Mendocino County Today: Monday, Jan. 15, 2024

Cloudy | 128 Open | BOLO Jones | Veterinarian Wanted | Raindrops | Veteran Affairs | Arena School | Mulheren Retrospective | Same Problems | Willits Creek | Whale Run | Palm Painting | Tiburcio Vasquez | Ed Notes | Arena Spa | Being 90 | Blind-Pigging | Great Day | Yesterday's Catch | Niners/Packers | Young Gronk | Pickle Ball | Brain/Drugs | Social Contact | Stupid People | Socialism Good | Inuit Sunglasses | Trump Shtick | Post 1961

CALM AND SEASONABLE weather today, will give a way to light to moderate periods of rain and gusty winds on Tuesday. A more active and wetter weather is expected by late week through the weekend. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A cloudy 47F this Iowa Caucus Day on the coast. Mostly cloudy today, rain tomorrow & Wednesday morning, dry Thursday & a lot of rain Friday thru Tuesday. Nice weather for roofers.

HIGHWAY 128 WAS CLOSED for a couple of hours early Sunday morning.

Reopened at 9:49 am 

ATTEMPTED MURDER SUSPECT WANTED IN FORT BRAGG 

On Saturday, January 13, 2024 at around 9:20 PM, Mendocino County Sheriff's Deputies were dispatched to a shooting at a residence in the area of the 31000 block of Highway 20 in Fort Bragg.

Upon arrival, Deputies contacted a 62-year-old male and learned he was involved in a dispute over stolen property with Michael Anthony Jones, 33, of Fort Bragg.

During this interaction, Jones produced a pistol, pointed it toward the 62-year-old male and fired a single shot. The bullet missed the 62-year-old male and Jones left in a vehicle. Deputies set out to locate Jones at multiple locations and could not find him.

The next morning, on 01-14-2024 at around 7:25 AM, Deputies were dispatched to a residence in the area of the 29000 block of Highway 20 (Fort Bragg), regarding a reported shooting.

Deputies arrived and contacted the same 62-year-old male, who had suffered a gunshot wound to his leg. Deputies were advised that Jones was the shooter and he had fled into the wooded area south of the property.

The 62-year-old male was transported to a local hospital for treatment of his non-life-threatening injuries.

A search warrant for the location of the shooting was obtained and members of the Mendo-Lake County Regional SWAT Team arrived to serve the warrant.

During the service of the warrant, evidence was obtained, and Jones was not located. SWAT then conducted a parole/probation search at a different residence that Jones was known to frequent on Turner Road (Fort Bragg), and he was not located.

Deputies issued an order of arrest for Jones for the crimes of Attempt Murder, Felon in Possession of a Firearm, and Parole Violation.

Jones is described as a white male adult, 33-years of age, 5 feet 11 inches tall, weighing 175 pounds, with brown hair and hazel eyes. Jones has a visible tattoo on the right side of his neck.

Anyone with information on Jones' current whereabouts are urged to contact the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office Dispatch Center at 707-463-4086.

A PERFECT PLACE FOR A VET

Editor,

There's a big discussion about veterinary care and availability. There is a national shortage, and we as pet owners are suffering the consequences. My husband and I bought the Detrich Clinic on South Franklin, Fort Bragg. Maybe we can get creative and get a rotating team of veterinarians to come in and provide vet care. I've advertised on Facebook, UC Davis, local flyers. I'd also be open to host educational, adoption or other activities. Maybe Mendocino College and the Humane Society would run a Vet tech program. I heard that there's a shortage of them as well. It's a nice career path. If any of you are visiting out of area vet clinics, please spread the word that we need another Vet in Fort Bragg. 

Here are the details for the clinic: 

Vet Hospital for lease in scenic coastal Fort Bragg. Former Veterinarian/Owner retired recently. Great corner location with plenty of parking, features approx. 2200 square feet of space: Front Lobby, waiting/retail room, three exam rooms, surgery and x-ray room, large storage/lunch area, high quality large and small kennels, large central treatment area, Veterinarian's personal office, laundry area and several bathrooms. Some Kennels are big enough to accommodate small livestock. Back-alley access might be suitable for livestock treatments by appointment. Vet hospital is adjacent to busy dog grooming business and bank. 

We have an extreme shortage of available veterinarians, even a satellite office would be appreciated. Coast pet owners face long waiting lists, no emergency services and owners are being turned away by local Veterinarians. This is a great place to live with cool summers, unspoiled beaches and miles of trail in the Redwoods. 

Jeanette Jacobi 

Little Valley 

NO WAY TO TREAT VETERANS 

To the Editor: 

I am ashamed of the way this county treats its veterans. It’s a disgrace! 

I am not only referring to this current decision to move the Ukiah Veterans Service Office, but I am also referring to other snubs by this current administration. 

For example, forcing the Fort Bragg Veterans Service Office to close in order to allow for other County or City events to take place in the building. 

When I was employed with the county - Myself, several veterans, and two of the BOS were part of an AdHoc committee that created a new Policy and Procedure for the Veterans Buildings. Part of this policy entailed NOT allowing any use of the building that would disrupt business in our office or any other veteran meetings or events. On several occurrences this Policy was disregarded, and the Fort Bragg office was forced to close, creating a disruption of services for our veterans. Why create a Policy and Procedure if you are not going to adhere to it? 

As far as this latest decision regarding the move, decisions were made at higher levels without any regards to our veterans. 

In fact I would bet that they were not considered at all. 

