Mendocino County Today: Thursday, Dec. 14, 2023

Warming | Dusk | Sandbar Breached | Toy Giveaway | AVUSD News | Ribbon Cutting | Grumpy | Bike Burglar | Messiah Singalong | Groundfish Amendment | Skatepark Radio | Jackie Potter-Voll | Willits Arch | Blood Drive | Naturalist Class | Sandbar Chat | Intersection | Ed Notes | Redwood Station | Millenium Memories | Yesterday's Catch | Food Crisis | Professor Redwood | Classic Draymond | Herb Caen | Wiser Women | Reimagining Birth | Fishing | Belief Blueprint | Z & B | Unbelievably Stupid | Hotel Esmeralda | Being Engaged | Solving Conflicts | Texas Politics | Jim Harrison | Sensitive | Going Away | Xmas Calendar | Alien Craft | Time Machine

DRIER WARMER WEATHER will persist for the next few days. More unsettled and wet weather is expected by Sunday next week mostly for the southern half of the forecast area. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): 43F under partly cloudy skies this Thursday morning on the coast. Really warm temps prevail into the weekend with scattered clouds. Rain returns Saturday night thru about Wednesday but forecast models are still chewing on storm locations mid next week.

NAVARRO SANDBAR MANUALLY BREACHED, 128 OPEN

When I arrived to check on the Navarro sandbar at 4:30 PM Wednesday, I saw two men with shovels had just dug a feeder channel between the estuary and the pit at the head of the natural breach that we've seen slowly advancing for several days. The two carefully tended their channel, pulling out driftwood sucked in from the estuary that might clog it. Within 30 minutes the flow had grown into a raging torrent. The men reached the sandbar in a yellow ocean kayak. I left as darkness fell, with the two still on the sandbar, proudly admiring their handiwork.

A look at the USGS Navarro Gage chart shows a sharp drop from 5 ft. at 5 PM to 2.5 ft. at 8 PM

As a result, Hwy. 128 is already open. But also, based on scientific studies, thousands of estuary dwelling fish and other life will die and float belly up, where they will fatten up a lot of vultures and other scavengers. See the archived Beacon article linked below describing a boat trip up the Navarro in 1962, a couple of days after fishermen had manually breached the sandbar. The boaters saw thousands of dead fish and smelled a horrible stench. They assumed that what they saw resulted from the manual breach coming too late, but in fact it was the premature breach that caused the fish kill by skimming off the fresh water near the surface, leaving only the salty, oxygen-depleted bottom layer of water in which the fish could not survive. https://www.newspapers.com/article/mendocino-coast-beacon-navarro-river-san/136770236/

But how long will the river mouth stay open without enough river flow to keep it from closing in? It could close up again in a few days, depending on surf and tide. Fortunately some strong winter storms are expected to begin very soon, and around Christmas and New Years there should be plenty enough flow to open the bar and keep it open. Up to 2" of rain is forecast this weekend. https://www.sfgate.com/weather/article/california-expected-to-see-pattern-shift-18550219.php

Some people think it's good to manually open the bar so that salmon and steelhead can enter the river to spawn. That may have been the motive for the two men breaching the bar today. But without enough river flow those fish will have trouble reaching and entering the tributary streams where they spawn. Better to wait for the rains to come. It's not nice to fool with Mother Nature.

As for Hwy. 128, there's only a 100 yard section near the bridge that gets flooded every year by a few inches of water backed up by the sandbar. Caltrans last year added 6" of pavement through that section, or it would have been flooded before now. Another 6" on top of that should be enough to put an end to the bothersome road closures except when there are genuine high-water floods that put miles of 128 under several feet of water, mud and debris.

Thanks to Jim Heid for posting links to historic and scientific information relevant to the current situation. I'm confident that Frank Hartzell will put together an excellent article about it.

Nick Wilson

AVUSD NEWS

Dear Anderson Valley Community,

What a wonderful evening of fun at the Peachland Preschool with the hospitality of Anita and Lupita and all of our amazing families enjoying crafts, student-made Sweet Tamales, and Hot Chocolate.  Magical!

Then, over that elementary school it was a celebratory night of honoring our students that reclassified out of ELD and recognizing the citizenship and good choices of our Students of the Month.  SO GREAT TO SEE SO MANY FAMILIES AND STAFF OUT AND ENJOYING THESE CELEBRATIONS TOGETHER.  GOOD STUFF!

At the Junior/Senior High School, I wanted to let you know that starting January 8, the sports grade policy is no Fs and no more than one D each week to be eligible to play.  There are also no more than 7 tardies in a quarter.  We have so many students that can't get to school on time, and that just can not continue.  Hopefully, this will help.

Last reminder, the grade books close on Friday.  Please make sure your students have turned in any work that they have not completed.  Event partial work is better than no work returned.

We thank you for your partnership with our students.

Take care,
Louise Simson
Superintendent

FESTIVAL OF GRUMPS?

Festival of Lights was fun, but the people working or volunteering were some of the grumpiest rudest people I have ever encountered. What is it that happens to some locals when they’re here for a long time and don’t get out much? You guys really don’t have much to complain about except pot holes, loose dogs, loud neighbors and the scary idea of a new grocery outlet, yet it seems to be all you do. I’ve lived here 30 years, my entire life, and the elders of Mendocino could really use some enlightenment, but the problem is you think you’re already “woke”, I’m here to tell you that you are far from it. Most of you are all so grumpy. Ask yourself why? Delete if you want but I hope everyone sees this, I’ve literally had enough. This isn’t my hometown that I remember.

JIM MORRISON (no known relation to The Doors) AND HIS THEFTS…

On 12/05/2023 at approximately 0415 hours, a City of Ukiah employee notified Ukiah Police Department (UPD) officers about two vehicles that appeared to have been tampered with on City of Ukiah property. It was determined the vehicles belonged to the City of Ukiah. In addition to the open vehicle doors, various tools were located in the nearby bushes. In speaking with the witness, the suspect, later identified as James Morrison, had left the scene prior to the officer’s arrival. 

During the investigation, it was discovered that Morrison had forced entry into a fenced enclosure that is attached to a building belonging to the City of Ukiah. Video surveillance of the incident shows Morrison leaving with bicycles and several other items. 

On 12/05/2023 at approximately 1523 hours, a UPD officer was on patrol near North State Street and Lake Mendocino Drive, when he observed Morrison riding a bicycle that resembled the one stolen earlier in the day. The officer contacted Morrison to further investigate the burglary. A records check on Morrison revealed he was on Pre-Trial release with a term of “obey all laws.” Morrison was also found to have an active felony warrant out of Santa Barbara County for his arrest. A records check on the bicycle Morrison was riding was a positive match for the bicycle that was stolen during the burglary. Additionally, Morrison was found to be in possession of several stolen tools. 

Morrison was placed under arrest for the charges and he was transported to the Mendocino County Jail. 

As always, our mission at UPD is to make Ukiah as safe a place as possible. If you would like to know more about crime in your neighborhood, you can sign up for telephone, cell phone, and email notifications by clicking the Nixle button on our website; www.ukiahpolice.com

(Ukiah PD Presser)

3 PM SATURDAY MESSIAH SING ALONG

Symphony of the Redwoods presents Sing-along Messiah at the Mendocino Presbyterian Church at 3 PM on Saturday Dec. 16th. Symphony of the Redwoods musicians make up the orchestra and soloists are soprano Liesl McPherrin; Deborah Rosengaus - alto; Marius Constantin - tenor; and William O'Neill - bass. Bring your own score or use one provided. Sing to your heart's content or just listen and enjoy! This event is free of charge and a gift to the community by the Symphony of the Redwoods. Donations towards this event and future community events are instrumental to keep the symphony programs alive. Cookies in Preston Hall after the 75 minutes long concert.

For more information please visit Symphonyoftheredwoods.org

WE ARE PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE FISHERY REGULATION CHANGES that mark a milestone in the ongoing efforts to conserve and sustainably manage West Coast groundfish populations. These changes, outlined in Amendment 32 to the Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery Management Plan, represent the culmination of over two decades of dedicated science and conservation work and will have a positive impact on commercial and recreational fisheries and the communities they support.

