Mendocino County Today: Monday, Oct. 30, 2023

Brooktrails Deer | Dry & Mild | Volleyball Champs | Got Cleats? | Grange Events | Gualala River | Beardsley Clarifies | Al's Room | Brown Endorsement | Soaring | Ed Notes | Locals Night | Hazel Helm | Yesterday's Catch | Ocean Rescue | Noyo Sunset | Wahoo Divorce | 101 Burger | Niner Loss | Social Blunder | Pecker Hyoid | Zebra Wash | Carolina Twilight | Pumpkin Nightmare | Shooter Warnings | Assault Weapons | Primo Carnera | Just Solution | Wall Art | Campus Protests | Telemarketing Ambush | Ukraine | Wacky Humor | Census Taking | Floral Art | Good Deed | James Wright | Socialist Geese | Pissed Off | Sad Surprise | Devil Time | Ultimate Circle

DRY AND MILD FALL WEATHER will persist across Northwest California through Tuesday. A more active and wetter pattern will begin to develop starting mid to late in the week. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): I have a partly cloudy 39F this Monday morning on the coast. Dry skies & moderate temps thru Wednesday then about 6 - 7 days of rain it looks like. Nothing big, just steady.

ANTOINETTA PADILLA-LOPEZ:

Congratulations to Anderson Valley Junior High Volleyball Team and coach, for becoming the Champions in Sunday’s tournament.

It was a very close game against Mendocino but I’m glad they pulled through with the win! It was a fun day watching the girls play all the teams on Sunday!

The AV varsity Volleyball team wrapped up another amazing season in the second round of the NCS championships, falling to the number one seed private academy St. Bernard’s in Eureka. An amazing day to punctuate an amazing season.

ANDERSON VALLEY FOOTBALL IS LOOKING FOR CLEATS

We are pushing for the playoffs - with late season games come weather.

With weather comes mud 

here’s the issue, modern cleats are designed for turf fields and cake in the mud. 

If you have any old replaceable 7 stud detachable style cleats in the bottom of a closet somewhere or in storage and could donate them to our team, it may be the difference in a game. 

Again - these are 7 stud cleats that can be screwed in and unscrewed. 

Thank you!! (Coach Toohey, AVHS)

AV GRANGE UPCOMING EVENTS

The AV Grange is hosting several Fall into Winter events that you all should know about.

Coming right up the 2nd week of November as usual is our becoming quite fashionable Pancake Breakfast. All the fixin's plus wonderful live music from the Deep End Woogies. So boogie on down to the Grange NOV. 12th from 8:30-11.

It should be mentioned that following the breakfast will be a memorial for Annie Stenerson. We think she would appreciate the combination. The memorial is from 1-4 that same Sunday afternoon. In her honor wearing something red will grace the occasion.

In December there will be a not so usual Pancake Breakfast date change. Sunday December 3rd we'll be flippin' the flapjacks. Mark your calendars.

Then Sunday December 10th will be the annual Foodshed and Grange Holiday Dinner. Mark your calendars. More information and volunteer signups coming soon

Now is a great time to get involved in the Grange. We continue to improve the building and can always use a hand in many different ways. Hey, join up and have a voice in the direction of the Grange, as a member you can vote.

JULIE BEARDSLEY: To clarify my comments [in Mike Geniella’s article about the groundswell of opposition against the Supervisors the the District Attorney], I do believe the “Acting Auditor,” who is also a Deputy CEO, does not have the depth of fiscal experience necessary for the position. (She’s also not a 20-something year old.) In Public Health, over the past 3-4 months, 20 critical, experienced, trained employees have retired, been fired, or moved on since Dr. Miller was appointed Interim Public Health Director. Why is the Executive Office not looking at this? Dr. Miller has replaced these critical people with very young, newly hired, inexperienced staff who have no program knowledge, limited understanding of county issues, administrative or supervisorial experience. There is no one left to provide training or guidance. I am very concerned that through ignorance there will be bad decisions (or no decisions) made, that will have negative consequences for public health and safety going forward. These staff will not question her decisions. And God help us if there is a real emergency. I also believe this CEO is in over her head, and is making poor decisions directing the county government. The Executive Office is running most of the county, without the expertise needed to oversee the departments.

AL'S REDWOOD BAR IN WILLITS: Famous for the racehorse Seabiscuit. The jockey used to partake at this place! The back of the bar isn't redwood, it was brought by wagon trains from Boston in the 1880's across the Oregon trail!

A READER NAMED “SARAH” responds to Jacob Brown’s announcement that he’s running against Maureen Mulheren for Second District Supervisor:

“I am a previous employee of Mr. Brown’s. I have to tell you, I was SO excited when I learned he was running. my first thought was how lucky the county will be to have him. No matter the current state of things, I believe he can fix and improve.

Jacob is a great leader. He is both intelligent, and personable. He was great at boosting morale, and making sure we were motivated even in times of high stress. He is a great team player- Knowing we were under pressure he would show up and say “What do we need to get it done?” “Is there anything I can do for you to help assist the successful on time delivery?” And then he would quickly pop by to high five the success or acknowledge efforts… Even when he may not have “had” the time… he showed up. He was stern when necessary, yet fair. He is known to me as a proud family man, honest, trustworthy. I’m not sure where he is working now, so I can’t answer that.”

ED NOTES

FROM MIKE GENIELLA'S story this morning on the backlash to the Cubbison persecution: “Muchowski said when the board seats became filled with all Democrats, she and other longtime local political activists celebrated. ‘Finally,’ recalled Muchowski.”

RIGHT, VAL, all Democrats at last comprising the worst Board of Supervisors in County history, a board that is supposed to be non-partisan, regardless of outside political allegiances. And Democrats, here, there and everywhere are hardly synonymous with lib and/or progressive politics.

EXCELLENT CANDIDATES have been lib-bashed over the years because they were registered Republicans. And it's not as if the five Democrat supervisors are paragons of liberal enlightenment, as their pursuit of Ms. Cubbison has demonstrated. The DA appears, honks at them that Cubbison should be removed and the five Democrats vote, without discussion, to remove her, an expensive city lawyer assuring them that Cubbison's removal is perfectly legal, all of it a perfectly rigged process — rigged by DA Eyster and Supervisor Williams, I daresay. 

FROM the Mendocino Beacon of May 6th, 1899: “Philo, the name of this post office district established about 13 years ago, was submitted for adoption by C. Prather, its first postmaster. The simplicity and significance of the name were suggested to him. Besides, he had an esteemed relative who bore the name, Philo, and at one time his post office address was Philo, in the state of Iowa; and so the gentleman had several reasons for being wedded to the name.”

NOT BEING an animal person, I nonetheless don’t enjoy seeing beasts suffer. Noting a young woman striding through Golden Gate Park behind a drooling, panting pit bull straining at his leash and, it seemed to me, his breath, I saw that the dog’s teeth were tightly clamped on a tennis ball and his jaws even more tightly wrapped in a leather strap to keep the day-glo green spheroid in place, 

I ASKED the young woman what the point of the dog’s get-up was? “Oh,” she replied merrily, “it’s the latest cool way to walk pits. Everyone’s afraid of them, you know.”