I cannot help but think that this administration has no regard or respect for its veterans. 

If the main reason for this move is for the storage, as I was told by Supervisor Mulheren…then why not just have Air Quality Control use the garage, and put a conex next to the building in the open field. In doing this, you could still allow the veterans service staff to continue the use of the building. 

The Veterans Service Office has two full time Veteran Service Representatives, currently only one is filled, and one full time Veterans Service Officer, they also have a handful of work studies who work in the office daily. Clearly there is not enough space in the proposed 2 offices at Mental Health to accommodate all of these people. I was told Air Quality Control has 9-10 employees who work remotely most of the time. This being the case it would make more sense to have Air Quality Control move into the proposed offices at Mental Health. 

Also, Why are you continuing to keep the Ukiah office understaffed, only allowing for one full time representative to try to handle it all? This is way too much for one person. I would hate to see the Ukiah office lose this Veterans Service Representative due to stress. 

I realize that there is a budget crunch and a hiring freeze, but I am also aware that there are exceptions. This would be an exception! 

Maybe you are unaware that this office saw 1835 veterans in person and received over 3000 phone calls for FY 22/23. The VSO office brought in over $3 million into Mendocino County Veterans pockets…which they spent locally. The office also brought in over $100,000 dollars to the county which goes into the General Fund. This money should go to a special fund to help keep the office fully staffed. This money is another Veterans Service Representative position. Other counties are hiring additional Veteran Service Representatives, while our county continues to let our office struggle. 

This action to me strongly suggests that Mendocino County is not a veteran friendly county anymore. 

Alice Loehr Stenberg

Ukiah

SUPERVISOR MULHEREN:

I have always thought a Supervisor needs two or three terms to accomplish all of their goals, as I review what has happened in the last three years I’m so proud of the progress that Mendocino County has made but of course there is more work to do. As I complete questionnaires for local organizations and present my ideas and accomplishments to small groups I’m reminded that not only have I been a Supervisor for three years, I was also on the City Council for six years. I can’t believe I’ve spent ten years in local office. While that wasn’t necessarily my plan for life I am excited about the opportunity to continue. I’ll be sharing a little bit more about the work I’ve done on this page because it’s so easy to forget. I’ll also go back and review old questions to see if we’ve accomplished specific goals or if we have more work to do and what we can do to get there.

BETSY CAWN:

In Lake County, we have had endless years of public conversations with local officials about the employment problems here. Of course, because there are our local Supervisorial elections coming up, during recent “candidate forums” the individuals vying for three open seats on the Board of Supervisors have been asked what they would “do” about these problems — with varying responses mostly lacking any note of alarum or urgency.

Our Board of Supervisors heard two extremely plain explanations from the head and deputy head of our Department of Social Services, one in June and one around October, describing the workforce impacts of staff shortages — well known to have cost us vital law enforcement protection and regionally “universal” human service deficits (especially elder care, senior center service reductions, and multiple other capacity gaps). From everything I’ve read in the AVA, Mendocino has the same problems.

WHALE RUN IS BACK!

The 36th Annual Whale Run & Walk is back in 2024!

Free T-shirt guaranteed for signups by March 9!

Here is the site to register for the race: https://runsignup.com/Race/CA/FortBragg/FortBraggWhaleRunandWalk

Fort Bragg, CA always has a huge Whale Festival on the 3rd weekend of March, and this is a big part of it. The local Fort Bragg Soroptimists have been hosting this race for 35 years, and it had grown to almost 800 participants by 2018. It's taken awhile to regroup after covid, but we're back by popular demand. The ocean and trails are as magnificent as ever and we know you will love the views and all the festivities in town on race day.

See soroptimistfortbraggca.org for trail map and links to old pictures.

• 5k runners will run north and turn around at Compass Rose or further up the trail at Oak.
• 10k runners dash north past Glass Beach then cross the beautiful Pudding Creek Trestle to the 10K turn around.
• 5k "Fun" Walkers will trek south crossing Noyo Bridge to walk the Pomo Bluffs Park trail overlooking majestic Noyo Bay.
• There will also be a kiddie run (route tbd)

WE NEED VOLUNTEERS!! Please let us know if you help on race day, Sat March 16. Email sinoyosunrise@soroptimist.net

FROM THE MCN LIST SERVE, A VERY GOOD DEAL on a painting by an excellent Mendo painter:

Available For Sale

Olaf Palm Painting

’Beebe Creek,” oil on board, signed, framed.

Image - 8-1/2” x 11-1/2”, Frame 19-1/4” X 16-1/4”

$450

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/0zckd5l0kg4b0n5zul4qe/IMG_7937.jpg?rlkey=9wmwjf9z888xpix6mha9peccu&dl=0

Located in Caspar.

Please contact me to view in person.

Thank you,

Claire Amanno

ED NOTES

ONE YEAR, I CELEBRATED Martin Luther King’s birthday by paying HBO $46 on a Saturday night to watch Mike Tyson knockout Francois Botha. I’d better say here that I think it’s way past time to either ban boxing or require that the pros to wear protective headgear like the amateurs are required to do. Anyone who can look at what boxing did to great athletes like Mohammed Ali and Sugar Ray Robinson, not to mention the hundreds of lesser known pugs like the tragic Jerry Quarry and Tommy ‘Hurricane’ Jackson and still defend boxing as a sport would seem to be deficient in the humanity department. But the Tyson-Botha undercard was pretty good, too.

