Mendocino County Today: Sunday, Nov. 12, 2023

Partly Sunny | Barn | AV Events | Holiday Lights | FFA Trip | Boletovore | Laytonville Businesses | Tracking Stehr | Excess Sediment | Mushroom Symposium | Ed Notes | Pet Boo | Lousy Newcomers | Kuny Anniversary | Mendocino Land Trust | Floodgate Building | Darryl Beardall | Thatcher Scone | Media Literacy | Graveyard Vandal | Outlet Creek | Marco Radio | Yesterday's Catch | Humco Finance | Water Tower | Home Insurance | Front Porch | Journalism Today | Sack Cloth | Gaza | Frazetta Illustration | Cease Fire | War-Mongering Nutjobs | Private Screening | Tourism Selfie | Second Shooter | Lady of Spain | Bigfoot Portrait

A STORM SYSTEM will bring periods of wet weather beginning tonight through the week. The best chances for rain will be tonight into Monday morning for Humboldt and Del Norte counties, followed by Tuesday and Wednesday for all of Northwest California. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A cloudy 47F this Sunday morning on the coast. Our forecast is all over the place for the next week. Cloudy today, increasing chances of rain Monday, lots of rain Tuesday, then less chances after that. Sort of. It will likely change daily as we go along.

AV EVENTS

Free Entry to Hendy Woods State Park for local residents
Sun 11 / 12 / 2023 at 7:00 AM
Where: Hendy Woods State Park
More Information (https://andersonvalley.helpfulvillage.com/events/3014)

AV Grange Pancake and Egg Breakfast
Sun 11 / 12 / 2023 at 8:30 AM
Where: Anderson Valley Grange , 9800 CA-128, Philo, CA 95466
More Information (https://andersonvalley.helpfulvillage.com/events/2859)

The Anderson Valley Museum Open
Sun 11 / 12 / 2023 at 1:00 PM
Where: The Anderson Valley Museum , 12340 Highway 128, Boonville , CA 95415
More Information (https://andersonvalley.helpfulvillage.com/events/2976)

AVFFA

From October 30th until November 5th, nine Anderson Valley FFA members and two chaperones attended the 96th National FFA Convention in Indianapolis, Indiana. Over 70, 000 FFA members from around the nation were in attendance.

It was a week of visiting many agriculture businesses, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and Purdue University Agriculture Dept. They saw a rodeo and a Indy Pacers NBA game. They participated in convention sessions and FFA member workshops. They volunteered their time at White River State Park in the FFA National Days of Service.

It was an unforgettable experience.

Thank you to Antonia Marin for being a chaperone.

Thank to all those who donated so these students could have this experience.

LAYTONVILLE TOWN COUNCIL RECOGNIZES LAYTONVILLE AREA BUSINESSES AND NON-PROFITS RESPONDING TO GROCERY CRISIS

by Jim Shields

Last week, the Laytonville Area Municipal Advisory Council (LAMAC) unanimously approved a letter-statement recognizing and thanking businesses, non-governmental organizations, and non-profits for their efforts in providing much-needed basic food supplies in our community.

Serving on the Town Council are Laura Curtis, Valerie Edwards, David Jeffreys, MacKenzie O'Donnell, Traci Pellar, and Jim Shields. The Council’s jurisdictional area includes portions of both the 3rd and 4th Supervisorial Districts, represented respectively by John Haschak and Dan Gjerde, who always attend monthly council meetings, offering support and assistance on various Council activities and projects. Approximately 3,500 people live in the area.

As most people are aware, Laytonville’s major grocery outlet, Geiger’s Long Valley Market, has been downsizing its operations for the past two years. This management decision has resulted in the store no longer offering many basic food commodities, little vegetable produce, mostly empty cold storage cases, and almost no availability of cold drinks, beer, wine, and liquor. Unfortunately, many of this store’s employees have been laid off due to the downsizing of its operations.

Coincidental with the store’s drastic scale-back, the store’s new management team bought the long closed Superette Market in Hopland, which was refurbished and then re-opened recently under the Geiger’s brand.

Yet here in Laytonville, we have the very same people running a grocery store, that doesn’t have groceries in it.

Dedicated, longtime employees have lost their jobs because the store’s new management team actually believe it’s a good idea to operate a grocery-less, grocery store.

As questionable and counter-intuitive as these decisions are, they are made by a private sector businesses that has the right to make even bad decisions. Local governmental agencies such as our Municipal Advisory Council have no authority to interfere with the legitimate rights of business owners to operate their businesses in any way they see fit.

Last spring, the store’s owners put out a letter to the Laytonville community, essentially laying the blame of the store’s decline on the collapsed cannabis industry. 

While it’s certainly true that the failed County Cannabis Ordinance has had an adverse economic impact in our rural areas, most business owners are surviving, albeit with reduced revenues. 

Local people are doing their best to support local businesses. Laytonville area residents would have continued supporting Geiger’s Long Valley Market if they had not been driven away by a mostly empty grocery store. 

People here in Laytonville supported Geiger’s Store for 80 years. They made it an institution. A place where everybody shopped, stopped and talked to neighbors, renewed old acquaintances, and met new folks. It was kind of a happening place.

None of that is happening anymore.

Here are some comments from people on the issue:

“As an old friend of Joe Geiger and his son Bernie [father and son who founded Geiger’s] who I knew very well both business-wise and socially, and it saddens me to see what is happening at Geiger’s grocery store … Why the change? … Having followed this issue for some while, YES it is time for you to sell to someone who respects the community as Joe and Bernie did. If not then you should be upfront admitting your mistakes and go back to representing the community as the former owners did. People will forgive but it will take time.” — John

“Regarding Geiger's grand opening in Hopland: Meanwhile the Laytonville Geiger’s store is empty, totally neglecting the whole community. —Polly Lynn

“An open letter to Michael Braught and other co-owners of Geiger’s Long Valley Market: Hello Michael, I’ve got a few questions for you. Do you think we are stupid? Do you actually expect us to believe, as implied in your extremely insulting letters to the Laytonville community, that the collapse of the black-market cannabis economy is to blame for your gross mismanagement, unpaid vendors, slimy deals, empty shelves, laid-off employees, and the ultimate demise of Laytonville’s somewhat affordable food security? Do you think we are also blind? As if we can’t see Keith’s Market in our sister community of Covelo, with fully stocked shelves, despite their much smaller population and far less tourism? What about our neighbors to the north in Leggett or Garberville? Not hearing complaints from the folks up there … Good luck rebuilding the bridge you burned in Laytonville after you stabilize your wine country venture.” — A Concerned Community Member

“We definitely are food insecure. I wrote to [Supervisor] Haschak and [state Senator] McGuire. Haschak said to ask LAMAC, McGuire cannot be bothered to respond. The canned response apparently is , it is a private business and they can run it as they want, is unacceptable. We do have a farmers market and the feed store’s Farm Stand has stepped up, but not entirely adequate.” -- CB

On the positive side of this unfortunate situation, there are small businesses and non-profit organizations that are continuing to provide and, in some instances, actually increasing the availability of basic food commodities and other essential items that people depend upon.

