Mendocino County Today: Tuesday 4/16/24

Sunny | Turkey Tails | Shots Fired | Skunk Illusion | Finger Fern | Palace Pressure | Om Circle | Ed Notes | Redwood Furniture | Senior Center Dinner | Krenov Talk | Boontling Classic | Sutley Tribute | Rummage Sale | Beacon Deal | Hip Replacement | Edmundson Affair | Yesterday's Catch | Confrontation | Gaza Protests | Orphanage | Fatuous Clamour | Comparing Rates | Library Tale | Entertainer Esch | Vivid Life | Stormy Thing | Fan Boy | Zacatecas | Blacksmith | NPR Boss | Trump Trials | French Female

GUSTY NORTHERLY WINDS expected in coastal areas through mid-week as high pressure builds into the region. Increasing temperatures beneath clearing skies will allow interior valleys to approach 80 degrees by late week. Marine stratus expected to return in the latter half of the week as northerly winds subside. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): 43F under clear skies this Tuesday morning on the coast. A bit windy again today otherwise it looks like spring has sprung with a lovely forecast in hand.

SHOTS FIRED IN FORT BRAGG

On Saturday, April 13 at approximately 4:36 pm, Fort Bragg Police officers were dispatched to Safeway for a report of a disturbance involving shots fired. Upon officers’ arrival, it was determined several subjects had already fled the scene. 

Through their investigation, officers determined Matreyus Tiscareno-Meyer age 18 out of Fort Bragg approached a male adult, and initiated a verbal altercation. The altercation escalated when Tiscareno-Meyer retrieved a machete from his vehicle and attempted to strike the other male. A physical altercation ensued between the two and a third male, identified as Mario Sanchez age 31 out of Fort Bragg, approached and began discharging several rounds at Matreyus Tiscareno Meyer. Involved parties then fled the area. 

The machete involved was recovered on scene, along with other evidence. It was reported that Matreyus Tiscareno-Meyer fled the scene in a gold sedan, later identified as a gold Saturn, which had its passenger rear window broken out during the altercation. Based on information obtained on scene, officers suspect Hailey Hawkins age 20 out of Fort Bragg, to be the owner and driver of the associated gold Saturn. It was also determined at least one male juvenile associated with Matreyus Tiscareno-Meyer and Hailey Hawkins was present when the altercation occurred, and the firearm discharged. 

Officers began a search of the area, checking residences associated with the involved parties. As a result, a search and arrest warrant was obtained and subsequently served at a residence in the 500 block of Stewart Street. Sanchez was located at the residence and arrested. He was transported to the Mendocino County Jail for the following charges: Attempted Homicide, Assault with a firearm and Child Endangerment. Other charges are being investigated and pending. 

Officers issued a be on the lookout for Matreyus Tiscareno-Meyer for violation of Assault with a Deadly Weapon, and are actively looking for Hawkins for questioning regarding the incident. 

This investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information on this incident is encouraged to contact the Fort Bragg Police Department at (707)964-0200, or Officer Frank of the Fort Bragg Police Department at (707)961-2800 ext 210. 

This information is being released by Chief Neil Cervenka. All media inquiries should contact him at ncervenka@fortbragg.com.

RE THE SKUNK TRAIN:

The main reason a link to the National Rail Network is important to the Skunk is to maintain the illusion that they are a “Public Utility” and thus exercise the privileges that designation confers. Their plans for the millsite property in Fort Bragg depend on this to be able to bypass the local zoning laws, permitting, coastal commission rules, and other annoying regulations that everyone else in Fort Bragg has to follow. I think their claim is toast and it’ll be interesting to see what happens once they give up the fight.

— Mark Taylor

CITY OF UKIAH ISSUES NEW ORDER AGAINST CURRENT PALACE HOTEL OWNER

by Mike Geniella

In a surprise move, Ukiah city officials are demanding that the Palace Hotel's current owner, Jitu Ishwar, submit a signed contract with a qualified structural engineering firm by today to evaluate the historic landmark's existing condition independently.

If Ishwar fails to comply with the city’s second formal order regarding the safety of the massive brick building, Matt Kizer, the city’s chief building code enforcement officer, is threatening to seek court-imposed fines and possible jail time. 

“This is the only notice the city will give before taking enforcement action,” warned Kizer, the city’s chief building code enforcement officer.

It is the strongest action yet taken by city officials, who have waited months for Ishwar and a group that includes the Guidiville Rancheria and private investors to close a deal to buy the Palace, demolish the town’s most significant historical landmark, and prepare the site for a new hotel/retail complex. 

The Guidiville group proposes a faux Palace Hotel in its place, complete with a restaurant, bar, event center, and boutique-style hotel accommodations and apartments. 

This plan is not new, largely mimicking what an early investor proposed. However, Ishwar rejected it due to financial reasons. The Guidiville group, on the other hand, promises to fully compensate Ishwar under their plan, which relies on securing public funds for private development.

Deputy City Manager Shannon Riley said the new enforcement threat is independent of a pending state grant application by the proposed buyers in escrow with Ishwar to buy the Palace and its prime downtown property.

“We issued the first order in November, and to date, we have not received any permit application or plan to remedy the public safety issues surrounding the Palace,” said Riley.

Riley said the city voluntarily put enforcement action on hold pending a state review of the proposed buyers’ plan to seek a $6.6 million grant to investigate possible contamination of the Palace property from old underground fuel storage tanks, clean up, and prepare the site for private development.

