Mendocino County Today: Sunday, Dec. 10, 2023

Chilly | Beach | Missing Man | Cablecar | Sandbar Watch | Lee Adams | DUI Crash | Tree Tat | Coast Carolers | AV Events | Pet Coal | Huckleberry Jam | Professor Gizmo | Garritson Recital | Inside KZYX | Good Mime | Ed Notes | Yesterday's Catch | Public Utility | Bee Friendly | Water Tunnel | Mediocre Males | Embracing Diversity | Film Illusion | Roslyn Carter | Rat Standards | Next Door | Just Sayan | Ceasefire Menorah | CNN Guidelines | Purple Lobster | Tarawa | Gettysburg | Ivy League | Crazed Youth | University Hate | Love World | Marco Radio | Season's Greetings

A WEAK FRONT will bring light rain this afternoon and tonight to primarily Humboldt and Del Norte counties. Dry weather is expected to return Monday and continue through much of the week with just a slight chance for rain Wednesday night. More rain is possible next weekend. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): On the coast this Sunday morning I have a partly cloudy 38F. We might get a shower tonight then the new week is looking dry until next Sunday. It's looking wet after that.

MAN MISSING FOR DAYS IN ISLAND MOUNTAIN AREA

by Kym Kemp

The remote community of Island Mountain which is approximately two and a half hours from Garberville, should expect a helicopter and searchers today as Scott Graves, a 63-year-old resident and father of three, has gone missing under odd circumstances. His family, local Volunteer Fire Departments, and the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Department will be searching by ground while a helicopter crew and possibly a drone will search his property off Island Mountain Road via the air.

Scott Graves’ daughter, Maygan Graves, told us that the last contact they had with her father was on Monday, December 4. Their concern deepened when her brother, on the afternoon of Thursday, December 7, traveled to Scott’s property to check on him. What he found was both puzzling and worrisome.

Scott’s truck, parked near his cabin, was locked, with its windows down. Inside the vehicle was one of his dogs. However, Scott Graves himself was nowhere to be found. “His wallet was inside the truck but his ID, hat and some other belongings were inside his cabin,” Maygan told us. “He was no where to be found, along with his phone and key to his truck.”

“We are devastated to hear of his disappearance and would appreciate assistance,” Maygan Graves pleaded.

Scott Graves’ wife, Stacy Graves, although separated from him, expressed her concerns. She explained that her son was supposed to meet his dad but got a text on Monday saying the roads to Scott’s property were too muddy.

“We didn’t hear from him after Monday. Our son went out but couldn’t find him. That’s when we filed a missing person report Thursday,” Scott’s wife explained. She said that a Mendocino Sheriff’s deputy told her that his phone pinged from a cell tower in the area on Tuesday.

Search and Rescue teams were dispatched to Island Mountain and began scouring the rugged terrain on Thursday, arriving around noon and searching until 5 p.m., but there was no sign of Scott himself. Inside the cabin, investigators discovered Scott’s identification, but his blankets were missing.

In addition, Scott’s side-by-side vehicle filled with gas was found at the cabin. Adding to the mystery, it was noted that his identification was found inside the cabin near a heater that appeared to have been knocked over, but Scott’s wallet and backpack were found in his locked truck.

Adding to the mystery, Mendocino County Sheriff’s Department’s Detective Logan told KMUD News, that while one dog was loose on the property, one dog had been locked in a vehicle and it “didn’t seem like the dog had ever defecated or urinated inside the truck.”

Today, authorities are starting a helicopter search in hopes of finding clues from the air, and they are also considering the use of drones to expand their search efforts, Stacy told us.

Out of the area search parties are expected to join the efforts tomorrow, Detective Logan said. “There could be 70 to 100 Search and Rescue persons,” he told KMUD News.

As search efforts continue, the family remains on edge, hoping for a breakthrough that will bring Scott Graves back safely.

* * *

On 12-07-2023 at 6:18 PM, Deputies from the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office received a missing person report regarding 63-year-old Scott Graves.

Scott was last heard from by family members on Monday, 12-04-2023, at about 9:30 AM. Scott informed family he had tried to leave his property in the 73000 block of Island Mountain Road in Piercy (California), but it was too wet and the roads were unsafe for travel. Scott informed family he would instead attempt to leave on Tuesday, 12-05-2023.

When family members had not heard from Scott by Thursday, 12-07-2023, they became worried. Family members then traveled to Scott's property, but they were not able to locate his whereabouts. It did not appear Scott had left the property as the majority of his personal belongings and vehicle were at the property.

On 12-07-2023 at about 11:00 PM, Deputies arrived in the 73000 block of Island Mountain Road in Piercy. Deputies and family continued searching for Scott until 3:00 AM but were unsuccessful in located him.

The Sheriff's Office deployed local Mendocino County Search & Rescue resources for a further search during the morning of Friday, 12-08-2023.

Search & Rescue was unable to locate Scott and were deployed again on Saturday, 12-09-2023, and are still actively searching at this time.

Mendocino County Sheriff's Search & Rescue resources are currently in the planning stages for additional searches for Sunday, 12-10-2023, and Monday, 12-11-2023 with the use of Search and Rescue mutual aid resources.

NAVARRO SANDBAR ABOUT TO BREACH

Good news to report!  Hwy 128 should be reopened within 24 hours.

Late this afternoon I saw that a major gully is opening up in the Navarro mouth sandbar next to Pinnacle Rock. Yesterday there was no sign of it. So apparently it is developing rapidly.

The estuary water level is about as high as it has ever been, providing a strong head of water pressure on the sandbar. This causes water to flow through the sand under the surface of the bar, and it carries away some of the sand. I estimate that the gully extends about halfway across the bar, beginning at the ocean side and working its way toward the estuary side.

