Mendocino County Today: Sunday, Dec. 31, 2023

Sprinkles | Storm Birds | End-of-the-Year Awards | Officer Arellano | Hendy Day | Pet Wally | Ed Notes | Bainbridge Enhancements | Corner Saloon | Yesterday's Catch | Portuguese Hall | Banning Trump | Mules & Goats | Sweet Loss | Fed Up | Brightbead Cotoneaster | Progressive Podcasts | Jess Willard | Lottery Tickets | Dragon Year | Marco Radio | Seasons Greetings | Library Winners | Blacky Claus | PG&E Rates | Liquor Lips | Beavers Released | Narcotic Story | Art World | Free Palestine | Predictions 2024 | Cooking Chickens | Auld Lang Syne | Not Anti

LIGHT SHOWERS or sprinkles will be possible today. Otherwise, dry and stable weather is expected through Monday. Wet and unsettled weather will return Tuesday through Wednesday. A series of colder storms are expected Friday through Sunday. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A much cooler 46F this last day of 2023 with clear skies & only .03" in the bucket. Some clouds & maybe a shower today then the new year starts out lovely Monday. Rain Tuesday & Wednesday. Dry Thursday. Yep, more of the same. 2023: Oct 1.82” - Nov 3.24” - Dec 7.73” - YTD 12.79”

THE ANDERSON VALLEY ADVERTISER PRESENTS…

THE END-OF-THE-YEAR AWARDS

MOST INEFFECTUAL PUBLIC BODY: Mendocino County Board of Supervisors for ignoring the will of the voters on almost every local ballot measure, and for providing zero leadership as Mendocino County goes slowly broke while providing unsupervised blank checks to outside County contractors, especially lawyers and architects.

PROFILE IN COURAGE: Congressman Jared Huffman for signing a Gaza ceasefire resolution then, the next day, reneging and apologizing to his millionaire funders for his “mistake.”

DEVOTED SON of the year with a family values notation: Assemblyman James Wood for announcing he was leaving politics to care for his aged mother when, a week later, Wood was appointed to a state legislative sinecure.

LAWN GUY of the year, DA David Eyster with a RoundUp cluster for the only Ukiah lawn with no dandelions over a decade.

MOST PROMISING political newcomers, Carrie Shattuck, Adam Gaska, Jacob Brown.

HINDU OF THE YEAR. Craig Stehr

SCAPEGOAT of the Year: Chamise Cubbison

BEST SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT in Mendocino County for raising Boonville's perennialy saggy educational scores while revitalizing all three local schools. 

BEST COMMUNITY GUY AND GALS. Captain Rainbow, Karen Ottoboni, Saffron Fraser, DeAnn Wallace.

ALL-HOURS EMERGENCY HEROES AND HEROINES, the AV Ambulance Crew gets special kudos for turning out in all kinds of weather and at all hours to attend to all kinds of disasters.

RAGE MONKEY of the year: James Marmon, diehard Trumper 

AHAB OF THE YEAR. Mike Geniella for his dogged pursuit of the truth in the Cubbison case.

MOST ACCESSIBLE PUBLIC SERVANT, Sheriff Matt Kendall who returns calls and does not hesitate to mix it up on-line or anywhere else where local police conduct is questioned. (Sorry to disappoint the Blue Meanie Brigades, Mendo cops go about their difficult work efficiently and humanely.)

KIM IL SUNG history rewrite award: The frantically virtue-signalling Name Change Fort Bragg.

MAZIE MALONE. Coolest Mendo name of the year, and coolest globally since Stella Dallas.

BUNCO VICTIMS OF THE YEAR. The voters of Mendocino County who voted for Measure B mental health services funding only to see the money spent on, like, whatever.

VICTIM OF DA SADISM of the year, the martyred Noble Waidelich, removed as Ukiah Police Chief on the basis of an allegation of sexual misconduct only to remain uncharged ever since.

ABOVE AND BEYOND FOR MENDO HISTORIANS, Brad Wiley, Katy Tahja, with matching appreciation for the Kelly House Museum in Mendocino, and Alyssa Ballard at the Held-Poage Library in Ukiah. Without them, Amnesia County, where history starts all over again every day and you are whatever you say you are, would have even less memory than it does.

GETTIN' IT DONE AWARD: Jayma Shields of Laytonville for taking the initiative to serve snow-stranded motorists while the County withheld permission to break out emergency gear.

ELK'S GREAT DAY AWARD: Mike Koepf moved to Wyoming. 

HIGH SCHOOL COACH of the year: John Toohey, Anderson Valley High School for taking a group of kids who'd never played football before and molding them into a small school powerhouse.

BEST RUN MENDO CITY of the year: Fort Bragg, Willits a strong second, Ukiah poised for receivership.

LEAST VISIBLE city official: Ukiah's ‘Seldom Seen’ Sage Sangiacomo. When he's in, he's out, and when he's out he's in.

ARRESTEE OF THE YEAR. Sacto attorney Kelli Johnson who claimed to have been mistreated by deputies, then recreationally mistreated again by jail staff as deputy and jail videos showed her steadily mistreating deputies and jail staff.

