Mendocino County Today: Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2024

Rain Tonight | Brooktrails Lake | Atmospheric River | Successful Fundraiser | Local Park | Attendance Winners | Multiple Stabbing | Questionable Endeavor | Hendy Fungi | Mendo Mental | Sunset Colors | Mendo Syphilis | Music Event | Cases Up | Glass Beach | Ed Notes | Dinner Dance | Permitting Meeting | Cemetery Gewgaw | Governance Aspirations | Lunar Year | Tapestry Exhibit | Yesterday's Catch | PG&E Rates | Press One | Angelheaded Hipsters | Army Recruits | Brain Implant | His QB | Lion Tamer | Pelosi Smears | BBB | Provoking Trump | 7.5% | Martial Joe | Dog Poops

MAINLY DRY WEATHER will continue this morning, although a few light showers or sprinkles are possible along the Humboldt and Del Norte coast. Rain and strong winds are expected to move into the area this evening and overnight with very heavy rain and strong winds by tomorrow. Late in the week, periods of light rain and snow are expected. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A cloudy 54F on the coast this Tuesday morning. Get your firewood in & gas up your generators as a BIG one is heading our way for tomorrow. LOTS of rain & wind on Wednesday, then showers for Thursday & Friday. More rain in the long range forecast.

WIND ADVISORY remains in effect from 7 pm this evening to 1 pm Wednesday. (NWS)

FLOOD WATCH: A strong atmospheric river is expected to bring heavy rain Tuesday afternoon through early Thursday morning bringing six to ten inches of rainfall across the area. (NWS)

A ‘SUBSTANTIAL’ ATMOSPHERIC RIVER WILL SOAK THE WEST COAST THIS WEEK

Extreme rainfall and heavy snow is (again) forecast across the West.

by Judson Jones

Another atmospheric river will arrive in the northwestern United States on Tuesday, bringing excessive rain and mountain snow down the entire West Coast as it drifts south through Thursday.

A plume of deep moisture that will move into Northern California on Wednesday and into Southern California on Thursday has the potential to bring excessive rain that could lead to flash flooding. Forecasters with the Weather Prediction Center are already highlighting potential risk areas for Wednesday and Thursday, including northern portions of the San Francisco Bay Area on Wednesday and Los Angeles on Thursday.

California hasn’t been hit with the same level of atmospheric rivers this season as it did last year, when the state experienced the longest stretch of continuous atmospheric river conditions in the 70 years that records have been collected on these events. With nine back-to-back atmospheric rivers from December 2022 through January 2023, farmlands turned into lakes and snow piled up well above homes in the Sierra.

This midweek storm is expected to be moderate in intensity, but another possible storm on the heels of this one could escalate the situation.

“We could very well receive February’s total normal precipitation within the month’s first five days,” forecasters from the National Weather Service’s office in San Diego wrote early Monday morning.

Here’s what to know about the timing.

Monday: A much weaker atmospheric river makes landfall in British Columbia, and some rain falls in the Pacific Northwest.

Tuesday: The more robust storm, which forecasters in Seattle have called “a more substantial atmospheric river system,” arrives late in the Pacific Northwest. With recent heavy rains, stream and river flooding are possible.

Wednesday: The main stream of heavy precipitation is pointed at Northern California. The worst conditions are expected from the northern Bay Area to the Oregon-California border.

Thursday: The bulk of heavy precipitation drifts south into the Los Angeles region, with rainfall arriving in Southern California later in the day.

The slower the storm moves, the more precipitation will fall. As of Monday morning, forecasters believe it will be a quicker-moving storm, easing some of the rain totals that could pile up and lowering the potential risk for flash flooding.

In the beginning, this will be a warmer storm, confining snow levels to higher elevations, but colder air will return as the storm moves through.

There is high confidence that the Sierra will receive over a foot of snow with this storm. The highest peaks are likely to get even three times that amount.

Next week’s storm

Another storm could hit California late this weekend into next week. But there is significant uncertainty on its potential impact this far out.

(nytimes.com)

THE AV SENIOR CENTER Crab Feed last weekend was sold out in advance, and score another big win for the Senior Center's popular director, Renee Lee.

---

BIG THANKS TO STUDENT HELP WITH CRAB FEED

These students were incredible! They were hard working, polite, took direction well and did it all with a smile and sense of humor. Even the few who didn’t know me were friendly and conversational.  We could not have put on this highly successful event without them. Literally!  Arthur Folz was tremendous help and managed the students like a pro.

I understand they made a nice amount of money in tips. They were worth every penny.  The senior center was able to raise a generous amount of revenue that will help us continue to serve meals and provide transportation to our local senior citizens. 

— Elizabeth Wyant

APOLOGIES FOR THE EXTENDED DELAY in reopening the swing area of our local park & playground. Errors were made during installation of two new elements that halted further work and will need correction before we can safely invite families to engage with the elements in this area. Thank you for your continued patience.…If you have skills or resources that may help with the maintenance and/or continued improvement of our local park, or if you’d like to make a donation, please don’t hesitate to contact us. It Takes A Valley!

— Elizabeth Jensen, (415) 713-3833, <elizabeth.martha.jensen@gmail.com>

ATTENDANCE WINNERS

The seventh graders were the attendance race winners for the first six weeks of the contest. They routinely have 100% attendance daily, which shows in their outstanding academic ability. We are super proud of them. They enjoyed a special treat at Mosswood.

— Louise Simson, Superintendent, Anderson Valley Unified School District

ARGUMENT ABOUT LOOSE DOG ESCALATES TO STABBING IN FORT BRAGG

On Sunday, January 28, 2024 at approximately 5:34 PM, officers were dispatched to Rite Aid in Fort Bragg for a report of a fight involving two parties, one armed with a knife. It was also reported that several bystanders were involved and attempting to separate the parties. Deputies from the Sheriff’s office heard the radio traffic and immediately responded to assist. 