At our meeting last week, the Town Council approved the following action item:

The Laytonville Area Municipal Advisory Council Hereby Recognizes and Thanks The Following Laytonville Area Businesses and Non-Profit Organizations That Have Responded To The Food and Essential Commodity Needs Of The 3,500 Laytonville Community Members: 

• Foster’s Ranch Market
• Gravier’s Chevron
• Long Valley Feed — The Farm Stand
• Laytonville Farmer’s Market
• Laytonville Food Bank
• Laytonville Healthy Start
• Long Valley Health Center — Senior Shopping/ Transportation Program
• Fort Bragg Food Bank/Cahto Tribe-monthly food pop up
• North Coast Opportunities — Connecting Food Hub Farmers To Food Bank

(Jim Shields is the Mendocino County Observer’s editor and publisher, observer@pacific.net, the long-time district manager of the Laytonville County Water District, and is also chairman of the Laytonville Area Municipal Advisory Council. Listen to his radio program “This and That” every Saturday at 12 noon on KPFN 105.1 FM, also streamed live: http://www.kpfn.org)

MAZIE MALONE on looking for Craig: 

I went by the shelter, the girl at the desk said he is not there but he is in the hospital and won’t be back anytime soon. She of course could not disclose which hospital, I was surprised she said as much as she did. I told her please let him know his friends from The AVA are concerned about him. As far as where he is located won’t be hard to figure out; we have 2 skilled nursing in Ukiah and one in Cloverdale those are typically where people are sent to recover.

ED NOTE: We hope our resident Hindu mystic is ok, although we know he has been hospitalized before with heart problems.

SILTATION DEFINED

Editor: 

As a biologist and soil scientist who has been working on the North Coast for 50 years, I would like to add some information to Michael Rugg’s comments. The delivery of silt and clay is a normal and common seasonal event in almost all rivers, and in fact the minerals delivered (calcium, silicon, carbon, sulfur, phosphorus) are the base of the food pyramid for fish and people. Salmonids are completely adapted to this cycle. The Russian River and ultimately the ocean need this turbidity in the winter. In the summer the water clears up as organisms take up these minerals.

The Lake Mendocino dam is releasing excess sediment right now. This does imperil salmonids, and if the agencies (North Coast Water Quality Control Board, state Department of Fish and Wildlife) were doing their jobs we could be working on a solution. The Army Corps of Engineers has not maintained the sediment pool of the lake (98% full by their own account), so the Russian River from Coyote Valley Dam to Hopland and beyond is being polluted by clay, silt and turbidity. If this were a vineyard owner or lumber mill, they would be in jail.

Gregg Young

Environmental director, Potter Valley Tribe

ED NOTES

A BOONVILLE LADY WRITES: “My homeowner’s insurance policy got canceled due to fire hazard, i.e., living on a dead end street, steep slopes and close proximity to combustible vegetation. But my lender required me to get flood insurance because I live in a flood zone. Am I drowning or burning up? Make up your freaking minds!”

LOTS of locals have been cancelled by the insurance racketeers, as the industry flees disaster-prone California.

"CALIFORNIA STUDENTS Write Criminal Sentences" screamed a recent hed over a Chron story lamenting the inability of “the kids” to write a simple paragraph. According to the usual suspicious sources, edu-crats and their chums who write the tests for the big book companies, only 19 percent of California students were described as “proficient writers.” 1 percent were judged “advanced.” Now deep into the fourth decade of the post-literate age, and the cyber-deluge militating against the printed word, neither teachers nor students have been taught how to make themselves clear on paper. The professional viewers-with-alarm gave this short story, probably by a fourth or fifth grader, sample, reprinted below, as evidence of mass ignorance. I think it's lucid and could easily be remediated if someone took the time to do it: “I herd the noises outside so I opened the front door walked out side I herd it then in the back. So I walked walked to the back and to my SURPRIZE their was an alein It was green and was about 3 feet tall… I screemed my dad woke up came down stairs and noticed the alian he was startled to see it. He went up stairs got his peper spray came back down and sprayed the 3 foot alean with it.” There are stories in the Press Democrat every day less coherent and less interesting than this one by the anonymous student but, as argued above, nothing so bad that an hour or so of instruction couldn't fix.

FRIEND OF MINE received a certified letter the other day from a woman whose name he didn't recognize informing him that he is the father of her son, and that he better cough up some child support pronto. My friend called the lady up and said he certainly wasn't ruling out any possible paternal responsibility, but how old is the child and where was he born? “He's three and he was born in Denver,” she said. How old are you, miss? friend asked. “Twenty-two,” she said. “Thanks for the compliment, my dear, but I'm 77 and I've never been to Colorado.”

* * *

SO, this man, unannounced, walks confidently into the office the other day. He's fifty or so, conventionally clad in Dockers and a t-shirt advertising Costa Rica. He says “Beth and Bob” suggested he stop in. He didn't look nuts, but the more he talked, and he was a monologist of the type who answers his own questions, the daffier he got. 

COSTA RICA said he intended to start a national newspaper “because people are starved for truthful information.” The Major asked him if he was rich. “A national print publication would be very expensive.” 

OUR VISITOR continued his rapid fire interrogation, paying no attention to our answers, but visibly miffed at our skepticism. “You guys seem awfully negative,” he said. 

“WHO'S yer printer?” he demanded. “How do you load yer website, what software do you use, who set up yer website, how much do you pay yer contributors?” 

OUR printer's south of here, we're not loaded when we load our website, contributors are paid in gratitude, and we're not at liberty to reveal our webmaster.

“WELL,” Costa Rica said, “I can see you're afraid of competition. Thanks for nothing.” But he stayed on, free associating about how his publication would probably get him sued because “"It will be controversial. You know we live in a totalitarian state, don’t you?”

THE MAJOR said, "No, we don't live in a totalitarian state, and your newspaper idea is awfully vague and, frankly, I'm too busy to listen to you anymore.”

COSTA RICA replied, “You're not smart enough to grasp the concept.” The Major conceded that was probably true. I joined The Major in the confessional. “I'm pretty dumb, too, Costa Rica, because I don't understand the viability of your plan either.”

“MY NAME'S Feeney, not Costa Rica,” Costa Rica said.

THE MAJOR decided that our visitor had eaten enough of our time. “Alright, yer excused,” The Major ordered, reverting to his Air Force officer authority. 

