Mendocino County Today: Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2023

Chilly | Navarro Sandbar | Clow Ridge THP | Messiah Singalong | Extra Candy | Bower Park | HSMC Meeting | Officer Gowan | Craig Returns | Dock Denizens | Foot Bailing | Holiday Party | Maxwell Painting | Strawberry/Chile Preserve | Slick Booklet | Ed Notes | Yesterday's Catch | Crab Feed | Coast Highway | Young Lawyer | The Squatter | Airline Merger | Israel/Palestine | Chomsky 95 | Big Dave | Substack Attack | Palestinian Hostages | Your Parents | Catalog Assembly | So Young | Gaga Clothes

DRY WEATHER will persist today through Friday. Unsettled and wet weather is expected to return for the weekend and early next week. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A foggy & partly cloudy 44F on the coast this Wednesday morning. Increasing clouds & dry skies thru Friday. Rain returns by Saturday evening & lasting into the middle of next week. These series of systems are still open to forecast changes.

AN AERIAL VIEW of the Navarro River mouth sandbar taken Sunday, Dec. 10 shows a channel starting to form across the bar behind Pinnacle Rock. (Nicholas Wilson)

CLOW RIDGE THP NEEDS MAJOR CHANGES to Avoid Polluting Domestic Water Supplies, Endangering Coho Salmon, and Harming a Nearby Spotted Owl

Philo, Calif. – December 12, 2023 – The Clow Ridge Timber Harvest Plan (THP) upslope from Mill Creek, a tributary to the Navarro River, is working its way through the Cal Fire review process. 

“We just want the state regulatory agencies to walk their talk on protecting water quality and endangered species, especially given the reality of climate change,” stated Mary Aigner, a resident of the Mill Creek Watershed for over twenty years. Aigner explained, “Mill Creek has been the subject of many restoration projects over the last 25 years because of its importance in the recovery of coho salmon. We felt sure that Cal Fire, Water Quality and Fish & Wildlife would have paid more attention to protecting Mill Creek once we brought this to their attention. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case. We find it unacceptable that a single timber harvest plan can undo all the restoration of Mill Creek as viable coho habitat.” 

The THP (THP 1-23-00141-MEN) proposes to create a series of clear-cuts and build roads and landings on steep, unstable slopes just uphill from Mill Creek and three domestic water supply intakes. Mill Creek is designated by the CA Department of Fish and Wildlife as one of the most important watersheds in Mendocino County for the recovery of the endangered Coho Salmon. The THP will also cut large redwoods that are the habitat for a nearby Northern Spotted Owl and use post-logging herbicides to control hardwood and brush. The Mill Creek Watershed Alliance formed in response to the submission of the THP and is advocating for critical changes to the plan prior to approval. The Alliance is also concerned that the plan will conduct timber operations in the Winter and run heavy equipment and trucks on privately maintained access roads, Clow Ridge Road and Nash Mill Road.

According to the 160-acre THP, the existing conifer timber stand is about 15% Douglas fir and 85% redwood, including some areas of very old second-growth redwoods. The plan also states that madrone and tan oak will be cut for firewood. Group selection allows up to 2.5-acre clearcuts. The THP states 33% of the 132 acres will have these group cuts and the rest will be logged using Selection logging. The logs will be moved with tractors, skidders, feller-bunchers, and other heavy equipment. Temporary and seasonal roads will be constructed, including in areas designated as High Erosion Hazard Rating (EHR). Skid trails will be constructed in some Watercourse and Lake Protection Zones and across areas identified as High EHR. Some timber operations will occur in the Winter.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) is the lead agency responsible for reviewing the legal compliance and environmental impact of each California THP. 

Sheryl Schaffner, attorney and owner of SF North Bay Law, is a member of Mill Creek Watershed Alliance. In a Nov. 20 letter to Cal Fire, Schaffner stated, “There are numerous and substantial environmental impacts not adequately identified or mitigated under this THP, missing endangered species impact evaluations for Mill Creek, internal inconsistencies in the THP, and numerous other deficiencies undermining the validity of the environmental review function of the proposed THP.” Schaffner asserted that the THP should be delayed and that “only single tree selection, not group selection, should be approved.” As well, she said, “Cumulative impacts need to be properly analyzed… and site-specific habitat and its resident species must be properly studied and evaluated….”

Thomas Wheeler, Executive Director and Staff Attorney of Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC) in Arcata, stated in a Dec. 6 letter to Cal Fire, “This THP is likely to deliver significant amounts of sediment to Mill Creek, tributary to the Navarro River. The Navarro River is included on the Clean Water Act 303(d) list for impairments associated with excessive sediment and high temperatures. Mill Creek has long been recognized as one of the most important streams in Coastal Mendocino County for recovery of coho salmon. In 2012 Mill Creek was identified as a core sub-watershed of the Navarro River watershed by the National Marine Fisheries Service in its Final Recovery Plan for Central California Coast Coho Salmon (2012). A subsequent planning effort led by CA Department of Fish and Wildlife and NMFS [National Marine Fisheries Service] for Mendocino County coastal watersheds ranked the watershed area that includes Mill Creek among the highest priority areas for recovery of coho salmon on the Mendocino Coast.” 

MCWA members Huedell Freeman and Mary Aigner wrote in a Nov. 21 public comment to Cal Fire, “Due to the increased potential for extreme rain events on these inherently steep and unstable slopes, we strongly object to the use of group selection in the Clow Ridge THP. Group selection…on the steep slopes of this watershed is likely to cause far greater erosion and sedimentation into Mill Creek than single selection, particularly in the event of a catastrophic geologic or weather event…. While less ecologically disruptive silviculture methods, such as single selection and manual brush removal, might be less financially profitable for a few human beings, it would certainly be a welcome reprieve for the variety of flora and fauna in the Mill Creek Watershed, including endangered coho salmon and Northern spotted owl and threatened steelhead trout.” 