Officers arrived and located Kenneth Jenkins, 66 years, of Cincinnati, Ohio, being subdued by bystanders. Both the adult victims and witnesses identified Jenkins as the assailant, and that he had reportedly assaulted two bystanders, and stabbed another party. Two victims with injuries were located on scene. It was determined an adult male victim had suffered a stab wound to the chest and a laceration to a finger, and an adult female had suffered lacerations on both hands. Jenkins was detained, and medical aid was summoned to treat the injured parties. 

During the course of the investigation it was determined Jenkins and the adult male victim had been involved in a verbal altercation over the victim’s dog and possible control violations. The verbal altercation became physical when Jenkins reportedly struck the victim in the chest with a knife, causing a puncture wound. Jenkins reportedly continued to try to strike the male victim with the knife while he attempted to restrain Jenkins. Hearing the altercation escalating, and the male victim’s calls for help, several bystanders ran to provide aid. While trying to subdue Jenkins, the female victim suffered lacerations to her hands, and a third victim reported Jenkins had swung the knife at him while trying to subdue him. 

The stabbing victims were transported to the Adventist Mendocino Coast Hospital via ambulance for treatment. Both were later released after being treated. 

Jenkins was arrested and transported via ambulance to the Adventist Mendocino Coast Hospital due to complaint of pain from injuries suffered in the altercation. After receiving a medical evaluation Jenkins was transported and booked in the Mendocino County Jail for Attempted Homicide and Assault with a Deadly Weapon. 

Anyone with information on this incident is encouraged to contact Sgt McLaughlin of the Fort Bragg Police Department at (707)961-2800 ext 210. 

This information is being released by Fort Bragg Police Chief Neil Cervenka. All media inquiries should contact him at ncervenka@fortbragg.com. 

SCOTT WARD, Retired County Planner from Redwood Valley: “I will not pay a fee for my well or an additional parcel tax for this questionable endeavor. Tell Congressman Huffman to back off on his misguided plan to tear down Scott Dam. We are seriously considering selling our Redwood Valley family home and moving out of this failing dysfunctional, soon to be bankrupt County.”

HOW MANY of the County’s 102 Crisis Van Calls in the entire year of 2023 resulted in the person being declared 5150 (danger to self or others or incapable of providing for their own basic needs) by law enforcement or the crisis team? According to the Sheriff’s latest crisis van log for the year the answer is: 5. Again: Five, for the entire year. And 102/365 = less than one crisis call every three days.

OTHER STATS FOR THE ENTIRE YEAR: 42 calls were declared “Check-in, no crisis.” 23 were declared “resolved on site.” 9 were “unable to locate.” And one (1) was “call resulted in arrest.” (A few others were referrals from other agencies with no action taken, a refusal, some hospitalizations and a few uncategorized juveniles. Most calls were from family members, although a few were from Redwood Community Services or mental health staff.)

WHICH BEGS THE QUESTION: Why does Mendocino County need a 16-bed Psychiatric Health Facility at a cost of well over $20 million — and soon? Yet, they spend not one dime on the mental health or substance abuse treatment services mandated by Measure B. Also, why does Mendo need a $40 million-plus jail expansion to house mentally ill people who have committed crimes? (Mendo needs a new jail, yes, but for mentally ill inmates?) Mendo “borrowed” almost $10 million for the jail expansion overrun on the dubious grounds that it will house mental patients. Are Mendo’s spending priorities totally out of whack? These very low “crisis” numbers in the crisis van log contrast sharply with the very high expenditures for the low homeless counts. Basically, Mendo (like most other jurisdictions) spends millions on itself, administration, staff, architects, helpers and facilities for a relatively small population of clients. (And we haven’t even mentioned the $30 mil turned over annually to the Schraeders.)

OF COURSE these stats are just a snapshot of the Mental Health picture; there are other ways for someone to find their way into a jail or psychiatric hold facility with mental health problems. But those other numbers, probably comparably low, are never provided, mainly because they are either conveniently “confidential,” or the Mental Health staff/contractor simply refuses to provide them in a meaningful manner. Could that be because we’re wasting most of that mental health money on them while not helping very many people?

(Mark Scaramella)

BOONVILLE RESIDENT: I drove home from Boonville on Sunday and as the sun started to go down at the City house the sky just started to get wilder and wilder. The longer I waited, the crazier it got.

SYPHILIS & HIV PREVENTION 

53 cases of syphilis in Mendocino County in 2023 

We were alarmed by forty (40) new cases of syphilis in 2022. In 2023 Mendocino County had an all-time high with 53 reported cases. We have also had two (2) cases involving the brain, called neurosyphilis, and one case of syphilis from an infected mother to her newborn. 

Syphilis that gets into the brain is as serious as it sounds. It can cause blindness, loss of coordination, memory loss, or seizures, which can happen late or early in the disease. 

People become infected with syphilis by direct sexual contact with someone who has an open, painless sore on the genitals and/or rash on the body, hands, and feet. If you have an open sore or rash, you should see a health care provider and get evaluated. 

If you think you have been exposed to syphilis, please see a healthcare provider for more information about treatment options such as Doxycycline PEP (post exposure prophylaxis), a preventative treatment. PEP must start within 72 hours after exposure. This is not yet in CDC and CDPH protocols but can be used off-label for prevention. For information about syphilis, see www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/pages/Syphilis.aspx. 

HIV 

In the past two years, there have been four (4) new cases of HIV in Mendocino County. HIV is the virus that causes AIDS. People who have unprotected sex or share drug equipment with a person who has HIV can get it. HIV requires a lifetime of treatment. 