SAVVIEST POLITICAL ENDORSEMENT of the year or any year. The unanimous endorsement of the feckless Trevor Mockel for supervisor by the supervisors.

MENDOCINO COUNTY'S loss is Redding's, too. County Counsel Christian Curtis, the Professor Irwin Corey of Low Gap Road, has been hired by Redding to screw up its legal affairs.

PROXY WAR CRIMINALS of the year, the Democrats of Mendocino County. It goes without saying that County Republicans are even more eager to extinguish the people of Gaza as they yearn for serial strafing runs at the border with Mexico.

ONGOING BOONDOGGLES of the decade, the first brought to us by the Superior Court of Mendocino County with a new County Courthouse no one but them wants; and, two, The Great Redwood Trail consisting of two miles of pavement running through Ukiah's industrial wastelands culminating at the town's waste treatment plant. 

SPORTS HERO OF THE YEAR: Brock Purdy of the San Francisco Forty-Niners.

DHARMA BUM OF THE YEAR: Craig Stehr, presently of Ukiah, age 72, who has lived well for years but hasn't worked since his morning paper route as a 12-year-old. Contributions welcome at his PayPal account.

UNOFFICIAL MAYOR and daylight watchdog of the Anderson Valley, Jose ‘Lumpy’ Garcia.

MARIE ANTOINETTE AWARD IN PERPETUITY goes to the wineries of the Anderson Valley for unapologetically destroying the sleep of at least two thousand Valley residents every Spring for nights on end, their monarchical arrogance memorably expressed by Ted Bennett of the Navarro Winery, “My grapes are more important than your sleep.”

HENDY WOODS FREE DAY

Free Day for Mendocino County Residents New Years Day At Hendy Woods State
Park & a Guided Walk for all (at 11 AM)
Mon 01 / 01 / 2024 at 7:00 AM
Where: Hendy Woods State Park
More Information (https://andersonvalley.helpfulvillage.com/events/3660)

UKIAH SHELTER PET OF THE WEEK

Wally is a very social dog. He’s easy to handle on leash and stays right by your side. He sure enjoys getting out and about. Wally will be happiest in a home where he will be with his pack, hangin' with his family. We think Wally will enjoy the company of children in his new home. Wally is a year old and weighs 66 adorable pounds. And seriously: that face!

For more about Wally and all our adoptable dogs and cats, head to mendoanimalshelter.com. For information about adoptions, call 707-467-6453. Check out our Facebook Page and please share our posts!

Yappy New Year To Y'all

ED NOTES

I'VE SPENT a productive Saturday with Dan Hibshman, not the man himself but two books he's written, ‘Disquiet — Stories from a Law Library’ and ‘Of a Lifetime, Stories 1963-2023,’ both of which held my fragged attentions throughout.

MR. HIBSHMAN is a long-time Mendo resident mostly, I gather from his stories, as a resident of Ukiah. I've known the author, casually, for many years.

HE'S better than a good writer. Mr. H. is a very good writer, who has the gift of relaying his stories in a way that draws the reader in.

‘DISQUIET’ is a collection of accounts of the author's encounters in the law library of the Mendocino County Courthouse, over which he presided for many years. As anybody knows who works at a job where one's job begins with whomever walks through the door, that anybody walking through your door in these unrestrained times can, and often is, an adventure.

DAN HIBSHMAN was good at his job of both leading his customers through the free legal labyrinth, he managed the unmanageable with the aplomb of a practiced therapist, patiently enduring insult and the impossibly needy alike without losing it himself.

IN THE DISQUIET stories Mendocino County is lightly disguised as Manzanita County, Ukiah as unironically (I think) Grant City. Prominent figures are also disguised, but I recognized Al Kubanis, Tommy Wayne Kramer, Judge Anne Moorman, and other local luminaries and habitues of the Courthouse. Hibshman also captures perfectly the comedic flurry of a female activist, gearing up to protest the Willits Bypass, as she transmits a letter to the editor from the law library's computer; the activist seems to be a bustling, barely civil composite of Naomi Wagner and Sister Yazmin. 

ALTHOUGH SITE-SPECIFIC in Ukiah, these stories will travel far from Mendocino County because they are interesting in themselves, not at all dependent on the personalities of our reliably odd jurisdiction. The unrestrained are everywhere!

MR. HIBSHMAN'S second book begins in his childhood where he suffers the usual indignities of early dependence most of us raised in the stable 50s and early 60s ambiance of the lower rungs of the middleclass also experienced, a kind of Everyman's American Childhood, but thereafter, well, here we are in a land where social predictability is long gone, a transition from tranquil then to the tumult inspiring the voluntary poverty of the Northcoast's first-wave Back to the Landers.

THE AUTHOR'S TRAJECTORY, in broad outline, resembles that of many of us who made our way to the Northcoast's outback in the late 1960s, early 1970s. We all had the metaphorical Shimmins Ridge experience, the author’s being full-on, extremely uptight people like myself, as visitors, which couldn't be avoided since that entire newcomer Mendo demographic, long hair or mental shirt and tie, had everything political in common — unyielding opposition to Nixonism.

