Mendocino County Today: Monday 4/1/24

Sunny | Flooded Field | Rainfall Totals | Rare Bird | Incompetence & Malfeasance | Trestle | Ed Notes | Richard Nowlin | Brush Street | Ukiah Sambo's | Emerald Dust | Employment Problem | Service Dogs | Clouds | Bulletin Boarding | Yesterday's Catch | Melville Pessimism | Trailer Park | Institutionalized Neurosis | AT&T Tricks | Hippynosis | EV Fuel Cost | The Reaper | Managed Growth | George Washington | Experience Becoming | Bunny Trauma | Marin Confidential | Men Kissing | No Soul | Donald Reverence | Killed Him | Better Bible | Hanging Laundry

DRY WEATHER with warmer interior temperatures are forecast today and Tuesday. A weak front will bring cooling, blustery northwest winds and a few showers on Wednesday. Much colder weather with lower snow levels and potential for greater amounts of precipitation are forecast for Thursday and Friday. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): As Justin Wilson used to say "don't foolin' around" - 44F under clear skies this Monday morning. Clear skies thru Wed then maybe a shower on Thursday & Saturday? We'll see. Our YTD rainfall totals:

2023: Oct 1.82” - Nov 3.24" - Dec 7.73”

2024: Jan 10.22” - Feb 14.40” - Mar 10.04” = YTD 47.45”

MONTHLY RAINFALL TOTALS for the 2023-24 rain season (Oct-Sep):

Boonville (44.05" total)

2023
0.76" Oct
3.28" Nov
10.02" Dec

2024
10.50" Jan
11.41" Feb
8.08" Mar

Yorkville (53.96" total)

2023
1.32" Oct
4.84" Nov
12.48" Dec

2024
13.32" Jan
12.80" Feb
9.20" Mar

TIM BRAY: Anybody interested in a rare-bird chase by boat?

This Short-tailed Albatross was seen over the Noyo Canyon, about ten miles out from Noyo Harbor, by the F/V Princess who sent me this excellent photo. If we get enough people together we could charter a boat and go look for it on Tuesday morning when the forecast shows a break in the weather.

The Short-tailed Albatross was historically abundant in the North Pacific, but was hunted to extinction by the mid-20th century. Or so it was thought, when scientists could find no breeding birds... But because Albatrosses take many years to reach maturity, it turned out there were perhaps 50 young birds out at sea at the time when the last breeders were killed. Those young birds eventually began repopulating and there are now a few thousand of them. Still critically endangered, and very rarely seen here.

GROSS TAX COLLECTION INCOMPETENCE & MALFEASANCE

by Mark Scaramella

Lake County Tax Collector Patrick Sullivan and Assistant Tax Collector Elizabeth Martinez presented their department’s results from their May 22, 2022, tax lien default sale to the Lake County Board of Supervisors last week. According to a weekend report by Lake County Record Bee reporter Nikki Carboni the sale totaled almost $1.4 million for distribution to the general fund. Martinez said that these funds were deemed “excess” because the revenue from the sale of the defaulted property exceeded the amount of defaulted taxes owed to the county. Ms. Carboni’s report did not explain the timing of the report — why the sale from almost two years ago was finally being reported in March of 2024. 

Mendocino County Supervisors have never received a comparable report, nor have they received an explanation for the lack of a report, nor have they ever asked about the subject. The last time the tax lien sales subject came up was in 2023 when Carrie Shattuck asked the County for a list of tax defaulted properties and was told that the Tax Collector’s office was unable to provide the report due to unresolved computer/software problems and that she should try again later, perhaps month later. We do not know if “later” ever arrived. But as far as we know, no such report was provided. We do know that even Shattuck’s simplest information requests have been stonewalled and delayed time and time again, despite her dogged attempts to follow up.

Tax defaulted properties are just one component of Mendo’s uncollected revenue that the supposedly broke county seems unable to report on, much less collect. The Board’s directive last spring that the CEO report include a monthly report on the status of assessing unassessed properties has been ignored for almost a year now, although County Clerk-Recorder-Tax Collector Katrina Bartolomie has verbally reported that several million dollars worth of “supplemental” assessment notices have been sent out in recent months. Bartolomie always notes that those “supplementals” are “not pro-rated.” 

These seemingly large numbers are very misleading however, since they give no indication of how much revenue the “supplemental” assessments represent to the County’s general fund. 

For example, last week Bartolomie reported that in March her office had sent out 345 supplemental notices for a total of about $38 million in additional assessed value. Ms. Bartolomie’s brief report did not mention the accumulated value of the Supplemental notices since the Board’s directive was issued. 

$38 million taxed at 1% per year, is about $380k per year, which, after pro-rating, might be $200k in additional revenue. Then, since the County only gets about 30% of property taxes (the rest goes to schools and special districts), the County’s share might be around $130k per year, barely enough to cover the half-dozen or so additional assessor’s staffers the Board approved last year in the false hope that it would be “revenue generating.”

But that’s only step one in the process, a property owner has to accept the “supplemental notice” (i.e., not dispute it) and then the tax has to be collected. These notices represent only a small fraction of uncollected taxes. As noted previously, the county is far behind on picking up re-assessed property when ownership changes hands (to be taxed at the value of the new purchase price); there are a large but unknown number of recent property purchasers who have yet to be billed for the value of their new purchases; there are unpaid tax delinquencies of an unknown but reportedly large amount; and there are the above mentioned tax-defaulted properties, which, if left collected for four years or more (i.e., without the formal filing of a lien) become uncollectable; and lastly there’s the actual sale of the tax defaulted property for the taxes due as mentioned in the Lake County report — a very long, cumbersome process at best. 

Despite the near-constant claims of multi-million dollar budget deficits, Mendo’s well-paid Supervisors, CEO staff, and financial officials have never expressed the slightest interest in a comprehensive report on uncollected taxes, much less what’s being done to make sure all taxes due are collected. Nor have they inquired about the status of the Teeter Plan and its accompanying Teeter Fund which is supposed to buffer the differences between unpaid or underpaid taxes and accompanying penalties and interest against the payouts to the schools and special districts, with the County (theoretically) pocketing the penalties and interest for the General Fund. 

Not only does this utter failure to address uncollected taxes represent massive official incompetence and gross malfeasance, but it deprives the County’s General Fund departments (Sheriff, jail, DA, Probation, Roads, Planning and Building, Environmental Health, and so forth) with funds necessary for basic county services which cost increasingly more and more every year as inflation erodes the spending value of whatever is collected and the Supervisors blithely hand out pay raises to employees and top officials. 

Instead the Board and top officials devote hours and hours to relative trivialities like… Oh, never mind.

* * *

VETERANS SERVICE OFFICE Return to Observatory Update:

CEO Darcy Antle told the Supervisors on Tuesday that “the Executive Office is working with the Air Quality District to identify an office space to relocate the District office out of 405 Observatory and we hope to have that move completed mid-April for Air Quality. The movement of the Veterans Service office relocation will take a bit longer than that but we are working to move them out.” 

