Mendocino County Today: Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2024

Showers | Storm Damage | Powerless Seniors | Gualala Service | Mendo Outages | Wifi Dependent | Keep Landlines | Ephemeral Creek | PG&E Snub | Inglenook Dunes | VSO Eviction | School News | Background Checks | Ukiah Valley | Ted/MCN | Wood Tip | Hicks Question | Black Trumpet | PG&E Rates | Edie's Birthday | Ed Notes | Pioneer | My Song | Son Pete | Needle Exchange | Forest Dog | Calfresh Outreach | Squash | Mail Ballots | Scale Trick | Planning Cancelled | Valentine Strings | Yesterday's Catch | Help Crow | Dog Jacket | Big Ag | 11 Feet | Stickball | Edge People | Wage Earners | Fellers | Super Coverage | Footloaves | Swiftbowl | Joe & Marilyn | Niners Doomed | Life Worth | Reward | Eggs | Intrepid Camilla | Shame | Angry American | Jazz Trio | Putin/Carlson | Free Palestine

A FAST MOVING SYSTEM will produce light rain and mountain snow this morning before tapering off in the afternoon. Cooler temperatures and a series of weak fronts will produce light precipitation through the weekend. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): On the coast this Wednesday morning the power is mostly back on. Mostly being the key word as many are still out. Rain & 47F to start the day. Clear skies return tomorrow & dry skies well into next week.

LOCAL STORM DAMAGE: Here’s a photo I took early Tuesday morning at St. Anthony’s Church in Mendocino.

(Christina Aranguren, Mendocino)

FORT BRAGG POLICE DEPARTMENT:

Tuesday morning we received a report from concerned citizens about a senior housing complex that was still out of power. FBPD Officers and members from the Care Response Unit responded to perform welfare checks and provide hot coffee. Fort Bragg Public Works donated a generator and fuel to provide power for charging devices until PG&E could complete repairs. PG&E was contacted and promptly diverted a crew to begin repairs. Additionally, Harvest Market generously agreed to provide hot lunch and dinner for the residents on short notice. 

If you have someone who was impacted by the storm and would like to have them checked on please contact us at (707)964-0200.

SUPERVISOR TED WILLIAMS

Something is very wrong with how PGE manages the grid in Gualala (all of Mendo really). We are starting day 3 of current outage at our house in Gualala, with power not expected to be restored until this Friday. Last year it went 10 days and this doesn't even count the number of outages we've already had this season prior to this weekends strong storm. They just replaced a pole on our property at the intersection of the distribution line/transmission line, replaced the old pole with a brand new, larger steel one, complete with what looks like a lot of new tech, insulators and the like. Quite a few new poles replaced over the past year on the ridge between PA and Gualala. We have constant tree work, Family Tree here last week in fact - and as usual left another mess which I will have to pay to clean up. PGE doesn't reimburse customers for the money it costs to run our generators during the outages or the clean up after tree work. Generator gets expensive with a larger unit that powers a house. Specific to our area, with all the work being constantly done, you would think our grid would be more reliable. The stretch from Stewarts Point all the way to Point Arena specifically appears super fragile. In 2024 one would expect better from a large utility company and we get something that resembles a third world endeavor.

CHARLOTTE BEAUMONT (Laytonville)

During Sunday’s storm it was another reminder we have no early warning system here that is not wifi dependent. On the Sheriff FB page absolutely nothing about the storm, or current conditions. If not for Danilla Sands at Mendocino Action News no updates would be easily accessible. Remember last years snow emergency? Office of OES were unresponsive. We need an emergency warning system NOT Ukiah and wifi dependent. Paradise put in a system with wifi, satellite and manual activation. Lahaina Hawaii now uses local sirens. Redwood Valley installing early warning local system. We have nothing not wifi / Ukiah dependent in this area with poor wifi signals. During the snow emergency last year, traffic on the highway was not stopped and out of towners continued to funnel in, all the way to the stopped in the snow traffic on rattlesnake summit. There is a electronic remotely activate sign north of Willits, not used to warn people to not continue up here. That should be activated for these situations. Our limited services for locals much less many dozens of travelers endangers both.

AT&T’S PROPOSAL ENDANGERS LANDLINES IN STORM-PRONE MENDOCINO COUNTY

With storms and power outages this week, many people in rural parts of the county are depending on landlines to communicate. But if the state Public Utilities Commission approves an application by AT&T to step away from its legal obligations as a carrier of last resort, an estimated 580,000 customers all over California could lose their landlines.…

mendofever.com/2024/02/05/atts-proposal-endangers-landlines-for-580000-in-storm-prone-mendocino-county/

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.

INGLENOOK DUNES

Lots of vernal ponds at inglenook dunes this year. I watched 6 large jets making those mountainous jet streams in the sky. I wonder what they are doing?

Jennifer Leos

‘ALMOST IMMEDIATELY’

by Mark Scaramella

The highlight of Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting was Vietnam Veteran Don Shanley’s statement to the Board dressing them down over their ill-considered and abrupt eviction of the Veterans Service Office from their nice little house on Observatory Avenue last month to a glorified closet in the rear of the old Ukiah hospital which has been converted to a Public/Mental admin office space. Shanley and his wife Laura Quatrochi both made statements critical of the move, as did several others including First District Supervisor candidate (and former Marine) Jacob Brown. Shanley’s remarks were specific to the Veterans Office, but with a little imagination, one can apply it to a host of the Board’s decisions in recent years. For the last month Shanley and his wife have been actively attempting to work with the Board and staff to find a suitable alternative to the present “unacceptable” situation, only to be frustrated at every turn.

Shanley:

“I am a 50 year resident of Mendocino County and an infantry veteran of the Vietnam war. It has been 28 days since January 29, 2024, when I along with many veterans and County citizens addressed this board requesting that the VSO eviction be placed as a future agenda item for a full discussion with both the veteran constituents as well as the general public. 

During the past 28 days I have witnessed` and documented this board and county staff evade, dodge, weave and parry simple direct questions regarding a county cost analysis presented to the board to approve this relocation without an agenda item for public discussion. I have read a notice from two board members addressing this egregious decision with a public letter to all newspapers agreeing that they made a poor decision but now let's just all get behind them. 

The Board suggested that the County would put up posters, install a couch, provided a receptionist, put in a third large office for the VSO rep. Oh yes, a courtyard! And of course we will change the signage and install Purple Heart parking spaces. 

These tone deaf, after the fact mitigations are absurd. Today they have not even been initiated. 28 days and counting. Moving the VSO back to 405 Observatory is the only solution for the numerous, obvious, and previously documented facts. 

One does not need a Harvard MBA in intergovernmental network analysis to locate lines on a spreadsheet. This process is as simple as Accounting 101. Twenty-eight days and not a single supervisor can provide any numbers, new or old. What did the board review? Veteran constituents and the public have a legal right to review the analysis provided to the board and the county CEO prior to the relocation approval, not possibly fabricated numbers slipped in the back door, cooked numbers that tell whatever story this board, under orders, agrees to spin. 