I'M STILL IN MEXICO with Mr. Hibshman, about halfway through ‘Of A Lifetime,’ having sympathetically accompanied him through his marital break-up, his interludes of single parenting, his unhappy experience with a lawn-committed landlord. As of 4pm Saturday, I'm with him in Mexico. By Niner kickoff Sunday morning we'll both be back in Mendo.

(Both books get the AVA's five-star must read, and I hope to see both in all the local bookstores.)

* * *

WILLIAM RAY COMMENTS ON ‘DISQUIET’:

Few novels honor the urban Everyman questing after justice, certainly not one trapped in the stultified air of the court's law library. But the author here has managed to humanize and deepen the life of a minor bureaucrat, Henry Daniels, known about the building like the subalterns of another age by his first name. His vocation requires a certain deft Kabuki of clerkdom, to oversee as best he can the minute protocols and ceremonies of maintaining his single small room, dedicated to the principles of equity and fairness. He gets paid there not to be a hero. The pompously secure and the walking wounded dispense the same coin denominations for use of the library photocopy machine. The author's veiled chronicle of Humdrum USA becomes the Human Comedy. A subtle tale of our time Henry James might have admired for its unhurried objectivity.

MENDO HISTORY

My great grandfather William Scott Saunders and his brother Albert Pope Saunders were appointed as the mill boss and sawyer boss, respectively, of the Ten Mile mill in 1885, and shortly thereafter became the planer boss and sawyer boss, respectively, in the Fort Bragg mill when C. R. Johnson moved the operation to town. Scott lost the pinky of his left hand in the mill while cleaning the equipment in 1890. I don't know what became of it. In 1898 these two enterprising individuals saw an opportunity and took over the running of a saloon on Fort Bragg's Main Street in a building owned by John Ketchum. It was initially known as Saunders Brothers Saloon, but later more commonly as the Elk Horn Saloon. In 1900 they put in a “nickel-in-the-slot machine” that was described as “the best finished and most expensive machine of the kind ever brought to this section.” I'd love to have that machine (and some of the nickels) today. They ran this bar together for a few years, and then Scott ran it alone from 1901 to 1915. John “Johnny” Ketchum, the landowner, became ill and in March 1903 was staying in a back room of this saloon when he cut his throat in a fit of delirium, ran out into the street, and died. In 1913 his remarried widow sold the land to Scott for the whopping sum of ten dollars. Scott retired and sold the land and the saloon for five hundred dollars in 1915. In 1901 Albert moved two doors north where he partnered with Theodore Chester in another saloon commonly known as the Old Corner Saloon. He worked there until he died in 1907.

This photo was taken between 1898 and 1901 and shows Albert behind the bar in front of the north wall of the Saunders Brothers/Elk Horn Saloon. If a person were to walk out the back of this place even up to the 1940s there would have been a number of small cabins known as the Redwood Rooms and occupied by “single” women. The spot today would be where Cowlick's sits, the north half of 250 North Main Street. The site of the Old Corner Saloon would be on the southeast corner of Redwood and Main where the Club Fort Bragg was later located and where a tourist shop is today.

— Jack Saunders

CATCH OF THE DAY, Saturday, December 30, 2023

MICHAEL BARNES, Willits. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

CURTIS EVANS, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

YVONNE GARCIA, Carswell, Washington/Ukiah. DUI-alcohol&drugs, suspended license.

COLE HARBOUR, Fort Bragg. Provation violation.

NICOLE HAWKINS, Covelo. Failure to appear.

ALEXANDER RAMIREZ, Fort Bragg. Elder abuse, battery with serious injury, county parole.

JACINTO TUPPER, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

JOSE VAZQUEZ-DUENAS, Fort Bragg. DUI.

BANNING TRUMP

Dear Editor,

Chris Christie and Gavin Newsom both say Donald Trump must not be kicked off the ballot, because, apparently, voting is the only way to prevent someone from office-holding in America. This betrays an extreme ignorance of law and history.

The Constitution specifies office-holding requirements related to maturity and familiarity with the American way of life, for starters. We also have a system of civil and criminal justice whereby offenders can lose the civil right to move about and keep up their predatory behavior. This is another large hint that bad actors are not welcome at polling places in a democracy.

In the 3,500-year recorded history of democracy there has always been disqualification of candidates who have been involved in malfeasance in office and/or civil misbehavior or criminal conduct at any time in their lives. If we go with the idea our very special Donald Trump must be allowed on the ballot, we are opening up his pathway to perpetual monarchy, which says “The king can do no wrong.”

That’s our choice folks. Rule by one-person, or rule by everyone else. Allowing Trump on the ballot takes a giant step toward disqualifying 330 million people from the ballot in America.

