Mendocino County Today: Saturday 3/9/24

Rain | Grazing | Political Ads | Sunny Disposition | Fatal Collision | Haschak Report | Immigration Clinic | County Notes | Crack House | Shameful Salaries | Family Values | Train Wreck | Hop Talk | Marino's Recognized | Squeaky Toy | Coleman Update | Yesterday's Catch | Marco Radio | Montmartre Stairs | Deer Time | Tulips | Sunshine Week | Bad News | Hop Picker | Human Nature | Old Pooperoo | Fate of the Union | Lying Eyes | Secret Shipments | Aid Kills | Dad Says | Worsening Undercount | Poison Gas

RAIN AND WINDY CONDITIONS this morning will taper off through the afternoon, but another shortwave will swing another front into the area early Sunday morning. Higher rainfall totals, high winds, and mountain snow are expected Sunday morning through the afternoon. Unsettled conditions early next week will lead into a warmer and drier period late week. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): It's about to start raining at 5:30am this Saturday morning on the coast. I have 49F under cloudy skies. Rain thru the day then dry Sunday morning before more rain returns later tomorrow. Rain Monday into Tuesday then quite a dry spell lies beyond. Yippee!

Remember to SPRING FORWARD tonight!

OPPOSED TO NEGATIVE CAMPAIGNING

To the Editor: 

There was an inordinate amount of advertising — some very negative — in the race for 2nd Assembly district. 

By the time this letter is read, the election will be over, but we want to register that 1) it disturbs us how much money (and resources) have been spent on these multiple glossy mailers; and 2) in particular we are appalled by the mean-spirited, often overblown negative ‘hit pieces’. 

It is low to try to knock out your opponents instead of running on your own merits. 

We will usually choose to NOT vote for those engaging in this type of campaigning. 

Madge Strong, Mary Zellachild, Kimbal Dodge

Willits 

SUNNY DISPOSITION

Editor,

On Biden's State of the Union public speaking, I'll have what Biden is taking. The murder of Joan LeFeat is a symptom of the village not having, and/or, not taking the effort to help the parents and those parent's children with some modicum of civility and respect for one's fellow citizens.

Editor, all of your attendant causalities are applicable and ingrained in modern US society. The best we can do is set a good example for ourselves and others. 

Here are two photos for the AVA as the weather is of Sunny disposition. 

Take care,

Jeff Goll

Willits

WILLITS MAN IDENTIFIED IN FATAL LAKE COUNTY CRASH ON HIGHWAY 20

A man from Willits and two dogs were killed in a two-vehicle crash in Lake County. On Sunday afternoon, Gregory Allen Van Gundy was driving east on Highway 20 in a Toyota Corolla with two dogs when he lost control along a curve. He went into the opposite lane just east of Blue Lakes Road and struck a pickup truck driving west. Van Gundy and the dogs died at the scene while the 83-year-old truck driver and a passenger were taken to Sutter Lakeside Hospital with minor injuries. CHP is still investigating but drugs and alcohol were not a factor.

(ksro.com)

MONTHLY SUPERVISORS REPORT for March

by Supervisor John Haschak

March has arrived with a fury. There’s news of the Leggett Post Office burning down, drug overdoses in the jail resulting in one death, and the snowstorm reminding us of what needs to be better prepared. The Office of Emergency Services has been preparing and communicating with emergency responders throughout the County. The lack of a post office in Leggett reminds us of the central role these community centers play in our lives.

I am sending good healing thoughts to Jim Shields of Laytonville and Bruce Anderson of Booneville [sic]. Both are intrepid newspaper people and community-minded citizens. May they get back to doing what they do best which is informing the community of the good and bad, keeping us all on our toes.

The election was bumpy with the ballot misprints and problems with redistricting. People are asking how did this happen? To assure voters that these incidents will not happen again, the Board and Katrina Bartolomie, Clerk Recorder in charge of elections, must work together, find out where things went wrong, and make sure those problems are fixed.

The Board decided to move the Veterans Services Office back to the Observatory Ave. location. Kudos to the persistence of the veterans who returned time and again to the Board chambers to voice their disapproval of this move. I worked with staff and veterans to make the move as good as possible but the base issues were unresolved. I appreciate that the veterans said that they would help with the move back to Observatory. When the time comes to move, we will be calling on them and they will show up. 

The CEO rolled out her plan to balance the budget. The Board, with a few changes, adopted the plan. It will raise revenue, cut costs, and create efficiencies. Overall, about $10 million needs to be raised or cut. I see County staff working to do more with less across the many departments.

There will be a Talk with the Supervisor Thursday, March 14 at 10:00 at Brickhouse Coffee in Willits. I am available by email haschakj@mendocinocounty.gov or phone 707-972-4214. 

COUNTY NOTES

by Mark Scaramella

Budget Contradictions Galore in next Tuesday’s Supervisors Agenda.

For example: Item 4b) is “Discussion and Possible Action Regarding Presentation of Mid-Year Budget Report on the Status of County Departmental Spending and Revenues for Fiscal Year 2023-24 and Executive Office Recommendations.

However, as usual, there is nothing in the attached agenda materials about “Departmental Spending and Revenues” for the mid-year review. Not even a listing of departmental budgets; and certainly nothing about their current spending.

