Mendocino County Today: Sunday, Nov. 19, 2023

Cease Fire | Hospital Ships | Skyhawking | War Racket | Deliberate Instigation | Cloud Bank | Clearing | Pet Amigo | Sandbar Watch | 1964 Flood | Grocery Outlet | Barbie Sales | AV Events | Fall Color | Hard Work | Boonville 50s | Williams Filing | Mystery Stairway | CARB Regulations | GRFD | Institutional Dysfunction | Headland Rainbow | Life Art | County Courthouse | Yesterday's Catch | Marco Radio | Geese V | Unreal ID | Not Thinking | Censorship | Illuminati | Fish Farm | Liston/Clay | Klamath Dams | Farm Folk | Gun Safety | Fillmore 66 | Falling Apart | Bottle Time | Prixelrod | Row Man | Ukraine | New Chyrsler | Car Keys | Beachrunner

ISRAEL AND HAMAS have reportedly agreed to a five-day pause in fighting to free hostages from Gaza in exchange for a five-day pause in fighting. As part of the detailed, six-page agreement, all parties would freeze combat operations for at least five days while "an initial 50 or more hostages are released in smaller groups every 24 hours", the Washington Post reported Saturday. 

HOW ABOUT HOSPITAL SHIPS?

Editor: Hospitals in Gaza are wrecked. The U.S. military has several hospital ships that “support … humanitarian operations worldwide.” How about anchoring them off Gaza and accepting wounded civilians?

Patrick Campbell

Bloomfield

JEFF GOLL: The fact that the Palestinians are sitting on a large oil field offshore of Gaza and Israel wants it, shouldn't rationalize their "cleansing" of Palestine.  War was, and still is a racket, with the cost of many lives the price of that treachery.

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

The conflict is a deliberate instigation for reaction to a construct. Extremist Jews say all non Jews must kneel at their feet or die, as do the extremist Muslims, so, who’s side are we to be on? Every criticism of either side is hate speech, an implicit threat of extermination justifying the extermination of the other.

Leave me out.

Any observation from a short distance would reveal that globalist elite unwed to any race, religion or nationality, want us to kill each other…the ultimate solution for all the long emergencies.

Why play along?

Why advance their agenda?

The Muslim population dominates the planet.

A Jewish cabal dominates every seat of financial power.

What is left for the rest of us but to sacrifice for one side or the other?

ISOLATED LIGHT SHOWERS will end this morning as a colder and more stable airmass settles over Northwest California. Clearer skies and a drying airmass tonight will yield colder overnight temperatures, areas of frost as well as patches of fog, mostly for the interior valleys. Dry weather and above normal daytime temperatures are forecast to prevail next week. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): On the coast this Sunday morning I have clear skies & 47F. Yesterday's rain brought .55". Dry skies are forecast for the next 10 days. A frost warning for tonight.

RAINFALL (past 24 hours): Willits 1.24" - Yorkville 0.96" - Laytonville 0.95" - Leggett 0.92" - Boonville 0.84" - Hopland 0.59" - Covelo 0.51" - Ukiah 0.47"

UKIAH SHELTER PET OF THE WEEK

Amigo is a little shy at first, especially with men, but warms up quickly on a walk or with some treats. He is one of the sweetest dogs around, and will lay his head in your hands for pets. Amigo is easy to walk, knows sit, down and tested well with a female shelter guest, and yep, they wanted to play! Overall, with a little TLC at first, we think Amigo will make an awesome family dog. Amigo is a Cattle Dog mix, 1 year old and 52 very handsome pounds.

For more about Amigo 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 http://www.mendoanimalshelter.com/landingpage#/pups-young-dogs/ to see them all!

NAVARRO RIVER FLOOD POTENTIAL EARLY MONDAY

The Navarro River estuary is at a high level due to a robust sandbar at the river mouth blocking the outlet to the sea.

The National Weather Service forecast chart for the Navarro River currently predicts a crest of 2.9 ft. at 4 AM Monday morning. While that is not a very high crest, it does represent a significant increase in river flow entering the estuary compared to the current reading of 2.12 ft., which already has the estuary approaching the level where a short section of Rte. 128 may be flooded beginning at the 0.18 mile marker just east of the bridge. When I last checked a few days ago the marsh along the south side of the estuary was beginning to flood after a gradual rise in level over the previous week or two. Navarro Beach Rd. was still open. In the past the beach road has been closed before 128 was affected.

So while I'm NOT predicting Rte. 128 will be closed, it IS a significant possibility due to the condition of the sandbar.

Recent high surf periods have built up the sand berm to about 6 ft. high along the beach front. That means a sustained higher level of the estuary is needed before it will give way and allow drainage into the sea, lowering the water level and ending any highway flooding potential. The water level has been slowing rising for more than a week, even with the low river flows during that period.

So anyone planning to travel on 128 between the coast and Flynn Cr. Rd. early Monday morning should check information sources and be alert to the possibility of minor flooding just east of the Hwy. 1 bridge.  Alternate routes around the flood-prone area are available by means of Comptche Ukiah Rd., Philo Greenwood Rd. or Hwy. 20.

Disclaimer: I'm not a hydrologist or weather expert, just an interested person who has kept an eye on the lower Navarro for the past few years. My comments are based on published weather and river level forecasts by the National Weather Service plus my own direct observations of the Navarro sandbar and estuary water levels. As we know, the NWS forecasts may change as to timing and levels, and no predictions of future conditions are guaranteed.

Below are some useful links:

• NWS Navarro River Gauge
• Caltrans Roads Information for state routes
• Wunderground 10-day weather forecast (You may need to click on the tab labeled 10-Day-Forecast)

— Nick Wilson

CREEPING UP ON THE 59TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE '64 XMAS FLOOD.

GARY KOSKI: There is something terribly wrong with the group Fort Bragg Businesses matter; they filed another suit against the grocery outlet. These people don't care about the citizens of Fort Bragg, the poor and struggling, the senior citizens, working class families, they don't care one bit about us they only care about keeping businesses that they don't like out of Fort bragg. It's time to stand up against these few people that are causing harm to our community, we need to stop them in their tracks, they are selfish uncaring people who want to control the business aspects of our town, and decide for us what we need, while protecting their profits. The people proposing this project have jumped through all the hoops It's time to speak up to fort bragg business matters and say enough is enough, we want this It's been approved, so stop doing harm to our community by trying to dictate what stores are allowed and go on with your life because we the people of fort bragg want this and need this. If you agree, share this post or make your own post to show support for the grocery outlet coming to Fort Bragg. I've had enough!

