Mendocino County Yesterday/Today: Feb, 5/6, 2024

By AVA News Service on February 6, 2024

Widespread power outages prevented our posting MCT yesterday morning, so it's twofer Tuesday…

CALMER, climatologically normal weather develops for the rest of this week. A series of fronts may bring periods of light to moderate precipitation Wednesday through this weekend. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): Power is still out at my place this Tuesday morning on the coast, thankfully the Generac is keeping us lit. I do not have much faith in the ever moving restoration of power notices from PG&E at this point. Power has been restored for many folks at least. A cloudy 44F with .35" more rainfall collected. Maybe a shower this morning, some rain tomorrow, then drier skies return for the long range forecast.

THE NORTH COAST, from Humboldt to Marin counties, was slammed Sunday with the second — and more powerful — of two back-to-back atmospheric rivers, which left tens of thousands of Pacific Gas & Electric Co. customers without power, drenched an already waterlogged landscape and toppled scores of trees onto roadways, homes and other buildings across the region. Merging weather patterns in the Pacific led to a significant storm system that brought a deluge of rain and hurricane-force winds to the North Bay and areas further north. (Press Democrat)

AS STORMS PUMMELED California with heavy rainfall on Sunday, meteorologists at the National Weather Service upgraded the deluge to a “bomb cyclone” for its rare — and potentially historic — capacity for destruction. Bomb cyclones, also known among climate scientists as “bombogenesis,” occur when a cold air mass crashes into a pocket of warm air, often over choppy ocean waters. The ensuing collision creates a speedy drop in atmospheric pressure that can intensify the cyclone’s spin, producing heavier rainfall and more destructive winds. The atmospheric pressure drop meteorologists recorded in California on Sunday was more than enough to qualify as a bomb cyclone. According to UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain, it may have been “historic.” The drop in atmospheric pressure from San Francisco to Los Angeles on Sunday was the most drastic plummet on record for the month of February, Swain said, and one of the most severe drops ever recorded in any month. (SF Chron)

BETSY CAWN: Peak Winds (MPH). In Lake County it was howlin' yesterday and all night long.

SCHOOL IS OPEN TUESDAY

Power is back on at both sites. We will have school tomorrow (TUESDAY). Please report any leaks or damage directly to me. Please be cautious as there may be debris on the ground. See you tomorrow.

Louise Simson, Superintendent, Anderson Valley Unified School District

Previously…

NO SCHOOL TODAY [Monday] DUE TO POWER OUTAGE

The power remains out and school will be canceled today. We will have a make up day on March 11. Please be safe.

Louise Simson, Monday, Feb 5 at 5:57 AM, Anderson Valley Unified

A FRANTIC few hours at the AVA on Monday. With the power out and PG&E mum as to when we might expect it back, and a paper-paper print deadline looming, we briefly moved our base of operations next door to the Redwood Drive-in, home of the famous Boonville Donut, whose proprietor, the gracious and accommodating Ricardo Suarez, offered us his generator-powered site and on-line connection. But for naught. We still couldn't reconnect with cyber world, and it only belatedly occurred to us to call upon the unfailing wizardry of Bob Abeles to elude the cyber-obstacles at the Redwood Drive-In. By the time we reached out to him, the only confirmed genius in all of Mendocino County, power was restored. We will have the delayed MCT posted Tuesday morning. BTW, the Redwood Drive-in offers the very best Mexican food in the county, along with their mucho tasty Americano victuals.

IN OTHER storm-related disasters, the remaining eucalyptus at Tom Town, central Boonville, came down on the modest building nearest the highway which houses a tasting room.

Tom Town consists of several rentals and a single family residence, the whole of it located on the south side of the Farrer Building. The complex's owner, Tom Cronquist, is a Vietnam Vet currently being cared for at Fort Miley in San Francisco. The irony of the fallen eucalyptus is that the other two eucs on the property were removed a few months ago in fear they would come down in a windstorm.

NICK WILSON:

WIDESPREAD POWER OUTAGE Sunday night

As most of you know by the time you read this, PG&E grid power went out about 8 PM (in my Little River neighborhood) amid strong wind gusts and heavy rains.

PG&E power outage map shows outages over a widespread area of Northern California, including all of the Mendocino Coast. https://pgealerts.alerts.pge.com/outage-tools/outage-map/

To look up your specific address enter the address in the Service Address field on the outage map.

The PG&E outage page shows the cause is "weather." Time of restoration "to be determined."

Based on historic experience, it looks like this one may take quite a while, anything from 12 hours to several days.

NAVARRO TO CREST at 27.6 ft at 7 AM Monday, 128 will be closed

The NWS Navarro gauge forecast chart predicts a 27.6 ft. crest at 7 AM Monday morning 2/6/24. That's 4.6 ft. above the 23 ft. flood stage, which would put Hwy 128 under over 4 ft. of water in the area downstream from Flynn Cr. Rd. https://water.weather.gov/ahps2/hydrograph.php?wfo=eka&gage=nvrc1

The Hwy. will be or already is closed from the intersection with Hwy. 1 to Flynn Cr. Rd. The Caltrans traffic operations site shows 128 is currently open, but that doesn't prove it is. The site often lags behind reality by a few hours. https://roads.dot.ca.gov/?roadnumber=128

Stay home. Dont travel under such stormy conditions. There WILL be trees and branches down on the roads, rock slides and flooded areas.

TED WILLIAMS: This storm will be a long duration event. Be prepared for outages. Please be kind to the crews — they’re working hard in the wind and rain to keep the lights on and roads open.

LOU FORTIN

Lou Fortin, born on July 18, 1937, in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, peacefully passed away, leaving a legacy of love and resilience on January 20, 2024. Lou’s remarkable journey began in the heart of Vermont, where he spent his summers working on a dairy farm, cultivating a strong work ethic and appreciation for the land. During his formative years, Lou faced challenges and spent six years in an orphanage from 2nd to 8th grade due to a broken home. Despite the hardships, he reunited with his mother and siblings and graduated from Cathedral HS in 1956. Inspired by a sense of duty and adventure, he enlisted in the Navy and proudly served on the USS Holder, forging lifelong memories and friendships. In 1960, Lou embarked on a cross-country journey, arriving in Los Angeles, where he met the love of his life, Joan Jertberg. They married in 1963 and relocated to Northern California, where they raised three sons: Steve, Marc, and David. Lou was a devoted father, proud of his family and the love they shared. Breaking barriers, Lou became the first in his family to attend college, earning an AS in forestry, a BS in science, and an MA in education. His professional career was dedicated to education, with notable roles as the principal of Boonville Elementary, administrator of vocational education in Ukiah, and principal of Manchester Elementary. He retired from the Mendocino County Office of Education in 1997, leaving a lasting impact on countless lives. Lou was known for his rare kindness, forming cherished friendships that endured a lifetime. He found joy in tinkering with his classic car, a 1956 Mercury, and relished the camaraderie of the local classic car club. He is survived by his beloved wife of 60 years, Joan, sister Jackie and brother Mike (Linda), his sons Steve, Marc, and David, daughters in law Sandy, Cecilia and Kathryn, grandchildren Dash, Analise, Michelle, Alexander, Heather, and Holly Fortin, as well as Hannah Moon (John), and numerous nieces and nephews. A memorial service will be held at Eversole Mortuary in Ukiah on February 10th at 11:00 AM, followed by a remembrance gathering/Celebration of Life at the Saturday Afternoon Club in Ukiah. In lieu of flowers, the family kindly requests donations to Ukiah Hospice and/or the Alzheimer’s Association, in honor of Lou’s commitment to education and community. May his gentle soul rest in eternal peace.

A MODERATE/MILD 3.2 magnitude earthquake centered about 3 miles northeast of Boonville jiggled the Boonville area for a couple of seconds about 4:45pm Sunday.

SIGNS OF THE TIMES

by Jim Shields

Quick weather report

We have two Pineapple Expresses passing our way this week. Pineapple Express (PE) was the nickname airline employees, like I used to be and loved every minute of it, coined for winter tropical storms originating around Hawaii picking up moisture from the Pacific and then walloping the U.S. and Canada’s West Coasts with heavy rainfall and snow.

I worked graveyard and our last plane to unload was the first to arrive in the morning around 6 a.m., the Honolulu to SFO flight. With PE tailwinds accelerating it, the flight would oftentimes arrive 30 minutes early. I worked for Western Airlines and our meteorologists told us that a PE can carry up to 28 times more water than the Mississippi River. I have no idea how much water is in the Mississippi, but I know that PEs usually dump mega-inches on the West Coast. This first PE will continue until Saturday and as of this moment it has dropped 4.25 inches since 5 a.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 31.

That pushed our season total to 32.19 inches of precip, which is about half of our annual historical average of 66.5 inches. We discovered during recent record droughts that our ancient Long Valley aquifer recharges itself at 29 inches, which was the lowest annual rainfall ever recorded in our area. Prior to that event the low mark was 31.5 inches. The name of the game with water is pay attention, learn, adapt, and protect.

Who’s in charge?

Last week’s column dealt with the ill-conceived decision by county officials to evict the Veterans Services Office from their long-term occupancy at Ukiah’s Observatory Avenue and move in a cadre of burn pile smoke cops form the Air Quality Management Control District. The Supervisors without any public notice or discussion supported the decision made by faceless bureaucrats who, by the way, didn’t even inform their alleged bosses, the Supervisors, that this stink bomb was about to be lobbed into the public arena.

Of course, that leads to another more worrisome line of inquiry into who’s truly in charge down in the County Seat.

I’ve always believed that problems just don’t happen, people make them happen. And if people make them happen, other people can make them un-happen. That’s a short-hand definition of politics, which is, or should be, the practical art of adjusting, refining and correcting the governing process whenever it’s not working.

Another insightful way at looking at this was provided by Izzie, who said, “Recalls that old Abbott and Costello ‘Who’s on first?’ skit. From top to bottom, national to local, we watch government stumble all over its own feet. A sign of the times, apparently.”

Another example of people creating problems

Reporter Sarah Reith summed up the recently completed (several more to follow) independent audit of the county’s tangled financial books: “The county’s outside auditor presented his company’s findings to the Board of Supervisors this week and recommended rigorous additional training and protocols to ensure that accounting practices are in compliance with government auditing standards. The findings of the audit for fiscal year 21/22 include a variety of over and understatements, accounts not properly tracked, and a lack of internal controls that expose public funds to the possibility of fraud …”

Keep in mind, this required outside, third-party audit is two years tardy.

Anyway, as you are probably aware, since late Spring of last year, I’ve repeatedly requested the Supes call in former officials responsible for fiscal matters (Treasurer-Tax Collector, Auditor-Controller, Assessor, CEO) and interview/question and, hopefully, learn from them how they did their jobs. This is critical information the BOS admits it is lacking. Since no one has explanations or answers to what caused the ongoing, untenable fiscal mess the county was/is in, you need to conduct an inquiry and start finding answers to all of the current unknowns prior to launching a substantially, momentous alteration to your organizational structure with this idea of a Department of Finance. By the way, if the Board does decide to hold an inquiry, it won’t be necessary for former officials to attend in-person. That’s the beauty of zoom meetings.”

Here’s a short list of former county finance-related officials who should be called into a public hearing to share their information and insights on how they did their jobs over the years:

Shari Schapmire, Treasurer-Tax Collector

Lloyd Weer, Auditor-Controller

Meredith Ford, Auditor-Controller

Dennis Huey, Auditor-Controller

Tim Knudson, Treasurer-Tax Collector

Carmel Angelo, CEO

Jim Anderson, CAO

After this topic was first raised, an agitated 2nd District Supervisor Maureen Mulheren advised her colleagues, “We should not take another elected official to task. That’s something for the Grand Jury!”