Also noted in the THP, post-harvest herbicides may be applied for up to ten years, potentially including foliar spray of imazapyr (Arsenal), glyphosate (Round-up), and triclopyr (Garlon). Peter Baye, Ph.D.,  is a professional ecologist and botanist who has worked as a senior staff scientist for several agencies,  including U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Sacramento Fish and Wildlife Office, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He has also served as an expert witness for the EPA. Baye commented in a Nov. 21 letter on behalf of MCWA that “the Clow Ridge THP fails to disclose the project’s actual proposed herbicide use, and merely describes programmatic or general potential herbicide use without specific reference to the THP area or biological assessment area. The THP does not specify the actual herbicide or formulations to be used, their quantities, locations, or limitations. The THP appears to substitute boilerplate language for a project description of herbicide use. This precludes meaningful assessment of direct, indirect, or cumulative impacts of herbicide use as part of the THP activities.”

MCWA member Kim Campbell stated in her letter to Cal Fire, “Within the Mill Creek Watershed are coho salmon (endangered under the Federal and State Endangered Species Act) and steelhead trout (threatened under the Federal Endangered Species Act) that rely on the Mill Creek Watershed for spawning and early life-stage survival…. The THP tries to offer reassurances that include using a licensed Pest Control Advisor, stating the half-life of the herbicides, avoiding wet weather application, avoiding watercourses, and using the chemicals in accordance with specific guidelines and label instructions. However, the possibility of error in place, amount, and timing of chemical application could have devastating results for wildlife and for humans residing in the area…. Three neighboring property owners have domestic water supplies downslope.” 

Log trucks, firewood trucks, and heavy equipment will use the privately maintained Nash Mill and Clow Ridge Roads to access the THP. The THP proposes that log and firewood trucks also use these roads during the winter. In one of several public comments he wrote to Cal Fire, Clive Silverman, a member of MCWA and Clow Ridge Road Group said, “Use of the road by large trucks during wet weather could cause significant damage to the road, resulting in substantial financial cost to the members of the Clow Ridge Road Group for repair.” The first one-quarter mile of Clow Ridge Road is especially steep. Silverman added, “Misuse and/or overutilization by heavy trucks during wet weather could rapidly cause serious damage, potentially cutting off access for residents.”

More than 40 public comments have been submitted expressing serious concerns about the THP. Cal Fire is still accepting public comments at SantaRosaPublicComment@fire.ca.gov. Any comments submitted to Cal Fire about this plan must arrive prior to December 18, and earlier is better. You MUST use THP number (#1-23-00141-MEN) as an identifier in the subject line and in the text of your email. If you are concerned, please send a comment.

— Mill Creek Watershed Alliance, contact: MillCreekAllies@gmail.com

COME TO THE AV SENIOR CENTER pick up the See’s Candy you ordered at the Unity Club’s Holiday Bazaar! I have a little extra candy if you didn’t order any. Also, lots of great locally crafted goods and gifts here! C’mon down!

SUPERVISOR WILLIAMS: Bower Park [Gualala]:

On November 17, 2023, County staff and Integra Planning and Landscape Architecture, Inc. held an on-site kick off meeting to discuss the Bower Park Restoration and Improvement project and begin development of an implementation plan that will include a prioritized phased in approach.

Each phase of the project will include community engagement; primarily, the County will be focused on addressing the critical safety issues but will be seeking community input in prioritizing other areas noted below. Those include, but are not limited to:

Phase I: Hazardous tree removal, which is eligible for CEQA exemption and poses the greatest safety risk, will be the addressed in the initial phase of the project which is anticipated to be completed in spring of 2024.

Phase II: All remaining work will be subject to environmental review before work can begin and will be designed with community input as a single phase of the project. This will include prioritized safety work such as removal or repair of other hazards including the spillway crossing, fencing and the amphitheater stage; required improvements like ADA accessibility, electrical and plumbing system upgrades and/or replacement, drainage and access road Improvements, security lighting and safety improvements to the playgrounds along with desired upgrades to park features such as drinking fountains, parking, restrooms, storage, basketball and tennis courts, the ballfield and amphitheater. This phase will include community input with prioritization subject to available funding, design & engineering, environmental review and determinations before bidding and construction can begin.

To see a list of observations and recommendations for potential improvement that were observed at the kick off meeting, along with the timeline for the hazardous tree removal, please visit: https://www.mendocinocounty.org/Home/Components/News/News/6903/

Going forward, we will be utilizing the above web page for regular monthly updates along with our ENotification system. To sign up for automatic updates through our ENotification system, please visit: https://www.mendocinocounty.org/community/enotification. Under “News” be sure to sign up for “Parks”.

MENDOCINO COUNTY SHERIFFS SEARCH AND RESCUE were so incredibly lucky and blessed to have had Narissa Gowan as part of our SAR team! SAR is so honored and proud to release Narissa to the Sheriffs Department! Active member of our team now sworn to serve and protect our community! Thank you, Narissa!

WELCOME HOME, CRAIG!

Warmest spiritual greetings, 

Was moved out of the temporary hallway cot situation, and into the dorm. Am pleased to report that because I was away so long at two Adventist Health hospitals and then the Redwood Cove SNF for the antibiotics regimen, that I am “starting over” at Building Bridges Homeless Resource Center, and am not therefore going to be part of the mass exit on January 9th at noon. I am entitled to another three month stay beginning December 11th. Meanwhile, the federal housing voucher expired in error; the previous time spent in a hospital and a SNF somehow did not get that termination date extended…the housing navigator is looking into the problem. Otherwise, ambled to Plowshares this morning for the free meal, which was seriously welcome following a celebratory evening at the Ukiah Brewing Company upon my return to the big outside. Whereas there is ample money in the SBMC checking account due to not spending any for months and the SSA and SSI disbursements continuing to be auto-deposited into the checking account, (plus food stamps increasing as well), it is with great joy at having survived this latest round of treating a viral bacterial blood infection, (which would have been fatal if not detected in a subsequent blood test following my discharge from the Cloverdale SNF in the previous round of fighting this infection, in which the growing bacteria avoided detection because it had adhered to the wires of the Implanted Cardiac Defibrillator), it was therefore both appropriate and possible to go all out at the Ukiah Brewing Company last night. Along with enjoying three of the best brews during Happy Hour, added a shot o’ 12 yr. old Red Breast, known as the “nectar of the Irish Gods,” plus devouring a steak sandwich, the evening exponentially improved when someone suddenly walked up and inquired if I was Craig. My early 70s and beyond fellow communard Jon L. from East Bay Food Not Bombs was in town! This led to a wonderful reunion, replete with sharing stories which brought into the conversation the bartender and other patrons. Hours later, I walked back to Building Bridges completely identified with the Divine Absolute, and slept more soundly than had been done in years, awakening to everyone telling me how wonderful it is that I have returned to this most unique living situation. Am now at the Ukiah Public Library on computer #3 tap, tap, tapping away. As always, things are not as they appear, nor are they otherwise!

