Mendocino County Today: Sunday 4/28/24

Sunny | Starts | Body Found | Covelo Towers | Hendry Case | Vet Forum | Successor Superintendent | Web Dew | Road Money | Pet Bobbie Sue | Still Relevant | Westport Shore | Wildflower Show | AVA Archives | Redwood Sap | Lydia Animals | Yesterday's Catch | Totally Available | Nursing Homes | State Farm | Marco Radio | Don't Flush | Warmongering Liars | Let's Eat | Draft Names | I'm Somebody | Tourons | Aprons | McKoy Twins | Native Plants | Student Protests | AI Reaper | Citizen Insult | Not Hired | Domestic Violence | Big Tree | Witch Trial | Peak District

LIGHT RAIN or drizzle will be possible for mostly coastal areas of Del Norte and northern Humboldt Counties through Monday. Otherwise, dry weather with slightly below normal temperatures are expected into early next week. Offshore flow around mid week will result in a warming and drying trend for the interior. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A cloudy 50F this Sunday morning on the coast. Some wind & clearing today then mostly clear & a bunch of wind for the work week.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN’S BODY RECOVERED OFF FORT BRAGG COAST 

On Friday, April 26, 2024 at approximately 2:54 P.M., Deputies from the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office received a report of a possible human body observed floating in the ocean immediately south of the city of Fort Bragg. Deputies responded to the location where the reporting person last observed the object floating offshore and confirmed that it was a deceased human body.

Sheriff’s Deputies coordinated a response with local first responders to include the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the California Department of State Parks to facilitate the recovery of the decedent. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife, Mendocino Volunteer Fire Department, and California State Parks water rescue lifeguards responded to assist with the recovery.

As the California Department of Fish and Wildlife boat was responding from Noyo Harbor, California State Parks rescue swimmers deployed into the water to move the decedent away from the shore to access the boat. Due to the steep rocky shoreline and choppy sea conditions, the decision was made to recover the decedent with the boat and transport the remains to Noyo Harbor as opposed to trying to navigate the steep cliffs and rocky shores of the coastline.

Mendocino Volunteer Fire Department rescue jet skis launched from Noyo Harbor to assist with the recovery and ensure the safe return of the rescue swimmers and personnel involved in the recovery effort.

Once the decedent was returned to Noyo Harbor, Sheriff's Office Deputies initiated a coroner's investigation into this incident. Deputies were unable to locate any identifying marks or characteristics of the decedent in order to determine identity. Based on the clothing located on the decedent, it is believed the decedent is likely an adult female. No other identifying information was located during the preliminary investigation.

This coroner's case is actively being investigated and anyone with any information regarding this incident is encouraged to contact the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office Dispatch Center at 707-463-4086. Information can also be provided anonymously through the non-emergency tip-line at 707-234-2100.

CITY OF WILLITS SETTLES DEREK HENDRY SEXUAL HARASSMENT CASE FOR $2.25 MILLION

AVA News Service

In 2022 former Willits Police officer Natalie Higley filed a lawsuit alleging that a Lieutenant Derek Hendry’s sexual advances and retaliatory behavior created a hostile work environment that his superiors did not take “all reasonable steps to address.”

On April 18 the Willits City Council announced that in February they had agreed to the record-setting settlement citing the potential for a long-drawn out court case that they would probably lose.

Higley sought damages against the city of Willits and the Willits Police Department for: Gender/Sexual Discrimination in violation of the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA); 2Gender/Sexual Harassment/Hostile Work Environment; Retaliation in Violation of FEHA and Failure to Take All Reasonable Steps to Prevent Discrimination, Harassment, and Retaliation.

Higley alleged that soon after she joined the WPD in July of 2020, she was “subjected to harassment, discrimination, and a hostile work environment on the basis of her gender, as well as harassment and discrimination on the basis of her disability/medical condition.”