In a similar manner of dismissing any attempt to get to the bottom of the county’s fiscal mess, Supe Ted Williams said at the time, “We don’t need to do that, we already know the reasons.”

That just goes to show you, there are too many elected officials who just don’t want to give up the steering wheel even though they continue to wreck the vehicle.

Another sign of the times, apparently.

(Jim Shields is the Mendocino County Observer’s editor and publisher, observer@pacific.net, the long-time district manager of the Laytonville County Water District, and is also chairman of the Laytonville Area Municipal Advisory Council. Listen to his radio program “This and That” every Saturday at noon on KPFN 105.1 FM, also streamed live: http://www.kpfn.org.)

LORENZO ROTA: thought you might like this photo taken at north end of Lake Mendo looking east to the Russian river/Hwy 20….was drizzling at sunset, so nice semi circular rainbow.

Circular Rainbow over East Fork Russian River/Hwy 20 (drone photo by Volare Aerial of Ukiah)

PANTHER SPORTS

Celebrating Our Junior High Girls Basketball Team!

Our Panthers made a remarkable impact at the Boonville tournament, finishing with a strong 3-1 record. They played with determination and teamwork, showcasing their skills on the court.

The team achieved two solid wins against Point Arena, demonstrating great coordination and spirit. Their game against Round Valley added another well-earned victory to their tally, where they played with impressive tenacity and skill.

In a challenging game against the tall and talented Upper Lake team, our girls showed true grit. They competed with everything they had, earning a proud third place in the tournament.

A big round of applause for our Junior High Girls Basketball Team - your hard work and perseverance are inspiring!M

AVHS junior high basketball went 6-1 over the weekend, keep an eye out for these young athletes, over the next several years as they continue to improve and bring our high school basketball program back to a high standard that parents and alumni can be proud of. Big thanks to our booster club Coach Espinoza coach star and Coach Rhodes as well as all of the supportive parents who are making the season possible. We’re not done yet!!

Panther Athletic Director John Toohey

THE BOONVILLE BUMMER HOUSE has been red tagged. (Word on the street says it was red-tagged for lack of a foundation.) The focus of unanimous community hostility, the controversial structure radiated hostility, with two large menacing Dobermans hurling themselves at the fence at passersby, and it’s painted a weird aquamarine, the outer fence warned the community that they might die by dog or gun if anybody dared approach the front door.

REPUBLICAN SUPES FORUM

TUESDAY, February 6th 6-8 pm there is a candidates forum hosted by the Mendocino County Republican Central Committee at Ukiah City Council Chambers 300 Seminary Avenue, Ukiah:

District 1 Candidates: Madeline Cline, Carrie Shattuck, Adam Gaska, Trevor Mockel

District 2 Candidates: Maureen "Mo" Mulheren, Jacob Brown

District 4 Candidates: Bernie Norvell and Georgina Avila-Gorman

THE BIGGEST CONTRIBUTORS to Trevor Mockel’s campaign for First District Supervisor are Minal Shankar (Ukiah entrepreneur who tried to buy/renovate the Palace Hotel) at $5,000; Janice Rich, at $1,000; County Superintendent of Schools Nicole Glentzer, his father Jim Mockel, and “Sprit Canyon LLC” (i.e., Glenn McGourty’s vineyard/winery) at $500 each.

THE BIGGEST CONTRIBUTORS to Adam Gaska’s campaign are Steven Bowne, Realtor ($1,000), Richard Rhodes of Rhodes Vineyards ($1,500). Sattie Clark of Backbone Vineyard and Winery ($500). Eric Kaster of Eleek Inc ($500). Gaska reports 18 other donations between $50 and $300 each.

BY FAR the biggest fundraiser in the First District Race is Madeline Cline who reports having received about $42k. Her biggest contributors are Ukiah area wine growers, along with several dozen other smaller contributors.

CARRIE SHATTUCK’S biggest contributors are West Coast Enterprises which looks like Shattuck’s own trucking business ($2,000), Andrea Vachon ($1,500), Susan Cummins ($1,000) and Wendy Caminiti ($500), plus a few others at $25 to $200 each.

IN THE SECOND DISTRICT (Ukiah) Incumbent Maureen Mulheren reports just two contributors: Her father James Mulheren ($2,000) and one other for $100.

CANDIDATE JACOB BROWN reports just two contributors as well. Andrea Vachon, retired ($1,000), and Brown himself ($500).

IN THE FOURTH DISTRICT (Fort Bragg area) Candidate Bernie Norvell reports one contributor, Cas Smith of North Coast Plumbing ($5,000).

(We could not find any campaign contribution filings for Fourth District candidate Georgina Avila-Gorman.)

(Mark Scaramella)

LARGE OFFICE SPACE NOW AVAILABLE FOR RENT IN BOONVILLE

14150(A) Hwy 128, located next to Boonville Post Office.

Entry and restroom handicapped accessible; free water/sewer.

Credit report plus $500 security deposit required.

$875.00 per month. To view space contact Jeff Burroughs @707-234-1095 or joanburroughs0@gmail.com for further information.

ED NOTES

THE OTHER DAY a commenter said he didn't think Carrie Shattuck would be a “team player” if she were elected 1st District supervisor. Which, by itself, is a good reason to vote for her, especially in the monochromed, muzak context of Mendo politics, a dispiriting mix of Bidenism and opportunism that leaves most locals unrepresented at any level of government.

OUR SPECTACULARLY WRONGED former Auditor-Controller, Chamise Cubbison, was a “team player” until the DA kicked her off the team for daring to challenge his chiseling reimbursement chits.

HER CRIME? Protecting public money, which was her job until DA Eyster engineered her dismissal via our spine-free board of supervisors. And Ms. Cubbison was elected to office! So what we had was one power-crazed, vengeful elected official arbitrarily removing another elected official. If Eyster had swooped down on Cubbison with the armed perp-walk that seems to be a Mendo speciality, we'd have had the full Guatemala.

TEAM PLAYERS did this. Which is what happens when team play becomes the supreme value, that public dissent from someone on the team goes rogue and actually ventures an honest, independent opinion. One would have thought someone in Mendo's ruling public apparatus would have said, “Hey! I don't think we should do this to our elected Auditor-Controller just because the DA wants her out. She's worked for us for many blameless years, and she's always been a team player.”

DON'T WEEP for Chamise. She'll emerge from her humiliating ordeal a multi-millionaire in damages when she gets her job back, assuming she'd even want it back in the context of the viper's nest which is public employment in Mendocino County.

OUR GOOD FRIEND, Mr. Dunlap, commented: “Let’s all remember that a while back Trump bragged that if he were president, he could end the war in one day. How so? Giving in to Putin’s war goals, selling-out the Ukranians, ending our military weapons help to them…”

YES, that's probably how Trump would do it, and please excuse me while I slip into Big Think mode. Ukraine is at a stalemate with the Russkies, who have successfully occupied the Russian-speaking areas of Ukraine that border Russia. I would call an immediate ceasefire with the threat of no more aid to Ukraine, cede the Russian-speaking areas to Russia with guarantees of safety to Ukranians who don't want to be part of Russia, with the deal enforced by Nato troops, not US.

WOULD THAT WORK? No, there's no way to compel Putin to do anything, although there are encouraging signs of opposition to him among the Russian population, which of course risks its collective neck in opposing him.

HERE IN FREEDOMLANDIA? Most of what's wrong could be cured with this basic fix: A return to 90 percent taxes on the wealthy, which taxation was in the halcyon days of the 1950s when public money was put to public purpose, and working stiffs could buy a house and send the kids to college with enough left over for an annual family vacation. Think of it! No homelessness, hospitals for the mentally ill, steroid-free chickens in every pot!

FORMER FBPD CHIEF JOINS DA TEAM

Mendocino County District Attorney David Eyster announced recently that his office has hired two men who retired from local law enforcement agencies to serve as investigators, including a former chief of the Fort Bragg Police Department.

According to DA Eyster, “coming to the DA’s team from the California Highway Patrol after a very short retirement is Robert Simas,” whom he described as serving “as a peace officer with the CHP for 25 years, beginning in October 1998 until his ‘retirement’ from the force in December 2023.”

Eyster notes that “in addition to specialized training in accident investigations and vehicle-related crimes, (Simas) brings to his new job specialized narcotics and major crimes investigation experience.”

Also joining the DA’s office as an investigator, Eyster reports, is former Fort Bragg Police Chief Scott Mayberry, whom Eyster described as also serving “with the Redding Police Department, the Petaluma Police Department, and, of course, as a DA investigator pre-retirement. (Mayberry) is returning to the DA’s team as a civilian administrator/advisor/liaison and will be undertaking special assignments, which will include mentoring younger peace officers to better fight crime and promote public safety collaboratively in both Mendocino and Lake counties.”

Eyster notes that Simas and Mayberry “are joining a diverse and complimentary team that includes Assistant Chief Investigator Bryan Arrington, who (previously) worked for both the Ukiah Police Department and the MCSO, (and) other members of the DA’s team include Investigators Mariano Guzman and Tom Kiely, both with significant law enforcement experience from working at the Ukiah Police Department, Jim Schnitzius and Alex Johnston, both with significant law enforcement experience from working at the MCSO, and Investigative Tech Naomi Carter, who has law enforcement experience from working at the Willits Police Department; and, before that, the DA.”

Eyster described “the primary purpose of the District Attorney’s Bureau of Investigations (as providing) professional investigative and victim/witness support for the local prosecutors. All DA investigators are sworn peace officers with many years of law enforcement experience. The DA’s investigators and their investigative tech are expected to professionally and thoroughly investigate all matters assigned to them by the DA and his deputies, particularly investigations intended to compliment initial investigations undertaken by other local law enforcement agencies.”

(DA Presser)

LIVE MUSIC FRIDAY! Come down to the distillery and enjoy the vibes…Friday, the 9th 7:00 to 9:00

THE FUTURE OF THE PALACE HOTEL

To the Editor:

First of all, thanks to Karen Rifkin and Mike Geniella for their research and coverage of the Ukiah Gem, Palace Hotel. Their writings are very informative and nostalgic.

I have fond memories of the Palace Hotel as a young adult, and have been quite disappointed in recent years how this majestic building has been treated in its senior state. Neglect has been prevalent.

I feel it may be the case the grand hotel’s days are numbered, but, if so, in my opinion, there are too many people signed up for its demise for the wrong reasons, including some city personnel.

In recent years, there have been Palace owners who profess to care, but have been pretty disingenuous in their actions. We need to be cautious about rewarding some of them for their incompetence. The reference “demolition by neglect” is apropos.

I believe the deputy city manager is quite correct about the city not being in a position to dictate the outcome, but I do think they need to be careful about their actions that may give the impression they are managing the process in a specific way that would make it easier for those who want to start over from the ground up on that property.

For example, before any action is taken, there should be a requirement for a well-qualified, credible source to make a determination about the condition of the existing structure, and the suggested foundation soil condition. And the discrepancies between the 2017 Geophysical survey, which found no evidence of possible ground contamination, and the 2023 survey, which found some contaminated areas, must be reconciled.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves before any decisions are made. Do the due diligence required, and then make an educated and impersonal decision.

John Moon

Ukiah

PETER LIT: Today it occurred to me that Israel and the Zionists are acting as an anti-Semitic force. Are not the Palestinians a Semitic people? Why are we aiding and abetting this behavior?

HEADED FOR FORT BRAGG CITY COUNCIL…

KMUD RADIO SHOW ON ISRAELI WAR CRIMES IN GAZA

We are seeking guests for a follow up to this show. If interested, please call or write to us.

