Mendocino County Today: Friday, Feb. 9, 2024

Clear & Cold | Leaf & Cap | Ballot Error | Seed Swap | Storm-Damage Survey | Still Missing | Frank Seward | Seed Exchange | False Updates | Cubbison Update | HMO Coverage | Couchmobile | Meet Chris | Vote Trevor | Hopland Hiring | Call Me | Flawed Legislation | Pondering | Ed Notes | Publishing Korte | Old Greenwood | Yesterday's Catch | Bad Dog | Being Gouged | Flag KC | Mobley Desk | SF View | Morale Boost | Csonka Invitation | Newsom Recall | Salad Bowl | Real Name | Carlson/Putin | TP Etiquette | Supreme Case | No Character | Doomsday Clock | Trinity Site | Unbeliever | Fart Around | Breaker Boys

COOLER TEMPERATURES to end the week while a weak shortwaves clips northern California. Light rain is possible through this afternoon but minimal accumulations are expected. Drying and slight warming forecast for the latter half of the weekend, with potential for more impactful precip possible next week. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): 41F under high clouds this Friday morning on the coast. A quick look at the PGE outage map shows most power is back on with a few outages remaining. Finally. Cool & a mix of cloud covers thru the weekend. I see rain returning on Wednesday now. We'll see.

MENDO BALLOT GLITCH: WRONG BALLOTS SENT TO MOST VOTERS

Presidential Primary Ballots Mailed February 5, 2024

On Monday, February 5, 2024, the Elections Office mailed ballots for the March 5, 2024, Presidential Primary Election to all active Mendocino County registered voters. Late yesterday afternoon, the Elections Office was notified by some recipients of those ballots that there were errors in certain ballots. 

The Elections Office has since learned that every voter in Mendocino County received a Republican ballot for the First Supervisorial District regardless of their party affiliation. Additionally, the Elections Office believes there may be errors in all ballots mailed out, even those ballots for voters registered Republican in the First District.

The Elections Office has been working with the vendor that printed the ballots to quickly remedy the error. The error was caused by a third-party vendor. The vendor is printing replacement ballots for all active Mendocino County registered voters and will mail them out, at the vendor’s expense, to all registered voters early next week. 

If any voter has already voted and returned the ballot they received, please contact the Election/County Clerk’s Office as soon as possible. Our office will also reach out to voters who returned one of the ballots mailed on February 5, 2024, to make sure the voter is provided the correct ballot. 

Please note that military and overseas ballots were not affected by this error. Military and overseas voters received correct ballots.

I would like to thank those voters who called to let us know about this error.

If you have any questions, please contact the Election / County Clerk’s Office by calling 707-234-6819 or emailing us at mcvotes@mendocinocounty.gov

Katrina Bartolomie, 

Mendocino County Assessor-County Clerk-Recorder

* * *

Adam Gaska: Supposedly, an employee for the ballot printer used the same image for all the different ballot iterations which vary by district and party affiliation so everyone in Mendocino County received a 1st district Republican ballot. They will be reprinting and reissuing ballots. They will separate out the different batches.

Mark Scaramella adds: This will be confusing for the clerk’s staff and for voters, and it might impact some close local elections if a candidate doesn’t trust a count that they feel might have been affected by the ballot glitch. The Clerk’s presser does not address how they will make sure there’s no duplication or what will be done for those who may have already mailed back their ballots. Expecting voters to call the Elections office does not seem like a rigorous approach; how many voters will really do that?

EARLY FEBRUARY 2024 - STORM DAMAGE SURVEY 

The Office of Emergency Services is seeking assistance from the public to self-report property damages resulting from the severe winter storm that occurred in early February.

This is not an application for assistance, but the information provided will be used to assist the County in understanding the severity of the private property damage and to potentially request assistance from nonprofit, state, and federal partners.

The survey can be found here: https://forms.gle/QQX93q7QAHB8JiFp6

Please complete the survey by no later than Sunday, February 11, 2024.

If recovery resources become available, we will publish the updates on the county’s social media below. 

Mendocino County Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/mendocinocounty/) and Twitter feed (https://twitter.com/countymendocino.)

The recent severe weather events have impacted communities across the State and resources are stretched very thin. Although many of our communities are still dealing with utility outages, it is important to remember that the men and women working around the clock to perform inspections, repairs, and restorations are not responsible for the damages or service outages.

As we transition from the response to the recovery phase, the Office of Emergency Services wishes to emphasize the importance of treating roadcrews, utility line workers and first responders with kindness. These individuals are part of our community - they are our family, friends, and neighbors. Please refrain from directing frustrations towards them as they are simply carrying out their duties under challenging conditions.

Please remember to stay off roadways unless travel is necessary. Remember to pull over and allow safe passing for roadcrews and first responders.

(Mendocino County Presser)

FRANK AUSBORNE SEWARD 

Frank Ausborne Seward, a retired City of Ukiah Police Officer of 25 years and retired Mendocino County Sheriff Bailiff of 17 years, passed away on January 24, 2024, at the age of 85. He was born on March 26, 1938, in Willits, to his loving parents Glenn and Ida Seward. Frank had an impressive career in law enforcement, dedicating many years to serving and protecting the community he loved. He began his journey as a U.S. Navy radio operator USS Bremerton from September 25, 1956, to August 4, 1960. For his exemplary service, Frank was awarded the Good Conduct Medal. 

After his military service, Frank transitioned into a fulfilling career as a police officer with the City of Ukiah for over two decades. His commitment to upholding justice and maintaining law and order earned him the respect and admiration of his colleagues and the community he served. Following his retirement from the police force, Frank continued to contribute to public safety as a bailiff for Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office for another 17 years. His dedication and professionalism in this role were unparalleled. 

While Frank was accomplished in his professional life, he found true joy in his personal life. He cherished his family above all else and derived immense happiness from being with them. Frank’s love for his wife Sandra Lee Seward was unwavering throughout their married life. Their bond served as an example of enduring love and partnership to all who knew them. Frank was a devoted father to his children Mary Seward (Eric Engel) of Ukiah, Michele Clemons (Mathew) of Redwood Valley, Shannon Seward of Sacramento, Tom Seward (Kimberley) of Potter Valley. 

He also shared a close bond with his former daughter-in-law Jennifer Seward. Frank took great pride in the accomplishments and successes of his children and was thrilled to see them grow into remarkable individuals. Being a grandfather brought Frank immeasurable happiness. He had the privilege of having fifteen grandchildren, five great-grandchildren, and two great-great-grandchildren. Frank always made sure to create lasting memories with each of them. Whether it was attending their soccer games or recitals, he never missed an opportunity to support and encourage his beloved grandchildren. Frank’s love for the outdoors knew no bounds. He found solace in nature and nurtured a passion for hunting and fishing. The serenity he encountered while immersed in nature was where he found peace and joy. 