Craig Louis Stehr

1045 South State Street, Ukiah, CA 95482

Email: craiglouisstehr@gmail.com

HEY JAIME! THAT YOU? And what’s Leslie doing with you?

On Saturday, December 9, 2023 at approximately 12:14 AM Deputies from the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office were on routine patrol in the 100 block of Laws Avenue in Ukiah.

Deputies observed Jaime Rodriguez, 27, of Ukiah in the back seat of a vehicle which was exiting an apartment complex. Deputies knew Rodriguez was wanted for multiple felony warrants. As soon as the Deputy turned around on the vehicle (containing Rodriguez) the female driver later identified as Leslie Medina, 26, of Ukiah, sped off at a high rate of speed.

Deputies pursued Medina and Rodriguez for a short distance with Rodriguez ultimately foot-bailing from the vehicle. As Deputies gave chase on foot, they observed Rodriguez throw a loaded handgun from his person onto the ground.

Deputies secured the handgun and continued to search the area for both Medina and Rodriguez and ultimately located Medina’s vehicle near her residence. Deputies observed several indicators leading them to believe both Medina and Rodriguez were hiding inside Medina’s residence.

Deputies were able to obtain and serve a search warrant which led to the arrest of both Medina and Rodriguez.

Rodriguez was placed under arrest for Felon in Possession of a Firearm, Felon in Possession of Ammunition, Commission of a Felony while out on Bail, Felony Arrest Warrant for Parole Violation], Felony Arrest Warrant for Fail to Appear on Felony, Felony Arrest Warrant Felon in Possession of a Firearm, and Felony Arrest Warrant Parole Violation.

Medina was placed under arrest for Felony Evasion, and Harboring a wanted Fugitive.

Rodriguez was subsequently booked into the Mendocino County Jail where he was to be held on a No Bail Status.

Medina was also booked into the Mendocino County Jail where she was to be held in lieu of $35,000 bail.

SEE YOU THIS SUNDAY AT OUR HOLIDAY PARTY!

Hello All,

AV Village Monthly Gathering: Holiday Party
Sunday, December 17th
4:30 PM
Anderson Valley Senior Center
Potluck Dinner (bringing a dish is optional)

Join us for a festive get together with friends old and new – all ages welcome! We are planning on singing some holiday carols around the piano with Lynn Archambault (songbooks provided). We'll also once again have a bonfire to "banish your woes." Think about any worries, cares, glooms, negative thoughts, etc. from the past year you would like to let go of, and we will write them down and burn them together as we make room for more joy in our lives.

Consider carpooling if you don't like driving in the dark. Village members, let us know as soon as possible if you would like a volunteer driver and we will try to find one or bring a friend that can give you a lift.

Please RSVP with the coordinator – thank you!

Anica Williams
Cell: 707-684-9829
Email: andersonvalleyvillage@gmail.com

COBALT GALLERY

STILL WORKING ON YOUR HOLIDAY GIFT SHOPPING and celebratory meal planning? Don’t worry - you’re not alone! While we’ve shipped out hundreds of packages this month, I still have yet to get all my shopping done! Luckily we’ve got plenty of options that we’re happy to get packed up and on the way to you or your friends and family. There’s no way someone could be unsatisfied by opening a box with our Strawberry & Chile Preserve (made with our strawberries! and Piment d’Ville!) inside. 

Order by 10am PST this Friday December 15 to *ensure* your orders arrive by the 23rd. Once your order leaves our office, it is really in the hands of UPS and USPS to get it to you in time. Please no grumpy emails if your box arrives late. We do our best to make y’all happy!

We hope you have a lovely December and thanks for supporting our small farm.

Krissy & The Boonville Barn Team

SUPERVISOR WILLIAMS posted the above on Facebook to demonstrate that Ms. Cubbison isn’t missed, that her fill-in, and county management, has everything so together that they’ve produced a slick little booklet proving it.

ED NOTES

The Night The World Ended

It was the last hours of 1999. Lots of people who should know better had predicted that the world would end at midnight. The computers that run industrial civilization wouldn’t be able to make the millennial leap, and from there it would be roving gangs and warlords.

I’d set out from Haight Street for a night’s walkabout in high anticipation of end-of-the-world spectacles. It was also New Year’s Eve, combining the last night of high tech bliss with the prosperity of American ingenuity which gifted two thirds of its citizens.

Up at home base, the Anderson Valley, and the remote ridges of the rest of Mendocino County, hill muffins were hunkered down, counting down the hours to gawd knew what. They had a year’s worth of rice and beans buried out by the pot patch in waterproof containers, their generators gassed up and their AK-47s on lock and load. 

At the more excitable venues like KZYX and the Mendocino Environment Center, the libs were positively giddy at the prospect of world’s end as they swapped tips on where to get the best deals on bulk toilet paper.

I’ve always had a soft spot for the world myself and, like most old commies, great respect for the resilience of capitalism. I knew in my bones that the boys with the booty weren’t about to let the counting house fall down just because a gaggle of techno-nerds had forgotten to adjust the computer clocks.

Just in case the four horsemen rode in on January One, what better place to watch them do their thing than San Francisco?

But nothing happened.

I’ve never seen The City emptier or quieter. It was so quiet it was eerie. I started out from Haight and Ashbury, these days a fashion center for young people, with stores selling two hundred dollar pairs of rubber shoes with two-foot heels.

I’ve lived long enough to watch the Haight do eight sociological flip-flops — immigrant Russians and respectable blue collar, partial integration as black families moved west up from the Fillmore, hippies, up-market commercial, transient grunge, up market commercial again and single family wealth.

 I footed it all the way up Ashbury, down 17th Street, through a deserted Castro, down Market to the Embarcadero where a sedate crowd had gathered to listen to singers I’d never heard of and watch fireworks. 

There were cops all the way down Market posted at each intersection. The Critical Mass bike group pedaled sedately up Market about a thousand strong. A phalanx of motorcycle cops followed them while a police helicopter rotor-whipped the night air above. 