Kimball Shinkoskey

Woods Cross, Utah

ED REPLY: On the off chance you're a real person and not some kind of Demo AI creation, not really, Kim. It's not a democratic step forward by allowing partisan judges and officials determine who appears on ballots. Newsom and the fat man are correct, and I daresay reflect majority American opinion. Because the Democrats can't beat Trump at the polls they've resorted to all manner of crumb bum tactics, from the phony Russiagate smears to these outrageous attempts to keep him off ballots for his alleged insurrectionary behavior. Keep it up, Democrats, and we might have real insurrections.

THERE IS NO SWEETNESS without loss.

— Craig Johnson

FED UP

Editor: 

Am I the only one left with any observation skills, or has most people’s cellphone addictions turned them into full-fledged zombies? This country is in big trouble for the so-called middle class. The taxpayers are funding two foreign wars at a cost of several billion dollars so far. Living in California, there seems to be a new tax every day — or a new bond, just a tax extended over many years.

Let’s not forget how many companies seem to love adding on fees. Here a fee, there a fee, everywhere a fee. Did I mention all the socialized housing popping up everywhere? Let’s not forget, when someone gets something for free, someone else usually has to pay for it. People who get a paycheck have to live for 365 days per year. But when a giant amount of their check is deducted for taxes, obviously they’re going to be in the red.

Income tax and property tax ought to be dissolved immediately. What’s next? A toilet paper tax, where users must document their usage for Uncle Sam?

Jim Owen Jr.

Santa Rosa

POLITICAL PODCASTS: My favorites; what are yours? Editor, 

Interested in progressive political podcasts? I want to know your favorites. Mine are below. Send me yours and I’ll post on MCN Announce and in an email to you the results of this poll once I’ve compiled all your responses. Let me know if I should keep your list anonymous and not use your name. Send your list of favorite progressive political podcasts to: tw@mcn.org

Favorite progressive political podcasts, in order, favs at the top:

• Start Making Sense, from Nation magazine 
• Background Briefing, with Ian Masters 
• Left, Right & Center, discussion from across the spectrum 
• The Rachel Maddow Show, from MSNBC 
• Behind the News, with Doug Kenwood 
• The Listening Post, from Al Jazeera

Tom Wodtzki 

Albion

JESS WILLARD was born on December 30, 1881 in Pottawatomie County. In his teens and 20s he worked as a cowboy, then started boxing when he was 27. On April 5, 1915, Willard became the world heavyweight boxing champion, defeating defending champion Jack Johnson in Havana, Cuba. At 6 feet and 6 ½ inches, he was billed as the “Pottawatomie Giant.” Willard had a career of 25 wins but lost his title when he was defeated by Jack Dempsey in 1919. After his boxing career was over, he tried his hand at acting in vaudeville and movies. Willard died in Los Angeles on December 15, 1968, at the age of 86. 

WIN WIN

Dear Editor,

Readers this morning as I do most (try) I must to gain abundance and prosperity through the rare art of lottery tickets.

Today’s efforts were driving through the bypass bridge and offers a money clip to enhance my chances. Lol. 

I would rather have stopped and set it aside to let go of my past exploits to win but there are no places on a bridge. 

I hope your are well and content. I plan to walk since the sun has come out. 

Sincerely yours 

Greg Crawford 

Fort Bragg

MEMO OF THE AIR: We got pie.

Here's the recording of last night's (Friday 2023-12-29) 7.5-hour-long Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio show on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg (CA) and KNYO.org (and, for the first hour of it, also 89.3fm KAKX Mendocino): http://tinyurl.com/KNYO-MOTA-0573

Besides all that, at https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com you'll find a fresh batch of dozens of links to worthwhile items I set aside for you while gathering the show together, such as:

A quiet story about two ghosts at a sea-theme park after the end of the world. You might need the closed captions. https://nagonthelake.blogspot.com/2023/12/el-after-del-mundo.html

If the moon hit the earth. A fully comprehensive end of the world. https://theawesomer.com/if-the-moon-hit-the-earth/725996/

And a single-rail gyro-balanced train system designed in 1910. This reminds me of a Larry Niven science fiction story whose climax was the overburdening and catastrophic failure of the gyro system trying to keep a rocketship standing upright that had had one of its three landing fins shot off. The criminal in the rocket didn’t realize the predicament he was in. The pursuer just stood there at a safe distance and kept him talking on the radio until the rocket, gyros winding up past the speed their bearings and structure could take, tipped over, flipped and flopped around like a fish out of water, and flew into bits. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUYzuAJeg3M

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

SONOMA COUNTY READERS vote with their library cards: 2023’s winner is John Grisham ‘The Boys from Biloxi’

Local readers threw their overwhelming support to John Grisham, making his legal thriller “The Boys from Biloxi” the Sonoma County Library’s most checked-out book of 2023.

by Meg McConahey

Voting with their library cards, Sonoma County readers threw their overwhelming support to John Grisham, making his legal thriller “The Boys from Biloxi” the Sonoma County Library’s most checked-out book of 2023. The book, released in 2022, was checked out a whopping 263,023 times over the past 12 months.

So tell us again how nobody reads anymore?

Throughout the country, libraries are crunching their numbers to produce their top-10 lists, and the results seem to underscore that when it comes to reading tastes, Americans are, as they commonly say in Thailand, “Same-same, but different.”