John and Mary at "Heroes and Patriots Radio"
heroesandpatriots@gmail.com
sako4@comcast.net
(707) 367-2300

CHECKING IN WITH THE AV GRANGE…

by Captain Rainbow

Super PANCAKE Bowl on Sunday, February 11th. So what’s so Super about it? Well to start your super Sunday how’s about some Super hot cakes at the AV Grange. Don’t forget all the other fixings to get you in the mood. AND there’ a special super sauce we are preparing for any Kansas City Chiefs fans heh, heh, heh. Yup it’s the second Sunday of the month and the Granges Pancake Breakfast will be there to get you going. Special football shaped pancakes upon request.

Sprucing up the Grange:

Come help spruce up the Grange getting ready for the AV Grange Variety Show! Clean up day is Saturday March 17th. We’ll be painting, patching, washing, cleaning and more. Call 684-9340 to get involved.

With a clean Grange we'll be ready for the Winter Abundance Gathering also called the Seed and Scion Exchange for the first time held at our Grange. It's Saturday February 24th. An amazing event put on by our own AV Foodshed. Keep your ears and eyes peeled to find out more on this one.

The 31st AV Grange Variety Show is in the works. Showtime Friday March 8 and Saturday the 9th. Acts are signing up now and we want you too, especially those animal acts, where are those darn Llama acts anyway? We only need one! Mendocino County and beyond call NOW with your offerings! Reach out to Abeja 972-3096 or Captain Rainbow 472-9189.

ONE SPACE LEFT for the 2-15-24 Android Training, Anderson Valley Senior Center, Boonville

Having difficulty hearing or seeing on your smartphone?

Attend this FREE training and make your smartphone work better for you! The 2-hour presentation will be run by 2 people - the presenter and a helper to help participants during the presentation to stay on track. All participants will get a workbook after completing the training. Presented by California Connect: https://caconnect.org/

Make your Android smartphone louder and easier to hear
- Send text messages
- Connect Bluetooth devices
- Operate the basic functions of your Android smartphone…
and much more!

Please let me know if you would like to take this class, we have an opening - thank you

Registration in advanced is required (Please no drop-ins):

Anica Williams
Anderson Valley Village Coordinator
Cell: 707-684-9829
Email: andersonvalleyvillage@gmail.com

YOUR HEALTH IS OVERRATED

by Tommy Wayne Kramer

You hear a lot of advice about health as you go through the years, some of it true.

You also hear a lot of guff. There’s an army of nurses, nannies, physical therapists, medical advisors and websites devoted to nothing but scolding us and warning us about the dangers of enjoying life.

All these experts assume the entire point of your existence is to prolong it as long as possible, down to the last minute, the final drip of morphine. Does that make sense to you? That your life is meant to be stretched beyond its shelf date?

This way, they say, you can squeeze out an extra few months teetering along in a walker or wheelchair, oxygen tanks strapped to your waist, dining on gruel and mush, watching TV in the Social Hall at the “Ashes to Dust Retirement Home” with a bunch of other near-corpses, hoping to hang on long enough to collect another birthday card come October.

And this is why you quit smoking when you were 35 years old?

Much of what the health care industry advises seems dubious and heavy on the “Don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’t eat meat, wear a safety helmet brushing your teeth, watch your cholesterol, get a lot of exercise, monitor your heart, cut out salt, cut out sugar, get monthly checkups, avoid stress, and if you’re out at night, wear white.”

These stern admonitions come with warnings about the dangers of heart disease, rheumatism, dandruff, diabetes, psoriasis, and everything else promoted by our dear friends in the pharmaceutical biz.

And if we don’t follow these well-meaning health tips? Proceed at your own peril.

But what do you think today, looking back at the fun times and great experiences you missed out on when you could have been doing drugs and having sex and eating steaks, drinking tequila and driving 110 miles an hour down Highway One when you were half your age, all forfeited so you could enjoy a so-called healthy lifestyle?

If you’re honest: Regretful.

Or leaving Ukiah for Tahoe at six o’clock one night with a couple buddies to crash a wedding reception, especially thinking there might be cocaine, champagne, six babes from BYU and a hangover the size of the Palace Hotel tomorrow at noon when you woke up, unless you died at 3 a.m.

Oh no. Far better you stayed home, read the latest copy of Mother Earth News and had a nice cholesterol-free vegan meal with your two cats. Don’t forget your old people pills. Be sure to mark the calendar with your 19,000th day of sober cleanliness.

Here’s a little secret health care professionals never tell you. Health care professionals live quiet, discrete, safe lives eating nutritious foods, getting lots of exercise, and avoiding anything that might seem dangerous, or at least enjoyable. For all this prudence medical industry employees expect to live, on average, 1.3 years longer than you.

(Tipoff: Those 1.3 years come at the end of the line, the final days of their tired, gray, careful lives.)

Let me repeat: those brief added-on years don’t come when you want them. It’s not like you can tack on the 1.3 between age 28 and 31 when you’re young, pretty, energetic and full of life.

No, you’ll get them starting at age 94. Would you like to pick out what color oxygen tank to have fastened to you hip?

Aren’t you glad you didn’t eat cheeseburgers and drink Martinis back when you were 48 years old? Aren’t you glad you followed some newspaper columnist’s advice to avoid risky behavior like engaging in unprotected sex with multiple partners, three of whom you met one night in a hotel bar in Phoenix when you were 71?

Just think: you might have gotten leg cramps in the Executive Suite at Hotel de Luxe somewhere in Arizona, or come down with herpes or cirrhosis 20 years later. Heaven help us all.

You’d rather your days be filled with shuffleboard in Florida, playing bingo, wearing slippers, wearing Depends, wearing an oxygen tank, taking naps, learning French and watching Lawrence Welk host Jeopardy on TV.

Go to bed early. Act like every day’s your next one. Do some laundry (one bathrobe, two pair pajamas) and thrill yourself with a little low-cal fat-free ice cream tonight when the cook at the rest home spoons a special scoop out just for you today, because it’s your birthday.

Icy streets in Asheville, NC, January 1959. (Malcolm Gamble/Asheville Citizen Times)

SO YOU'RE 90: WHAT'S NEXT…

IS AGING AN ADVANTAGE?

by Gregory Sims

Is Aging an Advantage? Maybe a better word is “tradeoff.” As an “inactive,” i.e., retired psychologist, I no longer offer “professional” opinions or see clients/patients. I offer nonprofessional opinions, and engage in conversations. So for the octogenarians, et al. here are a few personal opinions regarding the plusses and less than plusses of being 90 + 1/2 years old.

1. Much of the time I love being 90+ and statistics show that on average such folks have a few more (possible) years. That said odd sensations, particularly at night seem like the transfer agent is at the door and my body quickly says-time for a bathroom, life breathing, pulsation compassion break. And I sometimes wonder what would happen if I followed that low energy path? …not planning to do so anytime soon. Paradoxically, the closer I am to becoming unattached non-physical patterns the less bothersome it is. When I was middle aged I deeply feared even thinking of death. The more I came to understand somethings about the spirituality of transcendent life, it sort of went away… Well sort of. Because it is in the air as they say. My hope is ending will become a kind of companion as many peers left before me. Still I’m fun and at times bright eyed and bushy tailed.

2. I went down to look at the surging Navarro River yesterday. It felt robust and strong. The river seemed to be in good spirits, so different than the sad little algae covered trickle in drought summer. But my trip to the river was/is very different than when folks would marvel at how I’d skip the path and just head down the hill. Now I hold the rail, or where there isn’t one I plan out where to put my feet, not with fear, but with agency. If I fall, it’s a problem-even if I’m not hurt because as they say “it’s a sign of the times.” At medical exams they always ask if I have. In my studio sits a walking stick waiting for when needed.

However we continue to grow as we can let ourselves do so. Every time I come up from the Navarro there’s a little steepness I attend to and reflect upon which I had ignored when I had fallen behind others who were ahead of me. I lost my balance and was falling backwards down into the canyon. So my body took over completely and altered my trajectory so that I came to rest on a knee. The others looked back seeing me on my knee perhaps thinking I was resting. It was another teaching: When we don’t allow a natural fluency and over control our bodies we often do so quite awkwardly. If my mind lives in my body as Thoreau suggests we become more fluent… which takes learning and practice how and when to let go. Yes! Even at 90.

3. I love to hop in my car and go to Boonville, Mosswood, Boontberry, the Dragon, the Legion, Sr. Citizens, see friends, go up to the land, clinic, shopping, to Ukiah, even to the Bay Area Peninsula, Stanford for a get-a-way while: My family quartet with spouses and sig. others plus a friend or two would have been happy for me to fail my driving test instead of being granted another 5yr. license. (Drive till I’m 95??? I don’t think so.) Even now I can’t drive at night.

4. I read somewhere that at age 90 we are but 5% of the elderly (over 60?) When there’s a litany of peers who’ve passed on I have known too many of them. There is an age related loneliness that comes with the blessings of longevity. I even wonder, did I deserve this? Am I but the product of medical advances?

5. The blessings of longevity: Family pictures where there’s this old guy in the midst of a gathering of joyful, happy multiply aged the very young, middle aged and me (my few remaining peers can’t travel-maybe next time). Perhaps I’ll come back to this item sometime later, there’s more to be said. But the few words I’ll share; I grew up with fragments of a family and to be embraced by the semi-wildness of the younger ones and the joy of their families is but a manifestation of heaven on earth.

I’ll summarize this brief narrative with a story I often tell. I received a semi-academic appointment a few years back before the vast pandemic illness overcame us. In my first year they didn’t have an office for me, but knowing the old part of the campus quite well I placed myself in a café that had been closed and felt comfortable being there. It even had a restroom which is important for an elderly male. Being unused there were some tiny flying creatures that inhabited the restroom. But as time went on, the number diminished until there was but one and I became curious about it and placed my hand next to it on the wall. It flew around and came back to approximately the same spot. So I again placed my hand next to it and left it there and the life form landed next to my hand. And in repeating this several times I sensed I as a life form and this other life form were relating. One species living but a few days the other many decades being irrelevant. If we both lived the presence of the other the teaching we took away from this encounter: Within the substance of life lies our essence of presence-unity.

R.D. BEACON:

The village of elk, formally called Greenwood back in the old days, has changed greatly, the oasis bar, in the old days serve some of the best Italian food in the country, but the sound was different, we had a real grocery store, with fresh cut meat every day, and good vegetables, there was the Shell station just a little north of the elk market, where you could get gasoline, and oil per your motor, Melvin Mattson was the proprietor, get your car greased, and a set of tires, while his brother Walter ran the grocery store, it was pretty much, hope full-service community, you could go down to the bar and drink your cares away, while having your car loop, and put on a new set of tires, staggered by the grocery store, pick up a little better, it was that way, through the late 70s, today, the elk market, is a glorified delicatessen with no price cut meat, or good vegetables, if you get a good sandwich for way too much money, the elk garage is a shadow of its former self lane can be bought their, you can get your car worked on, and bike tires, but it is not like the old days, and the oasis as long since faded into the past, a distant memory, over the years, north end of town sprang up a B&B, with way too higher price to pay for anyone local to stay, fine old homes, converted into businesses, to satisfy the needs of the tourist, that come through the village, no more can you hear, the rumbling sounds, of the sawmill in the middle of Long since gone, the trailer park has disappeared, and the only business, that survived through the 70s and is still around, is the bar, on the hill, called Beacon light by the sea, used to be full service restaurant, but because of the gas crunch, and all the sawmills moving out of the coast, is now just a cocktail lounge, open on Fridays and Saturdays, 5 PM until 11 PM on occasion sometimes later, in the same building, beacon light communications, the only two-way radio sales and service on the coast, in the old days, they used to be a lot of places to eat from the Sonoma County line, northward all the way up into Fort Bragg, and a lot of places to have alcohol, but over the years, the environmentalists kicked the timber industry, to the curb, and all the people leapt, there were interested in a good steak, good alcohol, and visiting with their neighbors, gave way to, environmental world, filled with vegetarians, and people of rather smoke weed, as a healthy drink, but the environmentalist not stop, chasing up sawmills and loggers, they also face the dairies out many of the people, raising livestock, chasing away even the apple orchards, out of the Valley, and replacing it with wine grapes, and wineries, the county has changed, the environmental world has come to Mendocino County, once to convert timberland, into parks, removing valuable land from the tax rolls, people moved into the coastal area, or against housing, and any development, meanwhile gangs are moving into the county, and drug dealers, corrupting the children and young adults, and the coastal little towns, the become shadows, of their former greatness were mighty sawmills, implied huge amounts of people, and kept the coast to live, all or are is the shadow of cement walls, and blocks of cement, that held machinery in place, looking back at town that we used to call Greenwood, which is now called elk, looking at their history, the better than 5000 people in the 1800s used to live and work in the community, but looking at all the towns even the town of Fort Bragg, once hosted, the third-largest redwood mill in the world, now looking at a place of lot where it used to be, at the several thousand people, supported the community are all gone, moved far away, the only thing that it reminds us of what used to be, is the little Ray Road, originally called, California Western Railroad, with the scope trained, traversing from the coast to the Valley and the teller Willits, is even become a shadow of its former self, with people who own it not really of the land, looking to try and make money offered tours attraction, not a real railroad, not serving commerce, but a make-believe training company, serving the needs of the tours come to visit, even the great fishing industry, that was down on the,Noyo harbor, is all but gone due to bad regulations, from a bad government, and even worse politicians, in Mendocino County, that won't fight, to bring our industries back, was a dull care, for most of them were not born and raised right here, in the Redwood Empire, we as a people need to take our country back, kick the environmentalist to the curb, a show on the way out, for we have more timber volume, in our County today than we did in 1800, and we could easily support of vibrant, sawmill, and logging industry today, giving good jobs to hard-working people, our only problem, is our County officials, won't support the idea, are all paid off by environmentalists, and as long as they get their paycheck they don't care.

CATCH OF THE DAY, Sunday, February 4, 2024

JOSE CORNEJO-OLVERA, Ukiah. County parole violation.

VANESSA ELIZABETH, Ukiah. Failure to appear, probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

BEN GOMES, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs.

CHRISTIAN GUTIERREZ-GARCIA, Ukiah. DUI, suspended license for DUI, no license.

STEPHEN LOWRY, Covelo. DUI.

JEREMIAH MCOSKER, Ukiah. Vandalism, failure to appear. (Frequent flyer.)

JAMIE SIGMAN, Fort Bragg. DUI.

WILLIAM SLAGLE, Willits. Failure to appear.

AMANDA VEGA, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs.

HOW TO FIND OUT IF YOU COULD BE IMPACTED BY AT&T’S REQUEST TO DISCONTINUE LANDLINE SERVICE IN PARTS OF CALIFORNIA

AT&T is asking the CPUC to end its obligation as “Carrier of Last Resort.”

by Marisa Endicott

Access to telephone landlines could be in jeopardy for some California residents depending on an upcoming decision by the California Public Utilities Commission.

AT&T is required to provide service as the states “Carrier of Last Resort,” providing basic telephone service in a particular area. AT&T wants to end that obligation.

If approved, and another company doesn’t volunteer to provide service, it would affect customers in certain service areas throughout the state, including in Sonoma, Lake, Mendocino and Napa counties.

To find out if you would be impacted, type in your address at pdne.ws/42nU2xA.

The CPUC will be holding public hearings on the matter in February and March. A meeting will be held in Ukiah on Feb. 22. An online meeting will be hold on March 19. For more information, go to pdne.ws/3Ur2daB.

(Santa Rosa Press Democrat)

AL NUNEZ

I'm ready to join forces with those who are like minded to defend our American freedom and way of life. I don't want our country turning into a third world country with all these illegal immigrants that are doing harm to our country as I write this. They are soaking up our tax dollars and resources. I'm sick of what is being allowed under Biden administration and Gavin Newsome. These old timers told me back in 1988 that a brown race that don't care about the American dream are going to over run white America. Let's see, uh open borders, illegal entries, got a ways and now illegals shoring up on our California beaches in wealthy towns like San Diego with stolen boats. Well gee I think that's what's going on right now. Most tell me I'm racist right winged conspiring. They say that we need all theses illegals to fill jobs we have waiting for them. 10 million have entered since Biden was elected and even more are coming because they know we are on to them. They want to get rid of Americans that are smart and can think for themselves and replace us with those that are to dumb to live a good life. Okay I got to stop, the water is is getting too hot. Bravo one over and out.

ED REPLY: Totally wrong, Al. Calm down, turn off NewsMax. Walk slow and take deep breaths.

SENATOR MIKE MCGUIRE scored an amazing A+ by progressive org (via Tom Wodetski)

The 2024 Courage Scores are in, and we have some great news about your state senator:

Mike McGuire scored an amazing A+!

McGuire has refused to bow to corporate interests. Instead, he co-authored SB 770, the bill that moved California one step closer to Medicare for All. He also has regulated land use and fisheries to protect our environment, and voted for the progressive legislation we analyzed!

You can find out more about Mike McGuire and your other representatives by checking out their Courage Scores for yourself.

<https://act.couragecampaign.org/go/2887?t=15&akid=14794%2E49147%2E_B4Id4>

And it’s so important that as many people as possible know that McGuire is doing his job for Senate District 2 and encourage him to keep being a champion for our district and state. You can forward this email and use the buttons below to share Courage Score with your friends and family! The only way we can make our government work for us is by making sure as many people as possible have the information they need to engage directly with their representatives. We’re counting on you!

SB 770, WIENER. HEALTH CARE: UNIFIED HEALTH CARE FINANCING.

Prior state law established the Healthy California for All Commission for the purpose of developing a plan towards the goal of achieving a health care delivery system in California that provides coverage and access through a unified health care financing system for all Californians, including, among other options, a single-payer financing system.

This bill would direct the Secretary of the California Health and Human Services Agency to research, develop, and pursue discussions of a waiver framework in consultation with the federal government with the objective of a health care system that incorporates specified features and objectives, including, among others, a comprehensive package of medical, behavioral health, pharmaceutical, dental, and vision benefits, and the absence of cost sharing for essential services and treatments. The bill would further require the secretary to engage specified stakeholders to provide input on topics related to discussions with the federal government and key design issues, as specified. The bill would require the secretary, no later than January 1, 2025, to provide an interim report to specified committees of the Legislature and propose statutory language to the chairs of those committees authorizing the development and submission of applications to the federal government for waivers necessary to implement a unified health care financing system. The bill would require the secretary, no later than June 1, 2025, to complete drafting the waiver framework, make the draft available to the public on the agency’s internet website, and hold a 45-day public comment period thereafter. The bill would require the secretary, no later than November 1, 2025, to provide the Legislature and the Governor with a report that communicates the finalized waiver framework, as specified, and sets forth the specific elements to be included in a formal waiver application to establish a unified health care financing system, as specified. The bill would also include findings and declarations of the Legislature related to the implementation of a unified health care financing system.

PUBLIC PAY DATA SHOW ROOT OF BUDGET ILLS IN CALIFORNIA

One of our recurring frustrations is that California policy makers continue to shovel enormous piles of taxpayer cash to address our state’s pressing problems — from homelessness to infrastructure to public schools — and yet we see little real-world progress. The state’s annual total budget approaches $311 billion. That budget is more than double the state budget only a dozen years ago.

“California’s state and local government revenues and spending are 60 percent higher than Texas on a per-resident basis,” according to a 2019 report from the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. One of the key reasons for the disparity is compensation. Public employees here — at the state, county and city level — earn pay and benefit packages that average more than $140,000 a year — double what private employees earn.

The Sacramento Bee has just released its new state worker pay database, which details the gross pay earned by the state’s 260,000 state employees and 400,000 university workers. It shows, for instance, some obvious high earners — such as the multimillion-dollar salaries earned by university football coaches and top University of California doctors. But the real issue isn’t a handful of outliers, but the outsized pay scales for mainstream public employees.

A Yahoo news report on the database found that total pay increased 3.2% last year and that the state added 2,000 new workers. We prefer the database put together by Transparent California, which includes the value of the state’s generous benefit packages — and not just gross pay. It also breaks down the pay by categories (such as overtime). The key indicator is not what employees receive in their paycheck, but their total cost to taxpayers.

We urge readers to search the databases to see the eye-popping compensation levels for themselves. As of 2021, Transparent California found that more than 40,000 California retirees were members of the $100,000 pension club — a number that soared 173% in nine years. In another example, the California Policy Center reported that the average total compensation package for firefighters in just one city, Manhattan Beach, was $328,000.

Even the data that shows total compensation including pension benefits — and California offers the most lucrative pension plans in the nation — understates total costs. That’s because unfunded pension liabilities are not included in most tallies. For instance, the California Public Employee’s Retirement System (CalPERS) only had 72% of the funds needed to fulfill its total pension promises as of last June, which means that taxpayers are responsible for any shortfalls. That amounts to a debt of around $4,000 for every Californian.

In 2012, the California Legislature passed a modest pension reform law, spearheaded by Gov. Jerry Brown, but lawmakers haven’t had the fortitude to address the issue since then — even though the pension problem hasn’t gone away and continues to stress local budgets in particular. The courts finally have upheld provisions in that law eliminating some pension-spiking gimmicks. In other words, it’s taken years simply to rein in even the most outrageous benefit costs.

Is it any wonder that California never has enough money? More reasonable compensation packages would help the state stretch its resources. So if you’re wondering why so little gets done despite the size of our tax burden and budget, peruse these databases for insight.

—The Editorial Board Southern California News Group (via Ukiah Daily Journal)

Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart on the set of 'The African Queen' 1951.

OOPS, IS TODAY VALENTINES DAY?

Editor,

Here I am eating a nice lite breakfast and behold! A very nice person buys a huge amount of balloons for that special cared for significant other. Happy Valentine’s Day to one and all. Oops, no calendar to verify this one.

Sincerely yours,

Greg Crawford

Fort Bragg

JOHN REDDING:

File this under "How Democrats Treat Their Voters".

"A boogeyman is a mythical creature used by adults to frighten children into good behavior."

Recent examples:

MAGA, Donald Trump

Climate Change

Covid Pandemic

J6 Insurrection

Toxic White Males

Add to the list si vous pleis.

BILL KIMBERLIN:

Shop window of Lionel train display in the 1930s. Looking at the faces of the people, both children and the older ones, reveals only one smiling face. Of course this was when America was in the great depression.

WISHLIST AFTER COLLEGE: TO FIND A GOOD JOB; TO WORK WITH GOOD PEOPLE I LIKE.

by Justine Frederiksen

I recently found a wishlist I wrote while finishing college. Feeling adrift and anxious as I waited to learn where and when my life would begin, I hoped to calm and focus myself by writing down what I wanted to have in that life.

That was cool.

Because reading that list nearly 30 years later, I was quite frankly amazed to see I have fulfilled all of the professional and personal wishes the younger me had. (Well, nearly all. Funny enough, I have yet to accomplish the very first one: To live by the ocean!)

But what’s even more remarkable to me is what I did NOT wish for: To get married and have kids. Younger me wanted a good car and a good job without a long commute, wanted an interesting and fulfilling job alongside good people, then to find one good person to “love who loves me.”

And while I did find that person, we did not have children. And I guess now I finally know why — they weren’t on my list!

So while I definitely recommend you write a list of things to strive for, I also recommend you think very carefully about what you do and don’t include, because it just might become true!