The respect, welfare and dignity for Mendocino County veterans remains the fundamental issue. The Dora Street location is 100% unacceptable. It is at best a rude, unsafe and thoughtless alternative. Were veterans given the opportunity to purchase the Observatory location? Why wasn't Air Quality moved to the cubicles at the Dora Street location? 90% of Air Quality work is completed online with no public face-to-face interaction. The lame, inaccurate public apology and warm fuzzy Let's all get behind this move and make the best of it approach addresses neither this decision's detailed origins nor the consequences and the public's right to know. "The people in delegating their authority do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know." That's a quote from the Brown Act.

Thank you.”

* * *

Supervisor/Board Chair Maureen Mulheren said she was putting a Veterans Service Office item on the February 27 Board agenda, but added, “I don’t think the agenda item will be ready by February 27, but I will be working on it.” Whatever the hell that means. (Probably another attempt to stall and delay, but we shall see.)

Later in the meeting, while discussing some voluntary permit “guidelines” proposed by the Redwood Valley Municipal Advisory Council, Supervisor Dan Gjerde was told that it would take months and months before Planning Staff could review the voluntary guidelines for CEQA compliance and go through the many processing steps and so forth, much less publish them, even though they are “voluntary.” Gjerde then suggested that in the interim the County simply post the guidelines on the County’s website “almost immediately.” Gjerde then explained that by “almost immediately” he meant in the next month or two. So “almost immediately” — a variation on the famous oxymoron “almost exactly” — is just a little bit before “later” but not quite “never” in Boardspeak. Which gives the public a good idea of this Board’s sense of timing. “Almost immediately” is also about the same timing as Mulheren’s claim to put the Veterans Office issue on the February 27 agenda while noting at the same time that it “probably” won’t be ready then either.

THANKS A MILLION, CALTRANS

The $1 million advance check came today for the track. Angelica Davies shot a drone video from which this screen shot was taken.

* * *

SOME ANON SOMEONE DID GOOD

A Thank you from the AV High School

This is why our community is so special. Recently, a senior in our AV High School who wrote her “personal statement” for her college applications, received a surprising gift from an anonymous donor in our community of Anderson Valley. This student was not intending to publish her writing in the AVA so this was also a surprise for her. It was published because a few staff members felt and wanted to share the gratitude that was expressed by this young woman. Gratitude for her education and specifically for all the teachers who have helped her through her schooling; learning a new language and navigating an entirely new educational system. Her perseverance is notable. I met Tania's mother a few weeks back. Her mom with tears in her eyes expressed such heartfelt thanks, as did Tania. I hope this person, who gave this gift, could know how much this meant. The financial support will go straight towards college. But even more so, this gift was a message of “I believe in you.” I wanted to share that as I was privileged to witness the emotions when she and her family received this gift. These are acts of giving that can change a life. There is so much giving in this community for our young people. Thank you so much to each and all of you. Tania is hoping to enter into the medical field and has just finished her senior project internship at the AV Health Center. We wish her luck. 

A READER WRITES: If you have a rental, please do background checks on prospective tenants, especially in the coming weeks. It might save you and your neighbors a lot of grief. I mean, it probably always would, but now is a good time not to be lax about it. Some people are so charming when you interview them, it’s easy to skip the background check. Sorry this is so cryptic, but try to imagine why that would be…

TED WILLIAMS FOR ASSEMBLY? WHY?

Editor-

An open question: Does anyone have any idea why Ted Williams is running for Assembly District 2 representative?

I attended the Assembly district 2 Candidate forum, in Fort Bragg on February 1 sponsored by the League of Women Voters. While I was quite interested in what all the candidates had to offer, I will admit to having a particular interest in my former political foe Ted Williams. I was quite stunned on a number of fronts. I certainly thought he would have some supporters show up for him in his home area since many of them thought he would ascend to a Sacramento position.

But none of those “liberals” seemed present. I guess some of the rats are getting off the sinking ship! While the other candidates had campaign literature available, Ted had none. During the Q&A Williams’ answers were completely boilerplate, with no affirmative thoughts how he would accomplish anything.

The other candidates have already locked up significant endorsements. Perhaps none more embarrassing to Ted than his Board colleagues Glenn McGourty or even fellow coastie Dan Gjerde who have already endorsed other candidates not named Ted. One can barely imagine the toxicity of the working relationship for his colleagues to weigh in like this. 

So Sacramento’s loss would have been our gain! Since Williams will certainly fail, it looks like Mendo County will be stuck with his narcissistic s@#! show for a while longer.

While Ted has had an easy time gaslighting and glamming his distracted coastal supporters, it looks like he is finding out what happens on the big stage where people actually pay attention to whether or not their government is working. 

Another interesting point: all of the other candidates referred to their accomplishments in various community organizations or bodies they had been elected to. Aignificantly Ted did not even mention his tenure on our BOS in the hour I was there. I guess after the Cubbison charade and the many other things he’s done to trash our county, he realizes that it’s not a good look.

To answer my own question, it would appear that Ted’s arrogance and hubris got out in front of him and clearly being a Supervisor was always just supposed to be a rung on his career ladder.

Chris Skyhawk

Fort Bragg

PS. Thoughts on the future of mcn list serves:

I certainly can’t blame Mendocino Unified School District for washing its hands. It can be certainly said that when a few (ahem) mentally compromised individuals force a school board to turn their attention away from the education of our children, it's time to cut bait. I really appreciate Frank Hartzell (and friends) for assembling a questionnaire; and hopefully good things will happen; I’m old enough to remember when every community had its own mcn list, that was unwieldy so it got down to “announce” and “discuss” which I think is a fine basic format but clearly some have trashed the “discuss” to the point where no sane person dare to tread. 

I like hearing about yard sales, events, weather events, road conditions; etc. and as a politically involved, socially motivated person I also would like to keep a “discuss.” However that list CLEARLY needs to be moderated; the antics of the spoiled little brats who have ruined the discuss list have to be mitigated for the health of our community. The attitude of “I can say whatever I want and then hide behind ‘free speech’” has to be ended as does conducting of private arguments in public spaces; thank you 

"See those saps over there? They're the lib labs of the Northcoast. They keep people like us in office forever. Shine 'em on, kid. Shine 'em on."

TED WILLIAMS: ‘Which side are you on?’

During a Jan. 30 online forum hosted by the news site MendoFever and local radio stations, Mendocino Supervisor Williams made a point of tying Hicks to the political establishment. When Hicks said that California utility companies were too powerful and were overcharging ratepayers, Williams brought up the donations to the party from Sempra.

“Which side are you on?” Williams said.

Williams is among those who believe Hicks has overstepped by fundraising and securing endorsements for his campaign while still sitting as chair of the party, he told The Press Democrat. “It’s worse than blurred lines,” he said. And raising off his statewide network will cut both ways if Hicks gains the statehouse, Williams said.

“When those tough decisions come is he representing the people who contributed or the people who live in the district?” he said.

