Mendocino County Today: Saturday, Feb. 17, 2024

Rain Begins | Scott Dam | Unity Club | Eye House | P Money | Wise Doc | Utility Tax | Clean Underwear | Return VSO | Sheriff Kendall | Listserv Moderators | Small Town | Big Hair | Bragg Council | James Joyce | Gaska Endorsement | Haight/Ashbury | Junk Calls | Yesterday's Catch | Half Talent | Edward Hopper | Marco Radio | Wasted Lives | President Phillips | Jet Parts | Industrial Agriculture | Mind Control | Three Pounds | Gaza Atrocity | Baker Test | Money People | Service Station | Cellphone Resistance | Best Daughter

UNSETTLED WEATHER conditions this weekend through the first half of next week, with two impactful storm systems moving across Northern California. Periods of moderate to localize heavy rainfall, mountain snow (NE Trinity County), and strong southerly winds.…Flood watch remains in effect from Sunday morning through Tuesday morning. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): Only a trace of rain so far at 5am with a warm 53F this Saturday morning on the coast. Rain today, a break overnight, then lots more rain for Monday & Tuesday. Drying out after that. Top wind gusts forecast is holding under 40mph right now.

UNITY CLUB NEWS: Getting Ready for the Wildflower Show

by Miriam Martinez

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, it's through the mud we go…

Being part duck, I am in my element with all this lovely rain. The Wildflowers too are soaking it up for the Big Bloom. It's time to sign up for the Wildflower Show which will be held Saturday April 20, Sunday April 21, and for the Elementary school students, Monday the 22nd. Wildflower identification classes are held every Tuesday from 1 to 4pm in the Library (in the Home Arts Building at the Fairgrounds). Collecting will begin Monday April 15th. If you want to support our collection team, provide a dinner for them one of those weekdays. We have bottles to fill and a stage for displaying the collections. There are volunteer slots for the Silent Auction both days, as well as for picking up Auction items from our local merchants. Sign up sheets will be available for the many varied jobs that keep the Wildflower Show running at our next meeting, March 7th.

Come to the March 7th meeting at 1:30 in the Fairgrounds Dining Room. Our program will be “Women's Stories,” “Working in the USA's Food System,” presented by Wynne Nord. Our hostess team will be Grace Espinoza and Nancy Wood. I have a feeling Nancy traded with someone and I am sorry for not having all my marbles. Thank you to the hostess crew who will provide snacks and beverages.

Jean mentioned we have to work out the merged budgets. We need to finalize the merger of the Garden Section with the Unity Club, then establish the Garden Committee (like we have for the library and scholarships).

To summarize, plant identification classes are every Tuesday from 1 to 4pm, in the Library. The next Unity Club meeting is March 7th at 1:30, in the Dining Room. Finally, the Wildflower Show is April 20th and 21st from 10 to 4, in June Hall; Silent Auction on both days.

ANOTHER MONTH HAS PASSED, and Mendocino County has still not delivered the Measure P money that Supervisor Haschak promised a month ago would be delivered in two weeks. Last we heard that the “contracts” the County requires to be in place with all twenty local fire district before the money is forked over are still held up in the County Counsel’s office. Nobody knows why or when the money will be received despite repeated assurances that it’s close, oh so close. The Anderson Valley Fire Department continues to hold off budgeting even its first payment (about $43k of an estimate $4 million per year, countywide). Mendo isn’t planning to deliver the entire back due amount, but only one quarter’s worth, the $43k, if and when the check arrives. Remember, Measure P passed in November of 2022 and was accompanied by a Board resolution spelling out the formula for how it would be doled out to local fire districts. Then, after Measure P passed but before delivering the money, the County up and decided to consolidate the Proposition 172 money with the Campground Transient Occupancy Tax and the Measure P money under some combined allocation formula under an umbella arrangement called “the Evergreen Contract.” But that “effort” failed after months and months of delay and promises that the money would be soon delivered. Meanwhile, Anderson Valley Fire Chief Andres Avila reminded the Budget Committee on Wednesday of a sharp increase in costs for fire fighting equipment in recent years. Avila said that a new code-approved fire nozzle, for example, now costs about $1800. For one nozzle. Hose has gone way up also. As have valves and plumbing. To outfit one volunteer firefighter now costs upwards of $3,000. Insurance costs, both liability and workers comp, are way up too. Etc. Therefore, a lot of the Measure P money won’t even go toward increased firefighting capacity, it will largely go to just keeping up with inflation. (Most local fire departments operate on fixed revenue streams with major, costly and time-consuming hurdles to jump through to even propose a tax increase.) Nevertheless, Mendo continues to drag its bumbling feet, failing to honor yet another voter approved measure.