Higley claimed that she was recruited by Hendry to join the WPD in 2020, and that “shortly after (she began at the Academy), Hendry began making inappropriate comments to her, such as that “women wanted him” and making disparaging remarks about her body, reportedly “calling her fat, telling her to lose weight, and giving her the nickname ‘McHigley;.” The suit noted that “Hendry did not make similar comments to the male recruits.”

In July of 2021, Higley alleged that after she “received a biopsy for a mole on her shoulder… he dug his thumb into the area where she had just had her biopsy,” then reportedly made disparaging remarks when she said he was hurting her.

After she was diagnosed with skin cancer and placed on light-duty status, Higley alleges that “Hendry made fun of Plaintiff and told her that her skin cancer was ‘not a big deal’,” that he had never been put on light duty and that “only (a vulgar word for wimps) go on light duty.”

Higley also alleged that Hendry engaged in “additional harassing, discriminatory, and hostile conduct” such as blocking “doorways with his body” when she tried to enter, and “often stuck his fingers in (her) food,” conduct she alleged he did not inflict on the male officers.

Higley further alleged that in October of 2021, she “made a formal complaint to then-WPD Chief Fabian Lizaraga regarding the ongoing harassment based on her sex and/or gender, hostile working environment, and discrimination and harassment based on her disability/medical condition.”

Later, “due to the unending harassment, discrimination, and retaliation to which she was subjected, (Higley) engaged in protected activity when she complained to defendants and outsideagencies.” After making her complaints, Higley alleges further retaliation, including that in January of 2023, Chief Lizaraga said “she had to turn in her badge, gun, police I.D., and Department-issued phone and radio, (and that the) photo of her in WPD uniform (the only female officer at the time) was also removed from the wall at the police department.”

The lawsuit described the actions listed as “some, but not all, of the harassing, and discriminatory actions that happened to Ms. Higley that she found to be highly offensive, hostile, intimidating, abusive, and/or retaliatory, and which created a hostile work environment for her, which resulted in her suffering emotional distress, physical injury/sickness, and ultimately forced her from the workplace.”

“The harassment was not occasional, isolated, sporadic, or trivial,” the complaint states. “Rather, the harassment was part of the accepted, long-term, and consistent policy, custom, habit, pattern, and practice at WPD.”

The complaint listed details about multiple incidents of sexual harassment from Hendry, including comments and questions of a sexual nature Hendry allegedly made to the female officer, including comments about how likely Higley was to have sex with him. Some of the allegations contain language that a family newspaper can’t reprint, even with asterisks.

The allegations also include a story about Hendry allegedly inviting Higley out for a drink to celebrate the completion of her six-month field training program. Higley says in the complaint that it was Hendry who had originally recruited her for the Police Academy, allegedly telling her he would “take care” of her if she joined WPD after graduating.

The complaint states that Hendry picked Higley up, then drove them “for approximately 20 minutes toward an isolated and unknown location before stopping on a deserted road, where no homes or buildings were in sight.” Both parties were drinking from a bottle while driving, the complaint alleges, after Hendry instructed Higley to drink. “Plaintiff felt pressured to drink,” the complaint states, “because Hendry was her boss, and because he often called her a ‘p----' when she refused to engage in conduct that Hendry suggested.”

After stopping, Hendry allegedly “began speaking in a sexual manner to Plaintiff about how women wanted him” – not the only time comments about his sexual attractiveness were allegedly made to Higley. The complaint claims Hendry also asked more personal questions about her sex practices during this incident, again in language not appropriate for a family newspaper.

WPD fired Hendry in April 2022. The racial and gender lawsuit filed by former Willits Police Chief Alexis Blaylock that the City of Willits settled for $250,000 in December 2022, also named Lt. Hendry as a sexual harasser.

A reported criminal investigation of Hendry was handed to Lake County Sheriff’s Office to avoid conflicts of interest. Details of the extent and status of the investigation are not clear.