There are ways to protect yourself. Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) protects against HIV infection and is effective if used properly. PrEP might be a good choice for you if your partner lives with HIV, your partner’s status is unknown, you or your partner uses injection drugs, or you’ve had a sexually transmitted disease (STD) in the past six months. PrEP does not help in the protection against other STDs. For information about PrEP, please visit pleasePrEPme.org or Free PrEP and PEP - Color Health. 

If you had sexual contact or shared injection drugs with a partner whose history is unknown, you may be eligible for post-exposure prophylaxis(PEP). PEP is a way to prevent HIV if you think you’ve been exposed. PEP must start within 72 hours after exposure. Note: People taking PrEP do not need to take PEP. 

For more information, please talk to a healthcare provider about PrEP and PEP. Please discuss how you can best stay free of all sexually transmitted diseases. 

(Mendocino Public Health Presser)

MENDOCINO COUNTY SYPHILIS CASES UP IN 2023, OFFICIALS SAY

Cases are up from 2022. Current results are an “all-time high,” officials said.

by Colin Atagi

Mendocino County had a 33% increase in syphilis cases last year compared to 2022, its public health department reported Monday.

The number of reported cases went from 40 in 2022 to an “all-time high” of 53 cases in 2023, according to the public health department.

Syphilis is transmitted during direct sexual contact with someone with an open, painless sore on their genitals or rash on their body.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, symptoms include rashes, fever, sore throat, headaches, hair and weight loss, fatigue and sores in the mouth, vagina or anus.

Last year’s cases included an infected mother passing syphilis to her newborn, plus two bouts of neurosyphilis, which affects the brain.

According to the county, syphilis in the brain can cause blindness, loss of coordination, memory loss or seizures.

Anyone who thinks they’ve been exposed to syphilis should see a healthcare provider for treatment options. They include Doxycycline PEP, which needs to be administered within 72 hours of exposure.

Officials added there had been four new cases of HIV in Mendocino County over the past four years.

HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, can be transmitted when people have unprotected sex or share drug equipment with someone who already has HIV.

(pressdemocrat.com)

ED NOTES

NEVER COULD get into the little guy's fiction, but I've read his masterpiece, In Cold Blood, several times, and if you haven't you're missing the first explication of random violence in our randomly violent country. As we know, Capote was a great admirer of the mega-rich who adopted him as a kind of super amusing pet, and then cast him out when he wrote honestly about them. Now we have a filmic account of his adventures with high end decadence as this world and the writer’s place in it has come up for re-evaluation with the arrival of “Feud: Capote vs. the Swans,” an eight-part television series on FX. The impressive cast includes Naomi Watts, Demi Moore and Diane Lane as women who confined their subversions to bed, sleeping with men who were not their husbands, and to lunch with Truman — “Tru” — Manhattan’s most celebrated gay confidant.

WHY IS POINT ARENA BROKE, and getting broker as Mendocino County teensiest town, population 470 as of 2021 lays off people from its teensier city hall. Bossman Paul Andersen is presently ailing, but there must be someone among the 470 who can inform us.

SEVERAL incumbents won't be running again in 2024, but the final list of candidates for the March 5 primaries is here!

IN NORTHCOAST District 2, The candidates vying for Jim Wood's loungy state assembly seat, occupied by interchangeable Democrats of zero distinction for the past half century, will be Mendo's District 5 Supervisor Ted Williams, fresh off his triumphs as a Mendo supervisor. We have Cynthia Click of Willits, a new name to us here at ava headquarters, about whom we know nada. Healdsburg mayor Ariel Kelley, already lushly funded by that doomed town's fuzzy-warms, and fresh off her tenure helping to destroy the coherent, charming little town as it metastasizes in huge up-market housing developments at both ends of its city limits. Then there's Santa Rosa councilman Chris Rogers, who has done his part in adding to the chaos that is the Rose City. And there's Yoruk “vice chair” Frankie Myers, who is probably the sole fully grounded candidate in the race. Michael Greer, a mystery man about whom we know nothing, and “Chair of the California Democratic Party” Rusty Hicks, endorsed by Wood, an endorsement we view as a warning that the guy is not to be encouraged. Hicks and Ms. Kelley have a ton of lib lab Demo money, and are to be avoided by all correct-thinking persons.

‘THE CANDIDATES for Mendocino County District 1 Supervisor are Madeleine Cline, Carrie Shattuck, Adam Gaska, and Trevor Mockel. Madeleine refused to “friend” us on Facebook, and we will forever feel the sting! Trained as a lawyer, strike one, the Potter Valley cowgirl will be an auto-yes vote for virtually free water for her PV friends and the wine industry, her base of support. The kid's smart and articulate, which would make her even more of a menace among the dull normals functioning, more or less, as supervisor. We like Adam Gaska and Carrie Shattuck, both of whom would make intelligent, responsible supervisors on a board that has become something of a regional joke.

BERNIE NORVELL, mayor of Fort Bragg, is the clear choice for 4th District supervisor. Norvell can point to a tenure in office during which Fort Bragg got a humane but firm grip on its roving population of homeless people, and can be counted on to bring that same commonsense, get 'er done savvy to the supervisors. Georgina Avila-Gorman, Norvell's opponent, is not ready for prime time.

DISTRICT 2 (Ukiah, basically) incumbent Mo Mulheren could be trusted to babysit your kids, but greater responsibilities will always elude her. Jacob Brown, clear-headed Marine vet, would get our vote if we voted in Ukiah, arguably the worst managed small town in California whose voting population seems forever stuck in high school, hence Ms. Mulheren.