* * *

THE SUPERVISORS are on another hiatus. Their last public meeting was February 6, and the next one won’t be until Feb. 27. They’ve had a couple of closed session meetings, but, except for the election/ballot hiccup discussion with KZYX/MendoFever reporter Sarah Reith, those meetings produced no news or announcements.

REPEAL THE PG&E GIVEAWAY

Assemblyman Jim Wood, PO Box 942849, Sacramento, CA 94249-0002 

Senator Mike McGuire, 1021 O Street, Suite 8610, Sacramento, CA 95814

Dear Representatives, 

We are the Redwood Valley Municipal Advisory Council (RVMAC) in Mendocino County. We are writing to ask you to co-author the bill to Repeal the Utility Tax AB 1999. A planned increase of utility bills of $30 to $70 per household per month, even if the lights are off, is set to pay for PG&E’s transmission lines only. Millions of people who barely get by, try to lower their electric usage, will get hit with this unless you act. The mistake made by passing AB205 in 2022 is becoming apparent, and this grid charge would serve to discourage energy conservation, unless it is repealed. Please help fix this mess by June 30 to protect millions of people from bill increases. Will you co-author AB1999?

(This correspondence is the voice of the RVMAC on a matter of concern for the community, and not necessarily the opinion of the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors.)

Sincerely,

Redwood Valley Municipal Advisory Council

Dolly Riley, Jini Reynolds, Chris Boyd, Marybeth Kelly, Patricia Ris-Yarbrough, Adam Gaska, Fran Laughton, and Kahli Johnson

Cc: Supervisor Glenn McGourty, Clerk of the Board

PUT THE VETS OFFICE BACK WHERE IT BELONGS

Re: Mendocino County Veterans Service Office

Dear Ms. Antle:

As you probably are aware, there is considerable concern being raised about the relocation of our County Veterans Service Office in Ukiah.

On January 30, I had the opportunity to visit the Ukiah VSO office at its recently relocated location on Dora Street. My wife accompanied me as I am in a wheel chair. 

I had been receiving negative reports from others, but I felt I needed to visit the site myself before passing judgment.

My initial impression, from outside the front doors, was that it didn’t seem so bad. But then we entered and were invited to see the office space inside. I have to say, that was the beginning of a very bad experience.

The reception area is cold and uninviting. This is where one would have to sit while waiting to see a VSO specialist.

The central glass enclosed garden with fountain is befitting of the lobby of a hospital, but not the waiting room for a VSO office.

After wheeling down the corridor past two restrooms, we were shown into one of the VSO specialist’s office. The office itself couldn’t be more than 8 ft by 10 ft. To get my wheelchair in and in position in front of the VSO’s desk we had to remove one of the chairs that was there and put it out in the corridor. The office space had no windows and just the one door. Frankly it looked like it must have been a storage room previously. It was like being in a cell or cave. There was also some background noise which the VSO specialist explained was “white noise” piped in to help cover conversation from being overheard in adjacent rooms or the corridor if the door was left ajar (which was the only way to allow outside air in and keep from feeling trapped in a cave). 

My wife, who herself suffers from some PTSD issues, was triggered by the whole setting and, after a few minutes, had to quickly exit the room, leaving me without locomotion. The VSO specialist had to wheel me out to the car. My wife will never go back in.

I understand the county is trying to economize (which as a taxpayer I applaud), however, I believe this particular move was a mistake.

I suspect that some well meaning employee, who was tasked with moving the Air quality Management District Office out of their leased office space came up with this plan without any knowledge about what goes on in the VSO office or the needs of the Veterans who the office serves (including vets with handicaps and PTSD issues).

I am sorry, but this new location, in my estimation is unacceptable. I would appreciate you or the appropriate department head who is responsible for this action, answering the following questions:

1. What was the rational for this move? 

2. How many employees work in The Air Quality Management office, and how many of them require space to sit regularly with clients in a confidential setting? 

3. Why was the VSO Officer not involved in the consideration and planning for this move?

4. What other options were considered?

5. Why were no veterans or veterans organizations consulted for input?

The simplest solution at this point would be to find other space for the Air Quality Management (AQM) office and move the VSO back where they were. Actually, I think the AQM office might be more suited to the space you moved the veterans to in the old hospital site. (Office space for activities that don’t require regular meetings with clients in a safe, comfortable, and confidential setting).

