Mendocino County Today: Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2024

Rain Later | Campground Jobs | Ed Notes | Mount Tam | Tom Cahill | Wind Power | Original Playstation | Costly Impact | Manchester KOA | Toxic Headlands | Bend Mill | Landline Regret | Wireless Instead | It's Ringing | Rusty Money | AV Events | Gray Whale | Whale Festival | Beer Fest | Question Everything | Yesterday's Catch | Fat Tuesday | Crime Rep | Matchmaker | Real Groupie | My Town | Eye Smiler | Immigration Crisis | Candidate Pelosi | Radio Show | Old Joe | Oats Ad | Massacre Bowl | Don't Like | Kill Funding | U.S. Hypocrisy | Something Better | Mary Oliver | Grow On

LIGHT RAIN and gusty south wind will gradually build in this evening, with heavier showers Wednesday, focused along the Humboldt and Del Norte Coast. After a brief break, a stronger storm remains on track to impact the area late Friday into the weekend. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A partly cloudy 47F on the coast this Tuesday morning. Rain returns for tonight & tomorrow. Mostly dry Thursday then a lot more rain to follow. I am closely watching forecast wind speeds which I would say are in the "moderate" levels right now.

ED NOTES

THAT was a good deal on fresh cooked crabs at Lemons just in time for the Super Bowl. When Lemons says fresh, you can be sure it's fresh because they fish most days out of Noyo. Also, Lemons is still looking for a clerk. Nice people, pleasant atmosphere.

IF YOU HAVEN'T already signed up for Danilla Sands amazingly timely Mendocino Action News - Fire, Traffic and Other Emergencies — you'll wait hours, maybe days to get the straight skinny on local disasters. Ms. Sands is the go-to person for it all.

ADD lookalikes — Greg Sims and Jimmy Carter; Charlie Hiatt and Christian McCaffrey; ABC reporter Ginger Zee and Stephanie Marcum.

EVEN THESE RATS are jumping Biden's ship. The New York Times opinion writers are squeaking about how worried they are that Biden may not be able to beat consensus bad guy Trump this year. Back-to-back opinion pieces knifing the 81-year-old president immediately followed the Justice Department confirmation that the old boy was unfit to stand trial for sequestering top secret documents in his hoarder-like home garage.

BETSY CAWN: Indeed, why do our insistent redneck recalcitrants insist that the name of the earliest 'European Settlers' — who raped, tortured, and murdered their ‘Indian’ slaves — should be preserved? Locally famous archaeologist Dr. John Parker explains in this lecture: ‘The Kelsey Brothers: A California Disaster’; ‘Learn about the two Native American Massacres in Lake County and what led up to them…’

IN A COUNTRY of historically disinterested people bombarded with disparate bits of mostly irrelevant information their every waking hour, not to mention keeping a roof over their harried heads, it doesn't seem reasonable for the people of Kelseyville to either know or care that their founding fathers were psychopaths, let alone do something about it in the way of a name change. 

I THINK we should live with our history, and every bit of it should be taught in the schools. America wasn't the early work of liberals, so if we start sanitizing our history we'll be even more deracinated than we are. If Kelseyville celebrated the Kelsey bros, well, that would be celebrating murder and rapine, which I doubt even the 'necks would be up for.

MAYBE there's an older old timer out there who knows the history of ballots in Mendocino County. I remember when we all voted on paper ballots rounded up and brought to the County Courthouse where they were tallied by hand, and the results periodically updated on a big blackboard. Those nights were a lot of fun, with many of the County's politically interested citizens milling around chatting as the results were posted, all of us waiting for the Coast's vote to come in, which occasionally upset predictions. Where were those ballots printed? Outtahere, presumably. How about the 19th century ballots? Did a local printer get that work?

MARK SCARAMELLA ADDS: I don’t know about the ballot printing, but my Uncle, former Fifth District Supervisor Joe Scaramella, remembers the voting process, especially as it applied to the Fifth District in 1966:

“In 1962 why, hell, I beat Jim Ornbaun of Anderson Valley damn near two to one. But after that the district was enlarged and went damn near up to Fort Bragg up to Highway 20 and Ted Galletti had a lot of friends and relatives up there. I carried the town of Mendocino by only three or four votes, it turns out. When the votes were being counted, my wife and I were over there at the Palace in Ukiah and things were going badly. She said, ‘Let's go home. You've had it.’ I said, ‘Let's wait a minute…’ Pretty soon the lady came out and she said, ‘Well, you may find this hard to believe, but the south coast came in and you made it.’ The south coast never cared much for Ted Galetti ever since he was on the school board there. For some reason he offended somebody. Anyway, when that vote came in, instead of trailing by a few, I was leading by about 40, so that was the last time I defeated him — but narrowly. So when I went to the Supervisors convention they used to refer to me as Landslide Joe because I beat him by so few votes.”

MOUNT TAMALPAIS VIEWED FROM THE NORTH

REMEMBERING TOM CAHILL at Ten Mile Ranch

Judy Vidaver:

Tom lived here for nearly 30 years. He was our official historian and compiled 3 large albums chronicling life on the ranch during his tenure. He was also the Commodore of the Ten Mile Fleet, caring for the canoes, kayaks and miscellaneous water craft based on the river, especially the “Solar Queen” an 18 foot aluminum boat he outfitted with an electric motor, canopy and non-functioning princess phone on which we’d pretend to order pizza. We were all members of his navy of the Grand Duchy of Fenwick.

Tom was a great friend and firm teacher. When he and I were arrested while protesting at Headwaters, they pepper sprayed him just because he was known to be who he was — a tireless peaceful warrior for all life. He taught us the Ho’oponopono prayer, “I am sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.” We have been better people since.

We will be remembering Tom and spreading his ashes in the river this Saturday October 21 @ 2PM at the “Horse Barn” where he used to live. From there we will go to the river beach and launch kayaks to spread his ashes.

Bring memories and stories about our beloved friend.

Park in front of the Big House and walk east to the horse barn and meet by the picnic table.

* * *

Dan Crow: Sedonia was the love of Tom's life and my close confidant for over 20 years and today is her birthday , but I have no one to share remembrances' with except you guys. I am 91 and all the things Tom and I had in common are fast disappearing and our world will soon be gone so Happy Birthday one last time.

FLOATING WIND POWER ON THE MENDO COAST

by Jeff Wyles

(Jeff Wyles is a biologist who lives in Fort Bragg.)