MIKE TYSON is probably a better gauge of the state of race relations in the country than the innumerable, rote MLK memorials underway across the country. The local remembrances seem to me to miss most of what the man stood for, consisting of a lot of weepy declarations of brotherhood — not that they can hurt — and Family of Man-quality rhetoric. Now that all white people are liberals on race — even Strom Thurmond — at least in public, there’s a widespread tendency to ignore the ongoing class and economic realities of this country, a basic fact of American life Martin Luther King seldom failed to point out and probably gave up his life for saying; he persisted in demanding that wealth be fairly apportioned among all citizens. He emphasized that a country as rich as this one should not tolerate deprivation whatever the color of the people going without. The primacy of economics in King’s vision of a color blind society is left out of the celebrations of his remarkable, short life. 

IT ISN’T HARD to imagine what King would have thought and said about contemporary economic and social policies, but I won't forget Maya Angelou claiming on national television that Bill Clinton, acclaimed as a surrogate black person, was being lynched over his Lewinski interlude. Lynched? I still don’t think that’s the word we wanted here, Ms. Angelou. 

THE TWO PARTY stranglehold on a majority of people in this country, whatever their race, is a much more effective enemy of black people than Bull Connor ever was, and working people of the racial rainbow haven’t had more relentless adversaries in the White House since Calvin Coolidge. 

WHAT WE get in the Martin Luther King memorials is a lot of slobbery rhetoric of the Love-One-Another-Or-Die with an emphasis to keep the dissent “non-violent.”

MOST OF US would settle for simple ethnic tolerance without the appended admonition to love one another. And some of us are also aware from bitter personal experience that the bigoted personality type is as plentiful among liberals as it is among conservatives. 

BUT RACE RELATIONS are the one area of American life where progress is a matter of verifiable, objective fact. Race relations are better — a lot better — in America these days and getting better all the time, not that you’d know it from the rhetoric of the professional racialists. 

SO THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS and government take another paid day off, which is about all Martin Luther King’s life means these days just as a solid 40% of the population slides into a kind of permanent hopelessness. Now that black heroes like King have been co-opted into the great consensus, the great fight for equality of opportunity is over.

THE SANTA ROSA PRESS DEMOCRAT'S editorial lab rats can be depended on to waddle into editorial print every MLK Day with a denunciation of some black sports figure or a rapper for their perceived deleterious effect on the nation’s youth, with Mexican gang bangers coming on strong as ultra-menace, civic division. Read a biography of Babe Ruth or Ty Cobb some time for a lesson in the silliness of making athletes into role models. Cobb was a lot crazier than any contemporary sports figure, and Ruth managed somehow to emerge into adulthood unaffected by modern civilization. (Another example of flagrant prose racism, albeit on a much higher level than the Press Democrat’s, is Tom Wolfe’s best-selling novel, ‘A Man In Full.’ It’s right up there with the film version of The Color Purple.) 

ONE MORE PARENTHETICAL: I forget the name of the sports writer, but when baseball teams carried writers with them on their train commutes between cities, a bunch of writers were sitting around the club car one night when a naked Ruth comes running through, a naked woman with a big knife in hot pursuit. The writer comments to his peers, “There goes another story we can't write.”

IT’S SURPRISING that given all the attention Tyson gets that nobody has offered up an academic paper called something like, The Black Athlete and His Psychic Search for Family — A Psycho-History of Mike Tyson. After he dispatched Botha in the fifth round that Saturday night, Tyson gave a big hello to a Brooklyn gang, apparently his stand-in relatives in those days. 

THAT SATURDAY NIGHT the ringside crowd included a delighted old lady who seemed to be with her daughter and her granddaughter. Three incongruous lookalikes sitting side by side. The old lady’s attentions were riveted on the ring action; she looked like she knew her boxing. Daughter and granddaughter’s attentions seemed to wander to movie stars seated nearby. The three of them looked like money, but then again maybe the grandam had put aside a little out of her social security checks to treat the family to a night of vicarious mayhem. 

AMERICA is wonderful in its unmatched variousnesses. Also at ringside was a little Chinese girl of 9 or 10 or so. She was seated next to her mother, I assumed, and later in the evening sat in mom’s lap when dad showed up to take the kid’s seat. At one point early on in the first of three fights on the evening’s card, the child spotted the television camera on her and jumped up out of her chair to wave and mug at it. Mom pulled the kid emphatically back into her seat. A fully assimilated American child would have been allowed to perform endlessly, probably with mom and pop elbowing her out of the way to get their pusses into range of the magic eye. 

THE FIXED camera angles made these intriguing people unavoidable on-screen, so we saw a lot of them and wondered about them. Everyone else looked like the kind of people you’d expect to see close up at a retro bloodsport, complete with girls in bikinis strutting around the ring holding up round cards while men wolf-whistled at them. I hadn’t heard a live wolf-whistle since the last time I watched a fight on TV, and I haven’t heard one in person since about 1955. 

THE REFEREE for the Tyson-Botha fight was roundly booed when he was introduced because he has a reputation for stopping fights short of death. The ref smiled at the boos. An ironist. Botha, who looked exactly like my late friend Ted Bertsch of Ukiah but twice Bertsch’s size, was introduced as the “White Buffalo.” For being a white guy willing to be knocked out by a black guy he picked up $1.5 mil. 