EVERYONE'S afraid of their owners, I’d say, but refrained from arguing. One sees young psychos all over San Francisco walking pit bulls, and here’s one citizen who would like to see their owners pre-screened for mental health. 

AT A MINIMUM, dogs ought to be kept out of public parks where they dig up flower beds, menace passersby, destroy the play areas of children, and leave their deposits everywhere as their heedless owners coo at one another about the antics of their animals. I was very encouraged a few years ago by a report in the Chronicle that said Laotian immigrants were hunting dogs in Golden Gate Park, but the claim turned out to be unfounded.

HERE IN MENDO, especially in the heavily dope growing areas, packs of dogs have to be annually culled, and our animal shelters are overcrowded with unadoptable pitbulls abandoned by transient pot farmers.

ON THIS DAY IN MENDOCINO HISTORY…

October 29, 1899 - Hazel May Helm was born in Caspar to Thomas and Ella (Kuhn) Helm. Hazel’s mother was also a native of Caspar and lived her entire life there. Tragically, Hazel’s father, a brakeman on the Caspar logging train, was killed a month before Hazel’s first birthday while unloading logs from the train into the chute above the mill pond. The Beacon noted that Thomas left a widow and five children under the age of 8.

Hazel married William Niemela in 1920. William was born in Albion in 1899 and moved to Caspar in 1918, working for the Caspar Lumber Company until it closed in the 1950s. William died in 1981 and is buried in Caspar Cemetery.

William and Hazel had one son, Billy, born in 1923. Billy served in the U. S. Navy during World War II and in the merchant marine for several years. Billy died in Fort Bragg in 1972 at the age of 49 following several months of medical treatment. He is buried in the Zenith Hill Veterans Cemetery in Mendocino.

Hazel worked for the Paladini Fisheries in Noyo Harbor for many years before retiring. She also served as an elections clerk for the Caspar voting precinct.

On December 30, 1984, Hazel died at the Mendocino Coast Hospital following a short illness. She was survived by her sister, Frances Valenti of Fort Bragg, and by two nephews and two nieces, Walton Johnson, Kenneth Fleming, and Mae Johnson, all of Fort Bragg; and Joanne Valenti of Hercules. The Rev. W. J. Forsyth officiated at her funeral services at the Cannarr-Fairlee Funeral Home. Interment followed at the Helm Family Plot in the Caspar Cemetery with Leonard Valenti, Kenneth Fleming, Fred Baroni, Walton Johnson, Steve Dahlheim and Henry Dahl acting as pallbearers.

CATCH OF THE DAY, Sunday, October 28, 2023

JASON BEAN, Gualala. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

BRYAN BEARDSLEY, Fairfield/Ukiah. Conspiracy.

CHRISTIAN BEYER, Petaluma/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-under influence.

MICHAEL CRAIG, Fort Bragg. Probation revocation.

ERIC GHAZARIAN, Tarzana/Laytonville. DUI.

ANDREW HOPPER, Willits. Nitrous oxide, probation revocation.

SHAYLYNN LOCKHART, Ukiah. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

GABRIEL PALTON, Willits. Domestic abuse with injury with priors, battery with serious injury, cruelty to child-infliction of injury, false imprisonment, criminal threats.

ASHLEY SCHUCKER, Fort Bragg. Assault with deadly weapon with great bodily injury, battery with serious injury, parole violation.

VINCENT TARANGO, Ukiah. County parole violation.

JACINTO TUPPER, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs. 

FISHERMAN LAST SIGHTED TWO WEEKS AGO RESCUED AT SEA

A fishing vessel with two aboard left Washington State on Oct. 12 and was reported missing on Sunday. On Thursday, one of the men was rescued, officials said.

by Rebecca Carballo

Canadian fishermen help hoist a man wearing a green hat and a blue plaid shirt onto a Canadian Coast Guard rescue boat that has pulled alongside them. As the man steadies himself, he turns around and says, “Thanks a lot guys,” then waves as the Coast Guard boat pulls away.

“That’s one for the books,” one of the men on the fishing boat says. “That was crazy!”

The brief exchange, as seen on a video posted on social media, captured the rescue on Thursday of what the authorities said was one of two men who had set sail on Oct. 12 from Westport in Washington’s Grays Harbor County, both of whom were reported missing on Sunday.

It was unclear if the men had been lost the entire time or if there had been a planned delay in their travels, said Petty Officer Steve Strohmaier, a spokesman for the U.S. Coast Guard Pacific Northwest Unit.

The men, who had departed on a 43-foot fishing boat called the Evening, had been scheduled to return Oct. 15. One of the men’s daughters alerted the U.S. Coast Guard on Oct. 22 that her father had never returned home.

By Oct. 25, the U.S. Coast Guard had called off the search, but a little more than 12 hours later, the fishing boat spotted a life raft. The fishermen who saw the raft called the Canadian Coast Guard, which came to pick up the man.

The Evening and the other man aboard it still have not been located. The incident remains under investigation, the U.S. Coast Guard said.

The rescued man was transported to shore and was reported to be in stable condition, officials said.

The men, who have not been publicly identified, are American citizens, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. Where they were from in the United States was not immediately available.

It is unclear what supplies the rescued man had available to him, but many emergency raft boats have emergency meals, supplies of water and forms of communication, such as a flare, Petty Officer Strohmaier said.

The men were fishing for albacore tuna to sell, according to an employee at a business listed on the boat’s permit.

(NY Times)

BEYOND MY POWERS TO REJECT

by Tommy Wayne Kramer

By the time I knew enough to know where I was but not how I got there, I was four years old and living in Cleveland, Ohio.

I probably shrugged at the news. You will excuse me. As the years rolled by I learned that life in Cleveland imposed obligations on its residents, some of which touched me only occasionally, like school report cards or freezing cold snow-clogged winters.

Other conditions were visited upon me daily: my mother’s cooking, three semi-civil siblings, being a fan of the Cleveland Indians. These assignations were beyond my powers to reject. None were optional, certainly not snowy winters, sulking siblings nor team allegiance.

My loyalty to the Tribe was subject to no debate, any more than if I were born into a family of Episcopalians, Norwegians or marsupials. My family members followed the Indians, and therefore Ipso ergo, caveat de facto, Me Too. (All our neighbors were of the same faith.)

The die was set, the curse cast, the path cleared and when the dust settled it left me branded a lifelong fan of the Indians. It was stamped into my blood, my DNA. 

Cool! had anyone asked me. It wasn’t like I had a rebellious streak and yearned to follow the Cincinnati Redlegs. The Cleveland team emblem was, happily, the best in all baseball and perhaps in all sports: A cartoonish caricature of a cheerful Indian with a toothy grin and a single feather. Lucky me. 

Most teams had lousy mascots. The White Sox had two socks to enjoy, as did the Boston. The Dodgers had nothing and the Yankees had a striped top hat. Baltimore’s Orioles wore a bird, and the Tigers had … well, guess. Washington was “Senators,” whatever those were, and the Giants had “NY” on their caps. Bizwow.

The Indians had been powerful in the 1940s and through the ‘50s, but those years were followed by droughts, cheap owners, plagues of locusts and dwindling attendance. 