I think the bar will breach tonight or early tomorrow (Sunday), releasing the backed up flood water into the ocean and rapidly lowering the water level.

If so, then Hwy. 128 will be reopened soon after, as there is no debris for Caltrans to clean up.  The water only has to drop about 9 inches before the pavement is free of flood water.

So that's good news for travelers. Hwy. 128 was closed and locked up at 3:30 PM Friday due to the minor flooding. I'm confident it will be reopened sometime Sunday.

You can go to the following link and check the water level chart posted by the U.S.G.S. and look for a sharp drop that will appear within minutes of the sandbar breaching. As I write this the level is at 4.92 ft. and the chart line has leveled off. The gauge is located 5 mi. up the river from the mouth.

waterdata.usgs.gov/monitoring-location/11468000/#parameterCode=00065&period=P7D&showMedian=false

Take care and drive safely,

Nick Wilson

LEE SIDNEY ADAMS, September 7, 1941 - December 1, 2023

Lee Adams loved acting; this is how he would most like us to remember him. One of the early members of the Ukiah Players, he headlined some of their first shows and played supporting roles in many others. (Does anyone reading this remember Little Mary Sunshine? That was at the Ukiah Fairgrounds, before there was an honest-to-goodness playhouse.) Years before he acted in Ukiah, he performed during college at Oregon State, his alma mater. He started there as an engineering major and, many cast parties later, graduated with a degree in political science. Lee Adams was also a lawyer and earned his law degree at University of San Diego, courtesy of the US Army, which sent him there after his military service. (Family lore has it that he declined his invitation to join Law Review because he wanted to spend more time with his baby daughter.) After he graduated, he moved his family to Ukiah to take a job in the DA's office and later left that position for private practice. He was in a firm for a hot five minutes before going solo to run his practice in a small office on Perkins Street. Lee Adams was a husband, dad, and grandpa. Even after he and his wife Nancy separated, they remained close friends until her own death ten years ago. He planned vacations, built model train sets, and once constructed a boat out of used milk cartons for his daughter Jenny, who (along with her husband Jeff, and their two children, Frankie and Edie) survive him. He is also survived by his sisters, Joan Adams and Gail Alletag, and his pup Sequent, the love of his final years. No notes of condolence are needed. But if you are so moved, please donate to the Ukiah Players in his name. He would appreciate that.

(Ukiah Daily Journal)

JURY: MATTHEW BURTON GUILTY OF DUI & CRASH

A Mendocino County jury returned from its deliberations a little before noon on Wednesday morning to announce it had found the trial defendant guilty.

Defendant Matthew Joel Burton, age 28, of Laytonville, was found guilty of driving a motor vehicle on September 6, 2023 while under the influence of alcohol, said DUI resulting in a vehicle crash on Branscomb Road.

The jury was unable to unanimously decide the question of whether the defendant drove his motor vehicle with a blood alcohol of .08 or greater. 

While the defendant could have been convicted on both misdemeanor counts, the law only allows the court to sentence the defendant on one, so the prosecutor dismissed the second "hung" count as surplusage.

The investigating law enforcement agencies were the California Highway Patrol and the California Department of Justice forensic laboratory.

The prosecutor who presented the People’s evidence to the jury was Deputy District Attorney Chandra Cafferty.

Mendocino County Superior Court Judge Patrick Pekin presided over the three-day trial.

(DA Presser)

COAST CAROLING

The Mendocino Coast Carolers have opened the doors for new carolers to join us this season. We raise money for the Mendocino Coast Children’s Fund by our singing at private parties and company events . If you are interested in singing please contact Janice Littrell at janicel@mcn.org.

If you are an organization or private party wishing to hire us to sing, also, please contact janicel@mcn.org with the details, dates, times of your party/event. Please provide a cell number, if possible, to text and communicate.

ANDERSON VALLEY EVENTS

Free Entry to Hendy Woods State Park for local residents
Sun 12 / 10 / 2023 at 7:00 AM
Where: Hendy Woods State Park
More Information (https://andersonvalley.helpfulvillage.com/events/3015)

Free Holiday Community Potluck Dinner
Sun 12 / 10 / 2023 at 5:30 PM
Where: Anderson Valley Grange , 9800 CA-128, Philo,
More Information (https://andersonvalley.helpfulvillage.com/events/3641)

UKIAH SHELTER PET OF THE WEEK

Coal is a feisty, exuberant puppy. Like most puppies, he loves to play with toys and wants to be with his pack all the time. We love puppies! (Who doesn’t???) But we always remind adopters to make sure you have lots of time, love, and energy to ensure your adorable pup will mature into a well behaved and much loved adult. Consistent training is the key to a very good dog! Coal looks like he has Lab and Terrier in his DNA.

He's 3-ish months old and about 20 pounds, and will be a medium-sized dog. For more about Coal and all our adoptable dogs and cats, head to mendoanimalshelter.com. 

For information about adoptions, call 707-467-6453. Check out our Facebook Page and share our posts! 

And — if you’re looking for a puppy, the shelter is full of THE cutest and sweetest pups. Click here to see them all!

HUCKLEBERRY JAM NEWS

Hello Huckleberry Jam Lovers,

Breaking News: Huckleberry Jam for $16 per 8 oz Jar !

Dateline: Saturday, December 9, 2023 (whew! it's almost over.) - 4:00 PM until 7:30ish

Event: Second Saturday in Mendocino

I will be selling Huckleberry Jam this afternoon/evening on the sidewalk on Main Street near the Kelly House. Today only if you use the phrase "I could use an extra dollar for something important!", I will give you an 8 oz jar of Huckleberry Jam for the amazing price of $15. Otherwise the price this year is $16 per jar. (I have a few 10oz jars available for $20 or $19 if you can remember to say, "I could use an extra dollar for something important!")