‘LIKE YOU’RE GETTING PUNISHED’: CALIFORNIANS STUNNED BY SKYROCKETING PG&E BILLS

by Julie Johnson

Tucked under an electric blanket in a cozy recliner, 90-year-old Dorothy Lovell still struggled to keep her tiny frame warm in her Santa Rosa living room. So her family turned up the heat. 

They’re paying dearly for it. 

Winter is a season of hefty utility bills, especially during the holidays, when families gathered and the temperature dropped. But January began a new era of utility bill sticker shock when Pacific Gas and Electric Co. began charging customers with historically high electricity rates. 

Lovell’s latest PG&E bill was the highest it’s ever been: $696.64.

“It’s almost like you’re getting punished,” Lovell said. 

The average residential PG&E customer is expected to pay about $34.50 more each month — a boost of about $400 annually. The California Public Utilities Commission approved the new rates to help the company launch major projects to improve power line and gas pipeline safety after years of disastrous fires. 

But it’s not the only increase PG&E customers could experience this year. The commission is currently considering other proposals from PG&E to help the company recoup expenses, such as costs PG&E incurred during last year’s storms. Some temporary rate increases will fall away this year, but the combined impact could boost bills by another $14 or $15 per month; however, it’s not yet clear when the commission will vote on the proposal. 

PG&E began warning customers that their bills would rise as soon as the commission approved them in November. But some of the 16 million Californians served by PG&E have still been shocked. 

“I really was not prepared,” said Rebecca Gallegos, who has lived for decades in a two-bedroom San Francisco flat near the Panhandle. 

Gallegos knew higher rates were coming, so she made sure to run appliances during off-peak hours when rates are lower and to heat only the living room, leaving the bedrooms cold. “As soon as someone turns on a light, I turn it off,” she said. 

Even so, her PG&E bill was $357 for Dec. 13 through Jan. 16 — compared with $195 the month before. 

“I’m blown away,” she said. 

Lynsey Paulo, a PG&E spokesperson, said her company has boosted its bill relief programs to increase the maximum amount of relief a qualifying customer can receive from $500 to $1,000. Customers can apply for the Relief for Energy Assistance through Community Help program and additional bill reduction programs online. 

“We are committed to working with our customers who are having trouble paying their bills,” Paulo said. 

Paulo said these bigger utility bills will fund PG&E’s programs to improve the safety and reliability of gas and electric infrastructure. For example, the commission approved a plan to help the company recover the costs of burying power lines in fire-prone areas of the state and to deploy state-of-the-art tools to inspect the company’s gas transmission pipelines. 

But for many Bay Area residents, utility bills have become an even bigger part of the daily struggle. Laura Escobar, vice president of safety net services with United Way, said most callers to 211 are asking for help with housing and food, but utility bills have risen to the top five concerns from people struggling to make ends meet. 

“It upends your whole budget,” Escobar said. “People are saying, ‘I was doing OK but now I have this new cost.’ ” 

In Santa Rosa, Lovell’s daughter, Julie Schaeffer, is trying to ensure her mother doesn’t face that type of extreme bill again. She had PG&E come evaluate her mother’s home this week for gas leaks or inefficiencies, a free service the company offers to all customers. She’s applied for her mother to take part in a reduced bill program. 

But her family will pay what they must to keep their mother warm. 

“It’s ridiculous,” Schaeffer said. “She’s 90 years old, and we want her to be comfortable.” 

SWEET 116: California town throws birthday bash for America’s oldest person

In the small, northern California town of Willits, the birthday of Edie Ceccarelli – the oldest person in the US – has become a bit of a holiday.…

theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/06/edie-ceccarelli-us-oldest-woman-alive-turns-116

ED NOTES 

RECOMMENDED READING: ‘The Cliff Walk, A Memoir of a Job Lost and a Life Found’ by Don J. Snyder. I bought it in hard bound form at a garage sale in San Francisco. It was one of three books almost hidden beneath exactly six old tin cheese graters in a cardboard box that looked like it had been kicked into the corner of the ancient seller's garage for many years. I'd caught a glimpse of the white cover of Cliff Walk buried under the tin. 

THE OTHER TWO BOOKS were a paperback of Dreiser miscellany, introduction by James T. Farrell, and a New American paperback called ‘My Turn’ by John O’Hara, a collection of O’Hara opinions. The old guy sold me all three books for 75 cents. “To anyone but you they’d be 74,” he said with a chuckle. 

I WAS very pleased with the Dreiser and the O’Hara but I hadn’t heard of ‘Cliff Walk’ or its author, Don Snyder. I know I should know better by now, but the cover of Snyder’s book almost caused me to pass on it. It’s repulsively done in motel grays and whites upon which are superimposed a pair of work boots. I had to take a close look at the cover, and read some of the book to figure out the work boots were the author's after he lost his job as a college professor and finally found work as a carpenter's helper, toting building materials around on a construction site. 

THE AUTHOR, despite rave reviews from his students, lost his professorship at Colgate when that college and most others began hiring strictly along race and gender lines. Didn't matter how good he taught, he was a white male, by definition historically responsible for all the evil in the world. 

PROFESSOR SNYDER had four little kids and a wife with about a year in savings. He sends out hundreds of resumes for a teaching job but got not even a single interview. All this time the savings dwindle as he comes to understand how his own disdain for his blue collar origins has biased him against sweat labor. 

I'M GLAD I didn’t tell this book by its cover. But I still wonder about the old guy who had only three books for sale, all of them good books, buried in a box with six cheese graters. Representational art? Some kind of sidewalk gag? 

CLIFF WALK, ugly dust jacket and New Agey title aside, is the best thing I’ve ever read about facing down the wolf at the door. It’s an explicit, absolutely honest account of a guy disencumbering himself of the acquisitive life — material and emotional, discovering as he goes that neither he nor his family need the lush life of the campus. This isn’t the story of some trust funder bopping around as a hippie for a few years before becoming a judge in Mendocino County, it’s the story by a lower-middleclass guy buying into the all-pervasive cultural assumptions that more is better when up escalator suddenly stops and thrown off, forcing him to question every fundamental assumption he’s ever made and plunging him back into the life of fear and humiliation he thought he’d escaped forever when he left lower-middle land. 

THE HUGE RESPONSIBILITY of wife and kids make the author's downward trajectory all the more harrowing, what with the kids clamoring for The Mall and Mrs. Snyder worrying that her husband may be headed right on over the top into alcohol dependency and total abdication. 

SNYDER'S ACCOUNT is honestly told totally without self-pity, probably a little too tough and too radical for the talk show babblers, but it’s the real deal. Is it available? Yep, last time I looked there two copies at the Mendocino Book Company in Ukiah. 