They won few games and no World Series under my 70-year watch, but it never bothered me. I’ve always felt more than a little proud sticking with Cleveland, both team and town, when my city became a perpetual butt of dumb jokes (“River caught fire, har har!” “Mistake by the Lake, ho ho!”) among talent-free standup comedians. Meanwhile the Tribe stumbled through losing records for the 13th (or is it 16th?) consecutive season.

If the Cleveland Indians ever had a better, more loyal fan than me I’d like to meet him. I’d love to discuss Lou Boudreau tagging out Phil Masi at second in the ’48 Series against the Boston Braves, rookie Joe Charboneau’s season-long heroics in ’80, Bob Feller’s 260 and 348 (lifetime wins, season strikeouts) and Frank Lane, Bill Veeck, and a thousand (no, two thousand) other bits of lore and semi-sweet memories.

Our relationship was deep. Lifelong. But nothing was semi-sweet about the breakup. Cleveland Baseball, Inc., decided a few years ago that older fans were no longer a desired demographic; I was given my unconditional release, so that corporate bosses might better appeal to the vast (not!) Woke crowd.

The smiling cartoon face of Chief Wahoo was scuttled to show solidarity with decisions banning Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben, the lovely lass gracing Land O’ Lakes Butter packages, Dilbert, and dozens more.

Suddenly I was A Man Without a Team. Yes, yes, many have suffered far worse losses and more anguishing breakups. But Cleveland’s Baseball Corporation’s craven cave-in was pointless posturing to curry favor with people who haven’t been to a baseball game in a decade and wouldn’t know Rocky Colavito from Rocky Raccoon.

The upshot? Major League playoffs are once again in full swing (it’s October) but I’m unavailable. I don’t know who’s playing whom, nor what teams made the playoffs or favorites to get to the World Series. 

The idea of missing a World Series would have troubled me a few years ago. Now the notion I’d watch it seems ridiculous. Stop me on the street any old time and I’ll give you a dozen reasons why and how the game has alienated me. Just one involves Chief Wahoo.

I Used to Care, sang Bob Dylan, but Things Have Changed.

(Tom Hine, when he isn’t busy writing his weekly column, spends time wondering whether you’d prefer to be suffering from a serious wound or have just spent six years in a horrible place. Or would you choose seeing your dog get run over by a truck? Or have headphones glued to your ears and be forced to listen to “Louie Louie” 24 hours a day for the next 365 days? Time spent on such questions is why he gets nothing done, and why he doesn’t get along very well with his invisible pal, TWK.)

49ERS’ EARLY MOJO GONE FOR GOOD WITH BENGALS LOSS. Can They Save Their Season?

by Scott Ostler

Where did the magic go?

That’s the big question hanging over the San Francisco 49ers, after their 31-17 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals Sunday at Levi’s Stadium.

Where are the thrills and chills of the 49ers’ 5-0 start? Where is the swagger and the power? The razzle and the dazzle? The — whattayacall ’em? — The wins?

Missing in action.

Ignore the sunshine, there is a storm cloud hovering over the 49ers as they head into their bye week and the NFL trading deadline.

At least we won’t have to hear the 49ers bemoan that the week off will derail their momentum, because their momentum is already all downward.

It’s been an abrupt shift, even by NFL yo-yo standards. For five weeks, the 49ers were giving off a vintage vibe that even the Golden State Warriors mid-dynasty could have appreciated. They were fun, exciting, different, dominant.

Now they are Team Headscratch.

The Bengals are a worthy squad, they barely missed getting into the Super Bowl last season, but three weeks ago, the 49ers were the toast of the NFL. Now? Just toast.

And it’s a team effort. The offense and defense are contributing equally to the midseason mini-meltdown.

On defense, the 49ers were nearly defenseless against Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow. Going into halftime Burrow completed 19 consecutive passes, had two touchdown throws and a 114.6 passer rating.

Burrow is really good, but the 49ers’ defense used to be really good, too.

For three weeks in a row, the defense has struggled. After giving up 452 total yards to the Minnesota Vikings the previous Monday night, the 49ers gave up 400 more Sunday. Burrow had 283 yards in the air, so in two weeks, opponents have passed the 49ers dizzy, to the tune of 661 yards.

And who’s to blame? Nick Bosa and Fred Warner, defensive superstars through Week 5, are not stopping anybody. They are being nullified by opponent scheming and execution. Bosa had two tackles Sunday, one unassisted.

But the 49ers are running out of scapegoats. This is looking like a group problem.

In the 19-17 loss at Cleveland, the blame went to rookie kicker Jake Moody, who missed the potential game-winning field goal in the waning seconds.

In the 22-17 loss at Minnesota, many pointed at rookie defensive coordinator Steve Wilks for a boneheaded zero blitz that cost them a touchdown just before halftime.

Sunday? Team effort.

Brock Purdy, in his 16th NFL start (including the playoffs), made rookie mistakes. In the third quarter, 49ers trailing 17-10, Purdy threw slightly behind and high to George Kittle on a crucial 3rd-and-7 play near midfield. On the next drive, once the 49ers got across midfield, Kyle Shanahan took the ball out of Purdy’s hands, calling five straight run plays.

When Shanahan finally let Purdy pass, on 1st-and-goal at the Bengals’ 8-yard line, he threw an interception. The 49ers held and got the ball back, but on the next play Purdy threw another interception that gave the Bengals a 24-10 lead.

After throwing zero picks the first five games, Purdy has thrown five during the team’s three-game losing streak.

This one hurts in many ways. It took place in front of Joe Montana and the old gang on alumni weekend. And it busted up an 11-game home win streak. Twelve would have been a team record for most consecutive home wins, counting playoff games.

Where did the magic go?

Shanahan was doing some of his finest mastermind work those first five games, scheming the foes to death with his clever playcalling. In the last three games, the 49ers have scored exactly 17 points each game, a bad flatline trend.

Most of the pieces are still there. Deebo Samuel and Trent Williams both sat out Sunday, so the 49ers were not at full strength, but no NFL team is.

The 49ers still have Christian McCaffrey, who went into the game leading the league in rushing, had a good day, but not the kind of great day that has defined his year as the 49ers’ feature back. He had 54 yards rushing and 64 passing, and two touchdowns to keep his streak alive, having scored a TD in 17 straight games.

McCaffrey has become a target. Through eight games, six opponents were penalized for hits on McCaffrey. He’s tough, but how much of a pounding can he take?

Meanwhile, the Shanahan-Purdy team that had some people likening that duo to Walsh-Montana has settled back to something closer to ordinary.

The 49ers’ task — and they’ve got a couple weeks to get busy — is to define themselves, and not let the last three weeks define them.

Are they a Super Bowl contender with a top-five defense and a top-five offense, or has the league figured them out?

The 49ers surely will be talking about how it’s way too early to panic, and it is. But it’s not too early to wonder who the heck this team is.