On January 24, 2024, Democrat Congressman Jared Huffman gave a speech in Humboldt County applauding the securing of $426 million federal grant dollars for the establishment of floating wind farming turbines off the Humboldt County coastline. Local leaders, commissions, private and public businesses, and the indigenous community seemed to be onboard. And, indeed there appears to be millions of dollars allocated to pacify any criticisms of the development. Foremost among these approvals are claims that the project will generate thousands of jobs for the region. Additional monies would also be earmarked for build out of new recreational facilities along the coastline. Similar, even larger, offshore wind power projects are in the works for Morro Bay and the Diablo Canyon areas further down the California coast. Does this mean that our precious Mendocino coast will also soon be considered for this type of offshore wind power development by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) that licenses the leasing of these ocean areas for such projects? And, if so, shouldn’t we question why counties in similar wind power grant affected zones in Oregon are getting significant pushback from the public? The dissent has been so much in Brookings, Gold Beach and Coos Bay, Oregon, that these projects have at least been temporarily cancelled due to public discontent and mistrust of the projects. Specifically, Monica Samayoa in the Oregon Capital Chronicle (January 4, 2024) reports that the county commissioners of Coos, Curry and Douglas counties have all passed proclamations against these offshore wind turbines. Albeit true that we all want cleaner air and more efficient and less polluting sources of electrical generation for an expanding population, but is it worth the cost to our environment and local economies?

To witness, all abalone harvesting off of our California coast has recently been prohibited indefinitely. The fragile balance between the abalone, sea urchins, star fish, kelp beds, and fisheries is well documented. Currently the resource is so damaged that it may take years to recover. That said, the government just awarded upwards of $60 million dollars this past year to rehab the salmon habitat to restore that resource. Even though that sounds like a lot of money, is it even enough to save the stream habitat statewide and improve it such that it will be commercially viable long-term here in California? Once vibrant fishing streams like the Klamath River in Northern California are seriously in danger of total salmon depletion and extinction. Local efforts like the fish weirs on Caspar Creek are helpful, but is enough being done to increase the number fingerlings that make it back out to the ocean? Commercial fishing operations by foreign countries with processing plants in situ just over the border in international waters also must be having a negative impact on the natural resource.

Now, when floating wind powered turbines are thrown into the mix, what is the potential harm of these developments on our oceans? Proponents of wind power argue that it will help combat global climate change. Maybe at some level this is true, but what about the local weather changes when these wind turbines alter the normal wind cycles, usual wind directions, and intensities along our coastlines? Another significant factor is the upwelling of nutrients and a myriad of organisms from the ocean floor caused by the action of these wind turbines. Baleen whales, porpoises, dolphins, and millions of birds and fish species and other marine life are dependent upon these resources to maintain healthy ecosystems. When you disrupt those natural processes and equations, the balance of nature is destroyed and efforts to get it back to equilibrium and normality may be difficult if not impossible. Few studies have been adequately done to assess the overall biological impacts of these wind turbine technologies on marine biology and specifically ocean biomes and ecosystems. Instead, these grants, which are part of the recently approved federal infrastructure bill, are advertised as engineering marvels of “clean electricity” at supposedly cheap prices that will make everyone happy and not harm the environment. Internet resources in places like Wyoming claim that only 214,000-368,000 birds are annually killed by wind powered turbines. However, these inland studies were done on songbirds and passerines. What about areas here along the Mendocino coast where we also have many pelagic species of birds and are a major part of the Pacific Flyway? Pelicans, geese, cormorants, seagulls, puffins, common murres, bald eagles, and a host of shore bird species are vulnerable to being ultimately killed by these turbines. Marine mammals are also sensitive and negatively impacted by them. Particularly along our coastline Gray and Humpback whale migrations are at risk whether these wind turbines are located here or further up or down the Pacific coastline. Thousands of tourists come to our area every year and these natural resources are a boost to our local economy.

East coast fishermen recently have been battling the establishment of wind powered generators along their coastline. Many claim that these wind turbines will effectively ruin the oceanic fisheries along the east coast of the United States. Environmentalists have also argued that multiple deaths by beaching of cetaceans may be due to sounds emanating from construction sites of permanent wind turbine installations. Others have debunked that idea, but who actually knows the truth? Here on the West coast, the Coos Bay fishermen are dependent upon the crab and shrimp harvests, and they are saying that the floating wind turbines which would be situated in their fishing grounds would make it virtually impossible for them to continue a successful fisheries industry. The original offshore licensing area for these developments in Oregon comprised over 1,000,000 acres, but has been pared down currently to 200,000 acres. Who knows what the BOEM will eventually do in light of the Oregon county commissioner proclamations against it. Perhaps it will end up in court as a conflict between the federal government and state’s rights.

Finally, one wonders about the cost/benefit ratio of establishing these proposed wind turbines off the coast of California, Oregon and Washington. From the internet it appears that the typical wind turbine is 2-3 Megawatts (MW) and costs about $2-4 million dollars each to construct. One might also ask where are these turbines made? Many of the components are manufactured undoubtedly in China and the Humboldt County operation appears to also have at least an engineering and analytical component from Norway. Maybe we need to know how many of these wind turbines would be made right here in the USA and create jobs for our own people. Operation and maintenance (O&M) costs range from about $42,000-$48,000 each as of a few years ago. Available data on the internet suggests that one of these MW wind turbine units can power about 940 homes for a month. But, since these turbines are wind determinant, they are not running continuously and when wind speeds get too high, they must also be turned off to prevent damage to the generators. Our coastline is also subject to tsunamis and king tides, so how many of these turbines will become damaged or destroyed and have to be taken out of service? Additionally, internet sources suggest that PG&E estimates are $1billion to $4.5 billion to connect the electrical generation from these turbines to the grid. Presumably that would be to inland connections in Humboldt County or by cabling along the ocean floor to hubs in the proposed Morro Bay and Diablo Canyon. Sources also say that large commercial battery storage of this generated energy along the coast is not yet technologically advanced enough to be a feasible alternative.

One also must question the ultimate expanse of such an infrastructure rollout. Currently, it appears that as few as 100 units in the Humboldt district and another 300-400 in the Morro Bay Diablo Canyon areas are estimated to be installed. That said, my preliminary ballpark calculations (with a continuous high level of efficiency of the turbine units) could only provide a range of 0.7% to 3.0% of the needs of California households (under the current grants) and that would exclude any commercial usage. And, not mentioned, what will the eventual actual cost be per kilowatt hour for this source of electricity passed on to consumers? It is entirely possible that the total costs to build, maintain and replace units every 20+ years (at end of service) would be prohibitive compared to other sources of energy. Beyond these cost considerations, sources indicate that the turbine blades cannot be recycled and are piling up in landfills. Fossil fuels will also still be needed to maintain the lubrication of these units, and what about potential for spillage?

Maybe it is time for our Mendocino County Board of Supervisors, our local commissioners, indigenous leaders and the Noyo Center for Marine Science to take up this issue and take a stand (one way or another) on this topic.

THE COSTLY IMPACT OF ENDING THE EEL RIVER DIVERSION

by Adam Gaska

Originally, I wrote ‘A Tale of Two Rivers in Mendocino County: Where the Eel and Russian Rivers Meet,’ as the beginning of what would be a series of articles that took the time to focus on the different regions and communities that depend on the Russian River, and by extension, transfers of water from the Eel River. The purpose of this series is to examine and educate. To that end, and considering the current turn of events, I am continuing with the originally intended series of articles. 

