Mendocino County Today: Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023

OUR WEBHOST SUFFERED AN OUTAGE this morning which greatly delayed the posting of this MCT. We apologize for the delay.

LIGHT TO MODERATE RAIN is spreading through the region today. Another round of heavier rainfall is then expected Friday evening and Saturday. The extended pattern into early next week will remain active and rainy. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): On the coast this Thursday morning I have a mostly cloudy 46F. We have rain chances many days ahead but the amounts seem to have come down a lot. We'll see ? There is plenty of moisture out there, it just depends how far south the jet stream dips to bring us rain.

STORM MONITOR: Rain Forecast Changing. Today's satellite images, when put in motion, suggest the line of storms is veering north, hitting northern Oregon and Washington and by-passing NoCal. While it is still possible the track could shift somewhat south again, its present course looks to have significant momentum. and leave us with, at best, a few sprinkles, at least so far as the leading front goes. There are several other storms lined up, but the entire entourage looks like a dog pulling some wagons. We should know better tomorrow morning, but right now, I am dubious about any promised rain totals. (“Notty Bumbo” Mendocino)

---

AV FOOTBALL @ POTTER VALLEY, regular season finale, 6pm Friday Night

HALLOWEEN AT AV ELEMENTARY: Sugar skulls, elementary parade and art

A PUBLIC MONEY WATCHER

Editor,

Two weeks ago Chamise Cubbison, Mendocino County's Auditor-Controller Treasurer-Tax Collector, was suspended from her elected office without salary or benefits.

I am very upset. I voted for Chamise Cubbison for Auditor-Controller/Treasurer-Tax Collector in 2022. Chamise Cubbison was elected. She earned 15,286 votes. (More than the District Attorney)

Now the Mendocino Board of Supervisors is taking away our right to have an independent auditor. We voted for Chamise Cubbison and now she is replaced by a person appointed by the Board. Who will do the independent audits of The Board, the CEO’S office and District Attorney’s Offices as well as many school districts. Who is watching the money?

Chamise Cubbison was elected by the citizens of Mendocino County in June 2022. We have a right to be represented by an elected auditor and not someone selected by the Board.

Val Muchowski

Philo

FREDRICK MANUEL BORGES

1943-2023

Fredrick Manuel Borges passed away peacefully at his family home in Redwood Valley on October 14, 2023. Fred would have been 80 years old on November 1st. Fred was born in Arcata, CA in 1943, where he graduated from Arcata High School in 1961 and he served in the National Guard shortly after graduation. He lived in Mendocino County all of his adult life and was known for his skill in handling big rigs.

Fred married Joann – his wife of 45 years in 1978. He loved his family, his truck and his myriad of vintage automobiles. Fred was predeceased by his beloved mother and father Evelyn and Manuel Borges. Fred is survived by his wife Joann, step-son Dennis McGuire, Uncle Alfred Mendes, Aunt Mary Borges, Cousins Terry Aruda, Richard Mendes and several other Cousins in Humboldt County. Fred is also survived by his grandchildren Mike and Matt McGuire and five great grandchildren. He is also survived by his brother-in-law Mike Prather and nephews Erick and Ryan Prather of Montana.

Arrangements are at the direction of Eversole Mortuary – graveside services will be held in Boonville at the Evergreen cemetery at 1:00 pm on 11-11-2023. In lieu of flowers - donations can be made to the Anderson Valley Historical Society.

COVID-19 VACCINATIONS AVAILABLE AT LOCAL PHARMACIES 

Public Health wants to remind everyone to get the latest updated COVID-19 vaccine. COVID-19 vaccinations are available at select local pharmacies for insured patients, including Medi-Cal. Appointments must be made on-line through the pharmacy websites. 

Individuals who have no insurance, or whose insurance does not cover vaccines, can contact Mendocino County Public Health for more information at (707) 472-2700, Monday through Thursday, 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM. 

The pharmacy websites are:
Rite-Aid - https://www.riteaid.com/pharmacy/scheduler
Safeway – https://www.safeway.com/vaccinations/home
CVS – https://www.cvs.com/immunizations/covid-19-vaccine
Walgreens - https://www.walgreens.com/topic/promotion/covid-vaccine.jsp
Walmart Pharmacy - https://www.walmart.com/health-and-wellness/immunization
Costco - https://waitwhile.com/welcome/costcorx-01297

HONORING ELDERS DAY: On October 21st I packed up the family and made the long winding trip over the hill to the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas in Talmage for the “Honoring Elders Day.” Wow, it was well worth the trip – with non-stop entertainment, including the Lion Dance, Dragon Dance and loads of other music. And the tea and food, served by the student’s, was non-stop as well. The welcome and harmony was as vast as their campus, we learned that in addition to their Instilling Goodness and Developing Virtue Schools, there is higher education with the Dharma Realm Buddhist University. According to Wikipedia, it’s one of the largest Buddhist communities in the Western Hemisphere with peacock feathers galore – wow, another gem in Mendocino County!

— Anderson Valley Village November 2023 Newsletter

FORTUNE COOKIE ADVICE FROM SUPERVISOR MCGOURTY

Supervisor Glenn Mcgourty’s Supervisors Report, Tuesday, October 31, 2023:

“I attended the Honoring Elders Day at the City of 10,000 Buddhas. I was honored as an elder which was just really beautiful. The kids sang and performed and danced and it was great to see our Buddhist community of… which is… We have a significant Asian-American and Asian community in the First District. A lot of people don’t realize there are about 600 people. So it was great to not only see them but the rest of the community that came to the event for the day. I talked with them a little bit about… I gave about a four-minute presentation to the students there. I talked about how they are loved, how they… that their education if they learn it they will take it with them wherever they go and they will use it. That virtues are a guideline to being not necessarily good or bad but healthy or unhealthy and to play and have fun because that’s an important part of childhood. So with that my report is over.”

FORMER MENDOCINO COUNTY AG COMMISSIONER DIANE CURRY:

Remember when Supervisor Woodhouse left his post? Since he was an elected official, the Governor had to appoint a new supervisor to take his place. The Board was not able to appoint an interim supervisor. The county was without a third district supervisor for months. I think the same process would have needed to be used for Ms. Cubbison while she was place on administrative leave( paid leave). The Board has made a huge mistake, which is going to cost the county tax payers. They took it upon themselves to be judge, jury and executioner.