(SF Chronicle)

---

49ERS GAME GRADES: DEFENSE IS A MESS AND BROCK PURDY IS REGRESSING

by Eric Branch

OFFENSE: D

After his two late-game picks in Minnesota, QB Brock Purdy had two more second-half killers: His past four picks have all come in the second half of a one-score game. His first INT Sunday was at the Bengals’ 8-yard line late in the third quarter with the 49ers trailing 17-10. His next pick turned into a 17-yard TD one snap later. Bengals 24, 49ers 10. Game (basically) over. The numbers looked nice: The 49ers had a season-high 460 yards and Purdy threw for 365 yards, a career high. But they had three turnovers (all by Purdy) and the end result was this: They managed 17 points against the NFL’s 27th-ranked defense.

DEFENSE: D

After the 49ers closed to within 24-17 with 8:18 left, it was time for their long-dominant defense to do its thing. And … nothing. The Bengals’ 32nd-ranked offense drove 78 yards on 10 plays and RB Joe Mixon wasn’t touched on his 5-yard, good-night TD. Surprising? Perhaps it shouldn’t have been. After this unit’s miserable performance in Minnesota, Cincy’s previously anemic attack had 31 points (season average: 16.7), 400 yards (256.3) and 29 first downs (17.5) while Joe Burrow (28-for-32, 3 TDs) had 19 straight completions to finish the first half. On the Bengals’ second TD, a 2-yard toss by Burrow, the 49ers jogged through the play after Javon Kinlaw jumped offsides and cornerback Charvarius Ward was flagged for holding. Yeah, something is off here.

SPECIAL TEAMS: B

They allowed a 41-yard kickoff return that set up a 58-yard TD drive in the first quarter. Meanhwile, Ray-Ray McCloud’s lone chance at a kick return was a 16-yarder that forced the 49ers to start a possession at the 14. Mitch Wishnowsky was excellent, averaging 47.7 net yards on his three punts and putting two inside the 20-yard line. Rookie kicker Jake Moody was good on both extra points and made his lone field-goal attempt, a 36-yarder.

First-year defensive coordinator Steve Wilks said three days before kickoff that he was still adjusting to the 49ers’ style. And that process is evidently very much ongoing. The 49ers did manage three sacks and caused a red-zone turnover, but the whole was less than the sum of its many highly compensated Pro Bowl parts for the third straight game. The 49ers began with a three-and-out drive for the first time since Week 15 of last season when Kyle Shanahan called a fullback dive (no gain) on 3rd-and-1 instead of handing it to Christian McCaffrey.

OVERALL: D

THE WOODPECKER’S TONGUE

Like all birds, woodpeckers have tongues tucked inside those large beaks. Different woodpecker species use their tongues in different ways, depending on exactly what and how they eat. They all tend to have surprisingly long tongues, though, which help them reach deep into crevices in search of beetle larvae (grubs) and other prized morsels. Storing an exceptionally long tongue inside a relatively small head is a challenge, and woodpeckers have some unique anatomical features to make this happen.

In both humans and birds, the tongue is supported by a bone called the hyoid. Your hyoid bone is a horseshoe-shaped structure under your jaw that gives the muscles in your tongue and the floor of your mouth something to attach to. It helps you breathe, swallow, and speak.

A woodpecker's hyoid bone, however, is vastly different. The center of the woodpecker's muscle-wrapped hyoid is in the nostrils, in the bird's upper beak. It splits into a V between the eyes, and its two arms wrap completely around the woodpecker's skull, passing over the top of it and around the back before meeting up again at the base of the lower beak.

When the muscles surrounding the hyoid contract, the tongue projects forward, through the length of the beak and out its end. But when those muscles relax, the woodpecker's tongue retracts along the length of the hyoid. Yep — a woodpecker's tongue is so long that it needs to be coiled around the back of its owner's skull.

Having its tongue wrapped around the back of its brain doesn't just give a woodpecker somewhere to store a long appendage; it also helps protect the bird's brain from injury during high-speed pecking.

When the muscles that surround the woodpecker hyoid bone contract, they don't just cause the woodpecker to stick out its tongue. That tensing-up action also helps hold the skull and spine snugly in place as the bird's beak collides with a tree, just like a seat belt keeps you from flying forward if someone slams on the brakes.

How do we know all this? In 2011, a group of Chinese scientists used special high-speed cameras to take slow-motion 3D videos of a pecking Great Spotted Woodpecker. They also used sensors to measure the bird's pecking force and examined the structures in its skull and beak with CT scanners and scanning electron microscopes.

Tongues aren't the only part of a woodpecker's cranial anatomy that helps to keep the bird's brain safe. There are also extra plates of spongy bone in the front and back of the skull. Sandwiched between layers of denser, more compact bone, these softer bones help absorb and distrirbute the shock each time a woodpecker strikes a tree.

(https://abcbirds.org/blog21/woodpecker-tongues/)

FRED GARDNER:

Columbia, South Carolina won the "All-American City" award not once but twice (1951 and '64), and the Chamber of Commerce was very proud… Fort Jackson, where Capt. Howard Levy was court-martialed in 1967 for refusing to train Green Berets in the healing arts, was nearby. That September Donna Mickleson, Devorah Rossman and I started the UFO coffeehouse on Main St. – a hip alternative to the nearby USO. It was integrated — not just black and white, but soldiers from Fort Jackson and students from the University of South Carolina… ’67 was the last year in which the South Carolina State Fair was complemented by one for Black folks called the Palmetto State Fair. 

Carolina Twilight

This once took place down in the south

In the spring of ‘68

in a twice All-American city

in the Palmetto state

don't ask what I was doing there

it'd take a long time to explain

but this evening I was walking towards

the Capitol on Main

.

Dusk was dawning pleasantly

as I sallied forth

with honeysuckle in the air

like you don't get up north

When a pretty girl comes up to me

and stands right in my way

she says You are a Scorpio, right?

When is your birthday?

.

I said the eve of Halloween

which proved that she was right

her smile was like the temperature

her eyes were like the light

she said her name was Debbie

and her age was but 16

I asked her how she made me

sight unseen

.

Scorpio, Oh, Scorpio

She lilting laughed out loud

something about vibrations

and colors in a cloud

I said I don’t believe in Astrology

in Heaven or in Hell

She said ooh a triple Scorpio

well well well

.

That hippie chick seen through me

like Owens Corning glass

and I can still see her walkin' away

faded blue jeans round her past

Didn't know how to call her back

I didn't have a line

We might have been compatible

I should have asked her sign.

MAINE SHOOTER ISSUES - NOT GOOD NEWS

Maine police were alerted weeks ago about shooter's threats.

apnews.com/article/maine-guns-mass-shooting-lewiston-warnings-4d5066230b500c152a7dd0d3e4d13f1b

IT WILL HAPPEN AGAIN

Dear Editor,

The solution to this deadly, increasingly tragic uniquely American crisis is clear, simple and obvious-standing out right in front of our faces: ban sales of mass assault guns. Once Congress agrees to write a straightforward bill and a president signs it into law: Presto, change-o: 650 Americans live on yearly.

What’s stopping us? There is the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution. Ratified Dec. 15, 1791 it was supported by John Adams, James Monroe, and most of all, by James Madison. The theory was that by assuring the right to own and bear arms, militias could be formed to overcome a national army which might take away the rights of the public.