PG&E has decided to withdraw the proposal that was submitted by the Inland Water and Power Commission (IWPC), Sonoma Water and Round Valley Indian Tribes (RVIT) to include the building of new infrastructure to continue some level of water transfer (diversion) from the Eel River to the Russian River after removal of Scott and Cape Horn Dams as a part of PG&E’s decommissioning plan being submitted to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). 

What does this mean for the communities dependent on the Russian River? For now, we have more questions than answers as to what this means for the plans and progress of the newly formed Eel-Russian Project Authority, the newly formed JPA consisting of representatives from IWPC, Sonoma Water, Sonoma County Board of Supervisors and RVIT. It calls into question the feasibility of installing new infrastructure to continue to divert water from the Eel River to the Russian River and if we are able to, and what that new regulatory pathway will be. 

If the ability to divert water from the Eel River to the Russian River ceases completely, it could have severe consequences for the 650,000 people who depend on the Russian River, including Marin County. 

Let’s look at Marin Municipal Water District (Marin Water), which is in the Mt Tamalpais watershed and serves 191,000 people including residents of San Rafael, Tiburon, and Sausalito. The Marin County Civil Grand Jury just came out with a report in June 2023 calling into question Marin Water’s ability to meet the goals in their Water Resources Plan 2040. Their grand jury goes on to advise Marin Water to increase water resiliency through conservation, upgrading meters to quickly detect waste/leaks, expand and increase water recycling capacity, expand system capacity to transfer water and increase available supplies by 10,000 AF per year. Marin Water purchases up to 10,000 AF of water annually from Sonoma Water which accounts for 25% of their water supply. 

If Sonoma loses the ability to supply Marin with water from the Russian River, very costly projects would need to be undertaken by Marin Water to supply its customers. The cheapest project to increase supply is to build a pipeline via the Richmond bridge to purchase and import water from the Sacramento River via East Bay Municipal Utility District (East Bay MUD) with a price tag of $111 million for the infrastructure. The cost to deliver the water to Marin Water would be $2500 per acre-foot. Currently, Marin Water is charging $2,000/AF to low tier users. 

The other options looked at in the grand jury report include desalination plants, and increases to water treatment and delivery capacity. Without water from Sonoma Water, Marin Water would likely need to undertake most, if not all, the proposed projects to secure their water supply. This could cost upwards of $500 million in capital outlay. Marin Water carries $139 million in outstanding bond debt and could increase that by $150 million if it substantially increased rates. This still would not be enough to afford all these projects. 

In March of 2023, Marin Water put forward a rate study and increased rates. Using a customer rate calculator they have available online, a family of 4 using 55 gallons per person per day was paying $85 per month until July 2023 when rate hikes pushed their bill to $115 per month. This summer, that will rise to $130, summer 2025 to $145, and summer 2026 to $150. This is to rebuild reserves, account for inflation, and increase their capital improvement/maintenance budget. This does not take into account funding any projects to increase water supply. 

In 2023, Marin County Civil Grand Jury found Marin Water’s follow-through on their hazard mitigation plan adopted in 2022 to address safety issues to protect water infrastructure to be inadequate partially due to slow progress on identified necessary infrastructure improvement projects.

These are just the financial effects on one water district in one county that depends on Russian River water, Marin County, which uses up to 10,000 acre-feet a year. Losing the option entirely for water transfers means losing 50,000-60,000 AF a year. The remaining 40,000-50,000 less acre-feet would come from Mendocino and Sonoma County water supplies. I have not even mentioned the effect on those counties. That will be for another day, in another article. 

Sources:

About Our Water: https://www.marinwater.org/OurSystem

Marin Municipal Water District Water Resources Plan 2040 March 2017: https://www.marinwater.org/sites/default/files/2020-09/Water%20Resources%20Plan%202040.pdf

‘A Roadmap to Water Resilience for Marin Municipal Water District” Marin County Civil Grand Jury Report June 13, 2022: https://www.marincounty.org/-/media/files/departments/gj/reports-responses/2021-22/a-roadmap-for-water-resilience-for-marin-municipal-water-district.pdf?la=en

Marin Water Response to Grand Jury Report September 8, 2022: https://www.marinwater.org/sites/default/files/2022-09/09-08-2022_Marin%20Water%20Repsonse%20to%20Grand%20Jury%20Report%20on%20Water%20Resilience.pdf

Marin Municipal Water District Hazard Mitigation Plan adopted March 2022: https://www.marinwater.org/sites/default/files/2022-04/2022-03-23_MMWD_Hazard_Mitigation_Plan_Final.pdf

‘Dam and Reservoir Safety Water May Save Us - Water May Drown Us’ — Marin County Civil Grand Jury Report June 27, 2023: https://www.marincounty.gov/sites/g/files/fdkgoe241/files/2023-12/dam-and-reservoir-safety-2.pdf

Marin Water Cost of Service Rate Study 2023: https://www.marinwater.org/sites/default/files/2023-03/MMWD%20Cost%20of%20Service%20Analysis_03.29.23.pdf

Customer Rate Calculator can be found here: https://www.marinwater.org/2023RateSetting

FORT BRAGG’S COASTAL HEADLANDS: IT’S NOT TOO LATE 

by Cal Winslow

(Chris Skyhawk: I found this on facebook and although it is a long piece, I also recognize it’s an issue of great concern in our community.)

* * *

The Fort Bragg coastal headlands comprise 425 acres of the much-celebrated Mendocino Coast. If you walk the town’s coastal trail and look out to the ocean, you will see rocks and secluded coves, steep cliffs and flowery headlands, as well as whales, sea lions and pelicans galore, a place as spectacular as almost any on the California Coast. If, however, you look toward the town, you see chain link fence and signs warning danger and contamination.

We have been told for decades not to worry about this, the contamination, yet all the evidence contradicts this, above all the poison in the ponds left behind when the old mill buildings were taken down, leaving behind acres of contaminated earth and in these ponds a deadly cocktail of PCBs and dioxins, lead, petroleum and an array of toxic byproducts.

Is the danger real, then, and will the fencing protect us? Dr. John Balmes, a physician scientist at UCSF and UC Berkeley speaking to a 2019 conference in Caspar, told us otherwise. Dioxins, for example are the “most toxic chemicals that we know of.” They are “reproductive toxicants and carcinogens.” This is “well established” and leaving things as they are, Professor Balmes concluded, “is unacceptable.”

Alas, today, the toxins remain, and the latest owners of the headlands, the California and Western Railroad (the tourist Skunk Train) are in court arguing that they are in no way obliged to follow the rules, to clean up the mess they’ve inherited; indeed, that they, allegedly as a railroad, need not follow the state’s regulations concerning the environment (CEQA, California Environmental Quality Act, etc.). And while the public remains in the dark as far as legal issues are concerned, the “railroad” clearly has development in mind. Never mind the rules, why not a resort hotel, upscale housing, a theme park to attract, apparently, train lovers?