Ms. Antle, please understand, I am not trying to be a “rabble rouser.” I am writing with all due respect for the difficult job you have in overseeing the administration of our county. It just seems to me there could be a better solution to this particular problem. 

Very Respectfully, 

Ralph Paulin, Veteran Adjutant, Lewis White Post 76 American Legion of Ukiah

Potter Valley 

MENDO UNIFIED PICKS THEIR CHATLINE MODERATERS 

Chuck Wilcher:

The MUSD board voted to move ahead with accepting a group of moderators for the listserve(s) at Thursday night’s meeting after presenting their plan for list moderation. Hopefully the announce list can revert back to its original purpose of “announcements regarding physical events that happen at a specific location in Mendocino County.” To the new moderators: thanks for stepping up and taking this on.

The group offered a survey to list members and based on the responses came up with a plan they offered to the board. Personally, I think they did a good job.

You can watch the discussion here: https://youtu.be/h1CRBOJRlrY?t=3357

THERE ISN’T MUCH to be seen in a little town, but what you hear makes up for it.

— Frank Hubbard

FORT BRAGG CITY COUNCIL ACTIVITIES

by Megan Wutzke

The city council had a long, busy meeting on Monday. The council listened to three presentations, spent nearly an hour listening to public comments, changed the impact fee schedule, and awarded two contracts related to the raw water pipeline project. 

Ken Newman, an accomplished sculptor who grew up in Fort Bragg, gave a presentation on his sculpture “The Last Whistle.” The council was asked if they could find a suitable public location for this art and sent the idea to public works for further discussion. 

Sheila Semans, Director of the Noyo Center, gave a presentation on Noyo Center updates. Since the last update, the Noyo Center has added a third location, the field station in the harbor. It joins the Crow’s Nest Interpretive Center and the Discovery Center Science Museum, which had 5,000 and 30,000 visitors in 2023. The Noyo Center has also made progress on designing the future Ocean Science Center, with the La-BONE-atory projected to break ground in 2024. 

The Noyo Center is also associated with new research on marine mammals. Sarah Grimes, an educator at the Noyo Center, coauthored a study on sea lion osteofluorosis (weak bones caused by fluoride toxicity). She was also involved in the confirmation that coastal coyotes have been the cause of decapitated harbor seal pups. 

In addition to research, the Noyo Center began some new projects, such as collaborating with the Kashia Band of Pomo and UC Davis to create a new abalone broodstock program. Due to the bull kelp forest collapse, red abalone has nearly been wiped out off the coast of Fort Bragg. The abalone fishery is now closed until 2026, as well as the commercial red urchin. The Noyo Center recently purchased a container to allow the field station to begin work on purple urchin farming to restore the bull kelp forest. 

During public comment, many people came forth to discuss a petition asking the city to condemn Israel’s bombing of the Gaza Strip symbolically. In response, the council will discuss this issue at the next meeting. 

The council also discussed the proposed impact fee schedule. Impact fees are paid by new development to offset the cost of facilities. Existing residents do not pay these fees; however, these fees may discourage new developers from building. The proposed schedule had six types of impact fees: water, sewer, storm drain, police, fire, and C.V. Starr. However, the council chose to remove the C.V. Starr impact fees from that list, as the council expects C.V. Starr to be sustainable without additional funding one day. Police and fire impact fees were also controversial, as the council members balanced making development more affordable yet needing the funds to grow public services. The proposed impact fee schedule has not been finalized and will return to the council at a future meeting. 

The city also awarded two contracts for the raw water line replacement project, which will begin this spring. The first contract was awarded to T&S Construction Company, and the second was to SHA Consulting to act as the construction manager for the project. SHA Consulting has worked with Fort Bragg on other projects, giving the council confidence. However, this will be Fort Bragg’s first work with T&S Construction. T&S Construction was controversial due to its significantly lower bid than competing companies and the lack of a previous business relationship with Fort Bragg. The council voiced its concerns that T&S would later need to come back to the council to request additional funds, driving up the cost to match the other competitive bids. While the council approved the contract, Mayor Bernie Norvell voted against it. 

The council chose the municipal broadband project for the upcoming Community Development Block Grant application. This grant is funded by the California Department of Housing and Community Development every year. This grant requires a “shovel-ready” project that focuses on meeting the needs of low-to-moderate-income residents. The Notice of Funding Ability was released on January 31, and the application will open on March 1, which gives staff very little time to prepare for this grant application. Two projects met this criteria in such a short amount of time: a street rehabilitation project and a broadband infrastructure project. The council chose the municipal broadband infrastructure project, which will benefit the most people. 