The state Department of Toxic Substances Control has allowed weeks to pass without any announced decision.

“Meanwhile, the public safety issues remain,” said Riley. The city notified Ishwar of its planned follow-up order on April 8.

Representatives of the state agency said Monday afternoon that no timetable has been set for a grant announcement. The state agency in charge of oversight, the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, has said any contamination investigation at the Palace site will not require demolition of the building, as the buyers propose.

Ishwar, his attorney Steve Johnson, the proposed Palace buyers led by the Guidiville Rancheria, and other investors, including downtown restaurant owner Matt Talbert, did not respond to written requests for comments on Monday on how the city action might affect their plans or the pending escrow.

Kizer, the city’s chief building code officer, told Ishwar in a formal written notice that he must initiate a contract with a qualified engineering firm with experience in unreinforced masonry buildings similar in size and type to the 133-year-old Palace Hotel.

Kizer’s notice referenced ZFA Structural Engineers, a firm that has thrice examined the Palace over the past 15 years and, as recently as 2022, found it still structurally sound despite serious decline under two ownerships, including Ishwar. In 2018, the firm submitted plans for a seismic retrofit of the building, which were approved at the time.

No matter what structural engineering firm conducts the demanded city study, Kizer said it must include an independent evaluation of the existing condition of the Palace Hotel structure and supported recommendations to stabilize, demolish, or “otherwise mitigate the hazard to the public caused by the current condition,” and a plan set and documentation of an engineer’s estimate of the cost of any recommendation, and a detailed scope of work necessary for reconstruction or demolition.

Kizer further set a May 14 deadline for Ishwar to submit documents and a permit application to deal with the three city demands, “showing a clear path forward to mitigation.”

Kizer warned Ishwar that if he doesn’t take steps to abate the violations in time prescribed, “the city will take enforcement action, which may include all of the following: 

• Issuance of a citation for violation of Cal. Health & Safety Code §17995 (which makes violation of the building code a misdemeanor punishable for a first offense by a fine of $1,000, six months in the county jail, or by both a fine and imprisonment with the fine increasing to $5,000 for a second or subsequent violation.

• Filing a civil action to enjoin the violation as a public nuisance, recovering costs to demolish the building, taking other actions necessary to protect public health and safety, and imposing penalties prescribed to prevent a tax deduction for interest, expenses, depreciation, or amortization arising from Ishwar’s ownership.

Kizer said the city could also seek reinstatement of a court-appointed receivership, which was terminated when Ishwar bought the Palace and property for about $972,000 in 2019. If so, the receiver could take possession and control of the Palace, bill Ishwar for any repairs, and impose those costs as a lien on the property. Ishwar could also become liable for city attorney fees and related expenses.

ED NOTES

MONDAY MORNING'S DEMONSTRATIONS for Palestine snarling the entire Bay Area's traffic don't seem to me a defensible tactic given the likely lethal consequences that could result from blocking people from getting to where they need to go. Yes, yes, it's a lot more lethal for Palestinians, but I'll bet if you polled the thousands of people immobilized on the bridges and freeways only a small percentage would understand, or care to understand the commitment to Palestine that compelled you to snarl the day's human business. Outraging millions of people around the country is unlikely to convince many of the righteousness of the Palestinian cause. In fact, thousands of people have probably emerged from today vowing support for the Israeli criminals who, ultimately, are responsible for shutting down the Golden Gate Bridge and points east.

THE COPS, one would think, would be better prepared for these traffic snarling protests. All morning television showed them just standing around. It's not as if the tactic is new to the Bay Area. Remember Critical Mass, the pro-bike demonstrations in SF that prevented thousands of working people from getting home on a Friday afternoon? The Frisco cops went so far as to give these narcissists police escorts! Seems that hands off still applies. 

NO GOOD DEED DEPT: Three years ago I think it was, I gave my old Honda to the legendary pot outlaw, Oaky Joe Munson of Forestville. My family insisted the vehicle was unsafe, an opinion belied by it getting me where I needed to go for nearly twenty years, only conking out once when the radiator cracked. "I loved that car," the old man sobbed. His family, not at all sentimental about inanimate objects, declared that the car had to go. "Save your tears, big boy, your sister is giving you her hybrid." Which she did, and which I commuted to Boonville for two happy years. 

MY INDESTRUCTIBLE HONDA was still in good running condition, but off it went from Boonville with Oaky Joe's brilliant teenage daughter, Millie, who looked like she was about 12, behind the wheel. Did she have a driver's license? Why would I ask?  Youth must be served. 

OAKY JOE said the vehicle would stay on his property in West Sonoma County where it would serve as a kind of ranch work horse. Oaky Joe said he'd take care of the "paperwork."

AS A  GUY committed to anarchist principles regardless of collateral damage, Oaky Joe evidently never got around to registering the car as non-operational, and somehow my Honda remained mine, even when it was recently impounded and towed from Oaky Joe's property by Sebastopol Towing, now dunning me for a thousand bucks for "towing services" and "storage fees." Pay up or up goes a lien and here comes a collection agency. 

A CHORUS of denunciations rained down on me from my family, ranging from "That's what you get for dealing with that deadbeat." He's a friend of mine, I replied, not a deadbeat. Never so much as a hint of cupidity from the man. 

I HAVEN'T heard from Oaky Joe lately and, being voiceless, am unable to communicate with him anyway. I fired off an e-mail to Millie Munson, not intending for her to absorb this particular sin of her father, but asking her to inform Pop that my gift to him seems to have bounced back in my face because Pop failed….