What we see in Fort Bragg today is the remnant of more than a hundred years of timber milling, most of it done by the Union Lumber company. Union Lumber, whose owners, the Johnson family of San Francisco, had by 1885 built an empire in Mendocino County including what became one of the largest timber mills in the world, with a railroad connecting the deforestation of the interior with the coastal mill. Thousands worked in this mill; their toil has been romanticized, but in fact work was seasonal, dangerous and often deadly. The disabling injuries, disease and poverty, cut lives short — hospital records tell the story. The town’s people got clouds of black smoke, air that made the Fort Bragg stink and back yards, playgrounds and school playing fields contaminated with fly ash.

By mid-twentieth century, however, the forest increasingly depleted, the mill owners began to downsize its operations until in 1969, the Johnsons sold their empire (158,000 acres of redwood timber land and the Fort Bragg mill) to the Boise Cascade Corporation. Four years later Georgia Pacific, the giant paper products subsidiary of the Koch billionaire brothers’ Koch Industries, bought the mill and the headlands.

Whatever Georgia Pacific had in mind in buying the mill, clean up was not part of it. So, when the mill was finally shut down in 2002, the town was left adjacent to an ecological nightmare. The final hand off was from GP to the California and Western Railroad, an organization with limited resources, apparently a bargain basement deal (done more or less in secret) of questionable legality.

In the years since PG bought the mill, citizen scientists have sounded the alarm — again and again and there have been popular initiatives, even to this day, though thus far none sustainable. City Councils, of various persuasions, have come and gone, each kicking the can down the road, never with clear perspectives, nearly all with at least a foot in the “develop it” camp. It’s true, of course, that Fort Bragg, a poor town of 7000 plus, has never had the funds to buy the property and clean it (estimated $25 million for clean-up alone). Yet it’s also true it never tried to hold those who did, above all GP, accountable.

Is it too late for a solution that might benefit the citizenry of Fort Bragg, while heading off a looming disaster? That is, sea level rise and the erosion over time of the headlands or catastrophe, an earthquake or tsunami contaminating that part of the coast, poisoning miles of shoreline and spilling into the sea, a deadly spill that would kill most everything in its path.

GP should never have been allowed to sell without a proper clean up, and it and Koch Industries still have the money to do it. More, if the town’s politicians have been compliant at best, complicit at worst, their word should not be the last. The State of California has power and enormous resources, as does the Coastal Commission as well as a host of other agencies and our legislators, all pledged, they say, to a meaningful response to climate crisis. It’s never too late to do the right thing.

The challenge is to get the town and its headlands in step with the rest of the coast and so much of the world and think open land, restoration, reforestation, rewilding, a wildlife corridor, pristine beaches, with recreation and education as a priority joining the immediate needs of the citizenry today with the fate of our earth.

An abbreviated version of this appeared in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat.

Cal Winslow is Director of the Mendocino Institute and a past Fellow in Environmental History at UC Berkeley. His latest book is Radical Seattle, the General Strike of 1919

* * *

JOHN REDDING: 

To Chris Skyhawk

You may wish to consider the following, if you haven't already.

As I recall from the reports on the millsite by the City of Fort Bragg, over 90% of the toxins were removed from the GP millsite. A few but small and well known hotspots remain.

I don't ever recall the Skunk Train people saying they would not remove the remainder. I can see how one can conflate this with the issue of what rules to follow but if the site is to be economically developed, wouldn't it be in the best interest the Skunk Train to remove all doubt of this from the minds of developers?

Two millsites in Bend OR were closed decades ago and faced similar issues. However, the toxins were removed, the historic building persevered and the "Old Mill District" is an economic hub. Here...

https://www.oldmilldistrict.com/?utm_source=GoogleMyBusiness&utm_medium=listing&utm_campaign=organic_listing

Finally, I may have mentioned this study to you.

https://www.epa.gov/smartgrowth/how-small-towns-and-cities-can-use-local-assets-rebuild-their-economies.

This is how I learned of the Bend OR millsite turnaround. BTW, the effort was organized and led by local businesses and individuals.

This report contains case studies of how small communities who lost their primary industries were able to turn their economies around.

LANDLINES ARE LIFELINES

Editor: 

A few years ago, I relinquished my landline voluntarily for high-speed internet, and I have been sorry every day since I made the change (“AT&T looks to cut landlines,” Feb. 4). My telephone connection drops frequently, and I sometimes don’t know it happened until friends call my cellphone and ask if I am OK. Whenever there is a power outage or even a flicker, the phone dies. Rebooting the phone is a complicated multistage process.

Landlines are lifelines. Don’t let AT&T take away this vital service.

Mia James

Santa Rosa

MARCO MCCLEAN

Correct me if yez know better, but I think the landline phone signals go through internet computers now that require power just like everything else. I've been out of town for this latest outage, but my experience with my landline in Albion has been, whenever the power goes out in the area, the landline hangs on for awhile, consistent with some kind of very short-term backup system, and then fails.

If that's what's really happening, then agitating to keep the landlines because they're more reliable than wireless doesn't make much sense. It might be cheaper for the company and more feasible and reliable to provide wireless full internet to everyone and backup power for all elements of a mesh system to keep that up, including a $30 battery phone charger for everyone, where your cell phone could work for a week without line power, set on proper power management. That, I mean, rather than do it the way they've been, sending out the phone trucks as well as the power company trucks every time a storm blows through, and fixing wires everywhere, and it still breaks down.

TED WILLIAMS:

Why would people outside our assembly district send big bucks? To care for our wellbeing or in exchange for future favors? Are we being sold? Your thoughts?

”The same cannot be said of Hicks, a labor leader from Southern California and Chair of the California Democratic Party. Hicks, who moved to Arcata in 2021, has built up a huge war chest for this campaign, amassing $590,757 in contributions, primarily from out-of-district sources, mostly from Southern California and Sacramento. If you subtract the $11,000 donation from his wife, only 6.5% of his contributions have come from within District 2.”

ANDERSON VALLEY VILLAGE Calendar of Events

2024 WHALE FESTIVAL EVENTS

Join the Noyo Center for Marine Science in March for a variety of special events and exhibits to celebrate Whale Festival and the annual gray whale migration.

https://noyocenter.org/whale-festival-2024

BOONVILLE BEER FEST: May 4, 2024

Brew. or Brew not. There is no try.

Well, the Legendary Boonville Beer Festival is less than 100 days away (May 4, 2024), and it's time for us to reveal the worst-kept secret in craft beer: the theme of this year's Fest (which is happening on May the Fourth). Here goes:

THE THEME IS STAR WARS

We're happy to confirm that, from the start, we picked May the Fourth because we're enormous geeks, and when you get opportunities like that you just don't let them go. So there you go — Star Wars. It's official. Tickets are on sale now, and early bird pricing is in effect.

