Mendocino County Today: Thursday 4/25/24

By AVA News Service on April 25, 2024

A COLD FRONT will bring cooler temperatures and periods of light rain to mainly Del Norte and Humboldt counties today through Friday. A few showers will make it farther south and east. For the weekend and into next week mainly dry and cool conditions are expected. There may be some frost on the colder mornings. Some light rain is possible on Wednesday. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): On the coast this Thursday morning I have 48F under partly cloudy skies. Increasing clouds today leading to a chance of light rain tonight & tomorrow morning. Warming temps & some wind is forecast for the weekend.

Navarro River at Navarro Beach (Jeff Goll)

UNITY CLUB NEWS: WILDFLOWER SHOW 2024

by Miriam Martinez

Wow! What a wonderful Wildflower Show! Thank you all for what you have done to make this project happen. You are the Best group of volunteers in Anderson Valley. Kudos!

Gather up your Funny Money, ladies; it's time for the May Madness White Elephants and Plants Auction. Our regular Unity Clubs Meeting will be held May 2nd at 1:30 in the Dining Room at the Fairgrounds. We will hear about the huge success the Wildflower Show was, reports on the Library's "5 bucks a bag" sale, our Scholarships Committee, and the budget. The program will be the Funny Money Auction. Our hostess group is Ann Wakeman, Christine Clark, and Victoria Center.

Thank you to all of you who donate to and volunteer at the schools, Library, Food Bank, the Fair preparations, the First Responders, the Medical Center, and the Beautifications projects. The Community we know and love would not BE, without all that you do, behind the scenes. I especially want to thank those who volunteer as leaders and committee members.

Mentors make the difference in the lives of our youth. Talk to one of our school principals, or a teacher in your field of interest about giving some time each week. You won't regret a minute of it.

Our Lending Library will be open it's usual hours; Tuesdays from 1 to 4 and Saturdays from 12:30 to 2:30, whenever the Fairgrounds are not rented out.

Oki Doki. May 2nd at 1:30 is our usual meeting and Funny Money Auction. It will be held at the Fairgrounds Dining Room.

CHIPPER DAY IN PHILO

I've set up a tentative, Philo, chipper day with Bobbie and the Mendocino Fire Safety Council. The date is May 14th. If you need some chipping done please call her and jump on that date. 707-462-3662. (Kim Baxter)

COMPTCHE’S FIREHOUSE

After nearly 6 months of hardwork by Comptche Fire Department members the fire house exterior upgrade is nearly complete the last of the trim was installed yesterday.

The siren will be installed this summer. Thank you to the members hardwork. So much more effort goes into running a department than responding to 911 calls.

THAT WAS AN ODD TAKE on the Sierra Nevada Music Festival’s upcoming appearance at the Boonville Fairgrounds over the June 21-23 long weekend from the Independent Coast Observer last week: “Cash strapped Mendocino County Hopes To Stimulate Local Economy With Large-Scale Music Festival.” The ICO seems to think that the Supervisors deserve some credit for their routine rubberstamping of the $32,000 permit for the nearly annual (it skipped a couple of years during covid) festival because it will magically stimulate the “local economy.” The Festival will certainly help the Fairgrounds finances and the County typically get a upwards of $30k for “security,” i.e., whichever cops and probation officers want a few OT hours. But we doubt that the Festival amounts to much of a boost to the economy because it is mostly self-contained. The ICO claims that festivalgoers will rent rooms in Ukiah and Hopland and pay some sales tax for “supplies, gas and other expenditures.” Hmmm. Most of the festivalgoers rent space for camping at the Fairgrounds backlot and a couple of days worth of sales tax won’t amount to much either. As the ICO’s own “report” says, the Festival offers various merchandise vending booths which include some pretty good traveling food trucks, but those are part of the self-contained aspect of the festival as well. The ICO’s report concludes with a quote from Fair Manager Jim Brown who notes that “If the businesses go out of business, there’s no money for the County.” Well. We don’t think the Festival will keep local businesses from going out of business either. Their success or failure has very little to do with the Festival and certainly has nothing to do with the Supervisors who have never expressed any interest in the festival and have never claimed that their consent calendar approval was based on a hoped for economic boost to the County.

(Mark Scaramella)

SUPERVISOR MULHEREN:

On Denim Day, we wear jeans to protest against the misconceptions that surround sexual violence. Every survivor deserves to be believed, supported, and empowered. Let’s break the silence and work towards a world free from sexual assault.

ON LINE RESPONSE:

Apparently, it’s “denim day” at the County of Mendocino. Lots of photos on Facebook of different departments wearing denim jeans. Seriously. I’m so glad there are no major issues that the county needs to deal with at this time!

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY:

Is it really a surprise that the budget is such a mess right now? They have people in place that have no idea what they are doing. You have Tony Rakes who wasn’t even qualified to be Director of IT so they promote him to the Executive Office to report on the budget. Again, people being put in places they have no business being in. Where was the ATTC savior Sara Pierce, why wasn’t she reporting? I have to agree with Mark on the pulling of the item regarding Ms. Antle’s roommate/partner. Do they hope it won’t be brought up again to sneak it in another meeting? To respond Michael Turner’s comment that they are more than qualified, no one is arguing that. It’s called optics. When you don’t disclose a relationship, it looks like you’re hiding something. If anyone else did that, they would be fired. Just address it, and I’m sure people would be ok with it. If you are willing to hide that, what else are you hiding or willing to hide? All of the supervisors have been on the board long enough that they “should” understand each department’s budget and how they’re funded, but they don’t. They want to take from one department to pay another. In Dan Gjerde’s words awhile back, “We are robbing Peter to pay Paul”. You guys can do better.

LIVING ROUGH INSIDE

Subject: The Homeless Situation in Postmodern America

Warmest spiritual greetings,

Arrived at Building Bridges Homeless Resource Center in Ukiah, CA last night, following the obligatory stop at Safeway for evening deli food and for late night yoghurt. Arriving at the facility, a homeless resident advised me that during the afternoon, the “disturbed individual” dropped a jelly donut on my OM mediation shawl bed covering, resulting in the supervisor needing to come into the dorm and clean up the mess. I made some appropriate comment about the disturbed individual being clearly insane, because he continues fouling my assigned bed. This caused an objection from someone who was taking rest and did not wish to hear about it all. Apparently I was being criticized for speaking out, in the belief that everybody in the men’s dorm has a right and need to be advised that we have a disturbed individual among us who is acting very badly. Anyway, I spoke with the staff on duty, who commiserated. I did offer to no longer speak out loud about the problem in the men’s dorm area, because 1.everybody already knows about the crazy situation, and 2. I do wish everyone to be able to take rest undisturbed, and 3. my only serious concern is that the disturbed individual receive the psychiatric help that he requires. Please take note of the fact that this situation is reflective of the general social environment in a homeless resource center. And this contradicts the naive public view about homelessness, drug and alcohol addiction, and mental illness, plus it proves the ineffectiveness of the American government trying to somehow “solve the problem” through legislation and throwing unlimited amounts of taxpayer money at homelessness. Homelessness and its complicated factors can only be successfully addressed on an individual basis!

Craig Louis Stehr

ED NOTES

SOME OF YOU older old timers will remember the huge Bay Area demonstrations against the Vietnam War. There was always a small group brandishing NLF flags and chanting “Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh, Ho Chi Minh is gonna win.” Few of the marchers shared that desire; most people just wanted the war to end.

JUST BECAUSE a tiny minority of deluded Hamas supporters chant slogans that imply the destruction of Israel, doesn't mean that the large majority of college kids demonstrating against the monstrous attack on Gaza are anti-Semites.

I'M ENJOYING the irony of the Republican Party, traditional home of American anti-Semitism, denouncing the current campus demonstrations as anti-Semitic.

GIVEN THE GENERAL INCREASE in scumbaggery, high and low, it's only mildly surprising that a family of apparent tourists was beaten and robbed in Old Hopland last Sunday night.

THE SHERIFF'S presser on the episode was intriguing, raising more questions than not, which is the way of Sheriff pressers, but this particular crime is unusual for Mendo, a county whose criminal class is pretty much an under-the-influence smash and grab kinda crew. I can't remember a complex crime occurring here recently, unless it's the vengeful one initiated by the DA against Ms. Cubbison, the county's elected bean counter for the crime of challenging the DA's expense chits.

TWO ARMED MEN, “dressed in black” appeared in the immediate vicinity of the Sanel Market at 10:30pm — the market is advertised as closed at 10pm — to waylay four Marin tourists?

Adult Female (62-year-old from San Rafael, CA)

Adult Male (33-year-old from San Rafael, CA)

Adult Female (41-year-old from San Rafael, CA)

Adult Male (39-year-old from Pinole, CA)

AS A PART-TIME RESIDENT of Marin I don't automatically assign virtue to my fellow residents, but these four vics seem unlikely, a family apparently, who have presumably explained, perhaps plausibly, why they were in Old Hopland at that time of night.

THE MARIN PARTY'S story is that they'd stopped in the vicinity of the market when a pair of armed yobbos just happen to happen upon them, take all their stuff, smack them around so severely two of the Marin party are hauled off to Adventist Emergency for a go over? Serendipity? We're waiting for the rest of this story.

NOYO FOOD FOREST EARTH DAY EVENT IN FORT BRAGG GAINS AN EVEN BIGGER AND DIVERSE AUDIENCE

by Frank Hartzell

FORT BRAGG, 4/22/24 — The Noyo Food Forest’s Earth Day event, held Saturday, April 20, attracted 1,212 people through the gates, up slightly from last year’s 1,206. It’s a happy revival for an educational program that was threatened not just by the pandemic, but by the decline of the cannabis industry and the local food movement on the Mendocino Coast. The organizers were delighted and exhausted by the big, sunny event and by the increasing diversity of ages, ethnicities and politics, a primary goal of the organizers who started it back in 2006. This iteration was all about the thrills of spring, from topsoil to slow dancing. While cannabis was not offered or consumed on Saturday, that was where money came from originally. Now a broader base of support has been found, organizers said.

The Noyo Food Forest Learning Garden at Fort Bragg High School revived the beloved but moribund agricultural program back in 2006 when Susan LIghtfoot and two other women created it. The first Earth Day celebration began with a hand-holding circle and a prayer from a Native elder.

The Noyo Food Forest (NFF) picked Saturday for its Earth Day event, the two coinciding only once every seven years as will also happen this year for another signature Fort Bragg event, the World’s Largest Salmon Barbecue, held July 4. Earth Day is actually April 22 but in Mendocino, the date has become April 20, also known as the “high holiday” of Cannabis. Both Earth Day on April 22 and April 20 as the day for celebrating marijuana arose in the early 1970s.

2024 was a lucky year in every way, happening on 4/20, with summer-like weather and a big crowd. And not just any big crowd, but the kind the founders had hoped to someday develop — lots of kids to learn and have fun, Latino people and Natives. Originally, it was primarily attended by older mostly white counterculture folks. Despite being even older in 2024, they too were out in force, dancing in the sun to the likes of 2nd Hand Grass.

The Noyo Food Forest’s past Earth Days were often beset by bizarre unseasonal rain, rain blizzards, atmospheric rivers, high winds (like last year), chilly, overcast and cold days. Not so in 2024. Full sun and no wind to make the aerial circus performance more exciting than it needed to be. Bounce houses full of kids while the grandparent hippies rocked out on the other side of the ground.

Edwina Lincoln, a Native Yuki Elder from Round Valley, began this year’s event with a presentation about local forest issues and plans. That was followed by a performance by Circus Mecca, the Mendocino troop of young acrobats headed by Bones Newstad, followed by a presentation about biochar by the Redwood Forest Foundation..There was live music all day including 2nd Hand Grass, Gwyneth Moreland & Morgan Daniel (of Foxglove), Seaside String Sisters, and Boomdrums. There was a booth from a local chapter of one of the fastest growing environmental organizations in the nation–Latino Outdoors. Started in 2009 by graduate student Jose Gonzalez, the organization has chapters from Boston to Florida to the Great Lakes to Houston to every coastal county in California. The Mendocino Chapter is also called the Northern Pomo territory and started in 2021.

Ericka Lutz of the Noyo Food Forest said the attendance number didn’t include the large number of vendors, volunteers, musicians and nonprofit booths. The event had 28 nonprofit organization booths and eight vendors, she said.

Unfortunately, most Fort Bragg festivals and events have poor disabled access. Last year, I walked more than a mile because there were so many cars parked on streets and filling all the high school parking lots. This year, there were no high school baseball games at the same time, so I walked only about 400 yards to the gate. There was no available handicapped parking either year and no way to drive up and drop off a wheelchair-bound person at the front gate. This is true of most events in the area. An exception is the well-run Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens, which even has special wheelchairs to ramble through the dirt trails and gardens.

Noyo Food Forest, with its signature Learning Garden — a small climate-smart production farm spread out over roughly an acre on the Fort Bragg High School campus — was founded in 2006 by three coastal women, led by Susan Lightfoot, who first envisioned accessible garden spaces for the community to use. The Learning Garden has since evolved into a thriving production farm dedicated to growing food for the Fort Bragg Unified School District farm-to-cafeteria program. Those involved in NFF found that pupils will eat nutritious food if they are involved in growing it. Fresh produce, grown with regenerative, sustainable practices by students, community volunteers, and Noyo Food Forest staff, is walked from the farm to the school cafeteria, less than a block away. NFF also models community-based agriculture, sustainable pest management, developing increased biodiversity, carbon sequestration, and other climate-resilient practices. NFF offers free and low-cost workshops, paid internships, and classes in organic, community-based agriculture to train local farmers and gardeners to feed the community. The organization works in partnership with other organizations in our community including Noyo Center for Marine Science, Mendocino Land Trust, Latino Coalition, and Parents and Friends. Noyo Food Forest is supported by plant and produce sales plus donations and grants, and operated by staff, board of directors, students and volunteers.