Dan Platt, out of Fort Bragg, California, was part of a small group of fishermen that tested non-bottom contact hook-and-line gear in the Non-Trawl Rockfish Conservation Area off California from 2013-2023. The gear that Dan and his vessels tested proved effective at targeting healthy midwater rockfish stocks, while successfully avoiding yelloweye rockfish, which is a bottom-dwelling species that is still rebuilding. This gear testing provided data that contributed to the development of Amendment 32.

Dan says, “I started fishing with my dad when I was 12 years old. I knew early on that I wanted to be a fisherman. I fish with hook and line (longline) for rockfish and sablefish and halibut. I was fishing before the Rockfish Conservation Area was implemented. All of my halibut spots have been closed since the RCA was implemented. Amendment 32 will reopen a lot of areas that we used to fish in the past.”

We would like to thank Dan Platt for his commitment to conservation and for improving fishing conditions for all of us!

For more information about Amendment 32, and detailed maps, view our new please see this story map: https://bit.ly/46Ist2K

AV SKATEPARK ON KZYX Sports Phone Sunday

At 7PM on Sunday 12/17/23 The Sports Phone will interview Noor Dawood and Aster Arbanovella regarding the Anderson Valley Skatepark. We will discuss the next phase of the AV Skatepark Project. Noor is the AV Unified instructor in charge of the project and will be joined by student representative Aster.

JACKIE POTTER-VOLL

Jacqueline ‘Jackie’ Potter-Voll, 85, of Moline, Illinois, passed away Friday, November 3, 2023, in Moline, Illinois. 

Per her wishes, cremation rites will be accorded. There will be no services. Inurnment will be at Riverside Cemetery in Moline.

Memorials may be made to St. Jude's Children's Hospital, 262 Danny Thomas Place, Memphis, Tenessee, or Anderson Valley Animal Rescue in Boonville, CA 95415. Family and friends are invited to share memories and express online condolences at www.wendtfuneralhome.com.

Jaqueline Gail Potter was born in Moline on December 12, 1937, to Charles and Frances (Miller) Potter. On May 2, 1971, in Beverly Hills. She married Bernard Frederick Voll, who preceded her in death on May 19, 1987.

Jaqueline graduated from Barrington High School and attended Northwestern University. She was a member of the First Congregational Church of Oakland, CA, and Philo Methodist Church. She was a writer, watercolorist, sculptor, florist, and a California restaurateur. She was passionate about flowers, art, holding and reading “real” books, music, and being a trained French Cook and Chocolatier. She loved her family and friends, long walks, and worshipping nature and God.

Survivors include stepdaughters Karen (David) Bohan-Lindquist of Laguna Beach, CA, and Cristina (Scott) Fitz-Randolph of Los Angeles; brothers Charles Scott Potter of Yorkville, Marshall Vincent (Nora) Potter of Santa Rosa, and Stewart Day (Angel) Potter of Rohnert Park; local cousins: Michelle Prescott and James Miller of Moline; and many more deeply loved aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, and friends. In addition to her husband, she was preceded by her parents, a sister, Jill Frances Potter, and a brother, William Brian Potter.

Family and friends are invited to share memories and express condolences on her Memory Page at wendtfuneralhome.com.

---

“We grow out of the dark garden,

at birth each as a flower in our own soul's

resplendent bloom of color.

Our days pour forth as an easy rain

of love and tears and laughter.

Death should be effortless

as the falling leaf in autumn,

not suspect, never sought,

not planned, simply got.” 

— Jacqueline Potter-Voll

BLOOD DRIVE AT MENDO FIREHOUSE DEC 19, 1-5 PM

Mendocino Volunteer Fire Department <mvfd@mcn.org>

Just a quick reminder that the Mendocino Fire Protection District will be hosting at blood drive at the firehouse at 44700 Little Lake Road in Mendocino on Tuesday, December 19th, from 1 to 5 pm. The blood drive will be managed by Vitalant, a non-profit that supplies blood to about = 900 hospitals across the US.

Appointments are recommended to minimize wait time. About half of the slots are already booked, so please call Vitalant at 877-258-4825 or visit Vitalant.org to make the appointment online. Walk-ins are also welcome. Every donor will receive a free T-shirt.

Give the gift of life this holiday season. We hope to see you on Tuesday.

THE NAVARRO SANDBAR (Coast Chatline)

Bulldozing Open, River Sand Bars + Spalling Concrete Bridges.

Frank Hartzell:

Climate Change is an issue along with the increased sediment in the Navarro, which has been studied, but sparsely. Apparently the blockage is caused primarily by the ocean, but Id like to read what the increased sediment load due to logging, development, farming and such is. I dont know but am fascinated. Another factor is the amount of water in the Navarro has been reduced, some people say the wine industry has taken a large amount of water from the river. How true is this? Having these facts would be interesting. Also, who at the Army Corps of Engineers made the decision to bulldoze the Russian and why did that person choose not to do so on the Navarro? I spent two years getting action on the tar wall at the Navarro. During those two years the road wasnt closed but in all the years it came up on the road that tar got into the river, which I find astonishing that nobody said or did anything about it till I came along, the bridge nut, looking all up and down the Coast and calling CAltrans about bridge spalls. We need to pay attention more as a community for sure and its great to see interest on the road closure issue. I dont have a good sense if anything should be done but I think we all need to read the facts about the river, diversions and sediment. Modern editors find this boring but its critical to the next generation and ours in fact.

* * *

Derek

When I lived in Gualala 30 years ago, Jay Baker, who owned the Baker Town business complex, would drive his bulldozer across the (Sonoma County) Gualala Point Park Land and Open up the Gualala River.

When word would get around town he was on the way down there, a huge crowd would form on the bluff top to watch.

I believe the last time he did it was about 1994.

Of course, he committed at least one Felony and a couple of Misdemeanor doing that, but he was never prosecuted as far as I recall.

As far as Bridges Spalling Concrete goes... the Russian Gulch Bridge looks almost Scary from underneath, with lots of Spalling and Exposed (now rusty) Rebar, a Huge No-No in the bridge construction world.

Concrete Spalling:

https://theconstructor.org/practical-guide/spalling-concrete-causes-repair/26027/

* * *

Andrew Scully:

I filed a video update yesterday on the road closure right from the source: Junction of 128 and 1 near the mouth of the Navarro River.

Here...

https://instagram.com/stories/mendocinoundercurrent/3257050440082617892

* * *

E. Rhodes:

Someone posted an overview of why the Navarro sandbar should not be breached by human/mechanical intervention; due to saline concentrations in the lagoon's bottom regions which can adversely affect the aquatic ecosystem if increased (by upper layers of fresh water flowing out to sea through a non natural breach). So why not measure the lagoon's saline solutions near the ocean at various depths, position a trailered, 2000 gallon per minute fluid pump (PAC H64) to get the highest saline concentrations pumped out across the sandbar for 12 (or 24?) hours, and THEN carve a channel. Wouldn't that sufficiently mitigate the saline complications, and get the Highway 128 un-submerged? Obviously, I'm ready to assume command of the Army Corps of Engineers, if called upon to do so...

* * *

Zo Abell

Another 2 cents re the Navarro River and closing the road... a simpler reflection perhaps ..over the last 55 years... true sometimes the road was flooded.. all reasons and ideas, etc. meanwhile, the shape of the river itself expanded its width, basically during the severe drought ..... it would be simple to push some sand into that area, sand from the beach not the area of the opening, that would narrow the river thus giving it enough oomph to push through. got it. sand from further up on the beach into the extreme wide areas of the river produced when there was even less water flowing. that's it.

* * *

Mike Sears: 

As someone who has worked with explosives, I calculate that 10 sticks of dynamite would open it up.

"There are very few personal problems that cannot be solved by the suitable application of a small amount of high explosive "

* * *

Little River Improvement Club

The sandbar is not natural. Many years ago the river flowed free and naturally to the ocean. When the watershed was logged, tons of silt from the hillsides formed the sandbar. It was caused by human actions. Years ago when it was still developing, a group of us approached the Parks Department, which owns the land around the mouth of the river, and were told that the sandbar is natural and because it's in a state park, they could not breech it, and had to let nature take it's course.