TYSON, for serving so well as white America’s worst black nightmare, picked up $10 mil without breaking a sweat. The announcer described Botha accurately if unkindly as “a morass of flesh,” while Tyson was described accurately as “sculpted.” I couldn’t make out Botha’s tattoos but Tyson’s are Chairman Mao on one arm and Malcolm X on the other, which may make sense to him, but don’t quite mesh in any socio-political historical sense I’m aware of. 

THE CHAMP came into the ring wearing a T-shirt inscribed “Be Real,” another psychological tipoff to the man’s preoccupations, and further evidence of an integrity superior to most of the people writing about him. As the Tyson entourage made its way to the ring, some kind of kill-’em-all rap music filled the auditorium. 

THE WHITE BUFFALO entered the ring to cowboy music. The first round had the mob on its feet because Buff and Mike continued to punch each over after the bell ending the first round. But a few minutes later, in round five, the inevitable happened. The morass of flesh — not much more skilled as a fighter than the big guy at the end of the bar in Anywhere USA — went down in a heap when he walked straight into a Tyson right that Tyson seemed to bring all the way up from the floor, and had pivoted into with all his strength directly onto the White Buffalo’s fully exposed chin.

BUFF went down like he’d been poleaxed, which he had, and when he tried to get up he fell through the ropes. Tyson hustled over to help Buff regain his feet, then gave him a big hug and told the announcers he admired Buff’s heart. Then Mike said a big hello to the Brooklyn gangsters.

EARLIER IN THE TELECAST, perfectly organized into a three-hour program with Mike and Buff preceded by two prelims guaranteed to each last 12 rounds because none of the four fighters had ever been knocked out and only rarely knocked off their feet, Tyson talked about how he’d just learned that Cus d’Amato, the only person in his life who liked Tyson for himself, had put away money for him in a secret account only recently revealed, but now worth $200,000. d’Amato was the last person in Tyson's life with the authority to pull him back into his seat, and Mike has been in trouble ever since he left the old man's home. 

* * *

REWRITING HISTORY: It’s 7pm the day before Martin Luther King’s birthday and I still haven’t heard a true word about the guy, the last truly progressive national figure our odd country has produced. The waves of pure mawk coming at me from the television set and (of course) pseudo-public radio KZYX, remind me that no one voted for Nixon, everyone was for the civil rights movement of the 1960s, no one supported the war on Vietnam, and Martin Luther King wanted people of different races to be nice to each other. 

IN FACT, by the time King was murdered in Memphis, the mass media had turned against him big time and had never been too keen on him in the first place because he was connecting too many social-economic dots for too many people. He was aggressively opposed to the war on Vietnam, pointing out it was the latest chapter in a long history of imperial murder of non-white peoples and he was for democratic socialism, and had even gone so far as to speak the forbidden S-word on national television. So long as he stuck to preaching racial harmony, even the closet Klan types of the rightwing of the Republican Party couldn’t denounce King who, after all, was certainly preferable to the scowling leather lungs in dark glasses who were thrilling the white suburbs with a lot of wild talk about how, with a few photogenic bad boys out front, 12% of the population was going to off the national pig. 

AS GREAT WAVES of pure bullshit rolled over America in 1968, Martin Luther King was calmly pointing out that a few fundamental social guarantees would make America a much less violent place and a far more ethnically harmonious country. If people were guaranteed food, shelter, work, health care, and education they would be less inclined to harm other persons. Once achieved, social and economic justice would cool everyone out. It would, too, and Martin Luther King was murdered for preaching it, not that much of anybody seems to remember the most important two-thirds of King’s message.

YOU’LL never hear it said by the kind of weepy liberals who dominate the national and local media but it was Jock World and the Armed Services where the greatest advances in race relations were made in this country. It was at the ball game and in boot camp where lasting and loyal cross-ethnic friendships were first made in a mass way in this country. Since, as a trip to any downtown area in any town in America makes obvious, millions of Americans of all races enjoy loyal and affectionate relations where virtually none existed in 1950.

RACE RELATIONS aren’t bad at all considering that we’ve moved in less than 90 years from wholesale lynchings and a nearly South African-quality apartheid to unharassed inter-marriage and generally non-lethal relations among America’s rainbow family. What isn’t better is economic relations, not that you’d know it from most of the media. Average income folks find it harder and harder to get by in what is still billed as capitalism’s finest hour, with magic money everywhere except where much of the real work gets done. And “liberals” of the Democratic Party type have managed to exacerbate race relations by defining people as “oppressed” whose grievances hardly amount to oppression in any historical sense of the term. 

SO YOU'RE 90: WHAT'S NEXT?

by Gregory Sims

Three of the identified 90s gang came together at Mosswood for our first meeting Bill Holcomb, Judy Basehore and myself. Barbara Lamb was not feeling well, but we did identify a new recruit Eileen Pronsolino, and one other known to Barbara who is 97 and will soon be identified. Pilar took some pictures and we were well received. we didn't follow any organized effort to establish a foundation for the group. But Judy, Bill, Barbara and others are certainly well known through the community. Maybe the personalities of the 90s gang is foundation enough. We told stories and made each other laugh.

This isn't exactly a new approach to senior citizenry, rather a different twist. Many of us who had been wending our way through the upper eighties of octogenarianism have encountered what can be summed up as “if you don't keep yourself safe, how will you keep others safe from your erratic imbalance of body and mind? You want others around you to be safe. I have heard a few examples of some others who were sorry not to have listened to loved ones who truly do care.