When I was working at the county, Ms. Cubbison worked at DOT, I found her to be direct and no nonsense kind of employee.

The New York Times had an article about the power of the DA and how just an accusation from the DA can destroy a person. I feel the DA Eyster has used his power to discredit Ms. Cubbison. Even if she is exonerated through the courts, this incident will leave a huge scare on Ms. Cubbison and her career. Thank you John Haschak for questioning the Boards decision.

Sincerely,

Diane Curry

P.S. Chamise take care of yourself. Now is the time to take support from family and friends. Good luck to you! Looking forward to having you back as Auditor/Controller and Treasurer Tax Collector.

* * *

Stephen Rosenthal replied:

Haschak doesn’t deserve a thank you. He went along with the coup against Cubbison and voted to suspend her without pay or due process. He’s a coward and cut out of the same cloth as the other members of this corrupt BOS.

* * *

‘Lazarus’ of Willits:

No matter how the Cubbison fiasco ends, Ms. Cubbison is damaged goods. This type of accusation will be attached to her for the foreseeable future. The Brass at Low Gap will drag this out as long as possible and make Ms. Cubbison the target of even the most ridiculous innuendos of implied guilt, as the Sups/CEOs appointed Shill did yesterday.

When the Frisco lawyer would not answer Supervisor Haschak’s question about the suspension without pay, I knew they were circling the wagons.

I hope Ms. Cubbison’s lawyer is as good as he seemed yesterday because she will need a good one. This has all the signs of getting really ugly…

Good luck out there. We’re all going to need it.

MENDOCINO COUNTY TO HOLD COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT SESSIONS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INLAND SHORT-TERM RENTAL ORDINANCE 

Online hosting services such as Airbnb, Vrbo, Expedia, and others allow individuals to rent out real property on a short-term basis, commonly known as short-term rentals. Short-term rentals throughout Mendocino County have implications for transient occupancy tax revenues, lodging options, housing stock, and neighborhood stability. Currently, the only short-term rental regulations within the County’s Zoning Ordinance are in its coastal regions, Division II (Coastal Zoning Code) and Division III (Mendocino Town Zoning Code). Despite these existing regulations, there are no explicit short-term rentals regulations for the inland areas of the County captured by Division I of the Zoning Ordinance.

To better address this Mendocino County Department of Planning and Building Services invites you to participate in hybrid and in-person community engagement sessions to learn about and discuss the Inland Short-Term Rental Ordinance process. These public engagement meetings will include an overview presentation, question and answer session, and details on how to provide comments. Planning and Building Staff will be available to answer questions. Public Meeting dates and times are as follows: 

ED NOTES

THE LATE JUDY PRUDEN was the second to last person who cared about Ukiah enough to actively oppose the town's worst architectural impulses. Tommy Wayne Kramer survives and cares enough to complain about our county seat's most egregious offenses. Ukiah city manager, Seldom Seen Sage Sangiacomo, — he's in when he's out, out when he's in — makes ten times the prevailing pauper wage of Mendocino County with little evidence Ukiah is in fact managed. I remember when the redoubtable Ms. Pruden, under the auspices of the County Museum, led a series of historical walking tours of Ukiah. Tour #1 bore the optimistic title “Developing Downtown,” from the railroad depot west into downtown. Pruden promised “a full hour of entertaining insights on Ukiah’s economic and social development.” No one like her since. 

AN ACQUAINTANCE told me recently that the problem of the very poor in the world is unsolvable because there are too many poor people and “there are limits to our resources.” “There’s plenty of money in the world,” I replied, “it’s just badly distributed.” “What do you mean?” she asked. I remembered that a US News & World Report article said that the equivalent of the US Gross National Product was exchanged in world financial markets every three days — completely unregulated — adding, “All we’d have to do is skim a little of that off.” “How much?” she asked. I didn’t know. Meanwhile a UN report was released which said that everyone in the world living below the poverty line (according to local standards of poverty) could be brought up to the poverty line (minimum housing, food, clothes) for about $50 billion a year. Since the US annual Gross National Product is around $8.1 trillion, that would be $1 quadrillion per year. Therefore, $50 billion per year would be only about .005% of the world’s annual financial transactions. Who’d be against a .005% transaction tax on global finance? 

VALLEY TRAFFIC was very bad last weekend — Teslas, Winnebagos, Land Cruzers the size of combat vehicles, and Acuras — zipped through town at unsafe speeds, some of them pausing to slurp an ice cream cone. Downtown parking in Boonville and Philo was difficult, and crossing the street downright dangerous. It’s also getting hard to tell the soft-bodied male tourists from the female tourists. They wear the same things, say the same things, dote on the same repulsive little dogs, scampering at the end of the same expensive leashes. Decadence on the move. 

FROM THE MENDOCINO BEACON of July 1st, 1899: “Superintendent Barbee has furnished the following figures regarding the number of children in Mendocino County: Number of white children between five and seventeen years of age: Boys, 2607; Girls, 2,373. Number of negro children: Boys, 1; Girls, 3. Number of Indian children whose parents or guardians pay taxes or who have severed tribal relations: Boys, 69; Girls, 46. White children under 5 years, 1743; Indian, 41; Mongolian, 1.” 

‘Mongolian,’ circa 1899, meant anything from Asian to Down’s Syndrome, but this glimpse of the ethnic preoccupations of those times is a measure of how far we've come in matters of ethnic identifications, rhetorically anyway. 

AN OLDER OLD TIMER wrote in to say that the persecution of Chamise Cubbison by the Mendo supervisors acting on behalf of a vengeful DA whose dubious reimbursement claims the scrupulous Ms. Cubbison had challenged, reminded him of the famous War of the Warrants involving the late, great, Oscar Klee. 

KLEE was an aggressive populist whose tenure on the board of supervisors and as judge of the Ten Mile Court was stormy, to say the least. A logger handy with his fists in his youth, Klee was one fisted after a logging accident severed one of his arms. An autodidact, Klee studied law on his own and became a justice court judge. He was eventually imprisoned for tax evasion, which really wasn't evasion because Klee had fought the IRS up front on what he considered principle, and lost. And then there was the famous War of the Warrants, circa 1960, during which Klee and his Ukiah-based adversaries attempted to arrest one another.