May the Fourth. Over 80 breweries. Music all day. Food, vendors, and more.

We love you.

You know.

QUESTION EVERYTHING

Editor,

I am totally disgusted with KOZT. I have always been with the so-called people’s public radio. Total propaganda. in my humble opinion.

Why do we no longer question? What happened to the “question authority, question everything” mantra of the early 60s? Seems we now just take for granted what the internet search engines tell us is. Why do we believe such? And most of all why do we even go to them for answers we seek? What happened to our history? Our written word? A long time ago we asked ourselves these questions. And we came up with the answers ourselves. It seems in the past we did not need the truth sayers, the fact checkers. What has happened to us?

We stopped advertising on radio stations. Might want to ask why? Well, because of their total control propaganda. Look at what they did via covid. Lock down, wear masks, do not question, we are the authority, do what we say. Disgusting what the local media, does to try to control us. Question everything.

Advance: There’s nothing else like it.

Pete Gregson 

Calpella

CATCH OF THE DAY, Monday, February 12

DARREN ALFARO, Willits. DUI.

WILLIAM BARNETT, Ukiah. Controlled substance, concealed dirk-dagger, resisting.

SCOTT BUNKIN, Santa Rosa/Ukiah. DUI-alcohol&drugs, toluene or similar, addict driving a vehicle.

AKASHA CLEARWATER, Comptche. DUI, battery on peace officer, resisting, probation violation.

RICK DICKERSON II, Covelo. Probation revocation.

PETE GONZALEZ, Ukiah. Concelaed dirk-dagger.

JOSEPH MENDOZA, Ukiah. Disobeying court order, failure to appear.

A READER WRITES: Eric was going thru some stuff and ran across this promo photo for a Les Blank film he showed here quite a while ago. He thought it would be a good graphic for Fat Tuesday, which is tomorrow.

THE CITY’S EXAGGERATED CRIME REP

by Rebecca Solnit

San Francisco is often described as a cauldron of crime and depravity, and held up as proof that progressive policies don’t work. I spent some time in New Mexico last summer and found that when people heard where I was from they were aghast: they wanted to know how I was surviving the mayhem. In recent years right-wing media have propagated stories about crime, homelessness and the city’s real (but hardly unique) fentanyl crisis. 

On a TV debate in November between former mayor Gavin Newsom (now governor of California) and Ron DeSantis (far-right governor of Florida and failed candidate for the Republican nomination), DeSantis brandished a (made-up) map of human excrement in San Francisco that was supposed to clinch his arguments. It’s a narrative that conservatives, including many tech barons, use to justify their demands for the kind of war on crime – more cops, harsher punishments, fewer civil liberties – that their predecessors pushed in the 1980s and 1990s.

Levels of violent crime are actually lower in San Francisco than in many American cities. Theft is a bigger problem, but like homelessness it has been exacerbated by the tech boom, which brought an influx of well-paid workers and a steep rise in housing prices over the past three decades, as well as by nationwide economic shifts and cuts in social services since the 1980s. 

Still, a video of an impoverished-looking Black guy in a San Francisco drugstore stuffing a trash bag full of goods and wheeling it away on his bicycle became an online sensation in 2021. The closures of several downtown chain stores were blamed by their parent corporations on theft, but when journalists looked into the stories, they found that in most cases outlets were closed because of low revenue and other more mundane problems.

Nevertheless, the idea that San Francisco is in the grip of lawlessness has become something everyone thinks they know. When the well-known tech executive Bob Lee (Google, Square, MobileCoin) was found fatally stabbed on the street in the early hours of 4 April 2023, many claimed that his murder was part of a crime wave by an out-of-control underclass. Elon Musk tweeted that ‘violent crime in SF is horrific and even if attackers are caught, they are often released immediately,’ implying that the culprit was a habitual criminal benefiting from lenient policies. The tech venture capitalist Matt Ocko raged: ‘Chesa Boudin [the former San Francisco district attorney] & the criminal-loving city council that enabled him and a lawless SF for years have Bob’s literal blood on their hands.’

But it turned out that the man charged with Lee’s murder, Nima Momeni, was a fellow tech entrepreneur who had been with Lee that evening. Lee died with cocaine and ketamine in his system; local news reported that the victim, the alleged murderer and the murderer’s sister had all been doing drugs that day. At least some of the drugs seem to have come from Jeremy Boivin, a friend of Lee’s, also previously in tech, who was arrested in 2021 with a kilo of cocaine and a kilo of methamphetamine, and again in 2022 for possession of cocaine, heroin and meth. In 2020 he was charged with giving the date-rape drug GHB to his housekeeper and sexually assaulting her (according to Rolling Stone, Lee paid his bail). On the afternoon of April 3, according to reports, Lee was at Boivin’s home with Momeni’s sister and another woman; both women ingested GHB and passed out.

A REAL GROUPIE is someone who loves the music and wants to do it with the guys who make it and someone who goes after what they want, so a groupie is a feminist thing. A woman who goes after what she wants is a feminist. So I’ve never been anything but a feminist. I took the birth control pill on the Strip in front of everybody and that was my statement. I control my body, I can do whatever the fuck I want.”

– Pamela de Barres, I’m With the Band

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

My town loves tattoo parlors… Dollar stores and weed shops… all the old school businesses are gone: the hardware store, the small book store, the little dairy. Small vendors just can’t compete. I can go however and get a $12 bottle of milk in organic glass by a cow that is raised listening to Bach in a low stress stall sleeping on a large yoga matt.

I WAS GLAD my father was an eye-smiler. It meant he never gave me a fake smile because it's impossible to make your eyes twinkle if you aren't feeling twinkly yourself. A mouth-smile is different. You can fake a mouth-smile any time you want, simply by moving your lips. I've also learned that a real mouth-smile always has an eye-smile to go with it. So watch out, I say, when someone smiles at you but his eyes stay the same. It's sure to be a phony. 

— Roald Dahl 

FORCED MIGRATION AND DETENTION ARE THE REAL IMMIGRATION CRISIS

by David Bacon

While Republicans cry “invasion” and Democrats placate them with hard-line border policy, immigrants languish in prisons or die in dangerous passage. A rational approach to immigration must both address the causes of displacement and protect those who migrate.…

https://jacobin.com/2024/02/migration-detention-ice-immigration-crisis

ENDORSEMENT: NANCY PELOSI IS THE BEST CANDIDATE to represent S.F. in Congress. But there’s a catch

by the Chronicle Editorial Board

When former Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced last September that she would seek reelection to the House in 2024, it caught many political observers, including members of the editorial board, by surprise. Pelosi, 83, had widely been expected to retire — especially after a terrifying and tragic incident where her husband was attacked with a hammer during a home invasion by a right-wing conspiracy theorist.

What was left to achieve in her storied career?

“I am running to preserve democracy,” she told us in her endorsement interview.

We understood this to mean as a check on Donald Trump.

