Mendocino County Today: Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2024

Puddles | Partly Sunny | Bluff Collapse | Eleanor Adams | Gualala Fire | Hit-and-Runner | Ed Notes | East Ukiah | Supe Disgrace | Boycott Signs | Beware Georgina | Vote Val | Abandoning Landlines | Country Bench | Rained Out | Buddha Gate | Seed Exchange | Yesterday's Catch | Spare Key | Muteable | Pulsation Echo | Fan Tension | Church State | Salvation | Resignation | Cablecar View | Sasquatch Sunset | Big Words | Bully Boy | Early Basketball | Institutionalizing Trumpism | Misery Turds | Netanyahu No | Gus' Cafe | Whack | Critics | Golden Gate | Napalm | Glass Boys

WET WEATHER will return tonight and persist into Wednesday night. A break is forecast for Thursday before a windier and wetter storm arrives on Friday. Wet and unsettled weather is forecast into Saturday followed another break Sunday. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): Late afternoon showers yesterday brought .22" of rainfall. I have a drizzly/cloudy 54F on the coast this Tuesday morning. Mostly dry today, rain tomorrow then dry on Thursday. We have a chance of "sneaker waves" along the coast so be careful near the shore. Rain Friday & Saturday.

FORT BRAGG BLUFF COLLAPSES ALONG POPULAR HIKING TRAIL

A City of Fort Bragg official has confirmed that a section of bluff collapsed in the area of the Pomo Bluffs on Todd's Point.

https://mendofever.com/2024/01/22/fort-bragg-bluff-collapses-along-popular-hiking-trail/

ELEANOR ADAMS, 1940-2024

Eleanor was born in England during World War II, and came to the USA after meeting and marrying her husband in England in 1962.

She quickly settled into life in Berkeley, California raising her two young daughters and embracing both the art and the culture that was all around her at the time.

In 1974 Eleanor came to the Mendocino area with her two daughters where she became a part of the burgeoning textile “scene.” Participating in The Mendocino Art Center Textile Apprenticeship Program was pivotal as it enabled her to pursue her life as a weaver and textile designer and make many lifelong friendships within a tightly knit community. 

In addition to being deeply involved with textiles, Eleanor was also part of the emerging restaurant and fine dining movement along the Mendocino Coast. As a vital member of the kitchen staff she first worked at the Café Beaujolais in Mendocino and later at Harbor House in Elk.

She later became involved in Pacific Textile Arts in Fort Bragg, as a Founding Member, which enabled her to continue her love of textiles and be part of a vibrant community that reaches well beyond “The Coast.” And it was her request that in lieu of flowers, people make donations to Pacific Textile Arts (pacifictextilearts.org) to ensure this community she helped to build stays strong and continues to grow.

Eleanor is survived by her brother, Ted Percy, her daughters, Kate Adams Bevc (husband Dimitri) and Ruth Adams, her granddaughter Tyler Adams, and her former husband, Jim Adams. 

She will be greatly missed.

GUALALA BOATHOUSE/TRAVEL TRAILER BURNS DOWN

The Boathouse finally went up in a blaze of glory Sunday night. Burned out cars and more. Info a bit sketchy at this point, and so many response units there that it is difficult to grab any photos.

This is reportedly the second fire, the first one reported on Saturday night. The property is owned by a guy named Cullen who had spent some felonious time in Humboldt County.

Gualala Boathouse background: https://theava.com/archives/98629#4

(Randy Burke)

BOSTICK BUSTS A POLE & A POOL

On Thursday, January 18, 2024, at approximately 3:30 pm, Ukiah Police Department (UPD) Officers were dispatched to a hit-and-run traffic collision at the Days Inn, 950 North State Street. Upon arrival, Officers saw extensive damage to a parked vehicle, trees and a structure belonging to the City of Ukiah and Days Inn. Officers learned the suspect vehicle was northbound on North State Street when it veered to the left, crossed over all lanes of traffic and collided with a vehicle that was parked at the west curb of North State Street. The vehicle then crossed over the sidewalk and uprooted two trees. One of the trees had a trunk diameter of 8-9 inches and was snapped off approximately 2-feet above the root ball. The vehicle then crossed into the parking lot of Days Inn and collided with the pool house, causing structural damage. 