A FEW YEARS later, Klee commenced a full-on deadbeat assault as the first hippies arrived and began gaming the welfare system.

A 1963 CASE that outraged then-supervisor Klee featured a pair of female chiropractors named Mary Jane Reed and Ella W. Rocks, who'd moved to Fort Bragg from Oakland and almost immediately applied for welfare because they said they couldn't find work. The County quickly agreed to pay their rent, utilities and threw in ten bucks a week for groceries but soon discovered the ladies had considerable resources, enough anyway to buy a lot and qualify for a loan to build a house, which they said they intended as a care home of some kind. The back and forth on the matter is delicious. Welfare director Kussow said in defense of the chiro-paupers, "They have no money." Supervisor Klee thundered back, "Neither do I. If such a policy is continued we'll soon have 100,000 people in Mendocino County." I couldn't find the outcome of the case, and if anybody out there happens to remember it, please write in.

BACK IN 1996 the late Fifth District Supervisor Joe Scaramella remembered the War of the Warrants this way:

“The worst political blunder that I ever pulled, among many I must say, was making a martyr of Oscar Klee. That was a blunder of the first magnitude. That’s what ended up being called “the "war of the warrants." The history of that to the extent that I am aware… Of course there were a lot of undercurrents. But what happened basically was that Oscar thought that he was a lawyer. And here again is that admonition that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. He made a budget request for his own set of sanitation codes and it was piddling, $198 or something, and he put it in the budget. Hell, he didn't need a bunch of those sanitation codes. All he really needed was a copy of the penal code; you could get the others from the departments. Anyway, Harold Bainbridge, Oscar’s political opponent in the Fourth District, figured he shouldn't have those code books, and I figured he shouldn't have them. So that story assumed national notoriety by the fact that the books were not approved in the budget. We allowed him some books, but not as much as he wanted. So he exercised his judicial powers and ordered the rest of the books anyhow. Then he asked the county to pay for them. And it was legally technically permissible. Even now a superior court judge could do that. Hell, they're a law unto themselves. So they did it. They got the books. Well, that made me damn mad. It made the rest of the board mad. So we said, ‘OK, we'll fix that really quick. You want the books? You'll pay for them.’ So we reduced his salary to pay for the books. And that started the war of the warrants. There was a flurry of warrants back and forth in the courts. The warrants came up because of things that were being done regarding those code books. There was a man in Anderson Valley, a prominent man, his name was Judge Maurice Tyndall. He was Oscar's associate. Between the two of them, they'd always dream up something. The ‘war of the warrants’ involved the District Attorney. The board wasn't involved at that point. The damn District Attorney was a man by the name of Frank Peterson who had been a superior court judge in Del Norte County. That's where the ‘war of the warrants’ came on. There was this big talk of ‘comitatus’ something or other. That was bad. It was horrible. Oscar Klee could have been such a potent force for good in Mendocino County, but he blew it. He blew it! He wound up going to federal prison. I don't recall what that was for. Taxes, maybe. The problem with Oscar was his inherent laziness. That would result in his not being able to perform. When you accused him of being lazy he'd get violent and angry and fire back and try to justify his own neglect. It was just... really nothing. Christ! He had the skill and the ability. He could have been right at the top. He could have done it. I know he could have done it.”

WORDS OF WISDOM from Shari Prange of Bonny Doon: “Any biologist can tell you that the human animal evolved to be an omnivore — it’s natural for us. Vegetarianism isn’t. In fact, when small children are placed on vegan diets, they run a real danger of getting full and stopping eating before they can consume enough vegetable matter to provide sufficient calcium for their growing bones. If anyone else wants to be a vegetarian, they’re welcome to do so. But as for me, I didn’t claw my way to the top of the food chain to eat tofu.” 

A STORY in one of the Frisco papers has stuck with me. It was about the shortage of skilled workers — carpenters, electricians, mechanics of all kinds, all of whom make upwards of $75 an hour these days. (I’ve always regretted not having learned practical skills myself, and often regret the paucity of the skills I’m alleged to have.) The article claimed that Bay Area contractors typically have people backed up a year on their waiting lists. Anderson Valley? Do you know of a starving building contractor? But what do the schools do? Invest millions in computer gear. To train students to do what? Input data for a huge corporation for an unlivable wage inside cancer-causing buildings? The computer delusion occurs as truly skilled people are scarce and getting scarcer. 

FOREST RECIPROCITY GROUP receives Grant for Forest Health Multi-stakeholder Cooperative

Pilot Project to explore the economics of utilizing small diameter poles and non-timber forest products

The Forest Reciprocity Group (FRG) of Cloud Forest Institute and the Redwood Forest Foundation Inc. (RFFI) are excited to announce our award to participate in the North Coast Resource Partnership (NCRP)’s Woody Feedstock Aggregation Pilot Project. This program is funded under the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research state-wide Woody Feedstock Aggregation Pilot Projects. 

This initiative is part of the broader North Coast Resilience Plan: Fire Resilient Forests Strategy that the NCRP developed in collaboration with a wide range of regional partners and local experts. The Watershed Research and Training Center (WRTC) serves as the lead partner to work with and advise the subregions to create a business plan to implement.

The grant will provide funds to assess the feasibility of creating a Multi-stakeholder Cooperative to facilitate and broker woody biomass for landowners, forest stewardship projects, and biomass utilization businesses. We believe by keeping stakeholder capital investment low, the cooperative can stay nimble and best match the scale of both supply and demand in our region. This business plan will encompass a variety of forest practices and products, combining FRG and RFFI’s common goals to thin small-diameter trees out of overburdened forests, reduce risk of catastrophic fire, stabilize watersheds, promote diverse habitats, and activate long-term carbon sequestration, while providing long-term economic, and social benefits to the communities around them.

