Mendocino County Today: Monday, August 14, 2023

ABOVE NORMAL TEMPERATURES will continue into the middle of the week. Isolated, mostly dry thunderstorms are possible across portions of the interior early this week, with the best chances today and Tuesday. Cooler temperatures are expected late in the week. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): 52F under clear skies this Monday morning on the coast. From the satellite shot you can see the flow of tropical moisture coming from the Sierra. While no rain is in the forecast I would not be surprised to see a shower today. The usual fog - sun - mix for the rest of the week.

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ED NOTES

THERE ARE SOME stories that still anger me. One of them is Helen Ochoa's. She's long gone, but at the time Helen was a 68-year-old Leggett woman in failing health. For many years, she and her late husband, Bill, devoted many thousands of volunteer hours to the safety and welfare of people living and travelling the northern reaches of Mendocino County. For most of three decades, the Ochoas’ Leggett home served as emergency central for Mendocino County’s deep north. Ambulances and fire trucks got their directions from the Ochoas’ command center. Helen and Bill would often rouse themselves in the middle of the night in all kinds of weather to aid a stranded motorist or transport an injured neighbor to the hospital. Name the go-to people in your community and substitute the name Ochoa and you will understand the Ochoas’ standing in the Leggett-Laytonville area.

WHEN BILL OCHOA died a few years ago, a neighbor who didn't seem to have anything better to do than monitor the property of the widowed senior citizen next door, sicced the county’s Department of Environmental Health on Mrs. Ochoa because, the neighbor alleged, the old lady’s septic tank wasn’t working properly. Environmental Health, conveniently among the missing when it comes to the toxic behavior of the county’s largest employers, wasted no time visiting the widow’s modest property on the banks of the Eel, only minutes from Highway 101. Environmental Health also managed to visit Mrs. Ochoa’s theoretically confidential file sequestered at the Department of Mental Health, a second highly politicized agency whose craven, incompetent staff had managed to kill two of its “clients” in as many years as one of its psychiatrists went unprosecuted for beating his wife. 

THESE DAYS, tax-paid sadism is pretty much confined to the federal government, but at the millenium we were still neck deep in the usual Mendo morass of official misconduct, wholesale snitching, tax-funded bullying, and random confirmations that the authorities themselves are, likely as not, totally ape shit.

MRS. OCHOA’S worldly goods consisted of her small piece of Eel River property and her meager monthly Social Security stipend. But she had billions in friends and support. 

HER home parcel was small but, it seems, highly coveted, which may account for the ongoing harassment she faced in what might have been her golden years. Beset by the relentless neighbor and the neighbor’s allies in what passed for legitimate authority in Mendocino County, Mrs. Ochoa scraped up enough money to hire an attorney to defend herself against both the official onslaught and her neighbor’s hyper-vigilance. Her septic system worked perfectly; there was no evidence it had ever malfunctioned. That case was at the deposition stage and seemed obviously related to what happened,

ABOUT TEN, Saturday night the 26th of September 1998, came the jackhammer knock on the Ochoa front door, just west of the Leggett School. Mrs. Ochoa and her 19-year-old niece, Leeann St. Clair, were soon confronted by Bruce Smith and elements of the County of Mendocino Marijuana Eradication Team. Apparently the Camo Buddies were enjoying one of their famous Old Ladies Nights, collecting some serious OT while picking off senior citizens.

THE GREAT CRUSADE against weed being no respecter of age, what followed, I understand from outraged neighbors, was an hour or so of low-intensity bullying by the forces of law and order. But the old lady was not easily intimidated at remarks from publicly-funded cartoon cops like, “Jail is a hard place for people your age,” and “If you don’t admit the marijuana garden is yours, we'll add on the guns and your bail will be a lot higher.” The guns were old hunting rifles belonging to the late Bill Ochoa. They were locked up in a gun cabinet. 

SMITH and his overtime posse busted open the gun cabinet and made its antique contents sound like the Mexican Mafia’s arsenal of AK-47s. Helen Ochoa didn’t budge. Neither did Miss St. Clair who just happened to be visiting. Soon the young woman and her aunt were cuffed, stuffed and sped south to the County Jail in Ukiah where they spent most of the next three days.

JUDGE JOE ORR used to live with the Ochoas. Orr was the sitting justice court judge for the large but sparsely settled area from Laytonville north to the county line and east to where the Eel meanders north to Alderpoint, the deep Mendo outback. Alerted that his old friend Helen Ochoa had been hauled off to the County Jail on a Saturday night, Orr called the jail and asked that Mrs. Ochoa be released on her own recognizance.

DOING the right thing isn’t necessarily doing the right legal thing, although Orr quickly backed off when a lot of indignant harumphing about judicial favoritism began in the local media and even though presiding judge of the county’s courts, Eric Labowtiz, had declared that a judge had every legal right to call the jail to suggest a confined person be released on his or her own recognizance.

BUT MRS. OCHOA stayed in jail on the original warrant auto-signed by Judge Ron Combest because Cindee Mayfield, Louisiana-Pacific’s and Jared Carter’s contribution to California jurisprudence, didn’t have either the sense or the ordinary humanity to see an elderly woman who had lived in Leggett for many years standing before her on a phony beef. 

MAYFIELD kept bail at $50,000 for both Mrs. Ochoa and her niece, Miss St. Clair. The late Bill Ochoa’s hunting rifles became an additional felony charge, you see, because the Overtime Banditos claimed the North County senior citizen was not only growing pot she also had guns on the premises, adding up to felony cultivation plus felony possession of firearms at a place where devil weed was alleged to be cultivated.

FROM SATURDAY NIGHT until late Monday the dangerous Leggett grandmother and her menacing niece were off the streets of Mendocino County, and solid citizens from Rockport to Yorkville rested easier in their beds.

AN INDIGNANT editorial in Sunday’s Ukiah Daily Journal marvelled at how local judges and the judges’ protection agency called the State Commission on Judicial Performance stonewalled the Journal when staffers tried to find someone in authority to talk to about Orr’s call to the County Jail on behalf of his friend, Helen Ochoa.

WHERE’S THE SURPRISE? Federal, state and certainly Mendocino County judges have existed beyond all but electoral accountability for years, and electorally they are also all beyond even that slim accountability because they are seldom opposed for re-election. Just in that year we saw DA Susan Massini dispatch Judge Henry Nelson to expel Joel Steed, the prior year’s Grand Jury foreman, from the Grand Jury room of the County Courthouse. A judge ran a political errand expelling a former Grand Juror from his work site for the DA because she was unhappy with the Grand Jury’s assessment of severe dysfunction in her office? Yes, the little judge ran the political errand for the DA and they both got away with it. 

ON THE HEELS of that one, presiding judge Eric Labowitz issued a confused opinion that future county grand juries should include the rebuttals of the public agencies that the Grand Jury criticizes. 

WHY Labowitz’s sudden public appearance on the teensy issue of the grand jury report format? Think collegiality. Several powerful county department heads (by the standards of Mendo-Lilliput, anyway) didn’t like the fact that for the first time since the berserk reverend from Redwood Valley, Jim Jones, served as GJ foreman, Mendocino County saw Mr. Steed and Company render a competently critical report on several public bureaucracies — including the DA’s ever-bubbling caldron. 

OF COURSE Labowitz wasn't about to censure or otherwise add to the discomfort of Judge Joe Orr on the Ochoa matter. After all Labowitz, and much of the rest of the local judicial posse, had just got their lawyer-colleagues in the state legislature to elevate their outback, once-a-week justice court jobs to full Superior Court status, complete with lucrative raises. The reason for the lucrative promotion? To ensure “the quality of justice.”