* * *

Then there’s Item 4f:

“Discussion and Possible Action Including Approval of an Employment Agreement Between the County of Mendocino and Darcie Antle to Serve as Mendocino County’s Chief Executive Officer for the Term of March 12, 2024, Through July 11, 2026, with Compensation for the Period Commencing March 12, 2024, Through the First Full Pay Period Following Ms. Antle’s Performance Evaluation in June 2025, being Two Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand Dollars ($225,000) Per Year With a Total Annual Compensation of Three Hundred and Eighty-Two and Thousand Dollars ($382,000), Including Benefits. As Specified in the Employment Agreement, if Certain Conditions Are Met, Ms. Antle’s Compensation Commencing the First Full Pay Period Following the June 2025 Performance Evaluation Through the End of the Agreement Shall Be Increased to Two Hundred Fifty Thousand Dollars ($250,000) Per Year With a Total Annual Compensation of Four Hundred and Twenty-Five Thousand Dollars ($425,000), Including Benefits.”

There’s no mention of what those “certain conditions” are, but we assume they have something to do with balancing the budget. Without a listing of the “certain conditions” we’ll probably see more of the kinds of ill-considered budget cuts that lead to the unjustified, unpublicized displacement of the Veterans Service Office, since CEO Antle is probably being offered a $43,000 bonus to make unilateral budget cuts without the Board’s or the public’s prior involvement or approval.

According to the attached “Fiscal Details” for CEO Antle’s raise the “source of funding” for her raise and bonus is “the General Fund.”

And the “Current f/y cost: $200,000 current budget, approximate increase to current FY $8,500. Budget clarification: Department will work with EO Budget Team if a budget adjustment is needed. Annual recurring cost: $382,500,000 Includes cost of benefits.”

(Presumably, the “$382,500,000” is a typo. Or at least we hope it’s a typo. Mendo is not Nigeria. Yet.)

* * *

On top of Ms. Antle’s raise/bonus there’s also Item 4g:

“Whereas, effective July 7, 2024, the salary of the below Elected Officials is established at the following levels: 

The effective date of this Resolution shall be July 7, 2024, to coincide with the beginning of Pay Period 15.24.”

In the cases of these increases the “Source of Funding” is stated as “Affiliated budget units” which also means the General Fund. The County adds: “Departments will work with fiscal for budgeting purposes,” and “Annual recurring cost is $1,070,116.” 

That’s four top Mendo officials accounting for over $1 million out of the General Fund at the same time that the Board claims to be at least $7 million in the red. The Item goes on to note: “Budgeted in current fiscal year: No.”

So these raises are not in this year’s budget. Instead these department heads are directed to include their pay raises in their own departmental budgets and let the corresponding budget cuts fall where they may.

* * *

For reference, as of 2022 (per TransparentCalifornia):

Sheriff Kendall base pay was: About $183k, w/benefits: About $337k

DA Eyster base pay was: About $179k, w/benefits: About $258k.

Auditor-Controller/Treasurer-Tax Collector Cubbison (last recorded pay for position): Base pay was: About $123k; w/benefits: About $206k

Assessor-Clerk-Recorder Bartolomie base pay was: About $145k; W/Benefits: About $229k.

Sheriff Kendall’s base pay increase: About $30k; about a 16% increase.

DA Eyster’s base pay increase: About $38k; about a 21% increase.

Sara Pierce (as Auditor-Controller/Treasurer Tax Collector, not from her prior position as Deputy CEO) base pay increase: About $53k, about a 43% increase. (When Pierce was Deputy CEO she was making about $118k base pay. So this would be a 49% increase from Deputy CEO to her current position replacing Chamise Cubbison.

Assessor-Clerk-Recorder Bartolomie’s base pay increase: About $16k; about a 12% increase.

All these increases are being proposed in light of a supposed multi-million dollar budget deficit. 

The Board’s and the CEO’s new motto should be: Us First! 

* * *

To add insult to injury we read in Supervisor Haschak’s latest Supervisors report (above) that: “When the time comes to move [the Veterans Service Office back to their Observatory Avenue home where they’d been for more than 15 years] we will be calling on them [the vets] and they will show up.”

“When the time comes”? We wonder what year Haschak has in mind? 

A READER WRITES:

Proposed new BASE salaries effective July 2024:

Assessor-Clerk Recorder: $161,000

Auditor-Controller TTC: $176,267

District Attorney: $218,380

Sheriff: $213,350

Such a slap in the face to every resident in this county, not just the home health workers begging for $20/hour. Tami Bartolomie should be horrified to see this go before the BOS in the midst of this election mess.

We don’t even have an elected Auditor-Controller anymore although Chamise will be paid a helluva lot more than $176k (plus benefits, retirement, other pay) after she sues the county for their egregious actions against her.

DA Eyster – nothing else to be said about this bad cop-protecting egomaniac.

Shameful.

LAKE COUNTY FAMILY VALUES (via Betsy Cawn, Lake County)

EXECUTIVE INACTION; EXECUTIVE INACCURACIES

Editor,

Recently I wrote about the excessive time and energy it takes to get records from Mendocino County (“Transparency or Secrecy,” AVA, March 6, 2024).