I listened to what others (family and friends) had been saying and I stopped by a “Retirement Center”. It just so happened they had a single opening. I was at the top of the waiting list. Everyone was pleasant, they have a piano I could noodle on, and I signed up, told my dearest who had advised me of her thoughts , then others and family. All were delighted and relieved. I gave notice to Greg and Laurie at River's Bend - who were gracious and helped me move. Then I went to the AV Clinic had a session to verify I was of a sound mind and didn't need a higher level of care than “Retirement” and I went there to live for a little longer. But when I walked in I saw my future culminating - ending. I would become part of this group. I had spent an interlude of several years working with staff and patients in Skilled Nursing Facilities as a provider, and this would become a population I would be joining and took a breath, paused and realized this was a profoundly deep step.

Still I was there, had made a payment, had purchased a bed and some furniture for my room - played the piano, met some people then started going to the health club, a coffee house but still couldn't shake it - I didn't want to shake it. Too soon was the message I lived with and slept with. I didn't want to “grow accustomed to being there” I joined into some activities, group singing etc. But it was too soon. And after a couple months I make arrangements with the administration, left and came back to the valley and was glad to be home for a while.

And it still is too soon. I do feel myself aging. So the nineties gang is an affirmation group: We're still alive and coherent, want to do no harm to ourselves and others. And if misfortune visits any of us we will have retained the love we've shared with our families and friends so they can see the choices each of us have made come from us, a unity of our own body-mind (paraphrasing Thoreau here). And unless we can't manage ourselves we are listening to others yet still thinking our own thoughts and activating our own behaviors so that it's right that we, not they feel the responsibilities for our decisions. We will continue to share our love/caring with family, friends and community.

Maybe we can support each other, The Village and provide a return to the value of active oldsters in the community. I hope other 90ers will share their stories so when we all stay where we are, or go someplace that feels right - or we find a group of people and we care for each other - we can make this part of the journey to be just fine. Recently I heard myself saying “I love being 90!”

CHRIS NELSON:

My dad (TJ Nelson) bought me my first piece of beef jerky from Marguerite at THE Floodgate. I was about ten years old (63 now) and will always remember her sweet smile and friendly, neighborly demeanor as she handed the jerky to me across the bar. Chomp! Mmmm! Delicious! I still love beef jerky because of that experience. Then, afterwards, TJ introduced me to a Pardini who was operating heavy equipment on the highway crew out in front of the entrance to The Holmes Ranch before the subdivision began. It was a great day! Thanks Dad!

CATCH OF THE DAY, Sunday, January 14, 2024

PARIS BEACHAM-VANDERPOOL, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

KYLER CASEY, Fort Bragg. Petty theft, disobeying court order, failure to appear.

JORDAN CHARLES, Ukiah. DUI, probation revocation.

VANESSA ELIZABETH, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs, probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

SHELBY EVANS, Laytonville. DUI.

RYAN HILL, Willits. DUI-alcohol&drugs.

JONATHAN LARSEN, Ukiah. Assault with deadly weapon not a gun, petty theft, protective order violation.

TARA MARTINEZ, Redwood Valley. Fraud to obtain aid (over $400).

DYLAN RUMBLE, Willits. Disobeying court order.

KEVIN WORLEY, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

49ERS WILL HOST SEVENTH-SEEDED PACKERS After Green Bay Routs Dallas

by Eric Branch

It has been a constant throughout the years — the San Francisco 49ers and the Green Bay Packers battling in the playoffs. But who saw the record-breaking 10th playoff meeting between the marquee NFL franchises happening this year?

The 49ers (12-5), the top seed in the NFC, will host the Packers next Saturday or Sunday in the divisional round because seventh-seeded Green Bay stunned second-seeded Dallas 48-32 in a wild-card game Sunday.

The Packers (9-8), who are the league’s youngest team, began 3-6 but qualified for the playoffs in Week 18 and will enter Levi’s Stadium on a roll. Including Sunday’s postseason opener, which they entered as seven-point underdogs, they have won seven of their past nine games, led by quarterback Jordan Love.

On Sunday, Love, 25, continued his torrid finish to his first season as a starter by completing 16 of 21 passes for 272 yards and three touchdowns against the league’s fifth-ranked defense. Love posted a 157.2 passer rating and became the fifth QB in NFL history to have three passing touchdowns in his playoff debut.

Love was complemented by running back Aaron Jones, whose fourth straight 100-yard rushing performance included 118 yards and three touchdowns on 21 carries.

In the final eight weeks of the regular season, starting in Week 11, Love led the NFL in passing yards (2,150) and passing touchdowns (18), ranked second in passer rating (112.5) and third in completion percentage (70.3).

When asked earlier this month which teams he’d prefer to avoid in the divisional round, 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan pointed to the NFL’s most vital position.

“If you have your choice, you’d like to avoid the better quarterbacks,” Shanahan said on KNBR. “That’s always the hardest thing in the playoffs is the top quarterbacks. … When you get those guys who are in a good scheme and can get hot, some of those guys, they’re just hard to deal with. No matter how good of a defense you have.”

The 49ers’ latest playoff meeting against the Packers will be their third in the past five seasons, with the 49ers winning the previous two. The franchises’ 10th playoff meeting is the most in NFL history, with three other matchups occurring nine times (49ers vs. Cowboys; Rams vs. Cowboys; Packers vs. Cowboys).

Packers head coach Matt LaFleur spent six seasons with Shanahan as an assistant with Washington (2010-13) and Atlanta (2015-16) when Shanahan was an offensive coordinator. Shanahan has a 3-2 record against LaFleur, including their playoff games.

