Mendocino County Today: Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2023

Wet Ahead | Pond Action | Suspicious Death | Litter Removal | Wrongful Terminations | Big Bunny | Water Projects | Jet Ski | Adventist Billing | Hopland Cemetery | Tannenbaum Permits | Shelter Impression | AV Foodbank | Homeless Headcount | 1950s Bar | Navarro Watershed | Gualala Lumbering | Headwaters Forest | Yesterday's Catch | AVHS Plate | Much Thought(s) | Watercolor Pumpkins | Niner Acquisition | Former Punk | Dedicated Mom | MeÌalanie Bourget | Dirty Wars | Quotidian Life | Unsuspecting | Gaza | What Aboot | Ukraine | Cotton Plantation | Halloween | Bison

RAIN CHANCES increase overnight as an active and much rainier weather pattern takes hold. Light to moderate rain and gusty southerly winds will occur Thursday with a front. A stronger storm system with an atmospheric river setup will begin impacting the region by Friday afternoon. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): On the coast this Humpday morning I have a partly cloudy 43F. Our approaching rain has slowed down some with the first rounds arriving later tomorrow. Rain is forecast for much of the next week. I have 1.82" of rainfall for October to start the new rain collection season.

SUSPICIOUS DEATH: BODY FOUND IN BURNING VEHICLE AT COVELO DUMP

On Tuesday, October 31, 2023 at 9:48 AM the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office was notified by CALFIRE of a vehicle fire in the area of County Road 337L near the Covelo dump in Covelo.

Personnel from the Covelo Fire Department had responded to the fire and were in the process of extinguishing the vehicle when they noticed the presence of what appeared to be human remains inside the vehicle.

A Sheriff's Deputy arrived on scene and confirmed the presence of human remains inside of the severely burnt vehicle.

Sheriff's Detectives were summoned to the scene along with an arson investigator with the Ukiah Valley Fire Authority.

Sheriff's Detectives are in the midst of ongoing investigations and will be obtaining assistance from forensic anthropology staff from California State University, Chico.

This assistance will aid Sheriff's Detectives in the recovery of the human remains and the search for any potential evidence contained within or around the vehicle.

This investigation is currently being handled as a Coroner's Investigation into what is deemed a suspicious death at this time.

Anyone with information that could assist Sheriff's Detectives in this case is urged to contact the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office Tip-Line at 707-234-2100 or the WeTip Anonymous Crime Reporting Hotline at 800-782-7463.

OPEN WRONGFUL TERMINATION CASES

George Dorner Writes: “I’m sure I’m not the only reader who has lost track of the wrongful termination suits against the county. How about a “scorecard” article giving brief coverage of all those suits pending against the county? Maybe even a list of links to previous cases.”

Mark Scaramella Replies: There are four wrongful termination cases pending against Mendocino County at the moment, as far as I know. Former Ag Commissioner Harindar Grewal, Former Public Health Director Barbara Howe, former Probation Officer Amanda Carley and a former Board Clerk whose name escapes me at the moment. Last we heard Grewal’s case is still pending. He is no longer represented by Duncan James/Doug Losak and has gone pro per, and his trial date has been pushed further and further out as settlement conferences come and go. We have lost track of the Barbara Howe case because it went into federal court where it’s hard to find even minimal info. The Amanda Carley case, where she says she was wrongly put on the Brady List and subsequently couldn’t carry a gun as part of her Probation Officer job, and then was forced to resign from Probation is still pending as well. The Board clerk’s (discrimination?) case went to federal court as well. As far as we know all these cases are being handled on the Mendo side by outside law firms, not in-house County attorneys. We do not have the time or resources to research the detailed status. It would be nice if those involved or their attorneys would keep us informed, but in general these lawyers don’t make many public statements and they advise their clients to keep mum. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions have been spent by Mendo on outside attorneys in these cases which, we gather, is covered by the County’s general liability insurance. Eventually the rates will go up, of course. But that typically takes years and is also hard to follow.

REGULAR MEETING OF THE WATER PROJECTS COMMITTEE

Anderson Valley Community Services District

To be held via teleconference Phone # 669 900 6833 Zoom Meeting ID 845 5084 3330 Password 048078

Public comments must be submitted by 10:00am on November 2, 2023 electronically to water.avcsd@gmail.com

 Thursday November 2, 2023 at 10:30am

TRICARE VS ADVENTIST HEALTH 

Hello, from a surviving spouse!

I am a local widow of a man who served in the US Coast Guard. I am fortunate to still have health insurance through TRICARE West. Unfortunately, over the last few years, my coverage with Adventist health services has not been good. I am told by TRICARE West representatives that I should go to another facility because the billing department is not providing the proper NPI numbers, therefore TRICARE will not pay the bills. This was never an issue in the past. Between my TRICARE and my TRICARE supplement my bills were always covered almost 100%. Unfortunately, now I have over four thousands dollars of potential cost because of errors by the Adventist health billing department.

I am curious if anyone else is going through this. If you are interested in more information on this, I will gladly provide you whatever it takes to try to find answers. I did receive a call from the administrator of Adventist health Mendocino Coast telling me that everything was built properly, and I am responsible for payment. But when I contacted TRICARE, they told me that is not true.

Sincerely.
The widow Ross <rosspb@comcast.net>

MENDOCINO NATIONAL FOREST CHRISTMAS TREE PERMITS will be available for purchase on Nov. 3, 2023. This year we are offering online sales at Recreation.gov as well as traditional options for purchasing a Christmas tree permit.…

fs.usda.gov/detail/mendocino/passes-permits/forestproducts/?cid=FSBDEV3_004473

MAZIE'S VISIT

Building Bridges Shelter

I had the pleasure of going inside Building Bridges today. I have been there before, never inside. My impressions for a Tuesday afternoon at the shelter: disorganized, depressing, busy. Many people loitering about with nothing to do, a few doing laundry, one individual severely wreaked of urine; he was luckily outdoors. I see why people take refuge across the street and our friend Craig Stehr takes pleasure in his daily adventures away from there. Some organized activities would do wonders for the shelter guests, some classes, reading, writing, job skills, budgeting, checkers!