MENDOCINO COUNTY'S over-large contingent of royally compensated judges have a terrific deal going here — lifetime jobs at big pay with no supervision. (Conrad Cox was the only judge with the integrity to resist the in-house promotion of his outback justice court judges.) 

ADDING to this only-in-Mendoland Ochoa farce, was the fact that most of the County’s judges were themselves committed pot smokers during that period of the late sixties and early seventies when the secure middleclass dropped out for a while to smoke the bazooka and engage in hep-C frolics with runaway teenagers. When the counterculture fad ended in a sort of mass national amphetamine psychosis, the people who now occupied all levels of Mendocino County’s public power, dropped back in as blithely as they’d dropped out. In other words, we now had pot smokers sending other pot smokers to jail.

HELEN OCHOA was not allowed to go gentle into her last night. She spent her final years fighting off the jackals.

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RYE FLINT: RE: Another item to consider is the Transient Occupancy Tax for Short Term Rentals. Right now it is at 10%. Other counties charge more.

Great idea!!! Especially since half, yes 50%, of homes on the coast are owned by people living in the Bay Area. Tax the living hell out of them. Locals need those homes instead. The government can do its part to help the local public instead of giving away our assets like candy to rich people from the Bay that own more than 2 homes. It worked for Tahoe, it should work for us too.

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ARE YOU READY FOR THE CHALLENGE?

The Sheriff's Office is now recruiting for Public Safety Dispatchers.

Follow the link below for more information. The current recruitment closes on 8/31/23.

governmentjobs.com/careers/mendocinoca/jobs/4159245/public-safety-dispatcher

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DEFENDING CAMILLE & DAN

To the Editor:

My name is Sarah Walsh. I work with Anchor Health Management. I also have family members who seek services through the county SMH system. I have worked with County Mental Health since 2001 in some capacity or another, and therefore have experience both professionally and personally in the BH system.

I am here to address a few concerns I have with the Board of Supervisors repeated claims regarding the data they say they do not receive from Anchor Health. Anchor Health has gone out of its way to provide the information to the members of the Board. We participated in an ad hoc commitee to provide client outcomes and taken individual requests from Board members. Furthermore, we’ve listened to feedback from the community and incorporated their input into the reports. We submit reports to the County annually, quarterly, AND monthly, at the bare minimum, all of which include client outcomes. 

Despite what the Board has repeatedly claimed, those outcomes are NOT reached by a sampling method, but take the whole population we serve into account, with the sole exception of client satisfaction surveys. Board members espouse “Transparency!” as justification to continue to disbelieve what is being presented. It is disingenuous to not only hard-working staff, but the constituents you serve.

During the ad hoc I participated in with members of the Board, we provided not only the summary of the outcomes, but the actual excel report itself so that the board could confirm sampling methods hadn’t been used to skew the data. 

Still, the Board continues to claim that outcomes were and are never provided. This is false. Even after that ad hoc, the Board researched what outcomes other counties report on and couldn’t locate a county that reports the type of intensive data that the Board requires of AHM. The Board has gone so far as to suggest that we press other counties to report similarly to ensure there would be data for comparison. With this and the derogatory manner in which the board speaks to the public about AHMs provided data, one could reasonably conclude that the Board has an agenda in this matter, and no amount of requested data will suffice. However, if no agenda exists, then ignorance on how the system works IS the only other line of reasoning I can come up with.

Our county mental health system is robust comparatively, and without the creative thinking of Camille, Dan and Tim to maximize the dollars that have been allocated to this county, your adult services would be confined to just the mandated services, which only include medication management and crisis — what sort of outcomes do you think that would result in? In reality, those three individuals are the architects of the current specialty mental health system in Mendocino County.

Your lack of understanding to how the system works was very apparent a few weeks ago when you took RCS out of the system equation, without a transition period. Anchor Health works collaboratively with not only the providers within the system, but also with outside agencies and members of the community. We have a “no wrong door” policy and meet weekly to ensure that, when an agency may be struggling, there is another agency ready to serve the client. When you remove an agency from that collaboration, the system breaks down, and suddenly the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing, leaving the clients to suffer. Currently county BH is not equipped to take on a piecemeal system.

We have received exceptional grades not only from the California External Quality Review Organizations yearly review, but also from the triennial state audits. I think this is because at Anchor Health we work as a full functioning team where we are allowed to disagree with each other and have meaningful conversations on how best to meet state/county guidelines AND provide the best we can for our clients and community.

At the last Board meeting Dr. Miller tried to tell you about the new changes with CALAIM and what that means for the ASO. AHM is fully aware of what it means. We had already been in discussions with Dr. Miller about whether the ASO would still be an appropriate option for this county with the new state structure AND we were already preparing that this could be a transition year just in case. Our team at Anchor Health feel we accomplished the tasks we were contracted to do to help the County.

Are we a perfect system? No, but we strive to be, and we are a much beter County than most. You can thank Tim, Dan, AND Camille, who especially goes out of her way to ensure that Anchor Health and the providers are doing ALL that they can to serve Mendocino County beneficiaries, even in the rural areas. Again, our system is not perfect, but it’s not bad, not even remotely.

Sarah Walsh, AHM Employee

Ukiah

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LOCAL PHOTOG JEFF GOLL: The Perseid meteor shower didn't pan out as the quick mainstream media suggested. Just before going out, I checked the NASA website and the national map showed that the edge of California (San Francisco to Oregon border) was in the “poor viewing” zone. Out on Route 20 West of Willits there were plenty of stars but few meteors. It's difficult to capture meteors, the best ones are spectacular interruptions. Good Alexander Cockburn “Back to Main Street” and the second photo shows what I found on Main Street in Mendocino. Even tourists nowadays need a good shiv. 

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COUNTY FINANCES: BRINGING ORDER TO DISORDER

by Jim Shields

Just a few quick comments on a couple of things that I haven’t had time to address because for the past couple of months I’ve been buried under a blizzard of totally meaningless paperwork generated mostly by the state Water Board.

To continue my bitch for just a second longer, notwithstanding their repetitious flacking of emergency drought measures, constant chatter about “water resiliency” planning, and new procedures for reporting water production, usage, etc., there’s little or no sense urgency on behalf of either the state or this county to actually getting something done.

Example? For over a year now, a well-drilling/water hauling ordinance drafted by a committee (that I served on, that actually did its work and accomplished the objective assigned to it) has been gathering dust in the County Counsel’s (“CoCo”) office. Last summer, the Board of Supervisors unanimously approved/accepted the committee’s draft ordinance and directed that it be sent to the Planning Commission. Instead, it was re-routed to CoCo where it remains short-stopped. In the intervening moths, both yours truly and Supe John Haschak have inquired at several BOS meetings as to the status of the MIA draft ordinance. Initially, we were told CoCo would have the review finished by February. Well, February’s come and gone several times now, and still no word on its status.

Last Sunday’s Ukiah Daily Journal’s opinion page featured pieces that spotlighted three FUBARing issues that are clearly high on citizen lists of public concerns.

• UDJ editorial by K.C. Meadows on the ever-worsening homelessness/mental health crisis/addiction/crime;

• Tom Hines column dealing with local government ignoring graffiti, “minor crimes”, and abandoned buildings;

• Another installment of my series on “Catch and Release” criminal justice enforcement/sentencing policies. By the way, I continue to receive support and recommendations from the public and former and current local government officials on this issue. So thanks to everybody for getting involved.