At Van Ness and Market, Critical Mass stopped for the red light waiting for the police to escort them through to the other side of that wide intersection as if they were grandmas on three-wheelers. 

At 9th and Market a couple of cops confiscated two cans of beer from two hat-backwards dudes. (It’s one thing to be a moron, but why try to look like one? Kids these days…) “But bro…” one of the hat-backwards complained as the cop plucked the beer from his hand. “Sorry,” the cop said, “This is a no alcohol night.”

At the Embarcadero a group of Chinese kids stood laughing and taking pictures of each other as they posed from behind a pair of oversized glasses. Of the dozen of them, about half wore their hair short and dyed in day-glo colors. An old guy said to another old guy, “Al, did you ever think you’d see a Jap with green hair?” Al replied, “Maybe, but I never thought I’d see two of ‘em.” 

I seemed to be the third oldest guy in the throng. Huge speakers pounded out blunt rhythms with ya-ya lyrics. Young people danced as cops plucked beers out of startled but unresisting hands. 

There was no point — celebratory or otherwise — standing around listening to music played so loud I couldn’t hear the conversations I tried to spy on, so I walked back up Market, then up Taylor for a bolito bowl at the original Original Joe’s, since relocated to North Beach after being driven out of the Tenderloin by the street chaos outside its doors. People were staying away out of fear. The counterman at Joe’s said business was slow. “"The no drinking rule, all the bullshit about how the cops were going to crack down on people. The Y2K bullshit from the hippies. That’s why nobody’s out there.”

Lots of stores on Market were boarded up in anticipation of looters who never arrived, lots weren’t. Old Navy and the Gap store windows were covered with three-quarter plywood. Between the cracks, I could see fat guys in rent-a-cop uniforms standing round. Some of them wore sidearms. Would they die for minimum wage when the wealth redistributors hurled themselves through the plywood?

I walked on up to Union Square where some kind of mega-millennial ecumenical prayer and music event was supposed to come off at $10 a pop. The believers had stayed away in droves. Union Square is a lot more crowded on Christmas day than it was on End Of The World Night.

There was nothing else to do so I stopped to listen to an unaffiliated evangelical do his thing at the corner of Geary and Stockton. He was a stocky guy about 40 who resembled a squat Elvis Presley, black hair swept back like fenders on a ‘55 Buick, and dressed in a black leather-like, head-to-toe zippered jump suit with an American flag sewn into its chest. God Guy wore a ten gallon cowboy hat festooned with flag medallions and alternating “Praise God!” decals. Nike running shoes rounded out his millennial attire. He said we had two hours to get right with God..

The preacher was bellowing his apocalyptic warnings through a small bullhorn. He put on a lot better show than anything happening down at the Embarcadero. 

“God is not pleased with the Pope,” preacher man hollered at me as I settled in for the show. “Pope rhymes with dope. There’s no hope with the Pope.” That vein of alliterative gold quickly exhausted, the preacher brought his bullhorn inches from my face. “You ask me how I was brought up?” as if I’d asked. “Doesn’t really matter; it’s where I’m going that counts.” With that do-it-yourself exchange completed, he pivoted from me to shout anti-Clinton insults skyward. “Bill Clinton is a filthy, stinking sinner. Will I pray for this stinking, rotten, evil man? Why should I? He’s pro-queer, pro-abortion.”

It wasn’t hard to understand why the preacher was reduced to an open air pulpit. His wasn’t exactly a Frisco-friendly message, although he did toss out a few sops to the libs, whether out of concern for Frisco sensibilities or out of mental illness is never clear with street acts. “All weapons should be buried. They are evil. Praise God.” He got chuckles from me and fish eyes from the few passersby who even seemed aware of him.

A young Chinese guy soon appeared, a mischievous grin on his face and a violin case under his arm. I got the feeling the preacher and the violinist were old antagonists. The kid took out a small amplifier and plugged an electric string instrument into it and began sawing unmusically away a few feet from the rambunctious representative of the Prince of Peace. 

“The devil won’t drive me out!” the preacher shouted at the kid, who promptly turned up the volume on his violin for a round of Waltzing Matilda. As I walked up Post the preacher and the electrified violinist were a foot apart, the kid laughing and hacking away at his amplified strings, the preacher screaming, “The devil hisself is knocking at my door, but he sure is wrong if he thinks God will let him in!”

At the rear door of the St. Francis hotel a bunch of cops were assembled to launch a mini-motorcade. The very sight of big black cars and motorcades makes me yearn for hand grenades, but I lingered, joining 50 or so other gawkers. I wanted to see who gets tax-funded escorts these days. A guy asked me, “Who’s here?” Al Gore, I replied. The guy turned to the lady with him and said authoritatively, “Al Gore? Wonder what he’s doing here? Let’s stick around.”

“Al Gore Al Gore Al Gores” rippled through the crowd, passed from one person to the next like a beer at a ball game. The crowd waiting for Al Gore grew larger. I regretted my little treachery until I reminded myself that anybody who’d wait outside a hotel door for a glimpse of Al Gore deserves whatever disappointment eventually emerged.

At the Civic Center another music festival was tuning up, but it also seemed lightly attended, probably because it was sponsored by The City. I walked on up a deserted Polk Street until I got to Sacramento where I hopped a free bus.

The Muni is never entirely free considering the emotional toll it often takes on its customers, but it was free to riders on this, The Last Night.

The bus was empty except for four Mexicans getting off work. Early in the morning, late at night, the Muni is a mobile Third World, ferrying the legions of underpaid people who do the real work of our latest economic miracle, the SUV-Dot Com decade where the dollars go up but fewer and fewer come down.

I got off at California and Masonic to catch the 33 back to the Haight. Two middle-aged women, one black, one white, and nicely done up, joined me at the bus stop. The area was deserted. “Do you mind if we stand near you?” one asks. “It’s creepy out here.” Yes, I’m the only one, I reply. They laughed. I don’t know if I should have been insulted at their menace-free assumption or flattered that they thought I was capable of serving as armor against the urban night.

The 33 eventually appears. My wards and I are the only passengers until Hayes Street where an odd guy in white bucks trips and sprawls onto the bus, lying on the steps like he’s dead drunk or has just dropped truly dead from the exertion of climbing onto the 33. But he’s neither, just clumsy.