OR did he? I should have followed up to make sure the Honda was no longer mine, but you go through life trusting people to do what they're supposed to do, or you go through life figuratively crouched behind your psychic door with a shotgun.

I TURNED to my fixer, Mr. Lafrenz, a man of parts, all of them useful. If Mr. Lafrenz can't unravel the prob, the prob can't be unraveled. 

MR. LAFRENZ called Sebastopol Towing. The man who answered the phone chuckled. "Yeah, I know Joe. Don't worry about any of this. We'll junk it in two weeks and it's over. We've got the form. No problem." 

MY COLLEAGUE, The Major, a pretty adept fixer himself, had miraculously — miraculous to me anyway — produced a copy l of the vehicle transfer form, proof I had indeed signed over the vehicle to Oaky Joe, who, apparently, hadn't bothered to register it with the DMV.

NOT PARTICULARLY RELEVANT here, but some of you old timers may recall the days when parking for Niners games at Candlestick was the free-est free enterprise imaginable. You paid cash (!) to park, then, post-game, played Dodge Cars with thousands of other fans plowing through the mud pits to escape the chaotic site. Went on for years. Also, then and now, San Francisco building permit applicants pay “expedite” fees to, well, expedite their project. Rackets galore.

MARSHALL NEWMAN WRITES: On the drive to Anderson Valley, I mentioned to my brother the old pendulum clock in the principal's office of the AV grammar school (previously the high school) and my hope that it had been preserved when the building was torn down. Low and behold, on entering the Little Red Schoolhouse, THERE was the clock on the wall, complete with the ribbon that activated the bells that marked the school days. Even better, it had a plaque saying (I think) it was the “Bruce Anderson Clock!” I am not sure whether you had a role in it being kept, but I was pleased to see it. I think it is a fine tribute to your role in the community these many years.

ED REPLY: I don't recall any role in THE preservation of the clock, but Norm Clow may know for sure. I did try to track down that finely rendered painting of a Valley vista that hung for years in the high school office until one day, on a random visit, I saw that the painting was gone, and nobody on hand knew where it had gone or remembered it being there in the first place. Over the hill in Ukiah, a trove of historic items disappeared from the old Palace Hotel when the site was under the ownership of one or another of its many owners. People generally seem much more aware these days that the artifacts they grew up with are important to the wider history of their communities, as the high school clock bears testimony to.

ROBBIE LANE, BOONVILLE:

Spring is in the air, and it's time to get to those building projects you have planned! Robbie, at NorCal Carpentry, has over 40 years experience in all phases of construction, with 20 of them right here in Anderson Valley. Let's talk about that new deck, addition, remodel, garden beds, whatever you need. Call me at (707) 489-2915 and let's get to work.

Top end Redwood deck/lawn furniture, built to order. Adirondack chairs ($450), leg rest ($150), side table ($250), 8' picnic table with attached seating ($1200). Smaller tables available on request. These are not "cookie cutter" furniture from a home improvement center: Beautifully hand crafted and built to last for decades. Call Robbie at (707) 489-2915 for more details.

BOONVILLE SENIOR CENTER BBQ DINNER, THURSDAY EVENING

Please RSVP ASAP!

We will be having an evening meal Thursday, April 18. Steve Rhoades will be BBQing Tri-tip and the SC crew will be preparing all of the salads, sides and make your own ice cream sundae for dessert. It is very important that people RSVP so we can serve everyone.

KRENOV BIOGRAPHER GIVES VIRTUAL TALK, APRIL 18

On Thursday, April 18, at 6 p.m., woodworker and writer Brendan Gaffney will give a virtual talk on James Krenov, the founder and guiding teacher of the Krenov School of Fine Woodworking at Mendocino College in Fort Bragg. In 2020, Lost Art Press published Gaffney's biography, James Krenov: Leave Fingerprints, a product of four years of research and writing, and dozens of interviews.

The talk is in conjunction with the Museum's current exhibit, Deep Roots, Spreading Branches: Fine Woodworking of the Krenov School, which explores the school's 40-plus-year history and includes oral history and samples of work by Krenov, faculty and students. The exhibit will be on display through August 18.

To log onto the talk, go to the Museum's Events page and scroll down to the event announcement, where a link will be provided.

The Grace Hudson Museum is at 431 S. Main St. in Ukiah. For more information please go to www.gracehudsonmuseum.org. Or call (707) 467-2836.

39TH ANNUAL BOONTLING CLASSIC 5K FOOTRACE

North Coast Striders is pleased to announce that the 39th Annual Boontling Classic 5K footrace will be held on Sunday, May 5th, 2024 at 10:00 am at the Anderson Valley Elementary school in Boonville, California. Runners and walkers of all ages are welcome.

Ribbons will be given to the top three finishers in each of the ten age divisions, as well as plaques for first man/woman/non-binary. A post-race drawing will be held with prizes generously donated by local Anderson Valley businesses. All proceeds will go to the Anderson Valley Food Bank in Boonville.

Fee: $15 Adults (18+), $5 Youth (6-17), $30 Family. Kids under 6 years of age can race for free.

T-shirts are locally printed by the Anderson Valley Skatepark project and are an additional $15/person and are in limited supply.

Online registration will be until midnight the night before the race (Saturday, May 4, 2024) and is available at https://runsignup.com/boontlingclassic

In person registration will be available on the day of the race only, starting at 8:30 am.