MENDOCINO COUNTY PERMITTING PROCESS INLAND COMMUNITY STAKEHOLDER MEETING 

The Mendocino County Division of Environmental Health and Planning and Building Services are excited to invite all stakeholders to meet on February 13, 2024. We value your input and collaboration, and this meeting will focus on discussing and improving the permitting process in our departments. 

Agenda Highlights: 

• Overview of the current permitting process 

• Discussion of recent updates and proposed changes 

• Opportunities for community feedback and suggestions 

• Collaborative brainstorming for a more efficient and accessible process 

The public may also participate digitally in the February 13th, 2024, meeting by sending comments to pbs@mendocinocounty.gov in lieu of personal attendance. County staff from each department will be available to answer questions. Your insights and feedback are crucial in helping us streamline and enhance the permitting process to better serve the needs of our community. We look forward to a productive and engaging discussion that will benefit us all. 

Tuesday, February 13, 2024 8 AM – 10 AM 

Conference Room C at the County Administration Complex 

501 Low Gap Road 

Ukiah, CA 95482 

Follow The Link To Join The Webinar:https://mendocinocounty.zoom.us/j/88169347865 

Or One Tap Mobile: +16699009128,,88169347865# US (San Jose)+16694449171,,88169347865# US 

Webinar ID: 881 6934 7865 

BETSY CAWN:

On Tuesday, January 23, 2024, the Lake County Board of Supervisors conducted a “special” all-day “Governance” meeting, beginning with the Deputy Chief Administrative Officer’s review of a 10-item list of “aspirations” created in 2018 under the tutelage of former CAO Carol Huchinson — the purported mastermind (with her pal Anne Molgard) of Mendocino County’s bloated “Health and Human Services” fiefdom, with an eye toward combining the three key public health and safety departments (Social Services, Behavioral Health Services, and Public Health Services) to engorge Lake County’s administrative empire. (The empire’s “human service” bastions remain separate, despite their inter-related missions and shared federal and state “mandates.”)

“VISION 2028” includes these key “commitments” :

Maintain a transparent County government that is responsive, efficient, effective and fair.

Enhance Public Safety: Protect our residents and serve them well; develop and maintain a high standard of Disaster Prevention, Preparedness and Recovery, in collaboration with all community stakeholders.

Grow our economy and spur creation of quality local jobs. [Including “Advocate for Lake County’s needs through targeted political action.”]

Invest in Lake County’s richest resource: our people. [Including “Recognize the wisdom and experience of Senior Citizens and serve them well.”]

The last item is particularly insulting, in light of last year’s pleas to the Board of Supervisors from the Department of Social Services to invest general fund revenues in a one-time increase to the base pay and wages of licensed social workers and qualified eligibility workers to make their compensation rates at least competitive with surrounding counties (request denied). These are the same people who operate the In-Home Supportive Services “system” run by an “independent” Public Authority, and seriously underfunded Adult Services of the Public Guardian, Public Conservator, Adult Protective Services, and the Area Agency on Aging.

When it comes to recognizing the wisdom and experience of senior citizens — not to mention serving them well — the county’s Office of Emergency Services continues to ignore the vulnerable population of older adults who have neither the appropriate “technology” or the ability to self-evacuate from their modest homes (in which they are mostly isolated as disabled shut-ins) and, in its Emergency Operations Plan “Access & Functional Needs” annex states “This annex does not include considerations for the medically fragile population.”

As far as maintaining a transparent government is concerned, the special “Governance” meeting consisted of presentations from every department head, with three elements in each: last year’s “accomplishments,” this year’s “points of emphasis” (previously this was the list of goals — theoretically aligned with the “Vision 2028” promises) and, for the first time, a set of monitoring metrics that will be, according to the Board Chair at the beginning of the meeting, “evaluated in closed session.” Presumably that means that the data gathered in the coming year will be considered during the performance evaluations of the department directors.

With no commitment to provide the data and publicly evaluate its relevance to either of the lofty “points of emphasis” (goals?) or applicability to the “Vision 2028,” this was a massive dog and pony show that ended with two very important agenda items: 2024 Legislative Priorities (for which the general fund is sponsoring a paid Sacramento lobbyist) and Board of Supervisors Priority Setting — mostly emphasizing “disaster resilience” and attraction of tourism.

Perennially bemoaning the degradation of our poverty-stricken (“blighted”) communities and the irreversible funkiness of Clear Lake, Lake County recently hired yet another “Economic Development Director,” whose glossy “strategic plans” do not include any recognition of the county’s permanent status as federally-designated “severely economically disadvantaged” with more than 50% of the population dependent on Medi-Cal and the second highest rate of overdose deaths in the state. But by gummy we got ourselves a highly paid Madison Avenue throwback to schmooze with cosseted legislative aides in the state capitol and paid policy drivers like CSAC and RCRC.

Still, the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors, with its Alice in Wonderland trials and tribulations, could take a few tips from Lake County’s showtime extravaganza and at least pretend to have their hands firmly on the reins of your runaway stagecoach.

TAPESTRY WEAVERS of Pacific Textile Arts

Please note that there will be no First Friday opening for February.

The opening of the Tapestry Exhibit will be Saturday morning Feb. 3 starting at 10:00 in the Gallery, moving to the classroom for a special program by two of the featured weavers, Ellen Athens and Cyndi Josephs, at 10:30, followed by the Gallery being open again between 12-1:00 PM.

The exhibit can be viewed through Feb. 27, during our winter open hours, Fridays and Saturdays, 1-4:00 PM.

CATCH OF THE DAY, Monday, January 29, 2024

RAFAEL CARRILLO-CONTRERAS, Santa Rosa/Ukiah. Stolen vehicle, concealed dirk-dagger, failure to appear, probation revocation.

VICTORIA DOMINGUEZ, Ukiah. Domestic battery.

