Mendocino County Today: Saturday, Nov. 25, 2023

Cold Clear | Truck Parade | Catfish Update | Boonville Postcard | State Parks | Hibshman Reading | Ed Notes | Local Gifts | Judicial Assignments | More Leftovers | Marco Radio | Annie Lake | 49ers Disappoint | Yesterday's Catch | Elected Office | Norcal State | Impulse Generation | Otto Schnepp | 350° | Suicide Cult | Cuckoo Nest | Dealey Plaza | Fats Domino | Brilliant Plan | Genocidal War | Shareholder Value | Ukraine | Farmworker Thanks | Nixon's Nightmare | Jimmy Piersall | Cab Adventure | Clean Air

DRY AND COOL conditions will persist across the region through early next week. Rain chances will then return toward the middle of next week. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A BBRRR 37F under clear skies this Saturday morning on the coast. Clear & cool this weekend then a slight warm up to start the new week. We have "sneaker wave warnings" posted all weekend so be careful near the shore thru Sunday night. Our later week rain forecast continues to change daily, I am watching it closely as you know.

CATFISH JACK CHAUVIN'S HEALING JOURNEY

[Update: November 22nd, 2023]

Some perspective - Jack was diagnosed with rectal cancer in February of 2023, and began radiation treatment in March which kicked his butt - so to speak! His series of chemo treatments will be complete by early December. The decision on whether an operation is necessary will come in January after scans are done to see how the tumor has been impacted by the treatments. Best case is, no operation, no colostomy. All to be determined.

We do know that, either way that goes, Jack's healing will take many more months and his ability to work is still very far off. The incredibly generous donations he has received over this year has allowed him to supplement disability for his monthly expenses and afford the many extra expenses incurred from his illness.

He will receive disability through March, 2023; they give you a year. His health insurance through work has ended, he is on COBRA until he is eligible for MediCal in January. We figure he will need something like another $16-20,000 to get him through until he can work again - that is with August as a possibility but even that is kind of a big guess.

So, thank you for all the love and support and prayers, and love, and notes, and connections and money and music and love that you have poured on Jack this year. It has kept him fueled through this difficult year.

Anything (more) you can donate will be so appreciated and well-used.

with love,

Margaret et. al.

https://gofund.me/45c0caa6

FREE HENDY WOODS STATE PARK PASSES THIS WEEKEND

Fourth-graders and their families who want to get outdoors this weekend with a free pass have more parks to choose from, including Hendy Woods in Philo, the California State Parks department announced.

According to a Wednesday press release, the California State Parks department “is expanding its popular California State Park Adventure Pass, which allows California fourth-graders and fourth-grade teachers free admission to participating parks, from 19 select state parks to 54.”

The only park listed as accepting the pass in Mendocino County is Hendy Woods State Park in Anderson Valley. Other parks in neighboring counties include Grizzly Creek Redwoods State Park and Benbow State Recreation Area in Humboldt County; Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve and Fort Ross State Historic Park in Sonoma County, and Anderson Marsh State Historic Park and Clear Lake State Park in Lake County. The full list is here: parks.ca.gov/?page_id=30667

The California State Parks department describes its Adventure Pass program, as being “made possible by Assembly Bill 148, signed by Governor Newsom in July 2021. The pass is valid for the one-year period during which the child is a fourth grader or fourth grade equivalent, from Sept. 1 to Aug. 31 of that year. Any fourth-grader who lives in California is eligible for the California State Park Adventure Pass, no matter how they attend school or how old they are. If they are a fourth-grader or fourth-grade equivalent, they qualify.”

To obtain a free pass, fourth-graders should “have a parent and/or guardian go to ReserveCalifornia.com or call (800) 444-7275 (Spanish-speaking customer service available). All they have to do is set up a profile by providing their name, address, phone number and email address, and a free pass will be sent to their email right away. Individuals who do not have access to a smartphone, computer or printer, and/or do not have an email address, can still request a pass by visiting a State Parks Pass Sales Office or by calling (800) 444-7275.”

In addition to the California State Park Adventure Pass, all Californians can check out a California State Parks Library Pass by using their library cards to access more than 200 participating state park units. The Library Pass program is also available to tribal libraries throughout the state.

For more information on all three State Park Pass programs, visit parks.ca.gov/OutdoorsForAll.

WRITERS READ: DAN HIBSHMAN

Thursday, November 30, from 7:00 to 9:00 PM, for the final Writers Read of 2023. Dan Hibshman, a fiction and expository prose writer, will be the featured reader. A resident of Mendocino County since 1969, Dan wrote for the alternative weekly, "Mendocino Grapevine," in the 1970s and ‘80s. He was an editor at The Yolla Bolly Press in Round Valley, which led to his own book, "Your Affordable Solar Home," published by Sierra Club Books in 1982. Work experience at the Mendocino County Law Library led to his 2020 publication, "Disquiet," a collection of linked short stories set in and around a Northern California county courthouse. In September of 2023 he published a wide-ranging collection, "Of a Lifetime: Stories 1963-2023." He will be reading primarily from this new book. Dan will be followed around 8:00 by an open mic.

Writers Read has been happening in Ukiah since 1999, and occurs on the last Thursday of almost every month. The program focuses on poetry, spoken word, short stories, song, and expository prose. For general information about Writers Read, contact Michael Riedell at innisfreeriedell@gmail.com.

ED NOTES

WE WERE DETACHED from the global village Friday early afternoon. Bob Abeles explains: "AT&T broadband is down in Boonville, too. Could it be a backbone fiber optic cable cut somewhere in NorCal? AT&T says that service is to be restored by 9PM tonight. (Which it was.) Internet, voice, 911, and cell, it’s all just ATM (Asynchronous Transport Mode) packets running over the same fiber transport. In heavily populated areas, there are many fiber paths an ATM packet can follow. That’s redundancy. But here in the boonies, there are few if any redundant paths. Run a backhoe through the wrong fiber and many, many things go down. Some of them are essential, like 911. I believe our emergency communications here in NorCal are extremely fragile. I also think that few or none of the people in a position to do something about it have an understanding of how fragile they are."

SOME NICE hypocrisy from Westside Ukiah 'liberals' Mari Rodin and Susan Sher as they dissented from the Ukiah City Council's 3-2 vote to appoint Josefina Duenas as mayor for the coming year. Despite Duenas' election to the Council, Rodin and Sher said Duenas was unfit for the mayor position because, well, because she is deaf and, as an immigrant, her English is deficient.

UKIAH'S stated commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion is not good enough for Rodin and Sher, while the embattled (and insulted) Ms. Duenas points out the obvious: “I am representing the diversity, not only the Latino immigrant, but also the deaf, the handicapped, the poor, so I think that the voters choose me for a reason. And it will be my honor to do the best I can.”

SHER, WHO LED a movement to ban Tommy Wayne Kramer from the Ukiah Daily Journal, argued, “I think we all have a responsibility to be prepared for meetings, be very familiar with the issues. Returning inquiries from fellow council members, from staff and from constituents, and meeting with constituents when we’re requested to…I guess I need to know whoever is mayor is ready to take on those duties, and has the time and the energy and the interest in doing it.”