California has multifaceted needs and the preservation of its rights and values is certainly at the top. There are others, too.

After decades of inaction at the federal level, housing affordability has finally reentered the dialogue in the halls of Congress. Meanwhile, the same debates we see over local control and permit streamlining on housing and development in California are starting to take place at the national level over green energy.

California needs to be a leading voice in these debates. It was clear from our interview with Pelosi that while she will be a reliable vote on housing issues in particular, she will not be innovating on policy at this stage of her career.

Pelosi’s decision to double down on calls to investigate financial ties between protesters calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war and Russia felt questionable.

She was more thoughtful on issues relating to drug addiction, which she views as a public health crisis in need of investment.

Pelosi’s strength is as a political leader. Watching her work the room during our endorsement interview was impressive. She was simultaneously tough, charming and pragmatic as she fielded questions from our board members and Chronicle news reporters in attendance. We have little doubt about her continued ability to hold high levels of influence in Washington.

Of the seven candidates running against Pelosi, we were most impressed by Democrat Jason Boyce, a web developer at the UCSF Center for HIV Information. Boyce praised Pelosi’s congressional career, particularly her advocacy for the Affordable Care Act, but argued that her focus on national and international issues has come at the expense of San Francisco residents, many of whom feel neglected and unrepresented at the federal level.

At the policy level, this is a fair criticism. But Pelosi is still willing and able to bring home money and resources to help the state. In her endorsement interview, she described holding tough negotiations with Trump during the COVID crisis over the necessity of providing funds directly to struggling cities like San Francisco. She also summoned a federal response to deal with deadly fentanyl abuse outside her namesake federal building in San Francisco.

The two other Democrats in the race are Marjorie Mikels, an attorney and peace advocate who said she’s running primarily to challenge the enormous U.S. military budget and American involvement in various wars; and Bianca Von Krieg, a community advocate and transgender woman who’s running on a progressive platform that includes Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, universal basic income, abolishing the Electoral College and nationalizing ranked-choice voting. We admire their passion but are unconvinced that they would be able to follow through on these campaign promises.

Four Republicans are also running against Pelosi. Business owner Bruce Lou spoke vaguely about the need to reform the “ideological, substandard” in the U.S. education system, audit governmental spending and stem the flow of fentanyl into San Francisco by tightening the border — but offered few details as to how such policies would be accomplished.

Data engineer Jason Chuyuan Zeng, who said he lived out of his car for about six months during the pandemic while working at an Arizona gold mine, put forth an unusual mix of conservative and progressive ideas, including giving parents education vouchers to pick their kids’ schools and ensuring everyone has access to free community college, cell phones and bank accounts. His idiosyncratic platform, however, isn’t ready for prime time.

The remaining two Republicans, business consultant Eve Del Castillo and retired school worker Larry Nichelson, both declined our interview requests.

Of this group, Pelosi is the superior candidate. The elephant in the room, of course, is who isn’t running.

It’s an open secret that state Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco has his eyes on Pelosi’s seat. Had Pelosi chosen to retire at the end of this term, Wiener almost certainly would have run — and made a formidable candidate. Wiener is a talented legislative mind and the primary architect of the state-level movement to make California housing more abundant and affordable. Should sanity prevail and Trump loses in November, the Democratic Party will need system-level thinkers to meaningfully advance a forward-looking agenda — and to help stave off the other existential threat to our nation: climate change.

Of course, Trump hasn’t lost. Recent polls show him pulling ahead of President Joe Biden with voters in several key areas, including, inexplicably, competence. And Wiener was just appointed chair of the powerful state Senate Budget Committee, where he will likely make a greater impact on California than he could as a new House member.

San Franciscans will be well-served having Pelosi in Washington for another term to protect our rights and values.

(sfchronicle.com)

MR. PRESIDENT, DITCH THE STEALTH ABOUT HEALTH

by Maureen Dowd

It’s time for Biden to confront the age-old question.

Once, when my father was in West Virginia on police business, a man approached him and demanded to know about “rumors” that President Franklin Roosevelt was “crippled.” The man threatened to beat up my father or anyone who said FDR was in a wheelchair.

My dad, a D.C. police detective, served on FDR’s protective detail. (I have a picture of my father, in a fedora, guarding Roosevelt at a Senators baseball game, with the president standing up with the help of his braces to throw the first pitch.)

Like others around Roosevelt, my dad kept a tight lip about the paralysis of the president, who did not want to seem weak. Dad assured the West Virginia ruffian that Roosevelt was “a fine, athletic man.”

In the days before TV and social media, the White House could suppress the fact that Roosevelt, who contracted polio when he was 39, could barely walk. With the help of a complicit press corps, a censoring Secret Service and a variety of ruses, FDR was even able to campaign giving the impression that he was mobile.

But stealth about health is no longer possible, and the sooner President Joe Biden’s team stops being in denial about that, the better off Democrats will be.

Jill Biden and his other advisers come up with ways to obscure signs of senescence — from shorter news conferences to almost zero print interviews to TV interviews mainly with fawning MSNBC anchors.

But many Americans are quite concerned about the 81-year-old president’s crepuscular mien. It’s the elephant in the room — except that elephants never forget.

Biden is running against a bad man, but that’s not enough. He has to acknowledge to himself that his moments of faltering — which will increase over the next five years — are a big weakness. He and his aides have to figure out how to handle that. Donald Trump, 77, makes his own verbal slips and shows signs of aging, but he conveys more energy.

When the president rushed out Thursday night to show he was compos mentis, rebutting what special counsel Robert Hur said, he was peevish with the media and blamed his staff for mishandling classified documents. Petulance is never a good look. Biden should have taken a breath.

When CNN White House correspondent M.J. Lee asked about age concerns, Biden snapped: “That is your judgment. That is your judgment.” But 71% of battleground state voters in one of our polls said Biden is “too old to be an effective president.”

Pushing back at the image of a crotchety grandpa, he came across like a crotchety grandpa.

“I’m well-meaning and I’m an elderly man, and I know what the hell I’m doing,” he barked.

It reminded me of the days when President Bill Clinton kept insisting that he was still relevant. Declaiming that you know what you’re doing doesn’t instill confidence.

Asked why he insists that he is the only Democrat who can defeat Trump, Biden shot back: “Because I am the most qualified person in this country to be president of the United States and finish the job I started.”

That sounded disturbingly like Trump claiming, “I alone can fix it.”

Just when Biden was getting some breaks — the economy was better, Trump was still horrible, and the Republicans in Congress were steeped in dreckitude — Hur took a whack out of the blue, leaving the impression that Biden shouldn’t have his finger on the button. He said he wouldn’t bring charges because a jury would forgive Biden as a nice, forgetful, old man.

It was a mistake for Merrick Garland to make a Trump appointee the special counsel for Biden. Like James Comey, Garland is a man so in love with his own virtue that he bends over backward to show it off. I am so fair that I am going to be unfair. Democrats often fall into this way of thinking, to their own detriment. That’s how Biden blew the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings, trying to be so fair to the win-at-all-costs Republicans on the committee that he threw the game to Thomas, who is now staining the Supreme Court.