Excerpt: 

I don’t think I made a conscious decision to surrender this way. It just came on sometime in the winter when it became clear to me that I wasn’t going to find a decent job. I had received canned rejection letters from everywhere, including two community colleges in Idaho and California, which in better days I wouldn’t have tried for. Just before my final rejection my eyes were opened when I answered the distress signal of a former student who had been dumped from a graduate program in theater for missing too many classes. He asked me if I would intervene on his behalf and so I telephoned the dean and pleaded his case. The dean listened for a while before he told me that there were no conditions under which he would reverse his decision. “Listen,” he replied, “he may be a wonderful person and a great actor but we have a policy about class attendance and it’s very strict because, the point is, we don’t NEED any more actors, there are already too many great actors, there are hundreds of them in line for every part.”

Those words — WE DON’T NEED ANY MORE ACTORS. I surrendered to those words, knowing that they were true, they were the words that would write the future of America. And they meant that we didn’t need any more college professors either. And no more doctors or lawyers. No more of anything that entitled one to a grand life. There were too many people, too many talented and driven people waiting at every slot for a way in. Some of these people had fought their way from a hopeless beginning to get there; they were resourceful and tough as nails. Some of them would fight viciously just for standing room outside the door. One of the last things I did before I collapsed was argue with Bradford about this. I told him what the businessman at the Little League field had said to me, that someday the downtrodden and the humiliated were going to come screaming into the yacht clubs and the country clubs and the tennis clubs and the prep schools and the Ivy League colleges and they were going to put a knife at the throats of our children and say, “Ante up, you motherfuckers. You’ve had it good for too long!”

I told my friend that we were spoiled just because WE HAD THE CHANCE to work for the good things. “And these people who’ve had nothing,” I said, “are much tougher than we are. Once they decide to come and claim their chance, they’ll eat guys like you and me for breakfast. You remember struggling to get through medical school? But I’m telling you that was a piece of cake compared to what these people have been through. You always had a safety net beneath you. Hell, I remember your father’s credit card in the glove compartment of your old Buick. There was someone behind you to pick you up if things got rough.” 

— Don J. Snyder, “The Cliff Walk” 

SARAH SONGBIRD

My original song Lichen On A Limb was born today.

I have often been asked about the origins of songs that I have written, but this one will never be matched in the significance it’s had in my life. It has shaped me. Literally. My body is covered with the evidence. And somehow, most days, I still feel lucky. Lucky that I didn’t die. Lucky that I didn’t lose Jon, either in the car, or in the long, hard road back to picking up the pieces. He has held my hand, and been with me every step of the journey, whether that step was in a wheelchair, a walker, crutches, with a cane, or just side-by-side again, without any extra need for help. 

We have weathered this storm and have grown so much through the journey.

I guess that’s the point. To grow. Even if we grow new skin, or new bones where we’ve been broken before, our stories and the compassion that we can gain from living them, they shape who we are, and who we can become. 

Some days I’m still not sure which direction I’m supposed to head in, but I know that I needed to share this song. That I needed this story to be told and I need to remember where it came from. 

I was pulled from the edge of death by strangers. I was held by the arms of my community and friends, and carried through when I couldn’t carry myself. I spent the last three years fighting my way back to standing strong on my own 2 feet. And through it all this song was my soundtrack. 

I am so grateful that I took that zoom songwriting class with Abby Gardner @abbiegmusic. I’m so glad that I listened to the voice inner that told me I needed a guide to help me get my creative mojo back. It’s on of those times when a song just flowed through me and fell onto the page, and I barely caught it in time, but I needed help to open myself up to try again.

And I’m grateful to @singersarahryan and @alexdegrassiguitar for helping me to capture and share this song. My healing process really slowed down the creation of this album, but they have been patient and supportive and We Did It! We really did it.

Thank you life.

Thank you friends

Thank you Inner Strength.

MIKE GENIELLA: OUR FOUR SONS are talented, good guys in their own individual ways. 

Eldest son Pete Geniella has put together a website that showcases some of his talents. His portfolio is especially worth a look. Terese and I are especially proud because we have watched Pete progress from an award-winning Ukiah High School newspaper columnist to a seasoned pro. Check him out. If you can use his talents, that is even better!

MENDO NEEDS A NEEDLE EXCHANGE VENDOR

Syringe Services Program

Public Health

Category Request for Proposals

RFP Number 065-23

Start Date 12/26/2023

Close Date 02/06/2024 5:00 PM

RFP Post Status Open

This Request for Proposal (RFP) announces the intent of the County of Mendocino Public Health Department to provide harm reduction services in the form of: exchanging syringe/needles; emptying needle collection boxes throughout Mendocino County, facilitate safe disposal of needles on a regular basis; field testing for Hepatitis C and HIV; providing referrals and linkages to additional applicable services; providing overdose prevention education/trainings of Naloxone and Narcan; purchasing and distributing Naloxone kits and Narcan, as needed; and collecting demographic data including number of syringes collected and distributed, naloxone and Narcan kits distributed and any notes overdose reversals. The purpose of the RFP is to seek a qualifies Community-Based Organization (CBO) to expand the Syringe Services Program within the County. This request is extended to any Mendocino County-based organization that can successfully provide services.

Please see Request for Proposal for more information

Please see Addendum No. 1 for clarification including submission deadline.

Please see Addendum No. 2 for submission deadline extension to Friday, February 9, 2024. 

Vendors must submit two (2) copies of their proposal: one (1) complete paper copy with original Vendor signature, and one (1) complete word copy via email. The proposal must be formatted in accordance with the instructions of this RFP. Promotional materials may be attached but are not necessary and will not be considered as meeting any of the requirements of this RFP. Proposals must be enclosed in a sealed envelope or package, clearly marked “Mendocino County RFP No. 065-23”, and delivered by 5:00 p.m. February 06, 2024, to:

Mendocino County

Public Health Department

Attn: Isabel Gallego

1120 S. Dora Street

Ukiah, CA 95482

Proposals received after the date and time specified will not be considered.

Questions regarding this RFP should be directed to Isabel Gallego at gallegoi@mendocinocounty.gov

CALFRESH OUTREACH SERVICES

Department Social Services

Category Request for Proposals

RFP Number 003-24

Start Date 02/05/2024

Close Date 03/14/2024

RFP Post Status Open

This Request for Proposal (RFP) announces the intent of the County of Mendocino, Employment & Family Assistance Services (EFAS), Special Projects Team to accept proposals from Community-Based Organizations who are currently working with CalFresh eligible populations to contract with for CalFresh outreach services including CalFresh application assistance.

Vendors must submit three (3) copies of their proposal: One (1) complete paper copy with original Vendor signature, and one (1) complete copy on USB Flash Drive. The proposal must be formatted in accordance with the instructions of this RFP. Promotional materials may be attached but are not necessary and will not be considered as meeting any of the requirements of this RFP. Proposals must be enclosed in a sealed envelope or package, clearly marked “Mendocino County RFP No. 003-24”, and delivered by 2:00 p.m. March 14, 2024 to:

Mendocino County

Social Services

Attn: Lily Caravello

737 S. State Street Ukiah, CA 95482

Late or facsimile proposals will not be accepted. It is the proposer’s responsibility to assure that its proposal is delivered and received at the location specified herein, on or before the date and hour set. Proposals received after the date and time specified will not be considered. 