WHICH MAKES IT CLEAR that in Sher's view, Ms. Duenas, whose turn it is to be mayor according to the Council's mayoral rotation, shouldn't function as mayor, probably shouldn't be on the Council, the pesky voters who elected her notwithstanding.

RODIN, currently functioning as mayor, explained, “I am supportive of diversity, equity and inclusion. But for me, it doesn’t substitute for qualifications. It’s not a free ride. So I wouldn’t vote for Vice Mayor Duenas to be the mayor simply to add diversity or equity or inclusion. That just goes against my principles (sic)…I need to adhere to my role as a city council member, which is to support a mayoral candidate who meets the qualifications necessary to perform as the mayor. And that’s my duty to the city and to constituents. And I really appreciate the sincere efforts that Vice Mayor Duenas has made in this past year. But to me, she hasn’t demonstrated adequate preparation or a firm detailed grasp of many of the issues that we’ve had to confront and vote on.” (Direct quotes from Mendofever)

“WIND WHISTLING, Gentle Sobbing. 21 Rifles. Taps. Rhythmic Drumming. Stomping Feet. Tribal Chanting. Raindrops.” Thus reads the big print on two pages of full-page color ads sandwiched between comely lasses in their underwear in this month’s Vanity Fair for, wait for it, NPR. Your tax dollar at work. The pitch continues as odiferous as the nearby perfume ads. “Listen to National Public Radio’s Morning Edition® and let us take you from the mundane to the mystical. From facts of science to acts of faith. Stay tuned to NPR® and discover news that intrigues, music that enchants, and talk that challenges. Go to where the sound shapes the story. And change the way you experience everything.”

A UC BERKELEY STUDY has determined that the controversial 1994 Three Strikes law has no deterrent effect on the Bad Boys. Bad boys who have been to the joint at least once continue to be bad boys, as if Three Strikes never existed. "We found no evidence that this law was having any deterrent effect on the target group — previously convicted felons,” Prof Zimring said. “The statistical effect of Three Strikes is negligible.” Lawmakers, liberal and conservative alike, questioned the efficiency and effectiveness of the law, which requires a 25-year-to-life sentence for anyone convicted of a third felony crime, violent or otherwise.Three Strikes was passed overwhelmingly by the Legislature in 1994, signed on an emergency basis by former Gov. Pete Wilson and ratified by voters 72% to 28%. It was the most severe in the nation because only one of the three felony convictions, or strikes, needs to be violent for the pitiless sentencing to kick in. The result has led to several controversial 25-year sentences, the most notable of a man whose third strike was a bicycle theft and another of a homeless man who was convicted of grabbing a slice of pizza.

ABSORBED A GRUELING doc on Frontline called "20 Days in Mariupol," as the Russians launched bombs indiscriminately on the Ukranian port city, hitting many civilian sites including hospitals and killing many children. I thought it was grueling just watching the shocking destruction of Mariupol, but Israeli's even more indiscriminate bombings of Gaza were more thoroughly destructive than the Russians have managed in Mariupol.

ACCORDING to the most recent, pre-cease fire stats I could find, since the barbaric attack on Israel by Hamas on October 7th, Israel has dropped 25,000 tons of retaliatory bombs on the 2.3 million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, and it is a strip of land roughly the dimensions of the Anderson Valley, about 25 miles long, 12 miles wide. 

11,500 GAZANS have been killed in retaliation for the murders of 2400 Israelis by Hamas, but the body count is undoubtedly much higher because many Gazans, including many children, are buried under the rubble of their population centers. 

FAULDER, SHANAHAN, PEKIN, MAYFIELD, MOORMAN, DOLAN, BRENNAN, AND A JUDGE TO BE NAMED LATER.

Presiding Judge-Elect Keith Faulder has announced the judicial assignments for 2024. Primary judicial assignments are reviewed every two years. Adjustments and reassignments are made at the discretion of the Presiding Judge, if necessary. Effective January 2, 2024, the assignments will be as follows: 

Criminal: Departments A and B will manage vertical felony calendars from arraignment through trial and post-conviction hearings. Presiding Judge Keith Faulder and Judge Victoria Shanahan will preside over felony matters in Department A and B. Judge Patrick Pekin will preside over infractions and misdemeanors in Department H from arraignment through trial and post-conviction hearings. Judge Pekin will also preside over Adult Drug Court and Behavioral Health Court. 

Family Law: Judge Cindee Mayfield will preside over family law matters in Department C. 

Unlimited Civil And Probate: Judge Ann Moorman will preside in Department E handling civil matters, probate, and conservatorships. 

Limited Jurisdiction Civil Matters: These matters will be assigned to a judge to be determined later. 

Juvenile: Judge Carly Dolan will be the Presiding Juvenile Judge and will preside over juvenile dependency and delinquency proceedings in Department G. 

Ten Mile Courthouse: Judge Clay Brennan will continue to preside over criminal, civil, probate and family law matters in the Ten Mile branch courthouse in Fort Bragg. 

Appellate: Judge Dolan will also continue as Presiding Judge of the Court’s Appellate Division for limited jurisdiction appeals. 

For more information contact: 

MEMO OF THE AIR: Live on KNYO from Franklin St. all night tonight! The annual but ever-all-new Thorgellen Special.

Marco here. Deadline to email your writing for tonight’s (Friday night’s) MOTA show is like 5:30 or so. Or send it whenever it’s done and I’ll read it on the radio next week. There’s always another chance. And no pressure.

I’m in town for this show. I’ll be in the cluttered but well-lighted back room of KNYO’s 325 N. Franklin studio. If you want to come in and perform in person, that’s fine if you’re in good health. Just show up and walk in. To call and read your work in your own voice on the air, the number is 707-962-3022.

Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio is every Friday, 9pm to 5am on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg as well as anywhere else via KNYO.org. Also the schedule is there for KNYO’s many other terrific shows.

As always, at https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com you’ll find something fascinating to fasten on and turn it over and examine it until showtime, or any time, such as:

This is the real Elvis Costello’s real father and his band. (via b3ta.com) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzFBn32gbWU

How we got the familiar version of Jesus on the glass candles in the grocery store, and on the needlepoint work, and the blacklight paintings, and the decorative plates and the church pamphlets; and on the dollar bills and stylish burkas and magic demon-repelling underwear and official DMV stationery they’ll be printing soon if the people taking over the U.S. lately have their way. https://www.alternet.org/white-jesus/

And how we get trumpets. https://theawesomer.com/how-trumpets-are-made/531687/

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

ANNIE LAKE: “When I was a little girl, my mother, Lulu, washed for...Helen McCowen Carpenter [Grace Hudson’s mother], and Mrs. Carpenter asked me my name, and I told her I did not have one, and she said, ‘Your name is Annie,” and she gave me a kerchief and a ribbon for my hair – I am seventy-two years old now, and my name is still Annie.”

Born in 1887, Annie Lake lived to be over 100 years old. Her connections with the Hudson Carpenter family spanned generations from Helen McCowen to Grace Hudson to Grace’s nephew Mark Carpenter who you see in this photo. Taken in 1959 on the Redwood Valley Rancheria, at Annie’s home there, Annie shows him one of her beaded baskets.

Tune in tomorrow to see some of Annie’s baskets up close!