Mazie Malone

Ukiah

HOMELESS HEADCOUNT FINDS FEWER SLEEPING ROUGH

The Mendocino County Homeless Services Continuum of Care (MCHSCoC) has released its results from the 2023 Point-in-Time (PIT) Count, an annual count of sheltered and unsheltered homeless persons in Mendocino County. More than 30 volunteers took part in this year’s Point-in-Time Count, which was held on the evening of January 27, 2023. The data collected on that night is organized and submitted to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and is typically approved and released back to the community in late summer. In 2023, the total number of persons experiencing both sheltered and unsheltered homelessness counted in Mendocino County was 633 individuals, a 23% reduction from the prior year.

Although a Point-in-Time count is important to establish some dimension of the problem of homelessness in our local communities, the method is complex and limited, and should be considered just one amongst a variety of sources of data needed to tell the whole story of homelessness. Nonetheless, a decrease of this magnitude very likely points to a positive trend in collective efforts to address homelessness in Mendocino County.

“Our communities have worked hard to address homelessness. Over the past several years, our local, state, and federal governments have invested in new affordable housing projects, expanded rental assistance programs, and developed new funding sources specifically for households with children experiencing homelessness. Locally, our communities have significantly improved our communication strategies, including collaboration with our law enforcement agencies,” said Dan McIntire, Co-Chair of the MCHSCoC. “It’s gratifying to see those efforts, both financial and collaborative, reflected in the data. Our community needs and deserves to see the result of what is, ultimately, an investment by taxpayers.”

In 2019, the MCHSCoC underwent an extensive Strategic Planning process that resulted in a comprehensive written plan. The Strategic Plan incorporates a significant majority of recommendations included in Dr. Robert Marbut’s 2018 homelessness needs assessment of Mendocino County and was ultimately endorsed by all city and county jurisdictions in Mendocino County.

“With the Strategic Plan as our guide, the CoC has supported a diverse array of projects focused on strengthening our homeless services system. These new projects include a new Landlord Liaison position and a specialist to organize our Coordinated Entry System. In addition, the CoC continues to prioritize brick-and-mortar projects ranging from emergency shelter to permanent supportive housing.

We believe that our collective work to address the problem of homelessness from many different fronts at once is leading to our apparent progress. That being said, our work is far from over. Some of our hardest-to-serve community members are still living outdoors, and we need to keep seeking creative and new strategies to guide them to a path of wellness and self-sufficiency,” said Jacque Williams, Co-Chair of the MCHSCoC. Some of the highlights from the 2023 PIT count include:

✓ The total number of people living in homeless shelters decreased from 270 individuals in 2022 to 223 individuals in 2023. Please note that the sheltered data in 2022 included individuals living in pandemic-specific sheltering programs that are no longer in operation.
✓ The total number of unsheltered people decreased from 560 individuals in 2022 to 410 individuals in 2023.
✓ 29% of individuals living in shelters are over the age of 55; 16% of those living outdoors are over the age of 55.

About PIT: First conducted in 2005, the PIT count is designed to be an unduplicated count of persons experiencing homelessness on a single night within the last 10 days of January. Communities report the numbers from their counts to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). PIT Count data is used for funding and reporting purposes at both the state and federal level.

These numbers represent merely a point-in-time snapshot and do not reflect the extent of the problem over an entire year. In addition, the PIT Count does not capture individuals and families who are defined as homeless under federal statutes other than HUD. For example, the U.S. Department of Education employs a broader definition of homelessness that includes children in families who are doubled up or living in area motels without a voucher due to economic hardship or housing loss. The PIT Count also does not accurately reflect individuals living in substandard housing that would not be considered habitable by federal standards.

The full PIT report, as well as the MCHSCoC Strategic Plan to Address Homelessness, can be found at www.mendocinococ.org.

NAVARRO RIVER CLIMATE GOALS

Join the Resource Conservation District for a Community Meeting at the Anderson Valley Grange on Saturday November 11th 8:30-12:30 where they explore ways to weave climate ambitions into the Navarro River watershed.

Landowners, vineyard owners/managers, ranchers, and invested community members are encouraged to attend for inspiration and insights as to into how we can all participate in building climate resiliency in the watershed. You will expand your understanding of how the rich natural resources in the Navarro watershed provide opportunities for climate beneficial strategies that help store more carbon, reduce catastrophic wildfire, and contribute to healthier forests, range and agricultural lands, and developed areas as well. 

Presentations and topics covered: Restoring the watershed by increasing our understanding of Historical Ecology; Greenhouse Gas Accounting; Community based Stewardship Actions; and Ways to get involved.

Presented By: Mendocino County Resource Conservation District in partnership with Dogwood Springs Forestry, San Francisco Estuary Institute, Anderson Valley Land Trust, Anderson Valley Winegrowers Association and Anderson Valley Fire Department. Funding has generously been provided by the Environmental Defense Fund. 

For More Information Go To: https://mcrcd.org/project/building-climate-resilience-in-the-navarro-river-watershed

Hear/learn more about this project and the beginnings of a much longer and broader conversation.

MARSHALL NEWMAN (PHOTOS FROM EBAY):

Bourn Landing, north of Gualala, circa 1900. The boom and cables were used to load lumber onto ships.

The lumber mill at Gualala, circa 1900.

HEADWATERS FOREST. I WAS THERE

by Bruce Anderson

The myth of Headwaters Forest began when Greg King, then of Earth First!, ‘discovered’ some 7500 acres of untouched trees not far from Fortuna in Humboldt County.

This miraculously preserved tract of virgin forest had just become the property of an acquisitive, connected Texas-based financer called Charles Hurwitz, a personal friend of Dianne Feinstein and an occasional business partner of Feinstein’s husband, Richard Blum.