At the end of 2022, NBC Bay Area published an interview with a former Willits resident on allegations of sexual assault against Hendry. Lorna Allen accused Hendry of forcing sex from her about 12 times over 5 years, while he was working for the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office and then the Willits Police Department. 

According to the NBC report, WPD Chief Lizarraga confirmed that his department had received “multiple reports of criminal conduct by Hendry.” However, NBC continued, “he declined to divulge the nature of those alleged crimes or comment on whether any of the complaints came from Allen.”

Higley’s judicial fight is over. As per an announcement from the City of Willits submitted to the Willits Weekly, the City Council unanimously approved a conditional settlement agreement with Higley during a closed session on February 24, 2024. The settlement agreement became effective on April 18 freeing the City of Willits from a “potentially lengthy, uncertain, and expensive jury trial,” according to the announcement.

Higley was represented by McNicholas & McNicholas, LLP of Los Angeles. 

AV UNIFIED PICKS SIMSON’S SUCCESSOR

Dear Anderson Valley Community,

I know that you received the news this morning about the identification of a successor Superintendent, Kristin Balliet Larson. 

I am very delighted with this choice, as I have worked with Kristin and found her an exceptionally talented administrator that truly believes all students can achieve. I am confident that the initiatives that we have put in place over the past three years will continue and be expanded under her leadership.

I know there are questions about the high school principal vacancy this appointment creates. We will be running the vacancy on Edjoin and working with appropriate candidates. Elementary principal interviews were held last week and we expect to have an announcement shortly. I know this period of transition is hard, but we have to follow the process. Your patience is appreciated.

At the elementary school, the new fence looks very nice. We appreciate our neighbors’ patience as we installed that under the direction of Northwest Construction. The dental screenings are completed and results will be mailed. Summer school forms went out this week and need to be returned by May 3. Please make sure your child attends, if they are recommended for summer school, so they can remain competitive academically.

At the high school, packing continues. The library staff has done a fantastic job getting everything boxed up with a small library collection left for the last month of school. We have some major packing to do in the science rooms. Students will be located in three portables for a portion of the school year next year. Construction should be completed by December 2024. Local contractor Casey Cupples is handling the construction along with project manager Donald Alameida.

Progress report grades went home. I go through every report card and make a spreadsheet of every student that has a D or multiple poor grades. Our team looks at that data and tries to evaluate ways to support. However, we need parent support too. If your student is struggling, daily after school tutoring in all subjects is available one hour after school in the library and throughout the day in the library. Please have your student use that support. We build the structures, but we need partnership to make sure students avail themselves of this support. Summer school forms for the high school went home. Any student that needs to make up a poor grade to maintain four year college eligibility is encouraged to attend, as are any students that have a credit deficiency for high school graduation. High school students will be located at the elementary campus in an outbuilding with its own restroom facility due to construction at the Junior Senior High.

I cannot reiterate the importance again of making sure that your students post their best effort in this final period of school. This semester grade is the one that sticks on the transcript. Please take the time to monitor your student’s work and make sure they are on track. We have seen some magical improvement with kind and supportive mentoring, and I thank Ms. Burger for her work on our campus this semester.

A huge shout out of thanks to the Bond Oversight Committee that met on Thursday. This is a group of community members that needs to review the expenditures and progress of the bond. We are still looking for a member to represent a taxpayer organization. If you are interested please let me know.

The last thing I want to mention is the District phone system is going to be fully replaced in both hardware and software on May 6. The phone company requires us to do it on a weekday between 8:00 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. and that could not be a worse time for us and our families. Please bear with us and be flexible. If you have an extreme emergency, you can call my cell at 707-684-1017. Please remember EMAIL will be functioning and the site administrators and staff will be able to answer your questions through email. We are delighted about this necessary upgrade managed by Technology Manager, Wynne Crisman but we need everyone’s understanding as the rollout will have unforeseen bumps on the road.

I hope you have a happy and safe weekend.