Aside from his professional accomplishments, Frank took pride in serving as a Hunter Safety Instructor. He believed in passing on knowledge about responsible hunting practices to ensure the preservation of wildlife and the safety of fellow hunters. 

Frank Ausborne Seward will be remembered as a man of integrity, compassion, and unwavering dedication to his family, community, and country. His resilience, work ethic, and commitment to public safety left an indelible mark on all who had the privilege of knowing him. Frank is survived, his daughters Mary Seward (Eric Engel), Michele Clemons (Mathew), Shannon Seward, and son Tom Seward (Kimberley). He is also survived by his daughter-in-law Jennifer Seward, nephew David Pinnell (Linda), fifteen grandchildren, five great-grandchildren, and two great-great-grandchildren. 

Frank was preceded in death by his loving wife Sandra Lee Seward, parents Glenn & Ida Seward, daughter in law Jessica Seward, twin sister Marian Pinnell, brothers Arthur, Floyd and Phillip Robertson 

In this moment of profound loss, let us celebrate the life of Frank Ausborne Seward and reflect on the legacy he leaves behinda legacy rooted in honor, dedication, and love for family. May we find solace in the cherished memories we shared with Frank as we bid farewell to our beloved patriarch. Rest in peace. Memorial services will be held at a later date. Arrangements are under the direction of the Eversole Mortuary

SUSAN HOFBERG:

Among the many false PG&E updates received during this recent outage, within the last few minutes I got a text saying my power was restored today at 5:17, and a phone call that said they were still working on it, when it was actually restored yesterday afternoon. Can anything be done about these useless and incessant updates?

TED WILLIAMS:

The county has zero authority over PG&E. They’re regulated by the California Public utilities commission. I’ve been collecting stories and submitting reports. The employees of PG&E are responsive and do care about their safety and ours. I try to remind people, our gripe is about corporate decisions, not the performance of line workers.

CUBBISON UPDATE: 

I'm doing ok. Things just take so long! I'm at least a little more mobile with my broken foot. Still have to wear the "boot", but it's healing well. Next court date is Feb 14th is at 9am. Thanks for your continued support!

— Chamise Cubbison

WILLITS WEIRD WHEELED WONDER: A COMMUTING COUCH

by Kym Kemp

Two Willits locals, Brandon Thornsberry (age 27) and his buddy since third grade, Bret Baker who now lives in Lake County, recently introduced the town—and now, the internet—to their latest creation: a drivable couch. You could call it the Sofa Speedster or a Traveling Troublemaker but, no matter what you call it, this comfy conveyance is anything but ordinary. On February 3, their motorized masterpiece hit the streets, turning heads, creating some chuckles, and setting off a small social media sensation as they traveled down Main Street, all from the comfort of their living room on wheels.

This…er…Couch-Cab-Quad is the brainchild of two friends who simply wanted to “build something” fun. Their vision? A drivable sofa capable of cruising to local events and fairs with style and ease.

“We always wanted to build a motorized couch,” Brandon explained, detailing the week-long project that brought their dream to reality. By widening a kid’s quad for stability and retrofitting a free couch sourced from Fort Bragg, they engineered a “Town Trotter” that’s as safe as it is sensational—complete with air suspension to support Brandon’s six-foot-five frame and that of his equally tall friends.

This “Drift-Ready Divan” may not break any speed records, topping out at a leisurely 30 miles per hour, but it’s not speed they were after. The inaugural drive around the block was just a teaser for the main event: a jaunt down Main Street that captured the hearts and laughs of everyone who witnessed it.

The goal was simple: to see what people would do. And the answer? Smile, laugh, and reach for their smartphones to share the joy. “Everybody that saw it was laughing and pointing. It was pretty fun,” Brandon recalled.

But is it legal? “I can’t find anything that says I’m not allowed to drive a couch on the road,” Brandon quipped. In a world often bogged down by rules and regulations, the drivable couch rides a fine line between innovation and insubordination, all in the name of fun.

This “Comfy Commuter” is just one of many “weird cars and projects” in Brandon’s repertoire. With a penchant for building and a zest for life, he invites the curious to check out more of his inventions on his Instagram page, where the drivable couch is already a star.

As for the residents of Willits, they’ve been treated to the results that a little friendship and a bit of creative, hard work can bring about. In a time when the world could use a little more laughter, Brandon and Bret have a front seat now to enjoy the little town’s sights and the community gets to be entertained by their comfy commuter.

GOD SAVE US ALL!

Glenn McGourty: Join Me February 15th to Meet Chris Rogers

With Election Day just around the corner, I wanted to take a moment to invite you to meet Chris Rogers, who I'm supporting in the AD-02 Assembly race. Chris has served our region both as an elected official and as a legislative staffer and has a solid grasp (and a real wililngness to listen) on the rural issues facing Mendocino County.

You're invited join me, Ukiah City Councilmember Mari Rodin, and Mendocino County Superintendent of Schools Nicole Glentzer at a meet and greet for Chris Rogers next Thursday, February 15th at 4 pm in the mezzanine of Ukiah Brewing Company. Come enjoy some light appetizers and hear from the candidate who I hope will be our next Assemblymember.

— Glenn McGourty

* * *

MS NOTES: McGourty did not endorse his board colleague Ted Williams, a Mendo-grown candidate who lives in Mendocino County? McGourty’s other odd endorsement is Trevor Mockel to fill his own vacant seat, the same candidate Williams also endorsed. The only thing Smith and Mockel seem to have in common is that they both have been “legislative staffers” for a while. 

TREVOR MOCKEL: I have the experience, values and vision needed for Mendocino County. Vote Trevor Mockel!

HOPLAND RESEARCH IS HIRING

Positions are open at the UC Hopland Research and Extension Center, come join our team! A great opportunity to work at this beautiful 5,358 acre site supporting education, research and a flock of 200 head of western whiteface sheep.

Senior Custodian. This position is a career appointment that is 85% fixed: https://ucanr.edu/About/Jobs/?jobnum=2708

Animal Health Technician 1. This position is a limited appointment that is 15% fixed: https://ucanr.edu/About/Jobs/?jobnum=2709

These positions can be combined for 100% fixed time. Please be sure to apply to both positions to be considered for this opportunity.

UC ANR is an equal opportunity provider and employer.