Hurwitz, for the purpose of looting Northcoast forests, called his new holdings Maxxam, out of which he managed to max the 7500 acres out for a quarter billion tax dollars, a deal brought off by Feinstein, Bill Clinton, and an array of local environmental groups.

I think it was King who called the un-logged 7500 acres “Headwaters” because the South Fork of Eel and Salmon Creek bubble to life in the heart of the forest.

Not many people had hiked into Headwaters when it was first preserved because access was an old logging road to the west that went up and up. An easier route is on the northeast side these days, and the whole show is managed by the BLM.

The road up to Headwaters from its western perimeter is much more difficult than is suggested in the vague Bureau of Land Management’s handout. What the BLM variously describes as a “walk” in one sentence is a walk with “severe” hills, six miles up, six miles down. get there and six miles down to get back to the parking area.

We assembled at the late Alexander Cockburn’s house in Petrolia for what was strictly billed as a 6:30am departure. Punctuality being my sole remaining virtue, I was there at six, rarin’ to go. 

Our caravan got underway at 9:30am. Not that I cared, really, because I hike a lot and am prepared for most physical trials short of fire walks and school board meetings. But I remembered that the last trek organized by Cockburn down the Lost Coast he’d also billed as a “walk.” I had anticipated a long but leisurely stroll along an ocean trail running from Petrolia south to the bizarre, marooned suburb of Shelter Cove, but which turned out to be a three-day, thirty mile slog straight down the beach, interrupted only by harrowing dashes around slippery boulders half-submerged on ominously fast incoming tides. 

That adventure took me a week to recover from, but was more than redeemed by the liquid evenings around the camp fire with Cockburn and Joe and Karen Paff. And the King Range terrain running steeply on down to the Pacific is memorably beautiful. Everyone should do it. Once. I’ve done it twice, the second time with Cockburn on the up and down inland trail.

On the Headwaters trek, our expedition saw only ten other hikers; one of them was a young woman by herself who seemed to emerge from her car, shrug into a back pack and truck on by to the trail all in one motion. She was later seen staring wistfully west from the clearcut entry to Headwater 7500 acres, “saved” from the villainous Charles Hurwitz for half a billion tax dollars. The only other people we saw was a ten-person Bay Area Sierra Club chapter whose average age seemed to be about 65 — a vigorous 65, to be sure.

When a government bureaucrat says a walk is a walk, I always assume he’s assuring the Winnebago People that they too can enjoy an amble through a purple mountain’s majesty, complete with wheelchair access for gran and her poodle. With Headwaters now being managed by BLM, I figured “severe” probably meant at most a couple hundred yards of mild incline of the type the Winnebago People could brag about having alpined as if they’d mastered the climb with ropes and pitons. On the other hand, it was possible that severe meant severe. Words occasionally still have precise meanings. 

Our party consisted of Joe and Karen Paff; Cockburn’s young nieces Chloe and Olivia, the latter later becoming a major movie star; Dan Weaver and his daughter Liz. Joe and Karen produce Gold Rush Coffee, the west’s best; Chloe was a student at Harvard — she was reading a 900-page art history tome as we stood around waiting for the wagonmaster to provision himself; Olivia was still in high school; Dan Weaver a former Navy fighter pilot who is now an investigator with the Pacific Justice Center; and Weaver’s daughter Liz who lives with her family in Manhattan Beach. The Cockburn nieces were spending some quality time with Uncle Cockburn in Petrolia. Their home is in Washington, D.C. They didn’t seem at all dragged spending a long day with Uncle Alex’s AARP-qualified friends. 

We drove up through a thick fog on the ridges above Petrolia (Petrolia itself is oddly free of the wintery summer weather lingering above it) through Ferndale, the eerily tidy little tourist trap, and on east to highway 101. To get to the Headwaters trail you turn off onto Elk River Road only two miles south of the Eureka city limits. Drive east about five miles to the end of semi-rural Elk Creek Road, and there’s the BLM’s parking lot, a work still in progress that day, but one complete with heart of redwood comment boxes, a huge porta potty through whose barn-size door a non-ambulatory handicapped person could drive his entire bed and the usual fine print postings the government tacks up everywhere to incite people to vandalism out of outrage at them.

Severe meant severe. Headwaters is not an easy 12-mile roundtrip. It’s a hard hike mostly up hill. Fortunately, the day was cool so the gruel factor faced by our group was not as great as the hike would be on a warm day. But it’s not a walk in a park. Round trip the trek to Headwaters is closer to 12 miles by the time you get up to the massive clearcut (maybe five years old and beginning to come back fairly well, to these inexpert eyes anyway) bordering the virgin set aside. 

Headwaters was worth the effort.The logging road through the second and third growth forest on the trudge up to Headwaters is very pretty. In between wheezes we were all able to chat about everything from the latest film version of Lolita — unanimous thumbs down — to thermal imaging, Dan Weaver’s area of expertise in his second career as an investigator on pot cases. Dan also sits on BLM’s advisory board, which seemed to account for the wariness of a pair of BLM employees we met at the top of the hill. The uniformed young woman said she was there every day to monitor the foot traffic in and out of the forest. She cautioned us not to disturb nesting murrelets high atop the redwoods. Weaver said later that old loggers called murrelets “fog larks,” a much better name for the seldom seen sea birds.

The youngish man with the young BLM woman, not in uniform, said he was from BLM’s Arcata office and was present to repair unauthorized trails into the acres of untouched trees forged by “Earth First!ers.” Earth First! has a reputation for mischief out of all proportion to its mostly helpful deeds.

Headwaters Forest is exactly due east of the decommissioned nuclear power plant on Humboldt Bay just south of Eureka. If you stood on 101 looking east through binoculars you could see Headwaters old trees looming up about 15 miles out.

When we all gathered in the massive clearcut slashed right to the edge of the preserved acres, lunch was unpacked and thirty minutes of cynical speculation ensued on the inflated purchase price of the 7,500 acres, and how the clearcut was probably the negotiating equivalent of a severed ear mailed off with the ransom demand. “You see what we’ll do to your Headwaters if you don’t cough up $500 mil, you sniveling druids?” Hurwtiz snarls, revving his chainsaw. “Oh please, Mr. Hurwitz. Don’t kill the trees. We’ll give you anything you want — Darryl Cherney, the Social Security fund, the Sierra Club, Fortuna. You name it, Mr. Hurwitz.”