It was never needed. Such a thing never happened. However, as has sometimes happened before, a law passed for one thing gets reapplied or misdirected. This has happened. A weapon, the AR or AK-15 or 17, was designed, patented and manufactured by gun-makers for military use is now mass produced; sold to millions.

Last week Robert Card killed 18, wounded 13. GOP lawmakers ignore over 80%.

It will happen again.

Frank H. Baumgardner, III 

Santa Rosa

PRIMO CARNERA was born #OnThisDay in 1906 in Sequals, a village in northeast Italy.

Never had a world heavyweight champion been manipulated or controlled like he was by criminal elements.

The surface story most commonly recited about Carnera is that he was a freakishly big and unbelievably naive Italian circus performer discovered and exploited by New York mobsters who fixed fights for him and protected him into the heavyweight championship.

He proved to be a thrilling curiosity for the public who set attendance records just to see him.

His huge 6 foot 6 frame and massive fists punched their way through Jack Sharkey for the title and earned the Ambling Alp more than a million dollars in prize money.

Barely a year after he won the championship, he was not only an ex-champion but he was a broke one. “I don’t pay attention to money and those things,” he famously and naively would say.

A JUST SOLUTION

Editor: 

President Joe Biden sharing his sorrow and sadness at the Hamas attack and voicing our country’s abiding support for Israel was appropriate, but he should have said loudly and clearly that the current situation (even without Hamas) is not sustainable. Many say this is not the time for this reckoning, that we should wait until the current situation is resolved. But now is the time – now when we can understand and feel the inevitable results of our policies.

Unfortunately, he showed a continuing inability to acknowledge the reality of the facts on the ground. He proposes sending $14 billion to Israel vs. $100 million to the Palestinians. He promoted sending 20 trucks with humanitarian aid from Egypt into Gaza while before Oct. 7, 450 trucks crossed through Rafah every day.

Biden should support a cease fire (not veto a resolution calling just for a humanitarian pause) and acknowledge the underlying context for what is happening. Israel must halt the dehumanization, occupation and humiliation of Palestinians. Even if Israel is able to “defeat” Hamas, another group of hopeless Palestinians will take its place.

Until there is a just solution Israeli Jews will not be safe.

Joan Meisel

Cloverdale

DIVIDED BY ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR, BAY AREA COLLEGE STUDENTS FEAR FOR THEIR SAFETY — AND MENTAL HEALTH

by Kevin Fagan

Joseph Kalan stood on a hill last week watching hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters on UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza as they chanted “Free Palestine,” and, to his ear, called for the dissolution of the Israeli state. He’s a freshman. He held an Israeli flag in his hands. 

“Where do Israelis go if there’s no Israel?” he said. “What they’re saying means they hate Jews. I don’t feel safe here.”

On the other side of the plaza, Haleema Bahroocha yelled with the crowd, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” the phrase that frightened Kalan. Most Jewish organizations consider the slogan antisemitic, even as many who use it defend it as a call for Palestinian freedom from decades of oppression.

Bahroocha is a graduate student. She wore a surgical mask.

“So many of us have to wear masks when we’re out here, to hide our identities,” she said. “Why do we have to do that? Because if you support Palestine, we are being doxxed, being harassed. We don’t feel safe.”

One campus. Two groups of students disagreeing not only about a bitter conflict but the very language used in the debate. And one thing in common: They are living in a moment not seen since the Vietnam War, with campuses convulsed in protests. But this time, there are painful divisions as students stage diametrically opposite protest rallies and proclaim that each is afraid of the other side. 

More than 100 people participated in a rally held in support of Israel at Sproul Plaza on the UC Berkeley campus in Berkeley, Calif. Friday, Oct. 27, 2023. 

Hundreds of students joined a walkout calling for a cease fire and an end to Israeli occupation in Palestine while at UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza in Berkeley, Calif. on Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2023. The students are among thousands who have walked out on campuses nationwide as fighting between Israel and Hamas continues in Gaza.

It’s not just a fear of physical violence, though that possibility exists and universities have bulked up security measures as protesters confront each other on campuses across the state and nation. Many students say they want a different kind of protection, one not dressed in a police uniform, much less riot gear.

“We want mental health therapists — to listen to the grief that students are holding at this time,” said Celene Aridin, president of the statewide UC Student Association. The UC Davis senior is partly of Palestinian descent and is majoring in international relations and minoring in Arabic and history. “Students are not sleeping very well. You have family back home and you’re expected to go into class and act as if everything is OK.”

At a recent UC Davis student Senate meeting, students declaring allegiance to both sides of the issue yelled at each other, and someone called the police. For that reason, said Aridin, who was there, “pro-Palestinian students remained on the third floor. They didn’t feel comfortable going downstairs.”

If students on opposing sides of the debate attend a rally and don’t wear a mask, they are likely to find themselves identified and targeted on social media, she said.

Aridin said the UC systemwide student government is preparing to ask the regents for protection in the form of emotional safety — campus therapists — as well as training against doxxing, which she said has been weaponized by students on both sides. They also want the regents to issue a statement similar to one posted by UC President Michael Drake and Regents Chair Richard Leib on Oct. 9, but acknowledging “that there’s pain and suffering on both sides.” 

More for you

Asked to respond, a UC spokesperson emphasized that campus safety is “of paramount concern” to Drake, the regents and campus chancellors. The university is already providing “resources to impacted students dealing with mental health and other concerns,” said the spokesperson, Ryan King, who pointed to messages sent out by UC Berkeley and UC Davis as examples.

“Our thoughts are with our students, especially at this incredibly difficult time,” he said. “We encourage students in need to seek out the appropriate support services on their campus should they be struggling.”

Hundreds of students join a walkout calling for a cease fire and an end to Israeli occupation in Palestine while at UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza last week. As tensions rise, some students fear violence, but many others are concerned about their mental health or about being doxxed for their views. 

Brontë Wittpenn/The Chronicle

Navigating the Israel-Hamas war and the inflamed passions from students, faculty and alumni has been difficult for universities, many of whom have drawn searing criticism as their communications and actions risk alienating one group or another. Many universities, often led by faculty or student leaders, have sought to foster dialogue between people with opposing views, but it hasn’t been easy.

“There needs to be a real space and place to have a real conversation,” said john powell, director of the Othering and Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley, who lower-cases his name as a symbol of oneness with others. “Protest is not that. It’s theater where people deliberately try to dehumanize and polarize.”

Social media has made trolling and hate messages easier than ever to spread, and with masses dead on both sides of the Israeli-Hamas war — and Israeli troops pushing into Gaza this weekend after days of airstrikes that followed Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack — significant moves or statements of passion often become incendiary.

At Harvard, students have been publicly shamed on websites and billboards for criticizing Israel. A New York University law student lost a job offer because she wrote an essay blaming Israel for the Oct. 7 attacks. At Stanford, a lecturer was suspended after Jewish students said he singled them out and called them “colonizers.”

“I haven’t seen anything of this scale since the 1960s,” said Don Heider, executive director of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. “Yes, we’ve had the George Floyd protests, Trump protests and more. But the two sides squaring off like this? No.