* * *

Update:

The Anderson Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees is delighted to announce that it has identified a candidate, Kristin Larson Balliet, for the position of Superintendent of the Anderson Valley Unified School District commencing on July 1, 2024. The final step in the process is for the Board to consider and approve the employment agreement at the upcoming regular Board meeting, which will be held at the Anderson Valley High School Library on May 14, at 5:00 PM.

Ms. Larson Balliet has had an impressive career bringing more than 18 years of administrative experience in small and large districts alike serving in roles including Superintendent, Special Education Coordinator, Principal at all grade levels K-12, and District Grant Coordinator. 

Earlier this year she had been named to the Anderson Valley High School principalship for the 2024/25 school year, but with the retirement of Louise Simson, the Board of Trustees identified her as the ideal candidate as the successor superintendent to continue the initiatives of the District. “The extensive excellent references of Ms. Larson Balliet from throughout the county and her proven track record in increasing student achievement were a determining factor in the appointment” noted Board President Richard Browning. “We are delighted with our unanimous selection of Ms Larson Balliet. Her deep administrative experience, collaborative management style, and instructional expertise will position the District to continue to make strong growth in the years ahead.” Browning also noted that Ms. Larson Balliet has already garnered extensive knowledge about the District in turnover discussions with Superintendent Louise Simson and met and corresponded with many of the staff at the Junior/Senior High in preparation for the original principalship assignment. 

Kristin Larson Balliet noted, “I am thrilled to have been selected as the new superintendent of Anderson Valley Unified School District. I have always loved the beautiful area, and I have been overwhelmed by the warm welcome I have already received from the staff and community. I have been so impressed with the local support AVUSD enjoys. The passing of Measure M and the many facility upgrades that are in progress as a result are examples of the magic that community support can bring. I am committed to working closely with students, staff, and educational partners to strengthen our programs and enhance student achievement in the coming years. I am a believer that every student can learn, and I am thrilled to work alongside our outstanding staff as we empower our students to achieve their dreams.”

. 

Superintendent Louise Simson stated she was delighted with the selection. “I was able to work with Kristin first-hand as a fellow Superintendent in Mendocino County. She has an amazing passion for equity, a driving belief in achievement for all students, an ability to create teams and consensus, and has a very, very strong work ethic. I am certain that she will continue the goals and initiatives of the past three years.”

Simson related that the District is currently poised to begin a major remodel of the high school science labs and four classrooms commencing on June 10 under the direction of Architect Don Alameida and Contractor Cupples Construction. The District has also submitted the $4.8 million dollar Clean California Community Track and Field to the Division of State Architect for permit in mid-April with construction anticipated to be completed in late 2025. The turnover process for these projects is well underway to ensure continuity of construction.

Louise Simson, Superintendent

AV Unified School District

POTTER VALLEY ROADS

In 1989, when we moved to Potter Valley, The Mill was closing. The mill had paid taxes for many years earmarked for repair of the Potter Valley Road. In 2000, the work began a surveyor was hired and land purchased for expansion.

Then everything stopped. Our supervisor at that time was convinced by her fellow supervisors to ok the use of the money, specifically earmarked for the Potter Valley Road to use on the coast on Hwy 1. to put in a roundabout by the Arc. She did not represent her constituents when she ok'd this use of funds for our rural roads to be used for the HWY roundabout.

For years, the residents of Potter Valley have cried out for repairs, only to be constantly put off. We were told 2008, 2018 and now 2028 the roads would be addressed. Obviously, it is not happening.

We the people of Potter Valley demand that the supervisors find the funds to replace the funds they took from our earmarked coffer. The same supervisors at that time found not only funds to raise their retirement pay but also their wages.

We will not be put off any longer and we want the money replaced at the current monetary value after inflation.

Sincerely,

MJ Wilson Scott

Potter Valley

UKIAH SHELTER PET OF THE WEEK

Bobbie Sue has a sweet and happy personality. 