The Officers at the scene recognized the involved vehicle, which was a red, 2004 Chevrolet Avalanche. Officers knew this vehicle was involved in a previous hit and run that occurred two weeks prior. Officers knew the driver and owner of the vehicle was a John Bostick and he was arrested for the previous hit and run in the area of Lake Mendocino Drive. Officers suspected Bostick was also responsible for this hit and run as well. 

Officers reviewed the security footage from the Days Inn and spoke to witnesses. Officers were able to confirm Bostick was the driver of the Chevrolet Avalanche from security footage. Officers responded to the Lake Mendocino Drive area to search for Bostick. UPD Detectives driving an unmarked vehicle saw Bostick walking northbound on the railroad tracks at Lake Mendocino Drive and detained him. Bostick was interviewed, arrested and booked at the Mendocino County Jail for misdemeanor hit and run. 

ED NOTES

THAT FRIGHTENING incident last week in Ukiah saw a sex-maddened homeless man chase three teenage girls down the street, and I won't say in hot pursuit because there was nothing funny about the episode. It’s one more example of how free range criminals not only destroy public space but torque upwards community anxiety. Ukiah needs to at last deploy the Marbut recommendations which, boiled down, translate to care and rehab for local indigents, transients sent on their way up or down Highway 101.

WE will recall that it was the Ukiah-based helping professionals who sabbed Marbut's commonsense recommendations out of pure self-interest, in my opinion. No homeless, no jobs for us, perish the mercenary thought. 

I THOUGHT John McCowen was correct in his comments to the Ukiah City Council, and it’s obvious to anyone who visits Ukiah as I do once a week, the “homeless” are wayyyyyyy outta hand. That incident with Mr. Perv chasing the teenage girls ought to wake up even the town's invisible city manager, Seldom Seen Sage Sangiacomo.

ON THE SUBJECT of sex mania, I received an e-mail this morning that began, “Dear Pervert,” and went on to say that they've hacked into my computer and learned all about my felonious interests. If I don't pay up they'll expose me. A more credulous recipient of this threat, or merely a regular visitor to porn sites, might suffer some serious anxiety, but as a newspaper person where threats are a way of life…

WHENEVER BORDER CHAOS is mentioned, which is often in these devolving days, I recall Mr. Sotolongo, a gift of the Cuban government who'd made his way to Ukiah, circa 2000. Sotolongo was one of the many criminals unloaded on the U.S. by Castro during the Mariel Boatlift of the Carter presidency. 

WHEN Sotolongo stabbed his girlfriend to death on a Ukiah street back in 2000 he was described benignly by local media as a “Cuban immigrant.” Non-hysterical news sites are claiming that the Venezuelan government is presently sending its criminals and mental cases north to the Mexican border and on into the United States. In the mean time, we have plenty of our own product wandering the streets of Ukiah.

THE MARIEL BOATLIFT began when Castro announced to his restive population, “You want to leave, leave.” And a bunch of Cubans left by boat for Miami, among them Scarface starring Al Pacino. And Sotolongo who had the telltale tattoo between his right thumb and forefinger, the tattoo that informed the cops of the Spanish-speaking world exactly who they were dealing with. (Tattooing criminals went way back in Spanish history.)

AMONG the Mariel immigrants, we will recall, Castro distributed a large number of his most ominous criminals, emptying onto the beaches of Miami a number of men straight out of Cuba's maximum security prisons. When some of these boys reached the Big Apple, even our native born psychos complained that the Cubans were a great leap forward in the pointless violence sweepstakes.

SOTOLONGO arrived in Miami with the telltale tat prior to immigration authorities understanding what the tat meant. He had been in trouble virtually since the day he arrived in the US, and on a Wednesday afternoon in Ukiah he stabbed his girlfriend, Rosemary Morales, to death in front of the old Foster Freeze. 

HE was fresh out of the County Jail when he committed his public murder. He'd been jailed for beating the doomed woman then chasing her and her two children out into the street with a meat cleaver. For that episode, Sotolongo got four-and-a-half months and probation, meaning time served in his case. Someone in Ukiah's numerous helping professions decided Sotolongo wouldn't need the anger management classes taught by the purple therapists or the marriage counseling from divorced hippies. 

IT WAS DECIDED that Sotolongo didn't need anything but freedom, so he was out of jail fully rested up for another round of mayhem. For chasing his girlfriend — also described chastely as a “troubled person” — and her two children around with a cleaver in an attempt to murder them, Sotolongo was found guilty of one charge of behaving in an unseemly manner in the presence of a child, i.e., promising the kid that if he caught him he'd decapitate him. And then he murdered their mother in front of the breakfast crowd at Foster Freeze.