For more information, contact race directors Zane Colfax or Angie Setzer at boontlingclassic@gmail.com 

Or phone or text at 707-472-8217.

IRV SUTLEY TRIBUTE EVENTS

Sisters and Brothers,

You are invited to a Zoom gathering in memory of Chairman Irv Sutley on Saturday, April 28, starting at 11 am Pacific time and running as long as deemed necessary. Stories, photos, personal memories encouraged.

Thanks to the due diligence of Anthony Tusler we also have a legacy website set up where you can post stories, photos, and condolences in memory of the Chairman. An obituary written by Toni Novak is posted there.

A gathering in a Santa Rosa park is scheduled for Saturday, May 18. Time and details to come.

R.D. BEACON

I am asked, bar customers, that come from out of state why is there a homeless problem, when they visit major cities, and even smaller towns, like Fort Bragg California or even the nice little town of Mendocino they wonder why these people congregate in the area, it's the government's fault I tell them, California's been known for giving away free money, hotel vouchers, and food giveaways, statewide to homeless people, white for use in New York, or even Colorado, when you can come to sunny California, get all kinds of drugs, and the state will support to, you get away with, just about anything, except elusive sanity, through the drugs, and the diseases, you share with others, sure there were few people living under bridges, and intense, because they lost their job, when the corporation they work for folded their tent, and moved to another country, so they didn't have to pay a living wage, to its employees, some of them moved south into Mexico, while the rest of them moved Taiwan, and even Japan, some of the major manufacturers of automobiles, moved out of the country as well, like Chrysler Corporation, building pickup trucks, in Canada, and some parts, coming out of Italy, when the environmentalists shut down Pennsylvania, and most of the steel mills, went offshore, many hundreds of thousands of people lost their work, the trickle down effect through Detroit Michigan, and even as far east as New Hampshire, where they used to have textile factories, they all moved offshore, today when you buy a suit and men's warehouse look at the label, and leaders say Japan, or China, when buying blankets for your bed, or sheets more than likely, it comes from somewhere overseas, no longer made in America, we used to buy blankets from the, Utah woman Mills, but when the US government, came up with a deal to allow import of lamb and will from Australia, and New Zealand, we used to produce all are made in the United States but again due to the wheeling and dealing, of our government we are buying stuff from South America, as well as vegetables and fruit, come in from Mexico, our own government, has flourished, American industry down the drain, when you go to harbor freight, and by tools cheap, they are all made in China, Taiwan, very little, today is made in the United States, our government is allowed, even the drug companies to make everything, offshore even though, if you need blood pressure medicine, 30 pills will cost you, $500, if you're well insured, which not everybody is, they bleed you drive, and it's because nobody in our government, has big enough balls, put their foot down and say no more, all of these industries I've mentioned, cost people American jobs, we need to chase the foreigners people with ties to communist influence, out of our country, we need all our companies in America to be owned by Americans, and we need to bring back, industry to America, and tell environmentalists, it's a don't like it here, they can move to Europe somewhere else, there is still the need to go get a real job, not tell other people what to do, we'll walk through one of our major hospitals, and then inquire how many of these people that are doctors, actually have citizenship in the United States, you would be surprised, they come here to learn it come here to work, and then they leave and take the knowledge home with them, off the backs of the sick, that in rock in our hospitals, when will our government wake up, and start working for the people the voters, need to stop putting people in office, that will hand you money, not working we needed change, for our country to survive, we need to get back our rights the right to bear arms, the right for open carry, and the right, when somebody commits murder, they will be put to death, victims need closure, and major offenders, need to long time prison sentences, not a slap on the wrist and don't do it again, we need change, we also need to change our tax structure, were industry Corporation will pay all income tax, state and federal taxes come from large corporations, not the people, we know the companies will pass the rays on to the consumer, but, what it will do it will make the flow of money easier, for the government no more chasing people for not paying taxes, it will come from corporate America, and for those companies that are offshore, that will come home, they will pay a greater amount many times more than corporations, that are here in America, you'll get tax breaks, for hiring locals, for supporting American values, any corporation that has more than 100 employees, will pay the special income tax, employers with less than 100 employees, will get a free ride, this will promote small business, special classifications for businesses, that deal in agriculture products, during the 30s and 40s FDR had the new deal, we need a new deal as well to promote, jobs in America, no more, workers with green cards, closed the border south, no more handiwork to nonresidents.

RE: LEE EDMUNDSON AT THE 1968 DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION

by Jack Hoeschler

The third big event for us in Chicago that year was the Democratic National Convention in August. For anyone alive in 1968, this was the “big event.” Bobby Kennedy had been assassinated two months after the King riots and it seemed that the country might be breaking apart.

The Convention summed up all the anti-Vietnam war tensions, and pitted Hubert Humphrey as Johnson’s successor against Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern as the anti-war candidates. Both Humphrey and McCarthy were from Minnesota and McGovern was from South Dakota. Ten thousand demonstrators (yuppies; SDS; and anti-war activists) came from all over the country. They held tactical drills in various Chicago parks to develop techniques to run and pierce police lines and other governmental control efforts. Mayor Daley had 23,000 police and National Guardsmen at the ready.

The center of the demonstrations was Grant Park across the street from the Chicago Hilton Hotel where the Democrats were meeting. Thousands of demonstrators surrounded a large equestrian statute of Civil War General Logan.