Readers in New York City and Washington, D.C., clambered for “Lessons in Chemistry.” Bonnie Garmus’s best selling novel, recently made into a TV series on Apple TV, is about a woman chemist in the early 1960s who, as the reluctant host of a cooking show, subversively teaches women about more than blanching and braising. “Lessons in Chemistry” was the San Francisco Public Library’s most checked-out book of the year.

While it wasn’t No. 1 in Sonoma County, it was among the county’s top 10 books and was a top favorite among e-books and audiobooks.

The numbers provide a snapshot of Sonoma County’s reading preferences, and in terms of categories, locals go more for novels than nonfiction, said Jaime Anderson, collection services division manager for the Sonoma County Library.

Nine of the 10 most checked-out books were fiction. The exception was Prince Harry’s explosive “Spare,” which also was the most checked-out nonfiction book.

When you break down the numbers, there is not a huge difference between the number of people who checked out Grisham’s book and those who dove into the royal tell-all by the prince who traded England for a California life. “Spare” clocked in with 235,205 checkouts.

Still, those astronomical numbers are just a fraction of the 4,055,981 items checked out collectively from all 15 branches (including the Bibliobus, rural stations and the History and Genealogical Library) between January and December.

And in case you haven’t visited your local library lately, know that it now offers not just books, DVDs, movies for streaming and e-books, but audiovisual equipment, tool kits and even regional and state park passes.

Anderson said 5,852 California State Parks passes were checked out this year; a pass can save a family $10 per car in parking fees. Because you can check it out like any book for three weeks, you can rack up savings when you visit more parks.

In 2023, library cardholders checked out 427 Sonoma County Regional Parks Discovery Backpacks, available at every branch and filled with a parking pass, a parks map, trail itineraries, hiking tips and wildlife guides. They’re good at all 56 regional parks in Sonoma County.

Does anyone read anymore?

A Gallup poll earlier this year suggested that American reading habits are declining.

People surveyed reported reading 12.6 books in the past year, down by two to three books between 2001 and 2016 and the lowest of any survey dating back to 1990.

And yet, library checkouts are on the rise in Sonoma County, Anderson said.

In fiscal year 2018-2019, library card holders checked out 4,446,831 items, which was 609,150 fewer than this year. Digital media drove the demand, with an almost threefold increase in digital media checkouts, from 485,798 to 1,444,647 this year.

Among the top 10 digital titles Sonoma County readers borrowed was Barbara Kingsolver’s “Demon Copperhead,” Stanford medical professor and bestselling author Abraham Verghese’s “The Covenant of Water” and Robin Wall Kimmerer’s “Braiding Sweetgrass.”

Tastes in movies ranged from blockbusters like “Top Gun: Maverick” to the dark Irish comedy, “The Banshees of Inisherin,” a nominee for Best Picture this year.

Santa Rosa author Maia Kobabe’s acclaimed graphic memoir “Gender Queer,” published in 2019, did not make any top-10 list. But it had the distinction of being the American Library Association’s Most Challenged Book of the Year.

“Nationwide, there has been an uptick in library books being challenged for removal or, in worst cases, being banned, which means library boards have to pull a book permanently from their collection,” Anderson said.

Kobabe’s book has not been challenged in Sonoma County. The Sonoma County Library does have a form for challenging or filing a formal complaint about material in the collection, but there were no challenges this year, she added.

Graphic novels for teens

Graphic novels are gaining popularity among all age groups, but particularly among kids and teens.

The top 10 books for kids and teens includes graphic novels “Spy Camp: The Graphic Novel” and the latest in the Hilo graphic novel series, “Hilo Book 9: Gina and the Last City on Earth.”

With the long winter months stretching ahead, the top-books lists can serve as a good tip sheet from your Sonoma County neighbors about what might make for good reading and viewing. The library staff also picked out their own favorites of the year. You can see those at sonoma-library.org/2023StaffPicks.

Many people’s budgets took a major hit after last year’s nearly 7% inflation rate. Energy costs were up more than 9%. The sticker shock has also hit the book market, making the library an attractive choice readers.

“It can really save a bundle of money,” Anderson said. “Even if it’s not about finances for your family, not everyone can have the space to buy and store all of the books they might want to read or need for research. We’re all about sharing.”