Note: The unauthorized use of the County’s official logo is strictly prohibited.

For more information, please see the Request for Proposal.

MAIL BALLOT AVAILABILITY

Mail Ballots (aka Vote By Mail or Absentee Ballots) are being mailed to all active registered voters in Mendocino County, Monday, February 5, 2024 and will be available in the County Clerk's Office, for the PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY Election, to be held on MARCH 5, 2024, according to Katrina Bartolomie, Assessor-County Clerk-Recorder. The County Clerk's Office is located in Room 1020 of the County Administration Building located at 501 Low Gap Road, Ukiah. The USPS normal delivery is five to seven days, if you have not received your ballot within 10 days from the date of mailing, please call our office at (707) 234-6819 for a replacement ballot. If you have moved since the last election, please re-register at https://registertovote.ca.gov/

Sample Ballots (local voter information booklets) were mailed by our vendor and should be arriving in your homes within the next few days, if you do not receive your Sample Ballot by the end of the week, please call our office so we can send you one. Local candidate statements for our county can also be found on our website at: https://www.mendocinocounty.gov/government/assessor-county-clerk-recorder-elections/elections/election-candidate-information

Voters in Mendocino County have begun receiving their State Voter Information Guides (VIG) that include information on the statewide candidates. If you would like to view the VIG online, please visit: https://voterguide.sos.ca.gov/

Katrina Bartolomie would like to remind voters who wish to vote in the MARCH 5, 2024 election, that the last day to register to vote is FEBRUARY 20, 2024 to receive a regular ballot in the mail. Please call our office for a Voter Registration card or go to: https://registertovote.ca.gov/ to register to vote online. 

For additional information please contact the Election / County Clerk’s Office by calling 707 234-6819.

WE'VE GOT AN EXTRA 'L' MR FEENAN, IF YOU NEED ONE

Cancelation of 2-15-24 Planning Commission Meeting

Dear Interested Parties,

The cancelation notice for the February 15, 2024, Planning Commission meeting is now available on the department website at: https://www.mendocinocounty.org/government/planning-building-services/meeting-agendas/planning-commission

Please contact staff if there are any questions.

Thank you

UCCA PRESENTS: The New World String Project on February 18 at the College

When these two pairs of musicians met for the first time, it was love at first sight--or at least at the first notes of music they played together.

In celebration of Valentine's Day, Ukiah Community Concerts proudly presents our third performance of the season on Sunday, February 18, 2:00pm, at the Mendocino College Center Theatre with the accomplished and lively New World String Project.

These four highly skilled and well known multi-instrumentalists -- two veteran duo acts -- recently joined forces to create a unique weave of traditional world music. Ancient and modern sounds mingle freely on Swedish nyckelharpa, Celtic harp, fiddle, guitar, cittern, bouzouki, and more. Singing is also a part of the show, with Stuart Mason sharing his unique arrangements of ballads as old as the hills where he was born.

Fiddler John Weed is a classically-trained violinist who has spent the last 25 years immersed in traditional Irish fiddle styles. John and guitarist Stuart Mason also play together in the long-running Celtic band Molly’s Revenge. Celtic harp master Lisa Lynne, who gained international renown via recordings and tours with the label Windham Hill, often performs in a duo with her husband Aryeh Frankfurter. For years, Aryeh has been delighting audiences around the globe with his passionate, enduring and evocative music on Celtic harp, Swedish nyckelharpa (or keyed fiddle) and other stringed instruments. Stuart Mason is known for his authentic vocals and nimble skills on guitar, mandola, and banjo. Together, these intrepid string explorers will take our audience on a thrilling, melodically exuberant ride. 

Tickets for non-season subscribers are $35 in advance and $40 at the door. Advance tickets are available online at www.ukiahconcerts.org and at Mendocino Book Company in Ukiah and Mazahar in Willits. 

As part of our on-going educational outreach program, free tickets are available to youth 17 and under when accompanied by an adult, and to full-time (12 units) college students. Free tickets must be reserved in advance by calling 707-463-2738 with name, phone number and email address. 

For more information, please contact the UCCA at 707-463-2738 or email us at info@ukiahconcerts.org

* * *

And yet to come is our 2023-24 season finale:

Elena Casanova 

April 21, 2024, 2:00pm at Mendocino College

We hope you have enjoyed the first half of this 2023-24 season of stellar performances with Jâca in October and the LA Guitar Quartet in November.

The Professional Pianist Concert series on January 27 and 28 was a huge hit as always, and we will offer a premiere of the videos of both shows later this month on our website.

A house-keeping note: If you left an item in the theater and would like to get it back, please respond to this email or call the UCCA at 707-463-2738. 

We have a post-PPC collection of personal belongings that want to go home,

CATCH OF THE DAY, Monday-Tuesday, February 5-6, 2024

STEVEN ALLEN, Willits. Trespassing, failure to appear.

JULIE BOND, Ukiah. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, probation revocation.

SUSAN BROWN, Ukiah. Domestic battery.

CHERLYN CAPE, Ukiah. Disobeying court order, possession of drugs in jail, failure to appear.

DAVID COPE, Fort Bragg. Failure to appear.

KAILAND GARCIA, Fort Bragg. Narcotics for sale, evidence destruction.

KATRINA FOWLES, Ukiah. Burglary, cruelty to child-infliction of injury, contempt of court, witness intimidation.

CHRISTOPHER HEANEY, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

JESUS HERRERA, Willits. Under influence.

ANGEL HISTO, Redwood Valley. Failure to appear.

ANTONIO LOPEZ, Hopland. Under influence, disobeying court order.

JASON MCESSY JR., San Jose/Ukiah. DUI.

NATHAN MORALES-SALDANA, Covelo. Failure to appear, resisting, probation revocation.

DARRELL PIKE JR., Hopland. County parole violation.

ROBERT PORTER, Columbia Falls/Ukiah. Shoplifting.

DANNY RUPERT, Clearlake/Ukiah. Failure to appear.

JOSHUA STUTSMAN, Fort Bragg. Controlled substance, failure to appear.

ROY TURNER, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

JUAN VICENTE-CABRERA, Ukiah. DUI.

CROW WANTS AN ATTORNEY-BANKER

Dear Mendo Residents and beyond,

I am reaching out in hopes that someone can assist me. I really need help. I have inherited $60,000! The estate attorney informs me that he is set to retire in two months. I must provide him with a place to send my funds or he will send it back to the court. I am in dire need of an attorney or business that is legit that can provide me the service of holding my funds in trust until my release in approximately two years. I would of course be willing to pay a fee for this service. A generous one. If by chance an attorney or other legitimate enterprise reads this and is able to assist, please contact me at:

CUT WATER TO BIG AG

Editor,

Regarding “California’s groundwater decline is ‘scary’ — but one area bucks the trend” — as I read this article amid other coverage of the potential flooding due to the major storm, I wondered how long we’ll have to see increasingly extreme cycles of drought and flooding before our leaders will step up to take on Big Ag’s water use. 