I’d better say that I twice penetrated the actual forest. The first time I walked about twenty feet in by myself and decided that maybe Ron Reagan’s infamous remark that “You’ve seen one redwood, you’ve seen them all” wasn’t as callous as it first seemed. I’ve seen mammoth redwoods right here in Boonville at Catherine Eubanks grove, and I’ve seen the big boys at Hendy Woods and Rockefeller Grove. But the one I might die for is the massive single redwood about a quarter mile from Navarro on out towards the Coast, more majestic somehow in its single solitude than a grove of redwoods, a magic survivor twenty feet from Highway 128.

Cockburn appeared as I had just sat down to enjoy an apple. He demanded I accompany him on a second Headwaters recon. Since he had the flask of scotch, I had to do what he said. We got about thirty feet in this time, wondered where the really big trees were, turned around and headed back for the security of the clearcut and lunch.

As we straggled back down the hill, we passed the mostly elderly chapter of the Bay Area Sierra Club. The older people looked unphased by the hike. One old boy wanted to know if he thought it was wise to move to Eureka. “Are there any hiking clubs around here?” he demanded. An older woman, who had yet to see the Headwaters purchase, said whatever Headwaters had cost it was worth it. She burbled on about all the wonderful Northcoast activists who had made the deal possible, and wasn’t it wonderful to live in an area where there were so many people who would step up to the plate for the wild things. Our group exchanged embarrassed looks, none of us wanting to shatter the old girl’s fantasy.

I’d do that hike again, but only with the same group of congenial people. The trees seemed to be there, alright, confirming that the only way to preserve the natural world is to buy it from the Hurwitzs of America.

CATCH OF THE DAY, Tuesday, October 31, 2023

ROBERT CHILD, Fortuna/Ukiah. Registration tampering.

JASON COLSON, Fort Bragg. Probation revocation.

JENNY COSTELLO, Ukiah. DUI.

BENJAMIN DIMMICK, Eureka. Failure to appear.

MARIA ESPINOZA-MIRELES, Nice/Ukiah. Witness intimidation.

JAMES HOFFMAN SR., Ukiah. Parole violation.

CHRISTOPHER KEYES, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

JESSE MARTINEZ, Caspar. DUI with priors, suspended license for DUI, DUI while on court probation, probation revocation.

DAMON MONTHEI, Ukiah. Domestic battery, battery with serious injury.

ORLANDO MUNOZ, Ukiah. Controlled substance, disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs.

DANIEL PARKER, Hopland. Probation revocation.

SCOTT STONE, Conway, South Carolina/Ukiah. Probation revocation.

VICTOR VARGAS, Ukiah. Domestic abuse, assault with stun gun, assault with deadly weapon with great bodily injury, criminal threats.

BOONVILLE OLD TIMER: Anyone remember these plates of the old high school? I think they were used to raise money for something. Brings back memories.

SKELETON(S) IN THEIR CLOSET

Dear Editor,

Years ago I never gave this much thought(s) until Covid-19. Now I suspect thing(s) are much more (Prominent) than I ever imagined. I recall one minister who had ladies’ clothes in said closet. So the adage is necessary what is ignored in self or one(s) own life has to be seen, recognized and resolved. And if it cannot be cleared up, file a request for professional services! Ha lol. In some cases not so funny.

Sincerely yours 

Greg Crawford

Fort Bragg

PS: On This Hollow’s Eve ? What Lurks in your hidden closet kept away from prying eyes?

49ERS GET WASHINGTON’S CHASE YOUNG, REINFORCE DEFENSE AT NFL TRADE DEADLINE

by Eric Branch

The San Francisco 49ers traded for a pass rusher Tuesday to complement Nick Bosa, the No. 2 pick in the 2019 NFL draft from Ohio State. And Bosa’s new partner is an old buddy: Chase Young, the No. 2 pick in the 2020 draft from Ohio State.

The 49ers traded a compensatory third-round pick to acquire Young, 24, from the Commanders shortly before the 1 p.m. trade deadline, a league source said. Young, the 2020 Defensive Rookie of the Year, has five sacks and nine quarterback hits this season after missing 22 of 34 games the previous two seasons because of a torn ACL that required reconstructive surgery.

Despite trading for Denver pass rusher Randy Gregory on Oct. 6, the 49ers were still viewed as a strong candidate to add to a defensive line that has been oddly ineffective this season. The 49ers (5-3) have 18 sacks, tied for 18th in the league, despite employing Bosa — the NFL’s reigning Defensive Player of the Year — and big-money defensive tackles Javon Hargrave and Arik Armstead.

The 49ers are on a three-game losing streak and have just three sacks in their past two losses. Two Pro Bowl QBs, Minnesota’s Kirk Cousins and Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow, completed 81.8% (63 of 77) of their passes for 661 yards with five touchdowns, one interception and a 118.7 passer rating.

The 49ers hope Young can change that, for at least nine regular-season games and into the postseason. Young is in the final year of his rookie contract after Washington did not pick up his fifth-year option in the offseason.

If Young is just a 2023 rental, however, the price for the 49ers could be modest. Young will count about $600,000 against the salary cap for the remainder of this season and he could net the 49ers a 2025 third-round compensatory pick if he signs elsewhere after the season.

The 49ers are still projected to have 11 picks in the 2024 draft, with two selections in the third, fourth, fifth and seventh rounds.

Young was sidelined for 13 months after undergoing knee surgery in November 2021, which involved using a graft from his left patellar tendon to reconstruct the ACL in his right knee. He played in the final three games of the 2022 season, recording no sacks and one QB hit while playing 115 snaps.

In 2023, Young has come closer to approximating the form from his rookie season, when he had 7.5 sacks, four forced fumbles and earned Pro Bowl honors.