SIGNS OF THE TIMES

AV EVENTS

The Anderson Valley Museum Open
Sun 11 / 19 / 2023 at 1:00 PM
Where: The Anderson Valley Museum , 12340 Highway 128, Boonville , CA 95415
More Information (https://andersonvalley.helpfulvillage.com/events/2977)

AV Village Volunteer Training
Sun 11 / 19 / 2023 at 1:00 PM
Where: Anderson Valley Senior Center , 14470 Highway 128, Boonville, CA 95415
More Information (https://andersonvalley.helpfulvillage.com/events/3504)

*AV Village Monthly Gathering: Winterizing your Garden with Vickie Brock
Sun 11 / 19 / 2023 at 3:00 PM
Where: Anderson Valley Senior Center, 14470 Highway 128, Boonville,
More Information (https://andersonvalley.helpfulvillage.com/events/3505)

WHEN MENDO HAD (SOME) SUPERVISORS & A CEO WHO TOOK THEIR JOBS SERIOUSLY

by Mark Scaramella

Despite the County’s many and growing staffing and budget problems, the Board of Supervisors has taken another month off. Their last meeting was November 8 at which they talked about the seriousness of the County’s financial difficulties but failed to come up with any ideas to solve them. Their next meeting is set for Tuesday, December 5, more than a week after the Thanksgiving holiday week. This comes on the heels of their summer break from July 31 to August 28. During that August break they insisted that they were working very hard, but despite that hard work they brought nothing substantive to the Board chambers to deal with the deficit. In the first half of fiscal year 2023-2024 (from July 1, 2023 to December 31, 2023. They have (or will have) met in open session only 11 times, less than twice a month. 

We’ve been looking back at our Board coverage from 2010 and 2011 when the Board dealt with major revenue reductions in the wake of the Great Recession. At that time, CEO Angelo had recently been promoted from her Health and Human Services Director job to Chief Executive Officer. Although her salary was a generous $180k per year, she at least didn’t ask for a raise during the financial crunch. That Board was made up of Kendall Smith, John McCowen, Carre Brown, John Pinches, and Dan Hamburg, who have mostly disappeared from public involvement since then, even though their experience from those tight budget days might be of value to the current Board. (Not that this Board would pay attention, but still…) In general Supervisors McCowen and Pinches (and Brown to a lesser degree) were taking budget cutting seriously, including taking voluntary 10% pay cuts. Hamburg and Smith refused to take pay cuts even as they imposed cuts on all their staffers and departments. (Of the current Board, the longest in office is Dan Gjerde who took his seat in January 2013 — after the previous Board had slogged through those difficult budget years. Further, the key finance officials from those years have retired or moved on.

The only decent record of those difficult dry years is ours here at the AVA. Nobody else has consistently covered the Board’s activities in any significant depth.

In April of 2010 as the impact of the cuts kicked in, CEO Angelo told the Supervisors that her office was considering several ways to make up the County’s estimated $7.6 million deficit through June of 2011 (a deficit similar in size to the current one): staff reductions, salary reductions, work-week reductions, office hour reductions, or combination thereof. Angelo noted that the County “is not likely to see a full economic recovery in the next couple of years.”

Although at that time they announced that they were laying off 25 people initially, only seven of the first 25 were really lay-offs. Thirteen vacant positions would be “defunded” (and left vacant) and five would be shifted to other “funding streams.” The April 2010 “lay-off list” was supposed to be the first of four phases of lay-offs which were estimated to total about 100 before the blood stopped flowing. Some of the other layoffs were not actual layoffs either, but early retirements or resignations. Nevertheless, they did save some money. Some of the layoffs were senior staffers who had union bumping rights and could take other positions they might be qualified for, but which would involve the bumped person(s) to be laid off.

After reviewing the first set of proposed layoffs, Supervisor Pinches noted that “the next 25 will be tougher” – particularly because they would be layoffs of actual employees, not funded vacancies left vacant or attrition. “In the past we could use attrition,” said Pinches. “Now we have no choice. This Board has been criticized for not cutting upper management. 14 of the positions on this list are over $90k cost-to-the-county positions. It's the higher end. We're trying not to go after the line staff.”

There were also questions of how the layoffs would play out in terms of the already-thin Coastal staff and smaller offices. 

Then-County union rep Jackie Carvallo summed up the initially proposed cuts this way:

“SEIU took 57% of the cuts of the actual people walking out the door, 4 out of 7 of the people who are actual layoffs – versus the shell game of moving people around or plugging them in where they can be funded under different revenue streams and stuff like that while our people are walking out the door. We are on the tail of the county saying, Please come back to the table and give more when we have already given 26 days out of our paychecks. The message from the workers is they find this hard to swallow. When I went back to the office at lunchtime I got a call from the Water Agency saying that the individual that was leaving has five pending grants on his desk and no one else is going to take up that slack. There are just some things that to the people that are working, that are currently giving mandatory time off, are just… We are still under a side letter [of agreement to continue with mandatory time off for the time being until the next bargaining session]. We're all for change. We're all for supporting everything. It's just a hard pill to swallow. I just feel obliged to point that out because I get so many comments on it from the workers. There is a process. We just kind of re-did the position in the [County] garage, and one in court collections and one in animal care and control. That took them out of management and put them in SEIU. There was a process they followed for that. They re-did the job descriptions, they compared it with like salaries, and they withdrew some of their benefits and they re-did it. The people were very, very gracious about it. But to just plug somebody in and say that they are going to do a comparable job when that's not how it's going to work is not how we do it for everyone else.”

A year later, in May of 2011 when the County was still downsizing in every department and slowly renegotiating union contracts, they triumphantly announced that the public attorneys union had agreed to accept significant salary cuts of $12.5%. The Board even denied themselves their usual travel and conference junkets — on 3-2 votes. 

We’ll be looking further into those tough years in the weeks ahead. 