She's quite affectionate, easy going, and has lovely leash manners. Bobbie Sue knows sit, and we know she will learn more quickly. Bobbie is mellow indoors and would make a great family dog. This beautiful girl may like the company of a canine friend in her forever home. Bobbie Sue is a German Shepherd Dog, about 2 years old and 70 lovely pounds. German Shepherds are highly intelligent, loyal dogs. For folks who enjoy engaging with their dogs doing canine sports such as obedience and agility, Ms. Sue may be your purple ribbon winner!

To see all of our canine and feline guests, and for information about our services, programs, and events, visit: mendoanimalshelter.com

Join us every first Saturday of the month for our MEET THE DOGS Adoption Event at the shelter. We're on Facebook at: facebook.com/mendoanimalshelter

For information about adoptions please call 707-467-6453.

STILL RELEVANT

So much to say, so little time to say it.

The esteemed editor said ...“it (the Smart Train) doesn’t run through the population centers of Sonoma County...” news to me.

Also, His constant ridicule of Biden as being senile. Body language aside, the Prez sez the right things if you listen. I’m almost 82 and I know the editor is a couple of years older. We’re still relevant. What choice do we have and... what choice DO we have?

As to 420, My good friend Crispie (Cris Birnt), San Rafael canal pirate, was one of the seven, or 6, or nine, who met at the “wall”, just outside the SR High school property at 4:20 to get ripped. The reason for that particular time was, according to Crispie, that particular group were the ‘fuck ups’, and therefore were required to stay after the normal time, being 3:20, for an extra hour.

— Richey Wasserman, Point Arena

ANNUAL WILDFLOWER SHOW
Sun 04/28/2024 at 10:00 AM
Where: Mendocino County Fairgrounds, 14400 Highway 128, Boonville
More Information (https://andersonvalley.helpfulvillage.com/events/4007)

INCINERATION & PRESERVATION

Dear Editor,

Many thanks for many years of illuminating and inflammatory journalism. No newspaper started a fire more readily than your fuel-sodden rag.

Though nothing can replace the living publication, I was relieved to see in WorldCat that the esteemed editor's papers, including a run of the paper itself, are in the UC Davis library, and many other libraries archive it as well. I hope it will always be possible to show those who missed it how newspapering was done in its glory days.

Sincerely,

Dave Schweisguth

San Francisco

LYDIA AND HER ANIMALS

by Bruce Anderson

Lydia o Lydia, have you met Lydia, the tattooed lady? Probably not because that Lydia was last heard from as Groucho Marx’s theme song on the old You Bet Your Life show. But whatever happened to our Lydia who drove official Mendocino County kinda rabid back in the day? Mendo is teeming with anthromorphs, but this lady was in a class by herself. 

We are speaking of Lydia Dittmeier, once of Willits, formerly of Covelo and Laytonville. It is said that Ms. Dittmeier “was run out of Covelo” where she’d lived with a Noah’s Ark array of animals in the old Covelo Hotel. Neighbors didn’t object so much to Lydia’s intra-species cohabitation so much as they did to the density of it. A hundred animals and one human being under one not very large roof inevitably presents a housekeeping problem, and housekeeping, if not kept, leads eventually to unhealthy living conditions for animals and their keepers, however well-intentioned the keepers.

And few people like a kennel next door, so wherever Lydia went the neighborhood consensus was get her outta here, and that was the consensus of opinion out on Hearst Road east of Willits where Lydia famously presided until...

Lydia liked animals. She liked them so much it was hard to say where the human part of her household left off and the animal kingdom began. And, not to be too unkind about it, Lydia also provided shelter to human-type persons who seem to have reverted to their animal state, thus adding significantly to what her neighbors and the authorities viewed as Lydia’s all-round undesirability. 

Americans who become overly fond of animals have become so numerous that their particular psychosis has won its own general mental health designation — collector. Collectors can’t help themselves. If the thing’s warm, fuzzy and has four legs, collectors want more and more of them.

County Animal Control wanted Lydia to disencumber herself of most of her animals because she was unable to properly care for them, and Lydia’s Hearst Road neighbors dearly preferred that Lydia’s Ark not be drydocked next door to them. 