FLAWED, FAULTY, BUT NOT FAILING

Editor,

I am constantly hearing how our justice system is failing. I don’t believe this is true, I do believe a lot of recent legislation has been flawed. Is our system flawed or is it the individuals involved. Our laws are becoming increasingly harsh on our law-abiding residents while a pass seems to be handed out to those who chose to live outside the law. I think we have lost sight on who the true victims are. 

Rights and responsibilities are attached to one another. When legislation removes responsibility from individuals, the government will remove the rights of all. We are seeing this in many areas within the United States. We also have to look at where society is failing and look at the issues from both sides currently, I don’t think we are.

In my opinion legislation has to start serving the victims of crime, that has to change immediately if we are to begin moving in the correct direction. Often, I see millions of dollars spent on services and programs for those convicted of crime while little is being done for victims. The real question is who are our victims. 

During my career I have seen numerous times people engage in activities which most folks would steer clear from. When these endeavors end poorly, they want to blame folks around them for the outcome. It’s like watching someone jump from a tall building, when they hit the ground, they make the claim gravity had it out for them, showcasing their injuries as evidence. I have seen many examples of this, the most glaring example is when a young fellow enters a tavern and allows the whiskey to write checks his body can’t cash. This is a lesson I have watched many young people learn. If a drunken subject picks a fight and loses, is he a victim? Lately It seems we are constantly looking for new ways to make people a victim of their own actions which in some way creates excuses for their behaviors. That thinking has to end as well. 

Recidivism is a huge buzz word and when we see it, we hear the system is broken. Questions begin to arise such as, “Why were these folks failed?” We also have to look at this from the other side of the coin, remembering there are two sides. The other side is, why we aren’t asking folks why they failed themselves and society? How long has it been since someone asked that question?

Believe it or not, there are many people who are arrested one time only in their lives. They take a bite of this meal, don’t like the flavor, and decide it isn’t for them. They often stand before our judges, pay for their actions and we never see them again in the criminal justice system. Did the system fail these folks? Or did they take responsibility for their actions and decide not to order up that meal again? That is the way our system should work. I haven’t seen anyone talking about the portion of the criminal justice system which works. I think this should be a part of the conversation. At times it appears we are concentrating on changing the rules for the folks who are failing at following them. If we continue to change the rules, with the new thought process that no one is responsible for their actions, eventually will the system fail everyone equally? 

We have sympathy for people who have had a rough go of things and that’s human nature. This often keeps us from properly holding people accountable for their actions. We have seen many times this can compound the problem and often causes the problems to increase. Although many folks have had a rough go, are we also looking at what the victim now faces. Are we asking, what are we doing for them? Eventually the victims will seek retribution, and when they do will they receive the same pass for their behaviors? That in itself is a slippery slope and a fast track to anarchy. 

Narcotics are absolutely a driving force for many of our crimes. We have come to a time when we blame narcotics, and this is an easy villain to find. Clearly in Mendocino County I can draw clear lines between substance abuse and crime. I recently read an article which indicated supply is driving demand. This is a strange way to see things, however I think the author may be correct in these times we are in. 

Where does the addiction come from? I am not seeing roving bands of drug dealers holding people down and forcing them to become addicted. To the contrary, people are paying good money for these addictions, and they are getting exactly what they have paid for. So I ask, where does the responsibility for this truly land?

Our government does have some responsibility in this. When we look at this from a high level, we all know, or should know, price and availability will always be a factor in marketing any product including illicit narcotics. This area is where our legislation is failing. We aren’t removing the product or the dealers from our streets. If we did, we would see availability fall and prices rise, thus making it more difficult for people to access and use illicit drugs. Placing barriers in their path won’t fix the root of the problem of drug abuse. Where there is a will, there is also a way and if people want to use drugs they will. 

The real question is and will remain, how will we change the mind set and stop people from wanting to use drugs.

I have placed a large emphasis on working to serve those incarcerated with opportunities through accountability. You must have accountability taken for actions before opportunities can come. We are leading the horse to water and providing a full trough, however they have to make the decision to drink. When they don’t chose to do so, who is at fault?

We need to see the scales balanced to the point where victims remain the focus and suspects are given opportunities to improve through personal responsibility. No one should be given a pass for bad behaviors no matter what their past is. 

Sheriff Matt Kendall

Ukiah

ED NOTES

I LISTENED to the Supreme Court arguments Thursday morning, and I predict an 8-0 win for Trump. Or maybe 8-1 with Sotomayor the one. Boiled down, the nut of the case is, Can individual states keep a national candidate off the ballot? No, and think of the precedent set if Colorado got away with keeping Trump off as Republican states retaliated against Democrats. 

SECOND, despite Colorado's Civil War-era based arguments that kept Confederate insurrectionists off federal ballots, January 6 was not an insurrection, it was merely a riot incited by Trump, he and his yobbo magas being too dumb and too lazy to even attempt to pull of an actual coup. 

THE JUSTICES seemed reconciled to the basic Jan 6 distinction that the event was a riot, not an insurrection. If they decide that the Democrats can keep the Orange Monster off ballots, we could well see the magas attempt real insurrections in areas of the country where they have majorities. 

NONE OF THIS ballot rigging lawfare would have happened if the Democrats had a plausible candidate, but all visible evidence notwithstanding, Biden is so extremely ga-ga that his handlers can't trust him to even do a teleprompter appearance. That Biden is plausible is simply more evidence of the corruption of the mainstream media, who go on pretending the old boy is viable. Biden vs. Trump, the final absurdity. 

THE ACCUMULATING catastrophes that comprise late-stage America would defy the best novelists to even begin to describe. I think Nathanael West's ‘The Day of the Locust’ captures the apocalyptic hysteria that was the prevailing vibe in 1939, when America was positively serene compared to what's in store for US in 2024 with twice as many people, millions of them unprepared for tumultuous, unpredictable living. (‘The Day of the Locust’ and ‘Miss Lonelyhearts’ should be required reading by every citizen.)

A BEATNIK NUN ECO-POET FINALLY GETS HER DUE

by Nathalie op de Beeck

Poet Mary Norbert Korte, who died last November at age 88, was known as a beatnik nun who left the Dominican Order to join San Francisco’s poetry scene, and as an off-grid eco-warrior who preserved more than 400 acres of old-growth redwood forest in Mendocino County. 

Though Korte operated under the mainstream radar, she won counterculture literary admirers. In Jumping into the American River: New and Selected Poems, Vol. 1, due out June 1 from Argos Books and TKS Books, coeditors Iris Cushing and Jason Weiss reintroduce Korte’s place-based poetry and her remarkable life in Northern California.