People went out at night and tried to breech the bar by hand, but it was way to high and wide, at least 10' or more high (thick) and hundreds of feet wide. The ocean just wash more tons of silt up and closed whatever small channel they and the river were able to dig. Thousands of birds died of botulism in the stinking pond that formed(s) at the mouth annually. The silting has grown to the point that it would take a bulldozer and complete remodeling of the entire area to remove the tons of silt and return the area to its natural state. It's been such a long time that agencies, visitors, and residents seem to have forgotten how the sandbar was born.

As you drive along the first 10 miles of Hwy 128 along the river, all we see is lovely old redwood trees, but it's deceptive. If you look up through the trees, just a few hundred feed to the north, you can see that the entire watershed was clear-cut logged and a small ribbon of trees was left along the side of the highway to "protect the view" and mitigate local outrage. As I remember, the small ribbon of old trees now still standing along that stretch was given to the state in return for the logging permit.

* * *

Frank Hartzell

Do you have any published or unpublished sources to confirm this? I am trying to find scientific confirmation of this issue. I have a story for the Voice that will be short and more of a longer story for another publication that will answer my questions. I know there is some science that says some of the rivers did plug up even in pret settler times, which was found by studying salmon behavior and their timing involving waiting for breaches.

* * *

Jim Heid

A few examples I found after just a quick search:

Oakland Tribune, December 1958

https://www.newspapers.com/article/oakland-tribune-navarro-river-sandbar/136770550/

Sonoma West Times and News, 1930

https://www.newspapers.com/article/sonoma-west-times-and-news-navarro-river/136770506/

Mendocino Beacon, 1927

https://www.newspapers.com/article/mendocino-coast-beacon-navarro-river-san/136770181/

Mendocino Beacon, 1960

https://www.newspapers.com/article/mendocino-coast-beacon-navarro-river-san/136770407/

Mendocino Beacon, 1976 (discussing a shipwreck on the Big River sandbar in 1886)

https://www.newspapers.com/article/mendocino-coast-beacon-big-river-sandbar/136770370/

Mendocino Beacon, 1962

https://www.newspapers.com/article/mendocino-coast-beacon-navarro-river-san/136770236/

This study indicates that sandbars — specifically, “bay-mouth sandbars” — are naturally occurring phenomena in Mediterranean climates, but that “anthropogenic changes” have played a role, too.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0169555X13000548

"Anthropogenic changes to the estuary or watershed have in many cases altered the natural timing and duration of closure events.”

In other words, sandbars are natural occurrences, but like too many things, we’ve also changed how and when they appear and disappear.

A search of Newspapers.com reveals numerous references to sandbars at both the Navarro River and Big River, including references from the 1880s.

* * *

Nick Wilson

An article from a Septemer 1962 Beacon relates people taking a boat up the Navarro River and seeing thousands of dead fish after fishermen guests at Navarro By The Sea Inn took it on themselves to dig open the sandbar. The people who reported it thought the fish were killed because the
sandbar wasn't breached sooner, but in light of scientific studies, it was the artificial breaching that killed the thousands of fish:
https://www.newspapers.com/image/625592125/?clipping_id=136770236&fcfToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJmcmVlLXZpZXctaWQiOjYyNTU5MjEyNSwiaWF0IjoxNzAyNTEwMDk0LCJleHAiOjE3MDI1OTY0OTR9.PSrrGUeg0yWl4sgnS35s_dfoFZaQca6dW3Yv0oBRNDE

The best solution to the problem is to let the natural process work, when winter storms bring enough fresh water down the river to flush it out.

Caltrans raised the pavement surface 6 in. last year in the short flood-prone stretch to reduce flooding potential.  Another 6 in. on top of that would probably eliminate all of the sandbar-caused flooding of the short section of 128 that gets closed by flooding most every year.

ED NOTES

YEARS AGO, when I regularly attended the soporific, pro forma meetings of the County School Board, I would rise to denounce the agency as, well, a den of thieves. A couple of the more egregious crooks were eventually packed off to jail, and my accusations were partially vindicated, at least to my satisfaction, my standards being self-imposed and forever at odds with those prevailing at the Mendocino County Office of Education.

WHENEVER I STOOD to bark at the County School Board about the latest wrinkle in the nickel and dime scamming our alleged educational leadership specialized in, a little old lady would rise to say, “Pish-posh. Please ignore that man. None of what he says could possibly be true.” Then the chairperson would say, “Next we have agenda item 3122 — board and staff in-service at the Flamingo Hotel, Las Vegas.”

AS AN OLD SCHOOL GUY, I couldn't very well jump the old lady’s bones in front of witnesses, so I'd keep quiet. She and I were usually the only people present other than the people paid to be present. Our point-counterpoint went on for years. I’d register my complaints, the old lady would totter up to the podium to console the “educators”' that they were all “doing a fine job for our children.” 

FINALLY DAVID COLFAX and Don “Donny The Botanist” Lipmanson were elected to the board and they took up the fight, saving me the commute to Talmage. I don’t recall how I finally learned that the little old lady who’d been on my case for years was the mother of two persons who worked for the County Office of Ed, whose lush headquarters at Talmage, btw, were housed in the expensively redone dairy of the old state hospital. (Nothing is too good for Our Nation's Future!) 

THE OLD DEAR instantly grew in stature with me when I finally made the family connections. For years she’d sat through endless hours of inane edu-babble from truly awful people solely out of devotion to her family, waiting patiently, even stoically, to cancel whatever I had to say. To her, I must have seem poised to snatch the food right out of her family’s mouths, the roof from over their heads, their dog from the family hearth. That, my friends, is Family Values!

A LETTER to the editor in a recent edition of the PD begins, “One acre of vineyard uses less than 25,000 gallons of water per year. Watered six times at six gallons each time is 21,600 gallons. The water goes to the vines and then to the water table. Six houses on that same acre would use 1,956,000 gallons.”

I DON’T get this guy’s math, and his biology is demonstrably off. As I understand it, grapevines have very long tap roots that go way the hades down in search of water, stopping only when they get to the agua. The water then goes up the root and out the leaves into the air in a process called aspiration. 

VINEYARDS use a lot of water any way you calculate it, and I have no idea how the wine guy came up with household water use at almost 2 million annual gallons for six dwellings. What were they, Motel 6’s? Way too high. 

ANOTHER false (and boring) argument the wine mafia inevitably invoke is the one that says the vineyard aesthetic is superior to the one presented by tract homes, which isn’t the choice in most instances, and even if it were, explain to me what is so fetching about the sight of thousands of acres of metal stakes eleven months of the year? Every October we get a little fall color out of the vineyards; the rest of the time we get visuals of agro-industrial squalor.

TWO California Democrats, Huffman and Thompson, both on board for the genocide underway in Gaza, want to rename the main trail in Headwaters Forest Reserve (Humboldt County) after the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, and another example of the insensate pair's priorities.

BUT SURE. Why not? After all, it was Mr. and Mrs. Feinstein who steered the mega-ripoff in 1999 that gave $580 million public dollars to a Texas swindler called Charles Hurwitz for 7,472 acres of HumCo forest he'd acquired via junk bonds. Mr. Feinstein was a buddy of Hurwitz, the two having done business deals together.

THE SHERIFF & JAMES MARMON REMEMBER NEW YEAR’S EVE, 1999

Sheriff Kendall:

I remember New Year’s Eve 1999, but not because it was noteworthy.

I was working the night shift. I was a young Sergeant. Sheriff Tony Craver had promoted me in May of that year. I had a full complement of deputies that evening and we set out loaded for bear fully expecting shenanigans would keep us busy. 

I was young, my eyes and ears still worked well and I wasn’t long out of Covelo; therefore I felt completely equipped to quell whatever issues may come.

I listened to Prince and the New Revolution singing “1999” in my patrol car and kept a close eye anticipating the circus that we normally see on New Year’s. Deputy Sheriffs often describe New Year’s Eve as “Amateur night in the grown up world.”