THE KILLER had been drawing SSI payments for a vague physical problem that didn't seem to affect his knife hand. Official Ukiah took turns blaming one or another of the agencies supposedly counseling Sotolongo, and I bring it all up because there are versions of Sotolongo in Ukiah to this day, and one of them chased three girls up the street the other afternoon, visions of rape and rapine dancing through his depraved head.

CARL STENBERG:

I was at the meeting Jan 9th when the Veterans Office Relocation was protested. The Board of Supervisors are a disgrace. “Mo” seems to have no regard for the Veterans of our county. It was her district that she allowed this to happen in. Haschak is the same. He acts as if he is mediating but there is no compromise. He admits “mistakes” were done but there is no accountability for those who blatantly made them. Are only the lower ranks held accountable? It would have only taken one of the supes to put a hold on this horrible decision. Not one would stand up and do the right thing. Dan Gjerde, who is not running for reelection, had nothing to lose. He could have gone out of office knowing he had done right. He sat there with his eyes downcast. It’s time to move the Veterans back to their office . DO THE RIGHT THING

PHIL ZWERLING: 

Hand made “Boycott Fort Bragg” signs have sprouted south of town. The signs bear no attribution and offer no reason for a boycott.

As Board President of Change Our Name Fort Bragg let me assure everyone that while we certainly do want to change the name of our town we also want our local economy and local businesses to thrive. We do not support a boycott.

GIGI DOES KZYX, an on-line comment: 

I truly hope all in the 4th district are listening to KZYX right now. If anyone thinks they support GiGi (Georgina Avila-Gorman) you are in for a wake-up call. She literally knows nothing. When asked about the county budget she was waiting to get it from the City of Fort Bragg (?). Asked about anything she says she won't answer that question. I have never heard anything quite like this. Like mind blowing ignorance is the only way can I can assess this interview. 

To hear the interview go to KZYX’s Jukebox webpage and click on the recording for Monday, January 22 at 9am.

AT&T IS ATTEMPTING TO STOP MAINTAINING OUR LANDLINES

To all concerned community members:

I received a letter from ATT/California Public Utilities Commission referring to: ”application number 23-03-003 regarding the application of ATT California for relief of its carrier of last resort obligation.”

I googled “application number 23-03-003 regarding the application of “ATT California for relief of its carrier of last resort obligation” and found that AT&T is attempting to stop maintaining our landlines (A2303003, ATT relief from its carrier of last resort obligation).

I don’t know if you received the letter from AT&T/California Public Utilities Commission regarding AT&T’s submittal of this application, BUT ATT is attempting to stop offering services which would support our landlines.

If you did receive the letter, then you know that we need to start a campaign to write, call, go online and go to the Ukiah meetings at the Board of Supervisors on February 22. I have also reached out to Ed O’Brien, Michael Rees and the Fort Bragg fire department chief because this is a very serious matter, a SAFETY matter.

As you know, many of us continue to have a landline because our cell phones do not have appropriate broadband connections for voice calls. Also, we live rurally! To not have a landline is a huge SAFETY issue for elders, those with disabilities, families that don’t have broadband at home, and those with poor cell phone capability, which is most of us. Our community and the communities around us would be in danger. For example, if one of us no longer had our landline and a fire started, how are we supposed to call 911? The fire could spread because the fire department could not be called. Or, if a child comes home from school early and the parents are still working and there’s a problem, how is this child supposed to get a hold of the parents? Or, if a person is elderly or disabled, and the phone is one of the only ways this person can reach out, what do they do if they do not have their phone? This could be a situation for great depression or suicide. Or what about a medical emergency? And what about when the power goes out?

The California Public Utilities Commission will make the final decision and writing the CPUC or going online and completing the online survey is essential if you cannot get to Ukiah for the in-person meeting on Feb 22. I wrote a letter because the online survey seemed unnecessarily complicated.

I hope we will join together to build a community action to protect our landlines which offer safety to our citizens. I will continue to reach out to different groups and get the ball rolling. I contacted Jared Huffman and Ted Williams. You can contact them, too!

1. There are two public hearings on February 22 in Ukiah. The first is 2:00 PM and the other is 6:00 PM at the Board of Supervisor’s Chambers.