I will also be selling Huckleberry Jam at the Bakers and Makers Holiday event at the Caspar Community Center tomorrow, 12/10/2023 from 11AM until 4PM.

If you cannot or will not attend either of these events and you are steadfast in your love of Huckleberry Jam, call Joshua at 707-734-3112 and we will make other arrangements.

Happy Holidays and all the days inbetween!

Joshua Lowell <slocode11@gmail.com>

LINDSAY GARRITSON RETURNS FOR AN INTIMATE RECITAL DECEMBER 17

In March of 2022, Lindsay Garritson gave one of the most stunning solo performances ever on the UCCA stage. If you saw it, you haven't forgotten it and you'll want to see her again. If you missed it, you get a second chance! Lindsay returns for an intimate recital on Sunday, December 17 at 2:00 PM in the Voice Room of Mendocino College. 

With an audience of just sixty lucky music lovers in tiered seating, everyone will get to "see the hands" and bask in the warm presence of this accomplished, award-winning artist. Ukiah Community Concerts presents this special holiday event with tickets in advance at $25. They are available at Mendocino Book Company and on the UCCA website. Tickets will be available at the door only if the event is not sold out. 

Ukiah Community Concert Association PO Box 844, Ukiah, CA 95482

INSIDE KZYX

by Marty Durlin, General Manager

Since May, I’ve been hosting “Inside KZYX (https://www.kzyx.org/show/inside-kzyx) ,” aired on first and third Fridays from 9 to 10 am. The program offers an opportunity to inform listeners about behind-the-scenes projects and plans that keep the station on the air and moving forward. Topics have included programming, signal and technical issues, funding and finance, KZYX-sponsored events, grants applied for, grants received, staffing, national issues for public and community stations, and the new studio project in Ukiah. We’ve featured interviews with programmers. And much more.

A lot is going on at KZYX, and I love presenting the voices of Staff, Board members and volunteer programmers who co-create this ambitious and complex community radio station.

You may wonder why I say KZYX is “ambitious.” After all, KZYX is a small, rural community radio station headquartered in a rented facility for the past 34 years, often underfunded and understaffed, and dependent on an ever-morphing group of volunteer programmers for much of the programming.

Here’s why: On a shoestring budget, KZYX operates three remote studios to accommodate programmers and their guests in our large and sparsely populated county. We have three transmitter sites to send our signal to most of Mendocino County and parts of Humboldt and Lake Counties. Our program schedule includes flagship news programs from NPR, along with a variety of independently produced public radio programs, including Democracy Now. More than 100 knowledgeable, talented community producers create a wide variety of public affairs and music programs. Our news department delivers local news Monday through Friday. Two years ago we launched a Spanish language initiative to serve a growing Latino community, including an hour of local news and information weekly, as well as four hours of national news — all in Spanish.

The programming is broadcast from our main studios in Philo, which, despite undeniable rustic charm, is less well appointed than any station I’ve seen. KZMU in Moab, with half KZYX’s budget, for example, owns land and a building and is powered by an enormous bank of solar panels. KVNF in Paonia, a town of 1500 in rural Colorado, owns an energy-efficient facility on the town’s main street with three large studios and a community room for performances and meetings.

It’s time — it’s past time — for KZYX to have a facility that matches its service to the diverse and intelligent community in Mendocino County and beyond.

Through the program Inside KZYX, I’m attempting not only to keep you informed about what your investment makes possible right now, but also to illuminate the vital work the station is performing, and to stress how important it is to ensure the station’s future by securing a permanent home.

I hope you’ll listen when the program airs live, or via jukebox or podcast — and learn more about what it takes to maintain and fulfill the promise of this ongoing experiment in local community media.

Thank you for your personal support and financial contributions to KZYX during the past year.

ED NOTES

MARIN STIRS, from the excellent reporting of Eva Crysanthe: 

"On Tuesday, December 5, 2023, a group of self-organized Marin high school students walked out of class for the second time in a month in an act of political protest. Chanting, “What Do We Want? Ceasefire! When Do We Want It? Now!” they carried an oversized, home-made Palestinian flag/banner into “Big Pink,” the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Marin Civic Center.

The youths then duly quieted themselves before assembling in the Board of Supervisors chambers, patiently waiting their turn to speak in support of a ceasefire resolution. The youths' arguments were well-reasoned, carefully fact-checked, and deeply persuasive. Among other issues, they outlined what were clear violations by Israel of Geneva conventions, and Israel's disproportionate retaliatory killings of Palestinian civilians…

…If you had any doubt about the threats the peacenik kids said they had sustained earlier, you perhaps needed only to watch what unfolded at the beginning of public comment. That's when ceasefire petition organizer Joe McGarry, the father of two young children, was interrupted by a woman who had suddenly stood up in the audience, unfurled a large Israeli flag against her body, and shouted, "I hope your children are raped and killed!" followed by additional insults about McGarry.

…It would be difficult to explain how unusual the extreme behavior and language of this woman was at the normally staid Marin Board of Supervisors chambers. But her conduct was excused and supported by the anti-ceasefire crowd, who literally shouted, 'we support you!'…"

THE PAST TWO NIGHTS there have been Cease Fire demonstrations in front of the Bank of America in downtown San Rafael where the robotic party-liner, Congressman Huffman maintains his office.

ONE OR ANOTHER proto-fascist Trumpian (Megyn Kelley?) said the other day that Trump has “lost multiple steps mentally — but I’ll take him over Joe Biden any day of the week.”