I was hoping the world wouldn’t end in the first year of my 30s however I was single with no children and generally had the feeling that if the far fetched predictions did come true, perhaps it would be an exciting battle trying to stop it. Also, when boredom sets in a little anarchy makes the shift go by faster. Quelling the anarchy seemed like a worthy endeavor in my younger years and, hell, that’s what we had prepared for.

We wound up at Taylor’s Tavern, Hopper’s Corner Saloon, the old Water Trough and a few other local honky tonks during the shift. Almost everyone who was out that night were in good spirits and mostly we wound up shaking hands and visiting with old friends out for the evening. Honestly, I was a little jealous I couldn’t celebrate with them. The shift turned out to be much quieter than expected. My recollection is, many folks were concerned the world could end, therefore many stayed home to watch it happening on their televisions.

The shift ended at 7 AM with nothing much more noteworthy than a standard Saturday Night in Mendocino County. We all went home no worse for wear. Perhaps a little relieved and a little disappointed at the same time.

That night doesn’t seem all that long ago, until I realize the changes in my views. I now realize the real wins in my profession are when complete and total boredom falls over our communities like a warm blanket on a cold night. When old men sit in the coffee shops with nothing of note to talk about except the weather and the high school sports teams. That is a good place to be and an indication something is going well.

My hope for New Year’s Eve evolved from that point to something completely different. I began to look forward to time spent with my family, trying to stay awake until midnight so I could watch the kids bang pots and pans in the pasture behind the house. The kids are all grown now and I find myself looking forward to the grandchildren making noise in the pasture.

I think I know why old soldiers check out and join the Peace Corps. It’s because they’ve earned it. With age comes wisdom.

James Marmon:

My on-call duty started a 5 o’clock on the 31st of December. Before my first call, I stopped at Safeway in Lakeport and witnessed the craziness. People were going nuts stocking up for the end of the world. I thought to myself, “this is going to be one messed up night.” Folks had their carts overflowing with supplies. Some had more than one cart. A good portion of the night was spent driving back and forth from Clearlake and Lakeport. Lake County Sheriff’s Office, Lakeport PD, and Clearlake PD kept me busy. I was the only crisis worker for the entire county. My response time varied anywhere from good to bad.

CATCH OF THE DAY, Wednesday, December 13, 2023

JOELLA BETTEGA, Covelo. Controlled substance for sale, failure to appear.

JAMES BROWN SR., Redwood Valley. Controlled substance, failure to appear. (Frequent Flyer)

ANDRU CAMPBELL, Ukiah. Parole violation.

JOHN CHAMBERLAIN, Hydesville/Ukiah. Probation revocation.

CHEYENNE CHRISMAN, Fort Bragg. Domestic battery.

SKYLER EASTERWOOD, Ukiah. DUI-alcohol&drugs, controlled substance.

MARIBEL GONZALES-FLORES, Santa Rosa/Ukiah. Burglary, grand theft, burglary tools, mail theft, possession of personal ID with intent to defraud.

IAN HAYNES, Laytonville. Assault with firearm, failure to appear.

MARVIN JOHNSON JR., Ukiah. Parole violation.

ANTHONY LOPES SR., Willits. Failure to register as controlled substance abuser. (Frequent Flyer)

NATHEN MARTIN, Ukiah. Disobeying court order, failure to appear.

WILLIAM PARKER, Ukiah. Burglary, vandalism, failure to appear.

REYNALDO ROBLES-BAEZ JR., Windsor/Ukiah. Failure to appear.

FABIAN ROSALES-REYES, Ukiah. Parole violation.

ROGER ROTH, Healdsburg/Ukiah. Failure to appear.

TIMOTHY SHANOFF, Willits. Probation revocation.

CHEYENNE VERDOT, Ukiah. Burglary.

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

We tend to think of the global food crisis as something that is happening on the other side of the world. And it is certainly true that there are vast hordes of impoverished people that are desperate for food in other areas of the planet right now, because hunger is spreading like wildfire in poor countries. But the truth is that hunger is spreading rapidly in the United States as well. According to a report that was just released by the USDA, a whopping 44 million Americans now live in “food insecure households”…

CAN YOU SEE HIM? 

This is a photo by National Geographic of Professor Steve Sillett, the Kenneth L. Fisher Chair in Redwood Forest Ecology at Cal Poly Humboldt. He is measuring the height of Hyperion, the tallest tree on earth in Redwoods State Park. The pic shows him at different stages climbing the 380.8 foot tall coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens). As the first scientist to enter the redwood forest canopy, he pioneered new methods for climbing, exploring, and studying tall trees.

DRAYMOND GREEN ISN'T WORTH IT ANYMORE

by Drew Magary

Tuesday night in the latest What Did Draymond Do This Time? Show, America’s least favorite power forward decided to make himself into a “Wipeout” obstacle and — OOPSIE DAISY! — earholed Phoenix Suns center Jusuf Nurkić with a 360-degree forearm shiver. The resulting flagrant-2 foul got Draymond Green swiftly ejected from a game that the Warriors were leading 65-60 at the time. And I would encourage you to watch the video of Draymond’s assault in an on-line video because, as with every Draymond escapade, it’s both enraging and strangely hilarious.

As you can see in on-line videos, class, what we have here is one of Draymond’s Oh Did I Do That? flagrants. You’ve got him bodying up Nurkić, like a normal basketball player would. Then you have him inexplicably hopping forward and losing his balance ever so slightly … just enough to claim plausible deniability. Then you have him screaming, “I CAN’T CONTROL MY OWN BODY! JESUS TAKE THE WHEEL!” as he spins himself right ’round, baby, right ’round like a record, baby and drills Nurkić in the side of the head. Ha! Classic Draymond. Will this naughty rascal ever learn? Judging by his answers at the postgame presser, no!

“As you know, I am not one to apologize for things I meant to do, but I do apologize to Jusuf because I didn’t intentionally hit him,” Green said. “… I was just selling a call … unfortunately, I hit him.”

Totally. Happens all the time. Why, just yesterday, I was trying to convince the lady at Nordstrom Rack to give me a refund on a dress shirt when, unfortunately, I stabbed her in the eye socket with a pair of scissors. And as you know, I am not one to apologize for things I meant to do (????), but here I did apologize to the corpse. Because that was a total accident. Crazy!

The Warriors would go on to lose to the Suns after Draymond left the court. A fat suspension looms — one that will likely cost Draymond more games, and the Warriors more victories. Because this latest incident comes on the heels of Draymond serving a five-game suspension for choking Wolves center Rudy Gobert, and punching then-teammate Jordan Poole in practice a year ago, and playing kickball with an All-Star assortment of scrota in past playoff runs. One might dare say this constitutes a pattern, and that Draymond Green is an irredeemably dirty player.

Of course, this has always been the case, and it wasn’t much of an issue back when the Warriors were racking up titles and Draymond’s supernatural court vision and defensive prowess made the whole enterprise go. He was the muscle. The ends justified the means, even if those means included running the length of the court to “accidentally” trample Kevin Porter Jr. The Warriors had Draymond’s back, and even lavished on him a $100 million extension this offseason to reward him and his flailing limbs for all the courageous work they’d done.

But the Warriors are 10-13 right now. They’re not only the 11th seed in a competitive Western Conference but, two and a half games back of New Orleans, decisively so. There’s little about them to suggest they can flip the mythical switch and shift into Playoffs Mode anytime they please, especially if the league sits Draymond down for another five, 10, 30 games. S—t, they could suspend him for the rest of the season and who besides Draymond would feel like it was an injustice?

To steal an axiom from the NFL, the best ability is availability, and it’s awfully hard for this man to earn his keep if he’s out suspended for weeks at a time. That fact wasn’t lost on Steph Curry after last night’s game, nor was it lost on head coach Steve Kerr, who’s always been more than happy to carry water for Bay Area Laimbeer but couldn’t hide his exhaustion this time around. Here’s what Kerr told the press about Draymond’s ejection: “We need him. We need Draymond. He knows that. We talked to him and he’s gotta find a way to keep his poise and be out there for his teammates.” 