2. You can also remotely participate on March 19 at 2:00 PM or 6:00 PM: https://adminmonitor.com/ca/cpuc/hearing/202403192

Toll-free phone number 1-800-857-1917 code 6032788#

3. You can make a written public comment on the on online comment site: http://apps.cpuc.ca.gov/c/A2303003

Also check out A2303002.

4. You can write a letter (that’s what I did): CPUC Public Advisor’s Office 505 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94102 Phone: 1.866.849.8390 or 1.415.703.2074

Please let me know if I can provide you with any other information. Google the information that I provided above to learn more or: https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Efile/G000/M521/K479/521479667.PDF

For the safety of our communities, we must ALL get involved.

Thank you very much, 

Melissa Hays, Albion, melissa@mcn.org 

OH THE PEOPLE I’d like to sit and talk to on this bench.

RAINED OUT

CANCELLED: Good Buy Clothes Month-end Sale: January 27, 2024

Due to a leak from the recent rains in our rented building, we must cancel the January month-end sale as some merchandise was ruined and the carpeting soaked. We have been working on drying it out, but it's unlikely with the additional forecast rains that the building will be dry by Saturday.

We will issue a separate announcement of our next sale day.

Thank you!

The Volunteers of Good Buy Clothes

GRAFT, YES! CORRUPTION, NO!

The Seed and Scion Exchange is revived! Dedicated to the memory of Mark Albert, on February 24, 2024 the 38^th Winter Abundance Gathering will happen at the AV Solar Grange from 10 a.m.-3:00 p.m., rain or shine. Come to find local seeds, scions to improve your fruit trees, rootstock to build new trees, and plants to add to your garden to grow your own food.

David Ulmer will give a class on fruit tree grafting 101; Jeff Creque will lead an interactive discussion around soil, compost, carbon, and climate; Julia Dakin will discuss local seeds for local food; Matt Drewno will impart the basics of seed saving, and Patrick Schafer will demonstrate advanced grafting techniques. You can also sign up for a hands-on grafting clinic with an experienced grafter.

Seed and scion exchange, classes and grafting clinics are all free. Bring your labeled favorite scions, cuttings, and plants to share. Fruit tree rootstock, food, and beverages will be for sale. The event is now brought to you by Anderson Valley Foodshed and The Cloud Forest Institute; donations welcome. For more information and specific details about how to select scion wood go to www.avfoodshed.com/winter-abundance-fair. To volunteer to help at the event contact Lama at aforestperson@gmail.com.

(Barbara Goodell)

CATCH OF THE DAY, Monday, January 22, 2024

GABRIELLA GARCIA, Ukiah. Domestic battery.

ALEXANDER KLIMASZEWSKI, Stockton/Ukiah. Battery with serious injury, trespassing.

RYAN MITCHELL, Fort Bragg. Under influence.

COLIN ROACH, Gualala. Failure to appear.

SLEEP MODE? TIME DISPLACEMENT.

Dear Editor,

This morning sunshine lol, not even wishful thinking.

However coming out of the Dollar Store ($1.25) it was in my face, a full on displace of I didn’t recognize my car. I know this isn’t much but I hope to keep a spare key in my pocket. Thank you so much for your newspaper.

Sincerely yours 

Greg Crawford

Fort Bragg

SO YOU'RE 90; WHAT'S NEXT: WHAT WORKS?

by Greg Sims

Normally I avoid football games, not because I don't care, but because I care too much. But my friend and his wife Benna me to come over and have a bite to eat at half time. This addiction has a long history and perhaps some of it is relevant to finding a “what works” path.

Go back in history to the end of the war when cars were again manufactured and sold in the US. I bought a pre-war Packard as the older cars were no longer top dollar. I had a bank account burning a hole in my pocket and I spotted a car in a used car lot, a Packard from the pre-war 40s. It took all the money I had and ate up what new earnings I might get. So I was always broke. 

On one weekend day I didn't have any money and nothing to do. So I tuned into a minor league baseball game, the Hollywood Stars and the old Angels (with their home run hitter, Steve Bilko. It was the ninth inning and the Angels were leading 1-0. I instantly decided I wanted, really wanted (to relieve the boredom) for the Angels to win a nail biter. And they did. The boredom was gone! 

I barely had enough gas to get home, but did so in a good mood. What was that? It didn't matter; my team won! 

Seventy-five years later I spent the night using my personal way of avoiding the looming defeat of my team, the 49ers. But they didn't lose. Brock Purdy & Co. pulled it out. And I'm still asking “What was that?” It is a serious question.