I called County Counsel again on Thursday about my unfilled request for the Executive Office positions and salaries for 2023-24, as well as the $25,000 Health Benefit, listed for one employee, that was on the report for 2022-23 version that I received December 7, 2023.

I was informed that the 2022-23 report that was provided previously in my records request is “inaccurate.”

And a new report for 2022-23 was uploaded in the Nextrequest (Records Request) system as well as the 2023-24 one. 

“Inaccurate”? I proceeded to question how the County could give me records three months ago that were not accurate and now being called such, since I've been pushing the issue of obtaining a explanation about the $25,000 Health Benefit on this report. Seems fishy.

The new report is an Excel spreadsheet, with no dates (above) and no details, such as overtime, etc. Whereas the “inaccurate” one (#1 above) looks like it was produced by the actual accounting software versus a spreadsheet I could make myself. Also, the 2023-24 report (#3 above) has been delayed for months as I was told:

“The report that had been used to create the list, for prior years, cannot be used to create that list for the current year. Once fiscal year 2022-23 completes the closing process in our ERP system, Munis, we can run that report to get you the current information.” 

Yet Thursday I received this information in a spreadsheet, which was not produced by Munis and was told the 2022-23 year was closed a month ago. A month ago? Why then is my request just being completed today, conveniently when I am calling yet again to complain?

I spent 10 minutes going back and forth with Deputy County Counsel Matthew Keidrowski about how badly this reflects on a County that is supposed to be transparent and give accurate information to the public. This seriously calls into question the records I've previously received. Are those inaccurate as well? How can they expect me to believe the accuracy of what I am receiving today when the CEO's salary goes from $184,615.51 in the initial 2022-23 report to $230,646.22 in the new report to $143,796.22 in the 2023-24 report. 

Seriously, I may be blonde but I am not stupid. I ended the conversation by requesting that interim County Counsel Ross please call me.

I received a return phone call from Mr. Ross and related my frustration of the now “inaccurate” report, Excel spreadsheets and the continued evasion of explanation of the $25,000 Health Benefit for an employee. Mr. Ross stated how he hasn't been here very long and is catching up to what is happening and was not up to date as to the requests I have open. We proceeded to go back and forth about how absurd this explanation is. I had to explain over and over exactly what I am requesting. I asked him to please read the actual request for clarification. I was also told that it “could be” a privacy issue as to why I haven't gotten an explanation about the Health Benefit. I requested that this please be related in my records request then. Also, I asked that he please talk to Deputy County Counsel Keidrowski, as these delays in my requests have been happening for over three years. 

This whole fiasco screams of secrecy and corruption. And yet the Executive Office is running the Auditor/Controller/Treasurer/Tax Collector's office which has no independent oversight whatsoever of the County coffers since Ms. Cubbison was removed from her office that we voted her into. Us taxpayers are being deprived of our vote. Sounds pretty familiar with the election dysfunction currently taking place.

As I asked the Board of Supervisors recently, “Who's leading this train wreck?” 

Carrie Shattuck

Ukiah

HOPPY TALK

Join the Historical Society of Mendocino County at the Ukiah Players Theatre to learn about the history of the hop industry in Hopland from Robert Keiffer. Keiffer’s family purchased a hop ranch in Hopland around 1913 and continued to grow hops into the 1950s. $10 at the door. Coffee and cookies will be available.

RVSP to the historical society by March 14.

Email: info@mendocinocountyhistory.org, Phone: (707) 462 - 6969

Robert J. Keiffer – Native to Mendocino County. Attended Humboldt State University from 1974 to 1979 where he graduated with a BS degree in Wildlife Management. He went on to work for US Fish & Wildlife Service at Hart Mountain, Sheldon, and Modoc refuges, Bureau of Land Management in Colorado, Mendocino County Resource Conservation District, and ended up with a career with the University of California at the Hopland Research & Extension Center (1984-2015) as the Principal Supt. of Agriculture (1991-2015). Robert is the founder of the local peregrine Audubon Chapter and specializes in bird identification. He is also the Mendocino County sub-regional Editor for the American Birding Association’s publication of North American Field Notes.

MARINO’S OF UKIAH FEATURED ON ‘BEST RESTAURANTS’

Ukiah restaurant Marino’s Pizza & Ravioli will be hosting a visit from America’s Best Restaurants (ABR) in mid-March 2024.

America’s Best Restaurants, a national media and marketing company focusing on bringing attention to local, independently-owned restaurants, will bring its ABR Roadshow to the restaurant on March 15th. Popular dishes will be highlighted, along with an extensive on-camera interview with owner Michelle Marino about the restaurant’s special place in the community. The episode will be aired extensively on social media channels at a later date.

Marino has owned her family’s namesake eatery since 1996; her parents opened it in 1987. She had no restaurant experience prior to taking over, but has established the eatery as a mainstay in the area. Over the years numerous family members have also worked at Marino’s. 

“A lot of my kids have worked here, my nieces, my nephews, so many different people,” Marino says. “My brother worked with me for twenty-five years.” 

Pizza and Italian food is the mainstay of the eatery, and it includes freezer meals to-go and catering. The menu offers an extensive selection of homemade Italian entrees and pastas, salads, sandwiches, wings, and soup, which she sells by the quart to-go as well.

