Letters (March 12, 2024)

SKATEPARK TEAM REGROUPS

Dear AVA,

Thank you so much for supporting the AV Skatepark Project by graciously publishing information and updates about the project! It means so much that you are supporting our community mission in this significant way. AV youth need safe, public spaces to nurture connections, and more opportunities for free recreation. A skatiepark will go a long way towards filling those needs, and your support brings us closer to making that dream a reality. Thank you!

As you know, we didn’t receive the $2.2 million CalTrans grant we applied for to cover construction of the skatepark, a community pavilion and other AV Community Park improvements. But we are not giving up! There is so much momentum behind this project, and we have accomplished so much already:

• Acquisition of the skatepark site.

• More than $310,000 raised.

• Completion of a custom skatepark design, architectural drawings and engineering surveys.

• Publication of the AV Community Park Initiative Development Plan.

We have regrouped and are charging full steam ahead to reach our fundraising objectives. Our current goal is to fully fund Phase I! (Skatepark Basics: $950,000) by December 2024, in time for skatepark construction to be completed before our top student leaders graduate in June 2026.

Please stay tuned for updates! If you’re not already subscribed to our e-newsletter, you can sign up by scrolling to the bottom of our website (avskatepark.org), and/or follow us on Facebook or Instagram!

With Gratitude,

Noor Dawood, AV Skatepark Project Manager and AV Service Learning Team Teacher.

ndawood@avpanthers.org

INJUSTICE IN COVELO

Mr. Anderson,

My name is Rosento Cordova. Cora Lee Simmons was my mother. She lived on heirship land handed down to her by her father here in Covelo. When she passed the land was willed to my older sister and I, my sister Rosalie passed in 2021 leaving me as the surviving heir and therefore all of my mom’s interest reverted to me.

Not knowing how much you know about heirship property the parcel can be divided depending on the amount of survivors into hundreds of people. Last Year I was served a Cease and Desist order by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, even though I am an heir to this property I still need to obtain a residential lease agreement by obtaining consent of .50 of the other hires to “legally” reside here.

Around September a group of heirs filed a civil suit in Tribal Court to enforce the BIA order. As we had an initial hearing where I petitioned the court to dismiss the case due to lack of jurisdiction and improper service of the case(a technicality that should have thrown the case out).

At this hearing some testimony was given, outright lies were told with zero evidence to support the claims of the filing parties against me.

My motion to dismiss was never ruled on, however on Friday without any further hearings since January 16th the corrupt judge issued an order snubbing his nose at the federal entity of the BIA, and ruled to enforce his own Cease and Desist order.

I need help in fighting this injustice. I know my mom spoke highly of you. I am turning to you for any help you can provide even if it just shedding light on this issue with an article that could reach the right person out there in your readership.

I appreciate your time.

Respectfully

Rosento Cordova

Covelo

LEW CHICHESTER NOTES:

Regarding “Injustice in Covelo” and the current dilemma of Rosento Cordova, his situation with a contested heirship property is only too typical and pervasive all over the reservation in Round Valley. The properties which seem to be completely trashed, with decades of household garbage, abandoned vehicles, unbelievably derelict dwellings, these are the heirship lands, vestiges of the allotment act. The allotment act was an attempt, at least a hundred years ago, to get rid of the reservation, break it up into private properties, and the federal government gets out. Much of the reservation was broken up in to ten acre parcels and some form of title created. A lot of these parcels were eventually lost to tribal members and that’s where we got the “checkerboard’ of reservation/tribal/private property here. The remaining heirships frequently have contested situations of who is allowed to live there or make decisions on what happens on the property. The Tribal Government doesn’t have jurisdiction, or at least doesn’t seem to exercise whatever authority they might have. It’s the BIA, in Sacramento. These heirships are the properties which we frequently see with the leased greenhouse grows and lots of trash. One individual heir, perhaps one out of a hundred, makes the deal and profits from the grow, then not cleaning anything up. It’s a mess. I hope Rosento Cordova can get this worked out somehow. I knew his grandfather, Emmet Simmons, and his mother, Cora Lee. They developed the housing and improvements on the property. Seems to me he is certainly a legitimate heir with a right to be there as much as anyone else. Good luck, it’s a corrupt and flawed system.