Here’s the list I wrote in February of 1996:

1. To live by the ocean.

2. To live within walking distance of most necessities.

3. Not to have to commute.

4. To have space to dance.

5. To have a vegetable garden.

6. To be able to draw/paint/do ceramics.

7. To be independent.

8. To have savings.

9. To work with good people I like.

10. To have a fulfilling, rewarding career.

11. To be healthy.

12. To have a fun, reliable car.

13. To see trees/mountains/birds/the ocean from my windows, either breakfast and/or bedroom.

14. To have people to share my life with.

15. To be living with someone whom I love who loves me; someone who is happy being with me and I’m happy being with them.

16. To see my father again?

17. To graduate.

18. To get a good job.

19. To be a happy, vibrant, independent, successful person.

MY DIRTY LAUNDRY

by Paul Modic

Well, that's a mistake I hope I never make again: I left a marking pen in a shirt pocket in the wash and now I have black ink stains on my clothes. What to do, turn them into rags? Give them away? There's decisions to be made as I look at the ink stains on the pajamas I'm wearing.

(It's a reminder what can happen with one moment of inattention, like that deadly house fire which recently claimed the life of one of our eccentric and creative neighbors. It doesn't matter that the old guy was a cigaret-smoking alcoholic with an unhealthy diet, and could have dropped off at any moment, he still wanted to live, on his terms, and fire was a terrible way to go. His neighbor had walked into his house recently and found him asleep on the couch with a lit cigaret in his hand.)

As a kid I did the family's laundry and when we were about to leave for a vacation was so excited I plopped the wet clothes in a basket and ran up the stairs from the basement without hanging them up, I don't think we had a dryer.

Living in New York at 533 E. 13^th St for a couple years I must've gone around the corner to 14^th Street but have no memories of any highlights or lowlights at the laundromat. (Though I did talk to Alan Ginsberg and Peter Orlavsky a couple of times on the street.)

For a season in the hills of Whale Gulch I put my dirty laundry in the creek running by the plastic house I was squatting in, with a rock on each item of clothing, gathered them up the next day, and hung them out to dry.

When I moved to Fern Hill I stood by the side of the road with my big duffle bag of dirty clothes and hitched to town and back, then when I got a car there were weekly trips to town to do laundry and buy food. (One memorable time in the eighties I opened the dryer door in Redway and a bunch of twenties flew out.)

I finally got my own washer/dryer setup and then I had no social life anymore. After about a year the dryer stopped working, I called Janet Branscomb at the Sears shack behind Murrishes (now Shop Smart) and she said, “Did you check the lint trap?”

“What's that?” I said. (It looked like a furry squirrel tail when I pulled it out.)

The washer is going now, it's nice to have one and I really appreciate it though I probably abuse the privilege by washing clothes which aren’t very dirty.

I also feel grateful when I'm taking a hot shower, even when I'm not that dirty. It reminds me of one of the reasons it’s said we're the richest country in the world: nearly everyone can take a hot shower and most of us have access to a washing machine. (I wish Paul Encimer were still alive to explain how our hot shower privileges are related to our 3750 nuclear warheads and the nearly 800 military bases we ave in over seventy countries.)

FROM SATIN JACKETS TO ‘NINER GANG’: THE EVOLUTION OF 49ERS FANDOM

by Peter Hartlaub

It was 1983 or 1984, and I was the original double screener.

I brought a television the size and shape of a large meatloaf to a 49ers game at Candlestick Park. It ran on eight “D” batteries, had a 4½-inch black and white television screen and was a totally normal thing to do in the era of Joe Montana, Bill Walsh and no in-stadium video replays.

The emotions, uniforms and even the look of a football game in 2024 aren’t much different from 1982, when the 49ers won their first Super Bowl. Legendary San Francisco running back Roger Craig and hard-hitting safety Ronnie Lott could time-travel forward and fit right into 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan’s offense and defense.

But as a fan in the stands, it feels more like 400 years have passed than 40. As the 49ers try for their sixth Super Bowl win on Sunday, Feb. 11, the game-day fashion, accessories and personal electronics of the 1980s bear little resemblance to the football experience today.

Thankfully, we have the San Francisco Chronicle archive to fully illustrate this point. Here’s a time machine voyage back to the 49ers’ Super Bowl XVI victory in 1982, with then-and-now photos to show just how much has changed.

The era of San Francisco sports fans wearing ties and fedoras to games was over by the time the 49ers reached the Super Bowl in the 1980s, but team-branded merch was just trickling into the stands.

Super Bowl XVI was a strange and glorious middle period, when fans dressed like they were running for sheriff of Candlestick Park. Cowboy hats were common, along with vests, flannel shirts, shepherd jackets and chain-smoking. Wearing team uniforms was very rare; if you had a 49ers jersey in 1982, you probably got it from a player.

The 49ers and the NFL have since monetized game day apparel to the maximum. The stadium’s interior bowl now looks painted in red and gold, with 68,000 fans wearing San Francisco-branded baseball caps, jerseys, hoodies, flags and 10 or 20 other things from the 49ers Store.

1982: Gold satin jackets

2024: Giant fake gold chains with the “49ers” logo

There was one major exception to the 1980s outfit rule: 49ers gold satin jackets. The jackets, made by Alabama-based Chalk Line, were cherished by fans, and you can see plenty of originals at Levi’s Stadium in 2024, worn by older ticket holders, passed down through generations or purchased in vintage stores.

Oakland Raiders and Cleveland Browns fans popularized in-stadium cosplay — with fans wearing makeup and oversize fake jewelry and assuming new personas. San Francisco fans in 2024 have joined the crowd. Enormous fake gold chains with hubcap-sized 49ers logos are now the most popular accessories.

1982: Forty F—in’ Niners!

2024: Bang Bang Niner Gang!

While official merch was rare in 1982, someone in San Francisco was spending long nights on a silk screen printing machine, making thousands of bootleg red “Forty F—in’ Niners” T-shirts. The Chronicle has photos of fans adorning bedsheet signs with the slogan and donning the shirts at games and the 1982 parade. (Joe Montana himself wore one; the image was captured and hangs on the wall at the Canyon Inn in Redwood City.)

“Bang Bang Niner Gang” is the refrain from Vallejo-native E-40’s “Niner Gang,” a rap track created for the 2019 season. (Sample lyric: “Niner faithful old school like an Impala/Ask Merton Hanks and the homie Ricky Watters.”) That season ended in a Super Bowl loss to — who else? — Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs, yet the slogan endures. This year’s popular 49ers anthem, “Do It for the Bay” by P-Lo and Saweetie, references the lyric.

1982: Wine and swing music

2024: Keg stands and Mac Dre

Chronicle photographers captured tailgate parties in the 1980s, and the mood seems pretty low-key. Think middle-aged people drinking chardonnay from actual glasses, placing neatly folded napkins on card tables and busting out swing dancing moves when the Forty Niners Band drops by to play some Dixieland jazz.

Modern tailgates have more of a “Mad Max: Fury Road” feel, with shots, bumping music and larger masses of humanity that spill into each other. In 2024, it’s hard to tell where one tailgate party ends and the next one starts. (In a good way.)

82: Huey Lewis and the News

2024: E-40

The rise of the 49ers from city embarrassment to Super Bowl champs coincided with Huey Lewis and the News ascending from popular San Francisco bar band to the biggest rock stars on the planet. Lewis befriended several players, letting them sing on “Hip to Be Square,” and the band’s doo-wop National Anthem remains the most perfect in Bay Area stadium history.

E-40 couldn’t have a more different sound, but the vibes are the same: He’s a homegrown talent loved by pretty much everyone who brings positivity to the game.

1982: Light bulbs screwed into a giant black board

2024: Two 200-by-48-foot 8K high-definition video screens

This is where older 49ers fans really feel like they were once living in the Middle Ages.

The old Candlestick Park “video screen” had the following: a giant Marlboro advertisement; an analog clock with minute and hour hands; a display with the downs, yards and score by quarters; and a larger screen for announcements. The height of technology was “WELCOME FOSTER FARMS JR. 49ERS KIDS CLUB” or “MARJORIE WILL YOU MARRY ME, FRANK.”

Meanwhile, does anyone even look at the field at Levi’s Stadium in 2024? The enormous video screens are incredibly sharp, show replays that immediately explain how on earth that ball ended up in Brandon Aiyuk’s hands, and can be viewed pretty much anywhere in the stadium.

1982: A 10-pound portable television

2024: Your phone

Without massive video screens at Candlestick in the 1980s, fans like me who hauled portable televisions to games — the earliest ones weighed more than 10 pounds — became the most popular people in their sections. During the first few Super Bowls, that black-and-white box was the only way anyone in the stadium could see a closeup replay of what happened on the field.

At the time, no one could fathom a device that fits in your pocket and (1) provides phone service; (2) doubles as a high-def color television; and (3) could look up any random football stat or stupid piece of trivia in an instant. (What? Mikey from the Life cereal commercial didn’t die from eating Pop Rocks?)

We live in an age of miracle and wonder.

1982: $200

2024: $10,000

With no Stubhub or electronic ticketing, purchasing a Super Bowl ticket in 1982 mostly happened through the classifieds section of your local newspaper — where Chronicle listings showed a high of $500, with most tickets in the $200 to $250 range. (That’s about $650 to $800 in today’s dollars.) One classified advertisement offered two tickets to “trade for good running car.”

However, the process of acquiring that 1982 ticket was bonkers. You would call a guy named “George” or “Rusty,” make a verbal deal on the phone, meet him in the parking lot of a Lyon’s Restaurant or bowling alley, and just pray he didn’t shove you into a van to make a suit out of your skin.

As of early this week, Super Bowl LVIII prices ranged from $8,333 to $90,000 per ticket on the secondary market. At least, most transactions in 2024 are electronic, insured and involve exactly zero vans.

AROUND THIS TIME 17 years ago on Sunday, February 4, 2007, the Queen Mary 2 arrived in San Francisco. The ship entered San Francisco at 4 pm from the Pacific Ocean, sailing underneath the Golden Gate Bridge. As the Queen Mary 2 sailed under the bridge, the ship cleared the bottom of the span by 27 feet.

The ship, which carried 2,638 passengers, many packing the ship's upper deck, was greeted by crowds of people gathered along the Golden Gate Bridge, and areas surrounding the bridge that include in San Francisco, Fort Point located by the southern anchorage of the Golden Gate Bridge, The Presidio, Crissy Field, Marina Green, and in Marin County, the Marin Headlands, and the Vista Point just before the Waldo Tunnel (now Robin Williams tunnel), by the Alexander Avenue exit off Highway 101 for Sausalito and the Marin Headlands, coming off the bridge headed northbound. San Francisco Bay between the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz Island was crowded with boats, both large and small, that include sailboats, tour boats, a fireboat, and the historic SS Jeremiah O'Brien all welcoming the ship.

The Queen Mary 2 traveled 13,880 nautical miles from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where it first departed and sailed around Cape Horn of South America before arriving in San Francisco. The ship docked at Pier 27 off the Embarcadero, right by Telegraph Hill where Coit Tower is and just a few piers before Pier 39 and Fisherman's Wharf. The following evening on February 5, at 8 pm, the Queen Mary 2 departed San Francisco bound for Honolulu and the second leg of its around-the-world voyage to the South Pacific, Australia, Asia, Egypt, and Europe.

THE DEMONSTRATIONS were merely an attack of mental disobedience on an obediently insane society. And if you feel you have been living in an unreal world for the last couple of years, it is particularly because this power structure has refused to listen to reason. Step outside the guidelines of the official umpires and make your own rules and your own reality.

— Phil Ochs (1971)

THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable.

— H.L. Mencken

A READER WRITES: Mushroom walks into a bar, sits down, orders a beer. Bartender: “Get outta here, we don’t serve your kind!” Mushroom: “Why not?! I’m a fungi…”

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Women and men are both necessary for achieving success, otherwise God would have made men capable of having children. Why have two sexes when one will do? Two is inefficient. When a man became pregnant, evolution could figure out how to deal with it.