City Manager Isaac Whippy gave one final presentation on the annual audit of the city’s financial records. JJACPA Inc. performed the audit. According to the audit, Fort Bragg’s Net Position increased by $1.9 million to $105 million during 2022-23. However, there was a 7% decrease in the Transient Occupancy Tax revenue, a 3% decrease in sales tax revenue, and a 1.5% decrease in property tax revenue. The general fund recorded a $1.3 million surplus, and the fund balance ended the year at $5.9 million, a decrease of $1.04 million.

(Courtesy, the Ukiah Daily Journal)

GASKA FOR FIRST DISTRICT SUPERVISOR

Dear Editor,

I am writing to voice my support of Adam Gaska for District 1 Supervisor of Mendocino County.

I have listened to the interviews of each candidate conducted by Sarah Reith on KZYX (https://www.kzyx.org/local-news/elections-2024). I have visited the candidates’ websites, read their Voter Guide statements and reviewed their mailers.

I have to say it really confuses me to hear candidates claiming they have a passion for public service when they have seemingly no real history of public service. It starts to feel more like lip service. If you want to see what public service looks like, take a look at Adam Gaska. When I first met him, he was a volunteer firefighter (which he did for three years). While still a firefighter, he volunteered on the Redwood Valley Municipal Advisory Council (where I worked with him). Then he was appointed to the RVMAC and has continued to volunteer there. Simultaneous to his public service at the RVMAC, he was appointed to the board of the Redwood Valley County Water District where he is now president. During all of this public service, he was working a full-time day job as a farmer and ranch manager and raising a family. He listens to Board of Supervisors meetings while he works so that he can keep up on the issues. 

Adam is whip-smart and also works hard to dig into the issues. Ask anyone he’s every worked with and they will tell you Adam brings a lot to the table—not just opinions but facts and experience. For example, while other candidates have coopted Adam’s talking points on our region’s water crisis and the challenges we face with the removal of two dams and the threatened diversion from the Eel River to the Russian River, Adam educated himself quickly and deeply, and got involved. His white paper on this issue, which was published in several local newspapers and requested by organizations in Sonoma and Marin Counties, has been a valuable resource to those trying to understand and engage in this complex issue. Likewise, when Redwood Valley County Water District had no irrigation water to offer its farmers, he helped to broker a creative workaround with Russian River Flood Control & Water Conservation Improvement District that brought us the irrigation water so many farmers rely on. This is the kind of leader we absolutely need on the Board of Supervisors. 

I am very concerned that Madeline Cline's recent mailer focusing on PG&E's decommissioning of the Potter Valley Project claims that if she is elected to the BOS, she will “stand up to PG&E” and stop them “from stripping Mendocino County of our water resources.” This just makes me think she doesn't actually know what the BOS has jurisdiction over. She is making promises she literally has no way of keeping. We need someone who understands the job and doesn’t just tell people what they want to hear.

Our County government faces immense challenges and it desperately needs expertise, accountability and toughness from its elected officials. Of the four candidates for District 1 Supervisor, only one can offer what is needed. I hope residents of District One will join me in voting for Adam Gaska. 

Sincerely,

Sattie Clark

Redwood Valley

HARRASSED, INSULTED, ABUSED, THREATENED…

Editor:

Regarding my letter of November 14, 2023 which I received no reply to about RoboCalls, to sum up:

Calls from June 1 through November 11, 2023 (160 days), and November 8, 2023 through February 7 (92 days)

Calls before 8 AM: 22 / 31

AT&T/DirecTV: 42 / 18

Open line or dialtone: 76 / 125

Scammers and thieves: 211 / 215

Legitimate calls: 64 / 51

Totals: 404 / 422.

The numbers in the second period do not include days in town until two or three o'clock or the nine days without service: January 16, 2:54pm to January 17, 3:20pm, and January 24 AM until January 31, 3:10pm). God only knows how much that would have increased the counts. The days without service reminded me of days gone by when my phone would not bring for five or six days.

I know these calls can be stopped if AT&T wanted to. When they call and I press 1 to talk to a representative I get a "not in service" recording. If they can flag my number to stop me from wasting their time they can find my number to not call in the first place. After nine months they should learn that I'm not going to subscribe to DirecTV!

Others non-calls include calls about Medicare Benefits advisor, an electric service, television services, utility taxes, health services, accident claims, medical alerts, US government benefits, spectrum and more. These are lowlife, lying leeches and cowards. It is taking a dangerous turn as they accuse me of wasting their time (they call me) and threaten me and my mother. One person kept calling back cussing a blue streak for over an hour. I think it is all an intentional, deliberate and calculated harassment agenda. 