The point? It’s easy to say there’s a budget problem, as Supervisors Williams and Gjerde and McGourty casually observe at every meeting. But it’s never easy or simple to make the necessary cuts in salaries and hours and staff. It involves a lot of very concerted effort working through the process and the impacts over an extended period. Yet this current CEO and Board are doing nothing but looking at “efficiencies” like turning out lights sooner, an ill-defined hiring freeze, and some vague potential “cost savings.” They are doing nothing about fundamentals like revenues going uncollected, or high paid staff salary cuts, nothing about reducing staff or office hours, nothing about bloated management. And this month, they’re not even holding a meeting to try to deal with the problems. 

MARSHALL NEWMAN: I think it has been run before, but still an interesting shot from the 1950s (I think).

SUPERVISOR WILLIAMS: “Thanks to those who jumped to support me as a candidate, I’m filing my nomination signatures today in Ukiah to qualify for the election. Assembly District 2 includes northern Sonoma, Mendocino, Humboldt, Trinity and Del Norte. It’s important that the race focuses on rural equity.”

SAM KOSKI JONES: I was out taking photos the other day and noticed after looking at it on the computer to the right of the photo there is a stairway with an entrance at the bottom. Does anyone have any knowledge of the history of this. This photo was taken at the pullout before Mendocino on the north side turning onto Lansing Street.

JOHN REDDING:

Well, well. The California Air Resources Board -- you know, the ones you voted for -- has now decreed that diesel locomotives are to be banned starting 2030. Only locomotives with Zero Emissions (which I capitalize because they are holy words) will be allowed to operate. Meaning long haul locomotives that run on batteries.

So those who break out in a rash at the very thought of the Skunk Train needn't worry any longer. It will be gone along with, one can safely predict, most locomotives. Including those that will no longer bring goods to CA, preferring to stop at the state line.

The Doom Loop is accelerating.

If elected to the State Assembly, will Ted Williams support or oppose CARB issuing these far-reaching regulations?

DO NO HARM

by Jim Shields

It appears we all made it through another week which is no insignificant accomplishment in these perilous, unsettled times.

It's impossible not to recognize the seemingly institutional dysfunction in the governing process of this county. Too many elected officials and “public servants” go out of their way to create problems when their main goal and purpose is to solve problems. Most people don't have lofty expectations of their elected representatives. Most would settle for an adaptation of the Physician's Oath, “First, do no harm.” This whole Chemise Cubbison affair is unseemly and fraught with underhanded “payback” politics. It's a shameful episode in this county's history. I fear it's going to be an expensive history lesson for the taxpayers, also.

Speaking of the Cubbison imbroglio, here are excerpts from a letter by Karen Lee, of Ukiah, who succinctly captures the core of this rotten apple.

“…In her duties as Auditor/Controller, Ms. Cubbison has questioned the DA, Mr. Eyster, in his allocation of funds. This is her job. To me, it looks like Mr. Eyster is retaliating and slandering Ms. Cubbison and her reputation for questioning his actions. It is her job to question funding allocations in every department in our county, including the DA’s office. He has stated that Ms. Cubbison is a ‘pain in the ass.’ This is one thing that Mr. Eyster is correct about. It is Ms. Cubbison’s job to be ‘a pain in the ass.’ The Board of Supervisors has taken a wrongful action against Ms. Cubbison. They decided to fire her without pay before they even talked to her or notified her they were considering this action. This is not only a huge mistake, but is likely illegal. If I understand the government codes correctly, the BOS has no right to fire an elected official unless that person has been convicted of a felony. (See Title 1, Division 4, Section 4, 1770 (h)). Ms. Cubbison has never been convicted of any wrong doing, let alone a felony. If the BOS had done their research, they would have discovered this. The applicable state government codes were read to the BOS meeting by Jim Shields. The BOS has no excuse! Chamise Cubbison hasn’t had her day in court, yet. If and when she does, all of the facts will come out. Until that day comes, Ms. Cubbison should be reinstated in her job and should get all of her pay, including the funds for the time she was prematurely dismissed.”

Last week’s BOS meeting dealt with, in one way or another, the ongoing fiscal mess with no resolution presently in sight other than fairly drastic measures are looming on the near horizon. Supervisors Haschak and Gjerde have been working towards some of the right steps needed to be taken to begin solving the problem but have little or no support from the other three Supes, who are content to jawbone it incessantly.

* * *

Jim Wood Is A Good Man.

You know how politicians are always proclaiming that they do this or that for “family reasons,” well, regardless of what anybody may think of Assemblyman Jim Wood, he‘s earned my admiration. 

Last week, Wood announced that he will not seek reelection in 2024, which would have been for his sixth and final term in the Assembly. There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind, including this mind, that he was on auto pilot cruising to another win had he chosen to seek that sixth term.

But in two short sentences, Wood gave the best speech of his time in office when he explained the reason he was stepping down: “Many in public office say they are leaving for personal or family reasons, but that is very real for me. My mother has been in declining health and now requires an increasingly higher level of care and I want to be a meaningful part of that.”

Back in the day, the highest accolade people could bestow on someone was “he’s a good man.”

Jim Wood is a good man, and a very good son whose mother passed on some very strong love and solid values to her son.

* * *

Following Wood’s surprise news, Mendocino County 5th District Supervisor Ted Williams sprung his own surprise by declaring he intends to run for Wood’s seat. 

Williams announcement drew similar comments of disbelief from many county residents, as in “He’s what? You’ve got to be kidding!”

“Today I filed as a candidate for California Assembly District 2,” Williams posted on his Facebook page Monday, Nov. 13. “I decided to run because our rural northern communities need a stronger voice in California. The data shows we are being left behind and I want to talk about how we can turn that around.”

My only comment is, any and all candidates with just half their wits about them, should ask Williams to explain his assessment that during his tenure on the Board of Supervisors the county is, in his word, “insolvent.” 

* * *

Laytonville Armed Robbery BOLO

Last Thursday, Nov. 9, an Officer Safety Bulletin was issued for two vehicles occupied by four armed men who allegedly robbed/invaded a property in the northern Laytonville area. Social media sites garbled up the incident with bogus info, something they all excel at.

Actually, those dudes were “pot soldiers” from the robbery site who were chasing the actual pot robbers, and all of them were being BOLO-ed by the actual cops. 

Now that’s a lot of activity and resources being expended by both the crooks and the cops over a crop that’s come a cropper. 