(mendovoice.com)

From Ericka Lutz

Hi Frank,

Thanks for the write-up. You hit a lot of great aspects of the Earth Day Festival. However, the rest of the Board of Directors and I have concerns about your article, and we cordially request that you correct the items below.

Our main objection is your linking of Noyo Food Forest with the cannabis industry. Noyo Food Forest, a 501(c)3 educational non-profit, is not affiliated in any way with the cannabis industry. You assert that seed money for NFF came from cannabis money with no evidence or attribution for these allegations.

“While cannabis was not offered or consumed on Saturday, that was where money came from originally… Now a broader base of support has been found, organizers said.”

You told me that you relied on our website for NFF history… Where did you find statements that the organization was originally funded by cannabis? What organizers said that we now have a different source of support?

Frank, the pandemic absolutely threatened Noyo Food Forest’s existence. We lost board members. School was not in session (and our primary source of funding is the FBUSD farm-to-cafeteria program). Two years after our crisis, however, we are in a stronger position than ever. Our garden thrives. We have a strong expanded working board. We support the farm-to-cafeteria program, an intern program, a summer CSA box program, a vibrant community volunteer program, and garden workshops. We have multiple funding streams: fundraisers – including Earth Day –, grants, and donors. Since last fall, we have a new, exciting role collaborating with the school district and hosting the FBHS CTE Agriculture program. None of this has anything to do with cannabis.

That the Earth Day festival fell on 4/20 this year is coincidence. For 15 years we have held the festival on the Saturday closest to Earth Day, April 22.

We do appreciate the comments about needing better ADA access. There is always something to improve. However, using the example of the botanical gardens (which is a permanent institution) as a comparison with a once-annual event held in a high school field is not an appropriate comparison.

Thanks for your attention, Frank.

Best, Ericka Lutz and the rest of the Noyo Food Forest Board of Directors

EVEN PLAIN OLD OBSERVATIONS…

AVA,

I thought I would share my story on the Noyo Food Forest Earth Day along with the strident criticism I got by the NFF after. I think they have a strong point. The articulate response is from Ericka Lutz at Noyo Food Forest. I was there from the beginning watching at least and we did one story years ago on this funding years ago actually and also got pushback. It was in an Advocate special section.

I certainly want to give their side and they may be right and I was probably naughty to point out that most of the money on the Coast in those days was from cannabis in some way or another. It's folks like these that have made it better. They have worked hard to create broader bases and bring in all kinds of cool retired folks to hustle and volunteer. Several new efforts that now define this town would have never made it if they needed to be run by old Mendo free thinkers and plain talkers. My info from having been at the first and most of them is that people like Scott from Dirt Cheap were major sponsors and could be because of the cannabis industry. I bought a lot of stuff from Scott an I wasnt in the Cannabis industry, more the growing $50 tomatoes and $60 chard industry!

Now the NFF has innovated and created a much broader range of sponsors. It never openly courted this money but it was favored by many generous people, who can no longer be generous because of the collapse of the pot industry. Now they have new people over there. Never was any pot smoking tolerated, which once was a thing in Mendo, but this was for kids and never allowed. So fine, point taken I made it sound too pot related and the folks there now weren't there when they had to dive so deep to come up with the bucks at the start. I myself think we should not all agree to hate and fear cannabis and mushrooms and I'd put some knowledge, especially emerging science about those into education, despite the angry redneck moms, who all smoke and gummy themselves.

But I disagree on one thing with Ericka…ADA Access to Salmon BBQ, Earth Day and the rest of the events can and should be better, sorry. I can't take my disabled mom-in-law to most any of them even with the card in the window. The Salmon BBQ thinks it is, but it could be so much better by tasking their hired deputy with also maintaining a drop off for people not able to ride the MTA transport adventure just to have lunch.

The problem is everything operates on spin now and if you go out and just observe and report, people hate it. Thank goodness we are old and will stop bothering them soon!

Anyway, maybe we can get some conversation going!

The story: just post the link or whatever.

https://mendovoice.com/2024/04/noyo-food-forest-earth-day-event-in-fort-bragg-gains-an-even-bigger-and-diverse-audience

And now the criticism. Put in your two cents. Tell us we are all full of it! That's why we love the AVA! (well one reason)

Frank Hartzell

Fort Bragg

Fire Scarred Trees East of Calpella (Jeff Goll)

TRAIL TALK: UNVEILING THE AMBITIOUS PLANS AND CONTROVERSIES SURROUNDING THE GREAT REDWOOD TRAIL

by Monica Huettl

On April 16, 2024, the Great Redwood Trail Agency Executive Director, Elaine Hogan, hosted a webinar introducing the Draft Master Plan for the 307-mile Great Redwood Trail network. This condensed overview, likened to “Cliff Notes” by project manager Jeff Knowles, outlined the trail’s route through Mendocino, Trinity, and Humboldt Counties, repurposing existing railroad tracks. However, the plan faced challenges, including public input, logistical issues, and environmental considerations. Yet, advocates predict the trail’s ability to transform the region’s landscape and economy.

The Great Redwood Trail covers 231 miles of the trail through Mendocino, Trinity, and Humboldt Counties. The Smart Train agency is responsible for the southern portion of the trail in Sonoma and Marin counties. In those counties, there will be a rail for the Smart Train, with a pathway alongside the railroad tracks for trail use.

In Mendocino, Trinity, and Humboldt Counties, the trail will be built on top of the existing railroad tracks. This is called “railbanking.” They leave the tracks intact under the trail in case someone ever wants to operate a train again. There was a public comment during the webinar, asking that the tracks not be buried, and to reinstate the railroad from Willits to Cloverdale. The railroad has been gone for decades, but railroad advocates are opposed to burying the tracks on this trail section. …

https://mendofever.com/2024/04/24/trail-talk-unveiling-the-ambitious-plans-and-controversies-surrounding-the-great-redwood-trail

THE RON TINKLER TRACK & FIELD COMPLEX

Anderson Valley Unified School District is receiving a $1 million check from the Clean California Local Grant Program for our Track and Field project. The Anderson Valley Track to Health and Fitness (AVTHF) will provide beautification, enhancement and expansive community fitness opportunities at Anderson Valley Junior/Senior High School in Boonville.

There was no existing track at the Anderson Valley high school, in the late 80s early 90s. But what we did have was a man named Ron Tinkler. He had children starting high school and he realized that there was no track nor track team. Ron himself was a past track star, competed at the state of California level and earned a bag of gold medals to prove it. Ron attended Clovis High School and was a standout tailback on the football team. He played alongside future NFL great Daryl LaMonica.

As a sprinter his specialty was the 220 yard dash. His best time was 21.9 and held the Junior Olympic record for this race for a number of years. Ron was also an accomplished 120 yard high hurdler and 100 yard dash sprinter. Because of his history on the track Ron decided one must be built. The track oval was built with volunteers that Ron recruited. Ron’s guidance and leadership gave us the track that was used for a number of years and Ron was the first Anderson Valley coach to use the new track. It should be noted that Ron’s wife Ellen was a well loved teacher in the Anderson Valley school district for a good number of years. Both of Ron and Ellen’s children attended school in our district and graduated from our high school. Their son Jesse ran on the first track team to use the track. It would be the suggestion of my wife Wendy and I, and we feel a very appropriate one, to name our new track, the Ron Tinkler Track and Field Complex.

Russ Emal

Boonville

WHAT TO WRITE FOR THE AVA?

The Anderson Valley Advertiser is the most open, honest, intelligent, provocative, and entertaining weekly newspaper left standing, and if you want to contribute a story here are some things you might consider:

When you send something to the AVA you have to trust editor Bruce Anderson’s opinion that your story is worthy of publication, all viewpoints are published, from left to extreme right, and if you’re a lovable old-timer like Jerry Philbrick you can rant in the letters section every week.

The AVA is all about history: Anderson Valley, Mendocino, Humboldt, the Northcoast, California from the 1800’s to now, your family history, your interesting personal memoirs, and any other story you want to tell.

To write for the AVA it doesn’t hurt if you’re currently in jail or prison. (The Editor is a vet of the local lockup, thrown in when he wouldn’t give up his sources in the Bear Lincoln case, and for other protests during his colorful career.) The paper has been a mouthpiece for those fairly or unfairly incarcerated, including Flynn Washbourn’s entertaining multiple-year prison screeds about his wild past in Albion. (He humanized the meth-head, putting out the image of a nice harmless guy who just likes to get high. Once freed, Flynn apparently drifted back to his powder of choice and was no longer inspired to write for the AVA.)

You can criticize anything, even the Editor and the AVA, and you can send it in anonymously, though it would help if your attacks are backed up with facts, which Bruce asks for and rarely receives. If you accuse someone of a crime, or other nefarious activities, you probably have to sign your name and/or offer some proof. (If you attack the esteemed Editor, proceed with caution, as he has been nicknamed “The Beast of Boonville.”) Most vitriol from trolls and others goes out online now as print media recedes, while the AVA, “The Last Newspaper in America,” somehow continues. (Until today.)

Which brings us to politics: Interesting, boring, sarcastic, repetitive, or however it’s expressed, politics is the heart of the AVA. The Editor attacks most politicians and points to signs of the downfall of civilization often. “The end times are near,” he seems contractually obligated, by his inner gods or demons, to announce. (Mendocino County government is thoroughly and savagely covered by Mark Scaramella and Jim Shields, painting a frustrating picture of unprofessional stagnation in most departments. Bruce McEwen’s gonzo court reporting added an accurate and valuable look inside the system for years as well.)

One of the Editor’s more enduring put-down lines is: “In Mendocino you are whoever you say you are and history starts over again each day.” (Wow, that actually sounds pretty cool to this hill muffin, like self-discovery and instant personal growth. Can we really do that? Start our personal history anew each morning?)

Sports, The Toy Department of Life, is also a good topic to write for the AVA as the Editor grew up playing and loving sports and is a fan of the 49ers and other local teams. (I once played against Bruce’s brother Ken on my only visit to Boonville back in the late seventies when Flick invited the Whitethorn Zombies to play a softball doubleheader against the Rainbow Boys. They demolished us, lead by the gigantic home runs hit by the cigar-chomping Ken Anderson, who we heckled as “Stogie” of course, as his balls flew out of the park. We returned to Whitethorn in disgrace and never got over it, though we did get to camp out in a vineyard in Yorkville.)

Let’s not forget books: If you write about books or send in a list of your favorites, your letter or article will leap to the front of the letters section, if not the front page. (The Editor loves books and if it were a choice between having books or the internet I would choose books instantly.)

You should always write about what you know, like marijuana for example. Weed has been a topic for decades and there are still a few articles about it in the paper, mostly about the calamity of legalization, and the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors’ botched attempts at creating a workable program for legal growers, perhaps an impossible job with plummeting prices caused by oversupply.

Bruce has never been a fan of the good herb, the holy plant, the drug of choice for so many, though a sizable segment of his loyal readers and subscribers are/were growers and smokers of the evil weed. Yes, pot is nearly over but keep those historic stories coming. (Some of the regular contributors to this here Geezer Gazette admit to being one toke over the line.)

The Editor likes to encourage the amateur writers among us to send in letters and articles but has little tolerance for abject whiners. A little self-deprecation is okay, just don’t complain too much unless it’s funny, as the Editor is a humorist himself. However, if you canut spull or use bad grandma your mysteaks won’t be edited out by the busy producers of this enduring passion project, this artifact called The Anderson Valley Advertiser, a pleasurable read and fun to write for.

(hillmuffin@gmail.com)

CATCH OF THE DAY, Wednesday, April 24, 2024

ROBERT BASS, Brookings, Oregon/Ukiah. Controlled substance, paraphernalia.

WESLEY DICKSON, Ukiah. Attempt to keep stolen property.

JAIME MARIN, Ukiah. County parole violation.

RAUL MEDINA, Ukiah. DUI, failure to appear.

DON'T MESS WITH THE REGS

Editor:

I’m a physician getting recertified to perform examinations on pilots for the Federal Aviation Administration. This training made me appreciate the benefits of a functional government. The presenters were rightfully proud of their safety record, given the task of keeping airways safe and efficient. From certifying pilots and aircraft to maintaining a functional and compliant matrix of airfields and airports working in synchronicity, the FAA does a great job, and (despite recent high-profile Boeing incidents) the safety record for air travel is nothing short of amazing.

Then I began thinking of the many ways we are protected by regulations. When was the last time you questioned the safety of eating a product bought at a grocery store? When is the last time you ate at a restaurant and worried about getting sick? Regulation is rarely convenient, often inefficient and never cheap, but it keeps us safe, and I believe we have started taking it for granted.

The MAGA movement is working to destroy regulatory agencies for higher profits. They want to take us back to the days of back alley abortions and hepatitis outbreaks. Don’t fool yourselves — democracy is often messy, but we will miss it if it goes away.

Gerry Lazzareschi

Healdsburg

THE HUMAN COST OF A STRAWBERRY WAGE

by David Bacon

Driving north on California's Highway 101 through the central coast, a traveler approaches the Santa Ynez Valley through miles of grapevines climbing gently rolling hills. Here humans have mastered nature, the landscape seems to say - a bucolic vision of agriculture with hardly a worker in sight. Perhaps a lone irrigator adjusts drip pipes or sprinklers. Only during a few short weeks in the fall can one see the harvest crews filling gondolas behind the tractors. Even then, you'd have to be driving at night, when most grape picking now takes place under floodlights that illuminate the rows behind the machines.

As 101 winds out of the hills, the crop beside the highway suddenly changes. Here endless rows of strawberries fill the valley's flat plane. Dirt access roads bisect enormous fields, and beside them dozens of cars sit parked in the dust. Most are older vans and sedans. Inside this vast expanse dozens of workers move down the rows.