THE ‘LIBRULS’ are always conflated with the pathetic Democratic Party, a party as reactionary as the Republicans as the bi-partisan support of the ongoing Gazan genocide should make clear even to Trumpians but doesn't, and both parties are also funded by the same big hunks of money. Everything gone off the political rails in this country has been a bi-partisan effort all the way.

OBVIOUSLY, BIDEN is out of it, ga-ga and not responsible. Trump is absolutely golden-tongued alongside the old Delaware bag man for the credit card companies presently charging Mafia-like rates of interest. This might be news to some of you, but corporations donate heavily to both political parties, which is why PG&E and the aforementioned credit card companies, to name two of many villainous corporations, are able to so seamlessly put the screws to the American people.

BIDEN, to watch, read, and listen to the mainstream media, “may have slowed down a little,” as one hack put it, but he's perfectly plausible as president, and right there you have the shameless corruption of lib media because it's obvious to the whole country the guy is past it, but we're supposed to believe he isn't.

A BIDEN-TRUMP re-run will be the ultimate farce, but no way will Biden be the candidate of the credit card thieves and the PG&E power monopolists. It will be interesting to watch exactly how the thugs of the Democratic National Committee dump Biden for Newsom, but you read it here first.

BIDEN will be shuffled off-stage for certain, and then all the books by the inside people will appear describing how the old boy was propped up in front of the teleprompters as the insiders held their collective breath that he got on and off without too much of a senility demo. That, plus a couple of books how the Justice Department delayed and tried to rig the system to protect the Biden family from criminal indictments. What a country, but not surprising that a bellowing fraud like Trump can be president, and then president again. 

YEA TEAM. Trump has always been pretty much incoherent, a kind of babbling stream of consciousness dude whose genius is that he taps into the anger out there at the entire drift of events in the battered USofA, which he blames, variously, or all at once, on the “Marxist communist liberal socialists” of the Democratic Party, as obvious a gang of bolsheviks since Lenin, to hear El Blimpo tell it. But the idea of this shotgun libel is to pretend that liberals are responsible for everything that's gone wrong. 

FIFTY, SIXTY YEARS AGO, when words still had meaning, a guy who talked like this would have been assumed really, really stupid or really deranged. But the idea of this shotgun libel is to pretend that liberals are responsible for everything that's gone wrong. That was old ‘Dolph Shicklgruber's main move — lie about them and then declare war on half your people. 

CATCH OF THE DAY, Saturday, December 9, 2023

RICHARD CAUCKWELL, Ukiah. DUI-alcohol&drugs, suspended license for DUI. (Frequent flyer.)

REBECCA CORRON, Chico/Ukiah. DUI.

MATTHEW FAUST, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

JOSEPH GRANT, San Francisco/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs.

DIANA HOMYAK, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

DANNY LABORIN JR., Kelseyville/Ukiah. Probation revocation.

LESLIE MEDINA, Ukiah. Harboring wanted felon, evasion.

ADRIAN MILLER, Blue Lake/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs.

ORLANDO MUNOZ, Ukiah. Failure to appear. (Frequent flyer.)

AVERY PARSONS, Chico/Fort Bragg. Probation revocation, resisting.

SEBASTIAN RABANO, Willits. Parole violation.

JAIME RODRIGUEZ JR., Redwood Valley. Failure to appear.

DYLAN RUMBLE, Willits. Disobeying court order.

DANNY SPEAR, Fresno/Ukiah. Probation revocation.

NATHON WHITE, Ukiah. DUI.

MAKE UTILITIES PUBLIC

Editor: 

Our utilities are provided by a private corporation to avoid the bureaucracy and cost of a state agency, but we still have one to oversee the private corporation. We’re not allowed to sue the private corporation, the state Supreme Court ruled, because that “would undermine the (state) agency’s regulatory authority.” Utilities are part of the infrastructure that provides the basis for our economic and social lives. Our government, democratically controlled by us, should provide this infrastructure. It should not be provided by a private corporation that is given immunity from our control to ensure their shareholder profit and obscene executive compensation.

Robert Plantz

Santa Rosa

NEWSOM'S BIG DIVERSION

A long-sought and disputed project in drought-prone California aimed at capturing more water during heavy rainstorms reached a key milestone on Friday when Gov. Gavin Newsom's administration finished an environmental review for an underground tunnel.

The tunnel would be about 45 miles (72 kilometers) long and 36 feet (10.9 meters) wide, or large enough to carry more than 161 million gallons of water per hour. The tunnel would be another way to get water from Northern California, where most of the state's water is, to Southern California, where most of the people live.

The Newsom administration says the tunnel is a necessary upgrade of the state's aging infrastructure because it will protect the water supply from earthquakes and capture more water from rainstorms known as atmospheric rivers that scientists say have been increasing because of climate change.

But environmental groups, Native American tribes and other opponents say the project will take more water out of the river than is necessary and will harm endangered species of fish.

Friday, the California Department of Water Resources released its final environmental impact report for the project. The report is the last step of a complex and lengthy state regulatory process. But it doesn't mean the project is close to being built. The project still must complete a federal environmental review and obtain various state and federal permits. That process is expected to last until 2026.

State officials have not said how much it will cost to build it. A previous estimate on a different version of the tunnel was for $16 billion. State officials will release a new cost estimate next year.

Still, Friday's report is significant because it signals the Newsom administration's commitment to completing the project despite strong opposition from communities in the Sacramento and San Joaquin River Delta region. Newsom says climate change is threatening the state's access to clean drinking water, warning the state's supply could drop 10% by 2040.

The state recently went three years without significant, sustained rain. The drought dropped reservoirs to dangerously low levels and forced millions of people to ration their supply. That drought ended suddenly last winter when California was hit by a series of storms that flooded the state's rivers and filled lake beds that had been dry for years.