I'm not planning to present you with a diagnosis with numbers. Rather, is there something that works so I could have a conversation with my hosts, not just to avoid the pain in the other room with her husband? 

I'll skip the diagnosis and get to something I mentioned before, I began with a “pulsation echo.” When they take my pulse at the clinic, they're using a physical echo generated by our heart. This function has been with me for more than 90 years and I'm very fond of it. Without it I wouldn't (won't) be here. So I'm just setting the table (so to speak). It wouldn't be as helpful without what I call “the breath of life.”

For a number of years I was an asthmatic. It started when I was in the Navy (similarly bored) on Treasure Island doing personnel work. I didn't know what it was until I went to the clinic and saw a doc. He didn't give me a diagnosis right away, but gave me a shot of adrenaline and it went away. But it came back and required that I learn about regulated breathing. So I've worked on this foundation for some years and together with my breath of life pulsation I have a foundation for the next step, a self-other compass put an “ion” ending on it and I have self-other compassion. 

So when QB Purdy looks like he deserved to be a very last draft pick, the game goes in the background and pulse, breathing and compassion for all of us has a biological support which Henry David Thoreau discovered long ago: “All he could think of is to let his mind descend into his body and redeem it and treat himself with ever-increasing respect. (End of ‘Higher Laws’ in ‘Walden’).

So my friend is agonizing about a porous (supposedly great) defense and I'm feeling my pulse echo breathing “the breath of life” and compassionately “allowing my mind to descend into my body” and living my own life somewhat marginally. While this might be material for a comedian, it works because as Thoreau pointed out treating my bodymind with respect and enjoying the way the team came together at the end. It is never too late to find our way home.

Wishing you well.

ALL OF US LAST SATURDAY AFTERNOON

WHAT THE HELL?

I was looking for an obscure reference that Google said I could find in this issue of the Congressional Record (June 27, 2002). It begins with a prayer referring to “a free Nation under God by Your divine will and grace.” I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, then, that the separation of church and state is nearly non-existent, and that churches are tax exempt in this day and age. (Yeah, I know, I should probably pay more attention to the real Washington, D.C., but I cannot stomach the entirety of mainstream media. If it were not for the AVA, I would probably be eating my own hair in some Napa State Hospital ward.)

I recall when, a number of years ago, the City of Clearlake accepted (encouraged, more like) such an invocation to preceed their official council meetings, and enough of us objected until they dropped that practice. There are still a massive number of “religious” individuals running our cities and the county governments, and they were not pleased to hear that their devotions were not welcome to some of their more vocal constituents. Bad enough that our largest medical service provider (Adventist) insists on delivery of their questionable gifts along with “God’s love.” Welcome to the Blue Zone, the Pink Zone, and the Cuckoo’s Nest.

Betsy Cawn

Upper Lake

“Writing was never work for me. It had been the same for as long as I could remember: turn on the radio to a classical music station, light a cigarette or a cigar, open the bottle. The typer did the rest. All I had to do was be there. The whole process allowed me to continue when life itself offered very little, when life itself was a horror show. There was always the typer to soothe me, to talk to me, to entertain me, to save my ass. Basically that's why I wrote: to save my ass, to save my ass from the madhouse, from the streets, from myself.” 

― Charles Bukowski

AS LONG AS I LIVE under the capitalistic system, I expect to have my life influenced by the demands of moneyed people. But I will be damned if I propose to be at the beck and call of every itinerant scoundrel who has two cents to invest in a postage stamp.

This, sir, is my resignation.

— William Faulkner, letter to the Postmaster General, October 1924

JESSE EISENBERG AND RILEY KEOUGH WENT TO A NORCAL ‘APE CAMP’

SFGATE culture editor Dan Gentile asked Eisenberg about his prep for ‘Sasquatch Sunset’

by Dan Gentile

PARK CITY, Utah — The Northern California legend of the Sasquatch has spread throughout the world, but despite several notable film adaptations (and a true crime investigation), there’s never been a movie that’s captured the otherworldly strangeness of the original 1967 Patterson–Gimlin film that fueled the Bigfoot legend. 

It doesn’t get much more otherworldly or strange than “Sasquatch Sunset,” a Sundance premiere directed by Nathan and David Zellner (“Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter,” “Kid-Thing”). The film was shot in remote areas of Eureka, with one scene at what appears to be the Bigfoot Discovery Museum. Scored by veteran Austin band The Octopus Project, the 89-minute film has no dialogue, but lots of grunting, poop throwing and humping from stars Jesse Eisenberg ("The Social Network," "Fleishman Is in Trouble"), Riley Keough ("Daisy Jones and the Six"), David Zellner and Christophe Zajac-Denek ("Twin Peaks"). 