Let’s review: the Veterans Service office was moved out of their 405 Observatory Avenue cottage/office in a little over a week in December of 2023 and the Air Quality District moved in. After an initial round of complaints in January, the Board issued a press release admitting that the move was mishandled, but insisting that the move was a done-deal. On March 6, however, after almost three months of agitation by veterans and their supporters, the Board reluctantly reversed that decision. But the reversal/move couldn’t be physically accomplished until a new location was found for Air Quality which had allegedly “lost their lease.” But that turned out not to be true because the lease increase the County claimed was a problem would have been paid by the state. It was later discovered that the real reason for the Air Quality District move to 405 Observatory was an attempt to capture the lease payments that the state had been paying by putting Air Quality into the county-owned Observatory Avenue cottage where the Vets office was. When the Board reversed that decision, instead of moving Air Quality into the county-owned Public Health facility on Dora (across the street, basically) where the Vets office was moved to, the County found an alternative location for Air Quality in a non-County owned facility where the state’s lease payments will again go to a private landlord, defeating the original idea to snag a few thousand a month in rent. We do not know what the about-to-be emptied offices at the Dora Street facility where the Vets are moving from will be used for.

ED NOTES

MEMORIES OF JEWISH SUFFERING at the hands of Nazis are the foundation on which most descriptions of extreme ideology and atrocity have been built. But these universalist reference points are in danger of disappearing as the Israeli military massacres and starves Palestinians, while denouncing as antisemitic or champions of Hamas all those who plead with it to desist. 

— Pankaj Mishra, The Shoah after Gaza, London Review of Books

YOU KNOW how to tell a Boonville guy? By his moral clarity. Hence Ukiah City Council member Juan Orozco's vote, as a second in support of Ukiah mayor Susan Sher, that the Council should come out against the continuing mass murders in Gaza. “We all want this to stop, don’t we?” Orozco said. "We don’t want any more atrocities happening on one side or the other. We see people out there suffering on both sides. We want that to stop. That’s what I believe the people are here to say. They want this to stop. And I do, too.”

EXCUSE my little irony about Boonville as a center of moral clarity, but it is good to see a guy like Orozco, raised up and schooled in Boonville, see this terrible issue clearly. Turned out, though, he and Sher were in the minority. After hours of talk, Ukiah is on the record as not on the record against even the tiniest responsibility for the U.S. funded and support for the attack on the two million trapped people of Gaza, 32,000 of whom, including thousands of children, have been randomly murdered as the Israelis carry out the pursuit of Hamas, slaughtering thousands of innocent Gazans as they go.

DR. ANDY COREN, as quoted by Sara Reith: “You are our elected representatives,” he reminded the Council. “You speak for us. And this is a horrible thing going on…All of these people have come out because it’s so important to us. So to table it would be such an insult to all these people. And, in my opinion, it would not be doing your jobs as elected representatives.”

WITH HER USUAL un-clarity, Ukiah council member Mari Rodin wanted the issue tabled, to go away: “I think the argument about opening a can of worms is also a really legitimate issue,” she said. “When are we going to say no to international issues? We’ve been here since 4:00 in the afternoon, and we haven’t even gotten to our agenda. And I honestly don’t think our resolution is going to make an iota of difference in this war.”

DEAR MS. RODIN: As a citizen of the country co-sponsoring the Gazan atrocity you are correct that your vote doesn't matter in the big pic, a position I daresay you would not take in Trump vs. Biden, but as Americans we have a special responsibility in this one because without our government's support the slaughter of two million trapped Gazans could not continue, and now that starvation has set in among those tragic people it is more urgent than ever to demand a ceasefire, the release of hostages, unimpeded aid to all of Gaza.

UKIAH INSTALLATION TO CAUSE CLOSURES - Parts of Brush Street will be closed in April during Purple Pipe Project construction work

Construction work on the Purple Pipe Project, and with it lane closures, will be moving to Brush Street next week, the city of Ukiah reported.

According to city officials, “starting the week of April 1, Ghilotti Construction will begin installing recycled water pipelines on Brush Street near Mazzoni Street. Work will progress to the east, ultimately going underneath Highway 101 to connect with the first three phases of the project.” 

City officials estimate that “this portion of the project is expected to take about two weeks, and will require traffic control during construction hours (7 a.m. to 5 p.m.) along Brush Street. When possible, one-way traffic will be allowed westbound only; full closures may need to be done intermittently.” 

During construction, “residents should plan to use Ford or Clara streets when possible. Traffic from the fairgrounds will be allowed to exit only on Mazzoni, and may proceed to State Street from Brush.” 

As for the other areas where the Purple Pipe will be installed, city officials report that “nearly all of the utility work related to this project is complete on Low Gap Road, Bush Street, and around Vinewood Park. However, near the end of April, concrete crews will be onsite to reconstruct sidewalks and curb ramps on Low Gap, and finally, after school is out, the section between State and Bush streets will get much-needed new pavement.” 

According to the city, “this phase of the project was made possible by a $53.7 million grant from the California State Water Resources Control Board, and completes Ukiah’s Recycled Water Project. Phases 1-3 were built with $34 million in funding from the State Water Resources Control 

Board, including grants and a low-interest loan.” 

Community Benefits from the Project: 

Almost 90% of the water used by Ukiah is replenished back into the water basin. 

Reduces demand on Russian River from 3,000 AFY to 300 AFY. 

Supports production of 1,000 AFY by the recycled water facility — enough for more than 2,500 families. 

Phases 1-3 support the needs of over 700 acres of ag land, increasing capacity to 1,000 acres with Phase 4. 

Infrastructure Expansions Completed through Phases 1-3: 8 miles of pipeline constructed 66 million gallons of storage. 

Infrastructure Expansion Included in Phase 4: 3 additional miles of pipeline. Addition of 5 million gallon Production Augmentation Unit (PAU).

EMERALD DUST

Editor,

Went home to Ferndale on Friday. The Victorian Village is turning into Mendocino village: gone are any memories of the artists and craftspeople who actually made things. It’s all kitsch and imported junk. No more Blacksmith Joe or Bennetts Ironworks or Hobarts Art. Instead there’s a store dedicated to dogs for those folks who push around their canines in strollers.

Fortuna’s evolution is much scarier. The meth seems to be taking over. I was waiting for the zombies to pop out at any moment.

Heading south you see that Rio Dell has two weed dispensaries. Just like the word cannabis, I have come to despise the word dispensary. There’s a new one in Eureka on Broadway. It looks like a bad tattoo on some tacky hunk of flesh.

Drifting down 101 I flew past Redway. Spring is beautiful, particularly in these ultra wet years. A DJ on KMUD strung together a set of wonderful songs by Iris Dement and Greg Brown. The song ‘Wasteland of the Free’ by Ms. Dement really hit home as I drove past the empty storefront of Geiger’s Market in Laytonville.