Kerr looked very weary of Draymond as he said it. His most annoying player has clearly aged him. Kerr knows he’s talking into an empty telephone. He knows this is a lost cause. He knows that Draymond will never keep his poise, because why would he? Draymond’s gotten away with all of his dorky bulls—t for YEARS, with this organization’s tacit approval. It’s gotten to the point where Draymond Being Draymond has become a strangely valuable brand identity for him now, one that he can bring to the TNT studio desk the second he retires. He’s going to keep playing dirty, and the Warriors are going to keep suffering for it.

The good news is that this is the NBA, where virtually any bad contract (like the one Jordan Poole got after Draymond turned his face into hamburger) can be offloaded if you’re willing to accept a crate of rotten oranges in return. Some other idiot team might be willing to take on this incorrigible man. Maybe the Knicks (ha!). Maybe the Lakers, pairing him up with his pal LeBron (double ha!). Maybe the Wizards (AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA). It doesn’t matter who. It only matters that the Warriors come to terms with the fact that Draymond isn’t worth all of this Draymond anymore, and that he needs to be gone.

And if they don’t make Draymond disappear, well, then he’ll probably take matters into his own forearms and do the job for them. It’s only a matter of time now.

* * *

Draymond Green struck Suns center Jusuf Nurkic with a spinning backfist Tuesday night, and the NBA struck back Wednesday.

The league handed an indefinite suspension to Green for his latest incident.

He will be required to “meet certain league and team conditions before he returns to play.”

Tuesday’s incident marked his third ejection of the season and second time he’s been suspended over a physical altercation with an opposing player during the 2023-24 campaign.

The hefty punishment took into account “Green’s repeated history of unsportsmanlike acts,” the league said in a statement announcing the suspension.

(SFGate)

HERB CAEN

1916: Herbert Eugene Caen born on April 3 in Sacramento. To this day, he claims to have been conceived in San Francisco during the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, since his parents summered here.

1932: After graduating from high school, where "Raisin' Caen" wrote "Corridor Gossip," Caen is hired by the Sacramento Union as a sports reporter.

1936: San Francisco Chronicle editor Paul Smith hires Caen to write a radio column.

1938: The Chronicle scraps its radio column. Thinking quick, Caen tells Smith he could do a daily column on the city. "It's News To Me" debuts on July 5, appearing six days each week.

1942: After World War II begins, Caen joins the Air Force. Assigned to communications, he reaches the rank of captain and in 1945 on V-E day: Paris, the first of many visits for this confirmed Francophile.

1948: The columnist appears between hard covers with "The San Francisco Book." It is only moderately successful; however, the following year his "Baghdad-By-The-Bay" goes through seven printings and sparks a commendation from the Chamber of Commerce to Caen for his "literary contributions to the prestige of our community."

1950: Dismayed at his weekly paycheck, Caen bolts the Chronicle to join the Examiner.

1957: Time magazine profiles Caen, dubbing him the "Caliph of Baghdad."

1958: Caen returns to the Chronicle with a $38,000 salary; presumably he has received raises since. Twice married and divorced, this year Caen also marries for the third time. It will prove to be his longest union, ending in 1983.

1964: Rolling Stones visit San Francisco for the first time. "Satisfaction" is still a year away, but a Caen item notes that Charlie Watts bought four rifles on Fourth Street: "A real gun nut, is Charlie."

1965: Birth of Christopher, Caen's only child.

1966: Caen hits the half-century mark. "The only way to fight a thing like 50 is to stay au courant if it kills you," he comments in his birthday column and indeed, the columns this year are full of items about hippies and dismay about the Vietnam War.

1968: Still a gossip at heart, Caen informs readers on March 28 that "Either John (Honey-Bunny Boo) Breckinridge, the Sharon heir, has got himself a new wife, or his dearest friends don't know whereof they blab.

1976: Publication of "One Man's San Francisco," Caen's finest book and his best-known original collection of columns.

1978: Caen visits China. Writes about it.

1984: The Hard Rock Cafe opens with a party where then-hot Cyndi Lauper performs; unimpressed, Caen writes that she "sounds like a chipmunk on speed."

1985: Caen sails up the Nile. Writes about it.

1988: Fiftieth anniversary of the column is marked by a special edition of the Chronicle's Sunday Punch. People paying homage range from Willie Brown to Gary Larsen, author of the "Far Side" cartoons.

1991: Reneging on his deal with Paul Smith, Caen shifts gears and begins writing "only" five columns each week.

1996: Caen marries Ann Moller on April 20. Fourth time is charming as columnist is wed to longtime friend.

1996: Caen wins a Pulitzer Prize on April 9 for being the "voice and conscience" of S.F. for 58 years.

1996: The columnist tells his readers that has inoperable lung cancer on May 30.

1996: San Francisco names 3.2-mile walkway along the Embarcadero "Herb Caen Way" with great fanfare on June 14.

1997: Herb Caen's last column, "Words Without Music" runs on January 10, 1997.

1997: Herbert Eugene Caen, born on April 3, 1916 in Sacramento, dies in the early morning hours of Sunday, February 2. The Chronicle had planned to cover his death with a four-page special section for its Saturday edition. But the columnist lingered more than an hour after deadline - perhaps the first deadline that he had missed in a newspaper career that spanned 60 years.

REIMAGINING BIRTH IN THE SOUTH BRONX

by Jonah Raskin

“Women are the gods of the universe because we are the only ones that can reproduce life and nurture a seed inside our body for nine months and develop bones and the heart and the blood system and liver and all these things that enable a human being to be alive.”

– Zakiyyah Madyun, African American healer.

Jennifer Dohrn, a midwife and a professor of nursing at Columbia University who works with public health workers in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, comes at the subject of this book from her own professional experience and the perspective of a longtime political activist who has devoted much of her life over the last several decades to the empowerment of the women of the world. Especially women of color who give birth to children everyday of the year and perhaps every hour of the day around the clock. In the acknowledgements, Jennifer thanks her sister, Bernardine, her brother-inlaw, Bill Ayers, and her three children—Amilcar, Haydee and Atari—as well as her late husband, Haywood Burns, a lawyer who represented Angela Davis and prisoners after the rebellion at Attica, and who died in an automobile accident in South Africa in 1996. Yes, it takes a village, a global village.

No anti-racist, anti-imperialist, feminist or working class organization in the US made birthing a major issue in the era of the war in Vietnam. None I know of. They might have. After all, what’s more important than birth and birthing—it’s essential labor— and what’s more of a fundamental right than the right to the health and well-being of mothers and children? Breathing and pushing are necessary, as the title to Dohrn’s book makes clear, but sometimes pushing and exercising patience come first. Pushing for social change is also primary for Jennifer Dohrn.

It should come as no surprise to readers to learn in Mothers, Midwives and inining Birthing in the South Bronx that the US is “the only high-income country with a rising maternal mortality rate,” that the rate is highest in the Non-Hispanic Black population, and specifically where you’d expect to find it, in Mississippi, Louisiana and neighboring states. In 2020, 20,000 infants died in the US. That’s way more than died in Norway, Sweden and Iceland, countries that apparently care more about women, children and about birthing than the US.

Mothers, Midwives and Reimagining Birthing belongs to the Palgrave Studies in Oral History. Interviews with some of the women who gave birth to children at the revolutionary Childbearing Center of Morris Heights in the South Bronx are at the heart of this volume. It would have been helpful to know the questions they were asked and when the interviews took place. The women tell stories of hope, resilience and camaraderie. Far ranging, the books touches on subjects such as obstetrics, gynecology, the pandemic, Cuban music and the role of comadronas in Latino cultures and doulas where there are no trained midwives.

But why a book about birthing, midwives and children that focuses on the South Bronx, a New York City neighborhood notorious for crime, violence and street drugs? (Yes, it’s also the birthplace of hip-hop). Jennifer Dohrn spent much of her time at the Childbearing Center of Morris Heights in the South Bronx, which served for years as a vital resource, and the source of essential services for thousands of women. Alas, the Center is now closed, and so Dohrn’s book provides a history of a singular place that made a qualitative difference in the lives of women, some of whom lost sons and lovers to guns and bullets.

Most of the interviewed women come from poor, Black and brown communities, and also many of them come from the Caribbean and from nations in Africa where female genital mutilation is a centuries-old practice that continues to this day.

My favorite quotation is from Zakiyyah Madyun, an African American healer, who says, that birthing “was like a train passing through me.” 