So what appears to be high on the County’s lists of concerns?

One item for sure is the creation of a Department of Finance. Everyone is familiar with the background on this non-issue, issue, so I’m not going to re-flog it. Last year, by a 4-1 vote (Haschak no), the BOS consolidated the previously independent elected offices of Auditor-Controller and Treasurer-Tax Collector, thus structurally weakening essential internal financial controls. There’s two bottom lines to this “concern.”

• There’s no indication that this idea had any traction at all with the public. It’s been cut out of whole cloth by the BOS (Haschak excepted).

• There’s every indication to believe that the overwhelming majority of citizens would never entrust the responsibility of financial control to the Board of Supervisors, or any creature office or department under its influence. If this proposal would ever go to the ballot, it would be a wipeout.

Just goes to show, there’s priorities and then there’s priorities.

What you’ve just read was also posted this week on the Anderson Valley Advertiser’s website, which elicited this response from 5th District Supe Ted Williams:

“Jim, What’s your proposed solution to (Treasurer-Tax Collector/Auditor-Controller) Chamise Cubbison’s inability or unwillingness to perform the statutory duties of her elected position?”

Williams’ assertion prompted this comment from Bruce Anderson, of the AVA: “Ms. Cubbison obviously has the ability to do her job, and she has explained, on the record, the reasons for delays. Why would you even suggest she might be unwilling to perform her duties? You have been unfair to her from the beginning of all this.”

And I added:

“I agree with Bruce A. on the Cubbison issue, there’s no evidence of her inability or unwillingness to perform the statutory duties of her office. There is evidence, however, that the shotgun marriage arranged when the BOS consolidated the Treasurer-Tax Collector and Auditor-Controller offices, was anything but a smooth transition. All the more reason for a public inquiry of former financial officials and the former CEO about how they conducted the public’s business in previous years, as it’s unlikely this mess started last night.”

I then went on to say:

Ted,

As I’ve suggested, as well as Supe Haschak and I believe Supe Gjerde also, the Board should call in former officials responsible for fiscal matters (Treasurer-Tax Collector, Auditor-Controller, Assessor, and CEO) and interview/question and, hopefully, learn from them how they did their jobs. This is critical information the BOS admits it is lacking. This process would include but is not limited to such things as assessments of their responsibilities and how they performed their duties, how they exercised fiscal oversight and the identification of internal financial controls, systems that were utilized (manual vs. electronic/software, etc.), staffing levels (classifications and job descriptions) narrative descriptions of interdepartmental and third-party (ex.: outside, independent audit) working relationships detailing scope of work and information disclosed and received.

Since no one has explanations or answers to what caused the ongoing, untenable fiscal mess the county is in, you need to conduct an inquiry and start finding answers to all of the current unknowns prior to launching a substantially, momentous alteration to your organizational structure with this idea of a Department of Finance.

As you are aware, at a recent BOS meeting you asked County Counsel Curtis, “Can you assure us we have accurate (financial) information now, that we can trust this data we have now?”

Curtis succinctly responded, “No, that’s something the Board will have to take up.”

Well, it appears that one of the things the “Board will have to take up” is finding out how you got from where the County once was to where it is now.

As Supervisor Glenn McGourty has aptly noted several times recently, “It’s difficult to do business when you don’t know how much money you have in the bank.”

By the way, when the suggestion was made at that meeting to open an inquiry by calling in former county financial officials to provide this much-needed information, it was cut off by Supervisor Mulheren, who complained, “We shouldn’t take another elected official to task, that’s something for the Grand Jury.”

That’s utter nonsense. Mulheren apparently disagrees with County Counsel’s advice that straightening out the financial disorder is “something the Board will have to take up.”

By the way, if the Board does decide to hold an inquiry, it won’t be necessary for former officials to attend in-person. That’s the beauty of zoom meetings.

(Jim Shields is the Mendocino County Observer’s editor and publisher, observer@pacific.net, the long-time district manager of the Laytonville County Water District, and is also chairman of the Laytonville Area Municipal Advisory Council. Listen to his radio program “This and That” every Saturday at noon on KPFN 105.1 FM, also streamed live: http://www.kpfn.org.)

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WORLD TO END IF WORKERS STRIKE 

by Tommy Wayne Kramer 

Mendocino County employees have authorized a strike, and if you are weeping and worrying at their plight, or if you’ve been making sandwiches for unemployed government workers, I have some advice: 

Dry your eyes. Toss the baloney. 

County workers are already overpaid by any local measure, and giving raises will only encourage them. Let them strike. If they want to stand at the Ukiah courthouse Friday afternoons to chant (or have professional chanters come up from SEIU headquarters in Oakland) honk your horn in solidarity. Throw nickels out your car window. 

But don’t throw taxpayer money at them, as the sane among us fear supervisors might consider. Their duties and obligations should be to citizens, not employees. 

In the real world, what difference does it make if desk drones at Human Resources are absent a few months? Or years. Who cares if an Administrative Assistant quits in a huff and goes to work for Orange County? Or Walmart. 

The notion county employees are overworked or underpaid is pure fiction. The only yardstick SEIU uses to suggest workers are insufficiently compensated comparing them to overpaid employees in other counties. 

We don’t need an SEIU representative to describe the tragic inequities between Mendo workers and those in Marin and Sonoma Counties before we start to laugh. There are plenty of differences, but only a few involve salaries. 

Income isn’t first on the list of differences among county workers in Ukiah, Santa Rosa and Mill Valley. Search all you want for the mythical “highly skilled social worker” in Mendocino County who’s planning to sell her house, uproot her family, transfer her children to new schools with no friends, find a new church, new bank, start work in a new office with a new boss and strangers for co-workers, buy a house costing three times what she sold hers for in Calpella, all for the joy of working in Bakersfield. 

How many county workers (aside from cops and lawyers, neither group represented by SEIU) make such a move? I’d guess none. Not one a year. 

Now compare their salaries to those working in our local jobs market and see where on the totem pole government workers sit. (Hint: On Top.) (And we’ve not touched on the lavish taxpayer-funded lifelong pensions County employees get, but not those at Mendo Mill, Fowler Motors, plumbers, roofers, waitresses or Ukiah Daily Journal employees.) 

It also ignores the reality that government employees are neither required nor expected to toil diligently in service to the county. And their leaders would have a hard time demanding excellence from worker bees in the face of their own flailings and failings in recent years. 

Our Supervisors are the most confused, inept and overwhelmed of any Board I’ve seen. It’s gone through more department heads than there are departments, and assumes there are two sets of budget books, contrary to every known principle of economics and finance. 

These are the sharp cats that bungled the marijuana issue to the point of comedy. Of all the pot in all the USA, Mendocino County’s reputation for quality was unmatched. When weed became legal our leaders had a built-in advantage over every other product. Given this priceless gift, they did what bureaucrats and politicians love to do: Dream up fancy rules, confusing regulations with mysterious motives and logic-free goals. 

Result: Mendo marijuana tanked and took the economy with it. 

County bosses are in no position to recognize worker incompetence much less care about it, let alone correct it. And we should understand that the supervisors themselves are overpaid and unlikely to start griping, publicly at least, about the high cost of hiring marginal help. `

Which takes us back to salaries. If SEIU members are underpaid and overworked why is it we never hear of any of them quitting to take lucrative positions at Friedman's, Parducci Winery or Costco? Any notion they are overworked is too ridiculous to discuss. 

THE RULE: If employees aren’t quitting it means they’re thankful being employed. If they start resigning and if the county can’t find replacements, it means the world has gone bonkers. 