Sources: “Remember Your Relations: The Elsie Allen Baskets, Family & Friends” by Suzanne Abel-Vidor, Dot Brovarney and Susan Billy

MICHAEL PATRICK BRADY: OK, this is more of a rant about our San Francisco 49ers. So I apologize in advance. My dad turned 90 in November, I wrote the San Francisco Giants and other celebrities to send him a greeting and they did. I got a form letter email response from the Niners saying they didn’t do that type of stuff. A couple things, my dad was an usher at Kezar stadium as well as Candlestick, saw Candlestick built. My dad now lives in Ram country, so he represents the Niners in a hostile area lol. And I thought it would be nice to get something from the 49er management recognizing my dad’s 90 trips around the sun instead I didn’t even get a personalized response; it was a form letter response. Sorry just ranting. And I was just disappointed in my 49ers but still support them.

CATCH OF THE DAY, Friday, November 24, 2023

RAFAEL CARRILLO-CONTRERAS, Ukiah. Grand theft.

JOHN CESANO, Ukiah. Disobeying court order, failure to appear.

JONATHAN HENDERSON, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation revocation.

WHITNEY HUGHES, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation revocation.

LANG WEAVER, Red Bluff/Ukiah. DUI-alcohol&drugs, controlled substance.

EDWARD VIKART, Ukiah. Paraphernalia, permit required for campfire.

FORREST WHITE, Willits. Probation revocation.

NELSON REDDING: It occurs to me that running for elected office in CA is equivalent to fighting for a deck chair on the Titanic. Or wanting the job of captain of the Titanic after it's been hit by the iceberg. I've known a few assembly and senate members over the years. Almost to a person, they say they have little ability to accomplish anything other than what the party leadership wants. None of them actually opted out because of this for they were addicted to the attention and visibility accorded to them.

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Another thing that really engaged my thinking was the proliferation of “marriages” where people wrote their own “vows” that essentially eliminated the very concept of a vow, promising nothing except “as long as we both shall love” – probably until next week. What could be more ridiculous than making a vow that destroys the entire concept of a vow? I deeply offended some people by asking why they didn’t just shack up, rather than vowing to shack up until something better came along or they just lost interest. These were the “promises” made by a generation that seemingly couldn’t be relied upon for anything except to give in to every passing impulse. People who hung signs saying “if it feels good, do it” were proclaiming their pride in having no principles of any kind. Vows, promises? Just some words you said to get something that you probably wouldn’t want a week later.

GOD GAVE THIS LAND TO ME

by Marilyn Davin

As the destruction of Gaza unfolds day after endless day I find myself thinking about my late friend Otto Schnepp. Otto and I served on the board of directors of the local Democrats’ club for eight years and became good friends. Of all the Jewish friends, colleagues, and acquaintances I have had over the years, Otto was the one who had personally suffered the most from the Holocaust. He was a skinny 13-year-old when the Nazis invaded Austria, where he lived with his parents and older sister. His grandmother devoted her savings and the last of her life to getting them out of Vienna; his sister went to South America and Otto and his parents went to Shanghai, one of the few places accepting Jews fleeing the horrors of Europe. Otto’s beloved grandmother didn’t make it out of Austria and he never learned what happened to her. I spent an afternoon with him searching through newly digitized lists of Europe’s concentration camp inmates and we could not find her.

One would think given his story that Otto would be a staunch supporter of the creation of Israel, where he eventually taught college chemistry for more than a decade before settling finally in Southern California, where he taught chemistry at USC until his retirement. But he was not. He questioned the theft of Palestinian lands to create Israel in 1947 and scoffed at the notion that Jews had a biblical right to those lands; over the centuries both Jews and non-Jews have claimed that blood-soaked land as their own. Otto also understood that once Israel became its own country it became a political entity as well as the spiritual home for the world’s Jewry. In his mind supporting Jews and supporting the State of Israel were two very different things.

Why Otto felt that way is complicated. Why didn’t he choose a Netanyahu-like scorched-earth world view, instead opting for peaceful co-existence with Palestine’s former residents, ironically dubbed Nazis by Netanyahu? Perhaps it was because Otto was a highly educated scientist, rational by both nature and training. Or perhaps it was because he was also a student of history; the many columns I edited for him over the years thoughtfully examined the evolution of Israel beginning with its creation after the Second World War. 

I think it was because he had lived through war himself, experiencing its violence, cruelty, and dislocation as an impressionable young man in Vienna. Some emerge from such circumstances determined to do unto their enemies what had been done to them, a well-trod route to madness and mutual destruction. Others, like Otto, viewed current events as pieces in an historic continuum and take longer views. He had lost his youth, his family, and his country to live as a poor refugee in the slums of Shanghai – a stranger in a strange land – yet he did not pollute his own pacifistic world view with vows to destroy those who would destroy him. 

Netanyahu called the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel “Israel’s 9/11,” but pointedly ignored its lessons. All of America’s military might and treasure, which together played a major role in destabilizing the Middle East, did not turn Iraq and Afghanistan into representative democracies. When the U.S. inevitably decamped and went home, those countries went right back to what they were before the much-ballyhooed “War on Terror,” sort of like a river that quickly closes over a rock thrown into it. Worse, it predictably spawned a new generation that hates the U.S., home to the world’s most powerful war machine, which hypocritically calls itself “the world’s greatest democracy.” 

America’s embrace of Israel’s current aggression as its own (“war” assumes roughly equal combatants) fails the most basic litmus test of engagement. If a country is unwilling to sacrifice its own children to a fight, that fight should not be fought. So far, if the media can be believed, the U.S. has only a smattering of “boots on the ground” in Gaza. (Remember those military “advisors” before the escalation to total war in Vietnam?) And there was that recent exuberant group of young Jewish American men eager to join the fight, cheering and high-fiving each other aboard an Israel-bound plane. They looked like college students en route to a homecoming game. What they could possibly contribute to the ranks of Israel’s army is a mystery to me, but that’s a topic for another day. What isn’t a mystery is that, among everyone I know personally and professionally, not a single person has contributed a child or grandchild to the fight. Supporting the carnage in Israel – 12,000 dead Palestinian civilians and counting – is all fine as long as you’re watching it on CNN from the safety of your comfy armchair. Even Netanyahu’s 32-year-old son has taken a pass, blogging and hanging out in his Fort Lauderdale home while soaking up the Florida sun. 

A hopeful sign is that America’s young people have awakened to the slaughter in the Middle East and overwhelmingly oppose supporting it. This growing trend could cost Biden a second term as the youth vote, reliably Democratic in recent decades, votes for somebody else; shouldering decades of student-loan debt, which their government has been unable to reduce, young people understand that their struggles and concerns do not align with their country’s expensive international military adventures. 

If Otto were alive today he would be demonstrating for peace, not war. Unlike the rest of us, he understood war’s true cost and would not have wished it upon anyone: Jew, Arab, or otherwise.

THE SUICIDE CULT

by James Kunstler

If we can agree on nothing else, you must grant that Western Civ needs to have its head examined. The war of Israel upon Gaza springs from the vast limbic netherworld where all the phantoms, myths, gods, and devils abide. What’s going on in the Bible lands now is a demonstration that the wrath of Yahweh is a match for the wrath of Allah. The West appears to abhor this battle, as it derives from the deepest and darkest sector of the West’s own psychology — a place the West fears to go. Having spurned the Judeo-Christian God lo these many decades, the West is horrified to see that dreadful figure step back onstage hurling lightning bolts and roaring.