Cushing started indie publisher Argos Books in 2010 and continues to operate it with cofounder and translator Elizabeth Clark Wessel. Argos publishes two books of poetry, works in translation, or hybrid genre books per year and is distributed by Small Press Distribution. Cushing discovered Korte while working on her PhD in literature at CUNY and collaborating with Ammiel Alcalay, founder of the archival chapbook series Lost & Found: The CUNY Poetics Document Initiative.

Alcalay had discovered handwritten response poems by Korte in an archived copy of poet Michael McClure’s Ghost Tantras. Korte gave these poems to McClure in 1968, the year she left the sisterhood. She was then 34 and had been a nun since 1951. She’d experienced a new kind of spiritual conversion at the 1965 Berkeley Poetry Conference, which inspired her to join the literary scene of Allen Ginsberg, Jack Spicer, and Diane di Prima.

Cushing, already studying di Prima, “ended up reading through all of Korte’s archives at the University of Rochester,” she said. “I decided that she would be one of the people I wrote my dissertation about. I’m from Northern California, and I love the literary history and folklore” of the area. She published a pamphlet on Korte, The First Books of David Henderson and Mary Korte: A Research, in 2020.

Mary Catherine Kinniburgh, one of Cushing’s fellow CUNY graduate students and the publisher of TKS Books (distributed by literary indie publisher Granary Books), turned the Ghost Tantras poems into a publication for Lost & Found.

Cushing and Kinniburgh met Korte for the first time in 2017, said Cushing, who wrote about the experience in a small-press publication, Into the Long Long Time: How Mary Norbert Korte Saved the Redwoods, in 2019. The visit to Korte’s cabin led to conversations about poetry and clashes between eco-activists and logging companies in the remote forests around Willits, Calif.; while writing her contemplative poetry, Korte worked with environmentalist Judi Bari and the Earth First! movement to protect old-growth forests.

“We got to be very dear friends,” Cushing said, and “between 2017 and 2022 I went there probably half a dozen times. She had a really cool handful of friends who lived on the land with her and who took care of her in the last years of her life. In her poetry, she captured a sense of place beautifully.”

“Korte is the genuine deal,” Kinniburgh agreed. “She had extraordinary presence in person, and I wanted to be near it.”

Cushing set herself a goal of reviving Korte’s work while the aging poet could see the effort and perhaps the finished product. She and Weiss, who’d met Korte in 1970, pitched the book to a few presses, but “it just wasn’t a fit.”

That is when Cushing decided she should publish the book. “I just had this moment where I was like, Why do I have a press if not to make things like this happen?” she remembered. “I called Mary Catherine and said, ‘We should publish Korte’s selected poems as a collaboration with our publishing projects.’ ”

“Iris and I both felt strongly about the importance of sharing Korte’s work,” Kinniburgh said. “So we pooled our publishing resources to get it done and both contributed financially. While Iris took the lead on editorial and project management, I designed the cover and consulted with her on design and production.”

Last November, Korte called Cushing to see how Jumping into the American River was coming along. “She was a lifelong chain smoker, and when she quit smoking, it sent her body into total turmoil,” Cushing said. “She called me from the hospital and said, ‘Things aren’t looking good. Do you think that book is going to come out in the next couple of weeks?’ ”

Cushing admitted it wouldn’t be done for a couple of months. But she felt grateful to say that the book was underway, its title borrowed from Korte’s 1977 poem about making a leap of faith.

R.D. BEACON

This is Greenwood, now called elk, in the old days, in the days, both sides of the street looking from the South looking north buildings on both sides of the of what we call Highway 1, looking northward, on the east side of the road union union hotel, about where the oasis sits now, on the west side of the street, it all burned out Google will also fire in town, later on the lumberyard took it over, in later years, it became a log, although over the years digging deep into the ground he would always find something, left over from the pass, it's sad that her town, that had over 5000 people living at it has shrunk down to almost nothing within the city limits of the community they married may be only, 15 people, during the winter months, and of those people, that are still in the community most of them are retired, what used to be businesses, like a full-service gas station, and a full service grocery store, have become shadows, of their former glory, and the little oasis cocktail lounge no longer exists, while, there are places to stay in the town, if you have the price, of admission, but rooms are not cheap at well over 600, the food to be obtained, will run you well over $100 plate, no longer are their burgers, fries and a reasonable price, the little greenwood peer restaurant café, in the north end of town, has risen up and become a high price, restaurant, no more low-priced omelettes, now it's high-priced chicken and waffles, while going further north to the harbor house, is another expensive place to stay, that don't want pets, or kids, if you work your way south, to the elk Cove inn, prices were reasonable excellent food, that was the old, Drew house, he was the mill superintendent in the old days, he used to be a walkoff the back porch right to the sawmill, which is now long since gone, in the old days you could hop a ride, on the train, at night for a while the community, would be lit up, for the old sawmill, provide electricity to the town, while it was operating, just like, most of the sawmills on the coast, used to provide, some form of electricity to their communities, today,, all the sawmills on the coast are gone, along with the many thousands of people that worked in and around, that industry from the 1800s, through the 1970s, yet, we have more timber volume, today, then we did in 1800, why did the sawmills leave, the environmentalists kick them all to the curb, along with the good jobs, that were available.

CATCH OF THE DAY, Thursday, February 8, 2024

TIFFANY DOMBROWSKI, Fort Bragg. Robbery, battery on peace officer, resisting.

FERNANDO JOAQUIN, Covelo. Controlled substance, county parole violation.

PAUL MENDEZ JR., Clearlake/Ukiah. Parole violation.

TONY PHIPPS, Ukiah. Failure to register change of address as a felon sex offender with prior.

ALEXIS RENTAS, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-drugs&alcohol, resisting.

TESSA RIKER, Kelseyville. Paraphernalia. 

WE'RE BEING GOUGED

Editor,

We are being punished by a state government that is not up to the challenge created by climate change and a utility system that cannot withstand it. 

There have been two costly mistakes that have caused an unconscionable increase in our bills. 

First, we are paying billions to underground power lines. You can insulate those power lines and swap out utility poles for fireproof ones with the same increase in safety. PG&E now has the technology for targeted power safety shut-offs during dangerous fire seasons as well. 

The time, money and employee hours allocated for undergrounding power lines means those resources won’t go to the infrastructure needed to get far-flung renewable energy projects to customer’s homes. 

Second, PG&E disincentivized rooftop solar and batteries. Together they would have lessened the need for some of this costly utility infrastructure. Ratepayers could have saved billions by allowing rooftop solar and batteries to create virtual power plants to send clean energy to the grid.

Tragically, these high electricity rates also mean Californians will not be able to afford to electrify their homes and cars. Climate change will accelerate. Our seniors are cold and our children’s futures are robbed. It’s really sad.