“What we’ve always loved about the Sasquatch and Bigfoot lore is the way it represents the gray area between human and animal behavior," David Zellner said in an introduction to the Sundance premiere. "And the way that it’s so relatable. We were familiar with the obvious footage of Bigfoot walking in the distance, and we would always joke about the other things — what else is it doing?”

Despite the star power, the actors are unrecognizable under layers of heavy prosthetics. Emoting without dialogue and doing those often campy and sometimes poignant “other things” required a crash course in animal behavior: an “ape camp” which began online and continued in Eureka over the course of a week before filming began.

“It started on Zoom, with us lumbering around and trying to move in an ape-like, half-ape, half-man kind of way. It was just super fun," Zajac-Denek told SFGATE on the Sundance red carpet. “There was one moment when Lorin [Eric Salm], our motion guy, asked us to just place a shoe on the ground and approach a shoe as a Sasquatch… It was a great exercise to get us in the mental state of not having seen an object before and what would I do with it.”

When SFGATE asked Eisenberg and Keough about ape camp, they noted that learning to eat as a Sasquatch was one of the weirder parts of the experience.

“We ate a lot of vegetables,” Keough said.

“And salmon and leaves,” added Eisenberg.

“Salmon doesn’t sound weird, but it was weird how it was done,” Keough said.

“We were wearing these teeth in the movie, prosthetic teeth," explained Eisenberg. "So we had to learn not only how Sasquatches would ate, but also how to eat with these prosthetics in, which Sasquatches don’t have to worry about. So it just became this very strange process of eating with gloves… By the end of the day, it’s littered with salmon and leaves around the office room.”

The dialogue-free nature of the film will likely make it a divisive watch when it receives a wider release, but the cast does an admirable job of disappearing into their Sasquatch disguises.

As to the veracity of the original 1967 footage and the myth itself, the cast and crew had varying responses when asked by SFGATE if the Sasquatch was real.

“It’s real in our hearts,” David Zellner said.

“I think it can be real. I can believe that it’s real,” said Zajac-Denek.

“Yeah. Obviously,” said Keough.

(sfgate.com)

WILLIAM FAULKNER: Hemingway, he has no courage, has never crawled out on a limb. He has never been known to use a word that might cause the reader to check with a dictionary to see if it is properly used.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don’t know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use. Remember, anybody who pulls his erudition or education on you hasn’t any.

THERE’S NOTHING TO FEAR BUT…

by Marilyn Davin

Fear is critical to every mammal’s survival, including ours. Fear keeps us from sticking our hands in a campfire, staring at the sun, or swimming out into the ocean in the middle of a hurricane. We know that these things could injure or kill us and we avoid them. But there is another type of fear – I’ll call it psychic fear – that permeates much of our modern culture today that is not based on the physical loss of life or limb. It’s the fear of some form of loss, things like losing a job or losing face through public exposure and disgrace. 

Psychic fear is catnip for bullies, who feed upon it with gusto. Merriam-Webster defines a bully as: A blustering, brow-beating person…especially one who is habitually cruel, insulting, or threatening to others who are weaker, smaller, or in some way vulnerable. Bullies are also always on high alert, trolling for the next susceptible victim. 

Take Donald Trump, for example, for whom I have awarded the title of Bully in Chief, who is terrorizing members of his own Republican Party, as crazy as that sounds even as I write it. Trump targets who have displeased him in some way have been and continue to be harassed, sued, and publicly ridiculed, often exposed to live in the maw of the insatiable 24-hour news cycle. The Trump Targets’ fears are not baseless. Trump and his henchmen have targeted congressional districts, trolling to inject novice, seemingly unhinged MAGA candidates into races where they have actually unseated vulnerable incumbents. 

How else could a fool like Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga), who is reportedly lobbying to become Trump’s VP pick in this year’s general election (should the unthinkable come to pass and he emerges as the GOP presidential nominee), possibly have gotten her nut-case self elected, even in a deep-red district in Georgia? Greene said in a Vanity Fair feature that she was encouraged to run (in a district she did not live in) by pro-MAGA House Freedom Caucus members including Reps Jim Jordan and Andy Biggs, starry-eyed Trumpers all.