As the article conveys, the needs of agriculture have made the water situation in California dire. Quite simply, too much of California’s water, around 80%, is being diverted for Big Ag companies, leaving little water for the rest of us. 

Water has been designated a human right in California, yet it is still treated like a commodity to be extracted, bought and sold for profit. In many places in rural California, families are going without water because communities can’t afford to drill deep wells the way big agribusiness can to extract groundwater. The solution is simple: 

Gov. Gavin Newsom must address corporate water abuse and cut water allocations for thirsty nut crops.

— Chirag Bhakta, California director, Food & Water Watch, San Francisco

ROGER MARIS and Babe Ruth played in Yankee Stadium, where until the 1970s right field was about 11 feet behind second base. You can argue all you want about who’s a better hitter (Ruth, Maris, Aaron, McGwire). That’s the whole point of pro sports, which exist mostly so guys in bars can scream at each other through beer spittle and feel they have a clue while their arteries harden and their jobs are being off-loaded to Malaysia.

— Bob Harris

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

When the various local/state/federal governments and NGOS are paying people to come here illegally on refillable debit cards to be here and they then also don’t have to work they are slowly edging people out who were already living on the edge.

There was already a housing shortage before they started adding millions of people to the market.

Something has to break.

2 bedroom 1 bath apartment in a decent area is now going for $3500 to $4000 a month with yearly increases of almost $300.

A shitbox condo is $750,000 and a house built in the 1950 with almost no upgrades is going for $1,500,000.00.

People making $75,000 a year can’t keep up.

IT HAS ALWAYS astonished me that the sympathies of so many working people instinctively go to management. The fan, who is himself a wage earner, behaves as though he owns the franchise.

— Roone Arledge

WHICH 49ERS WILL EMERGE AS STARS OF SUPER BOWL MEDIA-WEEK MEAT GRINDER?

by Scott Ostler

Ah, for the good old days. During the week before Super Bowl III (1969), Jets vs. Colts, a gaggle of sportswriters surrounded Jets quarterback Joe Namath as he worked on his tan at the hotel pool. They captured the personality and the mood of the game’s most important player.

This coming week in Las Vegas, if I wind up chatting with Brock Purdy or Patrick Mahomes beside either of their hotel pools, I will be tased, arrested and thrown into a cage with Siegfried & Roy’s tigers.

Now the process of interviewing players the week of the Super Bowl is a prefab meat grinder in a stilted setting, where players eager to get back to game prep fend off starving packs of journalists desperate to stumble upon nuggets, which are seldom gold, mostly Chicken Mc.

Yet somehow, what can emerge from these interview sessions is glimpses of individual personalities, and peeks into the teams’ souls. Many players who go into the sessions dreading the 45 minutes of mindless grilling wind up enjoying the chat.

What will the world learn about the San Francisco 49ers? Who will be the stars of the interview sessions? A few thoughts:

Kyle Shanahan. Sneaky good. The media will gravitate to Chiefs head coach Andy Reid, who seems more folksy and fun than Shanahan. But those who stick around might be surprised.

Shanahan doesn’t treat the media like football dilettantes and nincompoops, even though some of us are. He’ll go deep with football talk, on individual plays and overall schemes. He likes his players, and isn’t afraid to salute their unique talents and personalities. Here he is in Wednesday’s media session at 49ers HQ, on Nick Bosa:

“You get to hear all the (pre-draft) reports and everything … but the only time you really get to know someone is when you get to hang out with them. We had him in for dinner. … People can trick you all the time and things like that. But what was so cool about Nick was there was no tricking. Just like I think how he talks to you guys, how he always is, Nick is himself. He is very true to what he says. He doesn’t just make stuff up. If he doesn’t have something to say, he is not going to say it. … I really enjoyed him from the beginning.”

Bill Belichick would’ve said, “Do I look like Sigmund Freud?”

Nick Bosa. So laid back in media sessions, he’s almost horizontal. Might have studied under Jeff Spicoli, man. But Bosa says stuff. Early this season, when the defense was struggling under new coordinator Steve Wilks, Bosa clearly stated after a loss that the scheme wasn’t working, wasn’t the style he and the guys were best at playing.

Bosa doesn’t feel the need to filter his opinions. Wednesday he was asked what stands out when he watches the Chiefs.

“They hold a lot.”

Fred Warner. Some players just get it. They’re making a ton of money because people like to watch them play football, so why not give those people some love, via the media? Seems easy, and Warner makes it look that way.

Wednesday, Warner was asked what he learned from that Super Bowl defeat at the hands of the Chiefs. He said he learned never to celebrate early. He said of that experience, “It scarred me for life.”

The NFC championship ring from that season?”

“I don’t know where that ring is. I remember we got one, thinking, ‘Oh, this is cute.’”

George Kittle. He’ll be a magnet on media days, because everyone knows Kittle loves to talk. Some may see him as a bit over-the-top clowny, but as one person who is around the team on a daily basis said, “He’s saying stuff with more substance this year.”

Kittle’s deeper side is sometimes overpowered by the fun guy. He can’t help himself, he just loves him some football, loves the violence, loves his teammates, loves everything about it, including talking about it.

One thing that will stand out in the media sessions, Kittle’s included, is these guys would rather talk about their teammates than themselves.

Kyle Juszczyk. You’d think the guy was a Harvard grad or something. He’s like a Wikipedia of the game, and of the 49ers. Like many of the players, he’ll gladly go one level deeper to help you understand a player, or the team, or the game.

Trent Williams. You know the cartoon cliche of the enlightened guru sitting cross-legged in front of a Himalayan cave? That’s Williams. To us story-seekers, Williams is an absolute go-to guy. For one thing, he’s really good about explaining what makes Brock Purdy a pretty good quarterback.

Brock Purdy. OK, not exactly a ball of fire behind the microphone, but if you listen, you’ll get honesty and some insight. When he has a bad game, Purdy will tell you what went wrong and where he fell short. He’ll break down plays, good and bad.

The national media might think he’s holding back his real feelings in regards to his crazy rise to fame, but the truth is that Purdy just doesn’t quite get what the big deal is. He got drafted, he’s playing football. But he’ll be glad to answer your questions.

At the Super Bowl, the media sessions can get crazy. Too many clashing agendas. A player going deep into a profound thought or thrilling anecdote will be interrupted by, “Nick! Nick! Who’s your favorite Beatle?”

But the 49ers will give everyone something to write home about.

TAYLOR SWIFT IS MAKING THE SUPER BOWL AN EVEN BIGGER DEAL. WILL THE NFL EMBRACE IT?

by Ann Killion

Say the words “NFL” and “women” together, and you don’t always come up with the most flattering images.

Domestic violence. Institutionalized misogyny. Exploited cheerleaders. Pepto Bismol-pink shirts. Serial rapists receiving record-setting contracts. Patronizing charitable efforts.