Bosa and Young were teammates at Ohio State for two seasons, although Bosa was limited to three games in their final season together in 2018. The 49ers hope their reunion will re-ignite the full measure of the disruptiveness Bosa had last season, when he had an NFL-high 18.5 sacks.

Bosa leads the league in QB hits with 19, but with just three sacks, he’s on pace for six this season. He typically has been paired with edge rushers Clelin Ferrell (signed in March), and Drake Jackson, a 2022 second-round pick.

Ferrell, the No. 4 pick in 2019, has a half-sack and seven QB hits in 273 snaps this season. Jackson, who has played 199 snaps, has three sacks and three QB hits, none since the season opener. The 49ers acquired Gregory in a swap of late-round draft picks and he has provided some off-the-bench pressure in his three-game tenure (1 sack, 4 QB hits).

However, the addition of Young is a major move the 49ers hope can help reverse their fortunes in a season that began with a 5-0 start in which they allowed 13.6 points and 266.8 yards. They have allowed 24 points and 395.3 yards during their losing streak, and first-year defensive coordinator Steve Wilks has come under scrutiny for the performance of a unit that added Hargrave after allowing the fewest points and yards in the NFL last season.

On Tuesday, seven months after signing Hargrave, the 49ers added another Pro Bowl player to their defensive front.

With the trade deadline passed, it’s likely the last significant move they can make to generate more pass-rush pressure. With Young now on board, of course, it would be problematic if they needed to make another.

(SF Chronicle)

”PUNK” is used today as a word to Booster Sales of all sorts of things. It’s Totally Insane. We Were Hated Back in the 70s & 80s! And were at war with everyone, In LA Just Walking Down the Street Alone Was Sure to Get Your self attacked by The LAPD, HBPD, Jocks, or Vigilantes....We Weren’t out To Get Accepted Like The Hippies Were, We Wanted To Be & Stay Apart From This Poisionious Society!....(Raven Maniac, HB: 1979-81){ps got all Brenda Perlin’s Books so far, Great Stuff!)

– Raven Stine

AMONG THE MANY WHALE STORIES Nora Nickum offers in her new book ‘Superpod: Saving the Endangered Orcas of the Pacific Northwest,’ my favorite—and an indelible example of orca emotional complexity—is that of Tahlequah, an orca now 25 years old. In 2018, having already given birth to one healthy calf, she bore another—tail-first, as whales are always born, in order for the cold water to harden the tail and fin to prepare them for immediate swimming, since they must swim to the surface to take their first breath. But this baby took only a few breaths and then died. It lived at most 30 minutes.

Tahlequah, however, kept the 400-pound dead baby with her, balancing it on her head and periodically raising it up to the surface to breathe; sometimes she carried it on her back or in her mouth. She seemed to lack the energy to eat. People all over the world came to know of this grieving mother and, through her story, of orca individuality and complexity.

From time to time, she was seen without the baby, most likely because other orcas of her pod were helping her bear the burden. She traveled more than a thousand miles before, on the 17th day, she let it go, whether because her mourning had reached a new phase or because the body had begun to decompose. She regained her strength, and two years later she bore a healthy calf, named Phoenix by the researchers because he had in a way risen from the ashes of her mourning.

— Martha Nussbaum (NY Review of Books)

JEFF GOLL: another good, packed issue today with: Dennis Kucinich imploring for a "new movement for Human and Ecological Security." Ecologically, don't people and the "environmentalists" realize how much pollution and destruction of the air, land and sea these wars are creating? Ralph Nader pointing out the omissions from MSM concerning the creation of Hamas and the stunning failure to prevent the initial attack against Israel's "unparalleled electronic surveillance." James Kunstler's defence of Israel and Norman Solomon's description of the lopsidedness of destruction in Palestine and the overwhelming support from Biden and Congress for Israel. The deplorable debacles in Ukraine and the Middle-East truly are the Halloween horror story.

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

No one is going to change a person’s mind as to the goings-on in the Middle East. If you are anti-Israel, you will still be anti-Israel after this is over, one way or the other. If you are pro-Israel, you will remain pro-Israel. Therefore, I will not waste any more of my remaining limited time on Earth getting involved in these types of discussions unless someone really, really irks me a lot. Even then, maybe not.

All I can do in my own little world is to try to set things up to protect myself and my loved ones as best I can against the coming conflict in America.

Just fyi, if you don’t already know, I am pro-Israel, but as long as it doesn’t affect my quotidian life I will remain out of it.

ISRAEL V. GAZA

Israel said it targeted Hamas militants Tuesday in northern Gaza, and Hamas and hospital officials said the airstrikes killed and wounded many and leveled part of the Jabaliya neighborhood.

The Gaza Health Ministry, which is controlled by Hamas, said the Israeli strikes killed and wounded “hundreds,” a statement that could not be immediately verified. A doctor at a nearby hospital, Dr. Marwan Sultan, said the facility was receiving hundreds of injured and that dozens were dead.

Israel’s military said in a statement that its fighter jets, in a “wide-scale” attack, had struck Hamas militants, including a commander who helped plan the Oct. 7 massacre that left 1,400 people dead, mostly civilians.

“His elimination was carried out as part of a wide-scale strike on terrorists and terror infrastructure belonging to the Central Jabaliya Battalion, which had taken control over civilian buildings in Gaza City,” the military said.

It reiterated a warning for Gazans to evacuate south, a call that came as Israeli ground troops and tanks pushed deeper into the Gaza Strip and were edging closer to the territory’s main city. More than half the population of two million people has been displaced since Israel expanded a blockade of the enclave in response to the Hamas attacks.

Humanitarian officials have warned that Palestinian civilians face a growing catastrophe. “The scale of the horror people are experiencing in Gaza is really hard to convey,” Martin Griffiths, the U.N.’s chief official for humanitarian and relief affairs, said in a statement on Monday. “People are becoming increasingly desperate, as they search for food, water and shelter amid the relentless bombing campaign that is wiping out whole families and entire neighborhoods.”