COSTA RICA said, “Are you guys always this rude?” And he stomped out the door as if he'd been invited. 

UKIAH SHELTER PET OF THE WEEK

Boo loves everyone he meets! He has a sweet personality and he’s sure to be a loyal companion. Boo walks great on-leash and fancies getting out and about on walks. Boo is mellow indoors and enjoys playing with toys. We think Boo will enjoy a home with children and a canine friend. What more could you want??!! This handsome guy is 11 months old and 52 pounds. For more about Boo and all our adoptable dogs and cats, head to mendoanimalshelter.com. 

For information about adoptions, call 707-467-6453. 

Check out our Facebook Page at https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100093510460862, and share our posts! And--if you’re looking for a puppy, the shelter is full of the cutest and sweetest pups. 

Click here to see them all!

R.D. BEACON:

Latest thing going on in our little community is a power-play locals are making to take over, the community center board the newcomers are coming here, with the intent to drive the locals of local boards and commissions, maybe they need a history lesson, in the days before the community center was built Flora Buchanan donated the land, then rock was called in using the resources of the Danielson Ross lumber company, and the Greenwood lumber company to the south, as well as rock was donated by the Greenwood Ranch company, their owner primary stockholder, C.A. Beacon, owning the largest piece of land in the neighborhood, donated resources from the ranch, Curt Barry Senior help level the ground with the dozer owned by the Greenwood Ranch company, and a road grader owned by Beacon and Ross timber products, is started back in the 60s, Mrs. Daniels was the keeper of the money for the project, there were individuals like Joe Conway, longtime elk resident, and the Liljeberg family from on the ridge part of the founding group, as well as the Valenti family, Hilton the effort, Walter J Matson grocery store owner, and Melvin R Mattson garage owner, in the 1970s I don't develop project to create extra dollars, by organizing all the landowners that had beachfront property, to allow once a year the opening of these properties for so much in payment $5-$10 a head, and two dollars for kids to go when you see the beaches, to get their limit of abalone, Evelyn Vickers and her husband Jim, would put on a lunch and breakfast for the event donating all the proceeds from the sale of the bowed, and half the proceeds from the bar the oasis for the community center find, drifting off to the great day in elk which would add only one newcomer in the parade HR Worthington the third, will rest of the members were longtime locals, Lars Liljeberg and Amy Liljeberg were part of the founding group with myself R.D.Beacon, writing the only horse, we were the founders of the great day in elk, it was not the newcomers did all the work or put up all the money, but they have certainly been trying to take over everything they can, we understand that they're trying to kick the few locals that are on the board off in their own agenda, this is wrong we need to tar and feather those individuals that want to kick Liljeberg off the board they should be like members for without them and many others there would be no community center just a vacant lot knee-deep in my, when you look on the walls of the building you don't see any Thanksgiving to the Barry family or any of the other people who actually did the work and raise the money, is he a picture of Mr. Wilcox who moved in later and is taking credit for stage, but without the longtime locals there would be no community center, and not nearly enough thanks has been given to the longtime locals, and then to hear today they're trying to take the remaining few off the board is totally distasteful, somebody should tar and feather this group and kick him out of town for they don't belong here, most of the people are moved into the community are against the loggers, and the ranchers, they are not a community group or community minded most of them are self-centered individuals moving in from cities maybe they need to go back to where they came from and where they belong.

TAMMY HEUETT KUNY & DANNY KUNY celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary this week.

WHAT'S NEXT FOR MENDOCINO LAND TRUST

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.”

— The Lorax, Dr. Seuss

Where We Work

Conserving & Preserving

From Our Executive Director adapted from a speech by Conrad Kramer

The map above tells you where we are. In this newsletter, I will be sharing some exciting plans about where we're going--sites we will be adding that expand public access and offer new opportunities to the people of Mendocino County and our visitors.

Protecting public access to the coast involves long projects. It can take from three to five years to complete a project.

First, we have to secure an opportunity. Then we need to raise funds for the planning, permitting, and design of the restoration or public access work. And then we need to complete the planning, permitting, and design. Then we need to raise funds for implementation of the project. Then we need to do the restoration or public access work like building trails and parking lots and putting up signs.

If we are actually buying an acreage, it takes even longer to raise that money.

If there is restoration involved, before public access is allowed, that takes longer too.

All this takes consistent and patient support, and we salute our supporters.

* * *

With that in mind, let's take a quick tour of our six projects. What's Next For MLT?

Mill Bend Preserve

Starting at the south end of the county, we are working with the Redwood Coast Land Conservancy, assisting them with the public access development and restoration of their Mill Bend Preserve in Gualala right at the mouth of the Gualala River, where the mill used to stand with all of its impacts.

Right now, we are assisting with fuels management on the preserve while we are seeking funding for the planning, permitting, and design of public access on the preserve. This will include a number of trails, some boardwalks, and the extension of the Bluff Trail in Gualala to Mill Bend. This will complete another link in the California Coastal Trail. We also are working on the planning, permitting, and design phase of work to restore the estuary fishery. So it's a really great project and we are very happy to be helping our friends at the Redwood Coast Land Conservancy with their great Mill Bend Preserve project.

If you haven’t been down there for a while it's really worth it. Mill Bend is right next to the beautiful Art Center in Gualala. You could make a day of a visit down there.

Saunders Landing

A little farther north, almost to Point Arena, MLT is acquiring 12 acres we are calling Saunders Landing, which allows for an important connection of the California Coastal Trail. With this acquisition and trail construction, we’ll be starting at Hearn Gulch Beach, then running along the edge of the bluff, to a Caltrans vista point that connects to Schooner Gulch State Beach. So this is a really great missing puzzle piece of the California Coastal Trail. We already have the design, permitting, and planning funds, but the project requires restoration before the trail is built so public feet on the ground here is still three or four years out. Point Arena Cove

In Point Arena, we are working to develop a short trail link so that people can walk between the Point Arena Cove and the trails of the Storneta Lands.

What an ideal little connection!

This project is in the early phases so this lovely little link is still three or four years out. But look at the views here. Imagine stopping and plopping down to enjoy the view and take in the sun. This also is also a super fun place to explore at low tide. Coastal Trail Through Albion

Farther north, in Albion, we are developing over a mile of the coastal trail within the Caltrans right-of-way along Highway 1. It will start a little north of the bridge and run almost a mile south of it. The trail will be in the Caltrans right-of-way but off the shoulder of the highway where possible. This will be much nicer and safer for folks hiking or biking the Coastal Trail through Albion.

Albion Public-Access Easement

Also in Albion, we are developing a new public-access trail easement between private property parcels to give access to the spectacular bluffs and amazing views. This photo shows that view to the south, and imagine the sunsets. Better yet, this trail won’t just get to the bluff but it will run along the bluffs for several hundred yards.