Should I talk to the Sheriff? What else can I do?

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Casey Pryor

Willits

CATCH OF THE DAY, Friday, February 16, 2024

AURUELIO BARRAGAN, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

ERIC CROUCH, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

CASEY HAGLUND, Willits. Battery with serious injury.

HOLLY HOELBL, Upper Lake/Ukiah. Tear gas.

SHANNON KIDD, Ukiah. Disobeying court order, parole violation. (Frequent flyer.)

DAINEN MACLEAN, Willits. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

ANDREW RIFFLE, Fort Bragg. Probation revocation.

CHERRI ROBERTS, Ukiah. County parole violation. (Frequent flyer.)

AMY VAUGHAN, Clearlake/Ukiah. Controlled substance, resisting, failure to appear.

DAVID SVEHLA: It just wouldn’t be the Big Game w/o David Yearsleys’ annual take! Justin Timberlakes’ “Banana Republic Chic”? Oh, SNAP! Janet Jackson “Dancing”? I’ve always likened her dance moves to more of an epileptic fit, or ingesting badly-cut cocaine. She’s an ACTRESS first and foremost, Wilona’s girl on “Good Times.” Janet’s not the WORST of what’s out there, even today. However, if an alien landed on earth and checked her performance out, at her peak, the alien might comment afterwards: “I don’t get it. Is there a gay brother in the family that got all the talent?”

MEMO OF THE AIR: Live on KNYO from Franklin St. all night Friday night!

Marco here. Deadline to email your writing for tonight's (Friday night's) MOTA show is 5:30. Or, if the time comes and goes, send it whenever it's done and I'll read it on the radio next week. There's no pressure.

I'm in town for this one. I'll be in the cluttered but well-lighted back room of KNYO's 325 N. Franklin studio. If you want to come in and show off, that's good if you're in good health. but wait till after 10pm, though, because I've been starting the show (9pm) with some local writers' long stories lately and doing the easily interruptible announcements immediately after that, and /then/ more long stories. To call and read your work in your own voice on the air, the number is 707-962-3022, also after 10pm, please.

Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio is every Friday, 9pm to 5am on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg as well as anywhere else via KNYO.org. Also the schedule is there for KNYO's many other terrific shows. Just the first hour of the show is also on KAKX 89.3fm Student Powered Radio in Mendocino now and for the foreseeable future.

As always, at https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com you'll find educational/musical/artistic/ironic amusements to absorb and wick away your nervous energy until showtime, or any time, such as:

Nina Simone - To Love Somebody. (via Everlasting Blort)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LymNICNvaH8

The story of two versions of Hurt.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z9pB4yI-BQ

And an acorn. Trigger warning.

https://boingboing.net/2024/02/14/cop-confuses-falling-acorn-for-gunshot.html

Marco McClean, memo@mcn.org, https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com

DEAN PHILLIPS FOR PRESIDENT

Dear Editors,

Darwin believed that humans were descended from monkeys and apes, but recent US politics strongly indicate that many of us evolved from ostriches and lemmings.

I’m writing as a life-long Democrat, because of the deafening silence among Democratic party functionaries, Senators, and House members about Joe Biden. He’s a good-hearted man, but he’s 81 years old, in a stressful job, with wars or threatened wars in the Ukraine, Israel, Yemen, Iran, Korea, and Taiwan, plus a tragic humanitarian crisis on our border. We’re one heartbeat away from Kamala Harris as president, and…two heartbeats away from Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House.

Joe Biden abandoned Afghanistan, betraying countless women who thought they could finally work, wear western clothes, and educate themselves, until the Taliban took over and forced them back into the Middle Ages. And, though we should uphold Israel as a sovereign nation, we shouldn’t allow one penny of military aid towards the starvation, mass destruction, and killing of civilians in Gaza. The trauma will resound for generations. 

Please vote for Congressman Dean Phillips in the presidential primaries. The Democratic establishment has deliberately manipulated him off primary ballots in several states. The table of contents in our official California voter information guide shows “Presidential Candidate Statements” on Page 3, but they aren’t there; you have to go online to voterguide.sos.ca.gov. to see them. Few people will do that. 

If President Biden wins the Democratic nomination, we can choose him in November.