WHITNEY HUGHES, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-under influence, shopping cart, “collection by unauthorized person,” probation revocation.

ISABELLA KNIGHT, Willits. DUI.

JUSTIN LOUIDERMILK, Ukiah. Metal knuckles. 

JEREMIAH RAY, Covelo. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation violation.

SORRY, PG&E'S GOT IT

Editor: 

The other day a homeless person asked for spare change. I told the person to go to PG&E because they got my spare change and more. The stockholders will be fine. They still have their stocks and the dividends, and they will increase again in value as their wealth will be replenished off the backs of ratepayers due to outrageous rate increases — money ratepayers will never see again. That’s how capitalism works, folks. No conscience, no remorse, just profit. And yes, rate increases will continue. When Ronald Reagan spoke of the shiny city on the hill, he failed to mention it would be surrounded by people living in tents.

J.W. Hale

Petaluma

WHAT ARE ANGELHEADED HIPSTERS, ANYWAY?

by Steve Heilig

Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" is perhaps the iconic poem of the past half century, but from the moment it was first published 50 years ago, it seems to have really upset some people. The epic cry of suffering and redemption that famously began "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked" elicited both adulation and outrage from the start. The former dated from a now-legendary public debut of the poem at a 1955 San Francisco group reading by then-obscure writers who collectively became known as the Beat poets. Ginsberg might have been the most obscure among them, but fellow fledging poet, bookseller and publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti was there and soon asked Ginsberg “When do I get the manuscript?”, echoing Ralph Waldo Emerson writing to Walt Whitman a century before. 

Ferlinghetti got it, and Ginsberg's poetic career was launched. One thousand copies were printed by City Lights Books and started to sell, slowly. The backlash soon followed in 1957, first with a seizure by U.S. customs of some of the first copies of the poem, and later with the arrest of Ferlinghetti and one of his bookstore partners by San Francisco police who bought a copy of the book for just that purpose. Both the customs officials and the cops thought "Howl" an obscene, and therefore illegal, poem and book, although it was uncertain if they’d read it. A famous trial ensued, and the Beat poets and publishers won, in a landmark case for freedom of the press.

That's the basic story, which has been told many times. The book “Howl on Trial," however, documents the trial using original sources, from Ginsberg's and others' letters - Ginsberg was wandering virtually penniless in Europe during all the hoopla - to the trial transcripts, photos and media coverage of the time. Bill Morgan, a Ginsberg biographer and Beat expert, and Nancy Peters, publisher of City Lights Books, pulled together an illuminating package of the private thoughts of some of the protagonists as well as key public documents. It's sad, funny, silly and deadly serious in turns and at the same time. 

As Peters summarizes in her concise history of literary censorship, burning or banning books was nothing new in 1956 and is hardly extinct today, with school reading lists just the latest absurd front. At the time, "Howl's" travails put Ginsberg into the company of the likes of Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Whitman, Hemingway, Faulkner, Steinbeck, Joyce, Lawrence and Miller - all banned at some point. Maybe the howls against "Howl" were to be expected; "Howl is an affirmation of God, sex, drugs, absurdity etc," Ginsberg wrote to a critic in one of the many illuminating letters printed here. The sex stuff - gay, straight, it hardly seemed to matter - was the issue at hand.

"You have no idea what a storm of lunatic fringe activity I have stirred up," he marveled to his father. This was before the legal issues arose, and when the 31-year-old man who was to become America's most popular/notorious poet was working at San Francisco’s Mission Street Greyhound depot to survive. "To tell you the truth I am already embarrassed by half of it," he writes to Ferlinghetti after seeing a copy of his first book, which would remain his most renowned throughout his long and prolific career. But when The San Francisco Chronicle's not-very-laudatory review of the book appeared, Ginsberg would still write to Ferlinghetti, "If you see [the reviewer] ever say we collectively rarely have lice, and I hope he drops dead of clap."

Then came the cops and lawyers and judge, with "Howl" defended by the ACLU and J.W. Ehrlich, then San Francisco's most famed criminal lawyer. The proceedings of the trial show a hapless and overmatched prosecutor grasping at straws and parading clueless witnesses in his effort to prove that children should not read "Howl." "What are 'angelheaded hipsters?'" he asks. "It is a little hard to read because there are no commas in the spots where you expect them to be," he explains. Quoting from "Howl" - "Adorations! illuminations! religions! the whole boatload of sensitive bullshit!" - he implores, "Do they (sic) have to put words like that in there?" At one point he asks an esteemed San Francisco State University english professor, "Do you classify yourself as a liberal?" (so like censorship, some other things have not changed all that much), and one of his expert witnesses, a speech teacher, can only say of "Howl" that "You feel like you are going through the gutter when you have to read that stuff. I didn't linger on it too long, I assure you."

But another group of witnesses declares "Howl" to have literary merit. Poet Kenneth Rexroth, something of a father figure to the Beats, says, "It is probably the most remarkable single poem published by a young man since the second World War." Renowned critic and Berkeley professor Mark Shorer says, to great courthouse merriment, "You can't translate poetry into prose -- that's why it's poetry." Ehrlich concludes, "Seek filth and you will find it. Seek beauty of narration and you will find that too." The judge, who was also a Sunday school teacher and had recently sentenced some shoplifters to watching "The Ten Commandments," ruled "Howl" not obscene and Ferlinghetti not guilty.

The reprinted newspaper articles, columns and letters in the book add to this fascinating time capsule. Especially worthy is the Chronicle recap by David Perlman, who went on to become the paper's esteemed science editor. The trial and coverage, of course, were the best thing that could have happened to "Howl" in terms of marketing; Perlman writes that the cops made "Howl" the best-seller it has remained all these decades. "I wonder if we will actually sell the thousand copies," Ginsberg mused to Ferlinghetti. At a half century after publication, something like 1 million copies had been sold, and it’s still selling well.