From the highway, many fields are hidden by tall plastic screens. Growers claim they keep animals out, but they are really a legacy of the farmworker strikes of the 1970s. Then growers sought to keep workers inside, away from strikers in the roadway calling out to them, urging them to stop picking and leave. The abusive and dangerous conditions of strawberry workers today, and the eruptions of their protests over them, make the screens more than just a symbol of past conflict.…

https://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com/2024/04/the-human-cost-of-strawberry-wage.html

KELSEYVILLE & IDENTITY

Conflict and confusion in social clash over small town name

by Betsy Cawn

Lake County’s Kelseyville Unified School District board of trustees Wednesday night tabled a proposed proclamation honoring indigenous peoples at the behest of former County Supervisor Rob Brown and dozens of community members opposed to renaming the town, focus of a social movement that began more than two decades ago but recently spurred by a name-change application filed with the United States Geological Survey’s Bureau of Geographical Names (BGN) in 2023. (Lake County News, April 24, 2024)

Citizens for Healing is a non-profit collaboration of tribal descendants and empathic emigres — 21st century transplants from more urbane cultural backgrounds and multi-generation local families accustomed to the harsh struggles for economic independence in rough rural homesteads and ranches — dared to challenge the elite presumptions of collective propriety demanded by business leaders and self-proclaimed creators of the town’s marketable identity and oxidental (sic) civic values.

Several years ago, a lesser groundswell of sentiment caused the school board to change the name of the highschool’s sports mascot, from “Indians” to “Knights,” hardly an intellectual improvement but one that was seen as a precursor to Lake County’s more recent “investment” in “diversity, inclusion, and equity.”

The local Office of Education supports county-wide delivery of indigenous history curricula, and students of indigenous descent formed clubs supporting “integration” of Native American culture into the educational context of “higher learning.”

But the origins of the movement, which emerged as local tribes were granted authority to become “self-determination” masters (with new revenue streams and exclusive economic powers fueled by gambling enterprises) were also championed by a pair of KPFZ radio programmers, each now respected elders in two indegenous tribes — Elem Colony and Robinson Rancheria, both survivors of US Government abuse and internal power struggles that resulted in painful disenrollment of remaining Elem clan members and now-overturned exclusion of “mixed race” Robinson families.

21st century newcomers, wholly ignorant of the post-war “relocation” of young tribal adults to metropolican re-education programs (incentivized assimilation into anglo-owned business empires and public administration) — living descendants of enslaved and massacred tribal families and forced segregation in federally-operated “reservations” — insist that the proponents of removing culturally denigrating place names are themselves perpetuating the indignant umbrage of landowners whose sense of entitlement drives the anti-change mobsters.

Tapping the eruptive panic of world-wide anti-intellectual fear mongers, emotionally charged hysterics stormed the small meeting room — where the school district’s board of trustees was poised to adopt a resolution “for healing and reconciliation with indigenous peoples and lands” — clearly harmonious with the spirit of the town’s name-change proposal but having no fungible import to those who prefer to use the previous nomenclature for brand marketing purpose.

In fact, the relatively recent transition to a fully accepted — at least on paper — inter-familial society in Lake County acknowledges (at long last) the co-optability of tribal cultures with marketing potential, and side benefits such as access to federal funding and intergovernmental pull.

Unexpectedly savvy tribal organizations, having built sound financial institutions with the capacity to provide beneficial services to mostly anglo neighbors (over a million dollars donated to the Northshore Fire Protection District by the Habematolel Band of Pomo Indians of Upper Lake, for example) are well represented in the USGS BGN and California’s Advisory Committee on Geographic Names (CACGN).

Meanwhile, mercantile opponents of the name change dismiss the entirety of the linguistic reconciliation process as an “Indian takeover.” (Posted on a Facebook page published by a semi-literate defender of the status quo.)

At the heart of the proposed school district resolution acknowledges “the painful, tragic, and traumatic history of genocide and forced removal from this land” and “extends our deepest respect to citizens of these nations who live here and elsewhere today and their ancestors who lived here for generations” by committing to “the continued unification of the community, together.” ”FURTHER, the Kelseyville Unified School District Governing Board respectfully invites our community to join in this effort towards healing and reconciliation.”

Extensive historical and intergovernmental process records published by “Citizens for Healing” are found at this web address: https://citizensforhealing.org/bgn-cover.php.

Betsy Cawn

The Essential Public Information Center

Upper Lake

STILL STEVE TO ME II

Greetings

Some days ago I visited the Beat Museum. I spoke to Brandon. I had with me a copy of a 1953 little magazine in which Ferlinghetti was published for the first or second time. It was published by my father, Horace Schwartz.

I offered to donate it if the Museum would let me hold an event there celebrating Neeli, who I welcomed to NB in 1973, as I recall, and whose serious career I helped launch by employing him at Coppola's CITY magazine and facilitating his intro to John Brockman, the agent for his Ferlinghetti book.

I also wanted to use the occasion to read out the attached text. Last night I was told that Agneta has received it positively.

*I have decided, however, to withdraw this request/offer.*

After much thought, it is clear to me that while Agneta and others in her circle are open to some conciliation with me, others are not. Scum like "Renoir" cannot give up their addiction to hate. The late Rosemary Manno tried repeatedly to influence "Renoir" about this. But "Renoir," a North Beach half-woman, could not be induced to change. She continued to slander me and incite others against me. She is an ex-convict with incipient dementia.

I have decided to hold a large event in NB that will present me as I am, a transwoman transformed. It will include poetry, reminiscence, song, and more. It will be free. It will be open to women. Men will be admitted by invitation only. This is because I have learned that I cannot trust men in the NB literary scene. I have been groped, threatened with rape, and otherwise harassed since coming out as a transwoman. The event will be held by new creative people uninterested in stale North Beach gossip.

The event will be held to commemorate a reading I held 50 years ago, with Ferlinghetti"s support, to mark my break with the bogus surrealism of some adventurists in Chicago. It has been 40 years since I was allowed the privilege of a reading in North Buchenwald.

I had thought of approaching Peter Maravelis about holding such an event at the bookstore which my father helped found. That is obviously inappropriate. I would, at this point, rather hold such an event in Moscow. Or Mariupol.

*I was assaulted sexually in Serbia. I would be safer there than in NB. I had authority as a United Nations human rights investigator to carry a badge and a firearm in Kosovo. I never accepted such. North Beach is a Hobbesian nightmare. I will not submit to the rule of hate. I have changed. Truly changed. I stand for conciliation and for love. *

I was a physical coward through all those years of bluster. The noise was a cover. But I have been taught by women named Rebecca, Claire (old NB, loathes it now), and Karen to be a warrior woman. I will never again be afraid.

Like the woman in the ballad *La doncella guerrera*. This text by me was published by Octavio Paz, after a long dialogue with him. Octavio loved India, which he saw as a big Mexico, and feared Islam. But he published this. Neeli loved it and quoted it to me Many years after, the translator of this piece, RubÃ©n Gallo, held an event at Princeton University, a minor institution, in my honor.

Octavio Paz was not alone in Mexico City in esteeming me. Esteban Volkov, the grandson of Trotsky, communicated with me that he knew of the travails I have undergone here. He assured me of his appreciation for my work as a historian.

https://youtu.be/TMFWZxIkxvM?si=k733wIZYyprjc4We

I left North Beach. I went out in the World. Then, heartsick with what I had seen and tired of whoring for money and power, on the edge of suicide, addicted, alone, hopeless, I returned here to rest, read, do Remeron, and write. I am now pharma-free. I write 10 hours a day.

*Stephen Schwartz was not allowed to rest here. "Renoir" and its criminal gang made sure of that.*

Lulu Schwartz is reborn here, will endure here, will prevail. I may stay. I don't know. There are places like Barcelona and Prishtina where I am loved, with all my faults. They want to see Lulu there. They care about Lulu or Stephen or Lejla or Sulejman (Schwartz).

I hope you understand. Be well.

La doncella guerrera

HURT FEELINGS

Some people say that rappers don't have feelings
We have feelings. (We have feelings)
Some people say that we are not rappers. (We're rappers.)
That hurts our feelings.
(Hurts our feelings when you say we're not rappers.)
Some people say that rappers are invincible
We're vincible. (We're vincible.)
What you are about to hear are true stories
(Real experiences)
Autobiographical raps.
Things that happened to us, all true
Bring the rhyme!

I make a meal for my friends,
Try to make it delicious,
Try to keep it nutritious,
Create wonderful dishes.
Not one of them thinks about the way I feel
Nobody compliments the meal

I got hurt feelings, I got hurt feelings
I feel like a prize asshole
No one even mentions my casserole.
I got hurt feelings, I got hurt feelings.
You coulda said something nice about my profiteroles

Here's a little story to bring a tear to your eye,
I was shopping for a wetsuit to scuba dive,
But every suit I tried is too big around the thighs,
And the assistant suggested I try a ladies' size

I got hurt feelings, I got hurt feelings
I'm not gonna wear a ladies' wetsuit I'm a man!
I got hurt feelings, I got hurt feelings
Get me a small man's wetsuit, please

It's my birthday, 2003
Waitin' for a call from my family

They forgot about me

I got hurt feelings, I got hurt feelings
The day after my birthday is not my birthday, Mum
I call my friends and say, "Let's go into town"
But they're all too busy to go into town
So I go by myself, I go into town
Then I see all my friends, they're all in town

I got hurt feelings, I got hurt feelings.
They're all lined up to watch that movie
"Maid in Manhattan."
Have you even been told that your ass is too big?
Have you ever been asked if your hair is a wig?
Have you ever been told you're mediocre in bed?
Have you ever been told you've got a weird-shaped head?
Has your family ever forgotten you and driven away?
Once again, they forgot about J
Were you ever called "homo" 'cause at school you took drama?
Have you ever been told that you look like a llama?

Tears of a rapper
(don't wanna make a rapper cry then watch what you say)
I'm crying tears of a rapper
(I pouring out the bullets of my Icannon)
Go play the tears of a rapper
(These are the tears of a rapper now)
The diamond tears of a rapper
(These are the bullet proof 24 karat of tears, of a rapper)

— Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement

CALIFORNIA INSURANCE CRISIS: Here are some of the worst stories we’ve heard from homeowners — and how they’ve coped

by Clare Fonstein

A growing number of California homeowners are grappling with a changing insurance market, as some companies limit coverage, leave the state altogether or sharply raise premiums amid concerns about wildfire risk and high rebuilding costs.

The crisis has left many homeowners in the challenging position of trying to find new insurance when options are slim and costs are rising. Even some residents outside the areas of high wildfire risk are struggling to obtain coverage, and some say they may be forced to leave their longtime homes.

It took two insurance agents, months of waiting, numerous phone calls and thousands more dollars for Dena Watson-Lamprey to get her hillside home in Berkeley’s Thousand Oaks neighborhood insured after her longtime provider canceled coverage last fall.

Dena Watson-Lamprey found it difficult to obtain new homeowners’ insurance after Safeco declined to renew the policy on her Berkeley home. “I had an alphabetical list and I started going down the list and calling … and nobody would cover it,” Watson-Lamprey said.

Around September, Watson-Lamprey and her husband — both 70 years old — got a letter from their insurer, Safeco, telling them their homeowners policy would not be renewed due to “density.” Unsure of what this meant, Watson-Lamprey spoke with insurance agents, who explained this meant Safeco, which is owned by Liberty Mutual, determined it was covering too many properties in a particular area.

Liberty Mutual told the Chronicle it cannot comment on individual policy decisions.

In the 20 years Watson-Lamprey and her husband have owned their home near Solano Avenue, they had never filed a claim, according to Watson-Lamprey.

After receiving the nonrenewal notice, Watson-Lamprey started making phone calls and quickly realized just how difficult it was going to be to find new insurance.

“I had an alphabetical list and I started going down the list and calling … and nobody would cover it,” Watson-Lamprey said.

The representatives she spoke to told her either they could insure her property for everything other than fire or not at all.

She tried to get an AAA policy with supplementary fire insurance from the FAIR Plan, but after weeks of waiting to hear back from the FAIR Plan, her agent said she should look elsewhere for insurance. The FAIR plan is a government-created fire insurance option for those who cannot find coverage from a standard provider.

Brokers and homeowners working with the FAIR Plan have attested to lengthy response times in recent months, as the intended insurer of last resort is sought out by more and more customers. (The FAIR Plan says it is now giving quotes “within its normal processing period of five days after receipt of a complete application.”)

Watson-Lamprey and her husband never successfully secured a policy with AAA, but eventually got insurance with Aegis, though without fire coverage. With the new Aegis agent, she reapplied to the FAIR Plan and waited for a response.

While they waited, the couple’s house was without fire insurance for about two months.

“The idea of losing the house, losing everything, having no insurance and having to use our retirement money to either rebuild or buy all that outright doesn’t make me feel very good,” Watson-Lamprey said.

During the wait, Watson-Lamprey also reached out to her state senator, Nancy Skinner, hoping to get her help. Skinner’s office directed Watson-Lamprey to the Department of Insurance, which suggested she file a complaint with the department. She declined, because she thought it wouldn’t be much help.

The roughly $1,800 Aegis policy, without fire insurance, was more than Watson-Lamprey had paid with Safeco. Finally, after more than 10 weeks of waiting, Watson-Lamprey finally got a FAIR Plan policy. Though it only covered fire damage, the premium was $5,700, she said.

FAIR Plan representatives noted that it insures people regardless of location or wildfire risk, so that clients are often drawn from a high-risk pool. There are areas in the state where their rates are lower than the commercial market, FAIR Plan president Victoria Roach said during a state legislative hearing in March.

Watson-Lamprey said she has been able to afford the steep increase but said she worries about others who may not be able to.

The experience, she said, has left her feeling “really, really abandoned by my state government.”

* * *

As they near retirement and watch home insurance prices increase, Mo Ghotbi and his wife are debating whether their St. Helena home is worth keeping.

Nationwide declined to renew Ghotbi’s policy in 2021. Since then, the cost of home coverage has jumped dramatically.