(SF Chronicle)

LAST YEAR’S CURRENT NEXT HOT TREND

by Tommy Wayne Kramer

Maybe you’re hoping to get in on the Next Big Thing before it’s replaced by a later, newer trend that’s cooler and hotter. 

Heard about Pickleball? 

Pickleball is cutting edge, under the radar, ahead of the curve and it’s right here in Ukiah. And has been for about five years, but last time I was ahead of a curve I was in a ditch along Eastside Talmage Road. (NOTE: Sophisticated newcomers call it Olde Hopland Scenic River Boulevard Way). 

Pickle ball has been sweeping the nation for many years but it took 40 of them to wash it upon the shores of Ukiah. (Hello, Calgary! You’re next!) 

Pickle Ball is all about Baby Boomers, and that makes sense because Swine Generation has authored so much of the hip and hep through the years. Did you miss out on Cabbage Patch dolls, pet rocks, Harvey Wallbangers, Beanie Babies, disco music, bellbottoms, crock pots, Davy Crockett hats, macrame, methamphetamine and mood rings? 

I yearn for new stuff like others yearn for dental surgery. Until recently I typed columns on an old Underwood manual typewriter, and yes I know “old” and “typewriter” is redundant. I had a flip phone until six months ago, and Trophy the wife has already promised me a CB radio for my birthday. 

I discovered Pickle Ball when Sandy Mac Nab told me about it, several times, around 2018. Then a bunch more times in 2019 and 2020 and 2021 until I couldn’t take it anymore and moved to North Carolina where they haven’t invented Pickle Ball. Yet. 

But don’t tell Sandy, an avant-garde trendsetter who’s always ahead of the pack when it comes to spotting and embracing the latest. To wit: Sandy owns a ruined Studebaker, wears wingtip shoes and watches old westerns on black-and-white TV. 

If you’ve ever been bored to coma watching ping pong, then Pickle Ball is definitely something else you should ignore and I plan to, repeatedly. 

Pickle Ball is like ping pong except the playing field is bigger and PB participants move around a little more. Very little more, but what can we expect from AARPsters who ought to be down in Florida showing off their shuffleboard skills, except shuffleboard is too exhausting. So, Pickleball. 

But for action cats like me, who never abandoned our sunglasses, skateboards and backward ball caps, Pickleball is a bit s-s-l-l-o-o-o-w. Next to Pickle Ball, chess is a blur. 

I’ve never seen a real Pickle Ball contest but I’ve heard a lot about the game (Thanks, Sandy!) and have an idea of what’s in store when you head over to the “court” where PBers will “volley” or “score” or “serve” and wheeze and moan and finally collapse because their rotator cuff exploded. Or oxygen mask slipped. Or forgot to eat a bottle of Advil before leaving home. 

If you are considering taking up the sport of Pickle Ball I suggest you do it soon. Who knows the cost of outfitting oneself in proper PB gear, but like everything else the price is certain to increase. 

Pickle Ballers don’t wear team jerseys, shoulder pads and cleats, but I’m sure that between custom rackets, special shoes, mouth guards, knee braces and Advil it all adds up. 

Luckily, Mac Nab’s Menswear in downtown Ukiah has all your Pickle Ball (VOTE FOR GEORGE SANTOS) needs, including matching shirts, shorts, socks, sunglasses, sweatbands (VOTE FOR SANTOS!) and any other paraphernalia the modern day PB player needs. 

The previous message was paid for by the Committee to Elect George Santos Second District Supervisor. 

This has been a brief overview of Pickle Ball, and in no way is meant to minimize the dangers inherent in the game, including heat prostration, loss of dentures, acute embarrassment and liver failure due to over-consumption of Advil, Aleve, fentanyl, Tylenol and other pain relieving products. 

Ask your doctor if Pickle Ball is right for you. 

(Tom Hine and Tommy Wayne Kramer share DNA and chromosome stuff, but one has to do all the writing work and the other just hangs around. Right now they are either in North Carolina or California.)

LONGEVITY: NERF DODGE BALL AND HULA HOOP HAIKU

by Paul Modic

After reading an article about seven keys to longevity, living longer and healthier, I wondered if I should sue my (former?) best friend in small claims court for attempted murder because he refused to stop by anymore, answer my calls, or call me back. (Well, maybe that’s going too far, how about “involuntary psychic manslaughter?”)

I was right there with the first six: getting physical activity, eating fruits and vegetables, getting enough sleep, didn’t smoke or drink, managing chronic conditions (like hypertension, high cholesterol, and pre-diabetes), and cultivating a positive mindset, but I didn’t think I was good enough with the most important one: “prioritizing your relationships.” (“Isolation and loneliness is as big a detriment to our health as smoking, and puts you at a higher risk for dementia, heart disease, and stroke,” the article said.)

Concerning “prioritizing your relationships” the article suggested you ask yourself how many friends or family you’ve seen in the last week. (Does that include phone calls? What about online correspondence like email or social media?) If I say hello to someone in the park does that count? How about a fifteen minute talk with a fellow hiker/walker? (Can I trade in a few short casual encounters on the “relationship ledger,” like four houses for a hotel in Monopoly?) 

Is it time to start going to the neighborhood ping pong game on Fridays for longevity? Make sure I talk to my neighbor occasionally when he goes by walking his dog? Converse with another friend more often in our cars up at the grocery parking lot? Make up with the bratty problem child down the road and visit her once a week? (If someone comes by to work with me on a house project does that count as relationship material?) 