Susannah Saunders

San Anselmo

ESTHER MOBLEY: 

Here’s what’s come across my desk recently: 

Don’t even think about trying to watch the Super Bowl at BuzzWorks, which is apparently the only Chiefs bar in San Francisco. Niners fans are not allowed, the bar announced in a press release, according to Nico Madrigal-Yankowski in SFGATE. (SFGATE and The San Francisco Chronicle are both owned by Hearst but operate independently.)

But if you are looking for fun places to watch the Super Bowl, my colleague Mario Cortez has rounded up 12 places, none of which are sports bars, with delicious food and drink that will be airing the big game.

New Belgium Brewing is closing its massive Mission Bay taproom, which isn’t even three years old, reports Cortez. 

More breweries are paring down their offerings, writes Joshua M. Bernstein in the New York Times. Unlike a previous era in craft beer, when businesses made dozens of different styles, many are now just focusing on one or two products, partly a concession to the slowing beer market.

Beer isn’t the only alcoholic beverage having a tough time right now. In France, of all places, wine consumption is declining, producers have excess inventory and the government is recommending that vineyards get pulled out. Louise Hurren sketches out the crisis in Meininger’s International. 

'SEASON OF THE WITCH' AUTHOR PREDICTS 49ERS WIN COULD CHANGE SAN FRANCISCO FOREVER

by Kent German

David Talbot knows San Francisco needs a morale boost to escape the “doom loop” headlines and conservative media schadenfreude over the city’s current malaise. And the author, former journalist and San Francisco historian is looking to a 49ers win in Sunday’s Super Bowl against the Kansas City Chiefs as the best vehicle to bring it. 

“I love San Francisco. I’ve lived here most of my life, and I think the city really is lost,” Talbot told SFGATE in a phone interview last week. “We need the Niners. … I can’t think of any other institution that represents all of the city at this point that pulls us together.”

Talbot’s belief in the football team and the lift it could bring comes from experience rather than just starry-eyed optimism. In his 2012 book “Season of the Witch,” which grippingly covers the history of San Francisco from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, the 72-year-old Talbot writes that the 49ers played a city-saving role in 1982 when the team beat the Cincinnati Bengals in its first Super Bowl appearance. At that time San Francisco was mired in trauma, but of a vastly different kind.

A city at war with itself

As the 1980s opened, San Francisco was reeling from a tumultuous two decades that brought radical change, profound hope and unmitigated terror to its population. As Talbot writes in his book, events like the Summer of Love and anti-war movement, the birth of the gay rights movement in the Castro, the Symbionese Liberation Army and Jonestown plunged San Francisco into a war with itself. Newly arrived residents embracing tolerance and eager to push cultural and political boundaries clashed with more conservative native-born residents resistant to liberal change, Talbot writes. That war culminated tragically with the 1978 assassinations of Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone by Dan White.

“There was the emerging city, the gay city, the city of San Francisco values,” Talbot said in his interview. “And there’s the traditional city represented most violently by Dan White. The two had clashed with disastrous results.”

That whiplashing cycle of events left the city dazed and delirious. And in the last section of the book, titled “Deliverance,” he describes how he thinks the 49ers helped San Francisco slowly regain its spirit as the decade turned. Edward DeBartolo Jr., whose family bought the team in 1977, and Bill Walsh, who became coach in 1979, transformed a scrappy team considered “the worst in the NFL” into a promising group with Ted Lasso-like potential.

“Wounded by one civic trauma after the next — San Francisco was not quite ready to give itself over to 49ers fever,” Talbot wrote in the book. “But the numbness from all those years of grisly headlines slowly began to lift from the city.”

Three years later as the team’s fortunes built into an underdog winning season, it faced the Dallas Cowboys in the NFC playoff game. Known as “America’s Team” at the time, the Cowboys, Talbot writes, were a conservative, militaristic team confident it would vanquish the godless “Sin Funcisco.” But before a packed Candlestick Park, the 49ers won 28-27 with an extraordinary touchdown that’s now simply known as “The Catch.” And when they clinched the Super Bowl win in Detroit on Jan. 24, San Francisco was ecstatic. (The San Francisco Chronicle and SFGATE are both owned by Hearst but have separate newsrooms.)

Though Talbot had moved to San Francisco only the year before, he eagerly attended the victory parade. When talking with SFGATE, he described that day as a unifying experience.

“The victory parade called out all sorts of people, all kinds of people, the entire city. Blue collar, white collar, Black, white, Asian, everybody was lined up along the parade route,” he said. “The team saved the city’s soul and healed the city at the right time.”

A city that doesn’t work

Four decades later, Talbot speculates that San Francisco is no longer at war with itself, but it suffers from a new and more intractable problem: It doesn’t know what is. As he puts it, factors like the tech invasion, homelessness and the pandemic have knocked the city off kilter.

“What is San Francisco? Is it boarded up?” he said. “It doesn’t work anymore. The city is kind of lost.”

Talbot takes the sense of loss personally. He and his wife raised two sons here — his son Joe Talbot wrote and directed the 2019 film “The Last Black Man in San Francisco” — and he’s not about to leave despite San Francisco’s challenges. And nothing has shaken his love for the Niners or his confidence in the team’s power to unify.

“I love the team,” he said. “My sons, my wife and I were glued to the TV all season long.”

Talbot also drew parallels between the 49ers of today and the team of 1981, saying both are eccentric and reflect San Francisco itself, even now that it plays its games 45 miles away in Santa Clara at Levi’s Stadium.

Talbot said he sees shades of famed quarterback Joe Montana in current quarterback Brock Purdy, whom Talbot calls “the real deal.” Though Montana looked more like “a regular guy” than an imposing athlete, he was just what the 1981 team needed.

“The team was weird and poetic under Bill Walsh. It reflected the city,” he said. “I think the team today under [tight end George] Kittle and Purdy is also a magical group of men of athletes that in some ways reflects the city, too. It’s different, it’s unique.”

Along with the Super Bowl win, Talbot in his book also credits the mayorship of Dianne Feinstein with getting San Francisco back on track. He said she knew the team and believed in it. As he writes in the book, her support of the 49ers went so far as to inviting DeBartolo and Walsh to dinner days before the game with the Cowboys, telling them, “I don’t know if you realize it, but San Francisco needs this team.”

He’s not as confident, though, that Mayor London Breed shares the late Feinstein’s enthusiasm. Talbot said he doesn’t believe Breed knows the team, and he doesn’t believe she’s “with” it.

“She doesn’t seem like someone who goes to games, hangs out with the players and knows how to talk to them,” he said. “I can’t imagine her having any kind of persuasiveness, or, you know, believability with the team and saying, ‘We need you.’”