Mo Ghotbi saw insurance costs for his St. Helena home increase dramatically after his previous provider declined to renew his policy in 2021. While he’d like to retire in California, he and his wife have discussed leaving the state.

Initially, Ghotbi didn’t think finding another insurer would be a major problem. He anticipated that costs would rise slightly, but believed there would at least be options.

But working through a broker, Ghotbi found just one company, Rivington Partners, that would write him a policy, for an annual premium of $22,000. His premium with Nationwide had never risen above $8,000, he said.

Since then, the cost of insuring his home has increased further.

For 2024, Ghotbi’s policy premium was more than $30,000. The situation, he said, has become “unsustainable” and has meant putting less money toward retirement. (Rivington Partners did not respond to a request for comment.)

Ghotbi had hoped the cost of insurance would go down because there haven’t been major wildfires nearby in a few years. His new insurer asked him to complete some fire mitigation projects on his property, which he did: He removed trees, increased his defensible space and added special screens over vents to prevent embers from getting inside the house.

“The rates have continued to increase despite all these other efforts,” he said. “It’s frustrating, obviously, because I’m basically doing everything the insurance company asks me to do.”

Ghotbi has tried multiple brokers but has been unable to find cheaper options. And while he’d love to retire in California, he said, he and his wife have discussed leaving the state.

“I can’t continue this,” he added. “My wife and I are actually considering putting the house on the market and selling, because it doesn’t make any sense for us now.”

Somehow, though, Ghotbi remains optimistic. With the recent wet seasons and local fire mitigation efforts, he said he is hopeful rates will eventually decrease.

* * *

Stanley Lathrop, who lives near Nevada City in the Sierra Nevada foothills, saw it coming.

Lathrop and his wife had seen friends nearby dropped from their insurance. And in 2023 it was their turn: Coverage for their home, surrounded by woods and insured with Horace Mann for 27 years, was canceled due to fire risk.

Lathrop and his wife are both retired elementary school teachers; Horace Mann is specifically for educators.

Horace Mann vice president of investor relations and enterprise communications Heather Wietzel said in a statement that she cannot comment on specific policyholder situations, but “our risk selection for property coverage has always reflected our focus on preferred educator clients.”

Stanley Lathrop and his wife outside their home in a wooded area in the vicinity of Nevada City. After their insurance policy was canceled due to fire risk, the only option Lathrop could find for fire coverage was the FAIR Plan. He’s worried about rising costs.

“We didn’t even think about our homeowners’ insurance for all those years, and now each year I think we’re going to worry about it,” he said.

After being dropped, the only option Lathrop could find was the FAIR Plan. He also found a supplemental policy to cover the gaps left by the FAIR Plan, he said.

For now, the almost $7,000 annual cost of the FAIR Plan with the supplemental policy — about 75% more than he’d been paying earlier — is not as bad as Lathrop feared it might be. But that is mainly because Horace Mann had been steadily raising rates, including a 40% hike the year prior to being dropped which brought his insurance cost to around $4,000, Lathrop said.

“We’re on a fixed income, so it is a strain,” he said.

He is worried, though, that the cost of coverage will continue to rise. In his 70s, he is retired and feeling less secure in his living situation.

“I read stories about people getting really high bills from the FAIR Plan, and if it came to that, we would probably have to look for somewhere else to live,” he said.

Another concern is that the insurance situation is likely to be an issue if he tries to sell the house and move closer to town.

“That’s going to be tricky because, first of all, selling this house, and then finding another house — we’re going to have to deal with the insurance there too,” Lathrop said.

* * *

Wendy Wallner and other condo owners in a Pacifica complex collectively paid a little more than $22,000 for $14 million worth of insurance coverage in 2021. This year, she said, the owners are paying $270,000 for just $2.5 million worth of coverage.

“It’s extremely frustrating and very scary because we don’t know what alternatives we have,” Wallner said.

“We don’t think enough is being done by the state of California to help,” Wendy Wallner said of the huge jump in home insurance rates at her Pacifica condo complex.

Wallner has owned a condo in the 40-unit complex for about 10 years and is on the board of the homeowners association.

Problems arose in 2022, she said, when the complex — a mile from the ocean in a hillside area — received a high wildfire risk score from its insurer, Trisura Insurance, and lost its homeowners association insurance coverage.

Wallner said the complex began looking into State Farm as an alternative after Trisura dropped its coverage, but State Farm stopped writing new policies in California, citing wildfire risks as a factor. (State Farm just announced that it would not renew tens of thousands of California policies.)

“We had a plan to go with them … and then they pulled out,” Wallner said.

With time running out, the complex eventually went with two providers, Lexington Insurance and Landmark American Insurance, Wallner said. Both are “surplus lines” insurers, meaning they are not licensed with the state. Surplus lines insurers do not have to file rate plans with the Department of Insurance and are not backed by the California Insurance Guarantee Association in case of failure.

With the two surplus lines companies jointly providing coverage, Wallner’s complex experienced its first large price jump, to $207,000 a year — and covering losses only up to $2.5 million.

“We couldn’t believe it. We had no knowledge this was likely to happen,” Wallner said.

In 2023, Wallner got a notice of more bad news. The insurance premium went up again — to $270,000 a year, still for just $2.5 million of coverage. The insurance covers the common areas and the 40 units of the building, but not the contents of the building, Wallner said.

Neither Trisura Insurance nor Lexington Insurance responded to a request for comment, and Landmark American insurance could not be directly reached.

Condo owners in this Pacifica complex, located a mile from the ocean in a hillside area, are paying more than 10 times as much for insurance coverage as they did in 2021, according to one owner, Wendy Wallner.

Their broker said it would cost the association millions of dollars to get full coverage for the complex, according to Wallner — and the board is contracted to provide full insurance, she said. Insurance is a requirement for mortgages. Many homeowners are frustrated, Wallner said.

“It’s been a really challenging situation, and we don’t think enough is being done by the state of California to help,” Wallner said. California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara has responded to the crisis by developing a Sustainable Insurance Strategy to usher in changes aimed at increasing insurance availability. The changes, which include allowing insurers to change how they assess wildfire risk, are set to be implemented by December.

* * *

Ron Britvich and his wife have lived in their dream home in Placerville (El Dorado County), with a garden, chickens and horses for 23 years. But as the cost of insurance increases, they say they may be forced to sell and move out of the state.

“We’ve enjoyed living here,” Britvich said. “We just didn’t expect that we would be faced with having to perhaps leave.”

Rob Britvich, pictured with his wife, Vicki, faced increasing insurance rates on their Placerville home even though, according to Britvich, nothing about the property’s circumstances has changed. “To have no options is kind of painful,” Ron Britvich said. The couple have considered moving out of state.

Four years ago, Nationwide canceled his approximately $1,500-per-year homeowners policy, without giving a specific reason. Britvich and his wife worked with a broker but couldn’t find a comprehensive alternative.

“To have no options is kind of painful,” he said.

Nationwide did not respond to a request for comment.

Britvich had to turn to the FAIR Plan, which quoted him an annual premium of $7,500 for fire coverage. The FAIR Plan does not cover water damage, theft and liability, so Britvich got another insurance policy with Safeco, adding more to his total cost.

“Basically overnight our insurance went from $1,500 a year to $9,000 a year,” he said.

Today, they pay more than $13,000 annually for the FAIR Plan alone. Including their Safeco policy, he said, their total insurance cost comes to about $15,000. The price kept increasing, Britvich said, though nothing about his home’s circumstance was changing.

To cover his insurance costs, Britvich dipped into his savings and got a home equity line of credit. He also applied to begin receiving Social Security payments, though he had hoped to wait longer to do so. He is trying to reduce his expenses and is starting a software company.

If the software company “doesn’t work or doesn’t happen fast enough, then we’re pretty much forced to say goodbye to our home,” he said. If they do move, they won’t stay in California, he said, because costs have become prohibitive.

Britvich said his neighbors are dealing with similar problems, and some no longer have home insurance.

“I’m expecting the worst and hoping for the best, but so far my expectations are coming true,” Britvich said.

PG&E’S CEO GETS PAID $17 MILLION. HOW DOES THAT COMPARES TO OTHER UTILITY LEADERS?

by Emma Stiefel

PG&E CEO Patricia Poppe took home $17 million in the 2023 fiscal year, including her $1.4 million salary and $11.8 million in stock awards. That was up by nearly $3 million from 2022, when she made $14.1 million in compensation.

While critics believe this hearty pay package is uncalled for amid soaring energy bills, PG&E has argued that they are paying market rate for top talent.

To put Poppe’s pay in context, the Chronicle collected CEO compensation data for the 20 investor-owned utilities in the U.S. with the highest 2023 revenues. PG&E’s revenue was third highest.

Poppe’s salary is in the middle of the pack on two key measures of CEO pay among this group. Seven other CEOs received higher total compensation amounts in the last fiscal year. And while Poppe made 95 times more than the median PG&E employee in 2023, that ratio only ranked 11th among the 20 CEOs the Chronicle examined. Andrés Gluski, the CEO of AES, made 244 times the median employee.

PG&E spokesperson Ari Vanrenen told the Chronicle that approximately 90 percent of Poppe’s compensation last year was incentive pay earned by meeting the company’s safety, operational and financial targets. In 2023, PG&E’s efforts to meet those goals included constructing 364 miles of underground power lines, receiving regulatory approval to keep the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant open and providing 99% reliable gas service by avoiding unplanned outages.

Mark Toney, Executive Director of The Utility Reform Network, believes it’s unfair that Poppe made $17 million while PG&E customers suffer from historic rate increases. Poppe received about $3 for each of the 5.5 million PG&E electricity customer accounts, though her pay does not come directly from customer rates. Her total compensation was over three times the $5.4 million PG&E's highest-paid executive vice president received in 2023.

“Customers have a right to be upset that the PG&E board and investors are willing to pay so much to the CEO and other executives in the face of record-breaking bills,” Toney told the Chronicle. “Anyone who’s paying a PG&E bill is unhappy about this.”

California law, however, prevents PG&E from raising rates to pay executives. The California Public Utilities Commission, which approves utility rate increases in the state, doesn’t include executive compensation on the list of costs rates are set to cover. Instead, executive pay has to come from shareholder profits or reducing operational costs.

For Toney, those distinctions don’t matter much.

“Let’s be clear here, PG&E has only one source of revenue: ratepayers,” he said. “They get to take a portion of it and relabel it as shareholder funds, but all shareholder money comes from one place and that’s monthly bills.”

In Toney’s view, fairer compensation for Poppe might be closer to the take-home pay for the executives of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, a public utility. Martin Adams, the LADWP’s general manager and chief engineer, received about $400,000 in 2022.

But, as an investor-owned utility, Vanrenen said PG&E has to offer high pay to compete for the most talented executives. That includes the $6.6 million in cash and $31.9 million in restricted stocks awarded to Poppe when she was hired in 2021 in order to “compensate her for compensation that was forfeited from her prior employer.” Poppe was CEO of Consumers Energy Co., Michigan’s largest electricity and gas provider, before coming to PG&E.

“We think California deserves to have the best people running PG&E,” Vanrenen told the Chronicle. “If [executives] don’t deliver, that is reflected in their pay.”

Sanjai Bhagat, a professor of finance at the University of Colorado Boulder, believes that aligning CEO compensation with long-term performance is more important than the dollar amount executives earn. If a CEO is incentivized to maximize company performance past the end of their term, Bhagat said, most stakeholders, including customers and the environment, benefit too.

Bhagat advocates paying CEOs with restricted stocks that vest six months to a year after a CEO stops working at a company. That way, CEOs with insider knowledge of a company’s problems are incentivized to fix them rather than sell stocks for personal gain before the price crashes.

In 2023, about 76% of Poppe’s compensation came from stocks that vest three years after she receives them. That vesting schedule isn’t Bhagat’s worst-case scenario of stocks vesting immediately, but it’s also not his ideal of stocks vesting only after a CEO has left the company.

As a California utility, PG&E’s executive compensation plans are subject to extra regulation. The salary structure of a utility's CEO must be approved by California’s Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety, which ensures executive compensation is tied to public safety. Poppe and other PG&E executives lose some of their planned compensation if the company fails to meet safety goals, including reducing wildfire risk.

(SF Chronicle)

San Francisco Giants pitcher Juan Marichal in action during the 1966 season. (photo by Malcolm Emmons)

QUOTH THE RAVEN'S "FRINGE FINANCE"

by Matt Taibbi

Not long ago, economic reporting was the most primitive of news scams. Few campaign reporters understood much about finance and campaign aides and Hill staffers could often successfully convince them “the economy” was up or down based on a handful of indicators: stock prices, unemployment rates, and inflation stats. The economy might be “booming” or “sluggish,” but there was seldom any effort to connect financial fads to real-world problems. When newspapers finally began offering “business sections,” there was some early coverage of the dirty underbelly, but these pages soon became cheerleading sections, written not for broad audiences but people in finance.

Since 2008, this weakness in the media landscape has become more apparent, and sites as different as Zero Hedge, Naked Capitalism, The Bear Traps Report, and Thoughtful Money attracted wide audiences by mixing nontraditional economic analysis with political commentary. Chris Irons, a.k.a Quoth the Raven’s “Fringe Finance” is a classic Substack response to the gap-filled financial news landscape, taking on subjects from inflation to the Fed’s balance sheet to Bitcoin mining, from the perspective of the general public. As Irons writes:

“I have spent years reading news that, in my opinion, often missed the point and buried the lede. Up until a couple years ago, I just thought it was because the mainstream media needed to be careful. Now, it has become clear that it is likely due to the mainstream media and financial media’s purpose to drive a narrative which serves the interests of a small minority, rather than the common citizen.”

As part of Racket’s ongoing effort to get acquainted with fellow Substack sites, we pinged Chris with a few questions:

Racket: What can you tell us about yourself?