* * *

Both of these Albion projects are three or four years out.

A New Park for Fort Bragg

Finally, for our biggest public access project on the coast, we are working with the City of Fort Bragg to develop the nearly 600 acres of pygmy forest they recently purchased from the Recreation District.

The park will be located off Highway 20, by the Humane Society. The city will use 30 acres to construct three small water storage reservoirs, and it will still take a while for them to choose these sites. Until this step is done, we will be limited in the work we can do to develop the site for public access.

The plan is for MLT to hold a conservation easement on most of the acreage. We will then take the lead in the public access and restoration planning and implementation. We also, in partnership with the city, will manage the new park surrounding the reservoirs.

We are starting right now to determine which of the many social trails will be prioritized and potentially raised on boardwalks to reduce impact. We’ll also be deciding which trails should be decommissioned to create sanctuary areas to protect the most sensitive and rare species. We also have begun to identify areas for invasive species control and areas where dumped debris needs to be removed.

One of the most exciting aspects of this project is that we think we will be able to open an area of the project area to limited public access next summer. And yes, some effort is now being made to find a nice name for this new park.

* * *

When you explore the site you will see that only a third of the acreage is transitional pygmy forest. The rest is transition redwood.

It's going to be such a great park, especially for those windy days when an outing would be so much nicer if you could hike someplace a little more sheltered from the wind but still be close to town. But Wait.... There's More!

So these are six public access projects on the coast we are excited to be working on right now for you!

But there's more.

We're thrilled to share with you three other exciting projects in the works. Protecting 16,000 More Acres

MLT and The Conservation Fund have been working for almost 12 months to have MLT take on protection of another 12,000 acres of working forests between Mendocino Headlands State Big-River Property and the Jackson Demonstration State Forest and 4,000 acres southeast of Albion. This land is owned by The Conservation Fund and their conservation values are protected by various state agencies.

Things always take longer than you think with state agencies but we are now just two- to four-months away from taking over the role of protector of these huge acreages.

This will bring the number of acres we protect to 35,000.

Behren’s Silverspot Butterfly

Another project that we are very excited about is a partnership we have developed with the Bureau of Land Management and State Parks.

This partnership has just secured a $1.5 million grant to plant 53 acres of coastal terrace with hundreds of thousands of nectar plants and blue violets, the obligate larval plants of the federally endangered Behren’s silverspot butterfly.

This butterfly’s historical distribution once covered much of California’s north coast, but it has been reduced to a single population on four spots on the Mendocino Coast. The butterfly’s larvae feed solely on the blue violet, and a secure future for this butterfly is reliant on thriving populations of this plant.

With this funding, we will also be raising these butterflies in captivity to release in the areas. We are so excited to be working to help these little rare gems survive. Folsom Ranch

Now you know that we are always working on land conservation and public access projects all over the county. Most of these projects are just a few hundred acres but we are thrilled about a very big land conservation and public access project inland, the scope of which we have not achieved since we led the partnership to acquire the Big River Estuary. We have been working diligently to build an amazing partnership to try to acquire the 7,000-acre Folsom Ranch, which is 25 minutes northeast of Willits on Hearst Willits Road.

The ranch is up for sale and our plan is to buy it to accomplish multiple goals. MLT wants to:

- Protect it from being subdivided.

- Pass two thirds of it to BLM to open it to multiple-use public access in a distressed area with very little public access.

- Assist BLM to manage and restore the ranch.

- Develop and manage the public access, as they won’t take it without a local partner.

- Return significant acreage to four local tribes.

The deal is not done yet but we are working very hard on this project and it is starting to look like we may be able to pull it off. The actual purchase of the ranch is the next big step and we’ll be able to update you on that in just a few months.

Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Thank You For Making All This Happen!

Soiree A Success

The African proverb "it takes a village" is so true when it comes to MLT's work.

We want to thank again the many sponsors and attendees of our Sunset Soiree.

FLOODGATE BUILDING FOR RENT IN PHILO

Commercial Kitchen

Right on Highway 128

1600+ square feet

Building could also be used as a restaurant, home, office, tasting room, gallery, etc.

$2500 a month

Please call (707)895-3517 if interested or have questions 

RUNNING LEGEND BEARDALL, RACING TO THE END, DIES AT 87

Legendary runner Darryl Beardall’s exploits included 55 entries in Marin County’s legendary Dipsea Run and completing the Napa Valley Marathon 32 times.

by Kerry Benefield

There are nearly 332 million people living in the United States and, according to legend, Santa Rosa’s Darryl Beardall ran more miles than any of them.

In a 2012 profile that appeared in Runner’s World magazine, Beardall’s exploits were listed: 55 entries in Marin County’s legendary Dipsea Run, the Deseret News Marathon 40 times, and the Napa Valley Marathon 32 times.

The Tamalpa running club in Marin County, a group that Beardall raced with for decades, credits him with 23 California International Marathons, four U.S. Olympic Time Trials, as well as 50-mile and 100-mile finishes well before those were a thing.

Runner’s World writer (and runner) Amby Burfoot interviewed Beardall, weighed his math, took into account a lack of records and logs, and concluded Beardall had likely run in the ballpark of 279,860 miles — the most he could find in the entire United States.

By a fair piece.

And consider this: That calculation was made a decade ago, and Beardall spent the last 10 years showing up to races here, there and everywhere.

His final race, run with his daughter DeeLynn Southwick, was a 10k in Salt Lake City on July 24.

Beardall, an avid runner, coach, volunteer and father, died of cancer on Monday. He was 87.

Born in Utah on Oct. 22, 1936, he was the oldest of five kids born to Ila and Ray Beardall.

The family moved west from Utah to Northern California in 1950.

Beardall attended Santa Rosa Junior High, Santa Rosa High and Santa Rosa Junior College, before moving back to Utah where he ran for Brigham Young University, Southwick said.

Back in Northern California, he met Lynne Tanner on a blind date. They had arranged to met — yep — at the finish line of the Dipsea in 1962.

They were married Nov. 1, 1963.

The couple raised five kids in Santa Rosa. They divorced in 2005. Lynne Beardall died in 2011.

Southwick remembers running with her dad over the hills that are now traversed by Fountaingrove Parkway. He’d spend hours on his feet, always running.

It was something that came naturally to him and tapped into his natural gifts, she said.

“He was bullied as a kid,” she said. “My theory is that (running) was something he discovered, he loved it, and he was good at it, and it was his way of coping with all of the challenges of his life.”

It didn’t hurt, she said, that he had an inordinately high tolerance for pain and a “tenacious, can-do attitude.”

If something around the house broke, he didn’t call in help, he tried to fix it himself. If he didn’t know how, he tried to figure it out, she said.

He had a stubborn streak, but it came from a good place, she said.