Poverty has long thrived in The Bronx, where the crime rate is far higher then the crime rate in the rest of New York, and higher than the national median. The Bronx is home to the poorest congressional district in the US, New York’s 17. You’d be right to call it Third World. But as Dohrn shows, it’s more than an underdeveloped borough. Families, communities, and midwives in The Bronx have nurtured women who were pregnant, women in labor and women with new-born infants.

Dohrn contributed several chapters to Mothers, Midwives and Reimagining Birthing in the South Bronx on crucial topics, including racism, the transformation of legacies, and the need to bring about better birthing practices and create safer environments for motherhood.

Annette Mwansa Nkowane, a nurse and midwife, based in Lusaka, Zambia, provided the forward in which she wrote, “well-trained and supported midwives can potentially provide 90 percent of all essential sexual, reproductive, maternal, and newborn health services.” Nkowane added that the lesson learned in the Bronx can “contribute to accelerated reduction of maternal and newborn mortality rates.”

Women in the US are increasingly turning to midwives. But with over 94.8 percent of births taking place in hospitals, only 8.7 percent are attended by midwives.

Many of the women who were interviewed for this book were initially leery of midwives and the Childbearing Center and were inclined to go to a hospital and seek a doctor. They had to overcome doubts and suspicions; all of them were pleasantly surprised by the care and the love they received from women they regarded as “girlfriends.”

Rosie Hernandez, who was born in The Bronx, says, “From my mother and grandma, I learned birth was natural, you did it amongst women, you did it with your support group, and you breastfed your baby, right? To me that’s what birth is. At hospitals it’s information about you, but away from you.”

Lizette Aguilar, who calls herself half Puerto Rican and half Afro-Peruvian, says that she felt like a number at the hospital where she sought help. ”I didn’t feel respected, either; I might have been viewed as uneducated because I was a woman of color.”

Zakiyyah Madyun adds that “women are the gods of the universe because we are the only ones that can reproduce life and nurture a seed inside our body for nine months and develop bones and the heart and the blood system and liver and all these things that enable a human being to be alive.” The names Rosa Martinez, Lizette Aguilar and Zakiyyah Madyun belong to the world and reflect the diversity in Dohrn’s book.

Dana Keys, from Georgia, says, “Growing up in the South, I didn’t think anything about birthing because for some reason, sex and where babies came from wasn’t spoken about.” Her church didn’t believe in birth control and so she “started having babies almost right away.”

All of the women whose voices echo across the pages of this book speak frankly and without shame or embarrassment about their bodies and themselves. They talk candidly about breastfeeding, menstruating, waters breaking, conception, dilating, contractions, morning sickness, C-sections, miscarriages, latching on, labor, postpartum depression, leaking and more.

Photos enhance the text; the index makes it relatively easy to find topics such as the World Health Organization, Midwifery (which is derived from the Middle English term “midwif,” meaning with woman), and the names of scholars and activists like bell hooks who provide food for thought with comments such as “Until the legacy of remembered and reenacted trauma is taken seriously black America cannot heal.”

Mothers, Midwives and Reimagining Birthing in the South Bronx: Breathe, Now Push is a lively, energizing and healing text meant for mothers, daughters, aunts and sisters, and for the guys— fathers, brothers, uncles and husbands— who have stood by their family members, wives and lovers, held their babies in their arms and who have aimed to reimagine fatherhood.

Too bad the Panthers didn’t add an 11th point to their ten-point program. They might have proclaimed, “We want health care that prioritizes people not profits and that provides the best medical practices for mothers and children.”

THE BLUEPRINT FOR BELIEF

Editor,

I've come to understand why religion sees science as an existential threat. Consider that science mimics the blueprint for a religion in almost every way: 

The FAITH. Every religion must have magical elements that appear impossible to anyone outside the religion, but are firmly believed true by the adherents of-the religion. So an adherent must substitute belief — called truth — in lieu of actual factual reality. It is important for non-believers to to understand that from the perspective of a believer facts change frequently. Beliefs don't. 

The BOOK. There must be a book (except in illiterate societies — there is no book in Voodoo, in American Indian religions, etc.). The Torah, the Koran, the Bible, the Bahagavad gita, the Analects of Confucious, the Book of Mormon, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, etc. 

The LANGUAGE. The religion and its book must use a language that nobody speaks in regular life. Usually it is an archaic (Latin, Pali) or AN incomprehensible version of the current or former language spoken in the religion's source area. 

The INTERPRETER. Someone conveys the teachings from on high to the common people who aren't equipped to fully understand the Mysteries of the religion. 

The ICONIC PERSONAGES. Saints, seers, divine or semi-devine. Abraham, Mohammad, Jesus, Budda, Joseph Smith, and also lesser, but still exalted, beings like Ali, Saint Paul, King David, Joshu, etc. 

The STORY. How it came to be, always a miraculous birth, maybe a long search, a vision, a revelation, an encounter, a struggle, persecution, ultimate triumph. Every religion has the tale of its existence. 

The BUREAUCRATS. Someone has to instruct the young, keep the buildings in repair, proselytize the faith, have incense burning, the money collected, the teachings taught, the customs observed. The priests, rabbis, pastors, gurus, monks, teachers. 

So here is science: 

The FAITH. The Big Bang. Anti-matter. Multiple universes. Light-years. Quantum Mechanics. Recombinent DNA. Evolution. Climate Change. Artificial Intelligence. 

The BOOKS. So many in this highly literate era— on physics (written in math) , on biology (der. Latin), on chemistry (der. Greek, Latin). 

All written in a LANGUAGE that nobody speaks in regular life. 1 GHz A20/T2 dual-core processor, ardea herodias, salmeterol xinafoate. 

Someone must INTERPRET the faith, its books and its language so science has its Issac Asimov, Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, etc. 

The ICONIC PERSONS like Einstein, Newton, Galileo, and Darwin. 

The STORY of the rise of scientific thought, of the experimental methodology to determine fact, of the rejections, the objections, the persecutions, the wrong guesses, but the ultimate triumph of the FAITH. 

And finally, the universities, the laboratories, the technicians, the grant writers, the engineers, the venture capitalists— the whole machinery and BUREAUCRACY of science in action and in daily life. What to believe about cholesterol, climate change, genetics, bacteria, the far future, the deep past? And so I believe, no better informed than a peasant in 15th Century Italy or a metalsmith in Shang China. I have faith that what some confident scientist is telling me about the reality that I live in is true. That the language that I try to read in Scientific American has meaning. That Stephen Hawking actually understands what he is translating for me and has figured out how to present it to me in a way that is useful for my life. How else to try to make sense of the situation I find myself in? 

I am awed by their shiny huge machines which can see the past from mountain tops and the complex mazes of symbols on blackboards, and the atom smashers and the test tubes and the scholars and seekers bent before screens making measurements and calculations; like a tribesman come out of the desert to Thebes, I see it all and believe in its power and glory without understanding very much about it at all. 

Michael Nolan

Comptche

PS. (I wish this was mine, but I just copied it.) “A friend of mine has two tickets for Super Bowl LVI on February 13th, in Los Angeles. Both are Box seats. He paid $2500 each but he didn't realize last year when he bought them, it was going to be on the same day as his wedding. If you're interested, he's looking for someone to take his place. It's at the Church of the Good Shepard, at 3pm. The bride's name is Mary, she's 5'5", about 120Ibs, very cute, and a good cook too. She'll be the one in the white dress.”

UKRAINE ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK

Dear Editor,

Republicans in the House are bringing on a Europe-wide war the US would have to fight. Putin is cheering as the right wing prevents funding for Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan, other friendly Asian states and a new southern border policy.

What is happening is unbelieveably stupid. Congress may leave the capital with its job undone. So far, the US has only spent defense money for Ukrainian defense here; employing American workers building weapons of war. A tiny amount compared to our total defense budget. Pres. Zelensky warned today: if the US retracts its aid, Ukaine may fall soon.

Putin will rejoice; attack another country in Europe. NATO will have to act and US boots will be sent to aid our allies.

Frank H. Baumgardner, III

Santa Rosa

THIS AMAZING SCENE of the Hotel Esmeralda at Goldfield, Nevada ca. 1905 had many interesting details. 