What kind of social activities could be planned to fill this alleged “relationship” gap? I just met a fun couple at the park, should I invite them over and open up my rec room and life for fun energetic activities like basketball? Nerf dodge ball? Non-ecstatic dancing? Would I frigging hula hoop with silly new friends once a week to save my life? (These are important questions, dammit, and if you don’t want to come by I’ll see you in court!)

I should also sue the boring weenies at the community theatre company for ignoring all my dialogs and scripts for their productions, they’re killing me softly with their blanket rejections of my submissions so why shouldn’t they freaking pay? When I win it will probably bankrupt them, I doubt they have an extra hundred bucks in the bank, and I don’t care! (A little bitter there,’ol boy? --Editor)

Who else can I sue for attempted murder, involuntary manslaughter, and neglect, for withholding life-enhancing conversation and company? How about my favorite cousin who lives nearby, she never comes by, except twice a year to bring me a pie. Hey, that rhymes, I’m a poet! Let’s start a poetry group, Haiku only. (No action is too extreme when it’s a matter of my life or death, except all she does is complain about everything so that could interfere with #5, “cultivating a positive mindset.”)

With all these court appearances I’m going to have a lot more social contact and make new friends, right? Maybe the process server I hire to deliver the court papers could be my new friend, and I could play golf with the judge and try to bribe him with a big bag of worthless buds? (Even the court bailiff might get a kick out of my important lawsuits and we could become fast friends, at least for the laughs?)

Sure, I suppose there’s always the laughingly minuscule and remote possibility that the judge may throw out my lawsuits as frivolous but can anyone honestly say that my health and well being is frivolous? Pardon me if I want to be healthy, wealthy, and wise, pardon me if I feel I need to hold these “no account” fake friends to account, and thereby pack my pockets with more filthy lucre. (Since most of them are very poor and on SSI there’s probably a way to garnish their scammy “wages” and make them think twice before they attempt passive murder on my chance for a healthy old age, by withholding their very presence from me.) 

Jeez, am I such a terrible and boring person that you just can’t bring yourself to visit me, and thus help extend my life? Oh hell, just join “Team Paul” and I’ll drop the legal proceedings! Otherwise…(Hey dude, what’s wrong? Sounds like you miss the company of the long-gone trimmers, eh? --Editor)

I just ran into the neighbor walking his dog out on the road and we talked for twenty minutes so I guess I won’t have to sue him, along with everyone else, in my reverse class-action effort. I am afraid my “Trial of Everyone Avoiding Me” could inevitably turn into an intervention, with the tables turned. Then I become the victim of all those heartless smartphone addicts who don’t need me anymore, as long as they have that blue light, and the universe, glowing in their hands. (Fat chance and slim chance, no one loves me enough to do an intervention, which I would welcome for the added social contact, si?)

That gives me another good idea: maybe it’s time to sue Apple, Google, and the other smartphone manufacturers, after all, they have created this mentality where people don’t need or want real social contact anymore, right? (It seems unnecessary as long as they have their little radiation-delivery devices plastered against what’s left of their brains.)

And then I got to the last sentence of the article which said, “If you have to pick one healthy practice for longevity do some version of physical activity.” Yes! I’m all over that one with my daily hikes, and am calling off the snarling dogs of litigious resentment and going to the park! 

(An hour after typing that last sentence I ran into the friendly upbeat woman I had met at the park on Christmas. We walked and talked for half an hour, while her three-legged dog ran ahead of us, and I showed her some of the trails, as she was new to the park. As we traipsed across the wide wet field it started raining, and when we got to the the parking lot I extended my hand for a parting fist bump, which she ignored and wrapped her arms around me in an exuberant hug...Damn, things are looking up, could Nerf dodgeball and hula hoop Haiku be in my future?) 

"Wow, it’s Friday night, what are you going to do? Just sit there? Well, yeah. Because there’s nothing out there. It’s stupidity. Stupid people mingling with stupid people. Let them stupidify themselves. I’ve never been bothered with the need to rush out into the night. That’s all. Sorry for all the millions, but I’ve never been lonely. I like myself. I’m the best form of entertainment I have."

— Charles Bukowski

WHY SOCIALISM IS GOOD

Editor,

Many critics of socialism claim that our nature as humans is too flawed and selfish for socialism to work. They’re getting things exactly backward. We need socialism to protect against human cruelty and encourage human kindness.

https://jacobin.com/2023/07/socialism-capitalism-human-nature-inequality-greed

The exact degree to which human nature is inherently selfish or selfless, and how much that depends on our circumstances, is a complicated empirical question that touches on fields ranging from sociology to evolutionary psychology. It can’t be answered from the armchair.

But whatever our degree of selfishness, it’s not a reason to throw up our hands and accept capitalism as the best humanity can do. Instead, it’s a reason to oppose capitalism and strive for collective and democratic institutions that can limit the damage that cruel people are in a position to do to one another.

The core of socialism is economic democracy. Whether we’re talking about decision-making in an individual workplace or bigger decisions with a broad impact on the course of society, socialists think that everyone who’s impacted should have a say.

One of the reasons that’s so important is precisely that giving anyone too much power over their fellow human beings creates the danger that their power will be abused. No system is perfect, of course, but the best recipe for minimizing the possibility of abuse as much as possible is to spread around power — political and economic — as much as possible.

That’s part of why democratic socialists reject the idea that an authoritarian one-party state can be trusted to act on behalf of the people. And it’s an excellent reason to reject capitalism — a system where there’s no pretense that economic power is in the hands of the people rather than whoever happens to have enough money to buy up the means of production.