“He always worked hard,” she said. “There was never a ‘I can’t do that.’”

A career railroad man with Northwestern Pacific Railroad, Beardall sought out running and runners in every free moment. He joined the Tamalpa running club long before Sonoma County’s Empire Runners club existed.

And when they formed in the 1970s, he joined them too.

He was known for running back to back races, sometimes two days in a row.

Locally, he ran 49 out of 50 Kenwood Footraces. He took on the Santa Rosa Marathon multiple times, the Resolution Run on New Year’s Day every year — any opportunity to put on a pair of running shoes, there was Beardall.

And he wasn’t in it just to be in it. He was there to win it.

He won the legendarily difficult Dipsea twice. His all-time best marathon time was 2:28.

In a remembrance of their fallen peer, the Tamalpa Running Club credited Beardall with a 15:38:38 second place finish in the Camelia 100 mile race in Sacramento in 1972. In 1967, he won the Pacific Association of the AAU 50-miler, the club said.

His best 5K time, according to club records? 14:45. For a 10K best, they clocked him at 29:50.

He was named to the Empire Runner’s inaugural Hall of Fame class in 2008.

He coached, along with his daughter, Wendy, teams at Elsie Allen, Windsor and El Molino high schools.

Even as he slowed, he never stopped.

Even after a hip replacement. There was Beardall.

Even after he transitioned to using a walker, there was Beardall.

“He always had a race bib on,” said longtime Santa Rosa High cross country and track and field coach Carrie Joseph.

When he wasn’t running, he was helping.

For years, Beardall could be counted on to help Santa Rosa High host both cross country and track meets. For three decades, at least, Beardall showed up and helped his alma mater.

“The one thing I would say about Darryl, that I think everybody would say about Darryl, is he is the happiest guy in the world. He always had a smile on his face,” Joseph said. “He was absolutely in his element when he was round meets and running events.”

After Beardall’s beloved brother Alan died in a car accident in 1987, Beardall sponsored an award each season for both the Panther cross country team and track and field team.

“It’s the only award the kids vote on,” Joseph said, and it’s given to the most inspirational athlete.

It wasn’t just running that Beardall supported.

He ran the game clock for both girls’ and boys’ basketball teams for years.

Without fail.

“He was one guy I could rely on all the time,” Santa Rosa High co-athletic director Kenny Knowlton said. “Always. There was never a time where he did not show. He was always there. Sometimes that could be four nights a week.”

His payment? A hot dog at half time.

“Any time you’d turn around, there was Darryl at any event,” Knowlton said. “He always had a smile on his face.”

“He bled orange and black,” he said. “He was a great man.”

In recent years, Beardall started going not just to the home games, but would travel to the girls’ away games, too.

Head coach Luis Patrick said it started one day when Beardall said, “When are you picking me up?”

So Patrick did pick him up for that game. And every game after that.

Beardall rode with Patrick to Livermore, to American Canyon, to tournament games, to North Bay League games.

“He never wanted to miss a game,” he said.

Patrick said those rides, sometimes hours long, and Beardall’s hard won perspective, were times he came to genuinely appreciate.

“We got in a routine,” he said. “It built a great friendship, a great relationship, with somebody for me who is that much older than me. It helped me.”

“And it was a little bit of therapy for me on the rides home, to keep things in perspective,” he said.

And Beardall loved every minute of it.

“He was our biggest supporter,” he said. “The girls were always really happy to see him.”

Even when Beardall’s health started to deteriorate, he still showed up.

He ran races pushing a walker. He moved through the gym and into the bleachers pushing the walker.

He always showed up. And he was always smiling when he did.

A service is scheduled for Darryl Beardall at 4 p.m. Monday, Nov. 13, at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1725 Peterson Lane, Santa Rosa

In addition to his daughter Southwick, Beardall is survived by daughter Wendy Keeler; sons Scott Beardall, Kelly Beardall and Clay Beardall, and five grandchildren.

(pressdemocrat.com)

HOPLAND! Tis the season for our cranberry vanilla scone. Stay Thatcher and enjoy the fresh baked delights of the Café Poppy.

JOHN REDDING: 

A new California law goes into effect on January 1st. It requires public schools "to add media literacy to curriculum frameworks." What is medial literacy? Ha. It's the ability to spot disinformation as taught by teachers who are following state guidelines created within the framework of one party rule. What could go wrong? 

Get this. One public school teacher asked his students about the origins of Covid. Did they believe an "opinion" piece by the New York Post, a "tabloid" or a scientific journal? Over 90% of the students said the New York Post. This set off alarm bells in the good teacher's mind that his students weren't using critical thinking. So, he favors the new law.

It turns out the NY Post was correct. Covid did originate in Wuhan.

And it turns out his students exhibited more critical thinking than he does.

California is sinking under the weight of government rules and regulations. If we haven't hit rock bottom, it is not far away.

GRIBALDO FOUND GUILTY OF HEADSTONE VANDALISM

A Mendocino County Superior Court jury returned from its deliberations in less than an hour Wednesday morning to find the trial defendant guilty as charged. Defendant Raymond Chase Gribaldo, age 25, of Willits, was found guilty of unlawfully and maliciously vandalizing a headstone in the Little Lake Cemetery in Willits marking the grave of the mother of an estranged friend, a felony.

Not only did the defendant remove and break the headstone, he filmed himself doing so, posting video clips of his crime to his Facebook account. He also sent the video clips to the former friend to antagonize her.

When questioned by law enforcement, the defendant, in part, explained that he had an ongoing feud with the daughter of the women interred in the grave. He told the deputy that he felt disrespected by the daughter. Since she was female, the defendant said he could not fight her so he “pissed on her mom’s grave and I stole her mom’s grave.”

After the jury was excused, the defendant was referred to the Mendocino County Adult Probation Department for a background investigation and sentencing recommendation.

Defendant Gribaldo was ordered to return to the Ukiah courthouse on January 3, 2024 at 9 o’clock in the morning for his formal sentencing hearing.

The law enforcement agency that investigated and gathered the evidence used to convict the defendant was the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office.

The prosecutor who presented the People’s evidence to the jury and argued for the guilty verdict that was returned by the jury was Deputy District Attorney Jamie Pearl.

Mendocino County Superior Court Judge Patrick Pekin presided over the three-day trial. Judge Pekin will be the sentencing judge in January.

(DA Presser)

MEMO OF THE AIR: Little kicks.

Here's the recording of last night's (Friday 2023-11-10) eight-hour-long Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio show on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg (CA) and KNYO.org: https://tinyurl.com/KNYO-MOTA-0566

I'm happy to read your writing on the radio. Just email it to me and that's all you have to do.