The same general area of this most recent caper encompasses the site of the Jeffrey Settler pot grow murder 7 years ago. It’s an area located about five miles north of Laytonville and five or six miles west of Highway 101. It’s also the same area where the Louis Bagliere gang did a home invasion that stretched over several days during September of 2020. 

Truly amazing that people are still conspiring, ripping, and killing over a plant that’s not worth that much any more. But it seems to still be worth more than your life. 

(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)

PETIT TETON MONTHLY FARM REPORT - OCTOBER 2023

A fair number of people stop by the farm on their way to the Mendocino coast, to go wine tasting, to visit their vacation home or to stay at a B&B. Many notice our signs, others look at their phones for tourist recommendations, some are regulars and others are adventurers. What I've noticed over the years is that once they've made it up our "scary" driveway they often comment on how beautiful the place is, what a lovely farm and how happy the critters seem, including the humans. After they make their selections in the shed in which all our canned items are displayed we invite them into the kitchen because the cash box and credit card reader are there, as well as the meat and fresh food. The kitchen often causes a gasp of surprise. It's a commercial kitchen with all the usual equipment, but it's also a display area for whatever fruits and veggies are in season, dried peppers, the "nature lab"...our collection of abandoned eggs, skeletons, dried plants, wasp nests, snake skins, rattlesnake tails, etc,...and a collection of free books and greeting cards I've produced over the years. But what stops certain folks cold is the art display which sometimes leads to very interesting exchanges and is the reason I'm writing this.

I've been a trained fine artist my whole life. It is who I am. When a person notices the work displayed and starts asking questions the comments often end with "Are you still painting?". At first my response was somewhat defensive, probably thanks to my upbringing which demanded that not only was visual art solely painting and drawing, but there also was a hierarchy of subject matter. I would say something in the order of "Well, everything on the farm is a result of my art. I designed the kitchen and one of our workers built it. I designed the landscape within the fenced five acres of the farm. I grew from seed or starts many of the trees and shrubs that create the beauty of the place. I had the vision. When I bought the property there were only 30 head of sheep and garbage and nothing edible had ever been planted. So, no, I don't paint, draw or make masks any more. I haven't the time or desire."

It has finally dawned on me that this response is incomplete and inadequate, and that rules are made by society. What I really want to say is that everything in my life is Art. But I'm worried that few would understand. Life is continuous change. Everything one has done or learned is connected to one's past and future. So is everyone with whom one has connected. Life is a flow, given a meaning by each individual, although the theme may be difficult to see until late in life. There is no disconnection between one part of one's life and another. My theme is a creator of art whether on canvas, paper, or papier mache, and that impulse is the same when creating a landscape or a building or raising children. It's my belief that art is about expressing feelings which are communicated through the senses to a viewer thus creating a connection with another person. For me one of the joys of farming is that I've added smell, taste and hearing to the tactile and visual senses I used in my art. And when folks compliment us on the beauty and comfort of the place, they are appreciating a masterpiece that will never be "finished"...life itself. Yes, everything dies but is then transformed or subsumed into many different lives.

Have a plentiful holiday season with the friends and family you love, Nikki Auschitt & Steve Krieg

PS. Some of the pictures in the kitchen...

MENDOCINO COUNTY COURTHOUSE, COMPLETED 1873

After winning out over rival cities for designation as the county seat, Ukiah built its first courthouse, a simple two-story brick building, in 1860. As the county prospered, officials commissioned a much grander building with two-story columns and a dome. Among the court's more dramatic trials was one in 1905 during which a man brought before the court on an insanity charge apparently was not searched and fatally shot the sheriff. The courthouse was demolished in 1950 to make way for a more modern building.

Courtesy, Callie Coombs, Mendocino County Museum

CATCH OF THE DAY, Saturday, November 18, 2023

ROBERT BERG, Ukiah. Vandalism.

FRED COX, Little River. DUI.

ADDI DELGALLO, Santa Rosa/Ukiah. DUI-alcohol&drugs.

CHRTISTOPHER GOAD, Lakeport/Ukiah. Failure to appear.

AMANDA MARRUFO, Annapolis. Suspended license for DUI, probation revocation.

NICHOLE RAMIREZ, Manchester. Failure to appear.

MARIO TAPIA, Santa Rosa/Ukiah. DUI, no license.

KIMBERLEE THOMPSON, Ukiah. DUI, recklessly causing fire to structural or forest land, assault with deadly weapon not a gun, resisting.

CHAD TURLEY, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs.

MEMO OF THE AIR: A Gypsy melody.

“Gazing into the flames as the Red Indian took form, I felt the same devil move in me as I had on that day at the river when Dieter had emerged naked and streaming from the water. I could practically smell the aroma of leather and horse-sweat emanating from bronze skin. My breathing grew heavy and harsh as I squeezed my eyes shut and the stars of a huge night sky over a vast, desolate and craggy place called New Mexico or Arizona rushed and raced, swirled and dipped while I clenched my teeth and my heart pumped like a fist. The next day, I crept into Dieter’s room when he was out and found the book he had been reading from the night before: Winnetou, The Apache Knight. I absorbed the strange words. Frau Gunter, when she was not taking us to the cemetery or forcing us to make lace, had taught us to read the Bible. Because of this, I could read any book I opened. If I didn’t understand a particular word, I deduced its meaning by the other words around it.” –Eleanor Cooney

Here's the recording of last night's (Friday 2023-11-17) 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-0567

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:

Pull My Daisy, a beat film. Gently narrated (and seamlessly dubbed) by Jack Kerouac. (26 min.) https://nagonthelake.blogspot.com/2023/11/pull-my-daisy-1959.html

Motorcycle-cop chase. I’ll tell you right off that by both skill and incomprehensible miracle nobody gets hurt here, so you can enjoy it without stress. Imagine you’re the young couple on the bike being chased. What’s their story, I wonder. Note the demonstration of inertia when the chasee’s passenger’s feet and shapely butt fly up off the pegs and seat, respectively, on speed-bumps, and automatically reacquire their purchase. https://misscellania.blogspot.com/2023/11/tweet-of-day_0711225337.html

Bobby Fingers creates art, makes musical films about the art, buries the art somewhere in the world and gives clues to find it. This is his latest film, wherein he builds and launches a rowing-boat in the shape of Jeff Bezos' giant face. https://kottke.org/23/11/bobby-fingers-makes-a-jeff-bezos-rowboat

And cheerful deaf people teach us swears to convey through motions of the hands and face. https://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2023/11/not-safe-for-work.html

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

NO REAL I.D. IN FOUR VISITS TO DMV.