In an emailed statement to SFGATE, Parisa Safarzadeh, a spokeswoman for Breed, said the mayor is lifelong San Franciscan and 49ers fan.

“The Mayor, like fans across the Bay Area and the country, are very excited for the game on Sunday and hopeful for a 49er victory over the Chiefs,” Safarzadeh said. “San Francisco continues to make significant strides in our economic recovery and is doing well, and a Super Bowl win would help build on the momentum and excitement we’re already seeing in the City.”

When the 49ers take the field Sunday in Las Vegas, Talbot will be watching from his Bernal Heights home. Like in 1981, he knows the 49ers are facing a country that likes to kick San Francisco when it’s down and ridicule it “as the city of gays, the city of homeless people, that beautiful city that doesn’t work.” He wants a championship for everyone, not just his sons, who are tired of hearing his stories of the Niners’ fading 1980s glory, but also the city and every 49ers fan.

“I would love to bring home a championship for all people,” he said. “Because I do think [the team] unifies and excites the city like nothing else can.”

LARRY CSONKA: Good Morning from Las Vegas! I’ve been asked to carry the Lombardi trophy to the stage of the Super Bowl LVIII champions on Sunday. This also commemorates my 50 year anniversary as MVP of Super Bowl VIII. Quite an honor. Hope you’ll all stay tuned for postgame celebrations! I’ll be there!

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

There’s a saying that goes if voting mattered, they wouldn’t let you do it. The only time voting matters is state to state. We get to pick who runs our state, but when it comes down to the whole country? Nope.

So many people wanted Gavin Newsom gone, and millions voted against him. He still beat the recall by using manipulation tactics against a fragile liberal population. He did it by simply calling Larry Elder a Trump 2.0 because he was associated with Trump, and on top of it all he promised a whole lot of women that California will be an abortion paradise. In fact he got a bunch of votes from women. He said women are smarter and better than men at governing. Next thing you know, that slick hair bastard beat the recall. You can even find the videos of him giving the speech on youtube and he looked like he was about to cry. He was that scared of losing California to someone else that he lied, cheated, and manipulated to avoid getting recalled.

SALAD BOWL

On June 28, 1930, the Southern Pacific Company printed three thousand promotional posters pictured here. Fred Ludekens was a prominent California illustrator responsible for this artwork and Lord and Thomas's art director at the firm that handled Southern Pacific’s advertising. Southern Pacific Railroad originated the “salad bowl” in the late 1920s, a help-yourself, all-you-can-eat scenario in their dining cars. Southern Pacific promoted this feature in magazines, matchbooks, and even on decks of Southern Pacific playing cards. The Salad Bowl was a marketing ploy to get easterners on the train who would otherwise not have fresh fruits and vegetables available during the fall and winter months. In addition to changing the way Americans traveled, the railways also affected the way America ate. This is the only poster by Southern Pacific to boast this historic culinary innovation.

FAKE NAMES

Editor: 

If there were a child molester in my neighborhood, I would want to know. If a sociopath was hoarding weapons next door, I would want to know. If my neighbor was threatening to kill the mayor, I would want to know. The reason we don’t know such things is the same reason hate speech on the web is uncontrollable: people are allowed to use phony names. I have to show proof of residence to register my car. If I had to do that to go online, and go online with that registered name, if it was prohibited to use phony names, it would moderate social discourse, or at least identify crazies so we could keep an eye on them.

Writing under your real name would not violate free speech or prohibit speech. One is not forced to communicate on the internet, but if we were speaking under our own names, perhaps some circumspection and restraint might color our communications, lest we revealed ourselves as unstable or urging criminal action. Freedom cannot exist without responsibility. Passing a law that required us to identify ourselves online would add responsibility to social discourse.

Peter Coyote

Sebastopol

CARLSON AND PUTIN: Carlson, bar a couple of feeble interjections, just sat there with an increasingly pained expression as he realised what was meant to be his great broadcasting coup - Putin's first interview with Western media since the invasion - was disappearing down the Swanee. Far from being a great meeting of minds between Kremlin leader and Kremlin lover, it looked as if Carlson, whose pain was turning to panic as he realised he couldn't stop Putin pontificating, had been taken hostage by a lugubrious and deranged Russian uncle, forced to listen forever to his ramblings. It must have been torture (something at which the Putin regime is particularly adept). Those of us diligently watching this two-hour snooze fest (so you don't have to) were rapidly losing the will to live.

— Andrew Neil

TRUMP'S BALLOT ACCESS CASE ON TRIAL

by Matt Taibbi

As the Supreme Court reviews Colorado's decision to remove Donald Trump from the ballot, press delusions multiply

Reading news on a flight to Las Vegas for tonight’s caucus… The CNN headline: “Supreme Court faces its greatest test yet from Trump.” Oral arguments are being heard in the high court today in Donald Trump’s ballot access case, about which CNN commentator Stephen Collinson seems to have no opinion, apart from being sure Trump’s response to its adjudication will be sociopathic and end human civilization as we know it:

“Few critical US democratic institutions have escaped unsullied from a tangle with Donald Trump… given Trump’s habitual refusal to accept the rules and results of elections, no one would be surprised if the court is dragged deeper into the partisan fray before or after November’s presidential election… no modern president has gone further than Trump in daring to shatter the notion that judges are obligated to pursue a higher calling than partisan politics – preserving the rule of law…”

He goes on:

“The four-times criminally indicted Trump repeatedly sets out to lean on or discredit institutions that can hold him accountable, restrain his power or contradict his incessantly spun alternative realities… [His] mantra of victimization is now at the center of a presidential campaign based on the perception that he’s being politically persecuted… History shows that however the court rules, Trump’s response will be filtered through his highly developed sense of injustice and suspicion of institutions of accountability and his often self-serving interpretation of the law…”

Every day for nearly nine years now, it’s been the same redundant passages in quantity, the same devotional rituals, no different from the ceremonially slaughtered pigs or goats nervous aristocrats used to offer up in classical times. I’m convinced most pundits and even most senior Democrats know by now that these endless lawsuits (with accompanying Trump-as-Antichrist press bleatings) cut against them politically, but because the cause is religious rather than strategic, they’re not able to stop. The cause will take them where it takes them, beginning with this current clash with the Supreme Court, which I’d guess won’t uphold the Colorado Supreme Court decision, but weirder things have happened of late. 