Irons: I’ve been involved in markets for over 20 years and have been doing investigative work related to finance for more than a decade. I’ve been active on Twitter for over a decade (@QTRResearch) and started my own podcast about six years ago when I noticed that financial commentators who I thought made the most sense were getting less and less airtime on mainstream financial media. A full primer on my story and what drives me can be found at this presentation I gave back in 2018: I live in Philadelphia and otherwise enjoy playing chess, running, and practicing Jiu-Jitsu.

Racket: Are you a Poe fan? Or does a raven give you advice on which stocks to pick?

Irons: The name started over a decade ago when I began writing under the Quoth the Raven moniker to stay anonymous at the time. I was a literature major in college and I’m definitely a Poe fan, but at the time I was just using it as a placeholder. I never thought it would become a name that people eventually would recognize me by. It just stuck, and I just kept it.

Racket: Traditionally, high finance has been inaccessible to ordinary media consumers because most financial coverage is written by or for people in the financial services industry. What will a financial novice learn at Quoth The Raven?

Irons: You’re definitely right, and this inaccessible gap for the average mom-and-pop investor is where I hope to pull back the curtain and explain some of the jargon used on Wall Street on my blog. Most of what happens on Wall Street is as simple as balancing your own checkbook at home, except the entire industry is cloaked in fancy sounding bullshit that is used to pull the wool over the eyes of everyday citizens and baffle them so much so that they don’t believe they have the patience to figure it out. Then, as Matt knows well, when an event like 2008 happens, everybody scrambles to try and find answersâ”and most people are horrified at how simple and nefarious the wrongdoing was that caused the catastrophe to begin with. Most of the time it comes down to greed, but that is to be expected in the financial industry. It is our government and the Federal Reserve creating the moral hazard of ensuring that bad actors will be bailed out that allows bad behavior to gestate even more and serve up a larger and larger shit burger to the middle and lower class every decade or so. Sadly, this next shit burger may be a sovereign debt crisis. I hope I’m wrong, but it’s only math.

Racket: After 2008 and when programs like Quantitative Easing began, some on Wall Street warned that such aggressive monetary policy would lead directly to a widened wealth gap, with excess liquidity funding LBOs and buybacks while jobs might be “streamlined” or offshored. What’s been the impact of the crash politically?

Irons: It is a certainty that quantitative easing widens the inequality gap. In an event where large banks are bailed out or the Federal Reserve decides it wants to spray money into any financial asset, including stocks, mortgage-backed securities, or the likeâ”it always disproportionately helps those who held a majority of those assets beforehand. If the Federal Reserve really thought that money printing was the key to productivity, which it isn’t, they would be taking the trillions of dollars that they inject into capital markets and simply dividing it up evenly amongst every single citizen in the United States.

Over Covid, this would’ve resulted in something like $17,000 per person in additional stimulusâ”but then, all of the banks in a crunch and all of the bondholders in a crunch would not have gotten bailed out. So instead, everybody else got checks for a paltry $600 while trillions were injected to prop up a stock market that then increased the wealth of the richest people in the world (Bezos, Musk, etc.) by tens of billions of dollars.

Again, even if you think money printing is the answer, which I do not, why wouldn’t the Federal Reserve just print an equal amount of money for every single person and distribute it without favoring businesses in the financial sector or financial assets? It’s the same reason that Target and Walmart were allowed to stay open during Covid while mom-and-pop stores were shut down: privatizing profits and socializing losses â” the crony capitalism that gives free market capitalism a bad name, which then seduces idiots into thinking that socialism is the answer, when that would be an even worse catastrophe.

Racket: Everyone is talking about inflation, but the public and the economists don’t seem to agree. Why is that?Â

Irons: Economists are generally inflation apologists, which means that they have to defend the Federal Reserve’s 2% inflation target â”and the idea that inflation is a good thing, for some reasonâ”no matter what, publicly. This generally stands at odds with the middle class and (anybody else that exercises a modicum of common sense) because it’s difficult for the average American consumer to understand why prices need to go up. It doesn’t help when you’re at the grocery store, it doesn’t help when you’re a first-time homebuyer, and it doesn’t help when the cost of goods to run your business goes higher. So, what the fuck? Not only does the public understand that rising prices aren’t necessarily a good thing, they also understand that the value of money they have saved decreases as a result of inflation, which disincentivizes people to save in the first place. This is part of what fuels our asinine economy based on spending at all costs, instead of saving and underconsumption. Inflation is, in essence, a silent tax that, in secret works cloaked by the dark machinery of the night, eating away at the purchasing power of those who don’t understand it. It is the centerpiece of modern monetary theory and modern Keynesian thought, which is generally the idea that central banks should manage economies and markets to reduce volatility. People like me, and those that I interview on my podcast, argue that staving off volatility is a fool’s errand, and that the longer we do it and prevent the free market from correcting in the way it needs to, the worse the catastrophe will be. I worry deeply about the precarious financial position that I believe the country is in and my blog is a cathartic place for me to put those thoughts down.

Racket: Why is Tesla’s Robotaxi “Obviously Bullshit”? Irons: I really have no idea how Tesla believes they are going to bring a Robotaxi to market anytime soon. They have minimal test miles under their belt compared to peers, according to the California DMV, and are nowhere near the Level 4 or Level 5 autonomy necessary for it. My most recent podcast with Mark Spiegel explains all of the reasons that I still believe them to be years away from implementing such a product. I also wrote recently about how I believe Elon Musk is starting to get desperate with his proclamations of product launches. You can read that here:

Racket: Who doesn’t love a heat check? Are you still having the same feelings about the “hard money heat check”?

Irons: I think for as long as the system that we are in persists, where inflation is at its core, hard money is the safest bet out there. But again, I don’t give financial advice, I just opine on my personal thoughts and opinions.

Racket: We all know how our government’s decisions to fund wars overseas could go sideways politically â” what’s the impact financially, here at home, if there is any?

Irons: Funding wars is part of a larger spending mistake that our government is making. I wrote about that today in this article that highlights how our fiscal and monetary situation in the US is precarious and unprecedented. We have an addiction to spending and just because it hasn’t caused the catastrophe yet doesn’t mean that it won’t. Now we are running the largest debt-to-GDP figures almost in our country’s history and, even more worrying, we are showing no signs of letting off the gas or even telegraphing any type of conservative changes to monetary and fiscal policy. I discussed this in my podcast with my friend Jack Boroudjian, which you can listen to here.

Racket: Thank you!

QTR’s Disclaimer: I am not a registered investment advisor and hold no licenses or registrations with FINRA, the SEC or any other financial regulators. I am an idiot and often get things wrong and lose money. I may own or transact in any names mentioned in this piece at any time without warning. Contributor posts and aggregated posts on my blog have not been fact checked and are the opinions of their authors. They are either submitted to QTR, reprinted under a Creative Commons license or with the permission of the author. This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any stocks or securities, just my opinions. I often lose money on positions I trade/invest in. I may add any name mentioned in this article and sell any name mentioned in this piece at any time, without further warning. None of this is a solicitation to buy or sell securities. Positions can change immediately as soon as I publish this, with or without notice. You are on your own. Do not make decisions based on my blog. I exist on the fringe. The publisher does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information provided in this page. These are not the opinions of any of my employers, partners, or associates. I did my best to be honest about my disclosures but can’t guarantee I am right; I write these posts after a couple beers sometimes. Also, I just straight up get shit wrong a lot. I mention it twice because it’s that important.

NOBODY KNOWS MORE THAN TRUMP

From Axios by Haley Britzky

Campaign finance: "I think nobody knows more about campaign finance than I do, because I'm the biggest contributor." (1999.)

TV ratings: "I know more about people who get ratings than anyone." (October 2012.)

ISIS: "I know more about ISIS than the generals do." (November 2015.)

Social media: "I understand social media. I understand the power of Twitter. I understand the power of Facebook maybe better than almost anybody, based on my results, right?" (November 2015.)

Courts: "I know more about courts than any human being on Earth." (November 2015.)

Lawsuits: "[W]ho knows more about lawsuits than I do? I'm the king." (January 2016.)

Politicians: "I understand politicians better than anybody." (no link)

The visa system: "[N]obody knows the system better than me. I know the H1B. I know the H2B. ... Nobody else on this dais knows how to change it like I do, believe me." (March 2016.)

Trade: "Nobody knows more about trade than me." (March 2016.)

The U.S. government system: "[N]obody knows the system better than I do." (April 2016.)

Renewable energy: "I know more about renewables than any human being on Earth." (April 2016.)

Taxes: "I think nobody knows more about taxes than I do, maybe in the history of the world." (May 2016.)

Debt: "I’m the king of debt. I’m great with debt. Nobody knows debt better than me." (June 2016.)

Money: "I understand money better than anybody." (June 2016.)

Infrastructure: "[L]ook, as a builder, nobody in the history of this country has ever known so much about infrastructure as Donald Trump." (July 2016.)

Sen. Cory Booker: "I know more about Cory than he knows about himself." (July 2016.)

Borders: Trump said in 2016 that Sheriff Joe Arpaio said he was endorsing him for president because "you know more about this stuff than anybody."

Democrats: "I think I know more about the other side than almost anybody." (November 2016.)

Construction: "[N]obody knows more about construction than I do." (May 2018.)

The economy: "I think I know about it better than [the Federal Reserve]." (October 2018.)

Technology: "Technology — nobody knows more about technology than me." (December 2018.)

Drones: "I know more about drones than anybody. I know about every form of safety that you can have." (January 2019.)

Drone technology: "Having a drone fly overhead — and I think nobody knows much more about technology, this type of technology certainly, than I do." (January 2019.)

(Rob Anderson, District 5 Diary)

Confederate Captain Theodore A. White circa 1913, a patriot of the War for Southern Independence

Enlisted as a private in the 43rd North Carolina Infantry Company K “Anson County Independents” on 25 Feb 1862 at the age of 16.

He was wounded in the left leg at the Battle of Gettysburg on July 2nd 1863. White was evacuated with the rest of the wounded and recuperated in a Confederate hospital in Richmond, VA. In September 1863, he rejoined his unit and fought with it until he was paroled at Appomattox.

In 1913, Captain White attended the 50th anniversary reunion of the Battle of Gettysburg and received a souvenir medal for attending.

HE DOES NOT get his living honestly. You might have seen him perch'd on some dead tree near the River, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing Hawk; and when that diligent Bird has at length taken a Fish, and is bearing it to his Nest for the supper of his Mate and Young Ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him and takes it from him. He is generally poor and often lousy. Besides he is a rank coward.

— Benjamin Franklin, grousing about the selection of the Bald Eagle as America’s national symbol in a letter to his daughter Sarah

JOHN REDDING: At a campaign rally in FL, the devout Catholic Joe Biden made the sign of the cross while the speaker was talking in favor of unlimited abortion. This post is not about abortion but about the POTUS mocking the religion to which he belongs. I just want an elected leader who is authentic and respects traditional values. I am having trouble finding it anywhere among the Ds and a large majority of the Rs.

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY #2

American Culture? Fast food grubbin’, cell phone junkin’, gas guzzlin’ (oops, the nightlife bar hookups/marriages/spawn). That is rLy the extent of it – entitled, self-righteous narcissists in pursuit of the 7 deadly sins (Gluttony/Sloth really the worst of it, but Envy/Pride/Wrath seems to rule their hate/anger/rage/fear daytimes). That’s exactly what you get in a Capitalist Commercial Consumer Media Economy – Mil Ind Complex! No Bid Cost Plus! IMF funding usury rates for infrastructure rebuild!

Exponential consumption per capita that is 3 orders of magnitude higher than back in the 1920’s/40’s, when there were only 2 billion people. And now we are literally beyond Peak Everything. I still can’t believe we’ve used over half of the available Helium on this planet (Inert). I guess we could capture alpha particles? Oh, wait – Hydrogen cold fusion!

I believe I’ve heard something like the last 7 of 10 years (moarz?) were the hottest years ever recorded. And apparently, last year they can’t even explain why it was so much hotter (Aerosol Masking/Atmospheric Thinning?). Trust-you-me – this year won’t disappoint!

DOGS

The shell they fired from those 155-millimeter howitzers had a single metal band around it. Two or three times a day in every battery one of those bands would fly off as a shell left the gun. On its own, the band was liable to go in any direction, careening and screaming through the air. They were called “rotating bands,’ and they made a variety of noises, one of which sounded like a whipped dog yowling in terror.

I was standing one morning with a bunch of cannoneers when a rotating band of the whipped-dog type cut loose from another battery, whereupon one of the soldiers said, “We’ve run out of ammunition so we’re shootin’ dogs at ‘em now.”

Dogs also figured in the conversation about food. Every day or so somebody brought up the suggestion that the cook was putting Italian dogs in the chow. One of the boys said, “As soon as I don’t see no more dogs around I’m gonna quit eatin’.”

One day an ammunition truck drove past and it had a little black-and-white dog standing on top of the hood. His ears and tail stood straight up, and he looked so damned important we had to laugh. When the truck came back the little dog was running ahead of it, still acting awfully important. When he saw us he came bounding into the gun pit, walked right across a row of shells lying there and continued busily on his way.

I don’t know why that struck the soldiers as so odd, but they kept talking about the dog walking right across those shells as though there might have been some danger of his setting them off, which of course there wasn’t. In fact the men themselves walked and sat on them all the time.

Lots of soldiers had picked up local dogs as pets. The dogs in Italy were better and healthier-looking than those in Africa. Some of the pups were absolutely indifferent to a blast from the heavy guns, while others were scared to death. At night, after a salvo, we could hear the farmers’ dogs all around yelling in fright as though they had been kicked. And the cannoneers said that sometimes a dog would just stand and shake all over with fright after a big gun had gone off.

In that respect there was a lot of similarity between a dog and me.

— Ernie Pyle, “Brave Men,” 1944

END UNFETTERED MILITARY AID TO ISRAEL AND RESTORE UNRWA FUNDING

by Bernie Sanders

Remarks before the US Senate.