Letter to the Editor,

Visit #1

“Good morning, how can I help you?”

“I want to renew my license, but this time get a Real I.D.”

“O.K. Let’s see your paperwork.”

(presents birth certificate and 2 utility bills)

“O.K. these look good except this water bill doesn’t have your actual street address on it; it just has your name and East Armpit, CA. You need to bring the part that has your actual street address.”

“Darn! That’s the part that you have to send in with your payment.”

“Sorry, but you need to have that part.”

“O.K.”

Visit #2

“Good afternoon; what can I do for you?”

“I was in last week trying to get a Real I.D. driver’s license, and you said you need your actual street address on the bill, not just the city; will these work?”

“Yes, these will work, but since you were married before your current name, you need the divorce certificate from your first husband.”

“What? You didn’t tell me that on my first visit.”

“Oh, sorry, but that’s the rule.”

“But that was in 1973! “

“I understand, but you need to apply to wherever you got that divorce and get the paperwork.”

“O.K.”

Visit #3

“Good morning, didn’t I see you a few days ago?”

“Yes, I think we are going to be on a first-name basis, soon. I finally located my divorce papers from 1973.”

“Good. Llet’s take a look at those. O.K. This is great. I need to show this to my supervisor.”

(walks over to another desk and chats with person sitting there)

“O.K. My supervisor says that now you need to bring a certificate showing that you were married to your first husband.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me. Why didn’t you tell me that last time? And, why would I get a divorce from someone I wasn’t married to?”

Well, it’s the rule. And I don’t make the rules. You do need your marriage certificate if you ever changed your name, and you did change your name when you married to your first husband.”

“Right, but I kept that name!”

“True, but since you did change it, that’s why we need a record of it; we don’t need certificates for your second husband because you didn’t change your name in that marriage.”

(head spinning) “Lucky me!”

Visit #4

“Good, afternoon; it’s you again! Hope we have better luck today.”

“Me, too!”

(examines all the paperwork previously submitted plus the marriage certificate)

“There’s good news and bad news. The good news is you have all the materials you need for the Real I.D. The bad news is that your utility bill dates have timed out, so all you have to do is bring in two current bills, and you’re done.”

“I’m done now. I’ll take the train, and an un-real I.D.”

S. Powelson

Eureka

CENSORSHIP AT THE BOHEMIAN NEWSPAPER & ELSEWHERE

by Jonah Raskin

Censorship works. It prevents books, ideas and authors from circulating and reaching the public. But censorship is never a long term or permanent solution. Ideas and books will come out and authors will speak with readers, though it may take time. When Dan Pulcrano, the publisher of The Bohemian, put the kibosh on a story by Peter Byrne about a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Santa Rosa he probably didn’t realize he would stir up a hornet’s nest. Not surprisingly, Pulcrano has claimed that he didn't censor the story, but made “editing decisions.”

That’s what the censors all say. Pulcrano also said that “censorship is something a government does,” and thus showed how little he knows about censorship, which is carried out by corporations and businesses, newspapers, magazines, and on the internet.

Byrne’s story has been published in Counterpunch and is available online. (https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/11/10/call-it-genocide-a-call-for-ceasefire/). It has probably been read by far more people than would have read it had it appeared in The Bohemian. Byrne calls the Israeli military action in Gaza “genocide.” Others have called it “ethnic cleansing,” which seems like splitting hairs.

Censorship brings attention to the work that’s censored and to the censored author. It also backfires. That has happened throughout history and from the USA to the USSR, Israel to Iran, China and beyond. Right now somewhere in the world a book or news story is surely being censored. The work may never see the light of day, though these days there are so many outlets for publication that it seems unlikely it will be permanently buried. 

I have long believed that self-censorship is the worst kind of censorship. The author or authors do the work of the censors. They internalize censorship. Some writers long to be censored; they’re under the impression that censorship will make their work more widely read than if it’s uncensored. Unfortunately, some readers assume that a censored work has more literary and political value than an uncensored work. 

James Joyce’s Ulysses and D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley's Lover were both censored in their day and have since been widely recognized as great works of literature. James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice, which was censored, attracted a great deal of attention, plus sales and a Hollywood movie, but it’s not great literature. Don’t judge a book by its cover, and don’t judge its merits on its status as a censored or uncensored work. 

HEY, BUDDY, WANNA LOSE SOME MONEY?

by Lawrence Reichard

As reported earlier in the AVA, and widely in Humboldt County, Nordic Aquafarms of Fredrikstad, Norway, wants to build a $200 million land-based industrial fish farm in Eureka, and another, $500 million operation in my midcoast home of Belfast, Maine, population 6,700. The Belfast plant would be the second-biggest industrial project in Maine history. As big as Gillette Stadium, Fenway and two TD North Gardens, combined. That's big.

Globally, aquaculture, as opposed to wild-caught seafood, accounts for more than half the world's seafood consumption. It's a $290 billion annual business. It's big.

But the industry is mired in woe of its own making. Investors are making for the exits. Especially from land-based aquaculture. Earlier this year the CEO of Cooke Aquaculture, a big-boy industry player, said land-based technology just isn't there yet. And five years ago, in late 2018, Bent Urup, the world's most accomplished land-based aquaculture designer and entrepreneur told me in his Fredericia, Denmark office that Nordic's personnel weren't up to snuff. Urup said it's not enough to fix problems. One has to anticipate problems. One must be able "to see around corners." 

And with fish die-offs nearing a million, and a cellar-dwelling stock price, Norway-based Atlantic Sapphire's world-biggest land-based plant in Homestead, Florida is enough to race the heart of anyone eager to part company with their hard-earned funds. Atlantic Sapphire failed to gauge the devastating effect of ongoing site construction on the fish swimming in endless circles in its tanks. No one saw around that corner. 

So Nordic has neither the technology nor the staff. Nice. That should pretty much take care of its $700 million right there. And we're to believe that investors are forking over hundreds of millions for this dog and pony show?