The dust is settling behind the Emerald Curtain. The old hippies can’t chop their own firewood anymore and their children can’t fly to Costa Rica every six months now that all their properties are being foreclosed on.

Where do we go from here? Your guess is as good as mine.

Kirk Vodopals

Navarro

CAOIMHIN KEVIN BUNKER:

During WW-II, Fort Bragg was especially challenged to maintain day-to-day business when so many young men were called up by the draft and sent far away in military service. It wasn't just employees that were being lost, but customers as well.

This Advocate & News ad from late August 1942 underscores that point: the Bernassini's had to reduce hours of operation of their Riviera Cafe on Franklin Street “for the duration.”

ALL RISE FOR THE SERVICE DOG

by Tommy Wayne Kramer

Service Dogs are the Marine recruits of canines, fresh from drill camp, ready to take on the world. 

Service Dogs are single-minded, utterly devoted and unswerving in their duty and loyalty. Because of their rigorous training, Service Dogs do things and go places from which ordinary pets are barred.

Keep that stuff in mind. 

NOTE: Until recently, friends, neighbors and other morons were free to bring all manner of “service” animals aboard public transportation. This brief breakthrough in civic advancement allowed you to enjoy a cross-country flight seated next to a chicken, hippie or boa constrictor. Or all three. The reality of course is that it made travel a potential nightmare for those of us hesitant to fall asleep adjacent to the business end of a snapping turtle.

Adjustments were made and today only qualified service animals are allowed to board, say, a 747 from SFO to CLT. So we set about getting Sweetie the dog trained for her cross-country mission. (NOTE: Our first mistake was naming a service dog “Sweetie” because no one takes a dog seriously unless named Bravo or Patton.)

We might have put Sweetie in a box and shipped her among suitcases and backpacks in the belly of the plane. Trophy would rather have dropped me at Fed Ex. 

Service Dogs get to ride first class among the poets, politicians and professors, whereas boxes of fruit, goats, common canines, journalists and crates of shoes of are stuffed below. 

Sweetie needed training and, inevitably, dog classes. 

Classes teach a dog to sit, stand, walk and sit again, bribed by expensive treats between chores. Fetch an old rag and get a biscuit. Jump through a hoop and get a smoked ham. By the end of the term she’ll be keeping a journal. 

Trophy was in charge of training, whereas I spent hours at the Forest Club purchasing expensive dog treats (beef jerky and Beer Nuts).

Classes went on and on. Every few weeks Trophy showed me a batch of medals, awards and certificates to frame and hang on the wall. Eventually Sweetie got a ribbon around her neck and a big gold plaque. She was an official Service Dog. She was eight months old.

We headed to SFO, Carolina-bound, and prepared for everything except for one thing we couldn’t have expected but learned around the time we rolled past Petaluma: Sweetie was in heat. Eight months old?

My dog is eight months old and she’s in heat? This means that in Dog Years she’s about to enter second grade and she needs a training bra. Hope she had sex-ed classes in addition to ones teaching Fetch and Sit.

At the airport I kept the dog pacing around outside to give her the opportunity take care of business while Trophy stood at a counter clutching various diplomas, certifications and letters attesting to Sweetie’s sterling character and noble heritage. The dog, dignified in red vest and shiny silver badge, was suddenly attracted to a handsome Doberman at the check-in gate. I yanked her collar, hard. 

Next, security. A uniformed officer glanced through the dog’s paperwork, then bent forward for closer inspection. Sweetie jumped straightup and knocked the agent’s glasses sideways. All our the gabble about rigorous training and drill camp instruction dissipated. We tiptoed toward Gate B-17.

Remember a couple paragraphs ago when I described 20 minutes outside the terminal making sure the dog had no need to go potty prior to the flight? Also, remember how Service Dogs are as highly trained as Marine recruits and devoted to serving people? 

Marching through the terminal on her pink leash, Sweetie dropped a pair of bombs on the polished floor, never breaking stride.I love a challenge. (Did you know all poop bags are purposely manufactured upside down and perma-sealed at both ends?)

I scrubbed the floor back to shiny, deposited her load in a garbage can and resumed the trek. We hiked another 50 feet and she extruded another bigger, moister and more aromatic mess. 

At the carpeted area of Gate B17 Sweetie proudly marked our arrival with a long stream of puddled urine. Plenty of witnesses, all probably wondering what consignment shop sold us the red “Service Dog” vest.

The flight was lacking in excitement. Oh, there were a few bloodstains on the pads we’d spread on the floor, our luggage didn’t get lost, and the flight crew lady mistakenly gave me an extra eighth-ounce bag of pretzels somewhere over Colorado. 

We arrived at Charlotte airport at 6:05 a.m., took a taxi home and went to bed with a big blonde dog, hopefully not very pregnant.

(Tom Hine, despite this column’s exaggerations and suggestions to the contrary, thanks Nancy Skelly and her dog training classes for molding Sweetie into a prize of a dog and a canine citizen even the imaginary TWK is proud to know.)

BULLETIN BOARD LIFE

by Paul Modic

I dropped off a friend’s rental application at the senior housing complex, conveniently located between the cemetery and hospital, where the wait time for living there is three to five years, then put an envelope containing ten “How To Apply For SSI” flyers on the bulletin board. On the way back toward the car I said hello to one of the residents going into her cottage and she invited me in to check out the layout.

“Oh no, thanks,” I said “One of your neighbors let me see inside hers a while back.” Then I remembered that I was trying to increase my social life, the main key to longevity I’d read in an article recently, told the long-time local that I would come in, and found her cottage very nice, roomy and modern with a wall of musical instruments, not like the cluttered one I had seen the month before.

A retired writer, her monumental work had been documenting the hippies around here, for her doctoral thesis, by living amongst us for a few decades and because of her activism in the seventies she was still concerned that she might be on some list, that the plans for concentration camps for lefties and hippies were still out there. I tried to sublimate my skepticism but then said, “Don’t you see that to even think that means they win, they’re in your head?” 

It was also more difficult to get high in a federal housing project where weed was illegal, so she had taken to driving down to the park to smoke her medicine. “Most of the residents smoke,” she said. “Maybe all of them.” (Horrors, I thought, senior housing in Southern Humboldt was overrun by a bunch of hippies!)

She talked nonstop, the only way I could say anything was to interrupt her often, as we hung out for forty-five minutes in her music room. I confessed that I’ve been going out of my way to add more social life, and told her about the longevity article. (“You see, I’m using you to help save my life,” I said.)

I went off to my next adventure on my “paper route,” driving around to all the bulletin boards is opening up a lot of “social life” moments. Outside the DSS office in the parking lot I ran into Joey, an old friend and one of my flunkies from years before, who was turning in the food stamps application for his baby mama. 

I mentioned my volunteer SSI outreach gig and he tried to figure me out. “So it’s community service? Did you get a DUI?”