REMEMBERING DAVE NELSON

Editor,

I was sorry to read about Dave Nelson’s passing. He was my attorney some years ago.

I was arrested for a crime I did not commit, but it did not look good and the DA was not friendly. A mutual friend suggested I contact Mr. Nelson, at the time a criminal defense attorney, who agreed to meet with me. We talked for maybe 20 minutes, and he agreed to take the case. He said cases like mine were difficult. His fee was $1,000 up front (a lot of money back then), and more, much more, if it went to trial.

I don’t know what magic Mr. Nelson worked on my behalf, but he contacted me about three weeks later to say that the charges had been dropped. He wished me well and hoped life would work out better for me. I could tell that he didn’t believe everything I told him, but he took me at my word and was a true professional.

That was my first and only experience with the criminal end of the legal system. I learned that being found guilty or not guilty, or even being arrested in the first place, often has little to do with whether you committed a crime or not. How you react when facing hostile law enforcement officers at 4 in the morning, and how the DA feels about the kind of crime you are accused of — for that matter, which attorney in the DA’s office handles the case — can seal your fate, unless you are fortunate enough to have the money to hire someone experienced and competent like Dave Nelson. Without Mr. Nelson, I likely would have gone to jail for a long time.

I remember an old folk song that Joan Baez used to sing, “And there but for fortune go you and I.” I used to think the word fortune referred to luck. I now know it is the other definition of the word.

Name Withheld

Ukiah

HOW TO LIVE HEALTHIER

Editor,

Sorry to hear about your cancer. I have an 18 year old grandson with a malignant brain tumor so I have been reading up on the disease and I am going to make a few recommendations for your survival. There is no charge for this good advice.

It sounds like you are at a stage where surgery is essential and preferred over chemo and radiation. However, you should ask your doctors about immunotherapy(sp). I have hope that all cancer treatment will evolve in this direction. Here is how it works: As I am sure you know when some foreign disease invades you body your immune system responds by sending out your white blood cells to destroy the invader. The trouble with cancer cells is they have the ability to resist the white blood cells and keep on growing. With immunotherapy they give you a drug that enables your white blood cells to go in and destroy the cancer cells. this is a highly preferable approach than the toxics of chemo and radiation and can still have benefits after surgery.

A supplement is found in a variety of mushrooms. After hydration mushrooms are the next best immune booster. The Japanese use them extensively in treating cancer. There is a business in Washington state called Fungi Perfecti that offers books, extracts, and supplements. I often see bags of powdered mushroom combinations at grocery outlet. They are easy to add to soups and gravies. I am attracted to the combination of immune boosting foods with immunotherapy. it is also important to go down fighting since there is always a mental factor. Some years ago PBS did a three night special on cancer and the thing that stuck with me was that two different doctors at different times said,”Some people get well and we don’t know why.”

For what it is worth I would also recommend reading the Blue Zone books to get a model of a life style that enables a person to live healthier and longer (12 years on average). They studied the 4 or 5 Blue Zones around the world and isolated 9 components in their life styles that kept them healthier for longer. Being aware of these factors and emphasizing them is a wise thing to do. The Adventists are the only total vegetarians, but the others eat primarily a plant based diet (95%). If you want real science it wasn’t that long ago that the World Health Organization conducted a large world wide study looking at cancer stats combined with diet and concluded that red meat is a Category I carcinogen, right in there with tobacco and plutonium. It doesn’t help that here in the U.S. the cattle are fattened up with gmo corn laced with another carcinogen, roundup. It is time to give up those grease burgers.

I am the first to admit that I am in over my head giving advice here. However, it is important to try everything and find something you believe in. The AVA and your incisive writing has greatly enhanced my life here on the north coast. Hang in there.

Donald Cruser

Little River

POINT ARENA HISTORY

Editor,

I was dismayed to read of your medical difficulties, but thank you for not taking the usual road asking for sympathy - an all too familiar path for us oldsters. Once a Marine, always one.