The development of the Woody Feedstock Pilot Project business plan will explore the feasibility of a pole aggregation business, and propose scalable models to address the following needs:

● Developing a mobile processing unit to harvest and pre-process poles

● Efficiently transporting poles from the woods to aggregation yards and/or buyers

● Promoting, incubating, and contracting biomass utilization businesses

● Working and contracting with landowners and forest restoration projects for feedstock

FRG will collaborate with committed stakeholders throughout the coming year to develop this Multi-stakeholder Cooperative pilot, benefitting from the WRTC’s extensive research and projects in economic development and restoration. The Woody Feedstock Pilot Project is an incredible opportunity to pursue creative solutions to the persistent challenges of climate change, wildfire preparedness, forest health, and housing we face in Mendocino County.

LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS NOVEMBER MEETING

The League of Women Voters of Mendocino County will hold its November meeting on Tuesday, the 14th, from 6-7:30pm, via Zoom. Fourth District Supervisor Dan Gjerde will discuss the county's current fiscal situation and possible next steps for the County.

County finances have been in the headlines lately: the State Controller authorized an audit; the county Auditor is facing criminal charges and has been suspended; County reserves are equal to less than a month's worth of operating expenses.

The fiscal year 23/24 budget approved the use of approximately $7,000,000 in one-time monies to cover expenses that recur on an annual basis. Without cuts, the structural deficit is projected to grow to more than $10,000,000 in fiscal year 24/25. Additionally, employee contracts are under negotiation, which could further increase County expenses.

In June, the Board directed the Executive Office to work with departments and community partners to identify functions of the County which community members and nonprofits could fulfill at a lower cost to the County. Supervisor Gjerde will discuss this, and other, efforts by the Board to reduce expenses related to nonessential operations.

This meeting will be held via Zoom; find the link on the League's website (https://my.lwv.org/california/mendocino-county) under the calendar tab.

For any questions, or more information, call 707-937-4952.

Pat Dunbar, Publicity

pdunbars@mcn.org 

GOBSMACKED

Editor,

In nearly every Sunday crossword puzzle I have ever seen, the definition “leave gobsmacked” is answered with the word “awe.”

We’ve seen the waning of the briefly commonplace use of the word “awesome” in response to insignificant questions such as one’s address or account numbers during requests to commercial vendors such as phone and utility “providers.” Tech support newbies at the major software companies quickly dropped the absurdity, but the annoyance is still occasionally encountered in online comments, I see.

What’s truly awesome is the very existence of the Anderson Valley Advertiser, and its astute inclusion of everything from pancake breakfast and hoedown events to the world class critics of American policy, with meaty reports on local governance buffoonery.

Other than that, I don’t see much to be gobsmacked by, these days, except for the outrageous prices charged by my local grocery stores.

Yours truly,

Betsy Cawn

Upper Lake.

PLOWSHARES MARKING 40TH ANNIVERSARY

by Mike Geniella

Plowshares, the Ukiah community dining center, is marking its 40th anniversary with an open house Friday, and a special message from Sister Jane Kelly, the iconic Catholic nun who led to its founding.

At age 93, Sister Jane is being cared for by her order, the Sisters of The Presentation in San Francisco. Age is taking its toll, but she easily reminisces about her time in Ukiah and her role in the founding of Plowshares, according to longtime friend Martin Bradley.

Bradley, his wife Debra Meek, and activist Susan Crane, now with the Catholic Worker in Redwood City, visited Sister Jane recently.

“She remains Sister Jane,” said Bradley.

The trio talked with Sister Jane about her role in the Plowshares legacy, and the times they spent together leading a community effort to feed the poor, and provide services including showers, clothing, and bag lunches on the weekends. 

Bradley said the hope is that the recording of a greeting from Sister Jane can be played during Friday’s open house at Plowshares from 5-7 p.m. It is a celebration of 40 years of advocacy, community service, and hundreds of thousands of meals served to those in need.

Besides the community dining room at 1346 South State St., Plowshares operates Meals on Wheels, personal care, and community service/work release programs. 

Bradley, Meeks, and Crane’s visit with Sister Jane in San Francisco provided a joyful reunion, and many moments of reflection.

“How could we not feel deep gratitude for what we accomplished together to help others?” asked Bradley.

Plowshares is a community based organization that is modeled after the principles of the Catholic Worker Movement, launched in 1933 during the Great Depression in the U.S. The movement is a collection of autonomous communities of Catholics and their associates founded by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin with the aim to “live in accordance with the justice and charity of Jesus Christ.”

In Ukiah, Sister Jane, Martin Bradley, Debra Meek, and Susan Crane led a coalition of faith-based individuals in April 1983 to open Plowshares.

The group organized pickups of surplus food from local grocery stores, and each day of the week a different church or organization cooked and prepared lunches. They included St. Mary’s of the Angels, Ukiah United Methodist, Holy Trinity Episcopal, the Coalition for Peace on Earth, and the Potter Valley Methodist Church.

The first day Plowshares opened – Nov. 15, 1983 – 20 people were served. By Thanksgiving of that year, 50 people were served a traditional dinner.

Martin Bradley provided a copy of an old photo Jane has of the first meal about to be served at Plowshares.

Jody Martinez of the Ukiah Daily Journal did a great job a few years ago, and had a photo of Jane, Martin Bradley and Debra Meek to illustrate. 

The link: ukiahdailyjournal.com/2017/11/18/mendocino-county-history-1983-plowshares-launched-in-ukiah/

There were questions in the beginning about whether a prayer before the meal was appropriate.

Sister Jane gave the directions. “We want to welcome people with no questions asked. We will not hold people hostage by their bellies; we will not make people pray in order to eat.”

In the early years, fundraising for Plowshares was a challenge but the community always responded. “Early heroes” included Ann Near, Mary Rice, David Patton, Jay Holden, Buddy Eller, Dorothy and Al Anderson, according to Plowshares.

Plowshares dining room was in the old Social Services building on Main Street. Then in 1984 it had secured a former church building on Luce Avenue. There was no kitchen, but local cabinet makers and craftsmen volunteered and built one. One hot lunch a day was offered, and then expanded services for the homeless including showers, laundry, haircuts, mail service, and personal care items.

In 2001, Plowshares launched a five-year capital campaign to design and construct the current 6,000-square-foot facility on South State Street. It raised $3 million. About one-third was from private donations, another one-third from foundations, and the last from a Community Development Block grant.