“No,” I said. I wondered how I could explain to him that I was trying to inform seniors that SSI wasn’t just “crazy money” or disability any more, that it was government assistance available for anyone over sixty-five who hadn’t paid enough into Social Security to qualify, had less than $2000 in the bank, and owned only one house and car. “You see, sometimes I wake up and I’m feeling great, with a smile on my face, and immediately feel deflated when I think about friends, family, and people around the world who are suffering.”

“So you’re an empath?” he said, insincerely.

I thought about that and said, “Yes, I’m an empath!...No, I don’t believe that shit, hey, we’re all empaths. It’s annoying when someone says they’re an empath.”

We caught up a little more, he invited me to drop by his bar later for an OO% Heineken, a non-alcoholic beer, and I headed up the Redwood Highway to hit the bulletin boards on The Avenue of the Giants. (Since Joey lives out toward the coast, he agreed to monitor my SSI envelopes and fill them back up, when necessary, at the Whitethorn post office and the Shelter Cove General Store.)

I stopped at the Phillipsville post office, went in and found a tiny bulletin board, and asked the postal worker if I could post something next to it on the wall. He was very agreeable and I went back to the car to get the packet containing the standard ten copies of my “Old-timers Guide to SSI” article, and also my cardboard “tool box” containing scotch tape, grey tape, a box of pushpins, stapler, and a pair of scissors. Then I went to work rearranging most of the posters so my large envelope had the best visibility and access. 

I had to backtrack to get to Miranda as the Avenue of the Giants was closed for a bridge repair project, then parked in front of the post office for the first time since my visit two years before. (Which became my story “Phillipsville Memories.”)

I saw a family about to drive away and asked if they lived in Salmon Creek. 

“No, we don’t,” the father said. “Do you need a ride?”

“No, but that’s nice of you to ask,” I said. “Where are you going?”

“Weott,” he said.

“Oh, could you put this packet of information on the bulletin board for me?” I said. “It’s about SSI outreach.”

“Sure,” the friendly guy said.

“It can be stapled on the board at the post office,” I said.

“We live there. I have a stapler,” he said.

“Great,” I said and now regret not giving them one for Myers Flat also. I told them the story in the envelope had been in “The Independent” the week before, he said he had read it, and I told them I was going to have a regular column starting with the next issue. (The wife was very friendly with a big smile, while the teenager in the back seat was absorbed with her phone.) 

They drove away and I took my packet and tool box and surveyed the situation in the Miranda post office: the board was crowded, overlapping and extending onto the wall, and it took a while to rearrange the section to fit my over-sized envelope. (That’s when I “played God” in the bulletin board hustle, deciding whose to move to a worst spot to make way for mine. I noticed that everyone else wants something, while I’m only trying to give.) 

Someone I know came in to get his mail, recognized me and gave me a fist bump, and grabbed a few Independents off the stack. That bothered me because now that I’m about to have my first column in that paper I’m not happy that so many people use the Indie for fire-starter. 

When I went into the post office to ask if I could use staples on the bulletin board (she said no, just pushpins, but thanks for asking), I said hello to a friendly guy sitting there holding a baby. When I finished he was just leaving and I asked him if he was from Salmon Creek, as I really wanted to hit the bulletin boards up there, but didn’t know where they were, and didn’t want to drive all the way up.

He lived in Miranda, said his name was Gordon, and told me about Rubin, a teacher in the nearby middle school who lived up on the mountain. Gordon runs the “Basketball Jones” camps, was enthusiastic and overjoyed when I told him I was originally from the basketball Mecca of Indiana, and that I had a basketball court in my rec room in Redway. 

“Indiana dirt!” he said, then explained that someone had brought a jar of actual Indiana dirt back to Southern Humboldt, sacred for the true basketball fans I guess.

Since the teacher might not still be in his classroom or office, it was 4:30, I gave Gordon one of the SSI packets to give him later, along with my card in case there was a problem, and drove over to look for Rubin. After wandering around the campus a few minutes I found Room 2 and a custodian told me that he was next door in Room 3.

He saw me through the window and came to the door, I told him my mission and asked if he would put one of the SSI packets on the Salmon Creek bulletin board. He was very nice and agreed instantly, saying there were two up there, one at the forks and another at the school, and he would be happy to put them up there. (I gave him an envelope/packet and told him I’d give another one to Gordon to give him tomorrow so both boards could be covered.)

I went back to my car, and was accosted by an over-zealous security guy who didn’t like that I’d parked in the space between the two handicap slots. I assured him that it wouldn’t happen again, that I thought it would be okay after hours, and he continued ranting about the entitled people who didn’t think the rules applied to them. 

I found Gordon, still back on the town business strip with his baby, my handout package in his other hand, and told him the situation with Rubin. I got another packet out of my car and gave it to him.

“If you’re ever in Redway you have to come by and play a game of Horse,” I said.

“Indiana dirt!” he replied, and insisted he would come by.

I drove back to Redway, stopped at the “Shop Smart” bulletin board to check how many handouts had been taken since last week, and talked to a friendly guy who had driven across the country from Boston to work for a friend’s gym down the street. Another guy came by and said the first guy was an illegal alien, well he did have a distinct Boston accent. The second guy had an Independent in his hand so I took the opportunity to tell him I was going to get a column in it the following week.

The first guy, Kevin, wore a large distinctive cross, complained about money matters, said he was barely surviving on his veteran’s benefits, and looked great for seventy-four. “You’re an inspiration to us,” I said.

I told him I was heading over to the liquor store to pick up three copies of the latest Anderson Valley Advertiser as I had a story in it, actually the same story which I was passing out through my bulletin board obsession. He said he’d see me over there when I told him he has to get a copy of the AVA, because it’s a great paper with lots of interesting articles in it.

Over at the liquor story the checker, the artist Janet, sold me three copies and said that she was also starting to write a column, mostly about her, and it would be in the local real estate magazine monthly, starting in March. I talked with her some more but the customers were starting to line up for “the Devil’s juice” so she went back to work, while I headed to my friend’s bar down the street, as there was a bulletin board there also.

Bulletin board culture is interesting, I’m meeting a lot of people, and now I’m an expert as I’ve been poking around all of them in the Southern Humboldt area. I now know who the person is who takes double the space on the crowded boards with her massage flyers, who I met in the post office last week when I was putting up my first packet. (That was also the moment I ran into the editor of the Independent, asked him for a column, and he gave me one, 600 words.)

She’s very nice and outgoing, is also another of those nonstop talkers, and we have some of the same interests: writing, hiking, and dancing. However I am now the only one who knows that she’s a “Bulletin Board Hog,” so it will be up to me to gently mention that maybe, just maybe, she could kindly consider, if it’s not too much trouble, taking down one of her two full-page flyers when the board is crowded? You never know, she might be instantly perturbed and defensive, or maybe she’ll realize that the good times are over, and she’ll have to give up a little informational real estate on the Bulletin Board of Life? (Update: I never said anything.)