Your mention of Capitola (The Captain) interested me. I am in possession of a copy of a photograph taken of him and an unidentified woman lounging in front of the Point Arena Record building (now a small brewery) around the end of the 19th century.

The Record building was one of the few buildings in downtown Point Arena that survived the ’06 earthquake and subsequent fire. I owned the building, in a very run-down condition, in the early 1980s, but due to other projects I passed it on to Murray McGuirk who did a splendid restoration to its present state.

Additionally, Ambrose Bierce was a favorite of my brother John. Bierce’s ‘The Devil’s Dictionary’ was Johnny’s bible, as he quoted from it often, as one could see from reading his column in the Chronicle of the 1970s.

Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

Richey Wasserman

Point Arena

EXPAND MENTAL HOSPITALS

Editor,

Regarding “Initiative to build 20,000 homes for mentally ill Californians delivered far less” (California, SFChronicle, Feb. 20): This article blames the wrong sources for the No Place Like Home initiative’s failure.

Like all recent housing laws, the initiative forced local communities to surrender their rights to bureaucrats and developers. It is not the NIMBYs (local citizens) who are the problem, it is the wrong-headed ideology that rules state housing policy.

California does not need to build scattered housing across the state to deal with the problem. It already has the infrastructure and laws available to do the job.

While the new Proposition 1 measure and No Place Like Home depend on local construction and management of housing and care delivery, current institutions are already doing what is needed on a diminished scale.

In the 1960s, the state’s mental hospitals were largely dismantled in an hysteria of charges over poor care. We still have these buildings, and the property they sit on could accommodate new housing and a centralized care system that could be more efficient than one dispersed around the state requiring layers of oversight.

There is no need to reinvent the wheel. We have the framework and need to give it the resources to function effectively.

Niccolo Caldararo

San Francisco

ELECTIONS OFFICE SOWS DOUBT

Editor,

Tsk tsk. We are living in a time of public distrust of election integrity, concern about voter disenfranchisement, suspicion regarding ballot-counting manipulation and potential subsequent impacts on voter turnout. Everyone involved with election administration should be on heightened alert when performing election process duties. That the County of Mendocino Elections Office’s vendor’s vendor dispersed incorrect ballots is an irresponsible error of monumental proportions.

Our election now smacks of impropriety. There are tens of thousands of invalid ballots loosely strewn all over the county. Thousands of registered voters await delivery of their corrected ballots to cast their vote in the primary election — on time. Although the County reports that “the vendor” will disseminate replacement ballots at its expense, there is clearly expense to the County (taxpayers) for cleaning up this mess — fielding phone calls from the public, scrambling to identify reception of invalid ballots and to contact these voters, putting in place strict verification measures for replacement ballots cast and assuring non-duplicative votes are counted. Not to mention the immediate and ongoing investigative responses and communications with the public.

The County’s “Q&A regarding incorrect Mendocino County ballots,” is thorough and helpful in its comprehensive coverage of what went wrong and what’s being done to correct this situation. How interesting it is that “…this appears to be an unfortunate case of a simple human error…” Unfortunate? Simple? How unfathomable it is that one individual can “simply” upend an entire institution. How fragile we are.

Here is a question that the Q&A did not address. How are we, the voters of Mendocino County, the voters of the United States, to have our confidence restored — in this, a fundamental civil right of citizens in a democracy?

Carol Stump

Ukiah

BRING BACK PAPER BAGS

Editor:

Nowhere have I read anything about a return to brown paper grocery bags. They were banished a decade ago. Why? I don’t know. They are the only bags that decompose readily. Leave one in a puddle and see why.

When my parents owned a grocery store in the 1970s, a paper bag was considered overhead. Five different sizes for various purchases. They were never paid for by the consumer. They were reused, at least in my house, for lunches and other needs. I plant my raised beds with a liner of paper bags. My cats loved them more than boxes for play. We made Halloween costumes with them. In grade school, they were book covers that you could customize with drawings. When they ripped or you were done with them, you threw them in the trash where they decomposed naturally.