The NFL has historically had a hard time figuring out the humans who make up 50% of their fan base. How to communicate with women. How to value them. How to include them.

And now along comes Taylor Swift. One of the smartest, most successful, empowered and popular women on the planet, opening a portal into the NFL for her gazillions of fans, thanks to her relationship with Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce and her appearance at games in support of him.

Somehow, according to a lot of dudes and one entire political party, this is supposed to be a bad thing?

“She is,” said her boyfriend’s brother, Eagles center Jason Kelce, “an unbelievable role model for young women across the globe.”

It seems almost unfair that a league that has been so historically misogynistic, that only seemed to notice it should care about its female fans after a video of Ray Rice punching his fiance in an elevator became public in 2014 (resulting in an original punishment of just two games), has now been gifted the power of Swift.

The entertainment star has done the seemingly impossible: Swift has made the NFL even bigger.

Already gigantic television ratings have gotten even bigger. Daughters are demanding to watch games with their parents. Swifties are producing incredible NFL-related content on social media. A demographic once uninterested in what the NFL had to offer is now fully engaged.

“Why is that a bad thing?” former San Francisco 49ers QB Steve Young said, scoffing with laughter.

Young has been helping to grow football’s popularity among girls himself, with his embrace of flag football. The former Super Bowl quarterback started coaching his daughters — Summer and Laila — on their Menlo High team and saw their immediate bond and love for the sport.

“They love it, playing it, the choreography of it,” Young said. “There is going to be an explosion of girls in flag football.”

And probably a good percentage of them will be Swifties who got interested in the sport because their favorite artist cared about it.

There have always been famous women supporting male athletes. Nobody seemed to freak out by the world’s most famous supermodel, Gisele Bündchen, being married to the world’s most famous quarterback. Or Ciara being married to Russell Wilson. In professional soccer, there’s an entire subgroup known as WAGs — wives and girlfriends, who have kept the tabloids busy for decades.

It is fitting that at this Super Bowl there will be an Uber commercial featuring David and Victoria Beckham. Their personal story is eerily close to the “Tayvis” romance. As a rising star with Manchester United, Beckham willed a relationship with Victoria, Posh Spice of the Spice Girls, into being. In much the same way Kelce spoke his connection with Swift into reality.

The Spice Girls were a phenomenon, inspiring girls around the world.

“We were on a mission to prove that girls are better than boys,” Victoria said.

Posh Spice didn’t need Beckham’s fame. When they started dating she was more famous than he was. As their relationship bloomed, he faced criticism that she was a distraction to his athletic career. The noise and publicity in those pre-social media days was massive. She changed his fashion sense. She was on a world tour, while he was in his sport’s biggest event, the World Cup. After he imploded in the World Cup, sent off with a red card in England’s 1998 loss to Argentina, the couple received death threats and public humiliation.

Swift is far bigger than the Spice Girls ever were. She doesn’t need the NFL — and has turned down the chance to perform at Super Bowl halftime in the past. She’s a billionaire who has been one of the biggest driving forces in the economy. She’s a genius at using her platform, at controlling her own career. She fought back against record companies, regaining control of her master recordings by recording “Taylor’s versions.” She sets up voter registration tables at her concerts and has encouraged millions of young people to register. She treats her employees great, handing out $55 million in bonuses to her roadies and staff. Her charitable contributions include food banks, survivors of sexual assault, cancer organizations, public schools, animal groups and disaster relief. She’s a force — for good and for girls.

Now, all that power is benefiting the NFL.

That’s the reason so many are bothered by her. She is a symbol of female power and independence. It’s no wonder that so many men are acting like third-grade boys afraid of cooties.

It is insane yet not surprising that a political party that has done everything imaginable to turn off women voters is scared to death of Swift and her influence. So much so that (checks notes) its members might be rooting instead for a team from a liberal city they regularly demonize.

Swift’s impact is already being felt in areas where the NFL has traditionally failed. Kristin Juszczyk, wife of 49ers fullback Kyle, was granted a license by the NFL to use NFL marks in her designs. Such leeway would likely not have been approved if Juszczyk’s creation — a puffer jacket with Kelce’s name and number — hadn’t been worn by Swift at a playoff game and blew up on social media. Precisely because it was new and different and appealing.

NFL fashion is a surface issue. But maybe the power of the Swifties and their embrace of the NFL will push the league into more inclusive, less misogynistic stances on more serious fronts. Wishful thinking, maybe. But don’t underestimate the power of one strong woman.

Young thinks the Chiefs were — perhaps like Beckham back in the 1990s — distracted by the Swift effect at first. He thought it was weighing them down earlier in the season when they struggled.

“But now it’s become their super power,” he said. “They’ve fought through the distraction. And now, their opponents have to deal with it.”

Swift is the NFL’s new super power. Embrace it. 

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

The winner will be the Kansas City Chiefs. Why? Because Swift brings good money to the NFL. Can you imagine the post game show when the Chiefs subdue the 49ers? They won’t show the players, the coaches or the staff, the cameras will be on Tay Tay and Trav. Gag. The poor 49ers. They are doomed to lose this one. It’s already been decided.

VERY TROUBLING

Editor: 

Something strikes me as weird but very troubling. I understand that our government has a duty to protect our citizens, but how is it that our lives are worth a zillion times more than anyone else in the world?

The three Americans killed by a drone were soldiers not civilians and were located in a foreign land on a military mission (of some sort). There are 2 million Palestinian civilians living on their own land not engaged in any military action who are displaced, starving, without clean water.

By some weird logic we will engage in a “strong” military response to the former but will not do anything to stop the outright destruction of the lives of women and children in Gaza. What has happened to our humanity?

Joan Meisel

Cloverdale

IT IS WRONG to expect a reward for your struggles. The reward is the act of struggle itself, not what you win. Even though you can't expect to defeat the absurdity of the world, you must make that attempt. That's morality, that's religion. That's art. That's life. 

— Phil Ochs

CAMILLA TAKES CHARGE

by Maureen Dowd

The image of King Charles III at his coronation in his gold lace and ermine robe had barely faded when we learned on Monday that Charles was sick.

He had spent his life in the shadow of indelible women, and he had suffered through a portrayal on “The Crown” that was disdained by those close to him. He had only just stepped out as the powerful leading man of the royal family on the world stage when he was struck down by a double blow of illness.

“It is sad,” said Sally Bedell Smith, the biographer of Charles, Diana and Queen Elizabeth, and the author of the “Royals Extra” substack. “Here he’s been waiting for this his entire life,” she told me. “He’s really exceeded expectations in terms of how he’s conducted himself, the modern touches he’s carried out, his statement on climate, his sense of where the boundaries are. He’s done everything as he should do.”

And now he is facing cancer. Smith noted that King Charles was transparent about dealing with an enlarged prostate — and he was praised for being candid — but he has gone dark on exactly what kind of cancer he is battling. (The exact nature of the illness of Kate, the Princess of Wales, is also not known.)