So why are so many congressional Republicans so scaredy-cat scared of this disgraced, indicted, vindictive, unprincipled buffoon-of-a-bully, who doesn’t even hold elective office anymore? They’re afraid, afraid of his assured retaliation, up to and including losing reelection in their home states. Just ask Liz Cheney, former Wyoming representative and high-profile Trump Target who lost reelection to her House seat in Wyoming to Trump-picked challenger Harriet Hageman in a landslide after calling out Trump for his lies about winning the 2020 election and his provocative actions on January 6. I am a life-long Democrat and rarely read autobiographies of politicians, which I view as a shady subcategory of autobiographies given, tainted by definition by their self-promotional natures. But I read Cheney’s book, which was a fascinating blow-by-blow account of what was happening within the House chamber on January 6. If only a fraction of what Cheney described is true, you’ll never again see Kevin McCarthy or Mike Johnson in the same light (assuming you have any lingering positive views of either man). I also read Mitt Romney’s autobiography, equally well written. Romney has many theories about serving in Congress, of course, including advice to would-be candidates to NOT run for office if they need the salary to pay their mortgages. Elitist, of course, though it goes to the nut of psychic fear, especially if you’re newly elected, perhaps by a less-than-resounding margin, and even more especially if you are sole support for your family and kids. If you fear the consequences of that loss, you’ll probably think twice before poking the Bully in Chief, who could not only destroy your current career but make it difficult to forge a new one from the ashes.

For some reason, many Republicans of the MAGA persuasion still believe, despite two indictments on state charges and two federal indictments (amounting to a total of 91 felony charges), that their man Trump is the blameless victim of a vast Democratic conspiracy. Cold judicial reason has proved to be a blunt instrument against Trump’s hot, sharp, paranoid rhetoric; every legal setback, every new charge against him has inexplicably raised his popularity among Republicans in survey after recent survey. Since the general election is a long way off, this could hopefully change.

The other thing about bullies is that they obsessively nurse their many grievances in the shadows, waiting for the most politically opportune moment to mete out the offender’s punishment. Trump has recently begun to call those imprisoned or charged with crimes stemming from the January 6 Capitol attack as “hostages” instead of the convicted criminals they actually are. He is vowing, to any reporter who will listen to him, to pardon all of those he calls the “J6 hostages.” Revenge and retribution for perceived wrongs against them are the frosting on a bully’s cake – as long as the bully succeeds in defeating them. 

Trump must be soundly defeated by We the People, preferably in the GOP primaries but absolutely if he somehow survives as the GOP presidential candidate in the general election. When you have passionate Trump true believers, our courts alone sadly don’t appear to garner enough public respect to turn the political tide against him. This is as troubling as the specter of Trump as President again. Without the courts, who will make the laws and adjudicate legal procedures that, especially in the case of the U.S. Supreme Court, directly affect every one of us since its decisions become the laws of the land? 

INSIDE THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION’S PLANS FOR ‘INSTITUTIONALIZING TRUMPISM’

“People will lose their jobs,” the think tank’s president says about federal workers. “Hopefully their lives are able to flourish in spite of that.”

Since taking over the Heritage Foundation in 2021, Kevin D. Roberts has been making his mark on an institution that came to prominence during the Reagan years and has long been seen as an incubator of conservative policy and thought. Roberts, who was not well known outside policy circles when he took over, has pushed the think tank away from its hawkish roots by arguing against funding the war in Ukraine, a turnabout that prompted some of Heritage’s policy analysts to leave. Now he’s looking ahead, to the 2024 election and beyond. Roberts told me that he views Heritage’s role today as “institutionalizing Trumpism.” This includes leading Project 2025, a transition blueprint that outlines a plan to consolidate power in the executive branch, dismantle federal agencies and recruit and vet government employees to free the next Republican president from a system that Roberts views as stacked against conservative power. The lesson of Trump’s first year in office, Roberts told me, is that “the Trump administration, with the best of intentions, simply got a slow start. And Heritage and our allies in Project 2025 believe that must never be repeated.”…

nytimes.com/2024/01/21/magazine/heritage-foundation-kevin-roberts.html

NETANYAHU’S RECENT COMMENTS REJECTING TWO STATE SOLUTION

by Bernie Sanders

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu recently said, “In any future arrangement…Israel needs security control of all territory west of the Jordan,” adding that, “I told this truth to our friends, the Americans…the prime minister needs to be able to say no, even to our best friends.”