A problem was created by plastic bags. Various proposals to rid the environment of plastic bags have only made it worse. Ever see a brown bag blowing in the trees after a flood? Or on the side of the road? Never, because they self-decompose.

Ban all plastic grocery bags, and bring back environment-friendly brown bags.

Susan Moeckel

Cazadero

NAME CHANGE KELSEYVILLE

Editor:

The group Citizens for Healing wants to change the name of Kelseyville to Konocti due to atrocities Andrew Kelsey committed against Native Americans in the early days of California (“What is in a name?” Feb. 18). An opposing group, Save the Name of Kelseyville, believes the name change won’t make a difference. The reality of past events can’t be altered, but the community can refuse to tolerate what Kelsey’s name represents. Names are not neutral; they are directly connected to power and privilege.

For decades, many people were unaware of the atrocities suffered by Native Californians, Black miners, Chinese laborers and others whose bodies and labor were appropriated for profit. Books like “California, a Slave State” by Jean Pfaelzer provide the untold stories of people who lived through slavery and appropriation from the mid-1800s to the present. The cat is out of the bag. Stories cannot be untold, events cannot be undone, but we can take steps to right historical wrongs.

Elizabeth Evans

Santa Rosa

AARON BUSHNELL’S SACRIFICE

Editor,

On TV yesterday, I saw President Biden holding an ice cream cone. He looked chipper. Said he “hopes” the Israeli/Palestinian ceasefire deal will be done Monday.

Switch to dying Palestinian children.

Next, I saw Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu being “interviewed” by Margaret Brennen. He oiled through his falsehoods little hindered Ms. Brennen's occasional shrill question.

Click to Gaza's ruins and wrapped corpses waiting burial.

Then, I saw Secretary Blinkin on the podium in Argentina. He looks like the ghosts of the tens of thousands of people he has helped kill visit him every night. He had the grace to stutter and choke as he denied the Palestinian genocide.

Jump to the International Court of Justice’s decision regarding the Palestinian genocide. They'll decide in SIX months. How many Palestinians will be alive then?

View images of food trucks not allowed into Gaza.

I understand Aaron Bushnell's choice. The horror of the slaughters in our world, some engineered by our country, is unbearable. Take action from Aaron Bushnell's sacrifice.

Protest USA Funded Wars!

Joan Vivaldo

San Francisco

MY HEART’S IN S.F.

Editor,

I’m saddened when I read all of the negative stories about the decline of San Francisco. I dwell on the beautiful areas that I remember from when I lived and worked in The City for 30 years.

I worked on the waterfront repairing ships. The smell of the Bay and the piers and the wildlife and the fog is impregnated in my soul. It was beautiful and magical.

There was a vibe and feel in my old neighborhood that defined San Francisco, and it will always be there. I miss the shopkeepers, the bartenders, the fabulous restaurants and the nationalities of the people walking the streets.

The bottom line is I miss San Francisco, and I know it’s still there and it will never go away. I hope I can go back and take a walk back in time, to breathe in the City, to soothe my soul.

Matt Bergamini

Carson City, Nevada

OUTRAGEOUS PERMIT FEE INCREASES

Editor,

I was at Planning and Building yesterday for a client to pull an electrical permit to change out a 200 amp service. The permit fee increased from $260 to $560. The fee increased over 100%! There is no way on God’s Green Earth that this is a reasonable fee.

The Mendocino County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 for this usery. Because of my protestations about the unjustified and illegal fee increase, the CEO’s office now has Planning and Building staff using time clocks to track their time spent on assisting customers.

This is being done after the fee increase was approved by the Board of Supervisors. Typical Mendocino County governance. Talk about shutting the barn door after the horse got out.

I submitted a Public Records Request for a copy of the training materials used by county management to train staff on how to use the time clocks. The results of my request showed that there are no training materials. Some staff members I have spoken to have stopped using the time clocks altogether or make up the time spent on customer service.

The county elected officials and its management staff are the reason Mendocino County is on a downhill slide. We deserve better.