State officials said had this tunnel existed during those storms, the state could have captured and stored enough water for 2.3 million people to use for one year.

“Doing nothing is not an option,” Newsom said.

Environmental groups say the Newsom administration is ignoring their concerns. The Sierra Club said in a statement that the tunnel's construction and operation would “cause mass environmental destruction for Delta communities and ecosystems.” Scott Artis, executive director of the Golden State Salmon Association, called it “an extinction plan for salmon.”

Jon Rosenfield, science director for San Francisco Baykeeper, said California already diverts more than half of the water flowing through Central Valley rivers for farms and big cities, which threaten native species of fish.

“The science clearly demonstrates that fish need increased river flows to survive, but state agencies are ignoring it,” Rosenfield said. “Chinook salmon, steelhead, longfin smelt and other fish that have thrived here for millennia cannot survive the Newsom administration's assault on San Francisco Bay and its watershed.”

California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot said the Newsom administration has secured more than $1 billion in funding over the last three years to increase flows in rivers for environmental purposes and to expand habitat for fish and other wildlife.

“Our commitment remains steadfast for water resilience, not only for human communities, but also for our natural communities,” he said.

Adel Hagekhalil, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, said the agency will review the findings from the environmental impact report to determine “how best to invest our resources.” The water district provides water to 19 million people.

“The recent drought was a powerful indicator of just how vulnerable the State Water Project is – deliveries were so low last year that some Southern California communities could only get a fraction of the water they normally rely on,” Hagekhalil said. “Preventing this from happening again will take bold action and a clear recognition of the challenges we face.”

(Adam Beam, AP)

JOHN REDDING: Let me share an example of how DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) is influencing the medical profession and why it is very concerning that Adventist Health has fully embraced DEI.

The Canadian alliance of medical schools is updating its framework for training at medical schools. That framework is called CanMEDS. 

"CanMEDS 2025 affords us the opportunity to think critically and propose a vision of the practice of medicine which is rooted in social justice, antiracism, anti-oppression, and cultural safety, promoting a broader cultural shift which is necessary for the profession. 

A new model of CanMEDS would seek to center values such as anti-oppression, antiracism, and social justice, rather than medical expertise."

Rather than medical expertise. Huh.

BILL KIMBERLIN: 

Someone asked me how they should use computer graphics in a film. This came from Linked-in where they have me listed as some kind of expert. Well I am no kind of expert, although I do know a lot of experts. However, I could tell them to be careful because currently a lot of film makers are proudly saying, "We hardly used any CG at all". Not only that, but as I understand it, the latest Napoleon, which was shot in digital Imax or something, was outputted to Film because it was Too Sharp and the film res-scanned back to a digital format so that it retained that, "film look". 

Years ago I learned that film is an illusion. That is key to understanding how the brain processes what we are seeing.

GEORGIA ON MY RHYME

Roslyn Carter —

The song bearers for her

Coffin —

Willie & Ray —

The Allman Bros.

— William J. Hughes

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Last night, I set a live trap of my own manufacture at the rat hole on the wall at floor level. Now, understand, that West coast (The Best Coast) rats have higher standards than those East coast rats, usually found in New Jersey. I bated the trap with peanut butter, roasted peanuts from a bag, and a piece of fine red Briette cheese (Again, our rats have standards, and cannot be enticed by a shiny bauble or cheap meal…unlike the New Jersey rats, or, as I understand, the New Jersey women…)

The rat…666, refused my offering.

So it continues….

RESPONSE TO MARSHALL NEWMAN

Editor,

By coincidence, the day I picked up the Dec. 6 AVA from Mendocino Book Company and found Marshall Newman’s response to Steven Elliot, again defending Israel’s genocidal slaughter in Gaza, Linda Thomas Greenfield, Joe Biden’s ambassador to the UN Security Council, as expected, vetoed a UNSC resolution calling for a “humanitarian cease fire” on the part of Israel in what little remains of that seaside prison ruled over by Israel since 1967.

I was “only following orders” she would likely tell a judge at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, if she and the legion of criminal perpetrators representing the US were ever held to account — which they have never been and, no doubt, never will be.

Earlier in that week there had been an unprecedented House Committee grilling of the presidents of Harvard, Pennsylvania, and MIT, over their apparent tolerance of pro-Palestinian student protests on their campuses allegedly advocating genocide of Jews — which they were not — while the self-proclaimed Jewish state of Israel was not only justifying the genocide of Palestinians but actually carrying it out, apparently with Marshall Newman’s approval. 

His arguments brought to mind an exchange I had in these pages with Dr. Michael Harris of Marin County, a year and two months ago, (See AVA Oct. 5, 2022). Harris is the head of the SF Bay Area chapter of StandWithUs, which could best be described as an unregistered agency of the Israeli government’s hasbara (explaining) arm in which I accused him of being a sayan, a word unique to the Hebrew language and added after 1948 which, arguably, anticipates that the primary loyalty of Jews throughout the diaspora will be to the Jewish state.

In short, a sayan (pl. sayanim) is a Jew, living in a country other than Israel, who carries out duties for Israel, for its intelligence and propaganda agencies that would be seen as inappropriate or less effective if done by an Israeli. I expect most American Jews are unaware of the term, but from his fabrication of the history of Israel-Gaza conflicts in this century (Dec. 6), Newman is not one of them as his response to Steven Elliot makes clear.

“Between March of 2018 and December 2019,” Elliot wrote, there were regular, peaceful, Friday marches to the Gaza fence with Palestinians demanding the right to return. Israel’s response? To kill some 223 protesters by sniper fire and to and wound and cripple thousands [many of them children — JB] by shooting them in the legs.” None of this was disputable as videos taken of the Israeli snipers, safely hiding behind berms clearly demonstrated.