Western Civ is like a Sarah Lawrence grad with a nose-ring, trained up to despise her own history and culture, trafficking with the incubi of barbarism — the romance of “edginess” — while playing with razor blades in anticipation of her own glorious suicidal psychodrama. There, I have explained The New York Times and The New Yorker Magazine to you, and thus exactly what is wrong with them trying to explain the world to you.

There is, of course, endless and seemingly irreconcilable misunderstanding between Western Civ and its adversaries, but the salient point of the current world mess is a failure to comprehend the meaning of Never Again. And among the many ironies of recent years is that the state-of-mind calling itself Progressive Globalism is obsessed with eradicating boundaries while the two crisis points of the present moment broke out precisely because boundaries were violated.

Whatever you think of Mr. Putin — and I refuse to join the stupid ritual chorus of his supposed “thuggery” — he couldn’t have made it clearer to the USA and its Euroland sisters that Russia would not accept Ukraine as a NATO member, right up against its border — meaning that NATO would be able to base missiles, bombers, and troops there. You may have lost count of how many times Russia has been invaded across the vast plain of Ukraine, but the Russians have not forgotten and their attitude about it is synonymous with the phrase Never Again. What part of that did the USA, Germany, France, and the rest not understand?

Yet they undertook this deranged project to arm poor Ukraine to the teeth — a people who have shown no aptitude for war, historically trampled over, with deeply schizoid allegiances to whomever dominates them from one century to the next — and sent it on a suicide mission that is now nearly complete. You understand that the sacrificial suicide of Ukraine for no good reason is just an enactment of Western Civ’s own apparent suicidal wish fulfillment. Like I said: this is a dark and deep psychodrama.

Accordingly, the West affects to be chagrined by Israel’s refusal to join the West’s new gnostic suicide cult. Here, too, is a failure to comprehend the phrase Never Again. We know where that succinct slogan comes from — the West’s previous suicide attempt, 1939 to 1945, in the course of which the annihilation of Europe’s Jews was a featured set-piece. And when Western Civ finally woke from this nightmare war, all the contesting nations were mortified by what had happened, including especially Germany, the nation that perpetrated that particular enormity.

And so, the new supposedly world-saving organization, the United Nations, that cohered after that cataclysm — led, of course by the victors of the Second World War — felt obliged to create a State of Israel in the Bible lands where so long ago, past memory for many in the modern world, there was a place called Israel where the Jews once dwelt. That was Zion, Jerusalem and its precincts, and it was the long-held wish of the Jews scattered about the world to return to Zion, and that is all that the term Zionist means — despite the attempts of the many other Semitic tribes in the region, and their demented allies in the Ivy League — to color it as some sort of demonic host out to swindle the world.

Western Civ, driven by the Progressive Globalist suicide cult, wishes to dissociate itself from Israel now while jihadis seek mayhem and murder in the streets of Berlin, Paris, London, Milan, Amsterdam and even the little towns of the provinces. And in the USA, too. The governments of Western Civ refuse to stop the flood of migrants pouring out of North Africa, the Middle East, and myriad stans of the greater Asian Stans-land. The USA, too, with its long borders being violated at a fantastic scale with the consent of “Joe Biden” & Co. It’s as though they are intent on allowing Western Civ to be overrun and defeated.

Israel, being part of Western Civ, in some ways the beating heart of its heritage, is also deeply conflicted in its own politics. But Mr. Netanyahu refuses to join the suicide cult, to the great consternation of so many inside and outside Israel. He could not be more alone among all the other elected heads of Western Civ nations. Even “Joe Biden” is ragging on him. But hark, as it is said in Western Civ — especially this Christmas season — as in something momentous approacheth. Just in one week past, Argentina elected an anti-Globalist, Javier Milei, by a huge margin, and the Netherlands elected (surprise) a party led by Geert Wilders quite vocally disenchanted with Jihad in his country. Something is up. Mark my words: Germany is next. Western Civ is going to get its mind right after all.

America’s psychodrama has been equally deep and dreadful as Europe’s, but we are heading toward our own political reckoning, and many here have had enough of a life without boundaries in every sense of the word. “Joe Biden” has been the perfect embodiment of no boundaries. And his party is in the process of being destroyed by that before they can complete the destruction of our country. The battle is here, too. And it is joined. Stand back and watch.

OLD MAN TEXAS & DEALEY PLAZA

by Inigo Thomas

Old Man Texas was a character invented by the Dallas Morning News cartoonist John Knott in 1906. He looked like a cowboy, a figure out of the Old West. He wore a ten-gallon hat over thick, flowing hair. He had a windswept moustache and wore leather boots. Knott was an Austrian who had arrived in Dallas via Sioux City. He returned to Europe for a couple of years from 1910 to attend classes at the Royal School of Art in Munich. A colleague of Knott’s described how the cartoonist worked up his pictures:

We had editorial meetings every morning, where we’d talk about what we were going to write. John would never come. But everyone who wrote an editorial would put the carbon copy on John’s desk. He’d take those things and just sit there and study them. For hours he’d just look at them. Then he’d draw his cartoon, come in and dump it on my desk, and say: “Here’s a contribution.” Never “my contribution,” just “a contribution.”

In The First Texas News Barons (2005), Patrick Cox calls Old Man Texas a “herald for how Texans and others would view the state”: “The new western image replaced that of the southern colonel and the Confederate soldier.” One irony was that the founding owner of the Dallas Morning News, Alfred Belo, had been exactly that: a southern colonel in the Confederate army. Another was that in the 1950s the newspaper’s publisher, Ted Dealey, reverted to a Confederate ideal that his father, George Dealey, had rejected. Two years ago, the newspaper’s holding company changed its name from the A.H. Belo Corporation to the DallasNews Corporation, to distance itself from its Confederate past.

Old Man Texas represented what the newspaper stood for: low taxes, open government, property ownership and improvements to the ever-expanding city of Dallas. In 1895, the population was 38,000; by 1920 it was 160,000. Radical, Old Man Texas was not – but he made appearances at sensitive and significant moments in Dallas and Texas politics, never more so than in the early 1920s when the Ku Klux Klan looked as if it would hijack the state. After the organization’s refoundation in 1915, Dallas’s police chiefs and members of the board of education all joined Klan chapters. In 1923, the Imperial Wizard, Hiram Evans, marched down Main Street with 75,000 supporters, many of whom had cancelled their subscriptions to the Dallas Morning News. In 1924, the News threw itself behind the gubernatorial campaign of Miriam Ferguson, who defeated the Klan’s candidate, Felix Robertson. The Klan then fell to pieces, and the Dallas Morning News was considered its slayer.

George Dealey, like Old Man Texas, was an invented Texan. He was born in Manchester, moved to the US with his parents and siblings as a boy, became an office clerk for Belo at the Galveston News at the age of 15, and never left: “Be sure the job is one for which you are fitted. My attainment to my present place is not so much due to any perfection in me as to the fact that I stuck to the job.” His younger brother James left Texas for Rhode Island, became a professor of politics and sociology at Brown, and in 1927 was asked by his brother, who had by then taken over Belo’s company, to edit the Dallas Morning News.