Marino does the cooking herself, and is proud of the community support she has received.

“I was probably one of the first or second pizza places around here,” Marino says. “Now there’s tons of pizza places open here in Ukiah. But I have a following of people that are regulars. I do a lot of catering, and it’s good food because it’s made with love.” 

America’s Best Restaurants will be filming on location on Friday, March 15th from 9 am to noon PST. The press is invited to attend. The restaurant’s finished episode premiere date will be announced on their Facebook page and will be featured on America’s Best Restaurants’ website at americasbestrestaurants.com/rests/california/marinos-pizza-and-ravioli.

Restaurants featured on the ABR Roadshow are found through customer nominations or by a restaurant applying to be featured at www.americasbestrestaurants.com. 

About Marino’s Pizza & Ravioli: 

Open Tuesday through Saturday, Marino’s Pizza & Ravioli is located at 142 Talmage Rd, Ukiah CA 95482. 

Telephone is (707) 468-9386. 

For more information visit www.marinos-pizza.com. 

About ABR: America’s Best Restaurants, a national media and restaurant marketing company based in Florence, KY, travels the country telling the stories and highlighting the unique food of locally owned independent restaurants as part of their ABR Roadshow. Restaurants are featured not only on ABR’s Restaurant Network of social media channels and website, but also each individual establishment’s Facebook page. With over 1000 episodes filmed, America’s Best Restaurants is the premier marketing agency for restaurant owners and operators to have their story broadcast coast-to-coast. Visit AmericasBestRestaurants.com to learn more and to view the episodes and profiles of hundreds of America’s Best Restaurants! 

(America’s Best Restaurants Presser)

DEB SILVA with an update on Chris Coleman, the man who murdered Joan LaFeat at the Brooktrails store:

Yes, Chris Coleman is still in prison. He comes up for parole on May 23rd of this year. Below the poop from the California Inmate Locator site. The Richard J Donovan Correctional Facility is in San Diego. It's the prison where Manson Family member Charles "Tex" Watson is housed.

Name: Coleman, Chris 

CDCR Number: T43081 

Age: 38 Current 

Location: Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility<https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/facility-locator/RJD/> 

Admission Date: Aug 30 2002 

Commitment County: Mendocino 

Parole Eligible Date: November, 2023

The Parole Eligible Date displayed above is subject to change.

The parole eligible date shown above is the first date the incarcerated person is (or was) eligible for a parole suitability hearing by the Board of Parole Hearings to determine if the incarcerated person should be released. Incarcerated persons may earn credits for participating in rehabilitative programming, which may move their parole eligible dates to an earlier date. Incarcerated persons could also be found guilty of an institutional rules violation, which could result in a loss of credits that may move their parole eligible dates further into the future. Parole eligible dates may also change based on a variety of other reasons, including court orders, changes in law, and routine audits. Parole eligible dates displayed on this website are updated regularly.

For more information about the parole suitability hearing process, please visit the Board of Parole Hearings’ Parole Suitability Hearing Overview<http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/BOPH/parole_suitability_hearings_overview.html>

Board of Parole Hearing's Actions Date May 23, 2024

Action: Parole Suitability Hearing

Status Pending

Outcome: Tentative date for parole suitability hearing: September 18, 2023

Past Parole suitability hearing was postponed: September 30, 2019

CATCH OF THE DAY: Friday, March 8, 2024

CURTIS BETTENCOURT, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-under influence, paraphernalia. (Frequent flyer.)

KENNETH GAMBLIN, Lodi/Ukiah. DUI, suspended license for DUI.

ERICA GARCIA, Ukiah. Assault with deadly weapon not a gun.

GREGORY HUBBS, Ukiah. Use of tear gas as a weapon-not for self-defense. ammo possession by prohibited person.

KATHERINE HYLAN, Ukiah. Domestic battery.

JAMES LANIKSMITH, Redding/Ukiah. Failure to appear.

JAKE LEWIS-KOOY, Ukiah. Entry into occupied dwelling, petty theft, paraphernalia. (Frequent flyer.)

MALEO PERRY, Modesto/Ukiah. DUI.

YAIR REYES, Fort Bragg. DUI with priors.

OCTAVIO RIVERA, Potter Valley. Registration tampering, resisting.

BRITTANY TYRRELL, Willits. DUI. 

MEMO OF THE AIR: Live from Albion all night Friday night on KNYO!

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.

Marco here. I still don't have my email trip repaired at home so the deadline to get your writing in to be read on KNYO tonight is a little different. I have the show mostly together as of now, but there's plenty of bandwidth in the shop at my day-job, where I'll be doing the show from, to get email in a form I can read on the air without too much fiddling, so... Send your material by 7pm or so, to make it easier for me, but send it any time after that and I'll check for it during the show when I put some music on for a break. I repeat: send your story or poem or whatever as plain text in the body of the email, and that will work.