Top 10 most checked-out books

1. “The Boys from Biloxi,” John Grisham
2. “Mad Honey,” Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan
3. “Demon Copperhead,” Barbara Kingsolver
4. “Spare,” Prince Harry
5. “It Starts With Us,” Colleen Hoover
6. “Lessons in Chemistry,” Bonnie Garmus
7. “Desert Star,” Michael Connelly
8. “Our Missing Hearts,” Celeste Ng
9. “A World of Curiosities,” Louise Penny
10. “Someone Else’s Shoes,” Jojo Moyes

Top 10 e-books and audiobooks

1. Audiobook: “The Covenant of Water,” Abraham Verghese (unabridged)
2. Audiobook: “Spare,” Prince Harry (unabridged)
3. Audiobook: “Fourth Wing,” Rebecca Yarros (unabridged)
4. Audiobook: “Demon Copperhead,” Barbara Kingsolver
5. E-book: “Lessons in Chemistry,” Bonnie Garmus
6. Audiobook: “Lessons in Chemistry,” Bonnie Garmus
7. Audiobook: “I’m Glad My Mom Died,” Jennette McCurdy (unabridged)
8. Audiobook: “Demon Copperhead,” Barbara Kingsolver (unabridged)
9. Audiobook: “101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think,” Brianna Wiest (unabridged)
10. Audiobook: “Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants,” Robin Wall Kimmerer (unabridged)

Top 10 adult nonfiction books

1. “Spare,” Prince Harry
2. “The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times,” Michelle Obama
3. “I’m Glad My Mom Died,” Jennette McCurdy
4. “Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing,” Matthew Perry
5. “The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder,” David Grann
6. “Crying in H Mart: A Memoir,” Michelle Zauner
7. “Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity,” Peter Attia
8. “Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience,” Brene Brown
9. “How to Keep House While Drowning: A Gentle Approach to Cleaning and Organizing,” KC Davis
10. “Happy-go-lucky,” David Sedaris

Top 10 movies

1. “Everything Everywhere All at Once”
2. “The Fabelmans”
3. “Top Gun: Maverick”
4. “The Whale”
5. “Tar”
6. “The Banshees of Inisherin”
7. “A Man Called Otto”
8. “Babylon”
9. “Amsterdam”
10. “The Menu”

Top 10 children’s books

1. “Dogman: Twenty Thousand Fleas Under the Sea,” Dav Pilkey
2. “Baby-sitters Little Sister: Karen’s Birthday,” Katy Farina
3. “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: No Brainer,” Jeff Kinney
4. “Hilo Book 9: Gina and the Last City on Earth,” Judd Winick
5. “Big Nate: Nailed It!” Lincoln Peirce
6. “Spy Camp: The Graphic Novel,” Stuart Gibbs
7. “Squished: A Graphic Novel,” Megan Wagner Lloyd
8. “The One and Only Ruby,” Katherine Applegate
9. “School Trip: A Graphic Novel,” Jerry Craft
10. “Dragon Masters: Curse of the Shadow Dragon,” Tracey West

(Santa Rosa Press Democrat)

PG&E ANNOUNCES YET ANOTHER INCREASE TO 2024 UTILITY BILLS

by Julie Johnson

Pacific Gas and Electric bills will jump by about $34.50 each month for average households starting Monday, according to an end-of-the-year rate adjustment the company filed with state regulators Friday.

The new forecast — about $2 higher than earlier estimates — rounds out a historic year of PG&E rate hikes the company estimates will increase household gas and electric bills by more than $400 annually compared to 2022.

The California Public Utilities Commission and PG&E executives have said the rate changes are necessary for the company to update its aging infrastructure, meet a growing demand for electricity and reduce the risk of power line-sparked fires after years of disastrous blazes.

Carla Peterman, chief sustainability officer and executive vice president of corporate affairs for PG&E Corp., said in a statement that the company plans to minimize future rate changes to align more closely with inflation.

“The investments we plan in 2024 and beyond focus on three goals: keeping our energy system safe and reliable for our customers, meeting growing energy demand and adding even more renewables to our energy mix,” she said.

Critics, however, decry the rate hike as untenable for most households in California, where utility prices are some of the highest in the country.

Mark Toney, executive director of ratepayer advocate nonprofit The Utility Reform Network, said his organization is pushing the state to establish a cap on rate increases, and said a lack of limits on utility bills are hurting Californians.

“We are in an affordability crisis, the likes we’ve never seen before,” Toney said. “These increases are just unprecedented.”

PG&E bills have risen dramatically over the past 10 years. Average monthly residential bills for electric and gas service jumped from $154.52 in January 2016 to $241.03 in January 2023 — an increase of $86.51, according to data from PG&E obtained by the Chronicle.

And in November, state regulators voted unanimously on one of the biggest rate increases for PG&E in recent memory. The increases reflect PG&E’s four-year budget through 2026 and help set the company’s project agenda, including funding to bury about 1,230 miles of power lines in communities where the risk for wildfires is high.

The rate adjustment PG&E submitted to the PUC on Friday includes increases to account for money PG&E already spent during previous storms and wildfires on top of the four-year budget plan.

These new rates also calculate a decrease in natural gas prices compared to 2023 — an unusual year when natural gas prices spiked amid a series of challenges including the war in Ukraine, gas storage limits and problems with a critical pipeline delivering gas from Texas.

PG&E said January gas bills were expected to be about 9% lower compared to 2023 — a difference of about $17 for the average residential customer’s gas bill.

(SF Chronicle)

BEAVERS RELEASED INTO CALIFORNIA WILD FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 75 YEARS

by Amanda Bartlett

The little buck-toothed critter warily peered out of his kennel perched at the edge of a pond in Northern California, his beady eyes following five of his family members that were already paddling out toward the pine trees dotting the horizon. 