The improvement of Dallas had been one of George Dealey’s aims: public health, parks, roads, bridges, schools. His son Ted’s idea of improvement was to invest in radio stations and in Joseph McCarthy’s campaign against communism. Once elected to the White House, John Kennedy invited a number of newspaper executives to lunch. Ted Dealey interrupted the chat at the dining-room table to make a statement:

“The general opinion of the grassroots thinking in this country is that you and your administration are weak sisters. Particularly this is true in Texas right now. We need a man on horseback to lead this nation – and many people in Texas and the Southwest think that you are riding Caroline’s tricycle.”

Evidently he was looking for another Confederate colonel to take over.

When Kennedy went to Dallas on November 22, 1963 he wasn’t riding a horse or a tricycle but travelling in an open limousine. Dealey Plaza had got its name (after George Dealey) in 1940. The grassy knoll in its north-west corner has become a by-word for conspiracy. Anything that can’t be explained has its own grassy knoll. Whether you think Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin, or you believe there was a plot to kill the president, no one is in any doubt about what happened at 12.30 p.m. in Dealey Plaza. Kennedy was shot dead. And that may be the main mystery of the event; that around something as categorical and indisputable as the president’s death, seen in plain sight, there should be such doubts.

Geoffrey Jellicoe’s JFK memorial at Runnymede in England was opened by the queen in 1965. Jacqueline Kennedy and her children were there. Three years later, the centerpiece of the memorial, a slab of Portland stone with words from Kennedy’s inaugural address engraved on it, was blown up. The stone broke into two. The police said the explosion must have been carried out by people annoyed that Jacqueline Kennedy had just married Aristotle Onassis. Somehow, that does not seem so plausible. To this day, no one knows who planted the bomb. Or why.

As for the Dallas Morning News, it remained in the hands of the family that founded it 138 years ago until the recent retirement from the board of Robert Decherd, George Dealey’s great-grandson. Old Man Texas, however, died with his creator in 1963.

(London Review of Books)

SINGER AND SONGWRITER FATS DOMINO with wife Rosemarie and their six children (two more were born after this photo was taken) circa 1959. They were married from 1947 until her death in 2008. 

Antoine Domino Jr. was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. One of the pioneers of rock and roll music, Domino sold more than 65 million records. Domino signed to Imperial Records in 1949. His first single "The Fat Man" is cited by some historians as the first rock and roll single and the first to sell more than 1 million copies. Domino continued to work with the song’s co-writer Dave Bartholomew, contributing his distinctive rolling piano style to Lloyd Price’s "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" (1952) and scoring a string of mainstream hits beginning with "Ain’t That a Shame" (1955). Between 1955 and 1960, he had eleven Top 10 US pop hits. By 1955, five of his records had sold more than a million copies, being certified gold.

Domino was shy and modest by nature but made a significant contribution to the rock and roll genre. Elvis Presley declared Domino a "huge influence on me when I started out" and when they first met in 1959, described him as "the real king of rock ‘n’ roll". The Beatles were also heavily influenced by Domino.

Four of Domino’s records were named to the Grammy Hall of Fame for their significance: "Blueberry Hill", "Ain’t That a Shame", "Walking to New Orleans" and "The Fat Man". 

He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as part of its first group of inductees in 1986. The Associated Press estimates that during his career, Domino "sold more than 110 million records".

ISRAEL’S GENOCIDAL ANTISEMITISM AGAINST THE ARAB CIVILIANS OF GAZA

by Ralph Nader

“It should never have happened,” an elderly Holocaust survivor of a Nazi death camp told the New York Times. He was referring to the colossal failure on October 7th, of Israel’s touted high-tech military and intelligence operations that opened the door to Hamas’ attack on Israeli soldiers and civilians. In many parliamentary countries, the government ministers who are responsible for this kind of failure would have immediately been forced to resign. Not so with Prime Minister Netanyahu’s ministers.

Instead, Netanyahu’s coalition of extremists, who know that the Israeli people are enraged about their government’s failure to defend the border, has unleashed a “unifying” genocidal war against every child, woman and man that comprise the 2.3 million population of Gaza. “No electricity, no food, no fuel, no water. … We are fighting human animals and will act accordingly” was the opening genocidal war cry from defense minister Yoav Gallant to defend the onslaught that massive military forces are implementing against the long-illegally blockaded Gazan population.

Israeli leaders declare that there are Hamas fighters possibly in and under every building in Gaza. Israel has long made computer models using their unprecedented surveillance technology (see Antony Loewenstein’s interview in the November/December 2023 issue of the Capitol Hill Citizen). Nothing and no one is off limits for the Israeli bombing.

Keep in mind that Israel is an ultra-modern military superpower, with hundreds of thousands of fighters on land, air and sea, going after the few thousand Hamas fighters who have limited supplies of rifles, grenade launchers and anti-tank weapons. Moreover, all of Israel’s supplies are being replenished daily from the U.S. stockpiles in Israel and new shipments arriving by sea, compliments of President Biden. The invasion is a “piece of cake” an experienced U.S. government official told reporter Sy Hersh.

Contradictions abound. First, Netanyahu has always referred to Hamas as a “terrorist organization.” Yet he told his own Likud party for years that his “strategy” to block a two-state solution was to “support and fund Hamas.” (See, the October 22, 2023 article by prominent journalist Roger Cohen in the New York Times).

If Netanyahu believes dropping over 20,000 bombs and missiles on the civilian infrastructure of this tiny crowded enclave and its people, nearly half of whom are children, is so restrained, why has he kept Western and Israeli journalists out of Gaza, other than a few recently embedded reporters restricted to their seats in Israeli armored vehicles? Why has he ordered four nightmarish total telecommunications and electricity blackouts, with excruciating consequences, over the whole Gaza Strip for as long as 30 hours at a time?

None of this or international laws matter to the prime minister whose top priority is to keep his job, with his coalition parties, as long as the invasion continues. And before an outraged majority in Israel ousts him from power for not defending their country on October 7th from some two thousand urban guerrilla fighters on a homicide/suicide mission.

As the slaughter of defenseless babies, children, mothers, fathers and grandparents in Gaza continues to drive the death, injury and disease toll to higher numbers each day, the observant world wonders what the Israeli government, which regularly blocks humanitarian aid, intends to do with Gaza and its destitute, homeless, starving, wounded, sick, dying and abandoned civilian Palestinians.

After all, Gaza has only so many hospitals, clinics, schools, apartment buildings, homes, water mains, ambulances, bakeries, markets, electricity networks, solar panels, shelters, refugee camps, mosques, churches, and the clearly marked remaining United Nations’ facilities left, to bomb to smithereens. Endless American tax dollars are funding the carnage. Israel has also killed over 50 journalists, including some of their families, in the past seven weeks – a record.

Why will it take months to clear out the tunnels? Not so, say military experts in urban warfare. Flooding the tunnels with water, gas, napalm and robotic explosives are quick and lethal and would be deployed were it not for the Israeli hostages.

In addition to the reality that all Gazans are now hostages, over 7,000 Palestinians are languishing in Israeli jails without charges. Many are youngsters and women who were abducted over the years to extort information and to control their extended families in Gaza and the West Bank. What’s holding up an exchange, as Israel did twice before in 2004 and 2011? Again, the Netanyahu coalition stays in power by postponing the pending official inquiries into their October 7th collapse, that Israelis are awaiting.