I went over to the bar and found my old flunky friend in conversation with Zara, who was planning to have a pop-up sushi event there next month, something I’d like to go to. The bulletin board was tiny so I put just one of my articles on it instead of the whole packet. I went back to the bar where my 00% Heineken was waiting for me. (The bartender was very friendly though you could tell we were going through some rough economic times as she wasn’t exactly one of those little hotties I was used to seeing there.)

Zara and Joey did some more biz talk, then we sat around the bar talking about life issues like their kids, medical assistance, and Burning Man, where the two had wallowed in the mud last year, both insisting it was a good learning experience, though they were wondering if it would happen again.

“I’d like to go,” I lied. “Only so I could be the only one who couldn’t get laid at Burning Man.”

Some more customers were coming in, I finished my free non-beer, and discovered it was Taco Tuesday! Joey said I ought to have some and when I declined he said well, how about just one? Then I had to admit that I had a lot of rules now, had broken them all the day before, had then been up half the night with insomnia, and so I had to be “good” tonight.

“Like what rules?” he said. “I guess I’m not old enough to have your senior issues.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I can’t eat, drink, or have screen time after 7:00 pm.”

“Oh, like beer or wine?” he said.

“No, all liquids, water.”

“What about weed?”

“I smoke twice a week.”

“Like Tuesdays and Thursdays?” 

“More like every three days.”

“What about masturbation?” he asked. Damn, how did he know?

“Well, that goes along with the weed,” I said, and started to explain that I use marijuana as an aphrodisiac, but the bar was filling up, and I’d feel a little weird shouting the M-word across the noisy room, as a cute little waitress glided by with a tray of tacos, showing there is hope for the economy, and it was just another day of bulletin board life. 

CATCH OF THE DAY, Sunday, March 31, 2024

CURTIS BETTENCOURT, Fort Bragg. Battery with serious injury, paraphernalia, resisting. (Frequent flyer.)

TIMOTHY FERGUSON, Santa Rosa/Ukiah. Battery with serious injury, attempt to keep stolen property, vehicle registration tampering, suspended license.

CHRISTOPHER GARCIA, Ukiah. Attempt to keep stolen property, parole violation.

STEVEN HANDOVER, Covelo. Vandalism, grossly negligent discharge of firearm, criminal threats.

RHONDA HIATT, Fort Bragg. Suspended license, no license, probation revocation.

NICOLAS MARTINEZ, Ukiah. Domestic abuse.

STEPHANIE MILBERGER, Ukiah. Controlled substance for sale.

JOEL NEELY II, Willits. Domestic battery. 

JOSE RAMIREZ, Ukiah. Parole violation.

FABIAN RODRIGUEZ, Gualala. Under influence, controlled substance.

BENJERMAN SHENKIN, Covelo. Domestic battery.

HERMAN MELVILLE always remembered that he was an heir of Melvilles and Gansevoorts, and his view of the body politic was fairly conservative. He hated materialism and progress, admired the principles of the Declaration of Independence but doubted that they could work in practice. His ideal society, as sketched in his poem, “The Age of the Antonines,” was the early Roman Empire, when “a pagan gentleman reigned,” when everyone knew his place, there were no demagogues or parvenues, and honor counted for more than money.

In his late, great poem “Clarel” a bluff ex-sailor named Rolfe ventures to suggest that American democracy may be able to avoid the internal conflicts that destroyed all past civilizations. An ex-Confederate soldier named Unger, who, according to literary critic Helen Vendler, presents “Melville's truest insights into the human condition,” replies that America is a mass of “slumberous combustibles sure to explode.” Looking out on the America of the post-Civil War days, with its racial conflicts, industrial strife, crime-ridden inner cities, unchecked corruption in Washington, unchecked greed on Wall Street, uncontrolled immigration and growing gap between rich and poor, Melville had every reason to be pessimistic about his country's future.

— Robert Wernick ,”In Melville's Lifetime, Fame Proved Fickle” 

THE MISFITS who are being “bullied” into homicidal rampages, those who find school life unbearable or useless should be permitted to leave at age 14 (as was legal during the immigrant era) to try to live life on their own. Let them return to school when and if they so desire; the presence in the classroom of adult students would infinitely improve both primary and secondary education, since it's grade segregation by age that perpetuates and aggravates the tyranny of social cliques. You say the young are far too immature to survive at 14? Well, that's proof positive that they've been infantilized by their parents in this unctuously caretaking yet flagrantly permissive culture that denies middle-class students adulthood until they are in their 20s and later — long after their bodies are ready to mate and reproduce. The Western career system is institutionalized neurosis, elevating professional training over spiritual development and forcing the young to put emotional and physical satisfaction on painful hold. 

— Camille Paglia

AT&T'S TRICKERY

Editor: 

AT&T’s proposal to abandon traditional landline telephone service concerns Californians for good reasons. Yes, copper wire technology has gone the way of the dinosaurs. Yet in many regions there are no other options. It’s unconscionable to isolate Californians from the rest of the world simply because a for-profit company decides it’s not profitable enough to maintain an in-place system.

Do the rest of us want to help pay the costs for people in outlying and remote areas of the state? Yes, for everyone’s benefit. Besides, we’ve been doing it for years. Anyone who pays for AT&T cellphone service is already paying for the landline system. Built into our sky-high rates are the costs of construction and maintenance of both systems, plus extra to assure the business generates profits. It’s certainly not going to shut AT&T down if they maintain the landline system for safety and well-being in rural areas.

Be prepared, though. There’s a devious plan here. Soon we’ll see an additional charge itemized on phone bills for landline support. AT&T won’t have to pay for the system after all. Each one of us will continue to subsidize it, but at a higher cost, which was probably the plan all along. They don’t hire the best lawyers for nothing.

Gretchen Thompson

Sonoma

‘IT’S CRAZY’: HOW SOARING PG&E RATES ARE IMPACTING CALIFORNIA’S ELECTRIC CAR OWNERS

by Julie Johnson

California wants residents to buy electric vehicles to fight climate change, to the point of ending the sale of new gasoline-fueled cars in 2035. 

But after a 20% rate hike this year by Pacific Gas and Electric Co., charging a car — one of the single biggest items on electric bills — just got more expensive. And the trend is unlikely to let up anytime soon: State regulators are considering further rate increases for PG&E this year.

“It’s crazy,” said Austin Ball, a Walnut Creek engineer and Tesla Model 3 driver whose PG&E bill more than doubled this year. 

In Petaluma, Davinder Banger said he’s paying about $20 per charge at a Supercharger this year, compared with between $10 and $14 previously to charge his Tesla Model Y. Banger, 48, said he’s still saving money on his commute to Contra Costa County compared with what he’d be paying for gasoline. 

“But I have noticed a change,” he said. 

Electrification proponents worry that rising rates will cause people to balk at giving up their gasoline cars for electric ones at a time when the state needs them to make the switch. 

It costs about $73 to fill the tank of a Toyota Camry and travel about 506 miles, said Jack Conness, an electrification policy analyst with Energy Innovation, a Bay Area-based, nonpartisan climate policy think tank. Using data from PG&E and the U.S. Energy Information Administration, he estimated that traveling the same distance in a Tesla Model 3 costs about $32 for charging, while the Chevrolet Bolt would cost $43. 