At one of the peak rallies on the evening of August 28, a young college student from Birmingham, Alabama, Lee Edmundson, climbed up and sat on the shoulders of the statue. Someone handed him a Viet Cong flag which he waved to sustained cheers. Then the police surrounded the statue and, beating on it with their batons, demanded that he come down. He started to do so and was about to slide off the horse’s rump and down the tail when he saw a policeman swing up beneath the horse’s legs with a baton, apparently ready to beat Lee’s hands as he descended. Lee paused and climbed back up onto the rump of the horse to the sustained cheers of the crowd. Those cheers became louder when he reclimbed the figure and flashed the peace sign to everyone.

Now the police were very mad. It appeared they might climb the statue and throw Lee off and onto the pavement 15 feet below. So, Lee climbed down, this time sliding down the left leg of the figure while holding on to the inside of the general’s sword hilt and the large basket guard. As he stepped onto the figure’s left boot, two policemen grabbed his two legs and attempted to pull him off the statue. At that point his arm slipped and got pinned between the hilt and the guard and did not let loose until the yanking broke his arm and he fell free.

Lee had a newspaper rolled up in his back pocket and the police charged him with assaulting a police officer – a standard defensive charge if there is a risk of a police brutality claim – a felony that can be traded away as part of a plea bargain.

I was one of a group of civilian lawyers who had volunteered to help defend people arrested in what was later officially called a “police riot” and Lee Edmundson got assigned to me – or I to him. I interviewed him at the Cook County jail* and learned that he was a college student working in Eugene McCarthy’s election office in Birmingham, AL. He had come to Chicago to support McCarthy and got caught up with the demonstrations.

When he climbed up on the Logan statue with about 6 other kids, he climbed highest and was sitting astride the statue’s shoulders when someone passed him a flag he did not recognize, but started to wave to the frenzied approval of the crowd.

The rest is as I have described, but I had to gather evidence that a) he was not armed; b) that he was afraid of the police considering their aggressive attitudes; and c) that he was merely trying to come down when his arm got stuck until the police broke it by pulling it.

In the end, I was able to get some good outtakes from local TV stations showing the whole episode and confirming Lee’s story. The prosecutor and the judge let him out on bail but also insisted that he come back for multiple status hearings even though they knew he lived in Alabama. That was just the way they played the game in Chicago. Because I moved to St. Paul November 1, someone else represented him and, I believe, eventually got the charges against him dropped, (but likely in return for the police dropping the felony charge against him.) His situation came up in the trial of the Chicago 7 as an example of police brutality in handling some demonstrators.

The most noteworthy trial that came out of these convention demonstrations was a conspiracy trial against the leaders of the various participating groups in the form of the Chicago Seven. One of the Seven was Lee Weiner who happened to be our initial trainer at CLC. The more famous members of the seven were: Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, and John Froines. Their convictions were reversed on appeal and there was no further prosecution.

*In 2021 and in preparation for this essay, Jack and Linda located Lee Edmundson in Mendocino, CA; we called him to get his recollections about his arrest and subsequent (legal) work with Jack. Lee said how grateful he was to meet Jack in Cook County Hospital where he lay with a broken arm (courtesy of the police), no painkiller and shackled to the bed. “I will always recall my utter relief when Jack, whom I did not know, showed up at my hospital bed. He told me he was my lawyer and that he was first going to get me unshackled from the foot of the bed. That was Jack.”

---

LEE'S LETTER TO THE HOESCHLERS: A Protestor Reflects on the 1968 Democratic National Convention (or How Jack Became my Lawyer): https://thehoeschlers.com/chicago-1968-dnc

CATCH OF THE DAY, Monday, April 15, 2024

JOHNATHAN BOWMAN, Ukiah. Domestic abuse.

ANDRU CAMPBELL, Ukiah. Parole violation.

DUNCAN CHARLES, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs, controlled substance, parole violation.

KEVIN DAHLUND, Ukiah. Parole violation.

FRANCISCO GONZALEZ, Ukiah. County parole violation.

JUAN GONZALEZ, Ukiah. Resisting, failure to appear.

MATTHEW HAMBURG, Ukiah. Trespassing. 

NICHOLE HEGGIE, Willits. Domestic battery, probation revocation.

THOMAS HOFF, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

BRIAN HURTADO, Willits. Shoplifting, parole violation. 

DEMETER MCFADIN, Ukiah. Entering a non-commercial dwelling.

ANGEL MILLER, Ukiah. Parole violation. (Frequent flyer.)

KASSANDRA PHILLIPS, Covelo. Stolen property, obtaining personal ID without authorization, resisting.

JOEY PITKINRISCH, Cloverdale/Ukiah. Domestic abuse, DUI, cruelty to child-infliction of injury.

COLIN ROACH, Gualala. Vandalism.

ERNEST SALO, Fort Bragg. DUI, suspended license, resisting, probation revocation.

AARON SCHLEICH, Fort Bragg. Probation revocation.

MARK SPITSEN, Ukiah. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, failure to appear.

GAZA PROTESTERS USED ‘SLEEPING DRAGON’ TACTIC TO BLOCK TRAFFIC ON BAY AREA HIGHWAYS

by Rachel Swan

Protesters demanding an end to Israel’s war in Gaza brought Bay Area traffic to a halt for hours Monday morning, using a human-chain tactic that’s become increasingly popular in the past 10 years.

Law enforcement has a name for it: the sleeping dragon. The term typically applies to instances of people locking their arms to carriage bolts inside PVC pipe, making it difficult for police to extricate them.