M. President,

The Senate will soon vote on a $95 billion supplemental spending package. $95 billion. That’s a lot of money – especially at a time when many Americans are unable to afford their rent or pay their mortgages, pay their bills, afford healthcare, are struggling with student debt or many other needs. $95 billion. That’s a lot of money.

All told, this package includes tens of billions in additional military spending and major policy changes, many of which are controversial. Many of which are disagreed with by the American people. Yet, unlike the House of Representatives, the Senate will not have the opportunity to hold separate votes on the various components of this bill.

I have heard from many of my Democratic colleagues – and I agree – who talk about the dysfunctionality taking place in the House of Representatives. In fact, I don’t know if we’re quite sure who the Speaker of the House will be in a couple of weeks, or whether the extreme, extreme right-wing is going to get rid of Mr. Johnson.

But what we can say about the House is that they at least gave their members the opportunity to vote Yes or No on funding for Ukraine, Yes or No on aid to Israel, Yes or No on TikTok, Yes or No on aid to Asian countries. That is more than can be said for the U.S. Senate right now. And I remind my colleagues that this is supposedly the “greatest deliberative body in the world.” Except we don’t have many deliberations around here. We’ve got one bill, up or down.

M. President, we need to have a serious debate on these issues. I think the American people want us to have a serious debate on these issues. And that is why I am trying my best to secure amendment votes which, in my view, will significantly improve this bill.

As it happens, I strongly support the humanitarian aid included in this bill, which will save many thousands of lives in Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine, and many other places. I strongly support it. I strongly support getting Ukraine the military aid it needs to defend itself against Putin’s imperialist war. I support the Iron Dome to protect Israeli civilians from missile attacks.

But let me be very clear: I strongly support ending the provision which will give $8.9 billion in unfettered offensive military aid to the extremist Israeli government – a government led by Prime Minister Netanyahu, who is continuing his unprecedented assault against the Palestinian people.

I also strongly oppose language in this legislation that would prohibit funding for UNRWA, the UN organization that is the backbone of the humanitarian relief operation in Gaza and the only organization that experts say has the capability to provide the humanitarian aid that is desperately needed there.

And I have filed two amendments to address these issues. These amendments would not touch funding for the Iron Dome and other purely defensive systems to protect Israel against incoming missiles.

M. President, as we all know, Hamas – a terrorist organization – began this war with a horrific attack on Israel that killed 1,200 innocent men, women, and children and took more than 230 captives, some of whom remain today in captivity.

As I have said many times, Israel has and had the absolute right to defend themselves against this terrorist attack. But Israel did not and does not have the right to go to war against the entire Palestinian people, which is exactly what it is doing.

M. President, regarding offensive military aid to Israel, what we will be voting on is pretty simple.

First: has Netanyahu and his government violated U.S. and international law in Gaza – which, if he has, should automatically result in the cessation of all U.S. military aid to Israel? That is a pretty simple question.

Second, and even more importantly: as U.S. taxpayers, do we want to be complicit in Netanyahu’s unprecedented and savage military campaign against the Palestinian people? Do we want to continue providing the weapons and the military aid that is causing this massive destruction? Do we want that war in Gaza to be not only Israel’s war, but America’s war?

On the first question, the legal issue, the answer is clear: Netanyahu and his extremist government are clearly in violation of U.S. and international law and, because of that, should no longer receive U.S. military aid.

International law requires that warring parties facilitate rapid and unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief for civilians in need. That’s international law. Israel has clearly not done that. Only in the last several weeks, after pressure from President Biden, has aid access begun to improve somewhat, though it is still grossly insufficient given the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe.

Maybe more importantly, U.S. law on this subject is extremely clear. There is no ambiguity. The Foreign Assistance Act says that no U.S. security assistance may be provided to any country that “prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance.” That is the law.

Israel is clearly in violation of this law. For six months, it has severely limited the amount of humanitarian aid entering Gaza. The result has been a catastrophic humanitarian disaster with hundreds of thousands of children facing malnutrition and starvation.

Israel’s violation of this law is not in debate. It is a reality repeatedly confirmed, every day, by numerous humanitarian organizations. Israeli leaders themselves admit it.

M. President at the start of this war, the Israeli defense minister declared a total siege on Gaza, saying, this is the Israeli Defense Minister, “we are fighting human animals, and we are acting accordingly. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel. Everything is closed.” And they kept their word on that.

In January, Netanyahu himself said that Israel is only allowing in the absolute minimum amount of aid.

For months, thousands of trucks carrying life-saving supplies have sat just miles away from starving children – trucks with food miles away from children who are starving. And Israel has kept these trucks from reaching people in desperate need.

Israel’s blockade pushed the United States to extreme measures, including air-dropping supplies and the construction of an emergency pier, in order to get food to starving people. The President and the United States did the right thing – children are starving, and we are trying to air drop aid and build a pier. In other words, we’re now in the absurd situation where Israel is using U.S. military assistance to block the delivery of U.S. humanitarian aid to Palestinians.

If that is not crazy, I do not know what is. But it is also a clear violation of U.S. law.

Given this reality, we shouldn’t today even be having this debate. It’s illegal to continue current military aid to Israel, let alone send another $9 billion with no strings attached.

M. President, let me take a moment to describe what is happening in Gaza right now, to further explain why these amendments are absolutely necessary and why we must end U.S. complicity in Netanyahu’s war in Gaza.

M. President, more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed and 77,000 wounded since this war began – seventy percent of whom are women and children. Seventy percent of whom are women and children. That means five percent of the 2.2 million residents of Gaza have been killed or wounded in six-and-a-half months.

Five percent of the entire population in six-and-a-half months have been killed or wounded. That is a staggering, rather unbelievable number.

19,000 children in Gaza are now orphans. 19,000 children are orphans having lost their parents in this war. And I might add, for the children of Gaza the psychic damage that has been done to them will never cease in their lives. They have witnessed – little kids, Gaza is a young community a lot of children – they have witnessed unbelievable carnage, destruction of houses. They have experienced hunger, thirst. They have been thrown out of their homes. What is being done to the children – many hundreds of thousands of children –is unforgivable.

And the killing has not stopped. Over the weekend, 139 Palestinians were killed and 251 injured. Of these, 29 were killed in and around Rafah, including 20 children and six women, one of whom was pregnant.

M. President, roughly 1.7 million people – over 75 percent of the population – have been driven from their homes in Gaza. Satellite data shows that 62 percent of homes in Gaza have been either damaged or destroyed, including 221,000 housing units that have been completely destroyed. 221,000 housing units completely destroyed. That’s more than one million people made homeless by Israeli bombing.

M. President, it’s not only housing. It is Gaza’s entire civilian infrastructure that has been devastated. In Gaza today there is no electricity, apart from generators or solar power, and most roads are badly damaged. More than half of the water and sanitation systems are out of commission. Clean drinking water is severely limited, and sewage is running through the streets, spreading disease.

M. President, Israel has not only destroyed the housing stock in Gaza, not only destroyed the infrastructure, they have systematically destroyed the health care system in Gaza. 26 out of 37 hospitals are completely out of service in a country that now has tens and tens of thousands of people who are now sick and wounded. Eleven hospitals are partially functioning, but they are overwhelmed by many, many people who are sick and injured. And they are all short on medical supplies. Doctors have had to perform countless surgeries without anesthesia or antibiotics. Only three hospitals are now providing maternal care in Gaza, where 180 women are giving birth every day. Overall, 84 percent of health facilities have been damaged or destroyed in Gaza, and more than 400 health care workers have been killed.

But it is not only housing that has been destroyed, not only the infrastructure, not only the health care system. M. President, the education system has collapsed, with 56 schools destroyed and 219 damaged. The last of Gaza’s universities was demolished in January. Some 625,000 students now have no access to education.

M. President, I really do not understand what the military utility of destroying a university is.

M. President, above and beyond the destruction of homes; the destruction of the infrastructure; the destruction of the health care system; the destruction of schools, universities, and the educational system; unbelievably, there is something even worse now taking place in Gaza: and that is that more than one million Palestinians, including hundreds of thousands of children, face starvation. People in Gaza are foraging for leaves, they are eating animal feed, or surviving off the occasional aid package. At least 28 children have already died of malnutrition and dehydration. And the real number is likely much higher, but without sustained humanitarian access throughout Gaza, it’s impossible to know. Recently, USAID Administrator Samantha Power said that famine was already present in northern Gaza.

Without food, clean water, sanitation, or sufficient healthcare, hundreds of thousands of people are at severe risk from dehydration, infection, and easily preventable diseases.

M. President, I keep hearing discussion from the pundits and the experts about the “day after in Gaza,” when the war is over – but what kind of day after can there be amidst this incredible destruction? Gaza today can barely sustain human life.

M. President, Hamas started this war. And that is true. But this war stopped being about defending Israel a long time ago. What is going on now is the destruction of the very fabric of Palestinian life.

It is impossible to look at these facts and not conclude that the Israeli government’s policy has been, quite deliberately, to make Gaza uninhabitable for Palestinians.

And, clearly, there are powerful voices in Israel’s extreme, right-wing government who have been quite open about their desire to drive the Palestinian people out of both Gaza and the West Bank.

This is not the Israel of Golda Meir. Netanyahu’s government is beholden to outright racists and religious fanatics who believe they have exclusive right to dominate the land.

M. President, that is why we must end our complicity in this terrible war. That is why we should support the amendment I am offering to end unfettered military aid to the Netanyahu’s war machine.

Let’s be clear: cutting military aid to Netanyahu’s government is not just my view. It’s what American people believe and are demanding.

The American people, in fact, are fed up with Netanyahu and his war.

They do not want to see their taxpayer dollars support the slaughter of innocent civilians and the starvation of children. A recent Gallup poll showed that just 36% of Americans approve of Israel’s military action, with 55% disapproving. A Quinnipiac poll showed that U.S. voters oppose sending more military aid to Israel by 52% to 39. An earlier YouGov poll also showed that 52% of Americans said that the United States should stop sending weapons to Israel until it stops its attacks in Gaza.

Maybe, and here’s a very radical idea, maybe it’s time for Congress to listen to the American people. And I would urge strong support for my amendment.

M. President, my second amendment would remove the ban on funding for UNRWA, a UN organization with 30,000 employees that is delivering essential humanitarian aid in Gaza and supporting basic services in other neighboring countries, including Jordan. Millions of people rely on those services.

Israel has said that 12 UNRWA employees were involved in the October 7th terrorist attack.

These are serious charges – obviously any involvement with Hamas by UNRWA employees is unacceptable. That is why every year UNRWA provides Israel with a list of its staff and goes to great lengths to cooperate with Israeli authorities. UNRWA learned about Israel’s accusations from the media, and immediately fired the accused employees, while the UN launched an investigation.

Thus far, Israel has refused to cooperate with the UN investigation. I should add, importantly, that most donors have restored funding to UNRWA and are satisfied by the agency’s protocols to ensure independence from Hamas.

The U.S. National Intelligence Council, meanwhile, said that Israel’s claims were plausible but could not be confirmed, and noted that Israel has tried to undermine UNRWA for years. In the last six months, Israel has harassed UNRWA employees, blocked shipments of supplies including medicines, frozen its bank accounts, and killed 181 UN staff.

M. President, UNRWA plays a critical role both in Gaza and across the region. Whatever the investigation shows in the end, it is my view that you don’t deny humanitarian aid to millions of people because of the alleged actions of twelve UNRWA employees out of a workforce of 30,000.

And by the way, Mr. President, when we talk about investigations, maybe, just maybe, we should not just be talking about UNRWA. Maybe we should also investigate what’s going on in the West Bank. Last weekend, after an Israeli teenager was killed, large groups of armed Israeli settlers, vigilantes, rampaged through seventeen villages, shooting dozens of people and burning homes. Israeli soldiers watched the attacks unfold, doing nothing to stop them. No arrests have been announced. Maybe we need an investigation there as well.

This past weekend, the Israeli military killed 14 more Palestinians in the West Bank. An ambulance driver was shot and killed as he tried to recover people wounded in another violent attack by Israeli settlers.

Since October 7th, Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed more than 470 Palestinians in the West Bank, including more than 100 children.

But for some reason, I don’t know why, I just don’t hear my colleagues calling for an investigation of that.

M. President, we are in a critical moment. Not just in terms of what is happening in Gaza, but in many ways what is happening right here in America and what is happening here in the U.S. Senate. Given the fact that a majority of the American people now want to stop funding for Netanyahu’s war machine, I find it incomprehensible that we are not going to be able to vote on that issue. I find it outrageous that, at a time when Netanyahu’s government has clearly broken the law, members of this Congress, members of the Senate are not going to be able to vote as to whether or not they want to continue providing billions more of unfettered military aid to Netanyahu’s war machine.

So, M. President, I would hope that we will have the decency to allow a little bit of democracy here in the United States Senate. I would hope that we allow the members to vote on some of these very, very important issues. And I certainly hope that we will pass these amendments.

Thank you and I yield.

AT COLUMBIA

by Bruce Robbins

When Minouche Shafik, the president of Columbia University, testified before the House of Representatives on 17 April, she didn’t fall into the traps set a few months earlier for the presidents of Penn, MIT and Harvard, two of whom are now gone. They had been asked whether they would permit genocidal talk against the Jews on their campuses – a dark discourse that lurked, according to the questioners, in such terms as “from the river to the sea” and “intifada.” All three university presidents last December came up with legalistic answers, invoking context. But Shafik last week did not. She presented herself as a relentless scourge of antisemitism. Her head will not fall – at least not as a result of congressional displeasure.