That means Tesla drivers are still saving about $41 and Bolt drivers $30 over the cost of gasoline. 

That’s down from inflation-adjusted savings of about $59 for the Model 3 (using 2022 gas and electricity prices) and about $51 in savings for the Bolt.

A new electric car costs about $2,039 more on average than a conventional gas-powered car as of January, according to a Cox Automotive study. But e-vehicles have lower costs to maintain, repair and fuel up. Rising electricity prices run the risk of scaring potential new owners concerned about their bills, said Severin Borenstein, an economist and professor at UC Berkeley’s Energy Institute at Haas.

“We’re discouraging people from doing something we really need them to do,” Borenstein said. 

Mark Toney, executive director of ratepayer advocate nonprofit The Utility Reform Network, said that “a whole lot more is at stake” with rising utility bills than just household budgets. 

“We need to understand the consequences of these rate increases on climate change,” he said. 

A Pew Research Center survey found 70% of people interested in buying electric cars said saving money on gas was a major factor in their thinking.

The rise in PG&E rates affects a significant portion of the country’s electric vehicle drivers: The utility says that about 1 in 7 EVs across the country plugs into the utility’s California grid. 

California Assembly Member Phil Ting drives a Tesla Model Y, and the car company’s phone app estimated he saved about $1,772 last year by not buying gasoline. The San Francisco Democrat doesn’t expect to hit the same savings mark this year, but he’s a major proponent of electrification and loves his electric car.

“For me, it’s not game-changing at this point,” Ting said. “But the overall price of electricity is a major issue this year.” 

Los Altos Hills resident Barry Smith, an early adopter of EVs, said he’s noticed his PG&E bill is much higher this year. 

“The big financial advantage was fuel savings: the more you drove, the greater the savings,” Smith said. “If there’s not that much savings, people are going to wait.” 

A PG&E spokesperson emphasized that it still costs less to charge a car battery than to buy gasoline, especially for drivers signed up for its special EV rate plans. 

The utility’s main EV rate plans, available during off-peak hours from midnight through the afternoon, allow drivers to charge their cars at home for the equivalent of about $3.23 to $3.29 a gallon of gasoline, PG&E said. That’s below the average price of $4.80 for a gallon of gasoline in California as of Monday, as listed by AAA.

But PG&E said that only about 25% of electric vehicle drivers have signed up for a rate plan designed for customers who charge at home. A company spokesperson said they are trying to identify customers with electric vehicles to do more outreach about the rates.

Ball, the engineer from Walnut Creek, said he’s just learned about the electric vehicle rate plan and was looking into signing up.

Ball began comparing fueling costs with friends when he first got his electric car about four years ago, and said his savings were impressive. But when he did the same in February with a friend during a weekend away at Pismo Beach, it turned out Ball had paid only slightly less after driving similar distances.

“It was about a $10 difference — nothing to brag about,” Ball said.

(SF Chronicle)

NOBODY really expected the initial Internet boom. In the early 1990s, as the city was coming out of a recession, a lot of planners suspected that the next big development boom would be in biomedicine and biotechnology. And nobody predicted how quickly the vast sums of venture capital would flow into San Francisco — or what a profound effect that money would have. To put that avalanche of money in perspective: Calvin Welch, a longtime neighborhood activist who was a close advisor to Mayor Willie Brown between 1995 and 1999, has calculated that the total amount of money that the United States spent between 1941 and 1945 creating the Bay Area's entire wartime infrastructure amounted to about $8 billion in today’s dollars — less than the amount of venture capital that private investors sunk into the region in just three months in 1999. Still, Welch told us, by 1997 it was clear to everyone working in the city-planning arena that a major economic change, with the potential to shift the direction of development in the city, was under way. “At that point,” he said, “the city could have actively intervened and had an impact on what was going to happen.” City planners, for example, could have created strong, effective industrial-protection zones in areas like SoMa and the Mission to prevent dot-com offices from displacing the existing small-business base. Art studios and performance spaces could have been given protected zoning status, so that no developer could displace artists with office workers. Development could have been kept downtown, or directed carefully into areas like the Third Street corridor, where empty space was plentiful and nobody would have been displaced. The city, in short, could have created a real economic plan aimed at preserving a diverse economic base, preventing San Francisco from becoming a high-tech Detroit and reaping the benefits of a somewhat slower, more controlled boom without the downside of the current bust. Instead, Welch said, during the crazy days when the city was being sold off and chopped up, block by block and project by project, “The city planning department was absent without leave.” “This could have played out in a very different way,” he noted. “Bryant Square never needed to happen.”

— Tim Redmond, SF Bay Guardian

I was one of those public grade school kids who labored under George Washington’s stern contenance. He must have been god. Or at least god's right hand man. We outgrew this. We know he was just a man. A highly flawed man. Flawed, yes, but also good and lucky. George Washington was America first celebrity. We weren't going to be denied. He lost most of the battles but he did win the Revolutionary War. Actually the British tired of it and lost it. This ultimate politician was not political. In essence he was the only game in town. He had Morris & Hamilton as his spin-meisters, shady land deals & lots of girlfriends. (Beginning to sound familiar?) He looked like a hero, acted like a hero, mostly told the truth although he didn't talk much. He was very brave & loyal especially to the electoral college delegates. 

— Historian/humorist Marvin Kitman, on George Washington

In 2006 a high school English teacher asked students to write a famous author and ask for advice. Kurt Vonnegut was the only one to respond - and his response was magnificent:

“Dear Xavier High School, and Ms. Lockwood, and Messrs Perin, McFeely, Batten, Maurer and Congiusta:

I thank you for your friendly letters. You sure know how to cheer up a really old geezer (84) in his sunset years. I don’t make public appearances any more because I now resemble nothing so much as an iguana.

What I had to say to you, moreover, would not take long, to wit: Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.

Seriously! I mean starting right now, do art and do it for the rest of your lives. Draw a funny or nice picture of Ms. Lockwood, and give it to her. Dance home after school, and sing in the shower and on and on. Make a face in your mashed potatoes. Pretend you’re Count Dracula.

Here’s an assignment for tonight, and I hope Ms. Lockwood will flunk you if you don’t do it: Write a six line poem, about anything, but rhymed. No fair tennis without a net. Make it as good as you possibly can. But don’t tell anybody what you’re doing. Don’t show it or recite it to anybody, not even your girlfriend or parents or whatever, or Ms. Lockwood. OK?

Tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces, and discard them into widely separated trash receptacals. You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what’s inside you, and you have made your soul grow.

God bless you all!"