Two groups of demonstrators linked arms this way on key regional highways Monday, creating a dramatic tableau and bringing maximum disruption to the morning commute. The first group blocked northbound Interstate 880 near the Embarcadero exit in Oakland, where seven people chained themselves to six concrete barrels at 6 a.m.

The second group shut down southbound lanes of the Golden Gate Bridge by locking themselves to parked cars, CHP said.

Organizers of these actions said in public statements that they had blocked the highways in conjunction with other economic blockades around the world on Monday to support Palestine.

“I-880 serves as the region’s primary corridor for commercial freight, seeing millions of dollars in goods moved as it connects the Port of Oakland, the Oakland Airport, and the West Oakland rail yards,” the statement read.

Officials from the California Highway Patrol said that officers “had to contend with” protesters attached to 55-gallon drums of concrete with heavy-duty chains — a formidable setup that required an intricate, multi-agency response, according to a statement the agency posted on social media Monday afternoon. 

The agency said that officers from Highway Patrol had to coordinate with Alameda County sheriff’s deputies, and Golden Gate Bridge patrol as well as police officers from Oakland and San Francisco, all working to disassemble the contraptions, arrest people and reopen lanes for commuters.

“It takes a lot of training and a lot of specialized skills to carefully cut these devices apart,” said Robert Leverone, a retired Massachusetts State Police lieutenant who now runs Crowd Operations Dynamix, a consulting business that trains law enforcement in crowd control.

During his career, Leverone saw many variations on the dragon, including some with pipes attached to 5-gallon buckets of concrete, and others with pipes wrapped in heavy-duty cardboard tubes that are filled with concrete. Some of the more sophisticated versions require demolition tools to break through concrete and angle grinders to cut through pipe. The process can send sparks flying and leave tons of debris, Leverone said.

He cited one case from 2021, in which climate activists encased metal sleeping dragons in concrete and welded them to a boat trailer. They parked the boat in front of former Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker’s house.

These makeshift devices have existed for at least 20 years, Leverone said, recalling that he first heard about them at a training by the Federal Emergency Management Agency ahead of the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston.

In the Bay Area, people have used PVC pipe and locking devices in direct actions for at least a decade, notably on Black Friday in 2014, when a group of Black Lives Matter demonstrators chained themselves to a BART train at West Oakland Station, shutting down service for nearly two hours.

Since then, protesters have formed human chains at the Oakland Federal Building, on the Golden Gate Fields racetrack, on busy streets in the Financial District and inside the Oakland City Council chambers — where opponents of a housing development entered a meeting in 2015 with tubes concealed in yoga mats.

Monday’s action marked a crescendo of demonstrations that have taken place for months, calling attention to the United States’ support of Israel and the ongoing war. Even as traffic eased back to normal, demonstrators advised the public to brace for more: They planned another protest in the evening at the Tesla facility in Fremont.

(sfchronicle.com)

NOT ONE PERSON in a hundred knows how to be silent and listen, no, nor even to conceive what such a thing means. Yet only then you can detect, beyond the fatuous clamour, the silence of which the universe is made.

— Samuel Beckett

COMPARING RATES

Editor: 

Do you think PG&E electric rates are high? During a recent conversation with a friend who had moved to the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state, we compared electric rates for our very similar homes and rate plans. I’m paying $0.42 per kilowatt-hour, and he’s paying $0.07 per kwh. Yes, that’s correct, 42 cents versus 7 cents. And, unless the source of electric power has changed drastically since I lived in that area, there isn’t that much hydro power on the peninsula.

Wes Brubacher

Geyserville

AT THE SEATTLE MAIN LIBRARY

Editor,

Hi Jonathan! Happy Weed Week and thank you for your work! It’s bad news indeed about the Seattle Library closures. I’ve a story, stop me if you’ve heard this one before. I finally checked out Seattle Main a year or three after its opening, think 2008? I was decamped in a public reading room, lots of primary colors. Anyhow, this woman appeared: Middle-aged, white, long red hair tied back. She’s carrying a number of oddly pristine, underfilled shopping bags from an office supply chain.

She seems to be looking around in amazement at this edifice. After a time, this Guard appears, an African- merican woman. The two of them speak; I can’t hear exactly what they’re saying but the red-haired woman’s voice rises a couple of times like she’s getting bent outta shape and she refers to the shopping bags she carries, as if they give her presence legitimacy and normalcy. The Guard now says, “You know, the back of your legs are bleeding.” 

David Svehla

San Francisco

“I'm an entertainer first and foremost. I know what it's like to scrape together 70 bucks to go to a fight, and I liked to give spectators their money's worth. I don't go out there to box, I just go out there to knock the other man out.”

— Eric 'Butterbean' Esch

MAZIE MALONE: Maria Popova’s Vivid Life in the Margins:

https://www.bkmag.com/2024/03/25/maria-popovas-vivid-life-in-the-margins

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

As far as the Stormy Daniel’s thing, I think this one, as opposed to the other cases, will hurt Trump with the electorate. A President previously cavorting with prostitutes is unseemly at best. Having that thrown in people’s faces can’t be helpful to Trump.

STRANGE SOUPS AND BRASS BANDS

Photographs of Zacatecas by David Bacon

https://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com/2024/04/strange-soups-and-brass-bands.html

A maze of constricted alleys spreads out at the bottom an old stone staircase that doubles back on itself, so convoluted that Zacatecanos call this place "El Labarinto", or "The Labyrinth." Here Primitivo Romo sits in front of a wall of herbs packed into tiny bags, in a botanica stall he inherited from his mother when she died a few years ago. He inherited her knowledge as well, and now his nephew runs another stall down a nearby alleyway with the knowledge passed on in the Romo family.