Meanwhile, the hapless Joe Biden dittoheaded the previously hapless presidential pleas for a two-state solution. The dominant politicians in Israel have always sought “a Greater Israel” using the phrase “from the river to the sea,” meaning all of Palestine. Year after year Israel has stolen more and more land and water from the twenty-two percent left of original Palestine, inhabited by five million Palestinians under oppressive military occupation.

With Congress overwhelmingly in Israel’s pocket, Israeli politicians laugh at proposals for a two-state solution by U.S. presidents. Recall when Obama was president, Netanyahu went around him and addressed a joint session of Congress whose members exhausted themselves with standing ovations – a brazen insult to a U.S. president, unheard of in U.S. diplomatic history!

Day after day, the surviving Palestinian families are trapped in what is widely called “an open-air prison” being pulverized by Israel and its aggressive co-belligerent, the Biden regime. A regime in Washington that urges Netanyahu to comply with “the laws of war,” while enabling Israel with more weapons and UN vetoes to violate daily “the laws of war” and the Genocide Convention. (See our October 24, 2023 Letter to President Joe Biden and the Declarations from genocide scholars William Schabas and other expert historians).

Consider the plight of these innocent civilians, caught in the deadly crossfire of F-16s, helicopter gunships, and thousands of precision 155mm artillery shells. Whether huddled in their homes and schools or fleeing to nowhere under Israeli orders, the IDF is still bombing them.

Palestinians cannot escape their blockaded prison. They cannot surrender because the Israeli army does not want to be responsible for prisoners of war. They cannot bury their dead, so their families’ corpses pile up, rotting in the sun being eaten by stray dogs.

They cannot even find water to drink, since Israel has destroyed the water infrastructure – another of its many war crimes.

For years under Israel’s occupation law, collection of rainwater with rainwater harvesting cisterns has not been permitted. Rain is considered the property of the Israeli authorities and Palestinians have been forbidden to gather rainwater!

The Israeli armed forces will soon control the entire Gaza Strip. Under international law, Israel would become responsible for the protection of the civilian population as well as the essential conditions for Palestinian safety and survival. Will they at last abide by just one international law? Or will they establish obstructive checkpoints to restrict humanitarian charities trying to save lives while Israel continues to push the Gazans into the desert or neighboring countries?

The Israeli operation precisely fits the Genocide Convention’s definition by “intentionally creating conditions of life calculated to physically destroy a racial, religious, ethnic, or national group in whole or in part.” Netanyahu’s regime further incriminates itself by defining the targets for annihilation as being between 21st-century progress and “the barbaric fanaticism of the Middle Ages” and a “struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness.”

UKRAINE, FRIDAY, 24TH NOVEMBER

Russian forces continued to bombard the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka on Thursday night while shelling killed four in the southern region of Kherson, according to local officials.

Since mid-October, Russia has been trying to encircle and capture the town of Avdiivka, home to a massive coking plant and close to the Russian-held regional hub of Donetsk.

The head of Avdiivka’s military administration, Vitaliy Barabash, told Ukraine’s Channel 24 on Thursday that Russian forces had launched their “fiercest” attacks yet on the embattled down. According to Reuters, Barabash said Russia was unleashing up to 18 air attacks per day, sometimes more.

In the southern region of Kherson, prosecutors said Russian shelling had killed three men and a woman, according to Reuters, as Ukrainian forces continue to mount a counteroffensive in the east and south of the country.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s comments on Wednesday — in which he blamed Ukraine for the lack of peace talks and claimed Russia was ready for discussions to resume — were designed to pile pressure on the West to push Ukraine back to the negotiating table, analysts said.

They noted that Putin and other Russian officials have routinely claimed the Kremlin is ready to negotiate to end the war while signaling that the Kremlin maintains its key objectives, including territorial claims and regime change in Ukraine.

— CNBC

NIXON’S NIGHTMARE

Amid the batch of Nixon tapes released in 1999 there was a ripe one from May 13, l971, described by James Warren in the Chicago Tribune. Discussing welfare reform with Haldeman and Ehrlichman, the President snarls about the little Negro bastards, before remarking indulgently that “I have the greatest affection for them but I know theyre not going to make it for 500 years.” The leader of the Free World and his senior advisers then drift into a chat about homosexuality, occasioned by the President’s viewing of an All in the Family episode featuring Archie’s son-in-law, described by the Prez as “obviously queer, wears an ascot, but not offensively so.”

Nixon: I don’t mind the homosexuality, I understand it. Nevertheless, goddamn, I don’t think you glorify it on public television, homosexuality, even more than you glorify whores. We all know we have weaknesses. But, goddamn it, what do you think that does to kids? You know what happened to the Greeks! Homosexuality destroyed them! Sure, Aristotle was a homo. We all know that. So was Socrates.”

Nixon: “You know what happened to the Romans? The last six Roman emperors were fags. Let’s look at the strong societies. The Russians. Goddamn, they root them out.”

Mention of the morally robust Soviet Union prompts Nixon to contemplate its decadent antithesis, Northern California. He tells Ehrlichman, “San Francisco has just gone clean over.” (It’s unclear what they are referring to. Nixon would have been reading news reports about big antiwar demonstrations the day before. The president may have equated attacks on him with homosexual decadence.)

Nixon: “It’s not just the ratty part of town. The upper class in San Francisco is that way. The Bohemian Grove, which I attend from time to time. It is the most faggy goddamned thing you could ever imagine, with that San Francisco crowd. I can’t shake hands with anyone from San Francisco.” 

It’s funny to think of Nixon at the Bohemian Grove’s summer bash on the Russian River, brooding about the fall of Greece and Rome, aghast at the annual revue in which the flower of California’s ruling class lumbers on stage in tutus and melon-stuffed bras. Imagine his apocalyptic ravings to Ehrlichman if he could have foreseen the most exciting political race at the end of the millenium, in which a black man and a homosexual were battling it out in a runoff for the mayoralty of San Francisco, a contest in which neither skin color nor sexual orientation is the paramount issue.

Well, that’s almost true. John Mecklin had a good column in the SF Weekly at the time pointing out that the Chronicle and the Examiner don’t lose too many opportunities to point out that Tom Ammiano is gay and that the emphasis on Ammiano’s sexual orientation seems to be excessive, especially in a city where being gay is about as unusual, statistically speaking, as being, say, Asian or white. Even so, it’s not topic A. Topic A is the fact that Ammiano, a teacher who started his political career on the Board of Education and is now president of the Board of Supervisors, entered the race only three weeks before the vote as a write-in candidate, spent only $20,000 and made it into the runoff, with 25% of the vote. He beat out a former mayor, Frank Jordan, and a political consultant, Clint Reilly, who spent $3.5 million.

Willie Brown used to have raffish charm, but he’s become arrogant and is correctly perceived as the factotum of the big developers and corporations in a city where a growing passel of the super-rich from Silicon Valley strut their stuff. Willie Ratcliff, publisher of the San Francisco Bay View, told his black readership that Brown had not come through, and endorsed Ammiano, who’s spent years establishing a solid reputation as a left-populist politician. Already it’s a race that shakes up the usual predictabilities about money and politicking. Ammiano is running a grassroots campaign that has electrified the city. Turnout in runoffs is usually low, which would favor his committed activist base. It really could be Mayor Ammiano. Look up from your ninth circle, Mr. Nixon, look up and weep for your America.