“Are you going to ask me if I’m alright, driver?” the patient asks. No, the driver says without even looking at the guy as he pulls out into a uniquely vehicle-free Masonic Avenue. “How about you folks? Are you going to ask me if I’m alright?” Mr. Pratfall asks us. “Are you alright?, I and my two wards chorus. “Yes, I am, thank you,” the man says and, apparently gratified at our mannerly concern, sits down without saying another word.

The Muni is endlessly fascinating. San Francisco is endlessly fascinating. The libs are lamenting The City’s alleged loss of its “diversity,” but I’ve never seen it more diverse, and I’ve been living there off and on for 80 years, having arrived as a three-year-old refugee from Hawaii.

At Haight and Masonic I alight. One of the two ladies I was selflessly accompanying point to point, or at least until a visible threat materialized, wished me happy new year as the other said, “Thank you for guarding us.”

Shucks, ma’am, happy to put your mind to ease.

Haight Street was deserted. Ben and Jerry’s was the only place open. Even the bums and the dopers had disappeared. Nobody was out anywhere in San Francisco. Only a few thousand suburbanites massed at the Embarcadero for the most chaste New Year’s Eve in the history of the Golden Gate.

The next day the Chronicle said that there were fewer police and fire calls on New Year’s Eve than there are on any Friday night of the year. People stayed home for the end of the world, but it didn’t end anywhere, even in Mendocino County where everyone was fully prepared.

CATCH OF THE DAY, Monday, December 11, 2023

ARNOLD ANGUIANO JR., Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

KIANA FLORES, Redwood Valley. Reckless evasion, wrong-way driving, offenses while on bail.

RICHARD FLORES, Redwood Valley. Nunchuks, resisting.

TYLER KELLER, Ukiah. Paraphernalia, county parole violation.

ANDREW KEMP, Red Bluff/Ukiah. Stolen vehicle.

DANNY RUPERT, Clearlake/Ukiah. Robbery, protective order violation, unspecified offense.

JEFF GOLL: Bruce, AVA, good packed issue today with Kunstler and R Nader and the "Epic Battle between California and Deep-Red Shasta County." The blobular state government is running into lots of NIMBYism and for good reason. I saw one of those giant wind propellers being transported on Rt 80 and the very last thing that came to mind was environmental safety. I would think that nearshore wave energy capture would be much more sensible, but then again, sensible generally doesn't enter into the conversation in the development of these projects. It's going to be a few more days until I get my auto, the mechanic discovered that the exhaust valves in the engine were shot but when I get it back, I'll enjoy a brand-newish motor. Going through original RAW files I found this image for the AVA today and do enjoy, Jeff

HE PASSED THE CALIFORNIA BAR AT 17. AT 18, HE’S NOW PROSECUTING CRIMINAL CASES

by Joe Garofoli

Peter Park doesn’t find it that unusual that at 17, he recently became the youngest person to pass the California bar exam.

Or that he started law school online when he was 13 years old, as he was beginning high school. Or that he was sworn in as a prosecutor for the Tulare County District Attorney’s Office last week, shortly after turning 18. 

“There are people out there who are smart like me. I wouldn’t say I’m like a super genius. I would just say I’m just like, reasonably smart,” Park said. There are “people out there like me who would like to become an attorney at age 17 — who wouldn’t? — but they just don’t know how to.” 

Park asked the question rhetorically, but many people might turn it around: Who would?

For Park, the answer began with his father, who showed him that path when he was 13 and living in the Orange County city of Cypress.

“My dad came into my room and he told me that he’s found a path that pretty much guarantees that I’ll be an attorney by the age of 17,” Park said. “I had a discussion with him. And in the end, I was convinced to enter law.”

But the flip side of Park’s history-making story are the potential challenges it presents, starting with: Should an 18-year-old with a limited amount of life experience be making life-changing charging decisions? 

Prosecutors are among the most powerful government actors: They have virtually unchecked authority to decide whether to charge someone with a crime, what to charge them with and whether to accept a plea deal. Many of the system’s inequities are shaped by the choices prosecutors make.

 “Any very junior person is not going to be given a murder trial or a very serious felony right off the bat,” said David Yosifon, a professor of law at Santa Clara University and an expert on legal ethics. “I would be confident that the prosecutors have those proper professional development guardrails in place. And that this person, having passed the bar, will be able to develop through those guardrails.”

Yosifon said that the public should be “suspicious” of Park in the same way that it should scrutinize any “prosecutor as an individual, as a politician, as a representative of the government.” It is up to the district attorney’s office to respond to any concerns by showcasing his credentials, he said.

“We send 18-year-olds off to make very serious decisions in foreign wars,” Yosifon said. “So this is the nature of the human condition. By the time you’re 18, you’re in it.” 

Stuart Anderson, a spokesperson for Tulare County District Attorney Tim Ward, said Monday in an email that the office “does not discriminate against an applicant’s age during the hiring process. Mr. Park will receive the same onboard training, resources, and supervision as all new prosecutors.” 

Park said he is handling mostly misdemeanor cases and had some felony cases “in the pipeline now.” 

He doesn’t think his lack of life experience is a hindrance to doing his job. 

“I don’t know if I’m missing anything,” Park said. “Maybe like the high school and college experience, but I feel like that’s overrated. The only thing that comes to mind (that is missing) is the number of years lived.”

Park’s route to the office was extraordinary in that he largely bypassed high school and college. He complied with a California state bar rule that allows students to apply to law school through the College-Level Examination Program.

Park completed an online program at the Sacramento-based Northwestern California University School of Law. He would attend high school from 8 a.m. until 3 p.m., then do his online law school coursework. He did that for two years until he was able to pass a high school equivalency exam.

Park said his high school homework was his second priority because “I knew in the back of my mind that my high school grade could not matter less, because I knew I’d be graduating through” taking the high school proficiency exam. 

His biggest challenge: There are only so many hours in a day to study. “So it was a battle with time management,” he said. 

He said he doesn’t feel that he missed anything by not having a typical high school or college experience. Actually, Park said, it’s the other way around. 

“I think everyone else is missing out on the opportunity that I was able to recognize,” Park said. “More people should realize this. Anybody with enough dedication and hard work, I think most people, or at least, like some percent of the population, would be able to do the same thing that I did.”