There is some question, however, about her future at Columbia. First, because of her craven and embarrassing submission to the House Republicans. And second, because on the following day she brought the police in to demolish a student tent encampment protesting against the Israeli slaughter in Gaza. The encampment is on a campus lawn allocated by the university for demonstrations. More than a hundred student demonstrators were arrested. Shafik may have avoided viral memes of awkward moments in Congress, but videos of the NYPD in action against peaceful demonstrators on 18 April, now circulating widely, amply illustrate the violence that Shafik was willing to inflict on Columbia and Barnard students in the name of assuring student safety. It’s the first time the police have been invited onto Columbia’s campus since 1968. Like 1968, 2024 may go down as an inauspicious year for university administrations trying to defend the indefensible.

The House Republicans who pressed the point about chants allegedly “calling for the genocide of Jews” on university campuses had not previously displayed much concern for the wellbeing of American Jews. In 2017, Donald Trump, who will soon again be their presidential nominee, described some of the torch carriers who chanted “Jews will not replace us” in Charlottesville as “very fine people.” You would not have to dig very deep to uncover friendly associations with white supremacists among the present committee members. (I would love to be challenged to document this.) Still, you could hardly call them dull. One invoked the Book of Genesis to back up his conviction that Columbia had to support Israel whatever Israel did. Did Shafik want to bring down God’s curse on Columbia? Please answer yes or no. Another raised the genocidal threat contained in the word “infantada,” a malapropism she used twice.

The many Columbia faculty members who were less than happy with Shafik’s pragmatic testimony, myself included, were not surprised that she declared herself a zealous and proactive foe of antisemitism on campus. We were not surprised that she failed to distinguish between the real threat of antisemitism and criticism of the industrial-scale killing of Palestinians in Gaza, a criticism that does not target Jews as Jews. And we were not surprised that she didn’t distinguish between real acts of antisemitism, which have been very few, and the anxiety or discomfort of Jewish students forced, perhaps for the first time, to confront the fact that much of the world disapproves of what Israel is up to.

In response to the attacks of October 7, Shafik founded a Taskforce on Antisemitism. The Taskforce had no definition of antisemitism, conflated it with criticism of the state of Israel, and sometimes seemed interested solely in Jewish feelings of discomfort, even if those feelings seemed to have been brought on only by reactions to the bombing of Gaza. One faculty member suggested it be renamed the Taskforce on Campus Vibes.

Meanwhile she was suspending and evicting from student accommodation Muslim and Jewish students who were protesting against the bombing of Gaza. She also suspended the campus chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and, the icing on the cake, Jewish Voice for Peace. I can’t be the only Jew on campus whose head was spinning all winter at the idea that, like the government of Germany, Shafik felt qualified to instruct me on what was and was not antisemitic. When people objected that the taskforce heads knew very little about antisemitism, the administration explained that it was providing hundreds of thousands of dollars so they could hire the appropriate researchers. No surprises, then, at Shafik’s performance before the House committee.

All the same, faculty members were taken aback, to put it as politely as possible, that she failed to stand up for the basic principles of the university she leads, such as academic freedom, shared governance, transparency and due process. She had already told the university senate on 23 February that she was “dismayed” by the “low level of trust at Columbia” – something of an understatement – but lack of trust in the administration is not hard to understand. Last October, two weeks after the Hamas attack, it changed the university’s policy on demonstrations without consulting the senate, although consultation is a mandatory procedure for any such changes. Henceforth the administration would have “sole discretion” to determine “final and not appealable” sanctions on student groups. There was general outrage on campus. The student governing board, representing more than a hundred student organizations, voted by an overwhelming majority to declare its non-co-operation with the administration on this change. The board was set up in response to the 1968 protests at Columbia. This is the first time that non-co-operation had been invoked in fifty years.

As for academic freedom, Shafik said in her written opening statement that ‘we believe we can confront antisemitism and provide a safe campus environment for our community while simultaneously supporting rigorous academic exploration and freedom.’ But questioned about Professor Mohamed Abdou, the author of Islam and Anarchism, who is untenured, she responded, on camera, that he “will never teach at Columbia again.” The Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik said that he had posted: “Yes, I’m with Hamas and Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad.” (What he actually wrote, as part of a much longer piece, was: “I’m with the muqawamah [the resistance] be it Hamas and Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad but up to a point – given ultimate differences over our ethical political commitments.”)

Stefanik accused Professor Joseph Massad – who has been targeted by petitions calling for his dismissal – of “stating that the massacre of Israeli civilians was ‘awesome’.” Shafik did not respond, as she might have done, by referring to what Professor Massad had actually written (“No less awesome were the scenes witnessed by millions of jubilant Arabs who spent the day watching the news, of Palestinian fighters from Gaza breaking through Israel’s prison fence or gliding over it by air”; he also wrote of a “horrifying human toll on all sides.”) Instead, Shafik said she was “appalled by what he’s said” and that “he has been spoken to.” But even if he had said what they said he said, didn’t he have the right to say it? We don’t fire teachers who approve of dropping the atomic bomb.

A vocal pro-Israel faculty member has been accused of harassing students on social media, and there is a move among students to get him banished. But forget about student anxieties for a moment. The Israeli army has been committing atrocities on a massive scale, while the International Court of Justice deliberates the possibility of real genocide in Gaza, as distinct from speculative calls to genocide that House Republicans deduce, falsely, from pro-Palestinian chants by demonstrators. That’s what Israel’s defenders are defending. When a small group of Jewish faculty members was preparing last week to meet with the provost to make our dissatisfactions known, we asked ourselves how we felt about the pro-Israel professor and we said, unanimously, that we defended his right to his opinions, loathsome as we find them. I don’t worry about his being driven out of Columbia. But I worry that our president shamelessly sacrificed the principle of academic freedom that all of us depend on, the Zionists included, to keep the project of free thinking alive.

This is certainly how she is perceived by a large and rapidly growing portion of Columbia faculty. An emergency meeting of the local chapter of the American Association of University Professors on April 19 reached its Zoom limit of 300 people within minutes, leaving many faculty members clamoring to get in. The indignant talk was not about Palestine, but about the administration’s blatant lack of respect for the safety of its students and the principles of higher education.

Student protest on behalf of the Palestinians is very much alive, at least for the moment. When the police cleared out the encampment and dragged students off to jail, others hopped the fence and established a second encampment across the way, this time without tents. It is these students who have the most convincing grounds for anxiety. They too risk arrest and jail. Some have already been suspended from classes and evicted from student accommodation, leaving them homeless on the streets of New York. Those who have merely been suspended risk losing their tuition for the semester. The university administration seems to have decided that an encampment without tents can be left alone. Perhaps Shafik realizes she has made a series of grave errors, and that if she makes another one, her administration may not survive the public shame.

(London Review of Books)

Daventry Co-op, Northamptonshire, UK (Randy Burke)

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE APPLE

by Lucille Estes

Not so long ago, a Garden of Eden thrived in the foothills of mountain ranges all the way from western China to the shores of the Black Sea. When plant geneticists first surveyed the forests of Georgia and Armenia in the 1920s, wild apples, pears and quince garlanded with grape vines, were found there in abundance, along with plum thickets and nut trees. Even today large areas of wild fruit trees can be found in the foothills of the Caucuses, in Turkmenistan, and in the Tien Shan range where whole valleys are filled with apple trees.

The botanic origins of the domestic apple, Malus x domestica, a complex hybrid developed over thousands of years, is probably the central Asian species that stills grows wild from the Tien Shan to the Caspian Sea. This species, Malus sieversii shows great diversity and botanists have found there wild trees bearing the full range of forms, colors and tastes that we find in the domestic apple.

Other apple species probably contributed to the genetic pool; Malus orientalis, which bears a late-keeping bitter fruit, and the European crab, Malus sylvestric which extends its growing area from the British Isles across Europe to the Balkans and produces small, astringent fruits; the small Siberian crab, Malus baccata and the larger Chinese crab, Malus prunifolia.

Wherever the boundaries of M. sieversii overlapped with any of the other species, there would have been crossing and the producing of abundant different forms. Apples, like many other fruits, are heterozygous, they do not breed true from seed, so every pip was potentially a new variety.

M. sieversii readily roots from cuttings and commonly throws up suckers. Some cultivated varieties, such as the Chiloe apple, which Charles Darwin found growing along the coast of Chile in 1835, retain this ability.

Farming began in the middle East about 8,000 years ago. Long before the discovery of grafting as farming spread, the best trees must have been spared and young trees brought in from the forest. It was however the knowledge of grafting beginning in the third millennium BC, that gave growers the ability to reproduce any useful tree and establish valued varieties.

Unlike their ancestors who moved in search of food, farmers stayed in the same place, their communities growing larger and more settled. Irrigation techniques enabled streams to be channeled, nurturing semi-desert areas and bringing fruit trees down from the hills onto the plains of the Nile, China's Yellow River, the Indus, and the Tigris-Euphrates. The techniques for growing orchards, and the dried fruit made available, spread rapidly.

Dried apples were found in the grave of a Queen Pu-abi at Ur, near Basra in southern Iraq, dating from 2500 BC and an Ur text refers to local vineyards, interplanted with figs and apples,

By the first millennium, the cultivation of fruit trees had become a part of civilized life. In the Odyssey, eighth or ninth century BC, the poet Homer tells how Odysseus sought refuge at the court of King Alcinous: “Outside the courtyard but stretching close to the gates, lies a large orchard where trees hang their greenery on high, the pear and the pomegranate, the apple with its glossy burden.”

The Persian Empire under Darius, from about 512 BC, stretched from Turkey across Iran and Afghanistan, extended north to the edge of the Caucuses and south from the Mediterranean coast to Egypt, with orchards planted everywhere that the climate allowed. Rich, fertile and politically stable, the Empire encouraged goods, crops, people, and ideas to cross old boundaries. Sesame was introduced to Egypt, rice to Mesopotamia and peaches and oranges brought in from China.

Along with its orchards, every royal palace had an enclosed garden of fruit trees designed as much for beauty as for eating. In 401 BC, the Greek historian Xenopohon was inspired to lay out such a garden in Greece and in so doing introduced a new word into the Greek language. This transliteration of the Persian pairidaeza or walled garden, became the Roman paradisus, and the English word paradise,

After Alexander the Great's conquest of Persia, the pleasure in the apple spread throughout Greece.

No other fruit wrote Plutarch, “unites the fine qualities of all fruits as does the apple. It perfumes the hands without staining them. It tastes sweet and it is delightful to smell and to look at.” Ever since those early times, the apple has been an indicator of a host's taste and the resources he was able to invest in the care of his orchards. For example, in Britain a hundred years ago, connoisseurs would compare apple varieties, regions and vintages with the same intensity with which they discussed wine.

The horticultural skills of the Greeks and the Persians moved westward with the rise of the Roman Empire. Extending from Armenia in the east to Britain in the west and encircling the entire Mediterranean, the network of trade routes known as the Silk Road linked Rome to China. As the caravans passed through the wild fruit belt and through regions where the cultivation of apples was at its most refined, novel or superior fruit and new horticultural skills were brought back to Roman orchards,

In the first century BC the poet Horace wrote that Italy had become one vast orchard, with fruit trees acquiring their own deity, the goddess Pomona.

“She did not care for woods or rivers, but loved the countryside, and branches loaded with luscious apples… her garden was her passion and her love.” wrote Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book XIV.

Over 20 different varieties of apples are mentioned by Pliny in his Natural History written in the first century AD. First of the season came the Honey apple and the Flour apple, which needed to be eaten straight from the tree and soon spoiled. Then came the Little Greek and the late keeping Armeria, which smelled like quince.

Although apples were sometimes used in prepared dishes, they were more likely to appear at the end of the meal. According to Horace, the perfect Roman meal began with eggs and ended with fruit. While the diners reclined on deep cushions, and in would come slaves bearing bowls of fresh figs, grapes and apples.

Since Roman times the apple has been considered curative. They were a common medieval laxative, a standard ingredient in cough cures, and before anti-depressants, a cup of apple juice or cider might be prescribed for depression. A poultice of apples for a swelling, the pulp of roasted apples mixed to a froth in water for gonorrhea. Chapped skin was treated with a mixture of lard and chopped apples, and from the Middle Ages, rags soaked in crab-apple vinegar were used to relieve a farmer's aches and pains.

The physicians of second-century Rome believed that the human body was composed of four humours, namely blood, phlegm, and black and yellow bile. These elements were supposedly hot, cold, dry and moist respectively, each one associated with particular human temperaments and disorders. Since foods were similarly classified, and apples were cool and moist, they made a perfect counterbalance for the heat of foods such as red meat.

Along with pears, pomegranates and figs, apples were considered aphrodisiac and were closely associated with love. In ancient Greece, adolescents would hurl apples at each other as a sign of romantic interest. The Greek geographer, Strabo, wrote that a Persian girl on her wedding night was allowed to eat nothing but apples and camel's marrow.

Long before the Romans brought the domestic apple to Europe and Britain, its inhabitants were making cider from their own sour wild crab apples. Celtic stories identify this apple with mythology, and the custom of decorating Christmas trees with baubles stems from that era.

It must be pointed out that most references to the apple by the Greeks and Romans were not specific, Their terms referred to any round, fleshy fruit, and it is impossible to know whether they were speaking of the pomegranate, the quince or the apple. Importantly, European and British cultures interpreted the classical references in terms of the apple, its association with temptation, its place on a tree guarded by a serpent in the “Garden of Eden.”

After the Romans brought their apple trees to Britain, classical and northern apple beliefs intertwined. The Celtic feast of Samhain and the festival of Pomona coincided and in time were taken over by the Christian church as the feast of All Souls-Halloween.

While the Roman Empire thrived, orchards across northern and western Europe thrived with it. Then huge armies of Asiatic nomads moved into Europe, pushing waves of Germanic and Slavic peoples before them and the apple did not endure. Though the Eastern Roman Empire was able to survive until the seventh century AD, it too was overrun.

During Europe's dark ages, the fine points of horticulture, including the skill of grafting, would have been lost, had it not been for the orcharding traditions of the Christian church and the rise of Islam.