Rachel Weissman holds an Israeli flag under a line of flyers displaying those kidnapped by Hamas during a rally held in support of Israel at Sproul Plaza on the UC Berkeley campus last week. As tensions rise, some students fear violence, but many others are concerned about their mental health or about being doxxed for their views. 

Jessica Christian/The Chronicle

“What I worry about is violence,” he said. “And I worry about the fact that there seems to be no space for dialogue.”

So far, campus violence between the two sides in the Bay Area has been limited. At least two pro-Israeli protesters — including Kalan at UC Berkeley — were attacked by opponents trying to wrench their Israeli flags away from them, and at Stanford, campus police are looking into whether pro-Israel students shoved pro-Palestinian students taking down posters of kidnapped Israelis. The hostility has mostly been confined to yelling, doxxing, name-calling and hate online. 

“I’m never against passion, and I have to say, we’ve lived through eras where students never seemed to get excited about anything, and that was disturbing to me,” said Heider. “But this is too much.

“Students are under so much academic pressure anyway,” he said. “To add the feeling that they can’t go on campus without feeling threatened, that just adds to the pressure. It makes the stress we had around COVID (conducting classes remotely) look simple.”

Osha Brown-Bear, a resident of Richmond, joins hundreds of students during a walkout calling for a cease fire and an end to Israeli occupation in Palestine while at UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza last week. As tensions rise, some students fear violence, but many others are concerned about their mental health or about being doxxed for their views. 

Brontë Wittpenn/The Chronicle

Ariel Mizrahi, a Jewish member of UC Berkeley’s student Senate, was videotaped being blocked by protesters from going to class through Sather Gate and called “a notorious Zionist” at an Oct. 16 pro-Palestinian rally. She showed the Chronicle hateful messages sent to her Instagram account including one reading, “Good thing half of y’all got wiped out by Hitler.”

“There is so much hostility making us feel uncomfortable on campus,” she said. “My community is already in mourning. The other side — they say they’re being harassed? What about us? A lot of Jewish people are liberal, but we feel lost and alone right now.”

A pro-Palestinian sign can be seen on UC Berkeley campus last week. As tensions rise, some students fear violence, but many others are concerned about their mental health or about being doxxed for their views. 

Brontë Wittpenn/The Chronicle

Bahroocha, who helped organize Wednesday’s pro-Palestinian rally, occasionally shows her face at events but often shields it to keep photos of her from going online.

“We try hard to make sure, if we can, that most people’s names are not associated with any group, because their email, name, and address, anything public, gets leaked and people get harassed,” she said. “People show up to your house, talk to your employer, hassle you online. Even me — I’m a pretty public person, but I’m taking down my student profile on the graduate directory and all my social media.

“This isn’t about Muslims or being anti-Jewish,” she said, pointing out that members of Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-Zionist group, have joined her cause’s protests. “We need to dispel the narrative that it’s us against them. It’s about stopping the killing.”

Yet that’s not how many Jewish students watching the Wednesday rally heard it. A 23-year-old American-Israeli UC Berkeley student who just finished a special forces hitch in the Israeli army said she was disturbed to hear two students at the podium refer to their Palestinian ancestors as “freedom fighters.”

A UC Berkeley student who chose to remain anonymous sits for a photo while at UC Berkeley campus last week. While in Israel, the student was a first sergeant with the Israeli Defense Force and says she fears for her safety on campus.

Brontë Wittpenn/The Chronicle

“It feels like a lot of people here are calling for my death,” said the student, who asked to withhold her name out of fear for her safety. “I can’t believe these will be my classmates. There is a difference between regular Palestinians and the terrorists, but I don’t think everyone understands that either. I feel unsafe as a Jew here.”

Sarah, a pro-Palestinian graduate student who also didn’t want her full name to be printed out of concern for her safety, said she has been at a lot of protests over the years, “but I’ve never seen this kind of venom and anger before.”

“People at protests have been coming right up to our faces and taking close pictures of us,” she said. “That’s scary, horrifying, makes most students feel the need to be masked, afraid for themselves and their families. Once you label people as being outside the law and humanity, they’re no longer human and you deem them killable. That’s how it feels.”

Demonstrations like Wednesday’s are drawing bigger crowds than the pro-Israeli rallies, but security has been heavy at all of them, with uniformed campus officers augmented by private guards and plainclothes police. On Friday, a pro-Israel protest drew more than a hundred people to Sproul Plaza who displayed pictures of hostages being held in Gaza and yelled slogans like “they don’t want a two state, they want to eliminate.” 

Passersby occasionally yelled “Free Palestine” or flipped off the crowd, but there was no organized counter-protest.

“I don’t know why our crowds are smaller, and why a lot of the other groups on campus don’t join us,” said freshman Shea Claridy, sitting next to a sign reading, “Our love is stronger than ur hate.” “I think a lot of kids my age jump on the bandwagon but they don’t know what they’re yelling for. 

“I support the Palestinian people but I’m not for Hamas,” Claridy said. “A lot of people don’t realize the difference.”

It’s lamentable but not surprising that the disagreements are so inflamed, said powell, of UC Berkeley’s Othering and Belonging Institute. Not only does the extremism of American politics today model hostility toward compromise, but there’s a particularly anguished history to the Israeli-Palestinian divide of opinions.

“You have two groups who are frequently othered and marginalized anyway, and they are both acutely aware of the hurt and danger for their group, and less so of the other group,” he said. “There are a lot of people critical of the Jewish government, but not necessarily critical of the Jewish people. And if you’re critical of Hamas, you are not necessarily critical of the Palestinians.”

Referring to the way these complex subjects have spilled into tense stand-offs on campus, he said, “That’s not how people come together. You need to hear each other’s suffering and story.”

UKRAINE, SUNDAY, 29 OCTOBER

KYIV, Ukraine -- Russian air defense shot down over 30 Ukrainian drones over the Black Sea and the Crimean peninsula overnight Saturday, Russia’s Defense Ministry said Sunday.

“The air defense systems in place destroyed 36 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles over the Black Sea and the northwestern part of the Crimean peninsula,” the ministry wrote on Telegram.

Local authorities in the southern Krasnodar region bordering the Black Sea said that a fire broke out at an oil refinery in the early hours of Sunday, but did not specify the cause. “The reasons for the incident are being established,” a statement from local authorities said, amid claims in local media outlets that the fire had been caused by a drone strike or debris from a downed drone.

Drone strikes and shelling on the Russian border regions and Moscow-annexed Crimea are a regular occurrence. Ukrainian officials never acknowledge responsibility for attacks on Russian territory or the Crimean peninsula.

In Ukraine, the country’s air force said Sunday it had shot down five Iranian-made Shahed exploding drones launched by Russia overnight.

Close to the front line in the country’s east, where Ukrainian and Russian forces are locked in a grinding battle for control, four police officers were wounded when a shell fired by Russian troops exploded by their police car in the city of Siversk, located in the partly occupied Donetsk province.