Prime Minister Netanyahu is right – we do need to be able to say NO to our friends. He has made his position clear: He will never allow a Palestinian state, ever. He will continue his devastating war against innocent Palestinian men, women, and children. He will block the food, water, and medical supplies needed to prevent mass starvation and sickness.

Now, we must make our position clear.

Despite the illegal and inhumane actions of Netanyahu’s government, President Biden has thus far offered unconditional support to Israel. That must change. President Biden must now loudly and clearly say NO to the policies of Netanyahu’s right-wing extremist government. That is what a true friend of Israel must do in this moment.

And Congress must act. There must be no more U.S. military aid to Israel to continue Netanyahu’s war. Humanitarian aid must be immediately allowed to reach those in need. A safe release of all remaining hostages must be negotiated. Israel must work towards a lasting peace that allows two states for two peoples.

If Netanyahu continues down the path of military domination, he must do so alone. The United States cannot be complicit.

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

My new theory is that the CIA people will whack Biden, not Trump. That gets rid of the messy Biden problem AND they can blame a MAGA person for it . They’ve done it before, think they wouldn’t do it again? Disclaimer: I don’t want ANYBODY whacked.

“CRITICS are men who watch a battle from a high place then come down and shoot the survivors.”

— Ernest Hemingway

NAPALM 

The spray of gasoline infused with napalm could travel 300 feet from a tank, much farther than a portable flamethrower could throw it, and with uncanny accuracy. Because it stuck to the skin (imagine having jelly smeared all over your body, only it is burning at a temperature of 1,000 degrees Celsius), the instinctive method of rolling on the ground to put out flames became useless. If people used their hand to wipe the jellied gobs away, they got the gobs all over their hands. The tiniest speck caused excruciating third-degree burns. A larger amount caused fourth- and fifth-degree burns, which went through fat, muscle, and bone. Just as lethal as its flames, the napalm infusion sucked out oxygen in enclosed spaces that had been sealed shut and replaced it with toxic levels of carbon monoxide that poisoned their occupants to death. The Japanese were terrified of nothing except the flamethrowers. Over and over, the possibility of its use was the only thing that caused enemy soldiers to surrender.

US infantry accompanied the flame-throwing tanks at Okinawa, providing fire support and gaining positions at cave openings. Their use in the battle was unprecedented and enormously effective in getting at the caves. Because of the compound’s jelly consistency, it could bounce off a wall and go around corners. Some people it hit were instantly burned to death. Others fled from caves in terror and were instantly picked off by infantry stationed above, what the Japanese referred to-as: the “horse-mounting” technique. Another favored American technique was known as “basting before baking”: in the basting phase a portable flamethrower operator gave two shots of thickened gasoline to ensure that the target was “wetted down”; in the baking phase he fired a third shot to ignite the gasoline and envelop the target in fire.

Jellied incendiaries made of napalm and gasoline changed the Pacific war more than any other invention, which had come courtesy of Harvard University in a chemistry laboratory. Napalm bombs dropped on Tokyo killed nearly 90,000 people during two nights in March of 1945, the flames they caused rising thousands feet high; many people were killed when they jumped into Tokyo Bay, not knowing that the heat had caused it to boil. It was also used on nearly 70 other Japanese cities.

No combatant in World War II used the flamethrower more than the United States, in particular in the Pacific war. Some felt that it was too barbarous and horrifying even for total war. President Roosevelt had banned the use of chemical warfare, but this was chemical warfare because of its poisoning impact. Military personnel and the Chemical Warfare Service argued that the deaths were mercy killings, far quicker than being shot or blasted by high explosives. They claimed it wasn’t the burns that killed a person but the instantaneous systemic shock to the nervous respiratory systems in combination with the searing of the lungs and the carbon monoxide poisoning.

It was only late in the war that comprehensive studies were conducted in which pigs and dogs were anesthetized, fastened to an iron frame in a so-called conflagration room, and then burned to death with gasoline for subsequent autopsy. The studies showed that far from being an instantaneous mercy killing, death by an instrument such as a flamethrower could take several minutes as the body and internal organs were consumed by flames.

Marines and soldiers could sometimes hear screams from inside a cave after the jelly of flame had been sprayed, screams like they had never heard in their lives and would never hear again—except for the ones inside their heads for the rest of their lives.

— Buzz Bissinger, ‘The Mosquito Bowl’