Update, 10:56 a.m. ET: Listening on the plane to oral arguments... Through choppy reception and the imperfect lens of legal amateur judgment, the colloquy between Trump attorney Jonathan Mitchell and the Justices didn’t seem to go well for Mitchell. Justices focused a lot on Trump’s petitioner brief, and especially the line “as section 3 prohibits individuals only from holding office, not from seeking or winning election to office.” Mitchell’s argument ended with Ketanji Brown Jackson demanding he explain why he didn’t believe what happened on January 6th, 2021 was an insurrection. Mitchell answered that one of the reasons was an insurrection had to be an “organized” and violent attempt to overthrow the government. 

“So a chaotic attempt qualifies?” Brown Jackson snapped. Mitchell paused, tried to explain this was just one of their reasons, that what happened was a “riot” and not an insurrection, before wrapping up. Again, I haven’t spent a lot of time listening to Supreme Court exchanges, but it felt like Mitchell was swimming upstream, at times against his own brief. 

11:28 a.m. ET: Now attorney Jason Murray, who represents the Colorado voters who are the technical plaintiffs in this case (read: Murray represents the Democrats), is under siege from the likes of Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch. Murray appeared to talk himself into a jackpot, saying Trump was disqualified “from the moment it happens,” i.e. from the moment he committed insurrection. This led Alito to ask if a military officer could have refused an order from Trump at that moment, to which Murray seemed to say no. Gorsuch blew up here, essentially retorting, “But you just said…” Murray managed to climb out of the death-pit a few minutes later, but that felt like a 10-8 round.

More updates to come… Getting ready to land. Please check this site in a bit for information about a livestream tonight from the Caucus Victory Party Watch in Vegas, at 7:30 ET.

FULL SPEED AHEAD ON THE GLOBAL TITANIC

by Norman Solomon

Yes, the Doomsday Clock keeps ticking — it’s now at 90 seconds to midnight, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists — but the ultimate time bomb never gets the attention that it deserves. Even as the possibility of nuclear annihilation looms, this century’s many warning signs retain the status of Cassandras.

Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump withdrew the United States from vital pacts between the U.S. and Russia, the two nuclear superpowers, shutting down the Anti-Ballistic Missile, Open Skies, and Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaties. And despite promising otherwise, Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden did nothing to revive them.

Under the buzzword “modernization,” the American government, a thermonuclear colossus, spent $51 billion last year alone updating and sustaining its nuclear arsenal, gaining profligate momentum in a process that’s set to continue for decades to come. “Modernizing and maintaining current nuclear warheads and infrastructure is estimated to cost $1.7 trillion through Fiscal Year 2046,” the office of Senator Edward Markey (D-MA) pointed out, “while the Congressional Budget Office anticipates that current nuclear modernization would cost $494 billion through Fiscal Year 2028.”

Such bloated sums might prove a good argument against specific weapons systems, but Uncle Sam has incredibly deep pockets for nuclear weaponry and a vast array of other military boondoggles. In fact, compared to the costs of deploying large numbers of troops, nuclear weapons can seem almost frugal. And consider the staggering price of a single aircraft carrier that went into service in 2017, the Gerald R. Ford: $13.3 billion.

Militarism’s overall mega-thievery from humanity has long been extreme, as President Dwight D. Eisenhower made clear in a 1953 speech: 

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children… This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”

The Nuclear Complex and “Crackpot Realism”

In the case of budgets for nuclear arms, the huge price tags are — in the most absolute sense imaginable — markers for a sustained, systemic, headlong rush toward omnicide, the destruction of the human species. Meanwhile, what passes for debate on Capitol Hill is routinely an exercise in green-eyeshade discourse, assessing the most cost-effective outlays to facilitate Armageddon, rather than debating the wisdom of maintaining and escalating the nuclear arms race in the first place.

Take, for instance, the recent news on cost overruns for the ballyhooed Sentinel land-based missile system, on the drawing boards to replace the existing intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) in 400 underground silos located in Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Wyoming. Northrop Grumman has already pocketed a $13.3 billion contract to begin moving the project forward. But the costs have been zooming upward so fast as to set off alarm bells in Congress, forcing a reassessment.

“The U.S. Air Force’s new intercontinental ballistic missile program is at risk of blowing past its initial $96 billion cost estimate by so much that the overruns may trigger a review on whether to terminate the project,” Bloomberg News reported in mid-December. Since then, the estimated overruns have only continued to soar. Last month, Northrop Grumman disclosed that the per-missile cost of the program had climbed by “at least 37 percent,” reaching $162 million — and, as Breaking Defense noted, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin would need to “certify the program to stave off its cancellation.”

At one level, cancellation would vindicate the approach taken by disarmament-oriented groups a couple of years ago when they tried to stop the creation of the Sentinel by arguing that it would be a “money pit missile.” But at a deeper level, the cost argument — while potentially a winner for blocking the Sentinel — is a loser when it comes to reducing the dangers of nuclear war, which ICBMs uniquely boost as the land-based part of this nation’s nuclear triad.

As Daniel Ellsberg and I wrote in the Nation in 2021, “If reducing the dangers of nuclear war is a goal, the top priority should be to remove the triad’s ground-based leg — not modernize it.” Eliminating ICBMs would be a crucial step when it comes to decreasing those dangers, because “unlike the nuclear weapons on submarines or bombers, the land-based missiles are vulnerable to attack and could present the commander in chief with a sudden use-them-or-lose-them choice.” That’s why ICBMs are on hair-trigger alert and why defeating just the Sentinel would be a truly Pyrrhic victory if the purported need for such land-based missiles is reaffirmed in the process.

In theory, blocking the Sentinel by decrying it as too expensive could be a step toward shutting down ICBMs entirely. In practice, unfortunately, the cost argument has routinely led to an insistence that the current Minuteman III ICBMs could simply be upgraded and continue to serve just as well — only reinforcing the assumption that ICBMs are needed in the first place.

The author of the pathbreaking 2022 study “The Real Cost of ICBMs,” Emma Claire Foley, is now a colleague of mine at RootsAction.org, where she coordinates the Defuse Nuclear War coalition’s new campaign to eliminate ICBMs. “News of dramatic cost overruns on the Sentinel program is unsurprising, but I don’t think that in itself should encourage disarmament advocates,” she told me recently. “Cancellation of the Sentinel program does not equal a reduction in the number of nuclear weapons, or the risk of nuclear war. It will take an organized mass movement to make good on this opportunity to meaningfully reduce the risk of nuclear war.”

The re-emerging ICBM controversy is yet another high-stakes example of the kind of gauntlet that disarmament advocates regularly face in official Washington, where presenting an analysis grounded in sanity is almost certain to be viewed as “not realistic.” On the other hand, when it comes to nuclear issues, accommodating to “crackpot realism” is a precondition for being taken seriously by the movers and shakers on Capitol Hill and in the executive branch.