Scott Ward

Redwood Valley

CUFFED & STUFFED

Editor & Readers,

As a frequent flyer in and out of the Mendocino County Jail since 1986, almost 40 years, I have seen a lot. I've seen Sheriffs come and go, Jail staff come and go. And I have watched the world go round and round. Many things have changed and many remain the same.

The one constant that I have witnessed and experienced is the conduct of the jail deputies in Ukiah. I hate to sound like the devil's advocate here, but they have always maintained a high level of professionalism.

I can not speak to the validity of those who claim abuse by jail staff. I can only speak of my own experience. I am always left somewhat baffled by the stories I’ve read over the years in the AVA alleging such abuse.

In reading with interest the allegations that Kelli Johnson has lodged against Mendocino deputies and jail staff, I am baffled by her claims. Forgive me for being critical and passing judgment. Allow me to explain my skepticism.

Kelli claims that she was left unseat-belted in the cop car? As someone who has been cuffed and stuffed in a cop car many times, I can say that it is the first thing they do. Not necessarily because they care about your safety, but it's a liability issue.

Once in the backseat everything you do and say is being recorded. Cops know that and that is why a seatbelt is mandatory.

Kelli then claims they gave her a “rough ride” to Ukiah. Anyone who has ever driven Highway 20 knows that it is a rough road to drive. I would imagine it would be especially rough to a drunk chick in a cop car. It doesn't take three hours to drive from Fort Bragg to Ukiah on a good day. It's about an hour and a half, less for cops who tend to be heavy footed on the gas.

These two claims tend to cause my skepticism.

In my humble opinion, this is what I believe happened:

I believe a self-entitled, spoiled ass brat came over from Sacramento and got drunk on the beach. She got drunk and acted like a crazy woman. Someone called the cops. The cops tossed her in the back seat of the patrol car and drove her to Ukiah where they dumped her at the jail. I believe she terrorized the cops who drove her to Ukiah by screaming profanities at them the entire trip like most spoiled brats do. Once in the jail her tirade continued. She was enraged at not being treated with Princess gloves. After all, “How dare you?! I am a lawyer!”

Now she is on this personal crusade to prove to the world that she was traumatized and abused by Mendocino cops and jail staff when in fact it's the opposite! Everyone who has had the misfortune of having contact with her that day surely were the victims of her tantrum and disrespect!

Again, this is only my personal opinion. If I could offer Kelli Johnson a bit of advice it would be to pick her battles more carefully. This is one she will not win. I would also remind her that she is local lucky her tantrum occurred in Mendocino County and at the Ukiah jail! If it had occurred in Sacramento the jail staff there would have handed her ass to her.

Nonetheless, good luck kill her. May she find some peace.

Respectfully,

Allen ‘Sonny’ Crow

Vacaville

PS. To my attorney, ally and friend Mr. Kevin Davenport who continues to come through for me with only seconds left on the clock, I appreciate you, brother.

THANKS FOR WOKING US

Editor,

In the February 21 edition there was a blonde joke.

Blonde jokes are no less hateful then black, yellow or brown jokes. The one in the February 21 edition is misogynistic and anti-white. Did you allow this joke because the bigot protagonist of the joke got what was coming to him? Well, this did nothing to cancel out the harm caused by proposing the “blonde joke” in the first place.

Why? Because as long as we are starting with the premise that “blondes are dumb or airheaded,” we are perpetuating that practice regardless of the conclusion of the joke. Any joke that is “funny” at the expense of another person's identity (race, gender, etc.) is a level of attack, especially those old, familiar blond, asian, black, mexican or “you fill in the blank” jokes that we grew up with.

Hating is not reserved for whites against blacks or men against women or anyone against anyone. Eliminating racism and sexism and all the "isms," comes down to eliminating all hate. Can we all deal with our own resentments another way?

Thank you for your time.

Patricia Hall

Gualala

ED NOTE: Here’s the offending joke. Readers can decide for themselves how offensive or sexist it is.

A blonde was in need of some quick cash, so she walked around her neighborhood, knocking on doors and asking people if they had any work she could do. Eventually, she found a man who offered to pay her $50 to paint his porch. The man gave her a can of paint and a brush, told her to let him know when she was done, and went back inside the house to watch TV with his wife.