Thanks,

Michael Lloyd

Ukiah

GLOBALIZED INDUSTRIALIZED FOOD is not cheap: it is too costly for the Earth, for the farmers, for our health. The Earth can no longer carry the burden of groundwater mining, pesticide pollution, disappearance of species and destabilization of the climate. Farmers can no longer carry the burden of debt, which is inevitable in industrial farming with its high costs of production. It is incapable of producing safe, culturally appropriate, tasty, quality food. And it is incapable of producing enough food for all because it is wasteful of land, water and energy. Industrial agriculture uses ten times more energy than it produces. It is thus ten times less efficient.

― Vandana Shiva

THE IMPORTANCE OF “controlling the public mind” has been recognized with increasing clarity as popular struggles succeeded in extending the modalities of democracy, thus giving rise to what liberal elites call “the crisis of democracy” as when normally passive and apathetic populations become organized and seek to enter the political arena to pursue their interests and demands, threatening stability and order.

—Noam Chomsky (1999)

AMERICA’S HIDEOUS ROLE IN THE SLAUGHTER IN GAZA

by John Arteaga

Remember back when ‘W’ lied this gullible country into the completely unjustified invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan by waving the bloody shirt of 9/11, even though neither had anything to do with that, to this day, uninvestigated crime? 

Pity the millions of victims there, halfway around the world, who did nothing to the US but who became pawns in a political calculus made by the cynical remedial reader who had decided that it would help his sagging popularity to be a ‘war president’ 

One of the first strategies for ‘bringing the terrorists to justice’ in Afghanistan was to offer to pay anyone in this desperately poor country a bounty of more than a year’s average income there to turn in supposed ‘terrorists’? Of course they soon ended up with large numbers of ‘bad guys’. However, since there was no meaningful investigation of any of the cases, who knew if many, or any, of these detainees were guilty of anything other than being turned in by perhaps a disgruntled neighbor or competing suitor. 

Guilty or innocent, the bloodlust that had been whipped up here in the land of the free was such that truly horrific crimes were perpetrated against these unfortunate folks. I’ll never forget the horror that I felt for them when they were pressed into shipping containers in numbers that were far beyond the ability of the container’s tiny vents to provide breathable air to the occupants, and by the time they were driven out to some desert dumping ground, they were virtually all dead, killed in a horribly slow and agonizing way, slowly choking in their own filth. 

While it may not have been GIs herding those ill-fated folks into those metal boxes, it was all done under our troops’ observation, and as the prevailing military authority, it was on us. 

I can’t help but think back about such horrors when, every day, the ongoing atrocities being committed against the overwhelmingly innocent denizens of Gaza, now passing four months of Israel’s merciless slaughter of them. 

Since the Oct. 7 Hamas surprise attack, carried out by an infinitesimally small radical group there in Gaza, known as the world’s largest open air prison camp, Israel’s decision to completely cut off water, power, food and medicine to the entire 2.2 million unfortunate Gazans (half of whom are children!) Is the very definition of disproportionate force and collective punishment, which are war crimes, banned by all international treaties. Virtually all the rest of the world cries out for a cessation of Israel’s ongoing genocide, including the UN’s International Court of Justice, which just handed down a preliminary judgment that it is likely that Israel is guilty of the supreme crime of genocide. 

It’s as if the Israelis (with the joined-at-the-hip collaboration of good old USA) are forcing the entire population of Gaza into shipping containers to be driven out into the hot desert and have their stinking remains dumped into mass graves. 

It has been disgusting to hear and read the coverage of this conflict here in the USA, without who’s approximately $10 million a day subsidy for the maintenance of this vicious apartheid state and its ruthless suppression of anyone who raised the slightest quibble about it; the routine reporting of “clashes” between Israel and Hamas, as if they were anything near similar fighting forces, when in fact Hamas is a ragtag collection of fighters who are lucky to have an old Kalashnikov and a few rounds of ammo up against the fifth most potent military on the planet (thanks to the US war machine’s uncritical and virtually unlimited backing). Another oft repeated line in the press, spoken by virtually everybody in US political office is the sickening canard that, “we support Israel’s right to defend itself”, as if, of course, it has the right to reduce all the neighboring majority Muslim populations to smoldering piles of collapsed concrete filled with rotting corpses in order to “defend itself”! 

The other day some 21 IDF soldiers were killed in Gaza. I was inclined to feel sorry for them, regardless of the fool’s errand that they are pursuing there, until I heard what they were doing at the time; wiring a large apartment building for demolition. The news reporter stated matter-of-factly that they were working on, “creating a buffer zone”. Hmmm, yeah, clearly that ‘buffer zone’ has a name; Gaza. 