Newman would have us believe that these protests were “in part staged to protest Israel’s tight restrictions on the movement of trade across the border,” which may be a sign of his sick humor given that across border trade allowed by Israel is less than minimal as are the numbers of Gazans involved with it.

The restrictions, he says, were caused by “sustained missile attacks against Israel in 2008, 2012, 2014, and 2021 and the consequent Hamas/Israeli battles caused by at least two of these periods of missile attacks. 

And make no mistakes, these protests were not peaceful; they frequently included Gazans breaching the border fence, making incursions into Israel and burning tires to obscure their actions, all of which provoked Israel to take the action it did against the protesters.” (A more honest, albeit cynical characterization, expressed in the Israeli media and by Israeli officials, of Israel’s predictable response to those episodes, has been “mowing the grass.”)

First of all, the Palestinians have no missiles. What they have, for the most part, are relatively low powered homemade rockets with limited range which cannot be precisely aimed against the costly and effective Iron Dome, provided Israel through the generosity of a Congress and US taxpayers who have no say on the subject. Sure, the rockets scare the nearby Israelis who occupy what was the land of those Gazans and their families until 1967 but the number of Israelis dead or wounded from such attacks had been minimal.

All of Hamas’s responses have been triggered by some Israeli action, underlying which are the prison conditions in which all Gazans have been forced by Israel to live. That would have been impossible to maintain without unconditional US support, thanks to the power of the Jewish political establishment (and the sayanim among us) who arguably control every sector of US society that has anything to do with Israel.

No doubt, that statement will be considered by some, and for sure, Newman, as anti-Semitic, but then so must be the truth for which I am willing to publicly debate. It seems that is becoming increasingly clear to a new generation of Americans and others, around the globe, including young Jews, who can see Israel’s crimes though social media and the internet and have taken to the streets, blocked bridges and in the US, threatens the future of the Democratic Party which is heavily dependent on major donations from socially liberal pro-Israel Jews.

A closing note: This past September marked the 41st anniversary of the Israeli orchestrated massacre at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camp on the outskirts of Beirut in 1982 which resulted in the slaughter of between 2000 and 3000 Palestinians, almost all women and children and aged of both sexes. Those who would have been there to defend them, Palestinian fighters who had earlier withstood a 76 day Israeli siege of Beirut, had accepted a negotiated deal to go to Tunisia after Israel’s defense minister, Ariel Sharon, mastermind of Israel’s unprovoked invasion of Lebanon three months earlier had guaranteed the safety of Palestinian refugee camp residents.

However, when Lebanese Christian leader, Bashir Gemayel, was assassinated (apparently by a Lebanese rival) and Gemyael’s followers were looking for someone on whom to wreak their vengeance, Sharon ordered them into Sabra and Shatila to carry it out against the defenseless camp residents (although Palestinians had nothing to do with it.) While the Lebanese went about their bloody business, Israeli soldiers guarded the exits to the camps, preventing residents from leaving, while providing meals for the hungry killers, flares to allow them to keep up the slaughter throughout the night, and bulldozers to bury the bodies the next day.

An estimated 400,000 Israelis, many who had begun to question the war, turned out to protest Sharon in Tel Aviv and demand his resignation when the news of the massacre became known. A commission that was formed, concluded that Sharon was directly responsible and he was forced to resign. But, the Israelis, a forgiving people when it comes to their own, would, 19 years later, elect the man who became known as “The Butcher of Beirut,” to two terms as their prime minister.

Jeff Blankfort 

Ukiah

FOR IMMEDIATE POSTING IN CNN NYC AND D.C. NEWSROOMS:

CNN News Team:

Keep up the good work, go Team! Outside of a couple of troublemakers (unfortunately too popular to fire outright), you have each faithfully followed CNN’s updated guidelines for reporting on the Israel war. I list them with you here as reminders for all of us:

• Only refer to the war as “Israel’s War against the terrorist organization Hamas.” Under no circumstances refer to it as the “Israeli Palestinian War.” 

• Treat all civilian deaths as accidental, caused by some evil anti-Semite somewhere, or because Hamas is using those dead bloody civilians as “human shields,” whatever that means. Those nettlesome “stray” bombs? Some other anti-Semite terrorist launched them.

• Avoid all historic background or context for this war. Ignorance is our friend. Why confuse viewers? The history of this war began on October 7. Period.

• Accept unequivocally all claims by Israeli military spokespersons, even when live footage clearly contradicts what they say. When such contradictions occur, blame Hamas for spreading propaganda. Do not interview Palestinian leaders or spokespersons.

• If a Palestinian male manages to speak, refer to him as a terrorist. No exceptions. Never allow comparison of those dozens of nearly nude Palestinian men kneeling in the mud to the treatment of Jews during entry into Auschwitz. More Palestinian propaganda! 

• Frequently highlight examples of anti-Semitism, but...

Ignore assaults on Palestinians in the U.S. Provide minimal coverage of the millions of demonstrators around the world showing their support for Palestinians. 

• At least four times an hour, run an interview with a grieving Israeli relative. Whenever possible, shed a tear. 

• Do not run interviews with Palestinians whose families were wiped out by Israeli bombings. They asked for it. 

• Also four times an hour, rerun shots of the October 7th attack. No one will realize that we’re running the same footage every day. Add additional gruesome details whenever possible, no need for confirmation.

• For those do-good journalism ethicists whining about how our brave embedded journalists are required to submit their video to Israel for approval before releasing it to the public, screw them! Nobody cares about technicalities like that anymore. 