Once the man had returned to his wife, he snickered loudly. His wife asked what the man had done, and when he told her, she remarked,“George, you are such an s.o.b. You know perfectly well our porch circles more than half of this house and will take that poor doofus woman forever to paint.”

About 30 minutes later, the blonde traipsed into the house with the paint can and brush, and proudly informed the man that she had finished her job.

Amazed, the man handed her $50 and complimented her on the speed with which she had worked.

The blonde replied, “Well, it was really hard, but I got it done easily after a while. Oh, by the way, it’s a Ferrari, not a Porsche.”

‘KYRGYZSTAN METEOR’

Dear Editor,

I hope you’re feeling more up to snuff!

Our Family Patriarch passed away the other weekend, at home. He was a USMC veteran from the SE Asia conflict, including countries where we were not supposed to legally be; a Chicago Police Homicide Dick (West Side!) who made his bones in the infamous I-57 Murders Case; and finally Chief of Security for the Chicago Public School system.

As you’d expect, he was quite the Cannaphobe, to put it mildly.

The ONE time he acquiesced to being “turned on” to the Herb it was live resin! He ASKED and I told him, Put a grain under your tongue, let it dissolve, relax and enjoy…

I’m SO glad I could interact with him in that way, even if just once. Live Resin is the cleanest, strongest, most body-accessible form of cannabis. When the opioids-synthetics or otherwise fail, try live resin! Or even before, why wait? Ask Pebbles, SHE’LL tell you!

Namaste and Happy Healing.

David Svehla

In the City

NOT THE PARTY I KNEW

Editor:

Donald Trump has single-handedly destroyed the Republican Party of Ronald Reagan, who would turn over in his grave to hear the vitriolic words out of Trump’s mouth calling people vermin and telling Vladimir Putin to “do whatever the hell he wants.”

He is not the same man that I voted for twice. He is so full of revenge and retribution that he thinks of nothing other than how to get even for an election he full well knows he lost, but just can’t live with the results.

If you listen to his rhetoric, he repeats his lies over and over and over until people actually believe him. He uses the tactics of a cult leader, as Jim Jones did, to keep the MAGA group engaged. Even Republicans in Congress are drinking the Kool-Aid.”

I cannot vote for a morally corrupt man who thinks he is on the same plane as Alexei Navalny and Jesus.

Please vote for Nikki Haley on Tuesday. I look forward to the day I can turn on the TV and not hear the name Donald Trump mentioned. The man is a threat to our democracy.

Margie Handley

Willits

CUT THE BULL

Editor:

American politicians speak in platitudes because generalities evoke opinions minus the liability of facts. But Democracies grew from a populace wanting to discuss and be involved in the political process. For consensus to work at its best, voters need a clear understanding of the issues in dispassionate language. Problem-solvers do not have biases; politicians do. Legislators use ambiguities to avoid accountability. Fortunately, solutions usually determine the guilty.

So, to cut the bull distributed by malicious legislators, here are some definitions of buzzwords. A conservative is a lacky who lobbies for fewer business taxes, labor laws and benefits. A liberal is a person who campaigns to ease the burden of economic survival on the working class. A capitalist is a person who wants the working class to pay for every aspect of living. And they would charge the poor for breathing if they could meter the volume of use.

Tom Fantulin

Fort Bragg

APPALLED & DISGUSTED

Editor:

On one recent day, I received three political hit pieces in the mail. One was from supporters of Ariel Kelly attacking Rusty Hicks, one was from supporters of Hicks attacking Kelly, and one was from a Realtors’ group attacking Chris Rogers. I am beyond appalled and disgusted by such behavior. I was raised to never say something about a person unless it was something nice; political discourse has deteriorated to such a base level that it is no surprise that many people are no longer interested in taking part in the discussion. Please think about how you treat others and try to find positive things to say about candidates.

