. The White House press pool reporters are even flinging harsh questions at him these days as he desperately searches for doors to escape through.

The tally in the Biden family bribery operation stands above $30-million now, with government whistleblowers pouring out of the agencies like termites from a burning house. Most of them have not testified in Congress yet, or in any other venue, nor have the various DOJ and FBI officials associated with the broad-based cover-up of these blatant crimes. Do you doubt anymore that Attorney General Merrick Garland perjured himself testifying that the Delaware US attorney David Weiss was not interfered with in the Hunter Biden tax and gun violation case?

The mounting evidence of foreign influence-peddling is hard and vivid now, viz., the Whatsapp text out this week of Hunter, “sitting here with my father,” extorting Chinese business associate Henry Zhao to fullfill his commitment or “regret not following my direction.” Hmmmmm. Explain that. Or the email archive carefully saved by IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley, who was prudent enough to back up his story with docs apt to prove DOJ malfeasance.

It’s unfortunate that America suffered three fake presidential impeachments in recent decades — Bill Clinton’s over a sexual impropriety, which is hardly a high crime, and the two utter charades involving Donald Trump — because now our nation is faced with serious presidential crimes explicitly laid out in Article II Section Four of the Constitution: bribery. “Joe Biden” will be impeached if he doesn’t bail altogether, and he might not do that because then he loses the power to pardon the other Biden family members involved. The impeachment of Merrick Garland for debauching and dishonoring the Justice Department logically would be the warm-up act for the impeachment of the president. They’ve both got to go and they both could save our country a lot of trouble by just stepping down. Then we can see about Kamala Harris.

In April, 2023, Certified Nurse Midwife (CNM) Kathie Breault was indicted in the Eastern States District Federal Court for “Conspiracy to Defraud the United States” for giving vaccination cards to people who did not receive Covid-19 vaccinations. Her defense is that the vaccinations were ineffective and harmful, and to administer them would violate the Hippocratic oath of health professionals (First do no harm). Her legal battle against a dishonest and vindictive federal government will require lawyer’s fees that exceed her ability to pay — a reminder that “the process is the punishment.”

Kathie has also been accused of “professional misconduct” by the New York State Licensing Board for prescribing Ivermectin via telehealth visits in July 2021. Many other medical practitioners across the United States have been similarly persecuted and some have lost their licenses to practice. Kathie has been under investigation by New York’s Office of Professional Discipline since March 2022. No decision has been reached as of May 2023.

(kunstler.com)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ERICH MARIA REMARQUE (1898-1970), German novelist and author of All Quiet on the Western Front (1929).

Perhaps the best-known and most representative novel dealing with the horrors of World War I.

"Strange how complicated we can make things just to avoid showing what we feel."

"Heaven has no favorites."

"A hospital alone shows what war is."

"We have our dreams because without them we could not bear the truth."

"I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently slay one another."

UKRAINE, FRIDAY, 30 JUNE

The United States does not currently have great insight into the current whereabouts of Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin or the fighters that took part in the rebellion last weekend, a top official said.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Friday that there’s “no need to worry” about Russia after the short-lived rebellion. "Russia has always come out of any troubles stronger and stronger," he added.

Documents shared exclusively with CNN suggest that Russian Gen. Sergey Surovikin, who has not been seen in public in days, was a secret VIP member of the Wagner private military company. 

The White House is strongly considering approving the transfer of controversial cluster munitions to Ukraine, multiple people familiar with the matter told CNN. This comes as the US acknowleded that the early stages of Kyiv's counteroffensive have fallen short of expectations.