• Failure to follow the above guidelines will unleash this country’s powerful Jewish lobbies, which will inevitably shut down our network. Do you really want to lose your jobs and become unemployable in today’s dismal news market?

The Show Must Go On!

(Marilyn Davin)

HEMINGWAY ON BAUDELAIRE: 

“Since the good old days when Charles Baudelaire led a purple lobster on a leash through the same old Latin Quarter, there has not been much good poetry written in cafes. Even then I suspect that Baudelaire parked the lobster with the concierge down on the first floor…and sat at the Fleurs du Mal alone with his ideas and his paper as all artists have worked before and since.”

—E. Hemingway, American Bohemian in Paris, The Toronto Star Weekly, 25 March, 1922

I LOOKED AWAY, feeling queasy. My blouse was wet with gore. Mo Crocker and Dusty Rhodes took Tubby from me and gently laid him out. There was no malice in the section. They mourned him as they would have mourned any casualty. 

They—and I above all—had merely been unwilling to share his folly. It was followed by savage irony. We had scarcely finished trussing him up in a poncho when we heard the sound of cheering to our right. The First Bat had turned the Jap flank. You could just see the bobbing of the camouflaged helmet covers and the moving line of smoke, and you could hear the snuffling of the tanks as their drivers shifted gears. I raged as I had raged over the death of Zepp. It was the sheer futility of it which was unbearable. Then I was diverted, as death in its grisly mercy diverts you, by the necessity of disposing of the corpse. I said to Knocko, “Pass the word to Buck Rodger’s—” 

Suddenly I realized that Buck might not still be alive, and that because Tubby had arrived so recently, his name might be unknown at the CP anyhow. Instead, I said, “The new lieutenant is dead. Pass the word to the nearest officer.”

— William Manchester at Tarawa, “Goodbye Darkness”

THE IVY LEAGUE FLUNKS OUT

by Maureen Dowd

I was still kvelling about earning my Ivy League degree when the glow of that parchment dimmed.

On Tuesday, the presidents of Harvard, M.I.T. and the University of Pennsylvania put on a pathetic display on Capitol Hill when they were asked if calling for genocide against Jews counted as harassment.

It depends, they all said. Penn’s Elizabeth Magill offered a chilling bit of legalese. “It is a context-dependent decision,” she told Representative Elise Stefanik, a Republican from upstate New York.

Not since Bill Clinton was asked about having sex with Monica Lewinsky and replied, “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is,” has there been such parsing.

It’s hard to be on Stefanik’s side, given that she epitomizes the grotesque transformation of the Republican Party to an insane Trump cult, but she was right to pin down the prevaricating university presidents.

Citing a Washington Free Beacon report, Stefanik noted in The Wall Street Journal that Harvard has cautioned undergraduates that “cisheterosexism” and “fatphobia” helped perpetuate violence and that “using the wrong pronouns” qualified as abuse.

When Stefanik asked Harvard’s president, Claudine Gay, whether calling for the genocide of Jews constituted bullying, Gay said it could, “depending on the context.”

I felt the same disgust with the Catholic Church sex scandal, seeing church leaders who were charged with teaching us right from wrong not knowing right from wrong. University presidents should also know right from wrong. As left-wing virulence toward Jews collides with right-wing virulence, these academics not only didn’t show off their brains, they didn’t show their hearts.

“I think the inability of these individuals to articulate a simple, straightforward answer to what should have been the easiest question in the world was mind-boggling,” Jonathan Greenblatt, the director of the Anti-Defamation League, told me. “It’s like a hurricane of hate in the last few months. You ask yourself, how is this happening? Now we know.” He added, “The truth is that these presidents are not committed to free speech. They’re committed to favored speech. They selectively enforce the codes of conduct when it works for them or their friends in the faculty lounge.”

Leon Wieseltier, the editor of Liberties, a humanistic journal, has an essay on antisemitism in the next issue, echoing Greenblatt with a complaint about the “selective empathy” that made kaffiyehs “cool.”

 “I think this is still America,” Wieseltier said, “but what is so wounding and intolerable is how we went from spending four years intensely and rightly focusing on one class of victims in society, and now are prepared to make light of the troubles that another class of victims are experiencing.

“The culture on campuses is a culture of oppressors and oppressed. Israel is now Goliath and no longer David — though God knows it has mortal enemies capable of the most astonishing savagery. The Jews were long ago stricken from the rolls of the oppressed because they are seen as white and privileged. We are a culture which loves victims and worships victimization and gives great moral authority to victims, but we don’t treat all victims equally.”

The U.N. women’s rights agency and social justice groups grossly delayed condemning barbaric sexual attacks on women by Hamas during its Oct. 7 massacre.

Wieseltier also put blame on the authoritarian Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. “One of the reasons for this war is the Israelis’ decades-long neglect and humiliation of the Palestinians,” he said. “They thought it would never come back and bite them. Netanyahu plays right into the left’s false analysis of Israel as a colonial settler state.”

As James Carville told Bill Maher: “How the hell am I still looking at Netanyahu’s stupid, crooked, ignorant, negligent face? This guy’s still in power after the greatest intelligence failure at least since 9/11?”

Roger Cohen wrote in The Times that Netanyahu let Hamas grow stronger while taking a “‘kick the can down the road’ approach” on a two-state solution. As the Palestinian issue vanished from the global agenda, Palestinian fury grew.

That is no excuse for what Hamas did on Oct. 7, but Oct. 7 is also no excuse for Israel’s relentless bombing in Gaza.

I think this is still America. But I don’t understand why I have to keep making the case on matters that should be self-evident.

Why should I have to make the case that a man who tried to overthrow the government should not be president again?