A volunteer building committee led by retired engineer Gary Smith, board member Jack Daniels, and architect Bob Axt was able to get the new center opened in January 2008 on time and under budget.

Today Plowshares has more than 100 volunteers and six staff members, working to serve hot meals every day for at least 100. Saturday meals have recently begun as a pilot program, thanks to Adventist Health volunteers and donations, and plans are being considered for expanding the program to Sunday as well. Plowshares volunteers are delivering about 200 Meals on Wheels daily to disabled, homebound seniors.

Martin Bradley and Debra Meek are still involved in Plowshares although not intensely as in the beginning.

“We walk in now, look around and are grateful that we helped make this happen,” said Bradley.

Crane is living at the Catholic Worker center in Redwood Center. An anti-nuclear activist arrested numerous times around the globe, Crane still faces prosecution in Europe for her work.

Sister Jane, the beloved feisty nun who turned the Diocese of Santa Rosa on its ear during a financial and sexual abuse scandal in the 1990s, is living a quiet life today, surrounded by devoted members of her order who care for her. 

“She is remarkable. When we visited with her, it was almost like time had stood still,” said Bradley.

HEADWATERS HIKE

by Alexander Cockburn

The first time I hiked with the mighty editor plus Karen and Joe Paff, my Petrolia friends and neighbors, it was down the Lost Coast from the mouth of the Mattole to Shelter Cove. Being inexperienced in three-day treks, we travelled with heavy burdens of sumptuous foods and choice wines. There were no Power Bars in our shopping bags and we were scarcely advertisements for an REI catalogue.

In the intervening years I’ve upgraded from Mexican shopping bag to metal frame Kelty backback. Danner boots rather than leather brogues nourished my feet. I can’t say I felt more comfortable, grunting up the steep hill towards the Headwaters Forest, even though the Kelty held far chaster and slimmer provender than the tri-tip and roast fowl of yesteryear. This time pure water substituted for wines and whisky and that was no improvement either, though there was a small flask of Laphroaig. Our party was a little larger, as I belie the Editor narrates on another page.

The hike is scarcely bountiful. We made our way along Elk River Road, through a valley running east from 101 below Eureka. This is the northern and only available entry to Headwaters. At the BLM parking lot the road narrows to a mile or two of hardtop logging road, then to dirt, cutting through second-growth forest. Two or three more miles of strenuous uphill hiking gets one to a BLM sign proclaiming trail’s end and the possibility that murrelets may be nesting in the trees ahead. A logging road takes one to an old clearcut from which the hiker, looking back to the northwest, is granted a fine view of the old Eureka nuclear power station. At the far end of the clearcut is the Headwaters Forest, which the Editor and I penetrated for a few yards, though the going was slow because of fallen and decaying timber and undergrowth. The trees themselves aren’t particularly big.

We had a pleasant picnic in the clearcut, speculating that maybe Hurwitz had pulled off an even bigger coup than had been previously imagined, selling for nearly half a billion dollars a virtual redwood forest of indifferent trees, seen by no creature other than the murrelets which themselves have never been seen. At least Headwaters will provide employment for the BLM, whose rangers — as two of them informed us — are buy extirpating whatever trails in Headwaters have been made by Earth Firsters. It sees likely there will never be access from the south, since the ranchers living along Newburg Road don’t want the traffic. There are a hundred more alluring hikes within an hour of Petrolia. We felt sorry for the nice Sierra Club ladies (middle-aged, but feisty) who were just arriving as we left and who, before they rounded the bend into the clearcut, asked us if we had uplifting experiences in this contact with the Forest Primeval. Scarcely. but on the way the road sloped down and there was always the thought that Hurwitz may have got way too much money for an enormously overhyped stretch of timberland, but the bill still adds up to the price of only a couple of F-22s.

CATCH OF THE DAY, Wednesday, November 1, 2023

KIANA FLORES, Redwood Valley. Assault with deadly weapon not a gun, domestic abuse.

BRYAN GRIZZLE, Fort Bragg. DUI, controlled substance for sale.

REBECCA JONES, Redwood Valley. DUI-alcohol&drugs.

STEVE LEARD JR., Ukiah. Controlled substance. 

JOSE PANDURO-RODRIGUEZ, (unidentified city, Mexico)/Ukiah. Attempted murder of peace officer, assault with firearm, burglary, discharge of firearm by criminal street gang member, armed with firearm in commission of felony, robbery of inhabited dwelling in concert with others, personal use of firearm, attempted murder.

ALEXANDER RAMIREZ, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs, trespassing, county parole violation.

EMMANUEL VAZQUEZ-RIVAS, Willits. DUI.

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Yesterday I had a sneezing fit. I blamed the leaf mold in the air from all the dead and decaying leaves on the ground around here. My wife disagreed and said she saw a jet flying over in the morning spraying chemicals. the plane was kinda low, about 25,000 feet I guessed. I do live near an airport but it does seem mighty suspicious. I wish they would stop flying over my house.

NEWLY ELECTED HOUSE SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON was dean of a Christian law school that didn’t exist.…

apnews.com/article/mike-johnson-house-speaker-2d1a3399e8fe61bf0619d66ba29a1520

CALIFORNIANS WILL SOON SET CLOCKS BACK. BUT DAYLIGHT-SAVING TIME STILL ISN’T YEAR-ROUND

by Jessica Flores

Californians will set their clocks back an hour this weekend, bringing an end to daylight-saving time — and the biannual time change ritual isn’t likely to change anytime soon. 

Daylight-saving time will end at 2 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 5, when clocks “fall back” an hour to standard time. Things will stay that way until the second Sunday in March, when we “spring forward” again. 

Critics of the yearly clock changes say the practice is outdated and unnecessary, and could be disruptive to people’s health and sleep patterns. California voters appear to agree, having approved a 2018 ballot measure supporting permanent daylight-saving time.

But the clocks will still change, right on schedule. Here’s why, along with other facts about daylight-saving time:

What is daylight-saving time?

Congress passed a law in 1918 establishing daylight-saving time to help save energy costs during World War I, according to the Department of Defense. 

Daylight-saving time was repealed a year and a half later after the war ended, then reinstated by Congress in 1942 during World War II. When that war ended in 1945, the law was once again repealed so individual states could establish their own standard time.