Still, the report was a fire alarm blaring in the capital because, fair or not, it crystallized the White House’s problem. Biden refused to take the one-term win, bow out and make room for new blood. So now he has to go to war with Trump and stop him from getting back into the Oval for his grotesque revenge rampage.

But, in a world on fire, with Republicans in Congress spiraling into farce, the Biden crew clearly has no plan for how to deal with the president’s age except to shield him and hide him and browbeat reporters who point out that his mental state — like the delusional Trump’s — is a genuine issue.

Biden is not just in a bubble; he’s in bubble wrap. Cosseting and closeting Uncle Joe all the way to the end — eschewing town halls and the Super Bowl interview — are just not going to work. Going on defense, when Trump is on offense, is not going to work. Counting on Trump’s vileness to secure the win, as Hillary Clinton did, is not going to work.

Democrats should grab their smelling salts for a long case of the vapors. It’s going to be a most virulent, violent year.

THE FIRST THING WE SHOULD REMEMBER ABOUT THIS SUPER BOWL WAS THE MASSACRE

by Dave Zirin

This year’s Super Bowl was a weapon of mass distraction. If there’s any justice, future generations will remember the game not for Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, or even Taylor Swift, but for the US-funded attacks on Palestinian civilians that occurred while so many Americans were glued to their TVs. During the big game, watched by well over 100 million people in the United States, Israel launched a bombing raid of Rafah in the Gaza Strip, the most densely populated area on earth. More than 1 million people fled the now leveled Gaza City into the refugee camps in Rafah and the surrounding areas. Palestinians who have survived the Israeli attacks so far are now staving off disease, destitution, and fear. They, along with people throughout the world, had been hoping for a negotiated cease-fire. The Israeli government and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu feinted as if they were taking this idea seriously, but instead, as football players battled in Las Vegas, Israel rained death from the skies. 

As of now, the Gaza Health Ministry estimates that Israel killed at least 67 Palestinians in the Super Bowl strikes. That doesn’t account for the number injured or the attendant trauma. Ghada al-Kurd, who was sheltering in Rafah, told The New York Times, “I swear to God it was an indescribable night… The bombing was everywhere—we were convinced that the Israeli army was invading Rafah.” The Israeli government is crowing of victory after freeing two hostages. And much of the US media is following suit, relegating the deaths of Gaza civilians to a footnote.

Meanwhile, CBS granted the Israeli government space for an ad about the 130 hostages left in Gaza. This ad, meant to build public support and justify the slaughter of nearly 30,000 civilians in Gaza, spurred 10,000 people to register complaints with the FCC, because the commercial did not disclose that a foreign government had paid for it. This ad, coupled with the Rafah raid, looks more like military synergy than happenstance. 

New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft also spent $7 million on an ad from his organization Foundation to Combat Anti-Semitism. It features Clarence Jones, a 93-year-old former speech writer for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Kraft and other pro-war billionaires use the memory of Dr. King so much, they should be paying his family indulgences for slandering his name. The ad failed to mention that Kraft has given $1 million to pro-war AIPAC and donated $1 million in 2016 to Donald Trump’s inauguration. Given that Kraft says that the Nazi march in Charlottesville was his motivation to start his foundation (Charlottesville was the one with “good people on both sides,” according to Trump), his hypocrisy is insidious. 

Kraft and Israel want the same thing: a blank check to uproot Palestinians from Gaza and build settlements. One can also only imagine if a peace organization tried to buy an ad asking Israel and the United States the question: “How many dead children will be enough?” I suspect it would be denied faster than a public-service announcement about concussions.

Outside of the United States, the broad perception is that the hostages, the pain of their families, and the Hamas killings of October 7 are both a tragedy and a fig leaf to justify a total war on the civilian population of Gaza and a seizure of land. But the Israeli government treats global opinion outside of the US as irrelevant. It knows that there is really only one patron that is needed to be appeased and that is the sponsor sending them billions of dollars in weaponry. The sponsor is not just Biden and the US Congress; it is the US taxpayer. This is why the Super Bowl cover for this latest atrocity was so important. Israeli government officials know that US dissent is an obstacle to achieving their fantasy of controlling the land “from the river to the sea.”

We don’t know if the White House gave the go-ahead for the Super Bowl massacre, but if you launch an attack during the Super Bowl—blunting an emergency response by US demonstrators and hoping that everyone will be too hung over, drunk on commercialism, and gambling apps to give a damn—it doesn’t take a poli-sci major to see how Biden benefits.

The Super Bowl has been used as a driver of war in the past, most famously when Whitney Houston memorably sang the National Anthem in 1991 as war planes flew overhead in the leadup to Operation Desert Storm or when U2 and Bono fanned the flames of post-9/11 America in 2002. Now we have the Super Bowl massacre, which was designed to make us not notice the war crimes that we are paying for. The Super Bowl massacre should become a bigger part of football history than reaction shots of Taylor Swift, Usher’s roller skates, or even Patrick Mahomes’s late-game heroics. Whether a football fan or not, we have to do more than never forget. We must say “never again.”

BERNIE SANDERS SAYS HE WANTS TO ‘KILL FUNDING FOR NETANYAHU’S WAR MACHINE — PERIOD.'

by Katie Hawkinson

The independent senator from Vermont has been a long-time opponent of unconditional US aid to Israel

Outside the Senate chambers, moments after he finished an impassioned floor speech, Senator Bernie Sanders minced no words when he told The Independent his thoughts on US aid to Israel.

“What I want to do is kill the funding for [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s war machine — period,” Mr Sanders told The Independent.

The independent senator from Vermont opposes unconditional aid to Israel.

“What the Netanyahu government is doing is immoral,” Mr Sanders said during a Senate floor speech in December 2023. “It is in violation of international law, and the United States should not be complicit in those actions,” he added.

Mr Sanders’ latest comments come after President Joe Biden released a memorandum outlining aid conditions for foreign countries on Thursday.

Under the memo, the Secretary of State must “obtain certain credible and reliable written assurances from foreign governments receiving defense articles and, as appropriate, defense services.” In addition, the “Secretaries of State and Defense are responsible for ensuring that all transfers of defense articles and defense services” comply with international and domestic law.

Mr Sanders said the memo is an important step forward, but it won’t be effective in the case of Israel.

“It does not apply to Israel because, according to the [Biden] administration, Israel is acting consistent with US policy,” Mr Sanders told The Independent.

Meanwhile, Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff called the move “substantial.” He said that for the “first time” foreign governments receiving US security assistance will have to show in writing compliance with international law.

“The Executive branch will have to report to Congress and the public with respect to their compliance,” Mr Ossoff told The Independent. “It’s about the moral credibility of the United States.”