"I imagine they can't bug us forever, and will have to give in," Ginsberg predicts, meaning by "they" the "ENEMIES of culture and civilization and a bunch of perverted fairy amateurs" - an ironic description of the censors, considering the kinds of outraged criticism Ginsberg drew, some say intentionally, later in life with his professed fondness for much younger male lovers, for some the one dark blemish on his image. Some called him sexist at times too as women just weren’t really on his radar much. More importantly, he became a longtime anti-war and drug legalization activist and dug up dirt on the CIA’s dirty tricks overseas. He was also a longtime devoted Buddhist.

"The wonder is that literature does have such power," Ginsberg marvels in one of the letters in "Howl on Trial," although power over exactly what remains debatable. But "Fifty years later, his message still resonates," Ferlinghetti reflects in the book's heartfelt introduction, "and his insurgent voice is needed more than ever, in this time of rampant materialism, militarism, nationalism, and omnivorous corporate monoculture eating up the world."

Ginsberg died at 70 in 1997 after a long and prolific public career. Envious fellow poets sniped at his constant output, saying his work promptly declined in quality after his first few collections. But he became a true literary star, reading around the world and even recording his work with the likes of Paul McCartney and The Clash, and maintained lifelong friendships and correspondence with fellow poetic luminaries such as Gary Snyder (a 2008 collection of Ginsberg and Snyder’s decades of letters is, like Howl on Trial, one of the very best of the vast list of Beat books) and Ferlinghetti. He was known to generously but quietly help many others in need, and lived out his life in lower Manhattan, though he was heard to say San Francisco was forever his favorite city. 

It seems Ginsberg never quite explained just who or what “angelheaded hipsters” were, but even back in the 1950s Beat era they seemed to be, as Louis Armstrong replied when asked what jazz was around the same time as Howl’s trial, one of those “If you have to ask, you’ll never know” kind of things. Or, as has long been remarked with respect to both art and pornography, “You know it when you see it.” So while I can’t quite describe what or why, angelheaded hipsters are still my favorite type of human.

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

My company’s clinics have done contract work with the US Army Medical Command for about a dozen+ years, doing fitness for duty exams (mental and physical) for recruits and questionable GIs. They would send in kids who had 10 or 15 traffic tickets, those with a history of being on psychotropic agents, etc. For the past year, the MEPs recruiting office now tells my office manager that they are letting in anyone they can get, without evaluations, and regardless of psychiatric status and even some physical issues. WHEN we go to war, image a bunch of ADD or schizoaffective blue hairs with ACDC tattoos doing the battle.

NEURALINK IMPLANTED A DEVICE IN A PATIENT’S BRAIN, Elon Musk Says

The billionaire said his company’s first product, called Telepathy, would let a person control a phone or computer “just by thinking.”…

nytimes.com/2024/01/29/business/elon-musk-neuralink.html

BROCK PURDY via John Redding: “I put my faith and trust in Him and He’s gotten me to where I am. So, when I’m down 17 at the half, honestly, I was thinking, ‘All right God, you’ve taken me here, win or lose I glorify you.’ That’s my peace. I leaned into that.”

SMEARING CEASEFIRE PROTESTERS, PELOSI COMBINES DEVOTION TO ISRAEL WITH COLD-WAR MANIA

by Norman Solomon

Sometimes there’s a thin line between vile demagoguery and pure idiocy. Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi straddled both during a Sunday appearance on CNN, when she smeared protesters who’ve been demanding a ceasefire to end Israel’s slaughter of Palestinian people in Gaza.

“The former House speaker said, without offering evidence, that she believed some protesters are connected to Russian President Vladimir Putin,” NPR reported.

“For them to call for a ceasefire is Mr. Putin’s message,” Pelosi said. “Make no mistake, this is directly connected to what he would like to see. Same thing with Ukraine. It’s about Putin’s message. I think some of these protesters are spontaneous and organic and sincere. Some, I think, are connected to Russia. And I say that having looked at this for a long time now.”

Like Congress as a whole, Pelosi refuses to acknowledge that so many Americans are protesting because the Israeli armed forces have been engaged in mass murder in Gaza for more than three and a half months. And an inconvenient truth is that polling shows a large majority of people in the United States favor a ceasefire.

Pelosi is hardly unusual on Capitol Hill. Bipartisan loyalty to Israel has been the political reflex, with few exceptions. But Pelosi is notably servile to Israel.

Shortly before starting her second stint as House speaker in January 2019, Pelosi was recorded on video at a forum sponsored by the Israeli American Council as she declared: “I have said to people when they ask me – if this Capitol crumbled to the ground, the one thing that would remain is our commitment to our aid, I don’t even call it aid – our cooperation – with Israel. That’s fundamental to who we are.”

Such attitudes have fueled the massive flow of U.S. weaponry and other military aid to Israel, which has been greatly boosted since Israeli forces began methodically killing hundreds of civilians per day immediately after the Hamas attack on October 7.

“All of our missiles, the ammunition, the precision-guided bombs, all the airplanes and bombs, it’s all from the U.S.,” retired IDF Major General Yitzhak Brick said in late November. He added: “Everyone understands that we can’t fight this war without the United States. Period.”

When Pelosi smears people who are expressing their moral objections to the continuing carnage financed by U.S. taxpayers, she is tacitly echoing what then-Vice President Joe Biden said in 2015 at the Annual Israeli Independence Day Celebration in Washington: “As many of you heard me say before, were there no Israel, America would have to invent one. We’d have to invent one because Ron [Dermer, Israel’s ambassador] is right, you protect our interests like we protect yours.”