Kurt Vonnegut

EASTER 2024: MARIN COUNTY'S LORDS OF WAR, PRINCES OF CLIMATE DESTRUCTION

1. 251-Page County Document Shows Majority of Residents Support Ceasefire As U.S. Authorizes Add'l Arms; 2. Mayor Ian Sobieski's "Good Kind of Missile"; 3. Ross Billionaire's War on Katie Porter

by Eva Chrystanthe, Marin County Confidential

This past February, two shy but persistent West Marinites snagged a meeting with Dennis Rodoni, the President of the Marin Board of Supervisors, in an attempt to convince Rodoni to place a ceasefire resolution on the Board's Meeting Agenda. According to one of the West Marinites, Rodoni stated that he was reluctant even to place a ceasefire resolution on the agenda because local opposition to ceasefire outweighed support. I brought this claim to the Board on March 20 during public comment, and Rodoni did not dispute it.

To verify the claimed pro/anti-ratio, I had submitted a Public Records Act request to County Counsel Brian Washington's office on March 7. The parameters of this request were broad: I asked for "all correspondence regarding: Israel/Palestine; Palestinians and Israelis; and Ceasefire; to and from the County Board of Supervisors from October 7, 2023 to present." By March 18, the County produced a 251-page PDF response that included emails and relays about telephone communications. This arrived with a polite note from County Counsel that additional correspondence would be provided on a rolling basis, with the next tranche expected on or before April 2.

I will wait for that second tranche to do a fuller tally, but from only the first set received, it is clear that the vast majority of respondents are in support of a ceasefire resolution. The correspondence in support of ceasefire, particularly from Jewish residents of Marin County, are heartbreaking. I include one such example sent to Supervisor Katie Rice on December 5, 2023:

"I attended today's meeting & was next in line to speak when public comment was closed this morning. I live in District 2. I have also lived in Israel, at Kibbutz Ramat Rachel, as did my father before me. I urge you to support a ceasefire resolution. Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza predates the creation of Hamas by 20 years..." The full text of this resident’s two-part email is below, I have redacted the name only.

The few anti-ceasefire emails are far less personal, and some appear to be based on a form letter. At least one anti-ceasefire email was sent directly from Jonathan Mintzer of the generously-funded JCRC, but Mintzer does not indicate whether he is a constituent or not. Mintzer’s two-page email is included in full at the end of this newsletter.

Local Media Still Turns A Blind Eye To Growing Grassroots Ceasefire Petition Movement:

What does it tell you about Marin's local media that, after failing to report on the many months of large numbers of residents of all ages pleading for a ceasefire resolution at the Board of Supervisors' meetings, not a single local reporter even ran a PRA to gauge the ratio of written correspondence? This is the same local media that has repeatedly refused to acknowledge the still-growing “Ceasefire Now Marin” petition started by Joe McGarry, despite the potential personal and professional blowback that might accrue to those who sign.

Perhaps more than the sheer volume of signatures, it is the movement itself that should be acknowledged. Ordinary citizens who have not been involved in local politics previously are now coming to the Board to advocate publicly for ceasefire and Palestinian rights, and connecting with other anti-genocide and anti-war activists. There is something brewing here.

Get Ready For A Summer of Protests:

This past winter we saw activists shut down the Port of Oakland in support of Palestinians, and just last week, activists attempted to stop a US Naval ship docked in San Francisco that was reported to be carrying supplies for Israel. Both of those efforts took place despite rain, as have many of the largest Bay Area protests.

Expect much larger pro-Palestinian protests during spring and summer's better weather: Despite the fact that yet another poll shows a majority of Americans support a ceasefire, the Washington Post was obliged to report a massive shipment of additional US arms to Israel. This included over 1,800 two-thousand-pound bombs, and 500 five-hundred-pound bombs. What is the purpose of this shipment except to slaughter the remaining Palestinian population in Gaza? To continue to bomb people undergoing famine is a war crime layered on an existing series of war crimes.

Yet amid all this, Marin County Supervisors still refuse even to place a ceasefire resolution on the agenda — the simplest thing in the world to do.

2. Mayor Sobieski's "Good Kind of Missile"

On February 12, 2024, as Israel's war on Gaza raged into its fourth month, and just weeks before the 70th anniversary of the infamous Castle Bravo thermonuclear tests marked deteriorating relations between the US and the Republic of the Marshall Islands, a curious entry appeared in Marin's alt-weekly Pacific Sun:

Titled "Rocket Science" and penned by the Sun's "award-winning local news reporter" Nikki Silverstein, the fawning ode to Sausalito Mayor Ian Sobieski is more sponsored content than political profile. It lauds the angel investor as the son of a rocket scientist who, after graduating Virginia Tech with a philosophy degree, "worked on designing missiles for the Army." Silverstein then quotes Sobieski's specific detail: Sobieski stated he worked on "the good kind of missile, by the way – the kind that shoots down other missiles."

The article mentions Sobieski's deep concern about climate change and its impact, but it is telling that Silverstein does not ask Sobieski how his cryptocurrency investments and his work building and testing "the good kind of missile" contributed to climate change.

Nor does Silverstein question Sobieski about the effectiveness of "the good type of missile" in shooting down other missiles. But even a cursory review of Sobieski's bio on "Angels Capital Association" turns this up (with no mention of the word Army): "Prior to his Ph.D., he (Sobieski) worked on aspects of an anti-missile design system for the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization."

If you are of a certain age, as Silverstein and myself both are, you should recognize that organization by its acronym, BMDO, which achieved a certain infamy as part of President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative. BMDO was responsible for mismanaging the Kwajalein Missile Range, otherwise known as the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site, located in the Marshall Islands. As The Hill, not exactly a radical publication, reported this past February on the significance of the Marshall Islands:

"March 1 marks the 70th anniversary of a the thermonuclear weapons test called Castle Bravo, the most powerful bomb ever detonated by the US military. It created a fireball 4.5 miles wide, hotter than the core of the sun, and launched ten milion tons of radioactive debris into the air around Bikini Atoll. Bravo casued the worst radiological exposure of all US nuclear tests, which makes it horrific that the United States waited days to evacuate nearby islands. Hundreds of islanders weren't evacuated at all. Then the U.S. government began secretly studying the Marshallese people like "mice' under Project 4.1... Bravo was just one of 67 US nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands from 1946 to 1958, equivalents to 1.6 Hiroshima bombs every day for 12 years."

Asking Relevant Questions Isn't "Rocket Science"

Although US nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands ended in 1958, other ballistics testing continued, yet the environmental and health effects of that are not even raised in Silverstein's article. To be clear: asking Mayor Ian Sobieski about his work for an institution that deliberately used Marshall Islanders as test subjects would have been a simple enough thing for an actual reporter to do. It would have provided Sobieski with an opportunity to "open his heart" and discuss the ethics of his work for/with BMDO and what BMDO's ballistics testing have meant for climate change. In fact, both Sausalito and the Marshall Islands are facing flooding due to climate change, and this is not uncoupled from the defense industry and defense agencies. (This crisis is not improved by the reality that in just the first two months of Israel's recent assault on Gaza, emissions from the "conflict" amounted to 281,315 tons of carbon dioxide.)