For the next two decades, with no set rules, confusion reigned in industries like transportation and broadcasting. That changed in 1966, when Congress passed the Uniform Time Act, setting a national standard time that permanently superseded local times. It established daylight-saving time from the last Sunday in April to the last Sunday in October.

Portions of the law have been changed a few times since, including the dates when we spring forward and fall back. The current policy, implemented in 2005, extended daylight-saving time by a few weeks.

All U.S. states observe the yearly time change — except for Hawaii and Arizona and most American territories, including Guam and Puerto Rico, which opt out of daylight-saving and stay on standard time year-round. The Navajo Nation in northeastern Arizona also makes the time switch.

When does it start and when does it end?

The second Sunday in March of every year marks the beginning of daylight-saving time, when people “spring forward” by setting their clocks one hour ahead and losing one hour of sleep. It ends the first Sunday of November at 2 a.m., when clocks “fall back” one hour and we move to standard time.

Didn’t Californians vote to stop doing this?

In 2018, California voters approved Proposition 7, a ballot measure that theoretically allows making daylight-saving time a permanent arrangement in the state. But the law set a high bar: it needs two-thirds approval by the state Legislature, the governor’s signature and approval by the U.S. Congress.

And for now, proposed federal and state laws aiming to make daylight-saving time permanent do not appear to have enough support. 

While the U.S. Senate in 2022 unanimously passed a bill dubbed the Sunshine Protection Act, aimed at making daylight-saving time permanent, it failed in the House. It was reintroduced this year but has not made much headway.

(SF Chronicle)

WHAT JURORS LEARNED AT THE BANKMAN-FRIED TRIAL LAST FRIDAY

by Joann Wypijewski

The defense began its case in federal court in Manhattan on Friday in the trial of Sam Bankman-Fried, accused fraudster and money-launderer whose cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, was, not so long ago, exalted by great swaths of the press, young crypto enthusiasts, Democratic politicians fattened by campaign donations, Tom Brady, Michael Lewis (whose book Going Infinite was released the day the trial started), NBA fans packing the then-FTX Arena to see the Miami Heat, Major League Baseball slapping the FTX logo on umpire uniforms, nonprofits agog in the aura of Bankman-Fried’s cash and claims to “effective altruism,” and others who made gobs of money only to lose it when crypto, and FTX, and its sister trading firm, Alameda Research, collapsed last year.

Since October 3, jurors have heard the former friends, colleagues and in one case business associate and lover testify for the prosecution. All of the principals, former CEO of Alameda and onetime girlfriend Caroline Ellison, co-founder of FTX Gary Wang and head FTX engineer Nishad Singh, have detailed ways that FTX customer deposits were secretly funneled into Alameda, which had been granted elastic borrowing privileges—into the billions of dollars, with little or no collateral—and which then spent, transferred or gambled this customer money away. They testified that they participated in the theft or its concealment at the direction of Bankman-Fried, and have pleaded guilty to fraud and conspiracy charges.

With his friends cooperating in anticipation of lighter sentences, his former admirers having fled into the night from the taint of scandal, and his parents (longtime Stanford Law School professors of ethics and tax law) in hot water themselves, Bankman-Fried is the entire case for the defense.

He is expected to complete his direct testimony and then face cross-examination on Monday. Here, in capsule, is what jurors have heard so far by way of defense:

He’d worn shorts because they were comfortable.

He’d grown his hair long because he was lazy.

He worked 12 to 22 hours a day.

He took a day off every month or two.

He’s trying to break the habit of using ‘we’ to mean ‘I.’

Sometimes he forgets.

He used to sit in front of six computer screens with multiple sub-screens all day.

He liked it that way so he could pay attention to everything.

He couldn’t pay attention to everything.

He tried.

He made “a number of small mistakes and some large mistakes.”

He got thousands of emails every day.

He was engaging in a few hundred Signal channels every day.

He’s introverted.

He never meant to be the public face of FTX.

It just happened.

An “accident.”

So much just happened.

* * *

He’d founded Alameda in 2018 and was its CEO until 2021.

He’s never been good with names so he picked the California county where he and his cohorts, “trusted friends,” lived and worked in an Airbnb.

Golly, it was crowded.

So many 25-year-olds.

So many cardboard boxes.

In 2019 he started FTX.

He moved corporate HQ to Hong Kong.

That happened sort of by “accident” too.

He’d attended a conference there.

Hong Kong was great; he had more meaningful conversations than he’d ever had in California.

“We had no idea at all” about how to create a crypto exchange.

They had some ideas, like cross-margining, omnibus wallets, claw-backs aka “socialized loss” to cover liabilities.

He thought there was a 20 percent chance of success.

FTX was a margin exchange.

Could he explain to the jurors how that works?

“Yup.”

Sort of like “a mortgage.”

He created teams to deal with various aspects of the business.

So many teams.

He never created a risk management team.

He wishes he had now.

That was one of the large mistakes.

He was very interested in managing risk.

* * *

Alameda was allowed to trade on the exchange.

And to borrow from it.

And to take money directly from customers to invest on FTX.

And to loan money to him to make political or charitable donations.

Some of those loans were documented; others…

“Maybe not all.”

So much money (and pseudo money) was moving.

Eventually, “I wasn’t entirely sure what was happening.”

He had allowed Gary and Nishad “to make decisions without consulting me.”

He was so busy.

“Yup.”

How many times had he gone to Congress to talk about regulation?

He had never expected this level of growth.

At the start, he’d “had no idea how to get customers” for FTX.

Word of mouth, it all just happened.

He knew absolutely nothing about marketing.

He liked the idea of branding with major league sports.

People remember arena names.

It cost a lot, but he did the calculations and saw only upside.

He’s only kind of into sports.

He was at the Super Bowl in Los Angeles in 2022.

Here’s a picture of him with celebrities.

Another happenstance.

They invited him into their box.

He had just been wandering around SoFi Stadium.

* * *

By 2022, FTX was doing $10-$15 billion a day in crypto trades.

Bankman-Fried liked the idea of the company’s 2021 revenue being $1 billion.

One of his lieutenants told him it wasn’t quite that high.

He asked for a recalculation, and the lieutenant managed to justify the boss’s figure.