All Rise

A sure sign of feeling inferior is demanding unearned deference from those around you. Please meet Ukiah High’s new principal, Analese Alvarez. 

Oops. I meant to say “Please meet Ukiah High’s Almighty Doctor Analese Alvarez, B.S., M.S., PhD., and maybe DDS and RSVP too. 

Failing to address her as “Doctor” brings a quick correction, and school workers who’ve had the pleasure of being upbraided by the new principal are already talking, laughing and rolling their eyes. 

Someone might consider taking the academically rich but socially clumsy Alvarez aside and suggest respect comes from deeds, not demands.

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DOWN WITH MOUNTAIN BIKING!

Editor,

What was very noticeable about our EBPL meeting last night is that the mountain bikers don't listen to anyone opposed to mountain biking (I, on the other hand, listen carefully to what everyone says, which is exactly why I'm so knowledgeable about mountain biking impacts, which I've been studying continuously for over 30 years). But I'm addicted to optimism, so I keep trying to make contact:

1. Trail-building destroys habitat, obviously. If the area is full of non-native species, that's not an excuse to destroy it more, but rather a reason to restore the habitat. A lack of threatened speciesis also no excuse to destroy it: we don't want to threaten more species! Mountain biking also destroys habitat, by filling the area full of humans, scaring the native animals away (of course, hiking & horseback riding also do that, but much less, because they travel a much shorter distance). A twisty trail like a flow trail destroys more habitat than a straight trail: it's longer.

2. Mountain bike tires accelerate erosion. They are designed to grip (and hence tear) the soil. Mountain bikers also like to ride fast, including skidding, worsening the erosion.

3. Mountain biking is extremely dangerous (partly because trails have no safety standards, the way sidewalks and streets do), frequently causing broken bones, concussions, paralysis, and even deaths (see https://mjvande.info/mtb_dangerous.htm). That is not something we should be promoting, especially for kids. But mountain bikers do promote it among kids, because they need more lobbyists to beg for more bike access, and they know that it's hard for adults to say "no" to cute kids. They are using those kids. In 2000, a mountain bike race was held in Briones, where a mountain biker was brain-injured. Promoting mountain biking among children is child abuse!

4. Mountain bikers only promote bike access. In 30 years, I have never heard a single mountain biker advocate wildlife conservation (Julian Wood, bird watching is not wildlife conservation). Not only don't they care about it, but it's not compatible with mountain biking. Trail conservation, which Scott Bartlebaugh brought up, is not the same as wildlife conservation.

5. Flow trails and bike parks teach people bad habits (skidding, jumping, etc.) that they will inevitably bring to our trails, where they are totally inappropriate.

6. Illegal trail-building and illegal riding aren't caused by the land managers, as Scott claimed, but by the mountain bikers themselves, and they prove that mountain bikers have no respect for our parks or nature. NICA tells mountain bikers not to break the law, but I frequently find them riding trails closed to bikes - once a NICA coach (whom I photographed) and four of his students! Mountain bikers can't be trusted. Just look at Briones's 31 miles of illegal trails.

7. Mountain bikers always claim that they are being discriminated against. But that is nonsense, since the exact same rules apply to everyone. The discrimination is against bikes, which are not humans, and have no rights.

8. Scott said that they have been waiting for years to get access to narrow trails. So what? There is no right to mountain bike, as was proved in federal court in 1996: https://mjvande.info/mtb10.htm. I have been waiting 80 years for someone to give me a billion dollars, but it hasn't happened yet, and no doubt won't.

9. Trail crowding is only a problem due to the presence of bikes, which endanger everyone - especially the very young or elderly.

10. Dispersing trail users: trails have no ability to disperse anyone. They are totally passive.

11. There is no good reason to allow bikes on any unpaved trail. If you think otherwise, you are welcome to try to come up with a good reason, but there must not be one, because not a single person has attempted to answer this simple question.

12. The mountain bikers tipped their hand by holding secret meetings with the EBRPD, as they have done many times with other land managers, such as Olympia, WA. It shows that they know that they don't have a good case, because any non-mountain bikers, if present, can easily refute their arguments.

13. Other alternatives: you have millions of miles of roads to ride on, which were sufficient for everyone before the mountain bike was invented (and still is adequate for most people). You can also use the flow trail in the Richmond Greenway, or the Joaquin Miller Bike Park.

Please share this with all of your mountain biking friends. They are welcome to try to refute me, but they can't; I've done my homework....

— Machine-Free Trails Association

I am working on creating wildlife habitat that is off-limits to humans ("pure habitat"). Want to help? (I spent the previous 8 years fighting auto dependence and road construction.)

Wildlife must be given top priority, because they can't protect themselves from us.

Please don't put a cell phone next to any part of your body that you are fond of!

Stop obeying dictators and incompetent leaders from this time forward! Please share this message as widely as possible!

Are you still driving? Why???

Mike Vandeman

Ukiah

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CATCH OF THE DAY

Editor,

I had to search the AVA archives to see if my son was posted as a criminal.

Of course he was, three times, in fact.

Luckily no comments about what a POS he was.

He wasn’t nor is and luckily by a miracle today and for the last 2 years we have had no craziness. Thank God.

He is clean and managing his illness.

The important part, addiction free.

If you saw the charges and the booking photos you would probably think the addiction was meth.

It was not!

Believe it or not it was Cannabis!

The holy herb wreaking havoc.

Sensitive brains and high potency cannabis addiction are a dangerous duo.

Mental Illness is hard. Serious Mental Illness even harder, it traumatizes families.

It is a frightening tale, I lived through it, although not likely I will ever shut up about it. Ever.

But good news is you don’t have to read my rants, but it’s totally cool if you do.

Sincerely,

Mazie Malone

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GEORGE DORNER from the frontier of free enterprise: According to ‘The Guardian,’ Barbie coffins are now available. Pink, natch, with gold fittings, and a Barbie on the lid.

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CELEBRATE LOCAL STATE FAIR CANNABIS AWARD WINNERS

Anderson Valley, CA - Visit Mendocino County (VMC) and Mendocino Cannabis Alliance (MCA) are coming together to congratulate Mendocino County’s licensed cannabis operators who took home honors at both the 2022 and 2023 California State Fair Cannabis Awards at a reception on August 20 at The Bohemian Chemist in Anderson Valley. The reception will take place alongside a Craft Cannabis Marketplace featuring some of the winners. The market takes place from 11 - 6PM, and the public reception is from 5 - 6PM. 

Nine farms from Mendocino County, all of whom are MCA Members, took home a total of 18 State Fair Cannabis Awards for 2023, placing in each of the competition categories while dominating the Outdoor field winning 7 of 10 Golds. In 2022, 8 farms from Mendocino won a total of 17 awards.

Each year, the CA State Fair awards Golden Bear Awards to the highest testing cultivars in each category from all light sources. In 2023, locals Heartrock Mountain Farm won the Golden Bear award for CBDa, Esensia won the Golden Bear award for Terpinolene and Green Shock Farms won the Golden Bear award for Ocimene.