British intelligence assessed this weekend that Russia had suffered some of its biggest casualty rates so far this year as a result of continued “heavy but inconclusive” fighting around the town of Avdiivka, also in the Donetsk province. The UK Ministry of Defence’s regular intelligence update on Saturday morning noted that Russia had committed “elements of up to eight brigades” in the area since it launched its “major offensive effort” in mid-October.

Also in the Donetsk region, Russia’s Investigative Committee said Sunday it was investigating the murder of nine residents in Volnovakha, a city currently under Russian control. According to the committee’s statement, the dead included two children. The bodies “were found in a private residential building with gunshot wounds,” the committee said.

A 46-year-old man died in a Russian shelling attack on a village on the Dnieper River — which serves as a frontline — in the Kherson province, according to regional Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin.

Also on Sunday, a prominent ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that Russia might take action to seize assets of European Union member states it considers hostile if the EU proceeds with its plan to “steal” frozen Russian funds to support Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction efforts.

ARE YOU STILL LIVING?

by Kasia Boddy

William Faulkner’s story ‘Go Down, Moses’ begins with a lengthy description of a man. But it’s hard to get a handle on him. If the drapes, pleats and price of his suit are all “too much,” his face is “black, smooth, impenetrable.” The story elaborates on these details but also draws attention to the fact that they fail to interest his interlocutor, a “spectacled white man sitting with a broad census-taker’s portfolio.” The census-taker quickly runs through his list of questions and then departs the story as, in a rather different way, does the man whose name, age, occupation and family background he records: Samuel Worsham Beauchamp.

Beauchamp has been convicted of killing a Chicago policeman, and the next day he will face the electric chair. The rest of the story is about his grandmother’s efforts to bring his body home to Mississippi.

Early drafts of the story don’t include this opening scene, and I’ve often wondered why Faulkner chose a census-taker to introduce Beauchamp and his situation. It must partly have been a matter of timing. ‘Go Down, Moses’ was written in July 1940, a few months after the United States launched its 16th decennial count, and stories of the census interview were everywhere: In cartoons, movies, advertisements and endless newspaper sketches. On April 27, for example, the cover of the Saturday Evening Post was Norman Rockwell's depiction of a census-taker making notes as a large woman counts on her fingers the names of the red-headed, freckled children who peek out all around her. Their irrepressible liveliness threatens to overwhelm the little man in the too-big raincoat but his authority is ultimately asserted by the emphatic black rectangle of his portfolio. 

That portfolio, bigger than a broadsheet newspaper, is also the key prop in ‘No Census, No Feeling,’ a slapstick short featuring the Three Stooges. Not that the Stooges were after information; their portfolios were used to hide from the police. The movie is, as the poster pronuses, “Bangful of Laughs!” — but, like Faulkner's story, it also taps into anxieties about the whole process: a feeling that census-taking is at once invasive and oddly inattentive to the lives it records.

‘Getting at the Facts,’ a skit published in a Kentucky newspaper in 1905, deals with this directly. “How many people live here?” the census-taker asks the girl at the farmhouse door. “Nobody lives here,” she replies. “We are only staying through the Hop season.” So he tries again, rephrasing the question: “How many of you are there here?” Again this fails to get the required response: “I’m here,” she says, “Father's in the woodshed, and Bill is…” At this point, the census-taker loses his patience: 

“See here, my girl, I want to know how many inmates there are in this house, how many people slept here last night?” “Nobody slept here,” she replies. “I had the toothache dreadful, and my litle brothers had the stomach ache, and the new hand that's helping us got sunburned so on his back that he has blisters the size of eggs; and we all took on so that nobody slept a wink all night long.”

Looked at one way, the joke is on her: she’s too naive to understand the nature of his query. But it’s also on him and, by extension, on a government that asks such unimaginative questions. The official wants to “get at the facts”; the farm girl suggests how complicated they are.

In 2020 only a minority of Americans met a census-taker and those who did had already been given the chance to answer questions on the phone, by post or, for the first time, online. In 1940, however, the count was entirely reliant on an “army” of what the government called “enumerators” who went from door to door collecting “democracy’s data.” 

Dan Bouk, in his recent book ‘Democracy’s Data: The Hidden Stories in the US Census,’ confesses to “romantic ideas’ about the doorstep encounter as a symbolic “moment of cooperative civic action” — the representative of the nation-state carefully attending to each of its members, one by one. That’s the ideal; his book, however, is often about what the encounter fails to achieve, and the negotiations and “tiny subversive maneuvers” it demands. 

(London Review of Books)

THE SOCIOPATH: ANOTHER TALE FROM THE HILLS

by Paul Modic

Remember the case of the whole family who died recently, one by one, over a period of several years? The father, Mike Nicklin, was a sociopath, the mother Joanne Herbert, an abuse victim trapped with Mike, probably had to go along, and their son Matthias, in his early 20s, was an innocent victim, found dead in his car of a fentanyl overdose last year in San Francisco. 

(This is another lesson about being nice, helping out others, and paying the price; like the saying goes “No good deed goes unpunished.”)

So Mike approaches this guy Joe about 30 years ago, asks to drive through his property to bring in supplies to build his house, and says he’ll build a road and a bridge over China Creek and come up the other way the next year, through which he has legal access. (Of course I advised Joe not to let Mike drive through, but he’s an innocent do-gooder and feels compelled to help others.)

Mike hauls the lumber past Joe’s house, builds his house, keeps driving through, and when Joe asks him to stop he refuses, threatens him with violence, and continues to drive through for a few more decades. Not being a tough guy and afraid of the sociopath, Joe stops confronting the trespasser, just lives with it, and whenever Mike or his associates drive by, he feels stressed. (Mike had an indoor weed grow which he ran for years in the winter and spent the summers in the house he bought in Puerto Escondido, or maybe it was the other way around.)

So then the family dies, the house is abandoned, and finally there’s no more traffic, problem solved? No, the gift of kindness keeps on giving: Joanne’s brother Jack, a lawyer in New Jersey, inherits the house and land and sues for an easement. Joe joins the fray, gets some free legal help, wades through the paperwork for awhile, then gives up and signs a notice of default. He doesn’t have any money for a legal battle and doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life, he’s in his late 70s, fighting this guy in court, though he would probably win. 

What will happen next? Jack will probably get access, try to sell the land and house (a large two-story needing lots of work), and if he does manage to sell the shady, North-facing property in the middle of nowhere, where you need to pump up water, who will be the new owner?

Since weed is over, maybe it will end up being a nice neighbor. Well, that’s what Joe is hoping for.

AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER with nature can be transformative. 

Here are three poems by American poet James Wright (December 13, 1927 – March 25, 1980) whose poetry often deals with the disenfranchised, or the American outsider. 

Wright suffered from depression and bipolar mood disorders and also battled alcoholism his entire life which was reflected in his poetry. He experienced several nervous breakdowns, was hospitalized, and was subjected to electroshock therapy. 

He first emerged on the literary scene in 1956 with The Green Wall, a collection of formalist verse that was awarded the prestigious Yale Younger Poets Prize. 

By the early 1960s, Wright dropped fixed meters with the publication of The Branch Will Not Break (1963), which positioned Wright as a counterpoint to the Beats and New York School and aligned him more with emergent Midwestern neo-surrealist and deep image poetics.