In Humboldt, Nordic switched species from salmon to yellowtail kingfish, which fetches a higher price. But Nordic is also reducing annual production tonnage by 90 percent. Fluctuating prices make it hard to calculate, but Nordic may be losing as much as 40% of its original revenue projections. Most companies don't voluntarily give up 40 percent of revenue - so why did Nordic? Is Nordic failing to attract enough capital? 

Here in Maine, 5-6 years into the Nordic fight, the tide has recently and rather clearly swung toward the Nordic opposition. 

With a craven corporatist governor in Augusta and a see-no-evil state Department of Environmental Protection, Nordic's skids were greased from day one. The state and the City of Belfast have showered gifts on Nordic. Everyone smiled for the cameras. It was all there but the band and the giant ribbon-cutting scissors. State and local pols squawked about swelling tax coffers and wondrous repairs to an aging water system in 250-year-old Belfast. All while Nordic was out gorging on every corporate tax break buffet from Maine to its P.O. box in tax-haven Delaware. 

Nordic has been promised free dechlorination, courtesy of the grateful taxpayers of Belfast. Always happy to help a flown-in behemoth. No problem. 

Meanwhile the waterfront Marshall Wharf Brewing Co. pays its own dechlorination, without which it wouldn't sell a pint of beer. Never mind that Marshall Wharf has for years employed real, live locals with bills to pay. Merely saying you're going to hire locals is apparently more lucrative than actually doing it.

Nordic has taken some body blows this year. On February 16, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruled that Nordic doesn't own a piece of intertidal land it needs to lay saltwater intake and effluent discharge pipes. Opponents immediately called for revocation of all state DEP and related Nordic permits that were premised on clear title to all needed lands. For six months the silence from Augusta was deafening, but now the state apparatus has woken from its stupor and ground into motion, and the results don't look good for Nordic. One of five permits was revoked. Another one fell a week later. It was so bad that Nordic rushed to every available microphone to insist it wasn't going anywhere. 

Exactly. 

Nordic's permit application ran more than 1,000 pages. All written by BMW-driving attorneys. Do the math. Someone's hemorrhaging Norske kroner in the great state of Maine. 

Not to mention heating all manner of ghost-town offices meant to convey the fantasy that someone other than lawyers is actually doing work on the Belfast project, a project that's gone nowhere in five years. The wheels have long since come off that bus. Nordic hasn't stuck a single shovel in the ground, in five years. Not one. Every investor's, well, dream. They're lining up out the door and around the block.

Years ago Nordic said it was $7 million into Belfast. It has to be twice that now, maybe more, and still no end in sight. That's a lot of tacos to walk away from, but at what point does one stop throwing good money after bad? Nordic should have abandoned Belfast when it discovered it didn't own the mudflats it needed to lay saltwater intake and effluent discharge pipes. Anyone paying attention knows that. Instead Nordic tried to hide its lack of ownership, and it failed. That was a managerial gamble, and Nordic lost the gamble. It's called incompetence, a fly that's been buzzing around Nordic's head for years.

Meanwhile Big Aqua is consuming itself. It's overfishing global-south waters to feed its factory fish, losing most of the original protein in the process. Overfished industry giant Peru keeps closing its fishing season, putting at risk the food security of local fishing communities. And Big Aqua may have to fall back on even higher soy content in its industrial fishmeal. When was the last time you saw a salmon eating soy? 

Here, buddy, have another natural soy-fed salmon, the world's finest. 

Here in Maine, Nordic is looking more and more like a band playing on a lower deck of the Titanic, while one or two Belfast city councilors and a few State of Maine apparatchiks do a mournful dance, and chilly North Atlantic waters lap ever-higher on the few remaining deckchairs.

Hell, I'd invest in a sinking Titanic. Wouldn't you?

Lawrence Reichard

Belfast 

THE LARGEST DAM REMOVAL PROJECT IN U.S. HISTORY HITS MAJOR MILESTONE

by Ashley Harrell

Work crews completed the deconstruction of Copco No. 2 — a hydroelectric dam on the Klamath River near the Oregon-California border — in early November, according to a press release from Klamath River Renewal Corp., the nonprofit organization removing the dams. It’s a major milestone in the largest dam removal project in U.S. history, and the three remaining dams are slated to come down next year. 

The effort to remove the dams has spanned more than 20 years, with hundreds of tribal members and other river advocates dedicating their careers to the river and its salmon populations.

“It’s been two decades of so many ups and downs,” Yurok Tribal Fisheries Department Director Barry McCovey Jr. told SFGATE. “The people involved have just really been persistent.”

McCovey grew up hearing stories of how the U.S. government forcibly relocated tribes to reservations and took control of the Klamath River in the 1880s, allowing private companies to build hydroelectric dams in the early 1900s. In studying to become a fish biologist, he learned all about how the dams — which altered the river’s flow, temperature and sediment — were devastating for salmon and their habitat. 

In 2002, when McCovey was just beginning his career, more than 30,000 fish (and possibly more than twice that many) were wiped out on the Klamath in a short time. It was the largest fish kill in the nation’s history.

The event drew national attention, and efforts to remove the dams began in earnest. Although the dams were relatively small producers of hydroelectric power, Republican leaders and landowners were worried about setting a precedent of removing dams. For nearly 20 years, negotiations fell through and agreements failed to launch.

During that time, river advocates took a multipronged approach, according to McCovey. “So many people were involved in so many different disciplines,” he said. “It really, really took a monumental amount of work.”

Some people concentrated on removing the dam based on law, litigation and policy, while others were working in advocacy. For his part, McCovey focused on scientific research, monitoring the river and collecting data that supported dam removal.

Because the effort stretched over so much time, not everyone will see the fruits of their labor. “We lost people,” he said. “Some of them worked really hard on this and then they passed away.”

The sustained effort finally paid off in late 2022. At that time, the dams were owned by PacifiCorp, a company owned by Berkshire Hathaway. The revenue the dams brought in was a small percentage of the company’s earnings, and renewing the license for the dams was more costly than removing them. PacificCorp instead transferred ownership of the dams to the states of California and Oregon, and Klamath River Renewal Corporation, and operations to remove the four largest of the river’s aging dams began in March of this year. 

Work crews finished deconstruction on Copco No. 2 — the smallest of the four dams — in September. By early November the crews had removed diversion infrastructure, graded the river channel, performed erosion control and completed the project. Nearby Ward’s Canyon, where water has not flowed consistently since 1925, would soon reap the benefits, KRRC announced.