Besides all that, at https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com you'll find a fresh batch of dozens of links to worthwhile items I set aside for you while gathering the show together, such as:

Layla on fire. https://theawesomer.com/marcin-layla/721270/

Rerun: Tina S., Moonlight Sonata. Imagine the bleak life of a person inherently capable of this feat in the 200,000 years there were people but no electric guitars yet. Now try to imagine something someone now might be this inherently talented at on something we don't have yet, so they'll never know. Every once in awhile their fingers twitch and they don't know why. Or they feel a nameless longing and dissatisfaction of something missing, but what. https://laughingsquid.com/metal-version-beethoven-moonlight-sonata/

There are a lot of great cover versions of All Along the Watchtower, but this woman is so entertainingly spooky I chose this one to share. She has, how do you say, a certain edgy je ne sais quoi, if you find that sexy, and I’m amused/ashamed to notice that I do. Of course, I know better, so I’m safe. Also Juanita would roll her eyes and pull me away by my elbow before I got in too much trouble. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ap3tc2U50oY

And the transformative one-buttock power of classical music. https://myonebeautifulthing.com/2023/11/05/repost-classical-music-for-dummies/

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

CATCH OF THE DAY, Saturday, November 11, 2023

STEPHANIE BROWN, Ukiah. Domestic abuse, attempted arson.

YECSON DELAHERRAN-RIVERA, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

SKYLER GOODWIN, Willits. Domestic abuse, criminal threats, probation revocation.

JAMES HOFFMAN SR., Ukiah. Assault with deadly weapon not a gun, burglary, parole violation.

JOSE NIETO, Ukiah. Registration tampering, resisting.

JAIMEE QUEZADA, Ukiah. DUI. 

OLIVIA ROMO, Branscomb. Domestic abuse. 

BRADLEY SHEEHY, Ukiah. DUI-alcohol&drugs, third DUI in ten years, suspended license for DUI, no license, controlled substance, probation revocation.

JESSIE SLOTTE, Ukiah. Ammo possession by prohibited person, concealed dirk-dagger.

RONALD VALENTINE JR., Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol. (Frequent flyer.)

HUMCO SUPES VOTE TO PUT MEASURE ON MARCH BALLOTS THAT, IF PASSED, WOULD CREATE A DEPARTMENT OF FINANCE, COMBINING TWO ELECTED OFFICES INTO ONE APPOINTED POSITION

by Ryan Burns

Well into the ninth hour of Tuesday’s protracted Humboldt County Board of Supervisors meeting, the supes voted 3-1, with First District Supervisor Rex Bohn absent and Fifth District Supervisor Steve Madrone dissenting, to direct staff to prepare a county finance-related measure for March primary election ballots. 

If passed, the measure would combine the offices of the county auditor-controller and its treasurer-tax collector into a single Department of Finance, whose director would be appointed by the board.…

lostcoastoutpost.com/2023/nov/8/county-supes-vote-put-measure-march-ballots-if-pas/

CALIFORNIA’S INSURANCE MARKET IS A TICKING TIME BOMB. All Of Us Are At Risk Of Being Caught In The Blast

No one wants to have to pay more, but maintaining the status quo of the state’s home insurance market in the face of climate change is even costlier.

Wednesday marked five years since the devastating Camp Fire ripped through the Butte County town of Paradise, killing 85 people, destroying 11,000 homes and spurring an exodus of two-thirds of the population. 

Although California’s fire season was relatively calm this year due to a historically wet winter, the lingering impact of Paradise — along with skyrocketing inflation and the looming prospect of more wildfires fueled by climate change and poor forest management — have created a different kind of disaster: the soaring cost — and dwindling availability — of home insurance.

Seven of the state’s top 12 insurers have paused or restricted new business since 2022, and consumer options seem to shrink every day. The latest examples: Farmers Direct Property and Casualty Insurance Co. recently announced plans to end coverage in California and shift most policyholders to its parent company, Farmers — which has itself already limited coverage in the state. Last month, four small insurers said they would stop renewing California policies in 2024. 

Pretty much everyone agrees that “California’s present insurance market is in chaos,” as 32 Democratic members of the state’s congressional delegation wrote Monday in a letter to state Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara.

But the congressional delegation seemed more interested in scoring political points than in proffering practical solutions, suggesting that Lara’s plan to stabilize the insurance market is a giveaway to “unchecked corporate interests” that could result in “excessive” costs for consumers. 

This tired line of attack does nothing to bring Californians closer to obtaining and affording the coverage they need, and it obscures the actual causes of the state’s insurance crisis. 

California’s insurance market is sitting on a ticking time bomb because of its Fair Access to Insurance Requirements Plan, a state-established high-cost, bare-bones plan that offers coverage to people who can’t find it anywhere else. 

The FAIR Plan is intended to be a temporary safety net. But it’s become arguably the fastest-growing insurer in California, averaging a stunning 1,000 new applications each weekday. As of October, it covered more than 340,000 properties, over double the amount it covered in 2018.

“A growing FAIR Plan is a problem not just for the people on the FAIR Plan, but for all of us,” Deputy Insurance Commissioner Michael Soller told the editorial board. 

Here’s why:

Although the FAIR Plan accounts for only about 3% of California’s insurance market — up from 1.6% in 2018 — it insures a disproportionate number of properties in high-wildfire-threat areas, where “the risk of a disaster affecting many policyholders at the same time is much higher,” according to a fact sheet shared with state lawmakers. 

Great risk comes with great liability. As of October, the FAIR Plan had an exposure of $290 billion, a nearly sixfold increase from the $50 billion of exposure it had in 2018, according to a spokesperson. 

The FAIR Plan is growing because Californians can’t get insurance elsewhere. Yet private insurers are responsible for any claims the FAIR Plan can’t afford to pay — so insurers have to reduce their own risk accordingly to be able to cover all the potential losses. 

In other words, they have to limit their coverage — or drop it altogether — to avoid becoming insolvent. 

Reducing FAIR Plan liability is essential to stabilizing California’s insurance market. But the congressional delegation didn’t mention this in its letter — perhaps because it didn’t want to acknowledge that doing so would require consumers to pay higher rates. 

California is among the states with the nation’s highest cost of living but comparatively low insurance rates. This is partly due to Proposition 103, which established a robust regulatory process that, among other things, requires the insurance commissioner to review and approve any rate changes. 

Prop. 103 had the admirable intent of protecting consumers and increasing transparency. But in practice, it has discouraged insurers from raising rates above a 7% threshold that triggers a more extensive and often costly review process. In 2022, it took the California Insurance Department an average of 349 days to approve rate filings, according to an S&P Global Market Intelligence analysis.

This has hindered California’s insurance market from nimbly adjusting rates to match conditions on the ground. 

“Prop. 103 has created an insurance market that struggles to work efficiently even in the best of times and is virtually impossible to sustain in periods of acute stress,” concluded a white paper the International Center for Law & Economics released Monday. 