(Alexander Cockburn, November 1999)

CAB 10’S GREATEST ADVENTURE

by Randy Collenberg

My greatest adventure was when I took six homeless people to Martinez, California. I got a call that I will never forget. So many things happened, and a lot of what happened I can’t even put into words. But I will do the best I can to tell you about my greatest adventure in my luxurious yellow cruiser.

9Am — I picked up a fare at the Comfort Inn. There were two guys. One was clean cut and the other looked like a mountain man. When they saw me they asked me where Steve was. Steve was one of our other drivers who had given them a ride the day before. I told them that Steve was working in Eureka today so they’re stuck with me. They grumbled a bit, and then got in my cruiser. 

The mountain man had long hair, a long bushy beard, and a big hat. He was about 45 years old. His name was Bob and the other guy was named Skip. Bob was the boss, he had the money. He told me he wanted to pick up a few friends, check on a car that he might buy in Eureka, and then drive to San Diego to see his dad. 

Bob told me he had been homeless for 16 years. The other day he went to the bank to get his monthly check (which was for a few hundred dollars) that his brother in New York deposits for him. He was in for a big surprise. The bank told him that he had a message from his family saying that he had inherited $10,000. 

I probably don’t have to tell you, but Bob was a high roller now — until the money was gone, which probably wouldn’t take too long. Seeing a story in the making, I started taking notes. 

9:05am — Bob told me he wanted to go to Redwood Park and pick up a couple of friends, and then go to Eureka. On our way there, Bob asked me what I thought about their new clothes. Both guys were wearing all new clothes that Bob bought for them at Kmart the day before. I told them they looked like a couple of millionaires. They liked that! 

Before we got to Redwood Park, Bob gave Skip $300. “Here’s the money I promised you until you can pay me back!” he said. “Thanks!” said Skip. Bob told Skip, “If we go our own ways, remember that you owe me that money, because I will be back to get it.” Skip said not to worry about it. 

9:16am — We finally got to Redwood Park. “Where are your friends Bob?” I asked. “Skip will go get them; they are living in the forest,” he said. Bob told Skip, “You go get them so we can get going.” 

About 15 minutes later, here came Skip with two more homeless guys. They all got in and Bob told me to go to the 101 Mall in Eureka across from Montgomery Wards. 

Bob was a big operator since he had money and was in control. He kept telling these guys he was taking them to San Diego for a few days then he was going to fly all of them to Hawaii where they will live in the forest for a couple of months. 

Once in a while one of these other guys would be talking and Bob would tell him to shut up because he wanted to talk or listen to the radio. He treated his so-called friends like crap. He was very rude. Money seems to drive some people over the edge, like this wacko. 

9:26am — We pulled up to the 101 Mall and Bob told me to park along the brush behind the mall. Then he told Skip to get his butt out and go and get Linda and Tony. So Skip went into the bushes and came back in about ten minutes with who I assumed were Linda and Tony. They looked pretty rough. They looked like they just woke up and hadn’t seen a shower in a long time. As they walked up to my luxurious yellow cruiser, Bob cussed at them to hurry up and get in, it was costing him money. 

9:42am — After everyone was in, Bob told me to go to Pine Street. He told his buddies that he was going to buy a car that he looked at last week. Then he’d take everyone to San Diego for a few days so he can visit his dad. Then he was going to buy airplane tickets for everyone to fly to Hawaii. 

Tony interrupted Bob and told him the car he looked at last week was already sold. 

“What do you mean, sold?” Bob said.

“The guy that owns the car told me he thought you weren’t coming back so he sold it. I talked to the guy yesterday,” Tony said. Well, Bob was real hot now! He was cussing up a storm. “Take me to Pine Street right now. I’m going to give that old man hell. He promised me that car!” Bob said. 

The other guys tried to tell Bob to forget about the car, but he wasn’t listening. He told them all to shut up, he’s got the money, he’s the boss. Everyone was getting a little edgy. 

9:51am — All the way to Pine Street Bob was telling the others that he was going to give the guy that had the car a piece of his mind. They were all trying to tell Bob to forget about it, but he just kept telling them to shut up and cussed them out. 

When we got to the house where the car was that he wanted to buy, Bob got out and went to the door. Some old man came out and Bob started chewing him out. I felt sorry for the old man. Bob was being a jerk, and his friends weren’t happy with him either. 

A few minutes later Bob jumped back in and told me to take him to Ebb Tide Trailer Park. One of the other guys asked Bob why we were going there, and I was wondering the same thing. 

Tony told us that Bob wanted to buy a sailboat he saw there the other day. (I would love to see this bunch trying to maneuver a sailboat.)

10:02am — When we got to Ebb Tide, Bob got out and went into the office to talk to the manager about the sailboat, which was parked on a trailer by the office. It was a nice boat. A couple of minutes later Bob came out, madder than hell. 

Tony asked him what was wrong now. Bob told us the sailboat was sold the day before. I wanted to laugh, but I didn’t. One of the guys told Bob, “You don’t need a boat anyway.” Well, that made Bob even madder, and he cussed him out again. 

When Bob was done being rude to his friend, he told me to take them to Bank Of America. The end was near, I thought. 

10:09am — When we got to the bank, Bob told everyone that he was going to get some more money and then the cabbie would drop them off at Stanton’s Restaurant. There they would wait for the Amtrak bus to take them to Martinez, where they’d catch the train to San Diego, and then in a few days they would fly to Hawaii for a couple of months. 

Not all of his buddies sounded too excited about going with Bob, the way he was treating them. But as long as Bob was paying, I think they would put up with him. 

While Bob was in the bank, Skip told us he wasn’t going with Bob because he was tired of his crap. 

In a few minutes Bob came out with over $2,000 in his hand. Skip told Bob he was staying in Eureka. Bob tried begging him to go, but Skip said no way. 

“Get the hell out of the cab, and don’t forget, I’ll be back for my money,” Bob told him. Skip said “OK,” and walked away. Now there were only five. 

Then Bob asked me how much it would cost him if I drove them to Martinez. I told him $500! That’s a lot of money, he said. I was hoping he would say that! 

Then he got his money out and handed me five $100 bills, and said, “Take us there!” I told him we needed to go to my work and give them the money, then we can go. 

“Let’s do it; hurry up,” Bob ordered. 

10:20am — I couldn’t believe this was happening. Another six hours of this and I’ll go nuts. When I got to Yellow Cab on 7th street, I paid the dispatcher the $500 plus another $50 that was on the meter driving Bob and friends around up to this point. Then I checked my oil and water and told Bob that I was ready whenever he was. He handed me $50 and said, “Here’s your tip in advance. Lets go!” 

10:31am — As I was leaving Yellow Cab, Linda told Bob they had to go back to where we picked them up to get her belongings. 

“Forget it, we’re leaving now,” Bob said. 

“I have $150 worth of food stamps back there,” Linda said. 

“I don’t care,” Bob said. 