If humans were all selfless angels, we wouldn’t need to worry about them treating each other the way Jeff Bezos treats the workers at his warehouses or the way Harvey Weinstein treated aspiring actresses. We wouldn’t need to worry about what will become of families who fall into poverty, because we’d trust that people who have more will always act individually to offer a helping hand. We wouldn’t need to worry about the wealthy abusing their political influence, because we’d trust them to take everyone’s interests into account.

If we were angels, in other words, replacing capitalist institutions with socialist ones would be unnecessary. But we’re deeply flawed human beings — capable of moral greatness, to be sure, but also capable of all kinds of cruelty. And that’s exactly why we need socialism.

Carol Mattessich

Fort Bragg

MATT TAIBBI AND WALTER KIRN ON TRUMP

Matt Taibbi: I have a piece that’s probably coming soon. I reached out to a couple of professional comics to talk about that Borscht Belt aspect to his delivery, because it seems to have developed a lot since he first went out on the trail. I definitely got the pro wrestling vibe the first time.

Walter Kirn: Right.

Matt Taibbi: But now, he does that shtick so much that, “Hey, have you heard about this? Have you seen this? That whole thing that you would get at a Don Rickles roast. He’s got a lot of Henny Youngman in his act, but we’ll get to that later. But it’s really effective, what he’s doing and they just don’t have an answer for it.

Walter Kirn: I think it comes down to what we call rapport. He’s developed a rapport with his supporters, and with the people, and with the undecideds too. You might dislike him, but it’s hard to resist reacting to some of this stuff, and being brought in by it. It’s showmanship at a high level, but not only is it showmanship, it seems to have political meaning because it goes with what he’s saying, which is, “It’s you and me against the Borg. It’s you and me against the fancy people. It’s you and me against the press,” and creating that sense that... You’re right: when Hillary looks down on the deplorables, and Trump takes their side, and there’s a warmth and us versus them that has continued to work, and I think will continue to work. And there’s no equivalent. Biden does attempt sometimes in his grandpa way to talk directly to people as though we both...

Matt Taibbi: He does, but he’s got no game, you know what I mean? The last thing I’ll say is that all of this hype about Trump being a fascist or Hitler, you see him in person, the first thing you think is, “This isn’t Hitler,” right? Unless it’s the Springtime for Hitler version of Hitler who was meandering and kind of funny because he went on too long. He’s not Hitler. He may be dangerous-

Walter Kirn: Hitler wasn’t funny, Matt

Matt Taibbi: Yeah.

Walter Kirn: Let’s just put the whole thing to rest right now: the Hitler meme doesn’t work because Hitler wasn’t funny, and Trump is.

Matt Taibbi: Right. No, there may be something else going on that’s dangerous, but he’s not that, and I think that my big insight about Trump has always been that he does not think like a politician. He looked at the campaign the way a businessperson would look at it like, “This show sucks and I’m going to rush in and I’m going to be great at it. I’m going to give this show everything that it needs,” and the way I compare it to is like a guy running on the decks of the Queen Mary with a box full of antibiotics to sell to vacationing aristocrats with the clap. You can’t lose in this market, right?

With a really bad reality show, which is what the campaign has been forever, it’s been dying for a candidate who is good off the cuff, doesn’t lie, and connects genuinely with audiences. You’ve seen some of the candidates do one or two of the three, I would argue. I do remember watching Kucinich: Kucinich had great rapport with his crowds, which weren’t huge, but that’s because he was straight with them: he would open up discussions and it was going to a good college class. But we’re selling McDonald’s cheeseburgers here. Trump is going for the very big audience, and like a person who does that for a living, he saw what the big weakness was in this whole thing, and he’s really good at it. Whatever else his weaknesses might be as a politician, he’s good at the thing.

Walter Kirn: So we’re looking forward to a campaign in which only Trump is really going to be doing it, campaigning. Incumbents don’t traditionally do a lot of campaigning in the primaries, right?

Matt Taibbi: It depends if they like it, yeah.

Walter Kirn: But Biden doesn’t look like he’s gearing up for a lot of it.

Matt Taibbi: Well, they can’t let him campaign.

Walter Kirn: Right, so there’s not going to be a campaign on the other side because remember, and I think this is underappreciated point: without Bernie, without a challenge from his left, without a populist candidate to arouse passions and drama, there isn’t really going to be a Democratic side to this thing for quite a while until the convention. And maybe there will be some drama then if Biden’s not well or something, but it’s going to be all Trump all the time for a while now. And not only is he going to be campaigning, he’s also going to be on the news as the defendant Trump and as the plaintiff trump to the Supreme Court and so on. So, I can’t imagine a more dominant position in terms of coverage for somebody who’s not the president himself.

Matt Taibbi: Yeah, it’s going to be tough for Biden. I don’t know. They can’t have him go out there and extemporaneously campaign and debates are going to be very difficult. If they let him actually debate Trump, that’s going to be tough. Then, have to deal with the RFK and Cornell West factors. They’re going to be in this race, they’re going to be taking anywhere from 5 to 15 points away from somebody.

Walter Kirn: Well, and there’s a very good point too: RFK, even though he’s running outside the party apparatus because they screwed him as far as his ballot access and his ability to compete in the primaries and so on, he could just run as the Democratic candidate, essentially by any other name. He could just fill that role if he wanted to. I guess that would require him to start running against Trump specifically, maybe.