My car still isn't fixed right--still waiting for important parts--and I'm not driving at night anymore anyway, so I'll be doing the show from Albion next week too. I kinda like it here; and I really like not having to factor in the whole-hour round-trip to Fort Bragg on a show night, plus here at work I don't have to set up before the show and tear down after. It's just all right here, ready to switch on, and there's battery backup, and heat, though I don't like to turn it up past 58, it's so expensive. It's really not bad here. I miss people just being able to wander in and be on the air but, though the future is uncertain, I'm sure I'll be doing shows from Fort Bragg at some point again, including live radio drama and so on. There are all kinds of reasons to have a radio studio right on the street in the middle of the town it serves, the way KNYO has always had. KZYX, at fifty times the cost of KNYO, after three-plus decades still doesn't have that, and if they ever do, can you imagine anyone at KZYX letting strangers walk in unannounced and just put them on the radio? Phh, I snort.

Speaking of which, Bob Young wrote, "FREE Movie Night at the KNYO Fallout Shelter Sat. March 9 at 4 pm AT 325 N. Franklin. Howdy neighbors, it is time for another Movie Night at KNYO at 325 N. Franklin. This Saturday March 9 starting at 4 PM we will screen 4 (four!) thrillers, rated R, no children without parental guidance. Feel free to bring cushions, snacks, your dinner, we have a microwave, or a pizza. Free popcorn and water. BYOB. FREE MOVIES!!"

(Because of the terms of KNYO's performance-space movie license, for the names of the movies that will be playing, and to get on the list to be notified of future FREE movie nights at KNYO, write to MovieClubAtKNYO@gmail.com)

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

SWITCHING THE CLOCKS TWICE A YEAR ISN’T JUST ANNOYING. IT’S DEADLY.

by Laura Prugh

An hour of the day will be unceremoniously snatched away on Sunday as we “spring forward” to daylight saving time.

Polling shows that more than half of Americans want to “ditch the switch” and prefer daylight saving over standard time by a margin of 10 to 20 points. But making that switch permanent would require an act of Congress, and while the Senate managed to pass a bill called the Sunshine Protection Act two years ago, the legislation never made it through the House. Worryingly, state legislators from Maine to the West Coast are now so fed up with waiting that they have introduced their own bills to remain on standard time permanently; states can do that without Congress.

But such a switch would be a mistake. It’s not just that our afternoons and evenings would be shrouded in more darkness, which often comes with higher crime, more vehicle collisions and fewer opportunities to enjoy the outdoors after work or school. There’s another problem with standard time, and it’s gone all but unnoticed until now. Last year, my research team showed that standard time leads to far more vehicles colliding with deer.

Vehicle strikes already kill millions of wild animals each year, and collisions with deer are the best documented because they are so common and damaging. When we looked at over one million collisions between deer and vehicles in 23 states across the United States between 1994 and 2021, we found these collisions are 14 times as likely in the two hours after sunset, compared to the two hours before. Deer behavior does not quite explain this, since they are equally active at dawn and dusk. But traffic volumes are higher in the evening, and it’s hard for us to see things in the dark. The hour-earlier sunset that comes with standard time is thus an expensive, traumatic way to control the deer population.

In all, we found that staying on daylight saving time year-round would prevent an estimated 36,550 collisions between deer and vehicles, whereas staying on standard time would add 73,660 of these collisions every year — a difference of more than 100,000. The human toll of staying on standard time would also be significant: Compared to year-round daylight saving time, year-round standard time would cause 100 more deaths, 6,000 more injuries and at least $3.5 billion in costs every year through increased deer-vehicle collisions alone.

Of course, more crashes with deer is far from the only cost of standard time. The number of fatal traffic accidents at night — caused by deer or anything else — is three times higher than it is during the day, and the dark increases the risk of pedestrian accidents by up to seven times. Permanent daylight saving time would prevent 366 fatal pedestrian and vehicle accidents a year with the help of brighter evenings during the 4.5 months of the year we currently spend on standard time. Conversely, staying on standard time for an extra 7.5 months each year would add about 610 fatalities — a difference of nearly 1,000 human lives.

Support for standard time has been growing in recent years, driven in large part by sleep scientists who argue it’s better aligned with humans’ circadian rhythm. One clever study compared sleep patterns of people living on either side of time zone boundaries as proxies for having sunrise come an hour earlier versus later. Those living in the proxy standard time regime got an average of 19 minutes more sleep per day, and the same study valued the associated health benefits at more than $2 billion. This is an impressive benefit, but not enough to outweigh the $3.5 billion this country would be paying to fix the damage incurred by deer collisions should we implement permanent standard time.

The trump card of standard time proponents is that we tried permanent daylight saving time once before — in 1974. After it went into effect, only 42 percent of Americans favored the change. Some parents disliked sending their children to school in the dark, and in only a few weeks, eight school children were hit by vehicles and killed in Florida alone, convincing lawmakers to reverse the shift.

Eight deaths may sound like a lot, but if you look at the country as a whole, morning fatalities of school children barely rose that January, from 19 to 20 — a shift that could be explained by normal year-to-year fluctuations. And if we were again to try making daylight saving time permanent, we’d save many more lives in the evenings.

I can understand why parents are worried about sending their children to school in the dark. But the best solution to that problem would be to have school start later. (Already many medical associations support this because of the variety of health benefits it could offer children, including the fact that they would get more sleep.)