“Now they’re reverting to the hazy, euphemistic way of dealing with sickness — the cloud of secrecy — that the royal family has used all these years,” Smith said. “But I don’t think that this falls into the category of being invasive to ask about it because of who he is. He is a head of state.”

And now the woman who was once scorned as “the other woman,” the third person in Diana’s marriage, as Diana told the BBC, is the queen of the United Kingdom, left to keep calm and carry on her duties alone while her husband focuses on his recovery.

“Intrepid Camilla, carrying the flag for England,” Smith said, noting the ironies of the situation. “This is a woman lazing around for her whole life, an upper-class woman who liked horses and dogs and cooking a roast on a Sunday. Then she married Charles when she was 57. And now she is carrying out her royal duties on steroids.”

"COURTESY OF THE RED, WHITE AND BLUE (The Angry American)"

American Girls and American Guys

We'll always stand up and salute

We'll always recognize

When we see Old Glory Flying

There's a lot of men dead

So we can sleep in peace at night

When we lay down our head

.

My daddy served in the army

Where he lost his right eye

But he flew a flag out in our yard

'Til the day that he died

He wanted my mother, my brother, my sister and me

To grow up and live happy

In the land of the free

.

Now this nation that I love

Has fallen under attack

A mighty sucker punch came flyin' in

From somewhere in the back

Soon as we could see it clearly

Through our big black eye

Man, we lit up your world

Like the 4th of July

.

Hey, Uncle Sam

Put your name at the top of his list

And the Statue of Liberty

Started shakin' her fist

And the eagle will fly

And there's gonna be hell

When you hear Mother Freedom

Start ringin' her bell

And it'll feel like the whole wide world is raining down on you

Oh, brought to you Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue

.

Oh, justice will be served

And the battle will rage

This big dog will fight

When you rattle his cage

And you'll be sorry that you messed with

The U.S. of A

'Cause we'll put a boot in your ass

It's the American way

.

Hey, Uncle Sam

Put your name at the top of his list

And the Statue of Liberty

Started shakin' her fist

And the eagle will fly

And there's gonna be hell

When you hear Mother Freedom

Start ringin' her bell

And it'll feel like the whole wide world is raining down on you

Oh, brought to you Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue

Oh, oh, of the Red, White and Blue

Oh, oh, of my Red, White and Blue

— Toby Keith

BRACE FOR IMPACT

by James Kunstler

“It’s not enough to say it’s nuts, you have to explain why it’s so nuts.” – Terrance McKenna

“Joe Biden’s” victory dance in South Carolina — down on the ol’ Democratic Party Plantation, where they grows votes — didn’t last long. By Sunday, a rogue satellite named Tucker Carlson was spotted orbiting over Russia, Russia, Russia, a country you have to say three times so that people get how serious it is. Carlson threatens to actually sit down in the same room with Putin, Putin, Putin — the antithesis of “Joe Biden,” since Putin actually operates as head-of-state — and convey Mr. P’s thoughts and opinions to the citizens of America via the rascally social media platform called “X.”

Do you realize the danger of exposing Americans to what this Putin might say? Hearing him express his thoughts about the world situation in a leisurely format — which Putin does regularly among his own people (I’ve seen him do it!) — is liable to inform Americans that their own political leadership is a party of mental illness.

Even without this new provocation of a Carlson / Putin colloquy, folks in the land of the free and the home of the brave have begun to grok just how insane things have gone under “Joe Biden” blobism. And that darn conversation comes just egg-zackly at the moment when our Senate is attempting to package a bill tying a $60-billion taxpayer gift to Ukraine with a “border security” law that will forbid more than 8,500 foreigners on any given day to enter the USA illegally. Sweet deal, huh? Er. . . maybe not. On the House side of Congress, Speaker Mike Johnson says, “No way, José.”

So, do you really want to chance this Putin guy actually explaining calmly and clearly to folks here how our own State Department cooked up this war in Ukraine, and keeps it going month after month? Figures such as the ex-conservative Bill Kristol (now blob cheerleader), want to prevent the Tucker Carlson satellite from re-entering the USA after its Moscow visit. Mr. Kristol is apparently under the illusion that we are at war with Russia. Somebody please inform him that this is just not so. Strictly speaking, Russia is just another European nation that Americans can visit on a visa. That’s a fact, Jack. And if you happen to be there, and you’re a journalist, and Putin, Putin, Putin agrees to an interview, well. . . you sit down and talk to the guy. . . and record it. . . and let people around the world decide what to think about it.

Bill Kristol: “Perhaps we neeed a total and complete shutdown of Tucker Carlson re-entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.”

I don’t know about you, but that sounds a little. . . I dunno. . . fascist-y to me. Which is the dirty secret of the Party of Mental Illness that folks in the USA are beginning to grok. All their blather about “our democracy” is a smokescreen for the lust to shutdown free speech at all costs and push everybody around. It will be interesting to see who shows up at the jetway when Mr. Carlson actually does land back in America. The FBI, you think? With a set of leg-irons (like they did with Peter Navarro)?

Mr. Putin might also explain how immigration works in Russia, Russia, Russia, where you have to fill out an application, explain who you are, and be evaluated as worthy to enter. Not everybody makes the grade. But, surprise, surprise, surprise, not everybody seeks to enter a country with good intentions. Can you imagine that? The Party of Mental illness in America does not believe that anyone can have less than good intentions. At least that’s what they pretend (because they are mentally ill). So, anyone at all can drift across the Mexican border into the USA. They call that “diversity and inclusion.” It’s a thought problem.

We are letting a lot of people with probably less than good intentions into our country. The home folks are getting a bit riled up about it. The home folks are certainly not falling for Nikki Haley’s bullshit. Nikki Haley is trying to out-Biden “Joe Biden.” She appeared the other night as the featured guest-star on the blob’s comedy show, Saturday Night Live, doing her impression of a mentally ill presidential candidate. Nikki excels at that. She is represented by the blob’s CIA talent agency. The same agency handles the vote tabulation machines around the USA, so let’s see how Nikki does in the South Carolina Republican primary on February 24. “Joe Biden” got 97 percent of the vote there last week. Stunning and awesome! Can Nikki beat that?

The Zephyrs of spring are hardly nascent and even in the cruel depths of winter we are beginning to see an uprising stir throughout Western Civ. The farmers have had enough of being pushed around, overtaxed, and blustered and have taken the lead in disrupting the bad intentions of the Euroblob. The American truck convoy is headed to Texas to assist the Texans in controlling the border that the USAblob refuses to control. The court cases against Mr. Trump are wobbling like $1.99 gyroscopes. And who was not horrified by the act that E. Jean Carroll put on with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC? There is your political mental illness in a neat snapshot. Do you really want your country to be like that?

Greg Price: E. Jean Carroll is on Maddow laughing about what she’s going to do with Trump’s money: “First thing, Rachel, you and I are going to go shopping. What do you want? Penthouse? It’s yours” as her lawyer cringes beside her.