From the outset, monastic orders have been involved in feeding themselves. Anthony of Egypt, one of the founding fathers of the Christian monastic tradition, is a patron saint of gardening. Through the practical as well as ideological commitment to supporting their communities, monasteries became the guardians of a whole body of cultural and intellectual skills that were preserved and transmitted through the religious network.

In the two hundred years following the death of Mohammed in 632, his armies occupied Palestine, Syria, Egypt and North Africa as well as the new Persian Empire east of the Euphrates. Unlike the northern invaders, however, these conquerors were under the orders of the Koran to preserve crops and orchards. Peaceful governments were restored and the skills of Byzantium and Persia were assimilated into Islamic culture in keeping with the teachings of Mohammed.

In this way, the horticultural wisdom of the Christian and classical world were preserved, and through the Arab conquest of Spain and the Mediterranean islands, was given a route back into western Europe.

Moorish Spain, in particular, became a center of horticultural proficiency, and in the tenth century, while the rest of Europe was just beginning to revive its fruit-growing skills, botanic gardens were thriving at Toledo and Seville under the auspices of the sultans.

Though the Arabs were driven out of Spain by 1492, the intervening centuries had seen many opportunities for the exchange of ideas between the east and the west. Alphonso X of Castile (1252-1284) had books on Arabic horticulture translated, and when his sister, Eleanor, married Edward I of England, she imported gardeners from Spain to create orchards at Kings Langley at Hertfordshire.

From the thirteenth century onward, apples were grown increasingly across Europe. During the 16th and 17th centuries, French fur traders and missionaries planted apple pipps in what is now Canada.

The Protestant settlers from Europe planted orchards along the eastern seaboard of America during the 16th and 17th centuries. From these, pioneers such as the legendary Johnny Appleseed, who for 46 years wandered through the wilderness of Pennsylvania, Ohio and Illinois, planting apple pipps as he went; established orchards from the midwest to the far flung reaches of the Pacific coast.

The Spanish and the Portuguese took apples to South America where they thrived wherever the climate allowed.

The Dutchman, Jan van Riebeeck, who founded the Netherlands East India Company, made fruit growing around Capetown, South Africa, a requirement of its first settlers, not only to feed themselves, but to supply the trading boats on their journeys eastward.

Australia owes its first apple orchard to Captain Arthur Philips who in 1788 established the first English settlement at Port Jackson, later to become the city of Sidney in New South Wales. Apples were taken to Tasmania by Captain Bligh, who anchored the Bounty off Bruny Island in 1788.

As apple orchards prospered in Australia a party of English missionaries in 1814 brought both the word of God and apples to New Zealand.

In Kazakhstan, near the town of Alma-Ata, a name that means “father of the apple,” can be found the apple’s center of diversity, the place with the greatest genetic variation of the species, the place where it evolved. Today there’s a wave of development there, the old trees are being chopped down.

Since we haven’t grown apples from seed since Johnny Appleseed’s day, the modern gene pool is small, the diseases and insects besetting them are many. Now horticulturists from around the world are busy at Alma-Ata, hoping to find there trees with genetic diversity to shore up the modern apple’s gene pool before it’s too late.

THE BOY IS REALLY ME, at a loss — the feeling of being disconnected from everything.

That hand drifting in the air was my free soul, groping. Just over the hill was where my father was killed, and I was sick I'd never painted him. The hill finally became to me a portrait of him. The painting was the one way I could free the horrible feeling that was in me — and yet there was a great excitement. For the first time, I was painting with real reason to it.

— Andrew Wyeth, on his painting Winter (1946)

31 Comments

Cantankerous April 25, 2024

Highest praise to CalTrans for outstanding work on Hwy 101 between Willits, and Ukiah. And, the rain helped.

Reply
Chuck Dunbar April 25, 2024

ED NOTES: WISE WORDS OF PERSPECTIVE

Thank you, Bruce, this needed to be said:

“SOME OF YOU older old timers will remember the huge Bay Area demonstrations against the Vietnam War. There was always a small group brandishing NLF flags and chanting ‘Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh, Ho Chi Minh is gonna win.’ Few of the marchers shared that desire; most people just wanted the war to end.

JUST BECAUSE a tiny minority of deluded Hamas supporters chant slogans that imply the destruction of Israel, doesn’t mean that the large majority of college kids demonstrating against the monstrous attack on Gaza are anti-Semites.”

Reply
- Harvey Reading April 25, 2024
  
  Ho DID win! And, most people knew nothing at the time about the cause(s) of the that horrid slaughter inflicted by the country that now supports, and funds, genocide in the “promised” land, “promised” by an imaginary sky god to his “chosen people” (at least in their imaginations), and created in the monstrous image of humans. The whole thing was topped off by Kissinger getting a Nobel Peace Pride. It’s been a downhill ride for the “land o’ the free” ever since…one war based on lies, followed by others in a seemingly continuous descent into a deep, dark hole…
  
  Reply
- Lazarus April 25, 2024
  
  I watched a “man on the street” reporter ask a college student Hamas supporter what “From The River To The Sea meant,” and she could not answer the question…
  We used to call them “The Rent a Mob” decades ago.
  As always,
  Laz
  
  Reply
  - Stephen Rosenthal April 25, 2024
    
    “We used to call them ‘The Rent a Mob’ decades ago.”
    
    Exactly. Now we call it the dumbing down of America.
    
    Reply
  - Harvey Reading April 25, 2024
    
    Never heard the term used. Musta been limited to the right-wing crowd.
    
    Reply
    - Lazarus April 25, 2024
      
      “Never heard the term used. Musta been limited to the right-wing crowd.”
      Harv
      
      Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me…
      Laz
      
      Reply
      - Harvey Reading April 25, 2024
        
        Me neither.
        
        Reply
Mazie Malone April 25, 2024

Good Morning,

What to write for the AVA…… haha

“The Editor likes to encourage the amateur writers among us to send in letters and articles but has little tolerance for abject whiners. A little self-deprecation is okay, just don’t complain too much unless it’s funny, as the Editor is a humorist himself. However, if you canut spull or use bad grandma your mysteaks won’t be edited out by the busy producers of this enduring passion project, this artifact called The Anderson Valley Advertiser, a pleasurable read and fun to write for. ”

I had to learn the hard way to be a much better editor before I submit anything to the AVA. I was naive to believe any mistakes would be found and corrected!

canut spull … mysteaks….🤣😂

mm 💕

Reply
- Norm Thurston April 25, 2024
  
  Your message is always clear. :-)
  
  Reply
  - Mazie Malone April 25, 2024
    
    Norm,
    Thank you sir!!…. 💕
    
    mm 💕
    
    Reply
Harvey Reading April 25, 2024

https://consortiumnews.com/2024/04/25/catilin-johnstone-quashing-university-protests-and-banning-tiktok-to-make-the-kids-love-israel/

Especially for the Israhelli supporters who apparently think genocide and claim jumping is OK, as long as it’s being committed by (an imaginary) god’s (imaginary) “chosen ones”…

Reply
Jim Armstrong April 25, 2024

Thank you for printing Bernie Sanders’ speech and thank him for making it.
Just to think that with a little better luck we could now be finishing up his second term as President.
The world would be a different place.

Reply
MAGA Marmon April 25, 2024

Milder mania is more likely to be associated with positive outcomes, like increased productivity or greater feelings of optimism.

MANIC MAGA Marmon

Reply
- Mazie Malone April 25, 2024
  
  James,
  Are you referring to hypomania??… did you post here accidentally? ….
  
  mm 💕
  
  Reply
  - Lazarus April 25, 2024
    
    Mazie,
    I just read the dust-up you had with MD, aka Goldie Locks. Consider the source.
    Good for you for holding firm to the bully. You do a lot of good here, and most of us need all the help we can get…
    Be well,
    Laz
    
    Reply
    - Mazie Malone April 25, 2024
      
      Laz
      Thank you very much. I have a different choice word but for the sake of integrity we will stick to bully.
      I appreciate the support and I am sorry for anyone who was privy to the onslaught.
      
      mm 💕
      
      Reply
      - Lazarus April 25, 2024
        
        Mazie,
        You’re welcome, and no need for “I am sorry.” IMO
        As always,
        Laz
        
        Reply
        
        Mazie Malone April 25, 2024
        
        Thank you.. 💕💕💕
        
        mm 💕
        
        Reply
        
        Mazie Malone April 25, 2024
        
        Laz,
        Also unfortunately there seems to be no “Rules of Conduct” for members of the Behavioral Health Advisory Board and it is a 3 year term of service.
        
        mm 💕
        
        Reply
        
        Lazarus April 25, 2024
        
        I’m not surprised.
        Laz
        
        Reply
        
        Mazie Malone April 25, 2024
        
        Haha of course not!!! … 😂💕
        
        mm 💕
        
        Reply
Chuck Dunbar April 25, 2024

+1 Jim.

Reply
Call It As I See It April 25, 2024

Isn’t it funny and sad that the guy living in the Building Bridges Facility has to tell us, it’s not working. Mr. Stehr is exactly right, throwing money at the problem doesn’t fix it.

It actually makes it worse, you see the when our government gets involved it creates a business out of homelessness. The Camillie Schraeder’s of the world see opportunity. Camille’s group will never solve the issue, if they do, then the money goes away along with all the jobs. 17 million dollars per year and the problem is worse. And if you believe Photo-OP Mo, that it’s down, 23%. I’ve got an ocean front property in Arizona with a bridge to sell.

In order to solve it, you’re going to have ignore all your liberal instincts. Families first, if they need help we provide it. Mental Illness needs a facility and news flash, it’s not the streets. Addiction, one trip through rehab. After that jail. No frivolous handouts that are unaccounted for. If you’re not from this county, Greyhound bus ticket back home, no questions asked.

I believe Mr. Stehr is trying to do it right. He is not sleeping out on the streets and committing crimes that come with the unhoused. Our Judges need to wake up and sentenced habitual offenders.

Reply
- Bruce Anderson April 25, 2024
  
  The County paid, what, a hundred grand for the Marbut Report only to ignore its commonsense strategies for radically reducing in-county homelessness. Lots of town and cities are hamstrung by the well-paid doers of good like the Schraeders.
  
  Reply
  - Mark Scaramella April 25, 2024
    
    Marbut got $60k for his ignored report. Fort Bragg’s widely admired program is based largely on the Marbut report, so much so that Marbut himself came to town and praised Fort Bragg’s program. Supervisor- elect Bernie Norvell hopes to bring some of that experience the Board of Supervisors and the County level when he takes office in January but he will be up against the well-entrenched Contiuum of Care blob which has lead the Ignore Marbut effort for years.
    
    Reply
- Bernie Norvell April 26, 2024
  
  One trip through rehab is optimistic. A few years ago I would have agreed, one trip then jail. Today, I have the understanding that relapse happens and has to be considered as part of the process. The idea is suppose to be to bring people up so they can function in and contribute to society, Thus getting them off the books. That is not to say that some people based on their crime do need to go to jail. Hopefully with the new jail wing those folks will get the help they need while incarcerated. The other truth is some will forever be in the system.
  
  There is in my opinion no doubt that the system in place does not produce any kind of real results. That is why we made the decision to go in a different direction. I’ m hopeful that with the boards decision to look into reshaping the county’s way of doing things will move forward. The plan we are using will have to be modified some to be successsful county wide. At this point there seems to be enough interest to at least get it done. It feels like the biggest hurdle will be to keep the conversation moving forward
  
  Reply
Steve Heilig April 25, 2024

“The MAGA movement is working to destroy regulatory agencies for higher profits. They want to take us back to the days of back alley abortions and hepatitis outbreaks. Don’t fool yourselves — democracy is often messy, but we will miss it if it goes away.”
Gerry Lazzareschi MD
– good diagnosis by the good doctor.
Meanwhile in the Supreme Court:
Justice Sotomayor: “If the president decides that his rival is a corrupt person and he orders the military to assassinate him, is that within his official acts to which he has immunity?“
Trump Attorney: “That could well be an official act.“
– Is he arguing for Trump, or Putin? When will more Americans recognize who these MAGA cultists really are?

Reply
- Steve Heilig April 25, 2024
  
  Ps: Trump:
  Courts: “I know more about courts than any human being on Earth.” (November 2015.)
  Lawsuits: “[W]ho knows more about lawsuits than I do? I’m the king.” (January 2016.)
  
  he may well wind up being correct on these two topics at least.
  
  Reply
Bob A. April 25, 2024

Country Feedback

This flower is scorched, this film is on
On a maddening loop
These clothes
These clothes don’t fit us right
And I’m to blame
It’s all the same, it’s all the same

You come to me with a bone in your hand
You come to me with your hair curled tight
You come to me with positions
You come to me with excuses ducked out in a row
You wear me out, you wear me out

We’ve been through fake-a-breakdown
Self-hurt, plastics, collections
Self-help, self-pain, EST, psychics, fuck all
I was central, I had control, I lost my head
I need this, I need this
A paperweight, a junk garage, a winter rain, a honey pot
Crazy, all the lovers have been tagged
A hotline, a wanted ad, it’s crazy what you could’ve had

It’s crazy what you could’ve had
It’s crazy what you could’ve had
I need this, I need this
It’s crazy what you could’ve had
Crazy what you could’ve had
I need it, I need this
It’s crazy what you could’ve had
It’s crazy what you could’ve had
I need this, I, I, need this
It’s crazy what you could’ve had
I need this, I need this
It’s crazy what you could’ve had
Crazy what you could’ve had
I need this, I need this

— Mike Mills, Michael Stipe, Bill Berry & Peter Buck

Reply
- Chuck Dunbar April 26, 2024
  
  Quite the words, quite the story that underlies it must be, not a song I’ve known before….
  
  For me in particular, it ends a crazy, sad day of very hard news from two friends, one dead and one quite ill, too much for one day. This song’s a good way to end an AVA day. Thanks, Bob
  
  Reply

Mendocino County Today: Thursday 4/25/24

31 Comments

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