The water glimmered in the October sun as the willows rustled in the breeze. A group of wildlife officials and conservationists watched from the shore as the colony of beavers began to explore their new home in Tásmam Koyóm, a 2,325-acre valley in Plumas County and the ancestral lands of the Mountain Maidu people. Unbeknownst to the 2-month-old kit, a historic moment was underway for his keystone species — the first time they had been returned to their native state habitat in nearly 75 years, as part of a major project spearheaded by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Maidu Summit Consortium.

Nevertheless, he stayed put.

The beaver’s protective mother remained right by his side, but eventually even her curiosity got the best of her, and she took off, too. Valerie Cook, the beaver restoration program manager for the CDFW, slipped on a pair of gloves and carefully removed the young beaver from his enclosure and into the grass, hoping to coax him to join the rest of his family. When he wouldn’t even leave the top of her rubber boot, she grinned down at him.

“I knew what he was doing,” said Cook. “He was waiting for someone to give him a ride on their tail.” 

Sure enough, one of the beaver’s siblings returned, hoisted the baby onto its back, and off they went into the wild. Cook explained that this dogpile behavior isn’t atypical for the species, and sometimes she’ll see as many as three at a time stacked on top of one another, an activity that likely offers security to some of the younger animals in the colony. 

“You just saw this tiny brown furball, this little nugget, catch a ride on the back of his sibling’s tail, and it looked like he was surfing,” Cook said with a laugh. “I don’t think it set in for days afterward, but that moment will go down as one of the highlights of my entire career. I think we were very proud of what we had done, and really optimistic about the potential that this represents for us and the good we think we can do moving forward.”

Beavers are native to Northern California, but their population was practically decimated during the fur rush in the 1800s, when maritime traders converged in the Bay Area and California’s Central Coast to harvest the valuable, chestnut-colored fur from the species, as well as otters, seals, mink and other mammals. By 1912, fewer than a thousand beavers lived in California.

Research from historical ecologist Rick Lanman proved the species’ California roots when he discovered a skull from a beaver that had been living in Saratoga Creek circa 1855. California Department of Fish and Wildlife translocated beavers to Lexington Reservoir and upper Los Gatos Creek in 1980, and though experts initially thought the semi-aquatic rodents wouldn’t utilize the surrounding creeks, they proceeded to chart new territory down to the Guadalupe River, which flows through downtown San Jose and into the South Bay. The animals continued to venture northward from there, and the discovery of beavers in Matadero Creek last year marked a major comeback for the species in the Bay Area. 

Meanwhile, the CDFW received nearly $2 million in funding from the state budget to build upon its existing beaver restoration program, hiring a team of environmental scientists who are tasked with determining nonlethal strategies for people and beavers to coexist, and ultimately promoting a larger effort to help mitigate the impacts of wildfires, climate change and drought by allowing beavers to repopulate the habitats where their ancestors once resided. Releasing beavers into Tásmam Koyóm is the first phase of this project following a lot of contention surrounding the species. 

“Over the last hundred years, there’s been a roller coaster surrounding how they should be managed,” said Cook, who is also the nutria eradication program manager for the CDFW, “as a nuisance or as a resource.” 

Because beavers don’t reproduce prolifically like other rodents (they tend to have one to two litters of just a few young per year) and juveniles typically have a 45% survival rate, Cook said allowing them to disperse and reestablish their territory can be a lengthy and challenging process. Human-wildlife conflict arises, and when people don’t like the impacts to the landscape that beavers can cause, like minor flooding and tree damage, the animals have to be removed, Cook said. 

But at the same time, Cook said, many government agencies statewide are spending hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars a year just to mimic what beavers naturally do to restore the natural ecosystems they live in. The animals are capable of reconnecting streams to floodplains and can help recover near-extinct species like coho salmon by creating new wetland habitats and encouraging the growth of the plankton and insects they feed on. Beaver dams can also slow down water flow and improve water quality by preserving sediment and nutrients in streams.

“This program will allow us to play a more active role to return them to where they were historically, and it’s a twofold process,” said Cook. “We’re restoring them so they can do their job restoring the environment they live in.” 

Beyond the ecological benefits, Cook underlined the importance of collaborating with the Maidu Summit Consortium and restoring a species that’s so important to the Maidu’s cultural history. 

“They’re our little cousins, and we’re going to pray for them to be safe and have a good life here in this beautiful environment,” said Allen Lowry, vice chairman of the Maidu Summit Consortium. “We’re so happy to be able to release them here, and we pray that they make a good home forever here.”

This family of seven beavers was relocated from Sutter County and now joins a single beaver that had already been living in Tásmam Koyóm. Cook hopes these efforts will expand as the CDFW works with the Tule River Tribe to reintroduce another beaver family to the Tule River Reservation in the southern Sierra Nevada by next year. 

“The unfortunate reality down there is with all the high flows and flooding that happened in the spring of last year, the habitat they had ready just ended up really getting blown out, delaying the trajectory of the project,” Cook said. “But it presents a real opportunity for beavers to come in and foster those changes the tribe is looking for.” 