Wright would go on to pen some of the most frequently anthologized poems of the 20th Century, including: "A Blessing," "Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio," and "I Am a Sioux Indian Brave, He Said to Me in Minneapolis." His 1972 Collected Poems won the Pulitzer Prize.

Since his death, Wright has developed a cult following, transforming him into a seminal writer of significant influence. 

Fellow poet Mary Oliver wrote "Three Poems for James Wright" upon his death, and hundreds of writers gathered annually for decades to pay tribute at the James Wright Poetry Festival held from 1981 through 2007 in Martins Ferry.

* * *

A Blessing

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,

Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.

And the eyes of those two Indian ponies

Darken with kindness.

They have come gladly out of the willows

To welcome my friend and me.

We step over the barbed wire into the pasture

Where they have been grazing all day, alone.

They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness

That we have come.

They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.

There is no loneliness like theirs.

At home once more, they begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.

I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,

For she has walked over to me

And nuzzled my left hand.

She is black and white,

Her mane falls wild on her forehead,

And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear

That is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.

Suddenly I realize

That if I stepped out of my body I would break

Into blossom. 

--James Wright

* * *

Trying To Pray

This time, I have left my body behind me, crying

In its dark thorns.

Still,

There are good things in this world.

It is dusk.

It is the good darkness

Of women's hands that touch loaves.

The spirit of a tree begins to move.

I touch leaves.

I close my eyes and think of water.

--James Wright

* * *

Beginning

The moon drops one or two feathers into the fields.

The dark wheat listens.

Be still.

Now.

There they are, the moon's young, trying

Their wings.

Between trees, a slender woman lifts up the lovely shadow

Of her face, and now she steps into the air, now she is gone

Wholly, into the air.

I stand alone by an elder tree, I do not dare breathe

Or move.

I listen.

The wheat leans back toward its own darkness,

And I lean toward mine.

--James Wright 

All poems from Above the River: The Complete Poems and Selected Prose. Copyright 1990 by James Wright [Wesleyan University Press].

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

I just got the word that a close friend of mine has died. Other than being very sad, I’m also just pissed off that a good guy had to pass away. God decides that, not me. But I am also generally pissed off now. Anybody wanting to say something nasty about anybody I might care about is going to get my full verbal fury. In a way, that’s good because it’ll help calm me down and work out my bad vibes.

I’m so pissed, I’m pissed about being pissed.

I’ve been so angry lately and I don’t like being angry. Oh, well, it’s on me I suppose.

MARCO MCCLEAN: I never met Louis Bedrock but his work has been a feature of my Friday night radio shows on KNYO for years now, one story in every show, and I still have several months’ worth left to go, he sent me that many. I didn’t know he was elderly, nor even that he was not well. The news of his death comes as a sad surprise, that makes me breathe all my air out saying no, breathe in, say no again, then add God dammit. How many languages did he speak like a native? Stories he translated from others’ work were in French, German, Spanish… I guess everybody’s got to die sometime. But.

HUMANITY REEKS OF SALTY SWEAT

Written by Manuel Vicent.
Translated by Louis S. Bedrock

When I saw a black cloud advancing along the asphalt on the Avenue of Celestial Peace in Peking, which was long and wide like the runway of an airport, I recalled that Ortega y Gasset had defined China with two words: The humanity. Indeed, that black cloud was all of humanity which was descending from the horizon in a swarm of bodies riding bicycles. As the swarm passed by, heading in the direction of the Avenue of Eternal Harmony, it left a trail of salty sweat in the air.

Ortega himself had written that the rebellion of the masses consisted in the feeling of fullness that had taken over the space. This was evident in Peking because wherever you went, a million Chinese had arrived before you. That salty sweat that humanity emitted was the emulsion that had dissolved the thought of Confucius and of Lao-Tse of 4,000 years ago with state capitalism and the desire to become a millionaire. In the end, the silhouette of a temple always emerged above the surface of the people.

...

In contrast, in the garden of a Shanghai pagoda where a jade Buddha was worshipped, there was a smell of nutmeg spirituality; there, in the shade of a sycamore tree, sat a blind monk whose corneas were as white as the eggs of a dove. He was ageless. A thousand years seemed to have slipped through the collar of his brown habit. I thought to myself that I had found a golden occasion to ask him the futile question that troubled the entire world.

—What should I do to be happy? —I asked him.

The monk sensed my presence. He searched for me with his hand. He said after a long silence:

—Don't ever think about the things that you have not accomplished. Success only produces indigestion. Be amazed at the miracle of being alive. Be conscious of your breathing and forget about everything else.

This is the same thing that the Buddha Gautama said to his disciple: you have your homework for today: Breathe in; breathe out. Breathe in; breathe out.

From that moment on, I realized that breathing is a very difficult exercise because it is the way that the consciousness burns every five seconds.

...

On the Aberdeen in Hong Kong, I attended a funeral being held on the deck of a barge. The mourners were dressed in white and threw blue flowers into the putrid water, while the presiding clergyman, wearing a priestly cap, showed the family a flaming doll which perhaps represented the soul of the deceased who was purifying himself; with it, the priest traced mysterious signs in the air.

In a basket hanging from an awning, the dead man's belongings were also being burned: portraits, clothes, glasses, and sandals. How old might the deceased man be? Since I arrived on the island of Hong Kong. I haven't seen anyone older than forty. Everyone was young, men and women, wearing clothes by Gucci or Valentino, all of them carrying shopping bags from luxury stores. The subway spit out mouthfuls of young people and adolescents who filled the platforms on their way to work. I asked again and again where I could find an old person. No one knew how to answer me. An old person in Hong Kong? It's going to be very difficult to please you, sir, they told me. You will only be able to see some old man if you go to the Khating fortress, which is in the New Territories.

...

Kowloon City was the most rotten neighborhood imaginable. Its tangle of streets resembled a fermented Gruyère cheese. No one who was not an assassin, explorer or missionary would be able to penetrate this cul-de-sac. At the entrance there were Buddha altars on the steps of which the desperate ones burned chips of incense and acquired slips of paper inscribed with phrases of consolation, auspicious omens, verses of legend. There, a monk with a saffron colored tunic would tell stories of far off princesses from the Ming Dynasty. In the middle of his talk I told him that I had not seen a single old person on the isle of Hong Kong. Where are they? No one knows he told me. It's the most closely guarded secret.

...

Meanwhile, in Peking at six o'clock in the morning, you got the impression that all the old people had been evicted from their homes. At that hour, a multitude of seniors were in Carbon Hill Park practicing Tai Chi Chuan synchronizing rhythmic movements to a sweet song that apparently narrated the exploits of a famous warrior who was killed in battle. A woman dressed in white and wearing black gloves was leading in an authoritative manner that melodious, slow, and uniform exercise routine to loosen the cartilage of those old people over whom she seemed to enjoy complete control. In Bamboo Park too, at dawn there was a legion of retirees performing martial arts with cardboard swords. Other old people would simply walk around with a bird in a cage—or a cricket in a cage, and spend the morning confiding secrets of the soul. Talking to a cricket and having it give signs that it understands your problems is the ultimate circle of perfection at the end of life.