Such accommodation involves adjusting to a magnitude of systemic insanity almost beyond comprehension. Disarmament advocates are often confronted with a tacit choice between seeming unserious to the nuclear priesthood and its adherents or pushing for fairly minor adjustments in what Daniel Ellsberg, in the title of his final landmark book, dubbed all too accurately The Doomsday Machine.

This country’s anti-nuclear and disarmament groups have scant presence in the mainstream media. And the more forthright they are in directly challenging the government’s nonstop nuclear recklessness — with results that could include billions of deaths from “nuclear winter” — the less media access they’re apt to get. When President Biden reneged on his 2020 campaign pledge to adopt a no-first-use policy on nuclear weapons, for instance, critical blowback in the media was meager and fleeting. Little news coverage occurred when a small number of members of Congress went out of their way to object.

“Unfortunately,” Markey said in a speech on the Senate floor two years ago, “our American democracy and Russia’s autocracy do share one major thing in common: Both our systems give the United States and Russian presidents the godlike powers known as sole authority to end life on the planet as we know it by ordering a nuclear first strike.”

Nuclear Madness and Psychic Numbing

Any nuclear first strike would likely lead to a full-scale nuclear war. And the science is clear that a “nuclear winter” would indeed follow — in Ellsberg’s words, “killing harvests worldwide and starving to death nearly everyone on earth. It probably wouldn’t cause extinction. We’re so adaptable. Maybe 1% of our current population of 7.4 billion could survive, but 98% or 99% would not.”

Such a steep plunge in planetary temperatures would exceed the worst prognoses for the effects of climate change, even if in the other direction, temperature-wise. But leaders of the climate movement rarely even mention the capacity of nuclear arsenals to destroy the planet’s climate in a different way from global warming. That omission reflects the ongoing triumph of nuclear madness and the “psychic numbing” that accompanies it.

During the more than three-quarters of a century since August 1945, when the U.S. government dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the nuclear genie has escaped from the bottle to eight other countries — Russia, France, the United Kingdom, China, Pakistan, India, Israel, and North Korea — all now brandishing their own ultimate weapons of mass destruction. And the biggest nuclear powers have continuously undermined the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

Key dynamics have scarcely changed since, in 2006, the Centre for International Governance Innovation published a cogent analysis that concluded: “Europe and North America are busy championing nuclear weapons as the ultimate security trump card and the preeminent emblem of political gravitas, thereby building a political/security context that is increasingly hostile to non-proliferation.”

Like Barack Obama before him, Joe Biden promised some much-needed changes in nuclear policies during his successful quest to win the White House, but once in office — as with Obama’s pledges — those encouraging vows turned out to be so much smoke. The administration’s long-awaited Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), issued in October 2022, was largely the usual dose of nuclear madness. “Although Joe Biden during his presidential election campaign spoke strongly in favor of adopting no-first-use and sole-purpose policies, the NPR explicitly rejects both for now,” the Federation of American Scientists lamented. “From an arms control and risk reduction perspective, the NPR is a disappointment. Previous efforts to reduce nuclear arsenals and the role that nuclear weapons play have been subdued by renewed strategic competition abroad and opposition from defense hawks at home.”

Stymied by the Biden administration and Congress, many organizations and activists working on nuclear-weapons issues were heartened by the blockbuster movie Oppenheimer, promoted from the outset as an epic thriller about “J. Robert Oppenheimer, the enigmatic man who must risk destroying the world in order to save it.” For several months before the film’s release last July, activists prepared to use it as a springboard for wider public discussion of nuclear weapons. The film did indeed make a big splash and sparked more public discussion of nukes in the United States than had occurred in perhaps decades. The movie had notably stunning production values. Unfortunately, its human values were less impressive, especially since people on the receiving end of the scientific brilliance at Los Alamos in Hiroshima and Nagasaki (and even downwinders in New Mexico) remained off-screen.

Watching the movie, I thought of my visit to the Los Alamos National Laboratory about 60 years after the triumphant Trinity atomic test. During an interview, one of the public relations specialists there explained that the legal entity managing the Los Alamos lab was “a limited liability corporation.” That seemed to sum up our government’s brazen lack of accountability for the nuclearization of our planet.

Six months after Oppenheimer arrived at multiplexes, its political impact appears to be close to zero. The film’s disturbing aspects plowed the ground, but — in the absence of a strong disarmament movement or effective leadership among officials in Washington on nuclear weapons issues — little seeding has taken place.

At the end of January, supporters marked the first anniversary of H. Res. 77, a bill sponsored by Representative Jim McGovern of Massachusetts and cosponsored by 42 other members of the House, “embracing the goals and provisions of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.” The nonbinding measure aptly summarizes the world’s nuclear peril and offers valuable recommendations, beginning with a call for the United States to actively pursue and conclude “negotiations on a new, bilateral nuclear arms control and disarmament framework agreement with the Russian Federation” as well as purposeful talks “with China and other nuclear-armed states.”

Specific recommendations in the bill include: “renouncing the option of using nuclear weapons first; ending the President’s sole authority to launch a nuclear attack; taking the nuclear weapons of the United States off hair-trigger alert; and canceling the plan to replace the nuclear arsenal of the United States with modernized, enhanced weapons.”

The fact that only 10% of House members have even chosen to sponsor the resolution shows just how far we have to go to begin putting the brakes on a nuclear arms race that threatens to destroy — all too literally — everything.

(Norman Solomon is co-founder of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His books include War Made Easy, Made Love, Got War, and most recently War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine (The New Press). He lives in the San Francisco area.)

“IF YOU KNOW that I am an unbeliever, then you know me better than I do myself. I may be an unbeliever, but I am an unbeliever who has a nostalgia for a belief.”

― Pier Paolo Pasolini

DAVID BRANCACCIO: There's a little sweet moment, I've got to say, in a very intense book — your latest — in which you're heading out the door and your wife says what are you doing? I think you say — I'm getting — I'm going to buy an envelope.

Kurt Vonnegut: Yeah.

David Brancaccio: What happens then?

Kurt Vonnegut: Oh, she says well, you're not a poor man. You know, why don't you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I'm going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope.

I meet a lot of people. And, see some great looking babes. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And, and ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don't know. The moral of the story is, is we're here on Earth to fart around.

And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And, what the computer people don't realize, or they don't care, is we're dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And, we're not supposed to dance at all anymore.

(Source: NOW on PBS, David Brancaccio interviews Kurt Vonnegut discussing his then newly published Book: A Man Without a Country [ad] https://amzn.to/49ndFbs)

BREAKER BOYS, whose job was to separate impurities from coal by hand in a coal breaker. Woodward Coal Mines, Kingston, Pennsylvania, 1900.