Park said that when he entered law school, he knew about as much “as every other person … or maybe even less than the average person. It comes down to discipline and being able to motivate yourself. I was fortunate enough to have my dad who would motivate me and encouraged me throughout my experience in law school.”

So why the rush to go to law school? 

“Why not the rush?” Park replied. “I had the capability and there was no point in me sitting in high school learning things I won’t be using. It’s a similar philosophy to how (Apple co-founder) Steve Jobs would quit (Reed College) or like Mark Zuckerberg (left Harvard University). They all realized that there was something far more important than sitting in class and listening to lectures.”

Yosifon, the law professor, said he was enthusiastic that “a very young person who’s obviously very bright and ambitious has decided to take their skills and their energy into the legal field.”

“We hear so much in this day and age about young people who are especially bright and driven going into the tech sector — and there’s nothing wrong with that,” Yosifon said. “But we sure as heck could use the brightest that society has to offer advancing the rule of law.”

So does Park’s father, Byungjoo Park, a patent agent who moved with his wife from South Korea when their son was born. On the day after his son passed the bar exam, Byungjoo Park independently published a 110-page instruction book on how to do it: “Fast Track Attorney: Passing the Bar at Age 17.” 

The process went so well, Byungjoo Park’s 16-year-old daughter is following the same path now through online law school. He is closely following both of his children’s progress. 

The family moved to Visalia after Peter Park got his job there. They are still teenagers, after all. 

(SF Chronicle)

WHY AIR TRAVEL IS SO EXPENSIVE & UNPLEASANT

by Jim Hightower

In a song about outlaws, Woody Guthrie noted that, “Some’ll rob with a 6-gun/Some with a fountain pen.”

Indeed, the big money thievery in our society today is being perpetrated by the Fountain Pen Gang of corporate monopolists, Wall Street financiers, and Washington lobbyists. They’re trying to pull off another multibillion-dollar heist right now in the airline industry. It’s a merger caper that would gouge consumers, shortchange airline workers, and cut service to communities by further shrinking competition in an already-monopolistic market. Just four giants — American, United, Delta, and Southwest — now control two-thirds of all air travel in the entire US. The only competitive force left is a handful of smaller lines, such as Jet Blue, Spirit, Alaska, and Hawaiian. Currently, though, Alaska and Jet Blue are trying to take over the other two, perversely arguing that cutting the number of competitors will miraculously *increase*competition and magically reduce prices for consumers.

This is what I call “Santa Clause Economics” — you have to be six years old to believe it. Here, boys and girls, is the reason that less competition is not more: All of these airlines are owned and controlled by the same tiny group of uber-rich, Wall Street financial profiteers. For example, Vanguard Group (a $7-trillion global investment powerhouse) is the largest institutional shareholder in American, United, Delta, Southwest, and Alaska, plus the second largest in Jet Blue. So, far from fighting the Big Four, the two monopolistic wannabes would join them to rig prices even higher and make airline “service” more of an oxymoron than it is now.

The word “free” in free enterprise is not an adjective, it’s a verb. We have to free-up the enterprising competitors that corporate monopolists are locking out, decentralizing market power, not increasing consolidation.…

jimhightower.substack.com/p/why-air-travel-is-so-expensive-and

CONFORMIST MEDIA OUTLETS HIDE REALITIES OF POWER. 

Noam Chomsky Has Exposed Them.

by Norman Solomon

One of the rare times that Noam Chomsky’s name has been mentioned on a big national NPR program came two months ago. On “Weekend Edition” in mid-October, a week into Israel’s murderous assault on civilians in Gaza, a correspondent reported while visiting a bookstore owned by a Palestinian in Jerusalem: “I’m seeing a lot of books by Noam Chomsky.”

Across the globe, people suffering from illegitimate power and violence have a lot of books by Noam Chomsky. A recent interviewer aptly introduced him this way: “One of the world’s most-cited scholars and a public intellectual regarded by millions of people as a national and international treasure, Chomsky has published more than 150 books in linguistics, political and social thought, political economy, media studies, U.S foreign policy and world affairs.”

Ever since his meticulous writing and strong activism against the U.S. war on Southeast Asia in the 1960s and ‘70s, Chomsky has been exposing Orwellian and often-deadly maneuvers by the most powerful government on Earth. Along the way, he has been tireless, humanistic and uncompromising.

For many decades, the core of corporate greed and militarism has remained basically the same. So has the core of Chomsky’s message.

In 1982, while visiting Philadelphia, he appeared as a guest on “Fresh Air” -- back then only a local program on WHYY Radio. Host Terry Gross asked: “Your radical thoughts in linguistics completely changed the field. Your radical thoughts in politics hasn’t completely changed America. Has it been interesting for you to watch how your contribution to politics and linguistics has or hasn’t affected things?”

“I see them very differently,” Chomsky replied. “For one thing, in my view, linguistics is -- well, it’s basically a branch of sciences, it’s hard intellectual work. Political analysis is not, quite frankly. I think it’s easily within the range of an ordinary person who doesn’t have any particular training and is simply willing to use common sense to pay attention to the available documentary record and to use a little diligence in searching beyond what’s on the surface.”

Chomsky continued: “There’s an elaborate pretense that this is an area that must be left to experts. But that’s simply one way of protecting power from scrutiny. So, my own interest in political analysis and writing and so on is simply to bring information to people who I think can use it for the purposes of changing the world.”

His anti-elitism has endured, and so has enmity from some elites. One response is to block access to mainstream media. “Fresh Air” is a case in point. A search of the program’s full archive shows that after it went national on NPR in the mid-1980s, “Fresh Air” never interviewed Chomsky again. The program’s local interview with him back in 1982 was the first and last.

With few exceptions, in major U.S. media -- notably unlike major media in most of the rest of the world -- Chomsky has been persona non grata.

A key reason is Chomsky’s implacable opposition to the many wars of aggression that the U.S. government has launched or supported. And a particularly unacceptable deviation from approved views has been his illuminating condemnations of Israel’s historic and ongoing suppression of Palestinian rights. For several decades, as a result, vast quantities of hostility and distortion have been directed at him.