There is the open-air automobile that serves as transportation between Goldfield and the nearby community of Diamondfield. A sign advertises daily stages to Bullfrog (Rhyolite), which was the latest mining excitement in Nevada at this time. Other signs advertise "Doctor Rhyan", baths, a bar, and a buffet.

One small detail here that is very interesting is that the proprietor of the hotel is "Wm. Kitchen", which is almost certainly the same William Kitchen that for several years around 1890 operated the Kitchen Hotel at Leadville, Colorado. Leadville's Kitchen Hotel was actually the Tabor Grand, and the fact that it was called the Kitchen for several years is not well known.

DON’T LOOK AWAY

by Selma Dabbagh

I wonder whether there is a right way to respond to grief, to loss, to a risk of genocide of one’s people. Whether one should go out or stay in, whether it is unseemly to visit cinemas and theatres, to eat out in restaurants, or to laugh. I know a young woman in London whose home was bombed in Gaza City on 10 October. Her family are (or were, the last time I spoke to her) in a tent in a school in Khan Younis. They have no walls, she says. No roof. Some days they eat nothing but a small tin of pineapple, or mushrooms. It is getting cold. Like thousands of others, they had no chance to pack anything from their home before it was bombed. On one occasion there was fighting outside the school, men fearful for the safety of their wives, their daughters, trying to get them inside the gates. The bombing is non-stop. ‘Some days I find everything very funny,’ she told me. Some evenings she spends in tears, but everything is unstable. ‘I feel I am going mad,’ she said. ‘I can’t stop laughing.’

‘You need to go out,’ I was told by a friend who has filmed undercover in Afghanistan. She is no stranger to political turmoil or to loss. ‘You have to.’ My daughter says the same. She has heard me watching news clips in the middle of the night. I went to a reading of Louis MacNeice’s Autumn Journal in Notting Hill. ‘MacNiece,’ the convenor said, referring to the poet’s writing on the Spanish Civil War, ‘didn’t believe in advocating for or against, but in a more nuanced approach.’ The audience murmured approval. In the rug-strewn bar afterwards, I imagined the severed arms of toddlers raining into their wine glasses and upsetting the olive bowls.

In the accounts coming out of the Gaza Strip, as well as evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity, people tell of the persistence of a sense of community, of kindness and hospitality, of people sharing food, providing assistance and opening their doors to others: a solar-powered house with all the phones and laptops of the neighbourhood being charged in the living-room; a five-seater car fleeing south with 21 people in it, many hanging out of the boot, stopping to pick up an old man walking crying in the street; a hungry boy by the roadside with enough pride left to refuse a half-eaten biscuit; aunts found burned in the rubble with children in their arms; murdered university professors who had spent their spare time teaching children for free as the school system was so lacking.

In London, I went to see Annie Baker’s Infinite Life at the National Theatre. Women in California in ugly clothes fast for days staring at a parking lot. They hate fasting and vomit bile. It doesn’t seem to help. Their pets are in clinics too. The smell of bread wafts in from the bakery over the wall. They are in pain. They compete about how much pain they are in. They have not been touched. They do not touch each other. They have had bad sex, or no sex, or dream about sex with a tortilla chip up their arse. A woman struggles with reading Daniel Deronda and lies on her back trying to make herself come. She can’t. It hurts too much.

On 2 December, I spoke at a panel at the Bristol Palestine Film Festival. The original venue for the event, the Arnolfini Theatre, cancelled the festival’s booking on 21 November, saying that the theatre ‘could not be confident that the activities would not stray into political activity’. The festival scrambled for new venues, finding them at the Watershed and Sparks. I shared a stage with the rapper Lowkey: last year there was a campaign to get his music removed from Spotify.

The fight for artistic spaces that will engage with Palestine is a global one. In Sydney, when three actors in Chekhov’s The Seagull wore the keffiyeh during the curtain call, there was outrage from sponsors and the press. But as Louise Adler, the director of Adelaide Writer’s Week, put it, ‘there is a long, honourable and important tradition of artists being engaged in the world they inhabit, and art that is not made of this world ... feels to me rather vacuous. I’m not sure what we expect from contemporary theatre if we don’t expect it to engage with the issues of the day.’

My friend the doctor Ghassan Abu Sitta is back in London, reunited with his family, juggling press interviews, going back to work, winning prizes, speaking at the Houses of Parliament and advising humanitarian charities on how to support Gaza’s destroyed health system. Nothing appears to have been discovered under Shifa Hospital after all. Ghassan spoke of the ‘lunacy’ of the images showing guns behind an MRI scanner. ‘You never put metal next to an MRI,’ he said. Nothing of significance was found at the hospital. Babies were left struggling in incubators with nothing but kitchen foil to keep them warm. The Israelis destroyed another hospital for no reason, and arrested and killed more doctors and health workers.

Ghassan has also submitted a statement providing evidence of alleged war crimes to the Metropolitan Police, who have taken the unusual step of encouraging victims and witnesses of terrorism, war crimes and crimes against humanity both in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories to submit evidence. Karim Khan KC, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, has visited Israel and the West Bank. Three Palestinian human rights organisations called him out for saying he was in Israel when he was standing in Occupied East Jerusalem. Israel, which is not a signatory to the Rome Statute of 1998 that established the ICC, didn’t allow him to go to Gaza. The question was why they allowed him to go to Israel or the Occupied Palestinian Territories at all. Neither the UN Special Rapporteur for the territories occupied by Israel in 1967, nor the UN Permanent Commission of Inquiry, have been able to get access. When, in 2015 the Palestinians joined the ICC, the Israeli government took punitive financial steps against them, by withholding taxes.

Last Friday the UN Security Council voted on a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire. The US vetoed it. The UK abstained. The death toll has now reached 18,000.

In January 2022, a Byzantine church with an intricately tiled floor was discovered in Jabaliya camp in northern Gaza. The British Council partly paid for its restoration. Last month the Arab Network of Civil Society Organisations to Safeguard Cultural Heritage reported its total destruction. The report also itemises the complete destruction of other sites including the Porphyrius Orthodox Church, several Ottoman mosques, souqs and schools, as well as the partial destruction of the English Cemetery and the St Hilarion Monastery. The Gazan Centre for Manuscripts and Ancient Documents was bombed and the archives at Birzeit University in Ramallah were burned. Theatres, cultural centres and bookshops have been reduced to rubble.

There is a desire to eradicate Palestinians here: past, present and future. And much of it is going on in the dark. Communications are often down and patchy at best. And there has been a literal shooting of messengers: at least sixty journalists have been killed in Gaza since 7 October. ‘We are a group of people being killed,’ the photojournalist Motaz Azaiza posted on Instagram last week. ‘We are a cause fighting to survive. How alone we are.’

‘The situation is just getting worse in an unimaginable way,’ Plestia Alaqad wrote at the same time. ‘I feel that everything is so pointless. I don’t know how to deal with death anymore. I feel I don’t have the privilege to be sad.’ Sunday, 10 December, as well international Human Rights Day, was Alaqad’s 22nd birthday. ‘That means I am four aggressions (2008, 2012, 2014, 2023) old,’ she wrote. ‘All I wish for is to have some rights. All I wish for is for Palestine to be free. All I wish for is to be in my house.’

In Australia, Louise Adler said that her grandfather was murdered in a concentration camp and her father was part of the resistance in Paris from the age of 14. ‘His legacy to me is that it is important and it is vital for us not to look away,’ she said. ‘That we all have a choice. That the world looked away during the Second World War and Jews – six million of our people – were murdered in that looking away and that it is incumbent upon humanity to look at what is happening in Gaza now.’

(London Review of Books)

PEOPLE WRITE OFF STATES like Texas as dyed-in-the-wool Republican strongholds, but it wasn’t always that way. Legendary author, organizer, commentator, and former State Agricultural Commissioner Jim Hightower is living proof that there is a strong progressive tradition in Texas that stretches back to the 19th century. Hightower has fought the far right for decades, but he has also seen how Democrats have abandoned grassroots organizing and how the Democratic Party has been hijacked by corporate money and self-serving elites. In this special episode of The Marc Steiner Show, recorded at Hightower’s home in Austin, Texas, we talk to Hightower about House Bill 2127 (aka “The Death Star Bill”), how corporate power and far-right nuts took over Texas politics, and how to rebuild the progressive movement in the Lone Star State.