When I asked Silverstein during a lengthy conversation on March 17 why she hadn't pressed Sobieski on his work with BMDO, and why she misidentified his work as "for the Army" and not specifically BMDO, she told me that it was just reported it as a light piece. She pointed to what she thought made the article light-hearted, without addressing any of the serious omissions and contradictions in the article. I asked her if the article was a form of unacknowledged sponsored content. Silverstein stated that all sponsored content in the Pacific Sun was clearly marked as such. I don't think that's entirely the case, and I will be examining the closeness between the Pacific Sun's sponsored content and its "serious" articles in an upcoming review.)

But for now consider the shift: the Pacific Sun, which was founded as an anti-war publication, is now promoting the notion that there is "a good kind of missile". And on March 18, 2024, the publication's sole news reporter, Nikki Silverstein, when asked what Marin's "ceasefire kids" would think of her refusal to report on their activism, stated with no embarrassment whatsoever: "I don't care what they think." Silverstein's statement was made despite the large number of Jewish Marin youths who have sacrificed class hours to plaintively beg the Board of Supervisors over a period of months for a ceasefire in order to stop the ongoing genocide of their Palestinian age peers in Gaza. And if you don't find Silverstein’s statement shocking, you might need to take a field trip outside of Marin County to clear your head.

3. Ross Crypto-Currency Billionaire's Company "Ripple" Labs Funds Anti-Katie Porter PAC:

Perhaps because his fellow tech billionaires are so much more demonstratively outrageous, Ross blockchain billionaire Chris Larsen has managed to keep a slightly lower profile. But in Wednesday's newsletter, I noted that a recent SEC motion against Larsen for selling unregistered securities has placed Larsen under some scrutiny. The SEC is seeking $2 billion in fines from Larsen, whose $59 billion net worth in 2018 now reportedly hovers at a "mere" $3 billion.

It's not clear why a guy in the process of losing what would appear to be 95% (?) of his net worth in approximately the last five years would have spent so much money on surveillance and pro-police ballot propositions in San Francisco. (Unless he fears the general population finding out what he's been doing, and hopes to augment his own personal security detail through generous funding to police-favored programs.) But some donations from Larsen's company, Ripple Labs, to a super-PAC that focused on the senate race, were more clearly pragmatic.

According to opensecrets.org, Ripple Labs donated $20 million to Fairshake, a super-PAC that funded attack ads on failed Democratic Senate candidate (and current Congressional Representative) Katie Porter.

Why would a nice guy like Chris Larsen, who reportedly sent donations to protesters at Occupy over a decade ago, and who just held a fundraiser for Jane Fonda's Climate PAC, want to attack Katie Porter, the chipper little congresswoman with the whiteboards and the progressive proposals?

Perhaps because Rep. Porter had, in 2022, joined Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren in launching an investigation into "whether cryptocurrency mining in Texas was having an impact on the state's electrical grid and on electricity prices for ordinary consumers."

But neither Porter nor Warren represent Texas. So why are electricity prices in places like Texas so important to them? Possibly because crypto and blockchain technologies use so much energy that they're already having severe effects on the climate. The more crypto/blockchain technology (which Larsen profits from), the hotter the planet, which means poor people and laborers will need more air conditioning. But they won't be able to afford that air conditioning, because Larsen's profiteering comes at the expense of the electrical grid. And that means more heat-related deaths. And those higher temps also mean more crop failures, more wildlife dying, more food insecurity, and more political turmoil.

That's why Warren and Porter's investigation is important. Meanwhile, Porter's Senate campaign opponent, the pro-Israel Adam Schiff, touts crypto and blockchain as important new technologies, and he has campaigned to keep those environmentally disastrous industries right here in California. This is consonant with his acceptance of hefty donations from AIPAC to turn a blind eye to the climate effects of Israel's US- funded assault on Gaza.

The Chris Larsen SEC complaint is a developing story that I and many other reporters are following with interest. But I'm also looking into whether Larsen and his billionaire friends were trying to influence elections in Marin. And, as always, I have questions about how local media treated Larsen and other powerful Marinites with kid gloves. A question that reporters like Silverstein at the Pacific Sun and Halstead at the Marin I-J might have asked powerful Marinites like Chris Larsen and Ian Sobieski — in all the years of access afforded by their publications — might have been:

How can you claim to be defending the environment when much of your wealth accrues from industries that are destroying the environment/climate at a rate we've never seen before?

A second question might have been:

Why has the state and federal government allowed your companies to do so much damage to the environment/climate, with no actual value delivered, and in a way that impacts the poorest people on the planet — and all without any discussion of compensation for those impacted?

But you, dear Reader, might want to ask another question on the next day that the temperature in Marin soars into the triple digits: 

Why are men like Larsen and Sobieski still being allowed to get away with such destruction? What if the wrong people are being held in Marin County’s underground jail?

‘WHY DO SOME BRITISH PEOPLE NOT LIKE DONALD TRUMP?’

by Nate White

A few things spring to mind. Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honor and no grace — all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed. So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.

Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing — not once, ever. I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility — for us, to lack humor is almost inhuman. But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is — his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.

Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers. And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults — he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.

There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface. Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront. Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul. And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist. Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that. He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat. He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.

And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully. That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead. There are unspoken rules to this stuff — the Queensberry rules of basic decency — and he breaks them all. He punches downwards — which a gentleman should, would, could never do — and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless — and he kicks them when they are down.

So the fact that a significant minority — perhaps a third — of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think, “Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy” is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:

• Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are.

• You don’t need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.

This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss.

After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum. 

God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid. He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart. In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws — he would make a Trump.

And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish: “My God… What… have… I… created?” If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.

SPOTTED TAIL of the Lakota on being asked if he knew of Jesus: “I've heard all about him. How good he was. The great things he did. I also heard how the White man killed him. We never would've done that. We never would have murdered the Son of the Great Spirit.”

— Jeffrey St. Clair

SCRIPTURE, an on-line comment: 

Everyday Christianity includes practices that directly contradict the instructions of the Christ.

I grew up a spiritual child in a secular home, so came to the Bible late in life. I have read the standard King James New Testament several times. I also have an Orthodox teaching version of the King James (which tries, & fails, to explain away the contradictions. As if the Christ was an incompetent speaker who needs interpretation, not of metaphor, but very specific, clear statements! I’ve also read a new English version (for its large print) & a version called “The Passion” which includes some Hebrew & Aramaic translations & explanations of differing translations, but also some odd interpretations.

I am now reading a translation direct from Aramaic of the Assyrian Eastern Christian Church. Their Bible was painstakingly & rigorously copied & proofread from the original Aramaic without any intermediate translations. It is arguably the oldest, most correct version we have.

Published in 1933, the author grew up in an isolated community that still spoke Aramaic & lived close to the original culture of the Christ’s time. So Aramaic is his first language & he fully understands the idiom of his native language & culture. Hid advanced education was in the west, so his English very good too.

He appears to have based his work on the King James version, & makes corrections from there, from including missing passages to correcting mistaken translations.