Additional wins in 2023 from Mendocino include:

Emerald Spirit Botanicals (Outdoor Category)
– Most Unique – Gold with their Pink Boost Goddess for a second year in a row

Esensia (Outdoor Category)
– Gold for Myrcene with their Pixie Dust
– Gold for Terpinolene with their Maracuya
– 2 x Silver for their Rose Petal (Terpinolene and Total Terpene Content)

Greenshock Farms (Outdoor Category)
– Gold for Ocimene with their Passion Orange Guava
– Silver for Ocimene with Tropical Sleighride

HappyDay Farms (Outdoor Category)
– Gold for THCa with their Strawberry Biscotti

Heartrock Mountain Farms (Outdoor Category)
– Gold for CBDa with their Love Laughter

Martyjuana (Outdoor Category)
– Gold for Limonene with their Supreme Gelato

Family First Farms (Mixed Light Category)
– Gold for Ocimene with their Black Apple Kush

Higher Heights (Mixed Light Category)
– Gold for Total Terpene Content with their Mendo Crumble
– 2 x Silver for Myrcene and Caryophyllene with their Mendo Crumble

Wood Wide Farms (Indoor Category)
– Gold for Ocimene with their Dutch Treat

Adults 21 and over are welcome to attend the market from 11-6pm, and the public reception taking place from 5-6PM, to celebrate these victories with our community. Despite the challenges that we have all faced during this regulatory process, our local farmers are still producing some of the best cannabis in the world, and they deserve to be recognized for this significant accomplishment.

The Bohemian Chemist is at 9000 CA-128 Philo, CA 95466. Reservations are recommended for on-site restaurant Wickson serving lunch and dinner.

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GRAND OLD SPAR, Elk Prairie, North Fork, Gualala River

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A MOMENT OF BRAVERY

by Michael Nolan

In 1972 I was trying to get my house plans through the Mendocino County Building Department for a building permit. I had presented my drawing of a two-story house to be constructed of redwood logs from our forest. The Building Department said no, but if I wanted to buy a log cabin kit that could be approved, but not using my own trees.

So I was in the Comptche Store one afternoon and, it being election time, our 5th District Supervisor, Ted Galletti, was chatting up Edith Enochs, the owner. I introduced myself and told Supervisor Galletti that I needed his help. I was trying to build a home for myself and wife and three kids and the Building Department was making that impossible. He replied that he had no interest in helping me, that would only encourage more of “you people” to move here. I said, “Mr. Galletti enjoy your next four years as Supervisor. They will be your last.”

I immediately began looking for some group that would be interested in running against Galletti and defeating him. I found a group in Boonville that morphed into “The Circle.” For more than two years a group of about 20 people committed to changing Mendocino County politics met weekly to decide who and how to capture the Fifth District seat.

Some understood precinct-level organization. Voter lists. Canvassing. Others knew media, most had respect in their villages. But all of us were committed to one outcome: “We are in it to win it.” No more lefty activist educational campaigns. We needed our political power to be demonstrated by capturing the most likely seat on the Board, which was the Fifth District, because we had the numbers if we could mobilize them.

“The Circle” was an outgrowth of the Albion Nation's commune meeting style. Whomever had the “power” could speak, often at some length, and was not to be interrupted until done which was signified by passing the “power” to one of the people who wished to speak next. An agonizing way to get consensus. The time spent listening to tales of woe, opinions buttressed by nothing but emotion, flagrant egoism in front of a tolerant audience. But eventually, after two years of endless talk, the group decided on a candidate “we could all support” to run for the seat. Only the Chosen One was a happy hippy earth mother, beloved by all and impossible to elect. Three of us left the coronation. Paul Katzeff, the mastermind of the voting organization; Norman de Vall, the straight-looking-because-he-was, obvious candidate, and me. We went outside to avoid having to ratify that choice and to commiserate about all the work and time to arrive at the exact wrong choice.

Our analysis showed us that we needed some of the “old residents” to vote for our candidate. That meant someone who wouldn't turn them off. No hippies, however wonderful. Norman — ruddy, blue-eyed and sharp jawed — would be ideal.

Then fate intervened. The good woman was diagnosed with a problem that would prevent her for running for Supervisor. The “Circle” chose their next favorite, Norman de Vall. Norman won and we changed the County political calculations forever.

I had been chairman of the Comptche Citizens Advisory Committee doing land use planning. I was prominent in trying to legalize the hundreds of illegal homes, including my own, built by new and old residents. I had spoken to the Board repeatedly, in a carefully presented woodsman costume. Red Wing boots, forest green wool shirt, major black hair and beard. I was in the newspapers from Ukiah to San Francisco; sometimes reviled, sometimes photo featured, and was known as one of the prime movers of the de Vall victory over the conservative elders. 

I had really annoyed the land developer/real estate people, the farmers wanting to convert their ag land to residential subdivisions, the County Building and Planning bureaucracy and many other citizens who just didn't like someone getting away with it when they had to follow the rules.

In Mendocino County the Planning Commission has considerable power over land use decisions. Virtually all zoning changes, lot sizing, land divisions and other land use projects come before the Planning Commission. The land developers and real estate people, as well as ordinary people, have to satisfy the Commissioners before having their project or plan approved. Each of the five Supervisorial Districts has a Planning Commissioner. The Supervisor gets to appoint the Planning Commissioner.

So Norman appointed me. Outrage! How dare he! Some hippy who built and is living in a non-code outlaw home in open violation of County and State law is now in charge of passing judgment on law-abiding citizens?

It all came to a head in a public Board of Supervisors hearing about my appointment. The crowded room was tense. Shouting and angry resentment from everybody new or old. Bobby Kennedy was the leader of the land developer/real estate faction. He was all red-faced and aggressive. Anne had come to support me and was standing quietly behind me in her classic long dress. I pulled her forward and said to Bobby, “This is Anne Nolan. She knows nothing about land use or Mendocino County politics and you have made her afraid in her own home. I think you owe the lady an apology.” The room went crazy.

Bobby, Anne and I wound up sitting on the stairs outside the Supes chambers. Bobby apologized to Anne and told us that his daughter and her man were barricaded behind locked gates up in the Sierras for the same reason as us: their non-code home. We parted friends. I was confirmed without any more dissent. And, if I may say so, I was a conscientious and effective Commissioner. I was able to approve a Kennedy Homes project some months later.

* * *

I was worried about seeing so many people, especially kids, lost in a screen on their phone, on their desk or on their wall, always in the screen rather than out here in reality. Watching teenagers walking to school staring at a hand-held screen, oblivious to the beautiful Spring morning around them. I was seeing it as disastrous for the future. They will be in fantasy land and the real problems which must be dealt with are out here.

Then I realized that the future is theirs, not mine. They, without noticing or consciously trying, are preparing for their future.

The real problems are now global: Increasingly violent weather, oceans full of plastics, easy transmission of diseases, competition for essential resources like water — the list is long. And obvious now.

No person or group or government has enough effect to solve any of these. The solution can only be global, everyone everywhere has to be involved. The problems are now existential for the human race.

So here is what's happening: A mind complex and powerful enough to avoid the extinction of the race is being built. All over the world the villages are emptying out and humans are gathering in enormous numbers in huge clumps. Whether Africa or Asia or America the clustering of human bodies containing minds has happened. The concentration is constructing the nodes of the big mind.

Visualize the planet at night: the bright glow of our cities separated by mostly dark all over the globe. These are like giant neurons. They are all connected to each other by the internet, and the infrastructure of it is now from space and available almost everywhere. Right now we are mostly looking at the screen for entertainment and social information. Pay attention to the forming group mind by noticing that how to dress has become universal. The people on the streets in Guangzhou look the same as they do in Madrid or Vancouver. Graffiti looks the same in Amsterdam as it does in Mexico City. Everyone everywhere likes pizza, hears hip hop, is on Facebook or TikTok or WeChat. Everybody can see what everybody else is doing or saying or seeing or feeling or loving or hating. Trivial stuff right now, but this is kindergarden. Our human minds are being trained, by us, to synchronize in vast numbers because we're going to need that much brainpower to save ourselves from extinction.