Why should I have to make the case that we can’t abandon Ukraine to the evil Vladimir Putin?

Why should I have to make the case that a young woman — whose life and future ability to bear children are at risk — should not be getting persecuted about an abortion by a shady Texas attorney general?

Why should I have to make the case that antisemitism is abhorrent?

(NY Times)

CAMPUS ANTISEMITISM WAS PREDICTABLE — AND A TOP-SCHOOL DEGREE MAY SOON BE WORTHLESS

by Victor Davis Hanson

Elite universities such as Stanford and Yale boasted that their so-called "white" incoming student numbers had plunged to between 20% and 40%.

After Oct. 7, the public was shocked at what it saw and heard on America’s campuses.

Americans knew previously they were intolerant, leftwing and increasingly non-meritocratic.

But immediately after Oct. 7 — and even before the response of the Israeli Defense Forces — the sheer student delight on news of the mass murdering of Israeli victims seemed akin more to 1930s Germany than contemporary America.

Indeed, not a day goes by when a university professor or student group has not spouted antisemitic hatred.

Often, they threaten and attack Jewish students, or engage in mass demonstrations calling for the extinction of Israel.

Why and how did purportedly enlightened universities become incubators of such primordial hatred?

After the George Floyd riots in 2020, reparatory admissions — the effort to admit diverse students beyond their numbers in the general population — increased.

Elite universities like Stanford and Yale boasted that their so-called “white” incoming student numbers had plunged to between 20% and 40%, despite whites making up 68%-70% of the general population.

The abolition of the SAT requirement, and often the comparative ranking of high-school grade point averages, have ended the ancient and time-proven idea of meritocracy.

Brilliant high school transcripts and test scores no longer warrant admissions to so-called elite schools.

One result was that the number of Jews has nosedived from 20%-30% of Ivy League student bodies during the 1970s and 1980s to 10%-15%.

Jewish students are also currently stereotyped as “white” and “privileged” — and thus considered as fair game on campus.

At the same time, the number of foreign students, especially from the oil-rich Middle East, has soared.

Most are subsidized by their homeland governments.

They pay the full, non-discounted tuition rates to cash-hungry universities.

Huge numbers of students have entered universities who would not have been admitted by the very standards universities until recently claimed were vital to ensure their own competitiveness and prestige.

Consequently, they are no longer the guarantors of topflight undergraduates and professionals from their graduate programs.

Faculty are faced with new lose/lose/lose choices of either diminishing their course requirements, or inflating their grades, or facing charges by Diversity/Equity/Inclusion commissars of systematic bias in their grading — or all three combined.

The net result is that there are now thousands of students from abroad, especially from the Middle East, far fewer Jewish students and student bodies that demand radical changes in faculty standards and course work to accommodate their unease with past standards of expected student achievement.

And, presto, an epidemic of antisemitism naturally followed.

In such a vacuum, advocacy “-studies” classes proliferated, along with faculty to teach them.

“Gender, black, Latino, feminist, Asian, queer, trans, peace, environmental and green”-studies courses demand far less from students, and arbitrarily select some as “oppressed” and others as “oppressors.”

The former “victims” are then given a blank check to engage in racist and antisemitic behavior without consequences.

Proving to be politically correct in these deductive gut courses rather than pressed to express oneself coherently, inductively and analytically from a repertoire of fact-based knowledge explains why the public witnesses faculty and students who are simultaneously both arrogant and ignorant.

At some universities “blacklists” circulate warning “marginalized” students which professors they should avoid who still cling to supposedly outdated standards regarding exam-taking, deadlines and absences.

All these radical changes explain the current spectacle of angry students citing grievances, and poorly educated graduates who have had little course work in traditional history, literature, philosophy, logic or the traditional sciences.

Universities and students have plenty of money to continue the weaponization of the university, given their enormous tax-free endowment income.

Nearly $2 trillion in government-subsidized student loans are issued without accountability or reasonable demands that they be repaid in timely fashion.

Exceptions and exemptions are the bible of terrified and careerist administrators.

Faced with an epidemic of antisemitism, university administrators now claim they can do little to curb the hatred.

But privately they know that should the targets of similar hatred be instead blacks, gays, Latinos or women they would expel the haters in a nanosecond.

What is the ultimate result of once-elite campuses giving 70%-80% of their students as becoming hotbeds of dangerous antisemitism and watered-down curricula that cannot turn out educated students?

The Ivy league and their kindred, so-called elite campuses may soon go the way of Disney and Bud Light.

They think such a crash in their reputations is impossible given centuries of accustomed stature.

But the erosion is already occurring — and accelerating.

At the present rate, a Stanford law degree, a Harvard political science major or a Yale social science BA will soon scare off employers and the general public at large.

These certificates will signify not proof of humility, knowledge and decency, but rather undeserved self-importance, vacuousness and fanaticism — and all to be avoided rather than courted.

"All that I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world."

— E. B. White, author of Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little

MEMO OF THE AIR: Hanukkah in Santa Monica.

“For when love is gone, there's always justice. And when justice is gone, there's always force. And when force is gone, there's always Mom.” 

–Laurie Anderson

Here's the recording of last night's (Friday 2023-12-08) 7.6-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-0570

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:

The entire Rubber Soul album but only bass and drums. (via b3ta) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSgFPUlhc2o

"Have you seen my cigarettes? I need to run a note to headquarters on my bicycle. I'll be back in time for dinner." https://thisisnthappiness.com/image/736049544691941376

And this is a car ad. Remember the good smell inside a vehicle like that. It was poison from the seat plastic and unburned gas and steaming grease and just everything, but it was so nice. https://misscellania.blogspot.com/2023/12/a-holiday-to-remember.html

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