The stalls are half hidden in the lowest level of the Mercado del Arroyo de la Plata, or the Silver Canyon Market. Two more levels are above. Stalls on one sell Zacatecan mole, either picoso or dulce, hot or sweet, from big plastic buckets in front of the candy display. On another workers and women shopping for their families sit on plain stools at the comedores economicos, or affordable eateries, where cooks spoon the famous goat mole, cabrera, into bowls.

Unless you know the cook well, there's no point in asking for two other famous dishes, caldo de rata (rat soup) or caldo de vivora (snake soup). These are soups from the traditions of people from the countryside, used to eating the animals that live there (the rat is a country creature, not the urban variety), and some think of them even as a kind of medicine. Says Guadalupe Flores, a member of the state legislature, “Anybody that tries it once is going to love it and it will become their favorite dish. It is very similar to rabbit – only much more flavorful.”

Nevertheless, some laugh at these country traditions. But once in a while a campesino will come in from the farm, and from his pack at the back entrance will pull the skinned bodies, along with those of rabbits and chickens. The meat counters in the market sell the meat from larger animals - the cows, the goats and the pigs. For them, a truck pulls up at the same back entrance. The driver climbs into the rear, and up a mountain of meat, to fetch a beef quarter ordered by a market stall. Ernesto Serna lifts a several hundred pound piece onto his shoulders, and walks unsteadily beneath it into the labyrinth.

Other farmers come into the city with fruit. Francisco Cordero sells piles of strawberries, guavas and figs from his Campo Real farm in an impromptu stall on the sidewalk. Another country seller comes with his donkey. In the wooden saddle on its back it carries the big jars of pulque and colonche, agave and tuna (nopal) drinks with a little kick, under leaves to keep off the sun.

The streets of Zacatecas fill with people, selling and buying, walking or sitting. Workers paint the buildings next to the Alameda Park. A brass band and speeches celebrate the birthday of Benito Juarez, Mexico's first indigenous president. Soldiers in the local contingent of the National Guard, the new police created by President Lopez Obrador, stand in the hot sun, submachine guns at the ready.

Like most Mexican cities, popular protest is part of Zacatecas' culture as well. The women's movement is strong, and a recent march was met and prohibited by police protecting a government that somehow fears its own mothers, sisters and daughters. Activists then went to the former cathedral of San Agustin, now repurposed as a municipal gallery. At the inauguration of a show of paintings of peaceful landscapes, they confronted the government representatives there to open the exhibition. Each held a card with two letters. Standing together they read "Estado Terrorista" or Terrorist State.

And tucked away in this city filled with artists is the extraordinary project of the Fototeca Pedro Valtierra. Here Carlos gives lessons in ways to create extraordinary prints from negatives, in a process invented 150 years ago. In a vault behind a heavy metal door, aided by high tech climate controls, Karina Garcia protects the fototeca's archive of prints and negatives. The most prized come from Pedro Valtierra himself, Mexico's renowned radical photojournalist and native son of Zacatecas, for whom the institution is named.

Today people joke that there are more Zacatecanos in Los Angeles than in Zacatecas, but this is still a city that remembers its working class history. Aldo Alejandro Zapata Villa recalls on Facebook, looking at a photo of the market, "Memories of my childhood, of hard-working and entrepreneurial people, offering their merchandise, in those times when we learned all work has dignity."

Photos & More: https://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com/2024/04/strange-soups-and-brass-bands.html

NEW NPR CHIEF KATHERINE MAHER'S GUIDE TO THE HOLIDAYS

by Matt Taibbi

Katherine Maher, the new head of NPR, was a minor character in the Twitter Files. She was CEO of Wikimedia when the company was (like Twitter) being invited to election tabletop exercises at the Pentagon and “Industry meetings” with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. She also scored the rare personal triumverate of being member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a World Economic Forum young global leader, and a fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Labs. 

She took a job heading NPR in January, shortly before senior editor Uri Berliner set off a nuclear newsroom stink-bomb by publishing a tell-all article at The Free Press about station failures on stories like Russiagate. Berliner’s piece triggered a frenzy of anti-NPR Schadenfreude, which led to a furious examinations of Maher’s sitting-duck tweet history. Maher’s timeline reads so much like the Titania McGrath site spoofing overeducated nonsense-babbling white ladies that it’s difficult to believe she’s real — she even looks like the fictional McGrath, if Titania had more money to spend on personal upkeep. 

Maher’s commentary dating back to the early Obama years is a gold mine of unintentional comedy. She’s gotten the most heat for using phrases like “As someone with cis white mobility privilege,” and “Sure, looting is counterproductive, but…” She also made an impressive Usain Bolt-like surge past Hillary Clinton in the Intersectional Gibberish Olympics: 

When I spent what I admit is embarrassingly long period reading her social media history, I was struck by the random, unquenchable nature of Maher’s anger. Maher at rest, commenting on literally nothing at all, sounds like this: 

When some poor sap tweeted about “Hereticon,” a conference of canceled-type speakers proclaiming “dissent is essential to the progressive march of human civilization,” Maher made an instant leap from a snapshot of ironic fifties conformism to a dead-serious KKK metaphor:

Maher is now in her second consecutive hugely influential role in American culture, yet her idea of happiness seemingly would involve torturing The Muppets until they give up the location of the patriarchy’s secret headquarters (inside a volcano shaped like Elon Musk’s head of course!).