And at the high end of this information sharing is the astounding science being done all over the planet by groups separated by geography, by politics, by funding, by nationality. See the research papers jointly authored by Huang and Jackson and Abdulassiz and Lopez. Or the collaboration of labs in Shanghai and Cleveland. The giant telescopes, the particle accelerators, the space station — built, operated and harvested by global minds linking up in numbers large enough to have real-world effect. All done on screens and internet.

You and I sitting around chatting about the problems has no effect. The screen is the portal into the global mind and the kiddies are on the case.

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THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO GIUSTI

To the Editor,

Could you have mercy on an old timer in prison land ex-colleague of the journalism field?

I must compliment you on your personal articles. Reading your writing isn't a waste of time. Scaramella is also a great journalist. He should run for Congress! But his supervisors stories about crooked politicians are way too complicated and depressing for this old coot.

After reading the July 26 stories severely slandering Braxton Bragg and praising "Greasy Thumb" McCowen, I have had trouble with my morning nap. I had to awake and write this. I don't have to work on my prison yard job until 2:15 PM when I'm supposed to pick up garbage 40 hours a week for the grand paycheck of $3.20 a month, which they gouge half of for restitution!

Please don't get grouped with statue bashers.

Keith Faulder definitely illegally told the department of corrections that I owe Mendocino County $10,000! I'm currently trying to work with Judges Mayfield and Moormon to get my stolen funds returned. The Department of Corrections has taken about $1800 from my prison trust account so far! What a rip. It's like Nevada which now charges prisoners rent and utility payments!

My main beef with the media of course is the slander of Braxton Bragg. I've met Braxton's grandkids and I can tell you truthfully they are the nicest tourist kids I ever met. Being from Fort Bragg you must know that I have met thousands of tourists in my day. Most of them seemed too nice to be the type to file a lawsuit against any newspaper. Neither the Advertiser nor the Santa Rosa Press Commie-crap have yet printed the documented facts about Bragg's alleged plantation in over three years. He was a documented career military man, no time for "slavery foolishness" as President Jefferson Davis phrased it!

Can you get a printout of the deed to this alleged slave plantation off the Internet? You won't even tell us Bragg's date of birth nor his birthplace nor his grave location. Please Google away the BS and research the real truth for not only me but Braxton's kids and yourself since you claim to be so concerned about the Fort Bragg name change. I really want to see a good slap in the face to the imbecilic statue bashers and greedy back to the landers (bogus hippies who now wear their hair short and tailored suits after carpetbagging land from old-time Mendolanders.) These ex-hippies are as bad as Hoyle, Faulder, Eyster, and McCowen.

Concerning the Greasy Thumb McCowen bogus praise: my mom is his mom Virginia McCowen's second or third cousin. Of course my dad, a World War II hero, would never brag about being relaIated. I only met John twice in 2020 after he had been slandering me for years. I guess because my mom refused to buy his poached abalone?

I am thoroughly convinced that all during fall and winter of 2023 Faulder, McCowen and crooked Ukiah police had me under constant surveillance. They definitely sent those two thugs to my camp on March 20, 2020, to instigate my murder or arrest! I will prove this eventually. You can tell Eyster, Hoyle and Marcus Young I continue my quest to see them in prison too! They sure worked hard to kidnap me to this 18 to life sentence! Now they want to shut me up!

How would you feel if people slandered Judi Bari and praised her bombers? You have to understand now how I feel about Bragg's condemnation and "high marks" for evil dudes like McCowen. As Doc Holliday said of murderer-thief Johnny Ringo, 'There is a hole in his heart that enough hate can't fill.' That's the way I feel about Johnny Ringo McCowen, a.k.a. Greasy Thumb!

Greasy Thumb gets high marks?

I like reading off the record in the Advertiser when it prints the truth and many times it is very true. I like what was printed in the July 26 edition. It was off the wall and way off contemporary fact except for praising McCowen.

I remember once he tried to sell my mom poached abalone. Shortly after that in about 1985 he began slandering my name. This really took me by surprise since I never met the idiot until March of 2020! A note in the AVA stated that McCowen comes from an old Ukiah family. But they omitted the fact of the few generations of McCowen semi-incest. A peek at Greasy Thumb's genealogy will prove his parents were cousins and obviously his dad, "Hanging Judge McCowen" (who dodged World War II to attend Stanford Law) had parents who were first cousins! This family tree has a bit too much kissing cousins in it for me to admit my mom is a distant cousin to Greasy Thumb's mom!

I really doubt if John McCowen is on a mission to help the homeless nor to clean up after them. I also observed him having secret meetings with the thugs who invaded my private homeless camp. (He just snitches homeless and our camps to Faulder and company.) This was about a day before my arrest behind CVS in Ukiah. Thanks to CEO Mommy Dearest and Supervisor Ted Williams who were helping me construe who the real snakes in the Mendoland grass are. This embezzlement ring sounds like a law firm: Faulder, Hoyle, Eyster and McCowen! When it comes to these four who are breaking the Mendo bank, all concerned Mendolanders should band together and vigilante up. Like I stated before if this was the 1800s the tar and feather salesmen could make a mint in Ukiah!

I am in need of more evidence.

David 'Detective Youngcault' Giusti

California Men's Colony-East

San Luis Obispo

PS. Hopefully all home boys and girls will read more of the Bible and hold more revival meetings. Here are some New Testament verses to share with your readers:

1 John 4:7-9: Beloved, let us love one another for love is of God and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us that God has sent his only begotten son into the world that we might live through him.

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MONTGOMERY WOODS

by Lili Adkins 

Montgomery Woods is a beautiful State Natural Reserve located west of Ukiah along Orr Springs Road. Home to what was once believed to be the tallest tree in the world, this forest has served as a beloved spot for relaxation and recreation since the nineteenth century.

Despite the popularity and accessibility of the grove, its incorporation into the State Parks system was a long and arduous fight that endured throughout the twentieth century.

In 1920, businessmen E.L. Cunningham and A.R. Thomas began constructing a mill on a tract of land that they had recently purchased in the middle of Montgomery Woods.

Hoping to preserve the land for recreational use and establish it officially as a public park, The Save the Redwoods League of California protested the mill’s construction. Cunningham temporarily ceased production in response to the public outcry, but explained that he would be forced to resume operation if not provided with another tract of land to conduct his business. He was the owner of a fruit drying plant, and he argued that his company needed to acquire a million and a half wooden shakes in order to produce their yearly product. If he failed to bring in sufficient wood, then half of Ukiah valley’s 1920 dried fruit crop could be in jeopardy.

Thankfully, San Francisco local E.A. Sinclair, who owned a tract of land in the very back of Montgomery Grove, agreed to trade land with Cunningham, and his mill opened without disturbing most of the forest. Sinclair had intentions of selling the land to the State and establishing the long-awaited public park; however, several attempts to sell the tract to the Save the Redwoods League and the State Park Commission failed.

Seventeen years after the trade, in 1937, Sinclair announced that he could no longer afford the tract and that, despite his initial dedication to the preservation cause, he might have to start harvesting the grove’s lumber himself. This decision launched a renewed effort to sell the land to the State, spearheaded by A.R. O’Brien, an editor of the Ukiah Republican Press who had long been involved in the efforts to preserve Montgomery Grove.

In 1945, a bill was passed to purchase the tract for a portion of its original price and to incorporate Montgomery Woods into the State Park system, but again, these plans fell through the cracks.