If we move to permanent daylight saving time, we would potentially prevent hundreds of traffic deaths and tens of thousands of collisions between deer and vehicles. Robberies could drop by 7 percent.

Congress has the power to make this a reality. The Sunshine Protection Act was reintroduced to the House and Senate last March with broad bipartisan support — only to languish in the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee for a year. It’s up to the leaders of these committees to prioritize the issue this spring.

Every year, we gripe about the time switch, demand action and then return to our daily lives. But the toll on people and wildlife is too large to keep doing this year after year. And the longer Congress waits, the greater the risk of state bills for permanent standard time passing, making things worse instead of better. It’s time to spring forward permanently, and enjoy the benefits of brighter evenings year-round.

(Laura Prugh is a wildlife biologist at the University of Washington.)

BETSY CAWN sends a link:

March 10-16: SUNSHINE WEEK - Society of Professional Journalists

https://www.spj.org/sunshineweek.asp

WITH EVERYONE KILLING and fighting each other, and sinking each other’s ships, and crops not getting planted, and the labor shortage everywhere due to men being soldiers instead of growing food — how soon will there be famine all over the world? Nowadays when my husband and I hear bad news on the radio, we just look at each other and don’t talk much about it.

— Nella Last, Great Britain, 1941

YAKIMA, WASHINGTON, 1939...

Champion hop picker in squatter camp before the season opens. Earned five dollars a day in the 1938 season. Age twenty three, been on the road seven years. Married. "I think I did pretty well, only have one baby. Want to get out of this living like a dog." Washington, Yakima Valley...

Source: Farm Security Administration, Dorothea Lange photographer

MANY OF THESE MEN [Necessary war workers] who strike now were treated like dirt before the war: almost literally like dirt—they were tipped and shoveled out of the way and onto a sort of slag-heap of unemployed and unemployables. They didn’t learn love of country from that…now they have power, almost paramount power, and they use it to square up the account. It isn’t patriotism (the system that pauperized them wasn’t patriotism either): it is not in the end even common sense; but it is assuredly human nature. 

— Nicholas Monserrat

THE FATE OF THE UNION

by James Kunstler

“I think he borrowed a little something from Hunter tonight.” — Mike Lee, US Senator, Utah

Let’s face it: as pure theater, the president’s annual address to Congress has become a disconcertingly shabby affair, bursts of gloatish barking wedged into an hour of nearly continuous hand-clapping, as if drowning public utterances in applause might divert the audience from the empty, vicious bluster “Joe Biden” served up Thursday night. You couldn’t help but be reminded of the old Supreme Soviet in the twilight hours of Konstantin Chernenko, whose country’s renowned mortuary experts managed to embalm a year or so before his actual decease and interment.

The Ruskies back in the day had a secret recipe for premature mummification of their leadership; our pharma-driven experts prefer to mummify not the body but the personality with a cocktail of adderal, clonazepam, and prednisone — the latter responsible for the ‘roid rage on view whenever “Joe Biden” is hauled out of his catacomb for public performances.

The Kid from Scranton’s most memorably mendacious line got front-loaded, so as not to be lost on the watching millions already nauseated by “JB’s” pre-speech triumphal journey from the entrance down the aisle through the mob of his elected admirers clamoring for selfies:

“Not since President Lincoln and the Civil War have freedom and democracy been under assault here at home as they are today,” the president squawked.

True dat. The part he left out was that said assault emanates entirely from the very government he pretends to head. It’s reported (in The Epoch Times today) that since the start of this year the FBI has rounded up 93 new suspects in the event of 1-6-21 touted as “the insurrection” — most of the years-old charges related to trespassing, disorderly conduct, and parading, conduct now regarded as nation-threatening. He also left out the prodigious three-year-long campaign of his inter-agency flunkies to abolish the First Amendment by capturing all the transmitters of free speech. And never mind the regime’s banana republic style lawfare op to jail “JB’s” chief political opponent on spurious charges before the November election — rank, in-your-face election interference.

Also up front in the show: the regime’s lust to start World War Three by asserting falsely that Russia intends to invade and overrun Europe at any moment, in order to continue justifying our insane proxy war in Ukraine, now on its last legs. Putin Putin Putin is “sowing chaos throughout Europe and beyond,” the president barked to hearty applause, as if anyone in the chamber really believes it. The truth is that our country, now effectively the Intel States of America, has sown all that chaos.

The feckless Ukraine project has failed. The end of the Zelensky fake-out is near. The CIA announced it in last week’s Sunday New York Times, and all that’s left to do is cover-up the Biden family’s private racketeering activities in that notorious money-laundry and then somehow escape the massive national humiliation that will ensue when this fiasco is concluded, finalizing America’s loss-of-standing in the world. It’s all on “Joe Biden” and everybody knows it.

Now, the catch to the adoring hoo-rah ginned up on the left side of the chamber last night is that all the wildly applauding ninnies are plotting desperately to find some way to ditch “Joe Biden” before the party’s August convention, to avoid the embarrassment of having to toss him overboard at the last minute in a smoke-filled back room there — which would be an admission that his entire reelection campaign has been a ruse all along.