Here’s a sample: In the mid-1990s, the longtime host of NPR’s “All Things Considered” program, Robert Siegel -- operating within a lofty “public radio” bubble -- wrote a letter to the industry newspaper Current declaring that Chomsky “evidently enjoys a small, avid, and largely academic audience who seem to be persuaded that the tangible world of politics is all the result of delusion, false consciousness and media manipulation.”

Chomsky, who turned 95 last week, has been spotlighting the inherent and expansively violent cruelties of Zionism for a very long time. His landmark 1983 book “Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and the Palestinians” dispelled many readers’ illusions about the goals and consequences of U.S. support for Israel.

In 1986, journalist David Barsamian launched “Alternative Radio -- a national one-hour program that got underway by bringing Chomsky’s voice to listeners around the United States and far beyond. In the nearly 40 years since then, the weekly show has aired several hundred speeches and interviews with Chomsky (whose website <https://chomsky.info> also overflows with a cornucopia of vital information and analysis).

“Solidarity is not some abstract concept for him,” Barsamian told me. “If you needed advice, a signature, a check, a fundraising talk, Noam would be there.”

Behind the scenes, working with Chomsky for so long while seeing him interact with a wide array of people, “what always impressed me was his kindness and decency,” Barsamian said. “Behind the mental acuity, stunning level of knowledge and intellectual brilliance is a mild-mannered gentle man. Working with Noam over many years has been the most rewarding experience of my life.”

If you ever receive an email from David Barsamian, the bottom lines of it will be this quote from Noam Chomsky: “If you assume that there is no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope. If you assume there is an instinct for freedom, that there are opportunities to change things, then there is a possibility that you can contribute to making a better world.”

(Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. He is the author of many books including War Made Easy. His latest book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine, was published in summer 2023 by The New Press.)

TIRELESS BUSYBODIES AGAIN TARGET SUBSTACK

Substack faces another deplatforming campaign, triggered by a clarion-call from America’s flagship of suck, Atlantic Magazine

by Matt Taibbi

Substack is under attack again. The crusade is led by a site contributor, Jonathan Katz, whose style might be characterized as embittered-conventional, i.e. toting the same opinions as every mainstream editorialist, only angrier about it. There’s been more of this genre on offer here as staff positions for talking-point-spouters dry up in legacy shops, but hey, it’s a free country. If you want braying about fascism, Tucker Carlson, Elon Musk, the lab leak theory, and other #Resistance horrors you’d hear about if you just left MSNBC on in a corner — or feel deprived of headlines like “What Ron DeSantis and a Norwegian mass murderer have in common” — Substack’s got you covered. It’s not my idea of what alternative media’s for, but fortunately, nobody asked me. Why should I care what other people read?

Katz does. Though this site is a true content free-for-all, where you can find everything from serialized graphic novels to Portuguese “dark storytelling” to bagel bites recipes, a microcosm of the old Internet where the randomness of being able to hop from Bigfoot to Buddhism is a key part of the free vibe, Katz believes he’s detected a malicious pattern. He aims to put a stop to it, by deplatformingSubstack contributors he doesn’t like. A group letter is being organized, demanding action, following Katz’s stern argument in the Atlantic, “Substack Has a Nazi Problem.”

As an aside: a big reason people read Substack is because of the terribleness of magazines like The Atlantic,which is edited by a guy, Jeffrey Goldberg, who won a pile of awards for blowing the WMD story in spectacular fashion for years on end, making him a walking, talking symbol of the failing-upward dynamic in corporate media. If that magazine wants people to read Substack less, it might consider not filling its pages with exposés about the Alfa Server fantasies or plaintive defenses of the Steele dossieror other transparent propaganda, instead of demanding deplatforming here. 

Like a prosecutor introducing an adverse witness early, Katz in his piece concedes a numerical observation about the “white supremacist” problem on Substack:

These are, to be sure, tiny fraction of the newsletters on a site that had more than 17,000 paid writers as of March, according to Axios, and has many other writers who do not charge for their work…

Really he should stop there, but trudges forward. There are 16 whole sites, he says, that deploy some variation of a swastika on Substack, and despite these being both legal and a complete non-factor in the national discussion, their existence cannot be tolerated. After explaining his real gripe, that “Substack’s leaders proudly disdain the content-moderation methods that other platforms employ,” Katz comes to the moment — inevitable in this humorously consistent genre of diatribe — in which he threatens to pick up his Substack ball and go home:

The question is what kind of community Substack is actively cultivating. How long will writers such as Bari Weiss, Patti Smith, and George Saunders — and, for that matter, me — be willing to stake our reputations on, and share a cut of our revenue with, a company that can’t decide if Nazi flags count as hate speech? 

The first time someone tried this, Bari was on the other end of the dynamic, listed as one of the Substack evils supposedly inspiring decent folk to leave. In March 2021, Jude Ellison S. Doyle announced his/their intention to walk out because Substack wouldn’t kick the likes of Graham Linehan, author of the very funny Irish sitcom Father Ted,off the platform. The concept then was a transphobia panic, i.e. Substack was home to a burgeoning anti-trans movement, spearheaded, Doyle claimed, by Linehan and… and… well, there had to be a second really bad example, so Doyle somehow settled on Jesse Singal, perhaps the single most inoffensive personality to have ever carried a New Yorkmagazine byline. Nonetheless, Doyle identified the duo of Linehan and Singal as “harassment influencers,” meaning those engaged in “naming individual trans people who then get swarmed by their followers.”

Substack survived an “exodus” of about five writers in that episode. A year later they went through another campaign, this time over the “anti-vaccine sentiment” threat supposedly posed by Dr. Joseph Mercola, Steve Kirsch, and Alex Berenson. The legacy campaign gained steam when the mighty Center for Countering Digital Hate, claimed Substack was earning millions from anti-vaccine content. The CCDH stat spurred more panic headlines in The Washington Post, The Guardian, The New York Times,and Vanity Fair,among others. 

How dishonest were these stories? The Timeswas writing about “growing pains” on Substack, and Mashable about its “exodus” of writers, just after the company announced in late 2021 that it passed the threshold of 1 million paying subscribers, or quadruplethe amount for the previous year. That number is now over 2 million, meaning the “community” has doubled in size again since last year. Most corporate outlets would blood-sacrifice half their staff for “growing pains” like that.