So God must have had some other reason for creating women. If you want to find out why, just ask Him.

BTW, in the past, women weren’t necessarily considered the weaker sex or needing protecting because they were the child-bearing ones. Pregnant women often worked in the fields. When they were ready to deliver, they laid down, delivered their baby, and went back to work.

The reason women stayed home and men went hunting was because men produced testosterone and were much more aggressive. They also tended to have more muscle, a major requirement in dealing with wild animals and other enemies. Human babies are kind of unique because they need much more time to mature than other animals, so women got nurturing hormones, and although capable of hunting, were less so than men. Imagine trying to hunt mammoths carrying around a baby.

I FIND IT TOUCHING to see plants growing up through cracks in the concrete. Wonderful! It brings tears of joy to my eyes when I see grass taking over an abandoned parking lot. What better sign of hope can there be than life’s power to beat the asphalt odds? Here in the northeast where I live, freezing weather makes more cracks than Chris Rock, and the abundant rainfall helps seeds to germinate in them. But even in the desert southwest I saw the same miracle occurring: nature trying, with silent eloquence, to show us the way things should be.

— Malcolm Wells

TRUTH MOMENT...

American actress Hattie McDaniel (1895 - 1952) as she appeared in her role as Mammy in 'Gone With The Wind', circa 1939. McDaniel's performance won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, making her the first African-American to win an Academy Award. (Photo by Pictorial Parade/Archive Photos/Getty Images)

I didn't like Gone With the Wind when I first watched it because I didn't like Mammy.

My grandmother, who LOVED the movie, pointed out that Hattie McDaniel was PLAYING a maid, while my grandmother WAS a maid. She then asked what did I think Hattie should be playing in 1939, Scarlett O'Hara? Clark's love interest?

So I took off my 21st century lens and looked at Hattie McDaniel through the time in which she existed...and I've been fascinated ever since.

My new book, The Queen of Sugar Hill (available wherever you get books, including Amazon) is a historical fiction novel based on Hattie's life.

I'm touring now, talking about it (It was on The Today Show yesterday)...and I'm sooo thrilled to be changing the way so many people see Hattie and the movie. I want people to watch/love/like the movie without feeling guilty. And I am showing people that Hattie McDaniel was an amazing legend...

A PALESTINIAN POET DROPS A POETIC BOMB

by Jonah Raskin

No doubt you have been hearing, seeing and reading the news from Gaza. You may have a clear understanding of what’s happening there. That’s all fine and good. But if you’d like to read a unique perspective on Gaza you might turn to Mosab Abu Toha’s book of poems, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza, which was published by City Lights in 2022. Get it through your library, or buy it from City Lights for $11.17, plus shipping. It’s worth the price of admission. Toha’s book has won the American Book Award, the Palestine Book Award and others. If there’s one book of poetry you read this year, read Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear. You may feel like you’ve been to Gaza and back.

It’s not hard to understand why it’s a favorite with reviewers and readers. For starters, it offers news of what life has been like for Palestinians in Gaza, a war zone for years with bombings a routine part of life there. Toha’s book does not offer the very latest news from Gaza, though the latest news is more of what has been happening for years, only with greater intensity.

Toha is an excellent person to tell the story. While he recently fled Gaza and went to Egypt, he was born and raised in Gaza and spent much of his life there. Toha is currently “stateless,” as he calls it: a man without a country. He lived briefly in the US and taught at Harvard and elsewhere, and has written for The Nation, and Literary Hub. He has one eye on Gaza and another on US readers and knows what to deliver to us.

His poems can be depressing, but they can also be illuminating. You learn what it has been like to live in a place under near total bombardment and where something that passes for ordinary life goes on, though there’s nothing ordinary about life in Gaza, at least not by US standards. In the first poem in the book, “Palestine A-Z,” the humor is welcome. Under the Letter “G,” Toha writes, “When I was asked to fill out a form for my U.S. J-I visa application, my country, Palestine, was not on the list. But lucky for me, my gender was.” Hahahah.

Toha’s poems are insightful because he’s on the ground and sees all around him and up above him. “If a helicopter stops in the sky above Gaza, we know it’s going to shoot a rocket. It doesn’t see if a target is close to children playing marbles or soccer in the street.” Toha has learned about war by living through war. By observing helicopters and F-16s in the sky and Palestinians in their homes baking, drinking mint tea and waking to the sounds of bombs falling nearby.

He wears his heart on his sleeve so you know what and how he’s feeling. Under the letter “R” he writes, “I was born in November.” He adds, “I love the rain and the sea, the last two things I heard before I came into this horrible world.” Hearing things before he’s born? That poetic license.

Toha also has facts and figures about Gaza at his fingertips and rolls them in some of his poems: “In 2014, about 2,139 people were killed, 579 of them were children, around 11,100 were wounded, around 13,000 buildings were destroyed. I lost 3 friends.” He adds, “But it’s not about the numbers.”

In “My Grandfather Was a Terrorist” he offers a portrait of his grandfather and simultaneously a portrait of a terrorist. He humanizes the terrorist and at the same time lifts his grandfather out of the ordinary. In the longest poem in the book, “The Wounds,” subtitled “Israeli aggression against Gaza (November 27, 2008-January 15, 2009,” Toha describes his own wounds inflicted by Israeli aircraft firing a “nail bomb”— a bomb with nails. His view of nails changes. Once, he thought they were for construction. He learns that they can also be for destruction.

In “Things You May Hear in My Ear,” written for a medical doctor who treated his wounds, he asks her to touch his ear gently and adds “You may encounter songs in Arabic/poems in English/or a song to chant to the chirping birds in our backyard.” By the end of the book, the reader has heard many of the same sounds that Toha has heard in a war that’s an assault on the eyes, the noses, the ears and the bodies of the Palestinians.

He balances hopelessness and hope, destruction and survival, and insists that the Palestinians aren’t going to go away. In a “Litany for ‘One Land,’” Toha writes , “when we die,/our bones will continue to grow” and “we have been here forever.” Though Toha is now in Egypt with his family, he is probably still in Gaza in his poetry and in his head.” He’s in exile and he’s at home in his native land. You can join him in Gaza by reading his book and surrendering to the auditory imagination.

‘OBIT’

by Mosab Abu Toha

To the shadow I had left alone before I

crossed the border, my shadow that stayed

lonely and hid in the dark of the night,

freezing where it was, never needing a visa.

To my shadow that’s been waiting for my return,

homeless except when I was walking by its side

in the summer light.

To my shadow that wishes to go to school

with the children of morning, but couldn’t fit

through the classroom doors.

To my shadow that has caught cold now, that’s been

sneezing and coughing, no one there saying to it God bless!

To my shadow that’s been crushed by cars and vans,

its chest pierced by shrapnel and bullets

flying with no wings,

my shadow that no one’s attending to,

…bleeding black blood

…through its memory

…now, and forever.

EXECUTION AS ADVERTISEMENT: KILLING KENNETH SMITH

by Jeffrey St. Clair

“But what then is capital punishment but the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal’s deed, however calculated it may be, can be compared? For there to be equivalence, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not encountered in private life.”

– Albert Camus, “Reflections on the Guillotine”

Kenneth Smith was executed by the state of Alabama for a contract killing. He was paid by a pastor to murder his wife. The state of Alabama paid an execution squad to strap Kenneth Smith to a death gurney, clamp a mask over his face, and suffocate him to death with nitrogen gas. Smith thrashed and convulsed for at least four minutes as the nitrogen squeezed the oxygen out of his lungs. What is the message here?

Nitrogen hypoxia was touted as an efficient and humane method of killing humans. Compared to what? The lynchings of 340 people that took place in Alabama between 1877 and 1943? The electric chair? Hanging? Firing squad? Lethal injection, which the state previously used to try to kill Smith and failed? It took Kenneth Smith at least 22 minutes to die, gasping for breath, his stomach heaving, vomiting into his gas mask. Is this the new definition of humane? Is 22 minutes to death a new measure of efficiency?

According to Alabama’s State Attorney General, Steve Marshall, it was a “textbook” case of execution. Who wrote the textbook, Dr. Mengele? Marshall bragged about the execution as if Alabama had been the first state to land a man on Mars: “As of last night, nitrogen epoxy as a means of execution is no longer an untested method; it is a proven one.” Marshall sounded like a pitchman for an execution franchise.

Even though they managed, barely it seems, to kill Kenneth Smith, the state still can’t find any doctors willing to supervise its lethal gassings and lend the killings medical legitimacy. They can’t even find a willing veterinarian. Will Alabama state colleges and universities replace their sociology degrees with a BS in Death Penalty Administration? Will community colleges offer certificates in the proper application of Execution Technologies?

But did the execution of Kenneth Smith really go as smoothly as Marshall claimed? We were told that Smith would slip into unconsciousness almost immediately after the valves were opened and the nitrogen began to flow into his lungs. He didn’t. We were told that the execution would be painless. It wasn’t. We were told it would all be over in minutes. It wasn’t.

It’s impossible to know the full details of what really happened to Kenneth Smith. How much agony he experienced, how long he struggled for breath, how long it took him to die. Why? Because the state of Alabama closed the curtain on the death chamber before Smith was pronounced dead. The handful of witnesses allowed in the execution viewing room weren’t able to witness his death, only the preamble of his killing. What is the state hiding behind its fatal curtain? An affinity for torture?

How long did it take Kenneth Smith to die? We don’t know for sure. At least 22 minutes. But perhaps as long as 28 minutes. A long time. But perhaps that’s the kind of death Alabama wants. Given the blood-thirsty statements of Governor Kay Ivey and AG Marshall, you’d be forgiven for thinking so.

None of the witnesses were allowed cellphones, cameras, tape recorders, notebooks, pens or pencils in the theater of death. The witnesses had to memorialize the killings in their minds. Here’s what Matt Roney of the Montgomery Advertiser saw: “Smith writhed and convulsed on the gurney. He appeared to be fully conscious when the gas began to flow. He took deep breaths, his body shaking violently with his eyes rolling in the back of his head…Smith clenched his fists, his legs shook under the tightly tucked-in white sheet that covered him from his neck down. He seemed to be gasping for air.”

Smith’s spiritual adviser Jeff Hood stood next to Smith during the execution. Here’s how Hood described the state killing to Amy Goodman on Democracy Now: “What we saw was minutes of someone struggling for their life. We saw minutes of someone heaving back and forth. We saw spit. We saw all sorts of stuff from his mouth develop on the mask. We saw this mask tied to the gurney and him ripping his head forward over and over and over again. And we also saw correction officials in the room who were visibly surprised at how bad this thing went.”

The US Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. But Kenneth Smith’s execution proves these words have lost all meaning. By a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court allowed Alabama to kill Smith. But the cowardly court couldn’t even be bothered to put their reasoning in writing as to why an experimental method of execution didn’t qualify as “unusual” and how a second attempt to kill a man wasn’t considered “cruel.” You can see why these usually garrulous jurists remained mute. Their logic would have been as tortured as the execution itself.

Kenneth Smith was put to death for a murder for hire that took place in 1988. What was gained by his execution? Was he a threat to kill again? By all accounts, he’d been a model prisoner for 35 years.

Kenneth Smith was put to death even though the person who subcontracted him to do the killing, Billy Gray Williams, was sentenced to life without parole.

Kenneth Smith was put to death, even though a jury recommended by an 11-1 vote he receive a life sentence. This recommendation was overruled by the judge in the case, who unilaterally imposed a sentence of death.

Kenneth Smith was put to death, even though the State of Alabama has since banned judicial overrides of jury recommendations in death penalty cases.

Kenneth Smith was put to death, even though the State of Alabama had previously tried to kill him by injecting him with a lethal cocktail of drugs but botched the execution.