Future projects could be headed for the Bay Area soon. Cook said there’s a lot of interest in the North Bay, particularly Lagunitas Creek in Marin County, which is home to a precarious population of endangered coho salmon. The CDFW hopes to have a beaver translocation project proposal submission form available on its website by late January for landowners to submit requests, but how the department prioritizes each project that gets approved will be determined by issues such as drought resiliency, high risk for wildfires, low flows and dry conditions in each area. 

“Basically, we’re looking at what’s the most bang for our beaver buck we can get,” Cook said. “One hundred percent, it’s going to happen in the Bay Area, but when and where yet, we don’t know.” 

Since the Oct. 18 release, the beaver family group in Tásmam Koyóm has explored miles and miles of habitat, located the territory of the resident beaver, which could lead to mating opportunities in the future, and established shelter for the winter. The CDFW and Maidu Summit Consortium will continue to monitor the colony for several years to come, assessing whether the population grows, how the habitat is utilized, and what benefits, conflicts and changes may arise as a result of the beaver engineering on the landscape, a news release from the CDFW read.

“I got a little choked up and teary-eyed,” Chuck Bonham, director of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, said of the animals’ release. “I saw the beavers come into the water, and some swim off. About 20 minutes later, they’re out there making a home. This could be forever, and it’s the right thing to do.” 

PAINTING IS TERRIBLY PAINFUL

by Julian Barnes

Early in 1971, Robert Hughes, recently appointed as Time magazine's chief art critic, was ripping out his loft apartment at 143 Prince Street when he received an unexpected visitor. This was Henry Geldzahler, curator of modern art at the Metropolitan Museum. Hughes, probably the most macho and combative critic in his profession, was, by his own account, sweaty, foul-tempered, sore-footed and “gray with ingrained dirt.” Geldzahler, a “happily smiling little roly-poly fonctionnaire … [was] immaculately jaunty in a pale blue suit.” 

He wanted to see the loft. Hughes told him there was nothing to see; Geldzahler insisted. They took the elevator to the fifth floor, where there was only dust and filth and dangling cables. The following exchange then took place: 

“Well, come on,” he said, “I want to see it.” 

“This is it, Henry.” 

“No, no. Where do you keep it?” 

“Where do I keep what?” 

“Your collection. I want to have a peek. Is it in storage somewhere?” 

“There is no collection, Henry. I'm not a collector. I'm sorry, I don't have a goddamn collection.” 

Geldzahler peered at me incredulously. 

“Well,” he exhaled at last. “Someone in here is going to die poor, isn't he?” 

This exchange is recorded in Hughes's trenchant essay about the New York art scene, “Graft—Things You Didn't Know.” He describes a place where money, or potential money, was sloshing around, and where “the whole domain of relations between artists and critics, critics and curators —indeed, of everything that bears upon the art market and its insiders — was then and largely remains today an ethical slide area.” 

The high-priest critic Clement Greenberg “didn't believe in buying art, but he liked receiving it,” from artists and art dealers whom his words had assisted or would assist. But “by far the most corrupt art-world figure I knew in New York … was Henry Geldzahler.” When the director of the Met, Thomas Hoving, wanted to put on an Andrew Wyeth show, Geldzahler was against it — Wyeth's figurative paintings were the very opposite of the art he believed in and succored. But when it became clear the show would go ahead, Geldzahler “wrote privately to Wyeth himself, offering to curate the show in return for a nice Wyeth watercolor that Henry would personally select. Much to the flinty Wyeth's credit, this overture was rebuffed.”

(London Review of Books)

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Trump nor Biden may get elected, but rest assured Lockheed and Northrop will win big!

Global back orders for ahh-hem defense orders are at a record $776 billion.

Our Overlords rule with a license to spill blood and it never grows old.

Happy New Year

Predictions:

Another unfathomable election year in the US.

RFK assassination attempts.

Legal fights all summer on mail-in ballots.

Biden’s sudden health problems take him off the ticket.

Govornor Gavin to rescue the Dems.

US insolvency issues spark crisis.

Ukraine government overthrown by miltary, Zelensky murdered, peace with Russia signed.

More Right Wing leaders elected in Europe.

Israel ends the incursion into Gaza but takes a third of the land. Netanyahu forced to resign in disgrace.

New Preposterous Woke Social Cause unveiled.

OKLAHOMA, 1930s...

AULD LANG SYNE

Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And the days of auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear
For auld lang syne
We'll drink a cup of kindness yet
For the sake of auld lang syne

And surely you will buy your cup
And surely I'll buy mine!
We'll take a cup of kindness yet
For the sake of auld lang syne

We two have paddled in the stream
From morning sun till night
The seas between us Lord and swell
Since the days of auld lang syne

For old acquaintance be forgot
And never brought to mind
Should old acquaintance be forgot
For the sake of auld lang syne?

For old acquaintance be forgot
And never brought to mind
Should old acquaintance be forgot
In the days of auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear
For auld lang syne
We'll drink a cup of kindness yet
For the sake of auld lang syne