In an age when censorship and deamplification are big factors for journalists tempted to say something unpopular (Katz, destined to be eulogized as a parrot on the shoulder of Received Wisdom, will not be sympathetic), moving to a platform that’s proven it won’t buckle is crucial. People like Substack CEO Chris Best and co-founders Hamish McKenzie and Jairaj Sethi have proven they won’t let outside groups dictate to them about content. This is why contributors like me, who have a lot to worry about on this front, are loyal. It’s also why people seek out content here: they know they’re getting a far less filtered version of reality than they’re seeing on platforms like Facebook and YouTube, where deamplification, strikes, and outright removals have become routine.

What’s the value add for Substack if they start bouncing sites at the behest of groups like the CCDH or the ADL or even writers at The Atlantic? The minute they take a step in that direction, the site just becomes a miniature version of the giant attitude-grinding machines you find across the rest of social media, from whence everyone fled here in the first place. Why does the world need another such platform?

Of course, one could ask, why does anyone need “Andon’s Reich Press,” one of the sites that’s drawn Katz’s ire? One doesn’t, necessarily, unless you believe in free speech culture. Hate speech isn’t illegal in America for a variety of reasons that Katz — who might someday enter into the Guinness Bookfor writing the most words about the ACLU’s defense of neo-Nazis at Skokie without understanding the subject at all — doesn’t see. The logic of defending Nazi speech then and now is obvious, and has nothing to do with indulging Nazis. David Goldberger led the ACLU’s legal team in the Skokie case and as he put it, “The power to censor Nazis includes the power to censor protesters of all stripes and to prevent the press from publishing embarrassing facts and criticism that government officials label as ‘fake news.’”

Nearly 50 years later, this is exactly what we’ve seen with the Twitter Files, the CTI League, the Virality Project I just wrote about, and innumerable other “content moderation” projects. They start off promising to stop clearly offensive or ridiculous posts, like about microchips in vaccines. Quickly however the purview expands to include anything that “promotes hesitancy,” contains “anti-Ukraine narratives,” or too closely overlaps with the “information ecosystem” of, say, Russia. This is how Stanford’s Jay Bhattacharya or the Green Party’s Jill Stein end up de-amplified on Twitter, and how Aaron Maté ended up on a list of accounts passed to the FBI by Ukrainian intelligence. 

With censorship, it’s always about who gets the power to evaluate, not what’s being censored. The choice isn’t between getting rid of a few obvious Nazis, or not. It’s between giving someone like Jonathan Katz, or a bunch of Jonathan Katzes, sweeping power over content or not. Americans have always understood the second danger to be scarier, for good reason. 

People like Katz aren’t worried about the negligible impact of a couple of volleyball teams’ worth of creepy accounts amid tens of thousands. They’re fighting for a principle which does matter, namely making sure there isn’t even one small platform allowed to make its own decisions about content. It’s incredible, how determined they are to bring everyone under the same heel. Of course leverage is limited. Katz is threatening that he and other might take their acts elsewhere if demands aren’t met. The loss of such dazzling content would of course be an ordeal to bear, but one guesses that with effort, Substack would find a way to recover. 

Where do these people come from, and how did they come to be so entitled? Are parents still doing their laundry? It’s amazing, in addition to being infuriating.

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

I’m well aware this forum is not a personal diary, as some have said, but hey – there are no rules in life, so who the hell cares.

My father died on Friday. He had just turned 76. Mild dizzy spells for a few months prior, then recently diagnosed with blockage in the carotid artery. After a few weeks of tests, they performed surgery to try to clear the blockage, which went well – for about six hours. Then he threw a clot from the surgery and suffered a significant stroke. An immediate second emergency surgery to try again was ultimately unsuccessful in clearing the blockage.

My brother and I were able to spend five days with him and my mom at his bedside. He was responsive with his eyes and left side (he could hold and read cards, work a TV remote, etc), made direct eye contact and could nod and smile as we talked to him. He couldn’t speak, but he tried, and I could tell he was in there and knew what was happening and what we were saying.

He suffered a second stroke on day six, and that did it. He then spent less than two days in hospice before he let go in his sleep. (Before anyone asks, yes, as far as I know he had all the jabs, though that’s inconsequential to me right now. Male strokes run in my family, and I can likely expect one in my future as well…hopefully not so early though.)

I’ve been on auto-pilot for the last few weeks taking care of details for my mom, but now that what’s done is done, I’m just starting to process what this all means. I’m pretty pissed off at a variety of faceless entities, but mainly I’m just resigned and saddened that we will only ever have the past with him now.

My dad was the funniest guy I ever knew. A bit of a mystery, too. But I’d venture to say that he did more to create memories for his wife and boys over the years than most can claim to have even attempted. He only had 6 ½ years to spend with my boy, but it’s clear the same impression was made on him.

So…Peace out, pop. Got it from here…well, until it’s my time someday.

And for what it’s worth, I could give two shits about world politics right now, so that’s a stress reliever in itself. Perspective has been shifted to what matters in daily life, and what we have/don’t have control of. If your parents are still alive, call them and say hello, and perhaps buy them a pint and have another laugh while you can.

YOU MAKE ME FEEL SO YOUNG

You make me feel so young
You make me feel so spring has sprung
And every time I see you grin
I'm such a happy individual

The moment that you speak
I wanna go play hide-and-seek
I wanna go and bounce the moon
Just like a toy balloon

You and I are just like a couple of tots
Running across the meadow
Picking up lots of forget-me-nots

You make me feel so young
You make me feel there are songs to be sung
Bells to be rung and a wonderful fling to be flung

And even when I'm old and gray
I'm gonna feel the way I do today
'Cause you make me feel so young

You make me feel so young
You make me feel so spring has sprung
And every time I see you grin
I'm such a happy individual

The moment that you speak
I wanna go play hide-and-seek
I wanna go and bounce the moon
Just like a toy balloon

You and I are just like a couple of tots
Running across the meadow
Picking up lots of forget-me-nots

You make me feel so young
You make me feel there are songs to be sung
And bells to be rung
And a wonderful fling to be flung

And even when I'm old and gray
I'm gonna feel the way I do today
'Cause you, you make me feel so young
You make me feel so young
You make me feel so young
Ooh, you make me feel so young

— by Josef Myrow & Mack Gordon (1946), sung perfectly by Frank Sinatra (1956)