Here’s what else to know:

Photos, satellite images and videos verified by The New York Times showed formations of troops and armored vehicles approaching Gaza City and nearby population centers from the north, east and south.

The Pentagon said that American commandos were on the ground in Israel to help locate the more than 200 hostages seized during the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks.

Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, warned on Tuesday that the violence between Israel and Hamas had raised the potential for an attack against Americans in the United States to “a whole other level.” He said that the bureau assessed that “the actions of Hamas and its allies will serve as an inspiration the likes of which we haven’t seen since ISIS launched its so-called caliphate several years ago,” referring to the Islamic State.

The World Health Organization said that services had been “severely reduced” at the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, Gaza’s only cancer center, after “extremely concerning reports of airstrikes” in its vicinity over the last two days.

Late Tuesday, federal prosecutors in New York said they had arrested Patrick Dai, a 21-year-old Cornell University junior, in connection with threats of violence against Jewish students at the university over the weekend. Dai was charged with posting threats to kill or injure another using interstate communications. He was expected to make an initial court appearance on Wednesday.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken spoke with Isaac Herzog, the president of Israel, on Tuesday and, while acknowledging Israel’s right to defend itself, “emphasized the need to take feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians,” the State Department said.

The two also “discussed efforts to safeguard U.S. citizens in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza; continue working tirelessly to bring hostages home; increase urgently the pace and volume of humanitarian assistance that is entering Gaza for distribution to Palestinian civilians; and prevent the conflict from spreading,” the department said.

On the far side of the Sinai Peninsula, about a six-hour drive from Cairo through a largely empty Egyptian desert, the Rafah crossing is a dun-colored expanse of sand, concrete and not much else. Isolated from the rest of the Egypt by not only distance but also heavy military restriction, Rafah can feel as distant from world events as any place on the planet.

Yet over the last three weeks of Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza, Rafah has become the focus of heated negotiations, a place where many people, both powerful and powerless, have pinned their waning hopes. With Israel imposing a suffocating siege on the densely populated enclave, Rafah has become the only entry into the strip for aid to get to its population of 2.3 million people. So far, nothing and no one has been able to come out of Gaza. — NYT

But that may soon change: Egypt told the Gazan authorities that it would take in 81 seriously wounded people from Gaza and treat them in Egyptian hospitals on Wednesday, according to a statement from Gaza’s General Authority for Crossings and Borders.

Egypt’s control of the Rafah crossing has given it prominent status as one of Gaza’s main benefactors and an important player in the conflict, a position that analysts say could help it unlock more international financial support amid a crushing economic crisis in the North African nation. Egypt highlighted that role on Tuesday, when the government took reporters on a tightly controlled trip to Rafah.

Aid trucks and army tanks lined the dusty road leading to the crossing. Dozens of volunteers from government-sponsored aid groups and the Egyptian Red Crescent milled about. Several ambulances sat just inside the huge archway framing the crossing.

“From the very first minute, we’ve been sending convoys of assistance from our organizations, and volunteers have been staying here around the clock for days,” Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said in a short news conference, as crowds of volunteers carrying Egyptian flags and pro-Palestinian signs gathered to listen. “Egypt has shouldered the burden of the Palestinian issue for years.”

Yet, partly because of factors beyond Egypt’s control, Rafah can meet only a fraction of Gaza’s needs. Just 241 trucks of aid have reached Gaza since its gates opened two weeks ago after negotiations between the United States, Israel, Egypt and the U.N., a paltry number given the scale of the humanitarian need, aid officials say.

Israel, which is carrying out stringent inspections of aid trucks, had been the main player slowing the process, according to the U.N., the European Union, and Egyptian and U.S. officials. But Israel has now agreed to allow in about 80 trucks per day, according to two Western diplomats briefed on the negotiations, still short of the 100 per day the U.N. says are needed.

On Tuesday, 83 trucks arrived in Gaza, said Wael Abu Omar, a spokesman for the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing.

David M. Satterfield, the U.S. special envoy assigned to shepherd humanitarian issues in the conflict, said in Cairo on Sunday that aid needed to flow far more quickly in order to show increasingly distressed Gazans that they did not need to resort to looting U.N. warehouses for sustenance, as happened several days ago.

“This is a society on edge and desperate,” he said, adding that agencies distributing assistance “must be able to demonstrate that aid is not episodic.”

Negotiators have also been pressing to evacuate people in Gaza who hold foreign passports and their families, along with staff of foreign embassies and international organizations. Over the past three weeks, people have rushed to the Gaza side of the gate multiple times after being told they could cross, only to find it shut. The United States has publicly blamed Hamas, the political and military organization that controls the enclave, while Egypt has publicly blamed Israel, saying it has made the crossing unsafe by repeatedly bombing the Gaza side.

But nobody is publicly blaming Egypt, though Western diplomats involved in the evacuation effort say that Egypt’s fears — including that a throng of desperate people could try to break through to Egypt as soon as the gate opens — are also playing a role in foreign nationals’ continued inability to evacuate.

There is still a chance that an agreement could come together for people with foreign passports to leave. But Egypt has made clear that it would not accept large numbers of Palestinian refugees on its soil, a proposal that some in the international community, including Israel, have reportedly floated. Mr. Madbouly categorically rejected such an idea, as did volunteers at the gate.

“No, no, no, it’s not a solution, and I refuse this solution,” said Mustafa Mouftah, 30, a university lecturer from the nearby Egyptian city of El Arish who started volunteering as a translator at Rafah a week ago. “This is our land, and we love this land.”

Mr. Satterfield said on Sunday that the United States also did not consider it to be an option, saying that the Biden administration respected Egypt’s sovereignty and that it believed that “the future of the Palestinian people of Gaza is in Gaza.”

AND JUST IN:

Egypt was set to receive hundreds of foreign passport holders and seriously wounded Palestinians through its border crossing with Gaza on Wednesday morning, the first such departure out of the battered territory since the war between Hamas and Israel began more than three weeks ago, according to Western diplomats in Cairo and Jerusalem and the Gaza authorities.