The stabilization strategy Lara introduced in September would end only-in-California prohibitions that block insurers from using forward-looking climate catastrophe models to help determine rates and that prevent them from passing along some of their costs for reinsurance, which is essentially insurance for insurance companies. It would keep in place strong consumer protections. 

In return, insurers would be required to write policies in “distressed areas” equal to 85% of their share of the California market. 

The plan, which likely will take years to fully implement, is aimed at addressing the immediate problem of unchecked FAIR Plan growth. Hanging over the stopgap solution are larger questions about what California should do to reduce risk in the long term. 

The state is investing billions in fighting climate change. Lara recently unveiled regulations requiring insurers to offer discounts to consumers who harden their homes against fires. 

Limiting new development in fire-prone areas, however, has proved controversial. Earlier this year, state lawmakers tabled a bill that would have required local governments to prioritize building homes in urban areas over less-developed regions at risk of fires and floods.

The development debate is one in which the insurance industry should play a key role. Lawmakers need to acknowledge that while the industry is often a convenient political bogeyman, it’s also integral to any long-term, sustainable solution. 

It’s one thing to be wary of “unchecked corporate interests,” as the congressional delegation put it. It’s another to deny that a business needs to make money in order to stay afloat. Over the past 10 years, insurance companies’ direct profit on insurance transactions in California was -6.1%, compared to 4.2% nationwide.

No one wants to have to pay more for insurance. But, maintaining the status quo is costlier.

(SF Chronicle Editorial)

WHAT IS JOURNALISM ANYMORE?

Walter Kirn: Right. It was understood that there was an essentially populist aspect to the journalistic mission in the old days. Journalists were largely at least presented as tribunes of the people, of their readers, and of their viewers rather than mouthpieces for the people that they supposedly were reporting on. I think there was always an adjacency between intelligence, and bureaucracy, and journalism, but it's especially problematic in this case because the people they're reporting on, the particular spooks that they're agreeing with or giving forums to are people who want to shut up the First Amendment which is the basis of these reporters' existence in America. I mean, it's one thing if you make friends with the insiders so that you can get the dope on a war or whatever, but it's another thing to side with them in the persecution of speech and press.

Matt Taibbi: Yeah, yeah. I feel like that's new. I hope that's new because then that offers some possibility that it's reversible.

Walter Kirn: It's weird, Matt, because I was on this panel on the media, and I have been a reporter, or a journalist, or an editor of some kind since I was 25 years old. That's 36 years. Aside from Ross Douthat, the moderator who was just asking questions, no one else on the panel had that experience. Renée DiResta did not have that experience. She came up in a strange new parallel universe, and the other fellow there who is the head of Substack, though I believe he was a reporter on tech at one point, he was there to represent the new media economy. So, as far as being familiar with the standards of reporting, the standards of evidence, and the history of journalism, both abstract and in my case, personal, I stood alone.

I got to say and I thought the voice of experience held special sway in these matters, but I don't think it does because now the whole thing has become this mishmash of bureaucracy, the academy, intelligence, politics because Renée DiResta was also a political operative, really, at certain points in her career, a partisan political operative. So it's like what is journalism anymore? It's hard to say. You and I come out of a very distinct and vivid tradition in which the journalist was over here and wore a certain uniform, but now it's just this big mountain of mashed potatoes.

IN THE 1930s in the United States, sacks containing flour and grain were made of cloth, primarily cotton. 

The Kansas Wheat company, in the midst of the Great Depression, realized that the poorest families were reusing them to sew dresses for women and girls, so to make them more captivating they decided to print them with floral and colorful motifs. 

The initiative was a huge success: they made sure that the ink used for the logos would fade after a simple wash, and some bags even had the patterns already drawn on the fabric, ready to be cut and sewn. 

A marketing tactic that helped American families get through a particularly difficult period, also useful as a source of income for women who would later sell their recycled models.

GAZA’S MAIN HOSPITAL STRUGGLES TO KEEP PATIENTS ALIVE

Gaza’s main hospital was collapsing on Saturday as the Israeli forces surrounded it and a power outage caused the deaths of a premature baby in an incubator and at least four other patients, according to the hospital director and the Gaza health ministry.

Without fuel to run generators, the hospital, Al-Shifa, in Gaza City, has been plunged into darkness and its medical equipment has stopped working. For weeks — as Israel has cut off supplies of fuel and electricity — the hospital has relied on backup generators and a dwindling supply of fuel.

“Surgeries have had to stop,” said the hospital’s director, Dr. Mohammed Abu Salmiya. “Kidney dialysis has stopped and the neonatal unit is in a very dire situation. A baby has died because of lack of oxygen and electricity and heat.”

Medical staff had to perform manual artificial respiration on some patients in intensive care for many hours after the outage shut down ventilators, said Medhat Abbas, the director general of Gaza’s health ministry.

Over the last few days, Israel’s ground invasion of the territory has moved deeper into Gaza City, slowly closing in on the hospitals that have provided refuge for tens of thousands. Israel says the hospitals are shielding Hamas military operations in tunnels below.

At Al-Shifa, thousands of seriously ill and wounded patients and displaced people have been trapped inside while Israeli tanks and troops surround the compounds, with snipers occasionally firing off shots, according to the health ministry, doctors and some witnesses sheltering inside.

Nearby, there is intense, close-quarter combat between Israeli troops and fighters from Hamas, the armed Palestinian group that controls Gaza.

The Israeli military has repeatedly urged patients and people sheltering at hospitals in Gaza City to be evacuated to the south away from the urban combat. Four hospitals in the city were evacuated on Friday.

But some of those who tried to leave Al-Shifa on Saturday, including a family, were shot at by snipers they believed to be Israeli, and at least one person was killed, according to multiple people at Al-Shifa Hospital, including Dr. Abu Salmiya.

On Saturday, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military spokesman, denied Israeli forces had besieged Al-Shifa and said troops would provide a safe passage for people to evacuate along the hospital compound’s eastern side. He said Israeli troops were not attacking the hospital itself but confirmed Israel was battling Hamas fighters “who choose to fight next to Al-Shifa Hospital.”

Al-Shifa has dozens of other premature babies in incubators that are no longer functioning, said Dr. Nasser Bulbul, leader of the hospital’s premature and neonatal department.

“We have to transport the babies in blankets and sheets to another building,” he said, where there was a bit of electricity to power incubators. He added that it was dangerous even to move from one building to another inside the medical complex.

Admiral Hagari said on Saturday evening that the Israeli military would help transfer babies out of Al-Shifa, but the hospital director said there were no plans for that.

“The staff of the Shifa Hospital has requested that tomorrow we will help the babies in the pediatric department to get to a safer hospital,” Admiral Hagari said at a televised news conference. “We will provide the assistance needed.”