As of this week, they’ve lost on the simple expedient to get Mr. Trump erased from blue state ballots. The biggest court actions against Mr. Trump are collapsing spectacularly. Fulton County DA Fani Willis has so wrecked herself that she’ll certainly be dropped from the case, could be kicked out of her job altogether, and stands to lose her law license for committing crimes ranging from perjury to conspiracy with White House lawyers to interfere with the coming election — and then lying about it under oath. The case itself is now so tainted with prosecutorial misconduct that any sane jurist would dismiss it on summary judgement

Special Counsel Jack Smith’s main case (the “insurrection” rap) is getting batted around in the sure-thang DC federal district court, and could be defenestrated altogether by the Supreme Court any day now. I’ll go out on a limb here and predict that the so-called Mar-a-Lago document case will get tossed by Judge Aileen Cannon on the grounds of gross procedural misconduct as “discovery” reveals that the FBI raid was a dishonest pursuit of documents other than the ones logged on Jack Smith’s warrant — namely, Mr. Trump’s archive of RussiaGate crimes committed by the very DOJ that is going mad dog on him, an obvious gross embarrassment for them.

It remains to be seen what other sort of election interference mischief can be cooked up by the Party of Chaos. We know that Rep. Jamie Raskin is grandstanding to concoct a bill to kick Mr. Trump off the ballot by an act of Congress. It’s already fulfilled its purpose of getting Jamie’s puss on MSNBC to impress the home folks in his Maryland district. Short of the CIA or some other clandestine outfit from the fathomless depths of the Intel Community gunning down Mr. Trump outright, the party’s best bet probably is to bring on the chaos needed for martial law and cancellation of the election by activating sleeper cells of the jihadists, “military-age men,” Maoist agents, convicts, and mental patients they’ve illegally ushered across the border to join with Antifa and BLM in an extravaganza of street violence as warm weather sets the stage for rioting and mayhem.

All of that could easily be mooted by what looks like a dollar and bond market crisis shaping up on the financial scene in the spring days ahead. Why do you think Bitcoin and gold have made record leaps in recent weeks? I’ll tell you why: because a bunch of really rich people are fleeing desperately out of the dollar and things denominated in it for safe harbors as a financial ill-wind blows in from offshore. Alas, the BRICs are about to dethrone the world’s reserve currency. The value of our dollars could sink thirty percent or more overnight. The “unthinkable” approaches. So, maybe you better start thinking about it.

US HAS SECRETLY SENT ISRAEL OVER 100 WEAPONS SHIPMENTS IN LAST 150 DAYS

by Sharon Zhang

U.S. officials have secretly sent Israel over 100 shipments of weapons, amounting to thousands of bombs and arms, just since October 7, arresting new reporting finds as the Biden administration scrambles in public to contain a splintering of his Democratic base amid its support of Israel’s genocide of Gaza.

The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that members of Congress were informed of the sales, which were all separate, by U.S. officials in a recent classified meeting. This is far more weapons sales than previously made public by officials; before this, only two arms transfers to Israel were publicly reported, both having been approved by President Joe Biden invoking emergency powers to bypass Congress and both garnering strong opposition by pro-Palestine advocates.

The cache of weapons includes precision-guided munitions, small diameter bombs, bunker busters, small arms (like firearms), and more, The Post reported. They have been sent as experts have repeatedly said that Israel is committing war crimes in its indiscriminate bombing campaign in Gaza, and despite U.S. laws prohibiting military assistance being sent to countries committing human rights violations.…

truthout.org/articles/report-us-has-secretly-sent-israel-over-100-weapons-shipments-in-last-150-days/

MEANWHILE…

The complications of delivering aid to the hungry residents of Gaza were underlined on Friday when the authorities in Gaza said at least five Palestinians were killed and several others were wounded after they were struck by packages of humanitarian aid that were dropped from an aircraft. (New York Times)

STOP THE WORSENING UNDERCOUNT OF PALESTINIAN CASUALTIES IN GAZA

by Ralph Nader

Since the Hamas raid penetrated the multi-tiered Israeli border security on October 7, 2023 (an unexplained collapse of Israel’s defensive capabilities), 2.3 million utterly defenseless Palestinians in the tiny crowded Gaza enclave have been on the receiving end of over 65,000 bombs/missiles plus non-stop tank shelling and snipers.

The extreme right-wing Netanyahu regime has enforced its declared siege of, in its genocidal words, “no food, no water, no electricity, no fuel, no medicine.”

The relentless bombing has destroyed apartment buildings, marketplaces, refugee camps, hospitals, clinics, ambulances, bakeries, schools, mosques, churches, roads, electricity networks, critical water mains – just about everything.

The U.S.-equipped Israeli war machine has even uprooted agricultural fields, including thousands of olive trees on one farm, bulldozed many cemeteries and bombed civilians fleeing on Israeli orders, while obstructing the few trucks carrying humanitarian aid from Egypt.

With virtually no healthcare left, no medications, and infectious diseases spreading especially among infants, children, the infirm and the elderly, can anybody believe that the fatalities have just gone over 30,000? With five thousand babies born every month into the rubble, their mothers wounded and without food, healthcare, medicine and clean water for any of their children, severe skepticism about the Hamas Health Ministry’s official count is warranted.