Photos showed people moving through a gate on the Gaza side of the Rafah border crossing and walking toward the gate leading into Egypt. The crossing has been the focus of heated international negotiations as the only possible escape route, as well as the only entry point for relief supplies, as Israel has continued its three-week bombing campaign, sealed off other crossings and sent troops deep into the 140-square-mile enclave.

(NY Times)

UKRAINE, TUESDAY, 31 OCTOBER

The U.S. rejected accusations by Russian President Vladimir Putin that the West and Ukraine had orchestrated an anti-Israel riot in an airport in the Russian republic of Dagestan over the weekend, calling the allegations “absurd.”

In a televised meeting, Putin said the West and Ukraine had organized the “deadly chaos,” saying it is “the current ruling elites of the U.S. and their satellites who are the main beneficiaries of world instability.”

John Kirby, spokesperson for the U.S. National Security Council, described the claims as “classic Russian rhetoric” and said “the West had nothing to do with this. This is just hate, bigotry and intimidation, pure and simple.”

Ukraine also rejected having any role in the incident — which saw an angry mob storm the airport in Makhachkala, reportedly looking for passengers arriving on a flight from Tel Aviv. Antisemitic slogans were chanted by some of the protesters and a plane was surrounded, with passengers having their documents taken.

Russia is feeling more pressure to confront rising ethnic tensions in the country and is also having to navigate tricky alliances in the Middle East; it’s allied with Israel’s sworn enemy Iran but enjoys constructive ties with Israel. Since Israel declared war on Iran-backed Hamas, its loyalties have been divided.

— CNBC

THE AFTERLIFE: A TRICK OR A TREAT? Halloween Celebrations Past and Present

by Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin

We make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones.

– Stephen King.

Halloween is creeping up on us again replete with all its ghostly traditions celebrated all over the world. 

Also known as All Saints’ Eve, it is the time in the liturgical year or Christian year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all the faithful departed. It is followed by All Saints’ Day, also known as All Hallows’ Day on the 1 November, and All Souls’ Day, a day of prayer and remembrance for the faithful departed, observed by certain Christian denominations on 2 November.

However, it is also believed that Halloween is rooted in the ancient pagan Gaelic festival of Samhain which marks the change of seasons and the approach of winter. Samhain begins at sunset on October 31 and continues until sunset on November 1, marking the end of harvest and the start of winter. This Celtic pagan holiday followed the great cycle of life as part of their year-round celebrations of nature along with Imbolc (February 1), Beltane (May 1) and Lughnasadh (August 1).

During Samhain people would:

“bring their cattle back from the summer pastures and slaughter livestock in preparation for the upcoming winter. They would also light ritual bonfires for protection and cleansing as they wished to mimic the sun and hold back the darkness. It was also a time when people believed that spirits or fairies (the Aos Sí ) were more likely to pass into our world. […] Dead and departed relatives played a central role in the tradition, as the connection between the living and dead was believed to be stronger at Samhain, and there was a chance to communicate. Souls of the deceased were thought to return to their homes. Feasts were held and places were set at tables as a way to welcome them home. Food and drink was offered to the unpredictable spirits and fairies to ensure continued health and good fortune.”

The Celts believed in an afterlife called the Otherworld which was similar to this life but “without all the negative elements like disease, pain, and sorrow.” 

Therefore, the Celts had little to fear from death when their soul left their body, or as the Celts believed, their head. 

As Christianity spread in pagan communities, the church leaders attempted to incorporate Samhain into the Christian calendar. The Roman Empire had conquered the majority of Celtic lands by A.D. 43 and combined two Roman festivals, Feralia and Pomona with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain. Feralia was similar to Samhain as the Romans commemorated the passing of their dead, while Pomona, whose symbol was the apple, was the Roman goddess of fruit and trees, and may be the origin of the apple games of Halloween.

Some centuries later the church moved again to supplant the pagan traditions with Christian ones:

“On May 13, A.D. 609, Pope Boniface IV dedicated the Pantheon in Rome in honor of all Christian martyrs, and the Catholic feast of All Martyrs Day was established in the Western church. Pope Gregory III later expanded the festival to include all saints as well as all martyrs, and moved the observance from May 13 to November 1. By the 9th century, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands, where it gradually blended with and supplanted older Celtic rites. In A.D. 1000, the church made November 2 All Souls’ Day, a day to honor the dead.”

While on the surface the changes from the Celtic Otherworld to the Christian concepts of Heaven, Purgatory and Hell may not seem very radical yet when one looks further into the different beliefs about the afterlife a very different story emerges. 

The Otherworld

The Celtic Otherworld is “more usually described as a paradisal fairyland than a scary place” and sometimes described as an island to the west in the Ocean and “even shown on some maps of Ireland during the medieval era.” It has been called, or places in the Otherworld have been called, “Tír nAill (“the other land”), Tír Tairngire (“land of promise/promised land”), Tír na nÓg (“land of the young/land of youth”), Tír fo Thuinn (“land under the wave”), Tír na mBeo (“land of the living”), Mag Mell (“plain of delight”), Mag Findargat (“the white-silver plain”), Mag Argatnél (“the silver-cloud plain”), Mag Ildathach (“the multicoloured plain”), Mag Cíuin (“the gentle plain”), and Emain Ablach (possibly “isle of apples”).”

As can be seen from the names given to the places of the Otherworld there are two important, salient points. One is the positive, almost welcoming aspect of the descriptions implied, and secondly their close relationship with nature and places in the real world. The Otherworld is described “either as a parallel world that exists alongside our own, or as a heavenly land beyond the sea or under the earth,” and could be entered through “ancient burial mounds or caves, or by going under water or across the western sea.” 

We may then ask who could enter the Otherworld in the afterlife? 

“Although there are no surviving texts from the continent which comment on this, on the basis of comparisons with comparable societies and burial practices we can guess that both the gods and the ancestral dead were believed to inhabit the Otherworld. The earliest literary texts in Irish reflect exactly this idea.”