Nevertheless, that same year, when all hope for a public park seemed lost, San Francisco-born biologist Robert T. Orr donated a 9-acre plot of land and founded the Montgomery Woods State Natural Reserve. Over the following decades, the reserve expanded through various contributions by local families and the continued efforts of the Save the Redwoods League. It now spans an astonishing 2,743 acres and remains an important part of Mendocino County’s natural world.

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Sunday, August 13, 2023

JOSEPH ANGENETE, Mendocino. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, evasion, failure to appear.

MAURICIO BAUTISTA-CABRERA, Santa Rosa/Ukiah. DUI.

OMAR CABRERA, Willits. DUI while on court probation, probation revocation.

JESUS CERDA, Petaluma/Ukiah. Failure to obey lawful peace officer order.

ERIC GARCIA, Redwood Valley. Disorderly conduct-drugs&alcohol, controlled substance, probation revocation.

STEVEN HANDOVER, Covelo. Domestic battery.

ZANE HAUGER, Willits. Leaving scene of accident with property damage.

JOSEPH LEGGETT, Willits. Fireworks without permit, felon with firearm, ammo possession by prohibited person, controlled substance, probation revocation.

CORY LEIBRICH, Fort Bragg. DUI, failure to appear, probation violation.

JAKE LEWISKOOY, Ukiah. Paraphernalia, probation violation. (Frequent flyer.)

ALISHA MCMINN-PUGH, Ukiah. DUI-alcohol&drugs.

KEVIN MISKELLY, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

ROBERY MOYER, Willits. Domestic battery, resisting.

MONTE SHARP, Ukiah. Domestic battery. 

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CRAIG'S IN A BAD NEIGHBORHOOD

Crucial Message to Imploding Postmodern America

Awoke early, did the laundry at the Talmage Road laundromat spurred on by a cup of Colombian, then later picked up all of the litter left by the Saturday Night Chaos Club in front of the Building Bridges Homeless Resource Center, and am now about to get off of the B2 computer and go to the Ukiah Co-op for food. No plan whatsoever beyond this! Abbot Lau of the City of 10K Buddhists said to me when I asked him what his goal was: “My goal is to let the Dao work through me without interference”. And Daoist texts affirm that: “The sage does nothing, yet everything gets done”. What would you do in this world if you knew that you could not fail? No yesterday, to tomorrow, no today. ;-))

Craig Louis Stehr

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JOHN REDDING: 

Economists and writers are frequently using the term "Doom Loop" to describe failing cities or regions such as Mendocino County. From today's WSJ comes this definition:

"Urban doom loops start with a triggering event tied to a core industry, like when manufacturing jobs started to leave Detroit in the 1970s. Tax revenue falls, services suffer, businesses close and disorder moves in. Residents leave, commuters and shoppers stay away and the cycle is self-reinforcing.

Economists vary in their opinions of how likely a doom loop is for downtown San Francisco and when it could start, but most agree serious changes are needed to restore the neighborhood’s health. "

The Doom Loop for the Mendocino Coast began when its core industries, fishing and logging, declined precipitously and nothing replaced them. This is a failure of leadership by every Fort Bragg City Council of the last 20 years. 

To break out of the Doom Loop, it seems obvious to me that the City Council and the Skunk Train should drop all the lawsuits and get back to the problem-solving table. Don't let egos get in the way of progress.

In addition, I ask myself -- is it possible to revive the fishing industry? Years ago, the waters off our coast were deemed to be "overfished", resulting in severe limits on the takings. One wonders if our waters are still overfished and if the limits might not be increased.

I am not by any means informed on this topic, so those who are please share your thoughts.

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"TULE TOWN" MEMOIR REFLECTS ON FARM TOWN, SAN FRANCISCO

by Jonah Raskin

In the concise preface to his sprawling memoir, “Tule Town”— which explores and maps the town of Porterville in the San Joaquin Valley— the author, Terry Winckler, calls the people who live there “ordinary folk.”

He points out that others like them can be found “across rural America where people “live close to the land and to each other.” Think of them as the kind of folks who voted for Donald Trump, might vote for him again, and who resonate with the phrase “Make America Great Again.”

“Tule Town,” which is part autobiography and partly sociology, doesn’t take place in the present. Rather, it is mostly set in the late 1970s and early ’80s, when Winckler was a lost soul on a quest to inject meaning in his life. As a reporter for the Porterville Recorder, he had his ears to the ground and his eyes focused on details in the world around him…

sfexaminer.com/culture/literature/tule-town-memoir-reflects-on-farm-town-san-francisco/article_a17bff80-37cc-11ee-a10b-6b7024581308.html

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ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Long ago, mentally Ill folks were put into institutions to get them off the streets. The asylums were nightmares as few people knew what to with miswired or drug addled brains.

Like prisons today, the affordable infrastructure for the mentally ill crumbled and new structures were not built in lieu of the upsurging liberal causes spending money on welfare and buying votes. Eventually the government shut down the asylums and put the patients on the street. The public outcry was very muted so it never became an issue.

Medicine figured out ways to sedate the strange ills of the mentally impaired with drugs but never to get rid of the problem. So today, it is still one of the main groups of the homeless population.

With 33 trillion in debt, the Feds have no incentive to do much about the street population including the mentally ill, so nothing happens. No surprise, as usual government does not do much of anything except work to be re elected.

In the meantime, the number of dislocated folks grows on the streets with no solutions in site. The Dem solution of throwing money into the welfare garbage disposal does absolutely nothing.

Is it going to take having 51% of the electorate on the streets to get the gimmes to stop electing Democrats?

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ONE MORNING a guy goes down to get his newspaper. Guy sees a snail near his paper. Guy hates snails. He picks up the snail and throws it as far as he can into a nearby forest. A year passes. One day there’s a faint knock on the door. The guy looks out and sees a snail. The snail looks up at him and says: “So what the hell was that all about?”

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TREY LANCE’S STRONG STATS TELL WRONG STORY IN 49ERS’ 34-7 PRESEASON LOSS TO RAIDERS

by Eric Branch

Trey Lance began Sunday’s preseason opener by leading three hideous drives in which he didn’t deserve all the blame.

And then the San Francisco 49ers quarterback directed a fourth drive that finished with a touchdown pass for which he deserved very little credit.

The takeaway from Lance’s 2023 debut in a 34-7 loss to the Raiders in which the 49ers didn’t play any of their starters: He had a stellar passer rating (111.0), but didn’t make a stellar case that he should open the regular season as the backup behind Brock Purdy instead of Sam Darnold.

The line? Lance completed 10-of-15 passes for 112 yards with his touchdown pass and he didn’t commit a turnover.

So what was the problem? Lance’s stats don’t reflect that his nine-yard scoring toss was a poor decision that should have been a red-zone interception: Cornerback Duke Shelley got both hands on Lance’s throw, bobbled it and then batted it directly to tight end Ross Dwelley, standing a few yards away, for the unorthodox score.

And Lance’s rating does account for another should-have-been-a-pick that was dropped by linebacker Amari Burney near the 49ers’ 30-yard line late in the second quarter.

Before those passes, Lance opened by directing three straight three-plays-and-a-punt drives that gained one net yard. However, the 49ers’ inability to go anywhere was also a reflection on their second-string offensive line, which included guards Nick Zakelj and Jason Poe, who have never played a regular-season snap.

Lance was dropped for four sacks on the first three possessions – two on the first drive – and was flushed from the pocket on two other snaps behind his flimsy front five. Lance also appeared indecisive and head coach Kyle Shanahan will likely identify plays in which he could have avoided sacks with quicker decision-making.