Stephen Pasternak

Ukiah

DRUGS IN JAIL? EASY

Editor,

Reality check: Illicit drugs have long been rampant in jails, but historically undetected by all official procedures as the substances were and are imported and distributed by corrupt staff and prisoners but rarely lethal. Countless ex-incarcerated users confirm this (my best friend said it was as easy or easier to score in his maximum security facility than outside it; the gangs worked with the guards, for profit). Fentanyl has just changed the risk picture dramatically as there’s no room for error, so ODs have spiked all over. That’s the current sad difference, on streets and jails/prisons, and even in hospitals and at otherwise more genteel social events. But drug use “inside” is far from a new problem.

Steve Heilig

San Francisco

NO EMERGENCY ANIMAL CARE ON THE COAST

Editor,

I'm not bitching here (well maybe just a little). Actually, I'm trying to understand how a City the size of Fort Bragg can have no emergency services for animals. I certainly don't expect any of our Vets to work day and night but there has to be a solution to this. It's horrible for the animals to have to travel over the crooked roads and then for many more miles when they are ill or injured because we have no services here. Yes, there may be a couple who would come in for their own client's, but most have a recording to call Santa Rosa after hours. It's very frustrating trying to do the best thing for an animal you love but there is no help unless you travel many miles. Just wondering if anyone has any ideas on this subject. I spent a few dollars short of $1000 yesterday going to Lake Co. to get help for Luna and would have loved to have spent that money locally. BUT…

Judy Valadao

Fort Bragg

TWEEKERS & TWEAKERS

Editor,

In response to Jim Dodge’s vicious takedown in the December 27 AVA of my humble attempt to describe the emotional turmoil of my recent home invasion, he criticizes my spelling (and the Editor and the AVA as well) of the word tweekers (vs tweakers), one more example of the intellectual elite of “Manila,” if there really is such a place, piling on the hillbillies of the Sohum outback, as if I don’t have enough problems cleaning up after the tweekers.

Mr Dodge, to be perfectly clear, when I wrote the essay I looked up the spelling and found that either was acceptable, and also looked all over the internet and found no mention of your “Society of Language,” making me wonder if you are also a fictional character fronting for Tinaski, Pynchon, or other reclusive authors of our generation.

Mr Dodge doubts my knee-jerk argument that the invaders were tweakers, an assertion I made solely upon the discovery of bags of bolts, screws, candles, and a large variety of other items they assembled in a few bags and drawers around the room. I would call that obvious evidence of tweakerism, unless the miscreants were double-fake comedians seeking to deceive? (Yes, I was not feeling very charitable at the moment and my judgments came fast and loose.)

Mr. Dodge also offers the possibility that an open tequila bottle was evidence among the bolts and screws that it was booze-lovers and not meth heads, but what he didn’t know was that thirteen bottles of red wine in the cupboard were untouched.

And furthermore… Okay, cut the crap, who am I kidding? I’m burying the lede: Jim Dodge read my essay, commented on it, and named me five times?! Sure, nothing he said was remotely positive but that doesn’t matter, freaking Jim Dodge read my story!

(Granted, his letter was five times better than my piece, and twice as long, but that’s not the point: I loved his novels Not Fade Away and Stone Junction, though never read Fup, I guess I have an aversion to talking ducks, and also ghosts, which is why I haven’t read Louise Erdrich’s latest, though greedily lapped up all her others.)

Jim Dodge?! I should just quit now and really retire, but just today I’ve started a weekly column in the Humboldt Independent (available at the Eureka and Arcata Co-op and all over Southern Humboldt), so please read it and see if you can eviscerate those dreams as well.

Thank you

Paul Modic

Redway

NEWSOM & PG&E PROFITS

Editor:

I read that PG&E’s profits are climbing, up 24% in 2023 over 2022 (“PG&E profits climb on electricity, gas revenue,” Feb. 23). The solar industry is laying off workers, and the industry is shrinking. Gov. Gavin Newsom appoints members of the California Public Utilities Commission. These commissioners are the ones who have approved PG&E’s rate increases and the rules on solar buyback. Shouldn’t our governor work to stop climate change and have electricity rates that encourage buying electric vehicles?

Graham Hutt

McKinleyville

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