He then handed her $300 and told her to shut up. Then one of the guys told Bob we had to stop at the Eureka Police Department because they had some personal belongings that they took from him a couple of days ago when he was arrested for being drunk in public. Bob was getting mad again. “All right, cabbie. Take us to the police station.” 

10:37am — At the police station Bob told his friend to hurry up, it was costing him money. 

10:42am — We’re on the road again! Linda told Bob she wanted to stop at Al’s Truck Stop to get some beer and cigarettes. He told her OK. They all went into the truck stop and came back with all kinds of stuff. As soon as they closed the doors, they were popping beers. 

11:10am — We’re just past Fortuna and Bob wanted me to pull over because he needs to go pee. So I pulled over and three of them got out and took care of business. 

11:21am — Bob told Linda she needed to get her hair done before they got to the train, because she looked like hell. 

“We’re going to stop somewhere and you’re going to get your hair done,” he said. “You look like a man, and we’re going to buy you a dress, too. I want you to look good.” Her boyfriend agreed. 

All along, Bob was harassing everyone, acting like he’s a king and his friends are his slaves. There was a lot of tension in the air. Also, Bob and his buddies kept turning the radio up and down and changing the channels over and over. 

11:32am — One of the guys was rolling a joint in the back seat, so I pulled over and told them I can’t have that in my cab. They all got out and smoked their pot and then got back in. What a bunch of fruitcakes! 

11:41am — Bob and the two guys we picked up at Redwood Park were having a pretty heated exchange, because Bob kept telling them to shut up, that they’re going to do what he says because he has the money. Every other word was a cuss word. It was getting old listening to these guys. Also, the beer was starting to affect them. 

12:20pm — We’re almost to Laytonville and Bob told me to pull over. He told the two guys from Redwood Park to get out if they didn’t want to go with him. So they did. Now there were three left! They were yelling at each other and calling each other names. It was a mess. Bob told me to get going, so I took off. Bob was laughing and told us, “I showed them who was boss.” I wanted to show him a few things too, but I kept my cool. 

12:55pm — We’re almost to Willits when Tony told Bob that Linda and he were getting hungry. “Tough luck, we’re not stopping,” he told them. Tony asked me if I would stop, so I told Bob that I was hungry too. He didn’t like that, but he gave in. He kept telling me he paid for the cab ride so we shouldn’t stop, but I told him I was getting tired; I need to rest. He finally agreed, but he was grumpy. 

1:15pm — We were halfway to Ukiah when Bob told me to pull over. Linda had to throw up, because she had had too many beers. I looked back and saw her rocking back and forth, so I pulled over right away and she got out just in time. Then all three went pee again. There were no trees, but they didn’t care. Cars were going by honking their horns. What next? 

1:30pm — We’re almost to Ukiah when Bob told Tony, “We’re going to take Linda to a beauty shop and get her hair done, because I don’t want her looking like that around me.” He had a lot of room to talk. Bob was treating these guys like crap again. They were getting drunker by the minute. 

When we got into Ukiah, we took Linda to a beauty shop and dropped her off. Then Bob wanted to go get some more beer. So we went to a sporting goods store that sells beer. Tony told Bob that he’d buy the beer. So Tony and I went inside. I needed to use the restroom. 

In this store, the door was at the far left and the counter ran the length of the building to the right about a hundred feet. Behind the counter at the far end were rifles and fishing poles. Tony went to get the beer and I went into the restroom. 

When I came out, Tony was at the far end of the store with a shotgun aimed at the store owner. I couldn’t believe it. I backed into the restroom and peeked around the corner. I was going to get the hell out of there. When I looked again, he had the shotgun down on the counter and was talking to the clerk. I found out that he was looking through the scope and checking out the shotgun. From where I was standing it looked like he had it aimed at the clerk, but the clerk was a couple of feet away. I was happy to get out of there. 

2:05pm — We picked up Linda, and she looked a lot better. She was happy she got her hair done. Then we stopped at a big store and they went inside to buy Linda a dress. I stayed outside trying to get my nerves settled. What a nightmare this was. About 15 minutes later they were back.

3:12pm — They were getting really drunk and doing a lot of yelling over the dumbest things. Pretty soon Bob told Tony, “I’m going to kick your ass, because you’re not doing what I tell you.” Tony told me to pull over because he was tired of Bob’s crap. So I pulled over and they got out. They could hardly stand up. They started arguing and then they started punching each other right alongside the freeway. 

It didn’t last too long. Bob fell down and couldn’t get up. So Tony and I picked him up and put him back in the cab. Bob told Tony, “You think you’re tough? You were just lucky that time.” That had to the best part of this journey, I was thinking. 

3:25 p.m. As we passed Santa Rosa, Tony was in the front seat, Moneybags was in the middle seat (sleeping, I hoped), and Linda was lying down in the back seat. 

3:45pm — I happened to look in my rearview mirror and Bob was awake and leaning over the back seat messing around with Linda. Linda started yelling for help, so I pulled over and told Tony to take care of his girlfriend. Linda was crying and upset with Bob. They all started yelling again, but they calmed down and got back in, and we were on the road again. 

4:01pm — Now they were all yelling at each other again. Bob told me to pull over. When I stopped, he got out and told Tony and Linda to get the hell out. I told Bob, “Hey you guys have had too much to drink. Why don’t you just relax? We’re almost to Martinez.” 

“I don’t care,” Bob said. He closed the door and told me to take off. I got out and asked Tony and Linda if they were going to be OK. They told me to go ahead and take off. I got back in and Bob was mad at me for caring about what his friends thought about getting kicked out. “This is my cab, and I’m the boss,” I told the jerk, “So why don’t you take a nap and leave me alone?” 

4:16pm — Bob could hardly talk, but he was still trying to talk about everything. Then he said, “I paid you good money for this trip, can’t you go faster than 70 mph.?” 

I told him to leave me alone again. “OK, OK,” he said. Then he started laughing. 

“Wasn’t that funny when I kicked those two bums out?” Bob said. That made me mad, so I told Bob off in language he understood, and told him I would be glad to get rid of him. 

4:49pm — When we got into Martinez, Bob told me he wanted to buy me a big dinner for putting up with him. I told him to forget it. “No, I want to buy you whatever you want for dinner,” he insisted. I told him I was having dinner in Santa Rosa with Jerry Gregori, a good friend of mine on my way home. He then handed me a $50 bill and said, “Use this for your dinner.” “OK.” I was polite and told him thanks. When we pulled into the train station, Bob pulled out $1,000 and said, “The hell with the train; just drive me to San Diego.” I told him to forget it. I couldn’t stand another minute with this guy. “You better hurry up, the train’s boarding,” I said. 

He grabbed his bag and just as he was getting out, a Mercedes pulled up real close to us. When Bob got out he stumbled against the Mercedes. The driver started yelling at Bob and Bob was yelling back. I put my cruiser in gear and headed for Santa Rosa. I was happy to get out of there. 

6:20pm — I was in Santa Rosa at a gas station filling up with gas, and a couple of people asked me if I brought a fare all the way from Eureka. I told them yes, I had. So for the next 10 minutes I told these guys what happened. I showed them the 51 empty beer cans in my cab and they got a kick out of my story, I hope you did, too.

Happy Tales and trails everyone! 

(Randy Collenberg drove Cab10 in Humboldt County for years, in the 1990s and 2000s.)