I have thought for years that the slavish devotion of the entire US political class, whether Democrat or Republican, to Israel, is such that if the demented religious zealots who run Israel should decide that the only solution to their Palestinian problem is ‘the final solution’, that Congress and the president would rush through funding for the construction of the required death camps and gas ovens so that Israel could continue to ‘defend itself’. 

I used to think that that was hyperbole, but today, as the whole world watches, Israel blows up all of Gaza’s hospitals (with the absurd excuse that Hamas has its command centers in tunnels underneath them, even though doctors who have worked in them for years have never seen any evidence of such a thing). 

Their precision munitions have blown away doctors and nurses, hundreds of ambulances, their drivers and crews as well as killing hundreds of the intrepid reporters who are trying to bring something other than Israeli propaganda to us, sometimes rocketing their homes, killing not only the reporters but their whole families, and yet the US media mainly just publishes the latest Israeli propaganda as if it had some credibility. it doesn’t! Anyone with a brain in their head who takes the slightest interest in the subject can see that! 

The idea that this senseless industrial slaughter is making anyone safer is absurd. As the three US service people of color who died the other day in Syria, far away from Israel’s abattoir, discovered, this fight has no front line; any Israeli partisan or US service person anywhere is a legitimate target for the understandable rage that we are producing by our alliance with this apartheid state that makes old South Africa look benign in comparison. 

I think what Israel would really like would be to provoke the sinking of one of our destroyers or aircraft carriers in the Gulf, with the loss of thousands of lives. That would surely provoke their dream of total destruction of Iran. 

Let’s hope Biden doesn’t oblige them. 

(John Arteaga is a Ukiah resident. To read and earlier columns on my blog, go to; https://inarationalworld2.blogspot.com/2024/02/death-by-shipping-container.html )

BIKINI ATOLL NUCLEAR TEST, 1946

This detonation, known as the Baker Test, was part of Operation Crossroads in Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. The purpose of the tests was to investigate the effect of nuclear weapons on warships. The Crossroads tests were the first of many nuclear tests held in the Marshall Islands and the first to be publicly announced beforehand and observed by an invited audience, including a large press corps.

A fleet of 95 target vessels was assembled in Bikini Lagoon. At the center of the target cluster, the density was 20 ships per square mile (7.7 per km²), three to five times greater than military doctrine would allow.

The stated goal was not to duplicate a realistic anchorage but to measure damage as a function of distance from the blast center, at as many different distances as possible.

The arrangement also reflected the outcome of the Army/Navy disagreement about how many ships should be allowed to sink. The target fleet included four obsolete U.S. battleships, two aircraft carriers, two cruisers, eleven destroyers, eight submarines, numerous auxiliary and amphibious vessels, and three surrendered German and Japanese ships.

The ships carried sample amounts of fuel and ammunition plus scientific instruments to measure air pressure, ship movement, and radiation. The live animals on some of the target ships were supplied by the support ship USS Burleson, which brought 200 pigs, 60 guinea pigs, 204 goats, 5,000 rats, 200 mice, and grains containing insects to be studied for genetic effects by the National Cancer Institute. Amphibious target ships were berthed on Bikini Island.

In Baker on July 25, the weapon was suspended beneath landing craft LSM-60 anchored in the midst of the target fleet. Baker was detonated 90 feet (27 m) underwater, halfway to the bottom in water 180 feet (55 m) deep with a yield of 23 kilotons. No identifiable part of LSM-60 was ever found; it was presumably vaporized by the nuclear fireball.

The Baker shot produced so many unusual phenomena that a conference was held two months later to standardize nomenclature and define new terms for use in descriptions and analysis. The underwater fireball took the form of a rapidly expanding hot gas bubble that pushed against the water, generating a supersonic hydraulic shock wave that crushed the hulls of nearby ships as it spread out.

When the gas bubble’s diameter equaled the water depth, 180 feet (55 m), it hit the seafloor and the sea surface simultaneously. At the bottom, it started digging a shallow crater, ultimately 30 feet (9 m) deep and 2,000 feet (610 m) wide.

At the top, it pushed the water above it into a “spray dome,” which burst through the surface like a geyser. Elapsed time since detonation was four milliseconds.

As soon as the bubble reached the air, it started a supersonic atmospheric shock wave which, like the crack, was more visually dramatic than destructive. Brief low pressure behind the shock wave caused instant fog which shrouded the developing column in a “Wilson cloud”, also called a “condensation cloud”, obscuring it from view for two seconds.

The Wilson cloud started out hemispherical, expanded into a disk which lifted from the water revealing the fully developed spray column, then expanded into a doughnut and vanished.