The interlocking interests of powerful pro-Israel forces like AIPAC and overall U.S. foreign policy have led, most recently, to the extreme rhetorical and military support for Israel’s ongoing mass murder in Gaza from the Democrat in the White House and both parties in Congress. In this context, Pelosi’s channeling of tactics honed by the likes of Joe McCarthy and Roy Cohn should not be too surprising. And Pelosi seemed to be channeling Richard Nixon when she told CNN that she wants the FBI to investigate the financing of ceasefire protesters.

But there’s also another key aspect of Pelosi’s nonsensical yet calculated smear effort. Biden’s poll numbers have kept dropping, most recently while so many Americans – especially those whose votes he’ll need this fall – find his support for the Gaza slaughter repugnant.

Grasping at straws, Pelosi evidently hopes for some political benefit by casting blame on Russia for how Biden’s deference to Israel has met with strong public opposition and erosion of support for re-election. Yes, her gambit is ridiculous – but at a time when the administration is revving up the cold war with Russia instead of genuinely seeking diplomatic solutions for the Ukraine war and the rampant nuclear arms race, Pelosi decided to throw down a handy demagogic gauntlet to tar ceasefire protesters.

Like President Biden and so many others in the political establishment, Nancy Pelosi cannot imagine breaking with the murderous Israeli government and pursuing a foreign policy of peace instead of nonstop U.S. efforts to dominate as much of the world as possible.

(Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His latest book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine, is published by The New Press.)

PROVOKING TRUMP TO DEFEAT HIMSELF JUJITSU STYLE

by Ralph Nader

Part of Donald J. Trump’s public persona is to behave like a pouting tween. This trait was on display Tuesday night after the New Hampshire primary results were in, showing Trump getting 54% to Haley’s 43%—the results were closer than polls were predicted.

Haley preceded Trump with an address to her supporters and described her vote total as a strong finish. This enraged Trump who at his rally said, “Wow, she’s doing like a speech, like she won.” He continued: “Who the hell was this imposter that went up on the stage before and like claimed a victory? She did very poorly, actually.”

Vintage Trump. He always accuses people of exactly what he can be accurately charged with saying or doing, as partially reflected in the criminal and civil lawsuits against him. Demolishing any dignity that should be associated with a front-running presidential candidate, Trump went on degrading himself by mocking Haley’s dress, mumbling his usual mentions of her unspecified violations, and later, as the Washington Post reported, “threaded his feelings into several dozen increasingly frenetic messages on his personal social media site.”

Once again, it’s Trump being always about Trump. Trump’s most fervent MAGA supporters are “verbalists,” believing everything that pours from his foul, lying, vengeful, bigoted mouth and ignoring that his deeds as President allowed Big Business to screw people like them. Many suffered devastating health, safety and economic consequences because of Trump. Just recall his boastful bungling of the Covid-19 pandemic’s early weeks in the U.S.

Keep in mind that a majority of Trump voters are traditional, rock-ribbed Republicans who vote for the Party ticket no matter who the candidates are. They need no persuasion because Party affiliation overrides self-interest.

Defeating Trump by provoking Trump is not the Democratic Party’s strong suit, but it better become one of the tactics candidates and their surrogates embrace.

One way to expose Trump is to personalize criticisms of him the way he mostly inaccurately personalizes others, with accusations and nicknames. It’s giving a bully—who still gets his libels replayed verbatim on the mass media—a taste of his own medicine. Der Fuhrer Trump cannot stand being pejoratively nicknamed.

David Kamp’s writing in an opinion piece for the New York Times recounts that while writing for Spy magazine, the staff produced a Trump epithet that stuck, “short-fingered vulgarian.” Trump being thin-skinned, long before entering politics, “sent angry threatening letters to Spy, which only heightened our joy,” he added. A slew of accurate nicknames will enlarge Trump’s juvenile immolation because he can’t resist spending time to huff, puff and assail his perceived political tormentors.

Enough Republicans will see his serious instability and narcissism—that the campaign is all about him, not them— to not vote for Trump or stay home on election day. A ten percent loss of his voters would ensure his losing big, apart from other anti-Trump GOTV strategies highlighting what he did in the White House to the American people, regardless of their political labels.

Readers interested in a factual, readable elaboration of Trump’s misdeeds can read Wrecking America: How Trump’s Lawbreaking and Lies Betray All (2020) by Mark Green and me. Facts matter, like opposing increasing the federal minimum wage frozen by the GOP at $7.25 per hour, or pushing to take away health insurance from millions of American families, or eliminating health and safety protections for consumers, children and workers and on and on.

In the January 21, 2024, Sunday edition, the New York Times printed a lengthy feature by Sarah Longwell, publisher of the conservative news outlet The Bulwark, subtitled “What 17 of Trump’s ‘Best People’ Said About Him.” People, that, Trump praised and selected to operate at the highest level of his Administration.

There are people, the Times column noted, “…who worked closely with Mr. Trump—whom he trusted, who worked with him every day, who saw him in private when the cameras were off.”

A few excerpts: Retired four-star Marine Corps general, John Kelly, was Trump’s chief of staff for a year and a half. His take: “A person who admires autocrats and murderous dictators. A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution and the rule of law.”

Mark Esper, Trump’s Secretary of Defense said: “I have a lot of concerns about Donald Trump. I have said that he’s a threat to democracy. I think the last year, certainly the last few months of Donald Trump’s presidency, will look like the first few months of the next one if that were to occur.”

William Barr, Trump’s Attorney General: “…[H]e is a consummate narcissist and he constantly engages in reckless conduct that puts his political followers at risk.… He will always put his own interest and gratifying his own ego ahead of everything else, including the country’s interest.… He’s like …a defiant 9-year-old kid, who’s always pushing the glass toward the edge of the table defying his parents to stop him from doing it.”