These deductions about the afterlife then reflect the nature-based ideology of pagan religion which is focused on the cycles of nature, and also the fact that we ourselves are part of that nature, thus both the ancestral dead and the gods inhabited the Otherworld. It seems that the dead entered the Otherworld fairly quickly and could even return to visit the living when the darkness started to take over from the light at Samhain. Even the living could visit the Otherworld but these visits would have their own drawbacks, for example, Oisín discovers that what had only seemed a short stay in Tír na nÓg had been hundreds of years in the real world.

Christian heaven, hell, and purgatory

The differences between nature-based paganism and the Master and Martyr ethics of Christianity mean that entry to heaven is not guaranteed and may even be delayed for a long time in purgatory. For example:

“Christianity considers the Second Coming of Jesus Christ to entail the final judgment by God of all people who have ever lived, resulting in the approval of some and the penalizing of most. […] Belief in the Last Judgment (often linked with the general judgment) is held firmly in Catholicism. Immediately upon death each person undergoes the particular judgment, and depending upon one’s behavior on earth, goes to heaven, purgatory, or hell. Those in purgatory will always reach heaven, but those in hell will be there eternally.” 

Hell is often depicted with fire and torture of the guilty. Thus, Christianity brings a strong element of fear into perceptions of the afterlife. The people whose behavior needs to be controlled are frightened into being good and given long promises about eventual eternal bliss at the end of time. 

The patriarchal element of Christianity and its desire to control and direct the remnants of pagan religion gave rise to other important aspects of Halloween. The dark symbolism of witches on broomsticks with black cats are an essential element of the Halloween imagery. By late medieval/early modern Europe, fears about witchcraft rose to fever pitch and sometimes led to large-scale witch-hunts. The Church saw these women (whose knowledge of nature was transformed into healing homoeopathic treatments) as a threat to their authority and demonised them before their own communities. 

The witches “occasionally functioned as midwives, assisting the delivery and birth of babies, aiding the mother with different plant-based medicines to help with the pain of childbirth. […] The word Witch comes from the word for ‘wise one’ that was ‘Wicca’, and who were once considered wise soon became something to be feared and avoided.”

Like many traditional festivals, Halloween has different historical sources, pagan and Christian, that have come together to form the holiday as we know it today.

Jack-o’-lantern 

Jack-o’-lantern represents the soul caught between heaven and hell who can know no rest and must wander on the earth forever. It is believed to originate in an old Irish folk tale from the mid-18th century which tells of Stingy Jack, “a lazy yet shrewd blacksmith who uses a cross to trap Satan.”

Jack tricks Satan who lets him go only after he agrees to never take his soul. When the blacksmith dies he is considered too sinful to enter heaven. He could not enter hell either and asks Satan how he will be able to see his way in the dark. Satan’s response was to toss him “a burning coal, to light his way. Jack carved out one of his turnips (which were his favorite food), put the coal inside it, and began endlessly wandering the Earth for a resting place.” 

The Irish emigrants to the United States are believed to have switched the turnip for a pumpkin as it was more accessible and easier to carve. Ironically, in Ireland now, pumpkins are grown and sold to make modern Jack-o’-lanterns.

Door-to-Door traditions

Another American tradition, trick-or-treating, has also taken root in Ireland in recent decades. As a child growing up in the United States, I also went trick-or-treating in Boston. However, after our move to Dublin, our trick-or-treating questions at Halloween were met with bewilderment as Irish people were used to a simple request for ‘anything for the Halloween party’. 

The tradition of going door to door on Halloween may come from the belief that supernatural beings, or the souls of the dead, roamed the earth at this time and needed to be appeased. In Europe, from the 12th century, special ‘soul cakes’ would be baked and shared. People would pray for the poor souls of the dead (in purgatory) in return for soul cakes. In Ireland and Scotland “mumming and guising (going door-to-door in disguise and performing in exchange for food) was taken up as another variation on these ancient customs. Pranks were thought to be a way of confounding evil spirits. Pranks at Samhain date as far back as 1736 in Scotland and Ireland, and this led to Samhain being dubbed ‘Mischief Night.’”

Antrobus Soul Cakers at the end of a performance in a village hall in or near Antrobus, Cheshire, England in the mid-1970s. The Soul Cakers are a traditional group of mummers, who perform around All Soul’s Day (October 31st, Hallowe’en) each year. The characters are (left to right) Beelzebub, Doctor, Black Prince, Letter-In, Dairy Doubt, King George, Driver, Old Lady, and Dick, the Wild Horse in the foreground.

It has also been suggested that trick-or-treating “evolved from a tradition whereby people impersonated the spirits, or the souls of the dead, and received offerings on their behalf.” It was thought that they “personify the old spirits of the winter, who demanded reward in exchange for good fortune”. Impersonating these spirits or souls was believed to protect oneself from them. 

Thus, while Halloween may have become highly commercialised in recent years it is still an important custom that brings people and families together in their communities. It still marks an important part of the annual cycles of nature as the bountifulness of harvestime is contrasted with the bareness of winter. It prepares us psychologically for the dark days ahead. In the past Halloween allowed people to celebrate the completion of the work of life (the production of food) to having the time to contemplate the absence of their forebears: the people who gave them life, nurtured them, and taught them the skills of survival. It is a time to make the young generation aware of their parents’ temporary existence too, in a fun way.

Halloween is a time for confronting our basic fears about death and darkness. It is a time to remember the ancestral spirits of past generations who have ‘passed’ (a word that has become more popular than ‘died’ in recent years) through the thin veil between life and death. And, most importantly, a time to rethink our relationship with nature. 

(Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin is an Irish artist who has exhibited widely around Ireland. His work consists of paintings based on cityscapes of Dublin, Irish history and geopolitical themes. His blog of critical writing based on cinema, art and politics along with research on a database of Realist and Social Realist art from around the world can be viewed country by country at http://gaelart.blogspot.ie/.)