AS ANOTHER MONDAY PUSHES us steadily on our way, we note the birth date of James Harrison (December 11, 1937 – March 26, 2016), American poet, novelist, and essayist who published over three dozen books in several genres including poetry, fiction, nonfiction, children’s literature, and memoir. 

Harrison spent much of his life in Michigan on a farm near where he was born, as well as Montana and Arizona. His connection to rural landscapes was evident in his free-verse, imagistic poetry, which often explores human and animal drives set against an unforgiving natural world. 

His first commercial success came with the 1979 publication of the trilogy of novellas, Legends of the Fall, two of which were made into movies. His final poetry collection, Dead Man’s Float, was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2016. His work has been translated into two-dozen languages.

Harrison wrote "The dream that I could write a good poem, a good novel, or even a good movie for that matter, has devoured my life."

Here are four of his poems for your consideration:

Another Country

I love these raw moist dawns with 

a thousand birds you hear but can't 

quite see in the mist. 

My old alien body is a foreigner 

struggling to get into another country. 

The loon call makes me shiver. 

Back at the cabin I see a book 

and am not quite sure what that is. 

--Jim Harrison

* * *

Twilight

For the first time

far in the distance

he could see his twilight

wrapping around the green hill

where three rivers start,

and sliding down towards him

through the trees until it reached

the blueberry marsh and stopped,

telling him to go away, not now,

not for the time being.

--Jim Harrison

* * *

Mother Night 

When you wake at three AM you don't think

of your age or sex and rarely your name

or the plot of your life which has never 

broken itself down into logical pieces.

At three AM you have the gift of incomprehension 

wherein the galaxies make more sense

than your job or the government. Jesus at the well 

with Mary Magdalene is much more vivid 

than your car. You can clearly see the bear

climb to heaven on a golden rope in the children's 

story no one ever wrote. Your childhood horse

named June still stomps the ground for an apple.

What is morning and what if it doesn't arrive?

One morning Mother dropped an egg and asked 

me if God was the same species as we are?

Smear of light at five AM. Sound of Webber's 

sheep flock and sandhill cranes across the road, 

burble of irrigation ditch beneath my window.

She said, "Only lunatics save newspapers 

and magazines," fried me two eggs, then said, 

"If you want to understand mortality look at birds."

Blue moon, two full moons this month, 

which I conclude are two full moons. In what 

direction do the dead fly off the earth?

Rising sun. A thousand blackbirds pronounce day.

--Jim Harrison

* * *

Solstice Litany

The Saturday morning meadowlark

came in from high up

with her song gliding into tall grass

still singing. How I'd like

to glide around singing in the summer

then to go south to where I already was

and find fields full of meadowlarks

in winter. But when walking my dog

I want four legs to keep up with her

as she thunders down the hill at top speed

then belly flops into the deep pond.

Lark or dog I crave the impossible.

I'm just human. All too human.

* * *

I was nineteen and mentally

infirm when I saw the prophet Isaiah.

The hem of his robe was as wide

as the horizon and his trunk and face

were thousands of feet up in the air.

Maybe he appeared because I had read him

so much and opened too many ancient doors.

I was cooking my life in a cracked clay

pot that was leaking. I had found

secrets I didn't deserve to know.

When the battle for the mind is finally

over it's late June, green and raining.

* * *

A violent windstorm the night before

the solstice. The house creaked and yawned.

I thought the morning might bring a bald earth,

bald as a man's bald head but not shiny.

But dawn was fine with a few downed trees,

the yellow rosebush splendidly intact.

The grass was all there dotted with Black

Angus cattle. The grass is indestructible

except to fire but now it's too green to burn.

What did the cattle do in this storm?

They stood with their butts toward the wind,

erect Buddhists waiting for nothing in particular.

I was in bed cringing at gusts,

imagining the contents of earth all blowing

north and piled up where the wind stopped,

the pile sky-high. No one can climb it.

A gopher comes out of a hole as if nothing happened.

* * *

The sun should be a couple of million miles

closer today. It wouldn't hurt anything

and anyway this cold rainy June is hard

on me and the nesting birds. My own nest

is stupidly uncomfortable, the chair

of many years. The old windows don't keep

the weather out, the wet wind whipping

my hair. A very old robin drops dead

on the lawn, a first for me. Millions

of birds die but we never see it—they like

privacy in this holy, fatal moment or so

I think. We can't tell each other when we die.

Others must carry the message to and fro.

'He's gone,' they'll say. While writing an average poem

destined to disappear among the millions of poems

written now by mortally average poets.

* * *

Solstice at the cabin deep in the forest.

The full moon shines in the river, there are pale

green northern lights. A huge thunderstorm

comes slowly from the west. Lightning strikes

a nearby tamarack bursting into flame.

I go into the cabin feeling unworthy.

At dawn the tree is still smoldering

in this place the gods touched earth. 

--James Harrison

[All poems from “Jim Harrison: The Essential Poems” Copper Canyon Press (2019)]

GEORGE CARLIN:

We’re so self-important. Everybody’s going to save something now.

“Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save those snails.” And the greatest arrogance of all: save the planet. Save the planet, we don’t even know how to take care of ourselves yet. I’m tired of this shit. I’m tired of f-ing Earth Day. I’m tired of these self-righteous environmentalists, these white, bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is that there aren’t enough bicycle paths. People trying to make the world safe for Volvos. Besides, environmentalists don’t give a shit about the planet. Not in the abstract they don’t. You know what they’re interested in? A clean place to live. Their own habitat. They’re worried that some day in the future they might be personally inconvenienced. Narrow, unenlightened self-interest doesn’t impress me.

The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles … hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages … And we think some plastic bags and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet isn’t going anywhere. WE are!

We’re going away. Pack your shit, folks. We’re going away. And we won’t leave much of a trace, either. Maybe a little Styrofoam … The planet’ll be here and we’ll be long gone. Just another failed mutation. Just another closed-end biological mistake. An evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet’ll shake us off like a bad case of fleas.

The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we’re gone, and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, ’cause that’s what it does. It’s a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed. And if it’s true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new paradigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesn’t share our prejudice toward plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn’t know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old egocentric philosophical question, “Why are we here?”

Plastic… asshole.

BILL RANDALL – ‘Jingles, Joy and Merri’ December 1954 Date Book Calendar Illustration - Kemper-Thomas Calendar Co. - American Pin-up Calendar Collection - Bill was really in the Christmas spirit when he painted the 1954 calendar, the month of my birth. I will continue his series of calendars starting the mornings over the next week. This is my favorite with his three ladies rather than one. We could only wish for these presents under the trees!

THE NEW YORKER

…Over several decades, according to [Steven] Greer, untold numbers of alien craft had been observed in our planet’s airspace; they were able to reach extreme velocities with no visible means of lift or propulsion, and to perform stunning maneuvers at g-forces that would turn a human pilot to soup. Some of these extraterrestrial spaceships had been “downed, retrieved and studied since at least the 1940s and possibly as early as the 1930s.”

Efforts to reverse engineer such extraordinary machines had led to “significant technological breakthroughs in energy generation.” These operations had mostly been classified as “cosmic top secret,” a tier of clearance “thirty-eight levels” above that typically granted to the Commander-in-Chief. Why, Greer asked, had such transformative technologies been hidden for so long? This was obvious. The “social, economic and geo-political order of the world” was at stake.

The idea that aliens had frequented our planet had been circulating among ufologists since the postwar years, when a Polish émigré, George Adamski, claimed to have rendezvoused with a race of kindly, Nordic-looking Venusians who were disturbed by the domestic and interplanetary effects of nuclear-bomb tests. 

In the summer of 1947, an alien spaceship was said to have crashed near Roswell, New Mexico. Conspiracy theorists believed that vaguely anthropomorphic bodies had been recovered there, and that the crash debris had been entrusted to private military contractors, who raced to unlock alien hardware before the Russians could....