The Leahy Law — which refers to two statutory provisions and is named after former senator Patrick Leahy — is somewhat similar, preventing the federal government from using funds to assist foreign governments when there is credible information they have committed “gross violations of human rights.”

Mr. Ossoff said the Leahy Law differs from Mr Biden’s memo because it only applies on a “unit-by-unit basis.”

In addition to his memo, Mr Biden called the Israeli government’s military action in Gaza “over the top” during a press conference on Thursday night addressing the Special Counsel report on his classified documents case.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, Israel’s offensive has killed more than 27,000 Palestinians. The four-month-long offensive began after Hamas militants launched a surprise attack on Israel on 7 October. Hamas militants killed 1,200 people in Israel and kidnapped some 250 people and took them back to Gaza.

Prior to the memo, 19 senators had expressed their support for an amendment to the bipartisan security bill — which is currently under debate by the US Senate as of Friday afternoon — that would ensure foreign aid is contingent on recipients complying with international law.

As of Friday afternoon, the Senate is in a 30-hour debate period on the bipartisan immigration bill negotiated by Republican Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma, Independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut.

Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who led the push for the amendment, said Mr Biden’s memo meets their demands.

“Because we’ve now accomplished our goal in law, we will not offer that amendment,” Mr Van Hollen told The Independent.

The bill, released on Sunday evening, was met with immediate ire from both Republicans and Democrats. The Senate will vote on Friday evening on a motion to proceed on the bill, which could then lead to an amendment process over the weekend.

(London Independent)

THINK ABOUT IT

by James Kunstler

“It’s not enough to be against globalism or the WEF, we have to also be for something better.” — Tom Luongo, Gold, Goats ‘n Guns

Mr. Luongo makes an important point. I want you to think about this: there is a reason that the WEF-Globalist cabal is losing the battle to control and dominate the rest of us. They are trying to power straight into the opposing currents of reality. Above all, they seek to centralize power and decision-making. But the world is moving in the opposite direction. All of the WEF’s aims founder on the macro trends unspooling in history.

The rising rule for human affairs now is that anything organized at the giant scale is going to wobble and fail. There will not be any world government run by the creatures of Davos or Brussels, or Washington DC, or any other place that the grandiose imagine would be their seat of global power. It’s not going to happen so you can stop worrying about it. But you’d better prepare for what is happening: everything in our world wants to get smaller, slower, finer, and more local. Anything that opposes these trends is pissing into the wind.

Since every activity we humans practice has to move in that direction, we are seeing colossal industries, institutions, and arrangements crack up: everything from national government to long-distance supply chains to giant retailing outfits to worldwide business networks to overgrown universities and high schools to transport matrices to metroplex cities to mega-farms to political parties.

Where the rot is probably greatest, but more veiled for the moment, is in the operations of organized capital, the banks and money systems, including financial markets. When these monsters blow, as they must, all the others will shake, rattle, and roll. They have to blow because the fuel tank is emptying.

American oil production may be at an all-time peak now at about 13-million barrels-a-day, but most of that — about 8-million — is shale oil, which is a manifestation of our tremendous debt roll-up since 2009. Now that we’re at the absolute limits of debt, we’re also at the limits of shale oil. The production of shale oil paralleled the accumulation of all that debt both in size and rate of increase, and as the debt goes bad — meaning, unpayable — the organized capital sector will blow and shale oil production will fall as sharply as it rose. It is also a fact that shale oil is subject to natural limits — we’re out of “sweet spots” to drill.

That’s America. Europe is way worse because aside from whatever oil is left in the North Sea (not much), Europe has no oil. Europe’s largest gas field — Groningen in the Netherlands — is scheduled to cease operations in October of this year. You all know what happened to the Nord Stream pipelines. And then Germany, in some psychotic fugue state, shut down its entire nuclear power industry, while France is just not replacing its nuke plants as they age-out. Europe is completely screwed. They won’t have anything we might call modern industry. In the meantime, the WEF is playing them like a flugelhorn, keeping them distracted with “green” politics, an unchecked immigrant invasion, and sexual confusion.

A lot of the same nuttery afflicts us in the USA, of course, but none of that alters the real macro trends. Our federal government is not really getting more powerful, it’s cracking up, starting from the very top, with a mentally incompetent president — the secret that everybody knows. Agencies like the DOJ and Homeland Security may seem more tyrannical for the moment, but they are actually breaking as institutions because in their lawlessness they’ve lost the trust of the people — and nothing is more fundamental to a civilized society than trust in the law. That’s what consent of the governed means.

So, the period of disorderly transition we’re in is not moving toward greater dominance by giants, but to the survival of the small and nimble. We will not see capital formation like the orgy of recent times; rather the vanishing of things falsely presumed to be capital, contraction not expansion. You’ll be struggling to identify and preserve real wealth, which you’ll find in unexpected places, like the friends you can count on, your reputation for honesty, your dependability, acquired skills, and your health, physical and psychological.

The WEF won’t be able to impose its Globalist nightmare of elite transhumanism and surveilled bug-eating serfs, and they know it now. They’re running scared. The vile Yuval Noah Harari has even said so publicly. The political figures and agents serving that cabal will be lucky if they are not hanged in the public squares. The political criminals here in America, the hoaxsters, the grifters, the seditionists, the Lawfare agents, the election fraudsters, know very well the danger of their looming prosecutions, and that’s exactly why the Democratic Party and its blob henchmen and flunkies are acting like desperate lunatics.

Expect: failed national governments, maybe even state governments; failed supply lines; failed electric supply, failed trucking, failed big box stores, failed supermarkets, failed giant companies; failed banks, failed investments, failed money, failed news orgs, failed airlines, failed car dealers, failed hospitals, failed colleges, and much more. But don’t discount human ingenuity and resourcefulness, our ability to work-around and reinvent systems for daily life, even if it’s on a downscaled and more modest level.

Expect rebuilt local economies from production to wholesale to retail. Expect smaller stores, fewer things to buy but much of it better quality. Expect a lot less long-distance travel but a lot more happening in your locality. Expect the rebirth of local culture — theaters, live music, news-sheets, dances — to replace all the canned entertainments we’re used to. Expect small private academies to rise to replace the shuttered central schools. Expect small, local clinics to appear from the ashes of the medical conglomerates. Expect Americans to return to churches as an organizing mechanism for community relations. Expect more formality and less slobbery in public. Expect all of us to feel a renewed sense of gratitude for being here instead of rage, resentment, and grievance, because it’s likely there will be far fewer of us around.

"I thought the earth remembered me, she took me back so tenderly, arranging her dark skirts, her pockets full of lichens and seeds.

I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,

nothing between me and the white fire of the stars

but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths

among the branches of the perfect trees.

All night I heard the small kingdoms breathing around me, the insects, and the birds who do their work in the darkness.

All night I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling with a luminous doom. By morning

I had vanished at least a dozen times into something better."

— Mary Oliver, ‘Sleeping in the Forest’