A nice “round number,” a billion.

Bankman-Fried and the others had decamped to the Bahamas by then.

“I had come to the belief that I could have an impact in the world.”

He’d hired consultants on politics, government, charitable giving.

He never did hire a chief risk officer.

FTX didn’t have a dedicated insurance fund.

Its automated risk engine was prone to SNAFU.

So many orders, so much data, so much strain on the computers.

Wonk-wonk.

Earlier there had been a scare.

What if the risk engine had erroneously liquidated Alameda’s account?

“It would have disastrous consequences.”

Do “something” about it, he told Gary and Nishad.

They allowed Alameda to go negative, with a virtually unlimited line of credit.

He didn’t know.

He was always interested in protecting customer accounts.

He was still involved in risk management at Alameda.

From late 2021 he was telling Caroline that Alameda had to get into hedging, going short as well as long, to handle risk.

How many times he told her …

If only she’d listened.

Crypto tanked in the spring and summer of 2022.

He was “very surprised” when he heard Alameda had a liability of more than $8 billion.

He thought the company would still be okay losing $8 billion.

Then he didn’t.

Then he said, “I think it might be time for Alameda to shut down.”

His friends said, No.

He didn’t close Alameda.

Damned friends.

SYNAGOGUE

by Larry Bensky

My first visit as a would be worshipper to a synagogue in about 75 years took place last Saturday.

The visit was inspired by a pervasive feeling that I wanted to pray. But I cannot remember ever wanting to pray, having been an atheist since, as a teenager, I decided that participation in group worship in a language which I could barely read or speak was a waste of time. Time that I could spend reading in my room. Or playing basketball in my nearby schoolyard. Or conducting primitive chemistry experiments in the tiny attic of my small Brooklyn house.

“Have you ever wanted to go to a synagogue or any other religious place all this time since then?” my psychologist asked me a few days later. (I’m now seeing a shrink for the first time in my 86 years.)

Of course I have, I told her. I’ve been inside hundreds. But it was not to pray to some “Nobodaddy” (William Blake). I went to countless churches, large and small, and the few surviving synagogues (and mosques) converted to churches throughout France, Spain, Italy, Morocco, England, Belgium, Holland and my native New York City.

I went to experience the awesome interior and exterior architecture. I went for the awesome music. I went to feel the collective solidarity of the congregations everywhere, including, for the past half century, SF, Berkeley and Northern California.

This time I went because day after day I am trying not to die. As I try I see and hear all around me trees and flowers and butterflies and dogs and cats in various stages of their life communicating and working and only attacking for survival and only defending for same. I chose a synagogue out of vestigial loyalty

So why didn’t it work for you last Saturday, my psychologist wondered?

Probably I’m too frustrated by the severe physical accidents/incidents of the past ten years which make it achingly hard to get into and out of a car even for a ten minute trip. Probably the uncomfortable wooden chairs. Probably the unheated room. Certainly because the first words encountered in the thousands of pages in the huge books loaned to the eight people In the room were to be said by men.”Thanks God, for not having made me a woman.”

But, without women, beginning with my mother 86 years ago, down to my wife and 24/7 caregiver today, I wouldn’t last a day.

Women have given me the unparalleled experience of sexual ecstasy. Women worked with me. Did medical and legal jobs which saved my life. Biked with me hiked with me laughed with me wrote to and about me made me a proud father and grandfather.

Today our small mancave in the small Berkeley storefront to which I will not be returning had a separate section for women behind a wall, where men and women could not see each other. Until it was time to go home. For me, just a half hour after we got there.

I told my wife and caregiver about that prayer book passage. They were not surprised.

(Larry Bensky welcomes correspondence: L.Bensky@igc.org)

ENDANGERED AND DANGEROUS ISRAEL, ENDANGERING JEWS

By Abba A. Solomon

Today’s siege of Gaza is the latest iteration of a more than century-long effort to instill a controlling fear of, and “respect” for, Jews in the non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine.

In the 20th century, the growing Zionist community in Palestine was, in the main, garrisons of settlers alienated from their neighbors, economically, socially, and linguistically. With the creation of the state and the Nakba (the exile of three-quarters of non-Jewish Palestinians from the new state), those Arabs were simply not missed from Israeli lives.

In this century, military attacks upon Gaza, populated mostly by refugees from the Jewish state, became simply “mowing the lawn <https://consortiumnews.com/2012/11/16/likening-palestinians-to-blades-of-grass/> .” It is becoming horribly clear that a new strategy is being contemplated — destruction of Gaza as a place 2-plus millions can live, with the intention that they leave.

The bizarre and unnatural relations between Jewish immigrants and Palestinians in the last 125 years of the modern Zionist movement has led to this point.

Hadassah founder Henrietta Szold, in a 1915 article about Zionist settlements in Palestine, reported formation of a “self-constituted and self-governed company of Jewish youths, revolver-armed, most of them known for zeal and ebullient enthusiasm…

 “Ha-Shomer [“The Guardian,” succeeded by the Haganah armed force in 1920] has raised the dignity of the Jew in the eyes of his Arab neighbors.”

 She explained the necessity of an armed cadre to the settlement enterprise: “The company is made of the material needed for the pioneer bands that are to prepare outlying regions through occupancy by themselves for permanent settlement and cultivation by others.”

It should be noted that Israeli “settlements” historically have been explicitly for the purpose of taking, holding, and “Judaizing” Palestine.

Over a century of Zionist conquest of Palestine leads up to Hamas' attacks on Jewish settlements adjacent to the constricted Palestinian refuge of Gaza, and the Israeli state’s response.

Intimidation of the “natives” is the leitmotif through the modern Zionist settlement of Palestine.

From Vladimir Jobotinski’s “Iron Wall” to former PM Ehud Olmert’s depiction of Israel as a “villa in the jungle” (and championing the strategy of “the landlord has gone crazy”) the focus has been bullets and steel as the solution to taking and holding a Jewish homeland in Palestine — and creation of Palestinians as an exiled and inconvenient people.

Israel’s UN representative exhibits a resolute refusal to consider context, reacting with fury to the UN Secretary General saying the Hamas raid "did not occur in a vacuum."