After Lance played the first half, Darnold played the first 16 minutes of the second half and completed 5-of-8 passes for 84 yards. His performance included a well-placed 37-yard completion to rookie wide receiver Ronnie Bell down the right sideline on his first pass.

Depending on whether Purdy plays in the second preseason game against the visiting Broncos on Saturday, Darnold will likely start or be the first QB off the bench as he battles Lance for the backup spot.

• Big-legged rookie kicker Jake Moody had been near-perfect in training-camp practices, but had an inauspicious opening to his NFL career.

After only missing only from 43 and 63 yards during camp, the third-round pick pulled his first attempt, from 40 yards, wide left on the final snap of the first half. In the fourth quarter, Moody, who has comfortably made multiple 60-yard kicks this summer, pushed a 58-yard attempt wide right.

Raiders head coach Josh McDaniels called a timeout before each of Moody’s attempts to ice the rookie who in April became the highest-drafted kicker since 2016.

Shanahan eschewed the opportunity for Moody to attempt two other long field goals. The 49ers went for it on 4th-and-2 from with about four minutes left in the first half instead of attempting a 58-yard kick. They also went for it on 4th-and-1 with about six minutes remaining in the third quarter instead of attempting a 49-yard kick.

• Five days after rookie tight end Cameron Latu acknowledged his summer struggles, saying he was “thinking way too much on every play,” the third-round pick’s issues carried into his first game.

Latu had already struggled with drops in practice, and fumbled at the 49ers’ 14-yard line after his only reception, a nine-yard catch in the third quarter in which he was fighting for extra yards. The Raiders turned the turnover into a touchdown four plays later.

Despite his status as the 49ers’ highest-drafted tight end since 2013, Latu figures to be fighting a for a roster spot in a position group that includes holdovers in Dwelley and Charlie Woerner as well as rookie Brayden Willis, a seventh-round pick.

• It was a strong debut for one rookie draft pick, Bell, until it was marred by a late-game drop. Bell’s path to the 53-man roster became easier this week when wideout Ray-Ray McCloud broke his wrist, an injury that’s expected to sideline him for the first four regular-season games.

The seventh-round pick had three catches for 58 yards and appeared comfortable while cleanly fielding five kicks – two punts and three kickoffs – in the first half. However, Bell also allowed an accurate throw from fourth-string QB Brandon Allen to slip through his hands, resulting in an interception by cornerback Sam Webb, who returned the pick 43 yards to the 2-yard line. The Raiders scored a touchdown on the next play.

(SF Chronicle)

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A READER WRITES:

Bimbos With Back Stories:

Gina Lalobridgida & Jane Mansfield

Did you know that Jayne was killed in a car accident shortly after this picture was taken, and that her 3-year old daughter, whose name is Mariska Hargitay, survived? Mariska has been the mainstay actor in the TV show Law and Order: SVU for going on 30 years. Take a look at Mariska some time - Jayne is there in her face. She was a nice woman who died too soon.

Don't bother looking for nipples. She's wearing pasties.

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THAT’S WHY I LOVE MANKIND

Cain slew Abel Seth knew not why

For if the children of Israel were to multiply

Why must any of the children die?

So he asked the Lord

And the Lord said:

Man means nothing he means less to me

Than the lowliest cactus flower

Or the humblest Yucca tree

He chases round this desert

Cause he thinks that's where I'll be

That's why I love mankind

I recoil in horror from the foulness of thee

From the squalor and the filth and the misery

How we laugh up here in heaven at the prayers you offer me

That's why I love mankind

The Christians and the Jews were having a jamboree

The Buddhists and the Hindus joined on satellite TV

They picked their four greatest priests

And they began to speak

They said,

"Lord, a plague is on the world

Lord, no man is free

The temples that we built to you

Have tumbled into the sea

Lord, if you won't take care of us

Won't you please, please let us be?"

And the Lord said

.

And the Lord said

I burn down your cities — how blind you must be

I take from you your children and you say how blessed are we

You all must be crazy to put your faith in me

That's why I love mankind

You really need me

That's why I love mankind

— Randy Newman

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UKRAINE, SUNDAY, 13 AUGUST

Two children, including a child under the age of 2 and a 23-day-old baby, were among seven people killed in Russian attacks on the southern Kherson region Sunday, Ukrainian officials said.

Kyiv's military has claimed "partial success" in a contested village near Zaporizhzhia on the southern front, where analysts say even marginal gains could be significant.

Russia says it fired warning shots and boarded a cargo ship that was headed to Ukraine in the Black Sea on Sunday. Both sides have stepped up attacks on shipping routes and ports since a key grain deal collapsed last month.

The UK says Belarus may now be funding the Wagner private military group instead of Russia, where founder Yevgeny Prigozhin long held lucrative government contracts. His troops have regrouped in Belarus after a failed rebellion against the Kremlin.

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The 2024 presidential election will be THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION OF ALL TIME, because if Americans don’t make the correct choice between the two candidates something terrible might happen to their country. The US might even turn into an abusive totalitarian dystopia where everyone’s mind is controlled by propaganda engineered to shape them into unthinking gear-turners for a globe-spanning empire.

People on one side of the partisan divide are being trained to fear a future fascist takeover. People on the other side are being trained to fear a future communist takeover. Both sides are being trained to overlook the oligarchic totalitarian takeover that has already occurred.

—Caitlin Johnstone

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WHACK-A-RAT

by Madeleine Schwartz

In June a Paris official made an announcement: the city would form a committee to look into the prospect of “cohabitating” with rats. For years Parisians, Right Bank and Left, have insisted that their city is being overtaken by rodents. Londoners complain that their rat population multiplied during the coronavirus lockdown, drawn to home-cooked meals and stuffed bird feeders. And in New York the building where Mayor Eric Adams lives—at least part of the time—has received two notices from the city’s sanitation department about rat infestations. Adams recently appointed a “rat ezar” who vowed to “get those rats under control.”

Why does it feel like every city has fallen victim to a swarm of rats? They are clever creatures. Rats average sixteen inches, head to tail, but can squeeze through holes the size of a quarter. They can live anywhere: abandoned buildings, broken walls, car engines. They don’t need to see to get around—touch tells them where to go. Garbage or dog feces are enough to sustain them. One rat can have 84 descendants in a year.

Once among us they are bad roommates. Rats can sneak into attics and chew on cables, causing damage and setting off electrical fires. They destroy infrastructure. They ruin cars by sitting under the hood and eating the wiring. More worryingly, they can carry pathogens, including hepatitis and E. coli. Their fur houses fleas, which can be infected with a bacterium that can set off fever. Their urine can kill, too, through leptospirosis, an infection that can lead to meningitis and kidney failure.

For Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris—a socialist who runs the city in an alliance with France’s Green and Communist parties—these matters are political: her opposition says that Paris has become rattier under her watch. In 2017 Hidalgo put an anti-rat plan in place that involved tactically installing antiburrow mesh and threatening fines for litterers. But politicians to her right say it’s not enough—the mayor should focus on killing rats.

In the Paris assembly last summer, a right-wing representative faced off against an animal rights activist from the Green party, who argued against stigmatizing the creatures. Other rodentphiles organized a protest this past spring to defend the animals.

“Rats are sensitive, intelligent, playful, and empathetic beings,” a group called the Paris Animals Zoopolis Association said. Meanwhile the singer Pierre Perret wrote a song attacking Hidalgo for her “filthy” city where “only the rats are happy.”

(London Review of Books)

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