John Bolton: Trump’s national security adviser and a hawk declared, “By the time I left the White House, I was convinced he was not fit to be president. … I think it is a danger for the United States if he gets a second term.”

In his memoir, Bolton also wrote that “obstruction of justice was a way of life at the White House.”

It has been said that Trump is his own best promoter and also his own worst enemy. If the Democrats practice jujitsu on Trump, he’ll save them a lot of money, as he defeats himself. Savvy opponents can always count on Trump to bring out the worst in himself, against himself.

If this presidential election is going to turn on personal behavior, and less on policy records and agendas, count on Trump to make ever more Americans say to themselves: “I would never associate with a neighbor like Trump. It’s too scary to have him in the White House again.”

THE NEXT BIG THING

by James Kunstler

“The rese≥“rve of trust, patience, and deference, among non-zombies in the USA, is now ZERO.” — Jacob Dreizin

I’m sure you can see exactly where all this is going. By all this, I refer to the cortège of disasters orchestrated by “Joe Biden” and associates — with help from a power-crazed globalist cabal — hauling our country at a gallop now to the graveyard of empires. Is there any question that they are out to wreck Western Civ? And speeding up the action because too many actual citizens are rising to oppose their degenerate wickedness?

Most particularly, the people who have not surrendered their reason to the Woke-Marxist mind-fuck that calls itself “progressivism” have had enough of the purposeful inflow of something like ten-thousand fake asylum-seekers a day across the border, mostly men, a lot of them from China, and many more of them mutts from faraway lands where Jihad is the order of the day — meaning the crusade to exterminate the people of Western Civ. We’re supposed to be okay with that.

This deliberate, treasonous policy was rightfully declared an “invasion” last week by the Governor of Texas, requiring the human wave to be met with real force, not the welcome wagon that the federal border patrol has been turned into. The result so far is a real-live Mexican stand-off between the regime in Washington and the state of Texas, joined by twenty-five other sympathetic US states willing to send men and matériel to seal the border.

None of this is reported in Monday morning’s New York Times, by the way, though you can read Is Dying Your Hair Bad for Your Health there. Nor will you read about the caravan of American truckers striking out from all points around the country to “peacefully protest and pray” at the border while Texas attempts to settle its hash with “Joe Biden.” Nor will you read about the uprising of European farmers blocking highways to protest ruinous EU rules on food imports, diesel fuel prices, carbon emissions inanity, and, of course, the officially-enabled tide of Africans and jihadists flooding into EU member states.

“Joe Biden’s” response so far is to say he’ll attend to the border situation only if Congress green-lights another massive aid package for Ukraine, a dishonest proffer from any angle. Ukraine is a lost cause that should never have been a cause of ours in the first place. Yet securing the US border is a principal duty of the executive branch, not some optional fringe benefit to be used as leverage for other projects. Congress has already got impeachment articles ready for Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas, who has lied repeatedly under oath about the border being “secure.” But it’s obviously not enough. The failure is entirely “Joe Biden’s” and warrants his impeachment on its face, aside from all the evidence of bribery and racketeering among him and his family.

The best move would be to impeach both the president and his proclaimed “border czar” Veep Kamala Harris — which would put Speaker Mike Johnson in the oval office. But the impeachment process is too slow and awkward for that. So, now I will tell you where all this is actually going: “Joe Biden” will seize an excuse to declare a national emergency and subject the US to some manner of martial law.

The excuse could be an outbreak of violence in the quarrel between the states and the feds over the border. Or it could be a widening of the war in the Middle East, a direct confrontation with Iran that would draw in Russia and Turkey and kickoff World War Three, a war we would have an excellent shot at losing, considering our DEI-ravaged, over-vaxxed army, our obsolete naval carrier groups that can be sunk by hypersonic missiles, and our depleted reserves of armaments already fobbed off by Ukraine and, lately, given to Israel in the Gaza campaign to destroy Hamas. If such a war didn’t set off a world-ending exchange of nukes, it would at least collapse the economies of Europe and America and, with that, many governments, including possibly ours. And what role might all those recently-arrived illegal aliens play in such a fiasco? Any way you cut it, we’d be in for chaos and hardship.

Or, if we somehow avert major war, “Joe Biden” can try the national emergency ploy when the much-heralded (by the WHO) “Disease X” trots onstage. (And we must ask whether that will just be a delayed side-effect of the mRNA vaccine deaths?) Ultimately, the purpose of any national emergency at this moment in history, whatever prompts it, will be to suspend the 2024 elections. The Democratic Party has gone so completely off-the-rails psychologically that it will do anything to avert losing control of the government.

The Lawfare cases aimed at knocking Donald Trump off the game-board were assigned to corrupt and stupid prosecutors who are botching their jobs in perfect sequence. They are already baking the cake for Fani Willis’s farewell office party in Georgia, and Jack Smith is being undermined daily by the emergent truth about government’s role in fomenting the J6 riot. The ridiculous judgment rendered last week in the E. Jean Carroll defamation charade, is certain to be reversed on appeal. Note the assembled tweets below attributed to Ms. Carroll’s “X” account and draw your own conclusions about her character, especially her sexual proclivities. (By the way, Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled them inadmissible as evidence for Mr. Trump’s defense.)

Now, where the next national emergency or some kind of martial law is concerned, the catch is that at least half of America will refuse to comply with diktats coming out of Blob Central. They’ve had enough trips laid on them. The government has been flirting dangerously with the loss of legitimacy as the disastrous “Joe Biden” term grinds on, but this would really ice it. Whatever other tragic consequences follow, it would be the end of our constitutional republic, and history will install “Joe Biden” in the Hall of Infamy as the man who killed it.