Reading, one wonders: does this person have a vision of enjoyment that doesn’t involve self-mortification? Out of curiosity, I took one tour with her through the holiday calendar, starting with Thanksgiving.…

https://www.racket.news/p/new-npr-chief-katherine-mahers-guide

CRIB NOTES FOR THE TRIAL OF THE CENTURY

by James Kunstler

“Once someone determined Trump was so bad it was okay to lie about him, it set the precedent that the only thing that mattered was a subject’s politics.” — Matt Taibbi

What fascinates us about sex, I suppose, is that most everyone wants it and seeks it, driven by irresistible natural impulses, and yet the act itself is such an affront to civilized decorum that it inspires both comedy and horror, two states of consciousness that are themselves irresistibly compelling. Add lawyers to all that and you find yourself entering the realm of opera bouffe, which is to say, kitsch, human expression reduced to its most self-consciously ridiculous.

Enter Stormy Daniels, that notorious pair of cumulus clouds attached to a person, who made a career in the sex industry and later on, at the age when sex workers generally face retirement, had a fresh start as a political gadfly buzzing around the mystifying hair-do of President Donald Trump. Stormy first encountered Mr. Trump in 2006 when he was a mere TV star who played in a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe. She was hanging out there with two porn-star girlfriends. Golf nuts all, must’ve been.

Stormy managed to blow into Mr. Trump’s hotel room there, so her story goes, where she apparently teased him into a state of florid desire, while mocking him, and then obliged his advances, even developing a sort of friendship that, over a few years, included more hotel room meet-ups and promises of revamped stardom on his “The Apprentice” TV show, alas, never consummated. Strange to relate, around that time Stormy launched her own political career way before Mr. Trump made the leap into government.

But once Mr. Trump jumped into the 2016 presidential primaries and began to terrify the establishment by winning one contest after another, Stormy finagled a $130,000 hush-money payment through Trump attorney Michael Cohen to keep her big yap shut about their doings. By 2018, she hitched herself to California lawyer Michael Avenatti (now in prison) and filed a lawsuit against then-President Trump attempting to invalidate the non-disclosure agreement that came with the hush-money. Stormy also engaged a publicist, and, what do you know, The Wall Street Journal published a story about the alleged romance. By then, Stormy had launched a “publicity tour” and got herself booked on Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night talk show to discuss the allegations.

In December 2018, Stormy lost a defamation suit against President Trump filed by Mr. Avenatti, and was ordered to pay over $300,000 to Mr. Trump. Five years later, an appeals court ordered her to pay an additional $122,000 to Mr. Trump to cover his legal fees. By then, Michael Avenatti, her lawyer, was in jail in California for embezzling client funds. Various letters had emerged allegedly signed by Stormy stating that she hadn’t engaged in sex with Mr. Trump, along with Facebook conversations on her account saying the same thing.

Also, in 2018, Mr. Trump’s attorney, Michael Cohen, was busted by the FBI for tax evasion and eventually plead guilty. He was interrogated by the Mueller special counsel operation which, by a convoluted route, earned Mr. Cohen a conviction for perjury in congressional testimony. Stormy Daniels then sued Mr. Cohen for defamation but the case was dismissed. Mr. Cohen eventually served a year in prison but was released to home confinement due to the Covid-19 event.

These doings did not go unnoticed by the politicized Southern District of New York office of the DOJ and by then Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance, Jr. Both tried to construct some kind of case against President Trump on all this monkey business, but gave up because the payment of hush-money was itself not illegal between consenting parties and they could not torture the facts into a theory that would make it a crime. Also, by then, their chief witness, Mr. Cohen, had been disbarred and was officially branded a perjurer and liar.

Fast-forward to the 2020 election. “Joe Biden” manages to charm swing-state voters from his basement hide-out, moves into the puppet-theater known as the White House, and unleashes the dogs of lawfare on former president Trump so as to knock him off the political game-board for once and for all. “JB’s” Attorney General, Merrick Garland, sends Deputy AG Matthew Colangelo to work in DA Alvin Bragg’s office, to construct some kind of case out of the Stormy Daniels / Michael Cohen debris.

The result is an improbable farrago of 34 counts of falsifying business records relating to the Stormy Daniels hush-money payments, converted from misdemeanors to felonies on the theory that the falsifications were intended to conceal other election law crimes, including “influencing the 2016 election.” Each count for which Trump is convicted could result in a prison sentence of up to four years, to be served consecutively, meaning 136 years in jail.

Mr. Trump thus becomes the proverbial ham sandwich that an ambitious DA can convince a grand jury to indict. Now, Mr. Bragg has to persuade a trial jury to convict, in a courtroom presided over by one Judge Juan Merchan, Democratic Party activist and donor, whose daughter, Loren, has raised $93-million in campaign money for Democratic candidates in this November’s election. The Judge has, so far, refused to recuse himself.

The DA’s chief witness will be Michael Cohen. Donald Trump will be the first US president indicted on criminal charges. He’ll be in the courtroom many days as the trial proceeds, likely into June. Even if the trial becomes a dumpster fire for the prosecution, Mr. Trump could be convicted by a Trump-deranged New York jury. Then it’ll be onto the appeals courts. Then, the three other lawfare cases await in Georgia, Florida, and DC. Do you suppose that Americans actually take comfort in the re-election of “Joe Biden”?