“Seeing the Klamath River flow through this canyon after being diverted for nearly a century is inspiring,” Laura Hazlett, chief operating officer of KRRC, said in the November statement. “It makes me excited for everything else that is to come with the removal of the other three dams.”

In January 2024, crews will begin draining the water behind the walls of the three remaining dams. Then they’ll demolish the dams and remove the rubble. Finally, they will spread mulch and seed over the empty reservoir beds. In partnership with restoration contractor Resource Environmental Solutions, the Yurok tribe has gathered, propagated and stored some 13 billion seeds for this purpose over the last five years, according to McCovey. The goal is to get to 19 billion. 

“We have an all-Native crew that collects all-native vegetation that’s around those reservoirs that we want to plant back in there,” he said. “We don’t want invasive species.” 

The project will likely wrap up by November of 2024, according to KRRC’s press release, but McCovey emphasizes that the true impact of removing the dams will not be seen for many years. While factors such as drought could create ongoing obstacles, “dam removal is the largest single step we can take towards rebalancing the Klamath River Basin and ecosystem,” he said.

At the tribal membership meeting in October, McCovey was sitting at a desk, preparing to deliver a report about the Klamath. He had not visited the site of Copco No. 2, but he did know that work on its deconstruction was wrapping up. When a fellow tribesman walked up and placed a rock in front of him, he knew what it was right away.

He picked up the piece of the demolished dam, studying its contours. 

“That almost made me emotional,” he said. “If anything has made it seem real, it’s been that. Holding a chunk of that dam in my hand.”

(SF Chronicle)

NEW REPORT: CALIFORNIA HAS LED THE WAY ON GUN SAFETY

Washington DC — Today, GIFFORDS Law Center, the legal arm of the gun violence prevention group GIFFORDS, released a new report, California Has Built a Lifesaving Gun Safety Model for the Nation. The report focuses on the correlation between California’s decreasing gun violence rates over the past 30 years and its enactment of strong gun laws during the same time period. 

Read the full report here. 

Lindsay Nichols, Policy Director: 

“California has led the nation in passing lifesaving gun laws. Over the past three decades, it has passed the nation’s first assault weapons ban, implemented strong background check laws, and just this year signed into law a first-of-its-kind bill to fund community violence intervention programs. The implementation of these critical initiatives have led to a notable decrease in gun violence. From 1993 to 2019, California’s gun homicide rate fell by two-thirds, dropping more than twice as much as the rest of the country. We know that these laws work and have saved many lives, and we’re proud of our efforts in the state. GIFFORDS will continue to work to pass strong gun laws in California.”

Highlights:

The impact of California's strong gun laws is measured in lives saved and fewer incidents of gun violence.

California implemented the nation's first assault weapons ban, strong background check laws, and eligibility standards for firearm purchases.

California has enacted various protections for victims of domestic violence, waiting periods to prevent impulsive acts, and oversight for gun dealers, among other measures.

The state preserved local authority for cities and counties to develop tailored gun safety laws.

California established the nation's first extreme risk protection order (also known as a “red flag” law) and the nation’s first state-funded gun violence research center.

The state has achieved remarkable reductions in gun violence, with record-breaking decreases in gun homicides, suicides, and unintentional shooting deaths.

California's progress in reducing gun violence occurred primarily within the last decade.

Despite spikes in violence during the pandemic, California remains safer than most other states, especially in terms of child safety, domestic violence, and racial disparities in gun violence.

California's gun safety policies have made a significant difference, potentially preventing thousands of deaths and injuries.

(Giffords Law Center, via Steve Heilig)

MATT TAIBBI & WALTER KIRN

This was a busy week, Walter. We’re moving into this area of pre-election season, where people start positioning themselves for themes they’re going to adopt on either side of the aisle. And there was a succession of events that took place last week, but I think a good place to start is with some seemingly unconnected news that you felt like it was worth bringing up, beginning with one news story that happened in LA. We can get to another thing, but what are some of the infrastructural highlights of the American experience from the last couple of weeks?

Walter Kirn: Well, a freeway burnt down in Los Angeles. You don’t expect that that will happen in America, but the 10, which anybody who either watches Saturday Night Live, that little skit they do about commuting in Los Angeles, or anybody who actually lives in Los Angeles knows, is the main artery between Santa Monica and downtown Los Angeles. And there was some incredible pile of debris that built up underneath it, which caught fire and literally burned cement and melted guardrails. And I know, from my Los Angeles correspondents, that the commute all around Los Angeles has been affected. The last time this kind of damage was done to a major freeway was the North Ridge Earthquake, but this was a human quake. At the same time, up in San Francisco, they were cleaning things up so the Chinese leader, Xi, could visit a kind of Potemkin version of San Francisco.

Matt Taibbi: That’s so sad, isn’t it? Potemkin San Francisco, that’s exactly what it is.

Walter Kirn: Yeah. So they were getting the fentanyl casualties off the street and putting up fences and doing other things like that. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, a freeway was burning down. I love that sentence. Meanwhile, back in New York, at the same time this was happening, I was talking to a friend who had to commute or travel at least from Grand Central Station up to Albany, but wasn’t able to because a parking garage had started disintegrating, a huge, heavy concrete parking garage above the Amtrak tracks, had started disintegrating and they had to close that little dinky rail line between New York City and the state capital in Albany.

Matt Taibbi: Right, the only one.

Walter Kirn: Yeah, the only one. Yeah. So between Potemkin San Francisco, burning freeway, and collapsing parking structure over Amtrak tracks, I went, “I can see what the next issue of the big presidential season is going to be,” which is American deterioration. That’s not something that is often talked about in the polls, but to me, it’s just the overwhelming feature of this moment.

Matt Taibbi: Right. Yeah. And just to set the scene, let’s just read a paragraph from the USA Today account of the freeway episode in Los Angeles. “‘A large fire broke out under Interstate 10 Saturday after midnight, fully engulfing multiple pallets, vehicles, and trailers before winds blew the flames across the street to another storage yard,’ said Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley. Eight acres were scorched in the blaze. Officials said the cause of the fire hasn’t been released.”