Kenneth Smith was put to death, even though the method used to kill him was experimental and had been banned by veterinarians for use on mammals.

Kenneth Smith was put to death, even though the family of his victim pleaded for his life.

Does Kenneth Smith’s execution make anyone feel safer? Thirty-five years after the crime does it make anyone feel like “justice” was done, that a “message” had been sent? If so, what kind of message?

Does killing Kenneth Smith act as a deterrent to potential murderers? Since the moratorium on the death penalty was lifted by the US Supreme Court in 1976, Alabama has executed 76 people, the seventh most of any state in the Union. Yet Alabama’s homicide rate is the fourth highest in the US. Alabama and Oregon have roughly the same population. There were 721 homicides in Alabama last year and only 204 in Oregon. Oregon placed a moratorium on executions in 2011 and has only executed 2 people since 1976. One might argue that the death penalty actually increases homicide rates. Killing begets killing.

So why was Kenneth Smith executed?

Constitutional scholars can’t tell you.

The Catholic Church can’t tell you.

The people who witnessed his death can’t tell you.

His spiritual advisor can’t tell you.

The Supreme Court won’t tell you.

But the State of Alabama will.

Kenneth Smith was executed to advertise that the State of Alabama could kill. It’s as simple and gruesome as that. Not kill efficiently or humanely (as if executions could ever qualify as such). But kill. If its bumbling death squad couldn’t find a vein to poison before, they could locate his lungs this time around. If they couldn’t find a doctor to administer lethal drugs before, they now found people willing to strap a mask around his face, turn on the gas and watch him die, gasping and writhing, for as long as it took without any moral hesitation. The state had found a new way to kill humans and the humans willing to do the job–for a price.

Who benefits? Not the people of Alabama. Not the state’s already strapped budget, which expended millions to put him to death that could have been spent feeding the state’s malnourished kids or tending to its sick. Only the state’s pitiless politicians, a group so monstrous they are willing to use human sacrifice as a campaign theme.

The State of Alabama has become the very thing it claimed to be punishing: a contract killer.

(Jeffrey St. Clair is editor of CounterPunch. His most recent book is An Orgy of Thieves: Neoliberalism and Its Discontents (with Alexander Cockburn). He can be reached at: sitka@comcast.net or on Twitter @JeffreyStClair3.)

43 Comments

Stephen Dunlap February 6, 2024

“OUR GOOD FRIEND, Mr. Dunlap, commented: “Let’s all remember that a while back Trump bragged that if he were president, he could end the war in one day. ”

I do not recall saying that but maybe I did ? I offer no solutions to world problems, I just pray all day for sanity & peace for all.

Reply
- Chuck Dunbar February 6, 2024
  
  I’m with you, Stephen, as to your prayers for us all. I believe our editor meant me rather than you as to the comment about Trump’s bragging.
  
  We just got our power back, two miles south of Fort Bragg–HURRAY! Hope the same for all here on the coast
  
  Reply
izzy February 6, 2024

“Signs of the Times”

He misspelled izzy.
We see difficulties in all quarters now.

Reply
Withere February 6, 2024

More timber volume today than 1800?

Where are they hiding all those trees?

Reply
- Mike Williams February 6, 2024
  
  The longest run on sentence of all time laments the good old days when Greenwood became Elk and then the “environmentalists” ruined everything.
  There is about 1% of the original redwood forest remaining in Mendocino County, the few remaining corporate mills are cutting second and third growth in less than eighty year rotations. The redwood region was exploited by fraudulent land acquisitions, self dealing by the UC Regents, and corporate raiders. It is a finite resource that has been largely decimated.
  
  Reply
  - George Hollister February 6, 2024
    
    This is all open to interpretation. We have more Redwood trees, but less volume. We have most of the original Redwood forest we had, but that forest is much younger. The same living root systems remain from the forest of 200 years ago, and those roots systems are likely older than we think. Most of the Redwood forest we have lost has gone for homes, grazing and agriculture. And lost Redwood land tends to be flat. People like flat land because it is useful for other things than growing Redwoods. How often do you see flat Redwood land growing Redwoods? How often do you see flat converted Redwood land where people are living? How often do you see people removing Redwoods, roots and all, near their homes?
    
    Reply
George Hollister February 6, 2024

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

“BTW, in the past, women weren’t necessarily considered the weaker sex or needing protecting because they were the child-bearing ones. Pregnant women often worked in the fields. When they were ready to deliver, they laid down, delivered their baby, and went back to work.”

True. There is an old handed down story of this happening 150 + – years ago on the property I currently own. It is said those were the good old days.

Reply
- Eric Sunswheat February 6, 2024
  
  —> June 1, 2021
  It’s definitely possible to transform your mom butt into a sculpted, toned bum. You can start by following a healthy eating plan, staying active, and doing exercises to target your bum.
  Building a stronger booty can be part of your self-care routine as you stay devoted to your motherhood journey.
  Getting your butt in shape will improve your posture, mobility, and strength. These benefits enhance your overall well-being as you traverse life with your little one.
  https://www.healthline.com/health/pregnancy/mom-butt#bottom-line
  
  Reply
Matt Kendall February 6, 2024

Really enjoyed reading about Justine’s list of future accomplishments. Reminded me of being of the age when young folks actually begin looking to their future. I think lots of us had a list, some were written down while some were held in our minds.
This took me back to a younger version of me and made me think about what I wanted for my future back then also.

Reply
- mark donegan February 6, 2024
  
  Good one. I knew there was some reason we keep you around besides just looking pretty.
  
  Reply
MAGA Marmon February 6, 2024

THE MEDIA IS IN PANIC MODE AS WE GET CLOSER TO THE RELEASE OF TUCKER CARLSON’S INTERVIEW WITH VLADIMIR PUTIN !!!

MAGA Marmon

Reply
- Bruce Anderson February 6, 2024
  
  All you magas and Carlson should register as agents of a foreign government. Seriously, Jimbo, what’s with this Putin worship?
  
  Reply
  - MAGA Marmon February 6, 2024
    
    RE: BRUCE ANDERSON IN PANIC MODE
    
    Watch the interview, you may get some real answers. He’s going to post it free of charge on X, and Elon Musk has promised to let it go un-edited.
    
    MAGA Marmon
    
    Reply
    - Bruce Anderson February 6, 2024
      
      I don’t think I can handle the excitement….
      
      Reply
      - Steve Heilig February 7, 2024
        
        “Meanwhile, former Fox News Channel personality Tucker Carlson released a video today confirming that he is in Moscow to interview Russian president Vladimir Putin. He says he plans to tell people the “truth” of Russia’s war on Ukraine. Carlson says that no U.S. journalist has tried to interview Putin since the conflict began, a comment that drew the astonishment of CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, who pointed out that real journalists (unlike Carlson, whose lawyers have successfully defended him in court from slander charges by saying he should not be expected to tell the truth) have been trying to get an interview with Putin since the war began but he will only talk to propaganda outlets.
        
        Putin has, of course, imprisoned American journalists Evan Gershkovich of the Wall Street Journal and Alsu Kurmasheva of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
        
        Carlson said Elon Musk is permitting him to post the interview on X, formerly Twitter.
        
        And finally today, last but very much not least, the three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit reviewing the question of whether Trump is immune from criminal prosecution for his attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election released their decision.
        
        He is not immune.”
        
        Heather Cox Richardson, Boston University historian
        
        Reply
        
        Bruce Anderson February 7, 2024
        
        Putin walks into a room of 40 million magas. Ten minutes later he walks out with 40 million slaves.
        
        Reply
    - MAGA Marmon February 6, 2024
      
      Sometimes the truth hurts, I learned that the hard way in the last 10 years.
      
      MAGA Marmon
      
      Reply
  - peter boudoures February 6, 2024
    
    You’re not going to watch it? Hmm
    
    Reply
- Gary Smith February 7, 2024
  
  NO, THEY’RE NOT IN PANIC MODE!!! THAT IS A FANTASY!!!
  
  Reply
Eric Sunswheat February 6, 2024

RE: Within the substance of life lies our essence of presence-unity.
— Gregory Sims

—> April 5, 2023
Dr. Gladys McGarey, 102, says she’s always had a purpose and something to live for. “You don’t find that if you’re not looking for it,” she says.
In her book, “The Well-Lived Life: A 102-Year-Old Doctor’s Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Every Age,” purpose is a key theme.
Her passion lies in what she calls “living medicine,” which focuses on “looking at disease and pain as teachers.” By understanding what ailments are trying to tell us, we are able to find the best way to deal with them, she says.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/05/100-year-olds-share-secrets-to-a-long-and-happy-life.html

Reply
Craig Stehr February 6, 2024

Went to the Ukiah Brewing Company for 3 beers and one shot of Woodford Reserve plus an order of fish ‘n chips, following the Haiku Poetry Walk on Saturday. After that, holed up (mostly in bed) at Building Bridges Homeless Resource Center as it rained and rained and the wind howled. Made a dash to nearby Jalos Mexican Restaurant to eat on Sunday, and lived on what was in the locker in cans on Monday. This is doable, as I remain identified with the Divine Absolute, and not the body nor the mind nor the weather! Just doing the best that I can of course, chanting, praying, and awaiting another opportunity on planet earth. That is all. Thanks for listening, and for the encouraging emails received last week.

Reply
- Mazie Malone February 6, 2024
  
  Craig…if you stop focusing on identifying with the non physical…..and allow your being to identify with what is in this exact moment ie, you are here, and experience what is, reality, as it is. In doing so then what you are wanting, ie, a home will happen. In energetic terms you are creating discord by focusing on the nonphysical aspect…..
  
  mm 💕
  
  Reply
  - Craig Stehr February 6, 2024
    
    We have very different views! That is all. ;-))
    
    Reply
    - Craig Stehr February 6, 2024
      
      Check this out:
      Vast Mirror of Consciousness | Swami Sarvapriyananda
      
      Reply
      - Bruce Anderson February 6, 2024
        
        A nice Catholic boy like you, Craig, should give up this continentally misplaced Hinduism, and return to the One True Church of your origins. Not that your spiritual errors are any of my business, but if your gurus are so gd smart, how come India isn’t in much better shape, huh Craig, huh?
        
        Reply
        
        Mazie Malone February 6, 2024
        
        Because Guru = fool you….
        
        😂 😂……..
        
        Reply
    - Mazie Malone February 6, 2024
      
      Craig, it is not a view or an opinion, it’s a fact.. …good luck to you … 🙏
      
      mm 💕
      
      Reply
      - Craig Stehr February 6, 2024
        
        Actually, I have expanded from the limited view of American conservative midwestern Catholicism (retaining the useful parts, of course), and broadened fully by participating in both zen buddhism and yoga. The ultimate truth is reflected in the shared video of Swami Sarvapriyananda lecturing on the “Vast Mirror of Consciousness”. Enjoy your own innate freedom, now and forever.
        
        Reply
Mazie Malone February 6, 2024

Happy Tuesday everyone….

“THE MOST DANGEROUS “INDIVIDUAL”, to any government, is the one who is able to think things out for one’s self. Almost inevitably she/he will come to the conclusion that the government one lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable.”. — H.L. Mencken

As I was watching BOS meeting earlier ….. long. arduous, does anyone feel they are heard or matter? I always felt like my rants would only matter if many of us were doing it together. Unfortunately in the arena of Mental Illness it is very difficult for families and individuals to openly talk about their experiences. I do because it matters and I have guts, plus I am funny and if you can not laugh at the folly of it all then doom sets in, been there, no thanks… Speaking of doom I saw Jake Louis Kooy the other night in the pouring rain, looked fairly clean smoking a cigarette conversing with the voices in his head. Sad we believe this is normal and ok, brings the darkness back into full view, that very well could be my loved one or yours. Dishonest, insane and tolerable, is the norm, I wish integrity was.

mm 💕

Reply
Lurker Lou February 6, 2024

Alight, alright, alright, Mr. Editor, “team player” was not the best choice of words, and I see that. I didn’t mean a rubber stamper or a let’s all pat each other on the back-er.
I meant the ability to lead, to work effectively and constructively as a member of a Board, and to make good policy decisions (one hopes) on behalf of constituents, not yourself.
Carrie Shattuck brings up issues with the tone of I’m right/you are wrong and so far has not shown depth of knowledge on any issue, or even the desire to research and learn beyond simply filing public records requests.
Again, I appreciate that she speaks up and isn’t a bought & paid for candidate, but we need more than that. We don’t need another supervisor who speaks up but brings no structure, knowledge, or policy forward. We already have that with Supervisor Ted Williams.