“These words are completely false,” Dr. Abu Salmiya said afterward. There was no safer hospital or any such coordination, he said.

On Saturday, the Palestine Red Crescent warned that Al-Quds Hospital, another major hospital in Gaza City, was at risk of closing down because it was running out of fuel to power generators. The hospital has 500 patients, the Red Crescent said.

Israeli tanks and military vehicles have surrounded Al-Quds hospital and are shelling the building, the Red Crescent said.

Mahmoud Abu Harbed, a resident of Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza, has been at Al-Shifa Hospital for more than a month. He said on Saturday that his home was hit by Israeli airstrikes early in the war, wounding his brother, and that they fled to the hospital for treatment and for shelter.

“Everyone is on top of one another, displaced people, wounded people, even the medical staff,” he said. “They try to save this person and that person, but they can’t. There’s no electricity or medicine or anything,” he added.

“People are afraid, but we pray that God will protect us.”

(nytimes.com)

CEASING WAR

Dear Editor,

Can Israel and Palestine ever make peace? When it comes to two nations always seemingly being at war, “ever” is a long time. Think of England and Spain. They fought for hundreds of years, from the Middle Ages until after World War II. Other countries that have fought each other for many years are the United States and Great Britain. Or, for that matter, the US and Mexico. There are many others.

Israel began about 1948. From that time until now Its presence at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea has been contested by Palestinians. The Fatah during the 50’s onward, then the PLO, and now Hamas. Like Biden, 1942 was my birth year. Throughout my lifetime, Palestinians and Israelis have been enemies. In spite of present-day tragedies we witness now, we must always continue to pray for peace. Some day I am certain it will happen, but probably not in my lifetime.

First there must be a cease fire. Hamas, or its subsequent Palestinian national organized government, must give up its insane call for killing all Jews on earth. It must also recognize the existence of the state of Israel.

Frank H. Baumgardner, III

Santa Rosa

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

How Israel can claim to be the overall victim seems to be fading fast with Netanyahu's war hawk stance. How Hamas can be labeled “resistance fighters" when they storm in and take kids hostage is ludicrous.

The war-mongering nutjobs are running the show. Supported by even crazier factions from foreign lands. Both sides call for genocide and annihilation. There is no good fight here. This is a race to the bottom.

MAUREEN CALLAHAN: No one can watch what I have seen and not be changed by it. Late Thursday afternoon, I was one of about 20 journalists at a private screening of the raw footage of the 10/7 Hamas attack on Israel. Security was tight at the Israeli Consulate in Manhattan; the unmarked building was surrounded by police. Our phones and laptops were stored in lockers. We were escorted in small groups through two locked doors to a conference room. None of us wanted to be there. But all of us needed to be there - for this film, put together by the Israeli Army, will never be made public. The point of these viewings, the consulate staff told us, was to make sure that 'conspiracies and distortions don't make it into mass media.' As we know, they already have. This film has been screened approximately 75 times, according to the Israeli Consulate. The question now isn't who has seen this footage. The question is: Who among the powerful and influential has not?

NEW YORK MAGAZINE:

In 1988, in an elevator at a film festival in Havana, the director Oliver Stone was handed a copy of ‘On the Trail of the Assassins’, a newly published account of the murder of President John F. Kennedy. Stone admired Kennedy with an almost spiritual intensity and viewed his death on November 22, 1963 — 60 years ago this month — as a hard line in American history: the “before” hopeful and good; the “after” catastrophic. 

Yet he had never given much thought to the particulars of the assassination. “I believed that Lee Oswald shot the president,” he said. “I had no problem with that.” ‘On the Trail of the Assassins,’ written by the Louisiana appellate judge Jim Garrison, proposed something darker. 

In 1963, Garrison had been district attorney of New Orleans, Oswald’s home in the months before the killing. He began an investigation and had soon traced the contours of a vast government conspiracy orchestrated by the CIA; Oswald was the “patsy” he famously claimed to be. Stone read Garrison’s book three times, bought the film rights, and took them to Warner Bros… The studio gave him $40 million to make a movie.

The resulting film, JFK, was a scandal well before it came anywhere near a theater. “Some insults to intelligence and decency rise (sink?) far enough to warrant objection,” the Chicago Tribune columnist Jon Margolis wrote just as shooting began. “Such an insult now looms. It is JFK.” Newsweek called the film “a work of propaganda,” as did Jack Valenti, the head of the Motion Picture Association of America, who specifically likened Stone to the Nazi filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl. “It could spoil a generation of American politics,” Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote in the Washington Post…

And yet some of the response to the film looked an awful lot like a form of repression, a slightly desperate refusal to acknowledge that the official version of the Kennedy assassination had never been especially convincing. 

One week after the assassination and five days after Oswald himself was killed by nightclub owner Jack Ruby, President Lyndon Johnson convened a panel of seven “very distinguished citizens,” led by Chief Justice Earl Warren of the Supreme Court, to investigate. 

Ten months later, the Warren Commission concluded that Oswald, firing three shots from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, had killed Kennedy entirely on his own for reasons impossible to state…

In a famous courtroom scene, Garrison, played by Kevin Costner, showed the Zapruder film, the long-suppressed footage of the shooting, rewinding it for the jury as he narrated the movement of Kennedy’s exploding cranium — “Back, and to the left; back, and to the left” — which suggested a shot not from behind, where Oswald was, but from the front, in the direction of the so-called Grassy Knoll, where numerous witnesses testified to having seen, heard, and even smelled gunshots…

In another courtroom scene, Garrison dismantled the “single-bullet theory,” according to which the same round had been responsible for seven entry and exit wounds in Kennedy and Texas governor John Connally — an improbable scenario made all the more so by the alleged bullet itself, which was recovered in near-pristine condition. 

The simplest explanation would have been that all those wounds were caused by more than one bullet, but this would have meant either that Oswald had fired, reloaded, and again fired his bolt-action rifle in less than the 2.3 seconds required to do so or, more realistically, that there was a second shooter…

LADY OF SPAIN

(lyrics by Stanley Damerell and Robert Hargreaves)

Lady of Spain, I adore you
Right from the night I first saw you
My heart has been yearning for you
What else could any heart do?
Lady of Spain, I'm appealing
Why should my lips be concealing
All that my eyes are revealing?
Lady of Spain, I love you

Night in Madrid, blue and tender
Spanish moon makes silver splendor
Music throbbing, plaintive sobbing notes of a guitar

While ardent caballeros serenade:

Lady of Spain, I adore you
Right from the night I first saw you
My heart has been yearning for you
What else could any heart do?
Lady of Spain, I'm appealing
Why should my lips be concealing
All that my eyes are revealing?
Lady of Spain, I love you