Netanyahu and Hamas, which he helped over the years, have a common interest in lowballing the death/injury toll. But for different reasons. Hamas keeps the figures low to reduce being accused by its own people of not protecting them, and not building shelters. Hamas grossly underestimated the savage war crimes by the vengeful, occupying Israeli military superpower fully and unconditionally backed by the U.S. military superpower.

The Health Ministry is intentionally conservative, citing that its death toll came from reports only of named deceased by hospitals and morgues. But as the weeks turned into months, blasted, disabled hospitals and morgues cannot keep up with the bodies, or cannot count those slain laying on roadsides in allies and beneath building debris. Yet the Health Ministry remains conservative and the “official,” rising civilian fatality and injury count continues to be uncritically reported by both friend and foe of this devastating Israeli state terrorism.

It was especially astonishing to see the most progressive groups and writers routinely use the same Hamas Health Ministry figures as did the governments and outside groups backing the one-sided war on Gaza. All this despite predictions of a human catastrophe in the Gaza Strip almost every day since October 7, 2023, by arms of the United Nations, other besieged international relief agencies on the ground, eyewitness accounts by medical personnel, and many Israeli human rights groups and brave local journalists in that Strip, the geographic size of Philadelphia. (Unguided Western and Israeli reporters and journalists are not allowed to enter Gaza by the Israeli government.) (See the open letter titled, “Stop the Humanitarian Catastrophe” to President Biden on December 13, 2023, by 16 Israeli human rights groups that also appeared as a paid notice in the New York Times.)

Then came the December 29, 2023, opinion piece in The Guardian by the Chair of Global Public Health at the University of Edinburgh, Devi Sridhar. She predicted half a million deaths in 2024 if conditions continue unabated. (See her piece here: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/29/health-organisations-disease-gaza-population-outbreaks-conflict).

In recent days, the situation has become more dire. In the March 2, 2024, Washington Post, reporter, Ishaan Tharoor writes: “The bulk of Gaza’s more than 2 million people face the prospect of famine — a state of affairs that constitutes the fastest decline in a population’s nutrition status ever recorded, according to aid workers. Children are starving at the fastest rate the world has ever known. Aid groups have been pointing to Israel restricting the flow of assistance into the territory as a major driver of the crisis. Some prominent Israeli officials openly champion stymying these transfers of aid.”

Tharoor quotes Jan Egeland, chief of the Norwegian Refugee Council: “We must be clear: civilians in Gaza are falling sick from hunger and thirst because of Israel’s entry restrictions.” “Life-saving supplies are being intentionally blocked, and women and children are paying the price.”

Martin Griffiths, the United Nations lead humanitarian officer, said “Life is draining out of Gaza at terrifying speed.”

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, according to the Post, warned of an “‘unknown number of people’ – believed to be in the tens of thousands – lying under the rubble of buildings brought down by Israeli strikes.”

Volker Turk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said “All people in Gaza are at imminent risk of famine. Almost all are drinking salty and contaminated water. Health care across the territory is barely functioning.” “Just imagine what this means for the wounded, and people suffering infectious-disease outbreaks. …many are already believed to be starving.” UNICEF, the International Rescue Committee, the Palestinian Red Crescent, and Doctors Without Borders are all relating that the same catastrophic conditions are getting worse fast.

Yet, and get this, in this article, the Post still stuck with the “more than 30,000 people in Gaza have been killed since the ongoing war began.”

Just like the entire mass media, many governments, even the independent media and critics of the war would have us accept that between 98% and 99% of Gaza’s entire population has survived – albeit the sick, injured and more Palestinians about to die. This is lethally improbable!

From accounts of people on the ground, videos and photographs of deadly episode after episode, plus the resultant mortalities from blocking or smashing the crucial necessities of life, a more likely estimate, in my appraisal, is that at least 200,000 Palestinians must have perished by now and the toll is accelerating by the hour.

Imagine Americans, if this powerful U.S.-made weaponry was fired on the besieged, homeless, trapped people of Philadelphia, do you think that only 30,000 of that city’s 1.5 million people would have been killed?

Daily circumstantial evidence of the deliberate Israeli targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructures requires more reliable epidemiological estimates of casualties.

It matters greatly whether the aggregate toll so far, and counting, is three, four, five, six times more than the Health Ministry’s undercount. It matters for elevating the urgency for a permanent ceasefire, and direct and massive humanitarian aid by the U.S. and other countries, bypassing the sadistic cruelty against innocent families of the Israeli siege. It matters for the columnists and editorial writers who have been self-censoring themselves, with some, like the Post’s Charles Lane fictionally claiming that Israel’s military doesn’t “intentionally target civilians.” It matters for accountability under international law.

Above all, it lets weak Secretary of State Antony Blinken and duplicitous President Joe Biden be less servile when Netanyahu dismisses the low death toll by taunting them: what about Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

As a percentage of the total population being killed, Gaza can expose the Israeli ruling racist extremists to a stronger rebuttal for ending U.S. co-belligerent complicity in this never-to-be-forgotten slaughter of mostly children and women. (The terrifying PTSD on civilians, especially children will continue for years.)

Respecting the more accurate casualty toll of Palestinian children, mothers and fathers presses harder for permanent ceasefires and the process of recovery and reparations for the survivors of their Holocaust.