Reply
- CIAISI February 6, 2024
  
  Have you ever tried to get current public information from current County leadership? If you do, it’s outdated and that’s when you’re not ignored. So filing a Public Records Act is a solution. Obviously you don’t like Carrie Shattuck. How is this current BOS working out for you? The editor is 100% right, Shattuck is what this County needs or someone with her tenacity. All we have now is 5 bumbling, stumbling idiots who keep making matters worse.
  
  Reply
  - Stephen Rosenthal February 6, 2024
    
    Hi Todd.
    
    Reply
  - Lurker Lou February 7, 2024
    
    I don’t think she’s a strong candidate but that doesn’t mean I don’t like her. In fact I’ve never met her. My opinion that Carrie would not be an effective Supervisor does not mean I support our current supes. They are a colossal failure and I wish we could vote them all out.
    
    Reply
Jim Shields February 6, 2024

PG&E Tells County:
After Us, You Come First
By Jim Shields

By a far and wide margin, the single most significant item discussed at Tuesday’s (Feb. 6th) BOS meeting occurred in the waning moments immediately prior to adjournment when the Supes were giving their usually routine reports on their recent activities.
There was nothing routine about Glenn McGourty’s report starting with an ominous introduction warning that a “big shock” was in store for folks.
I’ll let McGourty tell the story, ticking time bomb and all:
Last week was a very big shock with good and bad things happening to us with regards to water transfers from the Eel River. The first was we had the first meeting of the JPA (Joint Powers Authority) Eel-Russian River Project. This would be the group that would be taking over the diversion from PG&E and designing a new one that would move Eel River water to continue the flow of Eel River water to our region. So, we had that [meeting] on Tuesday (Jan. 30).
On Wednesday (Jan. 31), we found out that PG&E had dropped us [Mendocino County and its newly formed JPA] from inclusion in their decommissioning proposal, which was extremely bad news. Originally, they were going to try to move everything forward so it would be kind of seamless and that we would be included in the decommissioning, and that we would be working with federal agencies to continue the Project.
So, PG&E basically said, “Nope, we don’t want to do that anymore,” even though they had invited us to participate.
Something has changed in their own view of their risk management [most likely related to pulling down the dams, ending diversion, etc.] and we’re no longer included.
It’s kind of a shock and we’re still reeling from it. It’s very much, it feels very much like [the Peanuts’ characters] Lucy and Charlie Brown with the football every time we deal with PG&E trying to come up with some kind of solution for how do we take over that Project, which is so essential to our economy. About 600,000 people are affected by that diversion from Potter Valley to the Marin County line.
So we still have studies going on about if we’re going to do it, how should the diversion be designed. We have financing for that. We have a lot of buy-in from the state and other environmental groups that are ok with the proposal that we have for diversions, and so we’re still going to continue.
This is a significant existential threat to us and our water supply. We’re trying to figure out how do we respond. What do we do?
We’ll be meeting with Inland Water and Power (a county water agency in the Ukiah Valley) this week.
I just want to make everybody aware that PG&E, if they want to, could probably just shut the water off and that’s the end of the Potter Valley diversion.
There doesn’t seem to be any commitment on their (PG&E) part to work with us at the moment.
They’ve said some things like, “Yep, we’ll try to accommodate you if we can,” but it’s not a priority such as they want to get their dams down and out of there.
So, we’re in a very bad spot now for continuing that diversion.

Indeed, we are all in a very bad spot now.
Supe John Haschak, commented, “I’m certainly very concerned about the Potter Valley Project and what PG&E is doing because it sounds like they’re just wanting to walk away from it. But they have a liability there, and I say they have an obligation to the people who depend on that water too. So I’m curious to hear what’s going on next.”
Well, what we’re hearing now is the first shoe hitting the floor, perhaps just prior to the bomb being detonated.
I think most people know I’ve been involved in various County water matters over the years, including most recently the proposed resurrection of the defunct County Water Agency. I cautioned the people I was working with, to be wary of PG&E and the decommissioning of the Potter Valley project because I believed they were playing the long game and had several extra cards up their sleeves. It was always in their best interests to eliminate their liability by bringing down the dams, cut a trail, and leave the wreckage for us suckers to deal with. To mix metaphors, it would be a real blood bath with everybody at each other’s throats.
Dan Gjerde was the only other Supe to weigh in on PG&E’s opening, if not closing, gambit. He kept it short: “On PG&E, in the last two years, their CEO has earned over $65 million in compensation — something to keep in mind.”
I guess we have a lot to keep in mind.
We have a governor, a state legislature, and a public utilities commission who have all, long ago abandoned their statutory roles as watchdogs on this publicly created, legal electrical monopoly. Our state, twice in the past 20 years has bailed out PG&E from its own, self-inflicted bankruptcy. California ratepayers and taxpayers are still paying for PG&E’s malfeasance, including murderous gas line explosions and hell-defying wildland infernos. While the PG&E-Potter Valley Project is almost exclusively under federal jurisdiction, there is nothing to stop the state of California from stepping into the ring and cold-cocking PG&E with punitive “either/or” behavior modification sledgehammers forcing them back to good-faith negotiations with local governments over the decommissioned Potter Valley Project.
You might say it’s the right thing to do amidst so much that is wrong.

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- Eric Sunswheat February 6, 2024
  
  —>. January 30, 2024
  Frustrated by the criticism leveled against his administration, Newsom on Tuesday released his strategy to protect salmon — a plan that includes a heavy helping of projects that would remove or bypass aging dams that prevent salmon from returning to the streams of their birth to lay eggs…
  Newsom’s strategy includes a promise to complete an agreement by the end of the year to remove the Scott Dam and replace the Cape Horn Dam along the Eel River that have blocked salmon access to 288 miles (463 kilometers) of habitat. Once completed, the Eel would be the longest free-flowing river in the state, flowing north through the Coast Ranges before emptying into the Pacific Ocean near the town of Fortuna. The two dams are owned by Pacific Gas & Electric and no longer produce hydropower.
  https://www.marinij.com/2024/01/30/california-gov-gavin-newsom-backs-dam-removal-projects-aimed-at-sustaining-salmon-populations/
  
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Eric Sunswheat February 6, 2024

RE: It’s very much, it feels very much like [the Peanuts’ characters] Lucy and Charlie Brown with the football every time we deal with PG&E trying to come up with some kind of solution for how do we take over that Project, which is so essential to our economy. About 600,000 people are affected by that diversion from Potter Valley to the Marin County line.
— Supervisor Glenn McGourty (as reported by Jim Shields)

—>. At this point we have in County and out of town City lawyers, draining the coffers of County government for actions of mismanagement, where someone might think, the only enduring interest of a majority of the elected Supervisors, who are there for the salary and benefits, is to win re-election in order to be entitled to an old age pension.

The amount of time and passion needed to be truly informed and effective, once you get over the structural design makeovers to the physical admin center to make the political will of the elected reps subservient to the CEO, has a true value far beyond the paltry salary, however lucrative in the Mendocino bare bones economy.

The County has had multiple activists of all stripes, who have put heart, soul, time and or money, as concerned citizens, but the voters want someone who will entertain them with a good story and promised bag of someday optimism. Why PG&E would trust the County with anything more than a bag of crushed pretzels, is anyone’s guess.

Notation — A fiber optics cable is currently being trenched and tunneled almost west of the Mendocino County line on Hwy 20.
Looks like a big project, and I haven’t kept up with local news since recent Gaza holocaust. Perhaps a keyboard warrior will step up to the plate, after feeding at the digital trough.

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Marianne McGee February 6, 2024

Sadly, I think both John Redding and Ted Williams belong on John’s boogeyman list!!

Both have made many promises that were unfulfilled. I actually worked hard to support their candidacies and am crushed to see the results!

John failed at his Mendocino Coast Healthcare District position and Ted has
failed as a Mendocino County Supervisor

I think there’s been enough evidence and information on a regular basis that I don’t need to beat a dead horse with regurgitate it again!!.

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Observing February 6, 2024

Re: Public Pay Data piece
From: The Editorial Board Southern California News Group (via Ukiah Daily Journal)

Not sure whom to believe.

Who Pays for CalPERS Pensions?
How Public Employee Pensions Are Funded

Some people believe that taxpayers fund the total cost of public pensions. This isn’t true.

The largest contribution comes from CalPERS’ investments, with additional funding from employer and employee contributions. Some workers currently contribute up to 16.5% of their paychecks to help fund their own pensions.

The CalPERS Pension Buck illustrates the sources of income that fund public employee pensions.

Based on a 20-year average ending June 30, 2023, for every dollar CalPERS pays in pensions:

56 cents comes from investment earnings
33 cents from employer contributions
11 cents from employee contributions
In other words, 67 cents out of every public employee pension dollar is funded by CalPERS’ own investment earnings and member contributions. In the fiscal year ended June 2023, CalPERS paid out more than $ 31 billion in pension benefits.

The CalPERS Pension Buck: 56 cents comes from CalPERS investment earnings, 33 cents comes from CalPERS employers, and 11 cents comes from CalPERS members

Pension Payments Contribute to Local Economies

As CalPERS retirees spent their monthly pension benefit payments in FY 2020-21, they supported California’s economy, generating $27.7 billion in economic activity, which:

Supported 144,463 jobs
Generated $1.7 billion in tax revenue for local industries
Supported local community growth
Source: Economic Impacts of CalPERS Pensions in California, FY 2020-21

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- Eric Sunswheat February 6, 2024
  
  County of Mendocino has its own retirement pension investment pool, with structural unfunded payout problems that is a liability for County taxpayers, and is not part of CalPERS state system, that the County could have joined.
  
  —> July 5, 2023
  If CalPERS and CalSTRS shed their investments in the largest oil and gas companies, what would it mean for the teachers and state workers counting on their retirement checks?
  Both pensions are underfunded; if either had to immediately pay out all the benefits they owe, they wouldn’t have enough money.
  https://calmatters.org/economy/2023/06/california-pension-calpers-fossil-fuel/
  
  Reply
Carrie Shattuck February 6, 2024

The biggest contributors:
Clarification, I have not been in the trucking business in over 20 years.

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Chuck Dunbar February 7, 2024

MY DIRTY LAUNDRY

Paul Modic, thanks for this piece, love that it’s by a man. And the marking pen and lint trap tales made me laugh. My wife, a purebred laundry lover, clothesline and all, heard the above tales from me as she ate breakfast. Just yesterday I had found a piece on laundry in the New York Times, by a woman, telling of points in her life marked by laundry tales. Guess laundry may be the theme of the week….

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Lee Edmundson February 7, 2024

I think all rainbows are semi-circular — arcs. Something to do with the behavior of sunlight refracting through our atmosphere. Anybody?

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- Eli Maddock February 7, 2024
  
  Yup! A rainbow is pure perspective of the beholder. If viewed without a horizon blocking the way, it would appear to be a perfect circle. Created by the refraction of light from the sun through many raindrops.
  
  Reply

Mendocino County Yesterday/Today: Feb, 5/6, 2024

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