Following test Baker decontamination problems, the United States Navy equipped newly constructed ships with a CounterMeasure WashDown System (CMWDS) of piping and nozzles to cover exterior surfaces of the ship with a spray of salt water from the firefighting system when nuclear attack appeared imminent. The film of flowing water would theoretically prevent contaminants from settling into cracks and crevices.

(Photo credit: US Army Archives)

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.

― Dorothy Parker

CELLPHONES: NECESSITY OR COMPULSION?

by Eliane Glaser

I have never owned a smartphone. The man in the shop couldn’t understand my refusal. “You get one free with your plan,” he told me. I share the objections on questions of principle – the ubiquity of harmful content; the erosion of the social fabric – but more than that my response was visceral. I just didn’t want the thing in my hand.

So I have a brick, and live in the 1990s. If I need to find somewhere new, I look it up on my laptop and draw a map on a scrap of paper, or ask a black cab driver at a red traffic light. They seem increasingly bemused. If I get lost while driving, I pull over to peer at my A to Z through a credit card-sized magnifying glass. My son learned to map-read while I maintained an unpopular holding pattern on a roundabout.

The other day I went to Tate Britain on the bus and forgot to check the directions before I left the house. At a vaguely familiar stop I asked the driver if we were near the Tate or Millbank. He shrugged. I asked him where he was going next. He indicated the road ahead without irony. I got off and consulted one of those signs at street corners, which are plentiful but baffling because they show the map upside down.

If I go to the theater, I print out the tickets from the email. Sometimes I forget, or my printer is out of ink, and I ask the box office to print them. Sometimes, the person checking tickets at the door is incredulous and almost doesn’t let me into the building. My heart sinks at a QR code menu. I either ask the hard-pressed waiter (half guilty, half indignant) to root around for a paper menu, or submit to my companion reading it out from their phone as if to a child.

I use a watch, an alarm clock, a camera and a CD player. I listen to a portable analogue radio with headphones, or download radio programs onto a mini-MP3 player. I have a paper appointments diary and a pocket notebook with a pen. My daily newspaper lands on the mat. On holiday, I rely on guidebooks. When I was last abroad, I walked to a restaurant and made a reservation by writing my name on a napkin.

When someone wants to show me a photo on their phone, I count in my head how long it takes them to find it. It’s usually about two minutes. The person tries to continue the conversation while they search, but they usually can’t help also reading a message they’ve just received. I used to fill the time by babbling on. Now I sit and wait. When the tiny image is finally located, it rarely adds much. I hate phones, but I also hate the gap they open up between me and the people around me who mean well.

When friends text me emojis, they come up as rows of rectangles. I have to guess the emotional gist. I don’t know how many steps I’ve walked. I don’t know when the bus will come. Facts stay forgotten. Identity verification requires a fiddly workaround. I call my local minicab company if I need a cab from home, and don’t use Uber. I’m not on Facebook or Instagram or TikTok or WhatsApp.

WhatsApp is the big one. The primary school PTA year group rep wouldn’t put announcements on email and made it clear that if I missed out, it was my problem. I didn’t really want to go to those pub nights anyway. But during the Covid lockdowns I needed to use WhatsApp. I make radio programs and I had to be able to communicate instantly and privately with presenters during interviews. My husband’s smartphone still has various broadcasters’ messages on it.

He also has a lot of messages from 11-year-old girls, because I impose my techno-abstinence on my children. They are the only ones in their year groups not to have phones. But they seem to have social lives. They travel about on their own. I don’t track them. I don’t call them. If they go to a friend’s, they ring to let me know they’ve arrived. Smartphones seem to make children less safe.

If someone tells me they couldn’t live without their phone, I usually mutter something peaceable about horses for courses, but what I really think is that we should separate necessity from compulsion. 

My resistance to getting a smartphone isn’t high-mindedness so much as a recognition of my own susceptibility to addiction. I feel the siren pull of my laptop as soon as I walk in the door. It’s one of the reasons time away from my desk is so crucial.

There are other advantages to my old phone. My battery lasts a week. My contract costs eight pounds a month. My screen is intact. I look around at the world, I get lost in thought. Sitting undistracted on the bus, I sometimes feel bored, or sad, or plagued by existential doubt; and though that’s uncomfortable, I like to think it’s good for me. I get the itch to access everything everywhere all at once, but I’m glad I can’t scratch it.

The 3G mobile signal is about to be switched off, older digital radios can no longer receive the new DAB+ signal, and landlines will soon be replaced by something called Digital Voice. At some point my refusenik status may become not just eccentric but practically impossible. I only hope a bigger backlash kicks in before then.

(London Review of Books)