And the thing about the story is that it was no longer a story 10 minutes after it came out out. These things happen so often now that they have ceased to become issues in American life. And in most parts of the country, the reality of decaying, declining, terrible infrastructure is just a fact of life. And I remember going overseas when I was a kid and thinking, “God, everything looks so decrepit.” Now, I think the opposite every time I go overseas. And this clearly is an issue for voters because it affects their daily lives. Is it not? And that is also what Trump picked up on when he ran in 2016. That was the theme of his speech. We don’t win anymore. Everything looks terrible. Right? And it’s the same thing that the ... mm-hmm.

THE AXE IS SHARP

by Maureen Dowd

David Axelrod is not a prick.

Truly.

I’ve known him since 2007 and if I had to pick a noun to describe him, it would be mensch.

So when President Biden privately employs that epithet for Axelrod, according to Politico’s Jonathan Martin, it’s bad for a few reasons.

The ordinarily gracious president is punching down at the strategist who helped elevate him onto the ticket with Barack Obama in 2008 and who thinks he was “a great vice president” and has done a lot of wonderful things as president.

When some in the Obama camp chattered in 2011 about switching Biden out for Hillary Clinton, Axelrod said, he protested: “That would be an incredible act of disloyalty to a guy who has done a great job for us.”

Surely, Mr. Biden does not want to lower himself to the vulgarity of the growling, brawling, thieving Republicans in the Hieronymus Bosch hellscape of our Congress.

(As Seth Meyers noted, George Santos — who spent campaign money on Hermès, Ferragamo, Botox, Sephora and OnlyFans — had “the shopping list of a 98-year-old oil tycoon’s 20-year-old wife.”)

Axelrod drew Biden’s ire because he urged the president to consider stopping at one term, throwing open the race to younger Democrats while there’s still time, and leaving as a hero. He said that, despite Biden’s insult, he got a slew of messages agreeing with him.

“I don’t care about them thinking I’m a prick — that’s fine,” the strategist told me. “I hope they don’t think the polls are wrong because they’re not.”

According to a New York Times/Siena College poll, Donald Trump is ahead in five battleground states and, as some other surveys have found, is even making inroads among Black voters and young voters. There’s a generational fracture in the Democratic Party over the Israeli-Hamas horror and Biden’s age. Third-party spoilers are circling.

The president turns 81 on Monday; the Oval hollows out its occupants quickly, and Biden is dealing with two world-shattering wars, chaos at the border, a riven party and a roiling country.

“I think he has a 50-50 shot here, but no better than that, maybe a little worse,” Axelrod said. “He thinks he can cheat nature here and it’s really risky. They’ve got a real problem if they’re counting on Trump to win it for them. I remember Hillary doing that, too.”

The president’s flash of anger indicates that he may be in denial, surrounded by enablers who are sugarcoating a grim political forecast.

Like other pols, Biden has a healthy ego and like all presidents, he’s truculent about not getting the credit he thinks he deserves for his accomplishments. And it must be infuriating that most of the age qualms are about him, when Trump is only a few years younger.

No doubt the president is having a hard time wrapping his mind around the idea that the 77-year-old Mar-a-Lago Dracula has risen from his gilded coffin even though he’s albatrossed with legal woes and seems more deranged than ever, referring to Democrats with the fascist-favored term “vermin” and plotting a second-term revengefest. Trump’s campaign slogan should be, “There will be blood.”

For Biden, this is about his identity. It’s what he has fought all his life for, even battling his way through “friendly fire,” as Hunter Biden told me, in the Obama White House, when some Obama aides undermined him. It must have been awful when Obama took his vice president to lunch and nudged him aside for Hillary to run in 2016. Biden craves the affirmation of being re-elected. He doesn’t want to look like a guy who’s been driven from office.

But he should not indulge the Irish chip on his shoulder. He needs to gather the sharpest minds in his party and hear what they have to say, not engage in petty feuds.

If Trump manages to escape conviction in Jack Smith’s Washington case, which may be the only criminal trial that ends before the election, that’s going to turbocharge his campaign. Of course, if he’s convicted, that could turbocharge his campaign even more.

It’s a perfect playing field for the maleficent Trump: He learned in the 2016 race that physical and rhetorical violence could rev up his base. He told me at the time it helped get him to No. 1 and he said he found violence at his rallies exciting.

He has no idea why making fun of Paul Pelosi’s injuries at the hands of one of his acolytes is subhuman, any more than he understood how repellent it was in 2015 when he mocked a disabled Times reporter. He gets barbaric laughs somehow, and that’s all he cares about. In an interview with Jonathan Karl, Trump gloated about how his audience on Jan. 6 was “the biggest crowd I’ve ever spoken in front of by far.”

Never mind that it was one of the most dangerous, shameful days in our history. To Trump, it was glorious.

UKRAINE, SATURDAY, 18TH NOVEMBER

Ukraine’s establishment of footholds on on the Russian-held bank of the Dnieper represents a small but potentially significant strategic advance in the midst of a war largely at a standstill. The General Staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said its troops there had repelled 12 attacks by the Russian army between Friday and Saturday.

The Ukrainians now were trying to “push back Russian army units as far as possible in order to make life easier for the (western) bank of the Kherson region, so that they get shelled less,” Natalia Humeniuk, spokesperson for Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command, said.

In response, the Russian military used “tactical aviation,” including Iranian-made Shahed exploding drones, to try to pin down Ukraine’s troops, Humeniuk said.

The Wide River is a natural dividing line along the southern battlefront. Since withdrawing from the city of kherson and retreating across the Dnieper a year ago, Moscow’s forces have regularly shelled communities on the Ukrainian-held side of the river to prevent Kyiv’s soldiers from advancing toward Russia-annexed crimea.

Elsewhere, air defenses shot down 29 out of 38 Shahed drones launched against Ukraine, military officials reported. One of the drones that got through struck an energy infrastructure facility in the southern Odesa region, leaving 2,000 homes without power.

In the capital, hundreds of people gathered to oppose corruption and to demand the reallocation of public funds to the armed forces. The demonstration was the 10th in a series of protests in Kyiv amid anger over municipal projects.

On Saturday, protesters held Ukrainian flags and banners bearing slogans such as “We need drones not stadiums.”

BORED? Here’s a way the over-fifty set can easily kill off a good half hour:

1. Place your car keys in your right hand.

2. With your left hand, call a friend and confirm a lunch or dinner date.

3. Hang up the phone.

4. Now look for your car keys.

—Steve Martin