The barbarity of a slave revolt or a colonial uprising justifies the suppression to which it reacts. Slave revolts and colonial uprisings are often vicious, horrific. This justifies the idea that "those people" obviously do not deserve self rule, are in an important way not as human as the dominating polity.

Allan Brownfeld, of the historic anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism, wrote in a letter to the Washington Post, on the occasion of intensifying Jewish settler attacks on Arab communities in the West Bank,

Israel calls itself a “Jewish state,” but there is nothing “Jewish” about mistreating people because they are of a different religion or ethnic group. Indeed, Zionism has, it seems, turned its back on the universal Jewish moral tradition which Jewish critics of Zionism such as Albert Einstein, Judah Magnes, Martin Buber and Hannah Arendt warned that it would.

Jewish night raids of the 1930s and 1940s, Mandate-era terrorism, and 1947-48 Jewish militia and Haganah ethnic cleansing are in a trajectory to today's semi-official Jewish settler rampages against Arab communities in the West Bank — reminiscent of pogroms of old where tsarist officials were complicit with the pogromists — and the mad bombing of the Gaza Strip.

America’s relationship with Israel has been enmeshed with domestic politics and the compromised position of the “official” American Jewish organizations.

American Jewish Committee chairman Jacob Blaustein repeatedly habituated United States policy makers in the 1950s to the premise that “the more the Arabs are kow-towed to, the more intransigent they get and the further removed is peace."

Conversely, in conferences with American officials, he told them that tendencies to extremism in the Israeli government and body politic would be weakened by American support. Arms, money, and US advocacy in the United Nations would make Israel more conciliatory to her neighbors.

He warned that US condemnation of Israeli aggressions, or injustices to Palestinians, would "weaken" reasonable Israeli factions, provoking more likely Israeli military action, and thus complicate peace-making.

In US defense policy, partnership with the Israeli state has become axiomatic, providing fulsome American support, turning a blind eye to the parallel dispossession of Palestinians with the Israeli achievement of “Jewish” sovereignty, allying with the manifest injustice.

The Huffington Post on Oct. 19 reported US State Department staff are preparing a “dissent cable” on American absolute support for Israel’s attacks on Gaza, following the resignation of one official, publicly announcing he “could not morally support the U.S.’s moves to supply Israel’s war effort.”

Israel's conduct seems to be stimulating open hostility to Jews around the world, as local targets for anger at Gaza's agony.

The call from Israel when Jews abroad are in danger is, Come home to Israel, where you belong and will be safe from violence inflicted because you are Jewish.

It is now less credible to think of Israel as a safe place for Jews as Jews, in an ironic twist. And the more extreme measures Israel wreaks on Gaza for Israel's safety, the more imperiled by association Jews outside Israel will be.

The strangulation of the two-million-plus population of Gaza will be an ultimate expression of the militant Jewish nationalist assertion of control, watched in real time by the world.

I feel sickened writing at this moment -- it's not going to get any better, for Palestinians, Israelis, or diaspora Jews who are going to find their world changed. We're coming to some sort of ending of what's been an endless grind of Palestinian loss.

Israel's pretension of invincibility from consequences of the Nakba and imposed partition of Palestine, etc., has been broken.

In crisis, the Zionist state in Palestine — “temporarily” evacuating 125,000 Israelis from its periphery territories, making a massive military reserve call-up, with multiplying war fronts (West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, missiles from Yemen) — will surface two questions that concerned American Jewish leaders as the reality of a sovereign “Jewish” state neared reality:

What effect on the status of diaspora Jews if the state is defeated?

What effect on Jews elsewhere from manifestly wrong or immoral actions of that state?

(Abba A. Solomon is a researcher of the history of American Jews and Zionism. He is the author of the book ‘The Speech, and Its Context: Jacob Blaustein’s Speech “The Meaning of Palestine Partition to American Jews’,” Given to the Baltimore Chapter, American Jewish Committee, February 15, 1948, and the collection of essays, The Miasma of Unity: Jews and Israel.

GAZA

After weeks of waiting, hundreds of people were allowed to leave the besieged Gaza Strip on Wednesday, the first of thousands of foreigners, aid workers and critically wounded patients who were expected to exit in the coming days.

By Wednesday night, buses had ferried 361 foreign nationals over the border to Egypt, and ambulances had carried 45 severely injured Palestinians, along with some of their family members, to Egyptian hospitals, according to Al Qahera, an Egyptian state-owned television channel. They left behind the destruction and the most immediate suffering wrought by the war between Israel and Hamas, the group that controls Gaza.

The crossings came after a deal was negotiated late Tuesday among Israel, Egypt, the United States, Qatar, and Hamas that allowed certain categories of people to leave.

While a few U.S. citizens were among the aid workers allowed out on Wednesday, diplomats said that, in general, Americans in Gaza — about 500 to 600, the State Department has estimated — would not begin to exit until Thursday, for reasons that were not made clear.
After Hamas mounted devastating coordinated attacks on Israel from Gaza on Oct. 7, Israel imposed a siege on the Palestinian territory, conducting a bombing campaign and then, beginning on Friday, sending troops in. The Rafah crossing is, at present, not only the sole possible escape route for people trapped in Gaza but also the only entry point for relief supplies.

— NYT

A SOUTH BAY READER sends along this quote from Theodore Roosevelt: “Unrighteous war is a hideous evil; but I am not at all sure that it is a worse evil than business unrighteousness.”

UKRAINE, WEDNESDAY, 1ST NOVEMBER

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tried to rally his troops and support for Ukraine Tuesday, saying there will be no easy victories in the counteroffensive to retake Russian-occupied territory.

“The modern world is designed in such a way that it gets used to success too quickly,” he said in his nightly address, adding that “when the full-scale aggression began, many in the world expected that Ukraine would not survive.”

“Now the colossal things that our people, all our warriors are doing, are taken for granted,” he added.

Zelenskyy’s comments came as Russia appeared to intensify its assaults on Ukraine, with one minister saying the country had experienced the most attacks in one day, on Tuesday, since the start of the year.

There are also concerns over the slow progress Ukraine has made in its counteroffensive launched in June, with growing impatience and reluctance, in some Western quarters, to continue giving large amounts of military aid to Ukraine.