The County Health Department agreed that twenty-nine dogs, innumerable cats, fifty or so guinea pigs, a brace of mutant hamsters, three sheep, several street people, and a donkey under one roof on one Willits acre with a failed septic system represented a health hazard to all concerned. And the neighbors were definitely concerned.

The Mendo cops, our county's in-lieu-of mental health workers, were tired of driving out to Lydia’s whenever she got into a beef with one of the two-footed transients she housed out back with her multiplying guinea pigs. She got into lots of beefs with not only her human house guests, she had major run-ins with her beleaguered neighbors. As one of them put, "You might think this is funny if you didn't live next door."

This neighbor’s bedroom window was 70 feet from Lydia’s proliferating menagerie. It may have been this neighbor who shot one of Lydia’s multitude of mangy, untended, Calcutta-quality dogs, after repeated warnings to her that her mostly feral canines were constantly getting loose and harassing his prize-winning horses. This neighbor endured many subsequent denunciations as a “murderer.”

ANIMAL CONTROL had warned Lydia for a year that she must either properly care for her animals or they would be taken from her. Lydia responded by voluntarily turning in a few animals to be cared for by the county until they could be placed in adoptive homes; other times she claimed she was being “stalked” by Mr. Arbayo of Animal Control, an articulate young man with the calm presence of an experienced therapist whose responsibilities included negotiations with the county’s numerous animal nuts. “There are lots of them,” he says with a sigh of resignation. Although Arbayo had been reason itself in his ongoing efforts to persuade Lydia that she had literally been overrun by wild things, and even though Animal Control had graciously permitted Lydia to visit the animals they’d had to impound, she tried to get a restraining order against the patient but determined Arbayo whom she said was “harassing” her.

BACKED BY A FINDING from Animal Control’s three-person appeals panel consisting of two citizens and a veterinarian that Lydia’s animals were not being adequately looked after, and having exhausted a year’s worth of attempts to get her to do right by her multiplying menagerie, and having 14 complaints from her neighbors that Animal Control had to do something about Lydia’s reeking premises, the creatures enumerated below were seized by Animal Control:

TWO CATS; 7 dogs; 30 guinea pigs; 3 rabbits; three sheep; and a donkey, all of which have required veterinary attention, and care and feeding for more than two months. And this Noah's Ark collection, all of living in Lydia's crumbling house, represented only about a third of Lydia’s menagerie. The rest of the gang remained at home in unconfiscated pandemonium east of Willits. She owed the County $7,140. for care and feeding of the animals taken from her, and would not get her animals back unless she not only paid up but “demonstrates to Mendocino County Animal Care & Control that you can care — adequately feed, provide clean water for and shelter — for your animals.”

Lydia's anthropomorphic circle of supporters was on perpetual alert against Animal Control, hiding even Lydia's ailing, abused animals to prevent them from being confiscated by the county. 

As Lydia's diverse bestiary was being nursed back to health at the animal shelter in Ukiah, allies of Lydia’s placed back-to-back calls to Animal Control to claim that Lydia had sold the donkey to both of them. These people are committed but weak on the logistics of conspiracy. Why try to spring one donkey from animal jail while a hundred guinea pigs languish with little hope they’ll ever see Willits again?

HER REFUSAL to neuter her dogs and cats, was defended by Lydia as a violation of her religion — Scientology. And she explained her proliferating guinea pigs as a therapeutic attempt to shift her anthropomorphic infatuations from larger, more difficult animals to smaller, less demanding creatures.

LYDIA was not going to pay to get her animals back. Not only because she was unable to pay the fee for animals she’d failed to care for, but because she got some unexpected help from Animal Control itself.

IRONISTS were gratified to learn that while the animals considered most at risk from Lydia’s affections were quartered at the animal shelter in Ukiah, rampaging dogs broke into the county's sheep pen and finished off her trio of confiscated woollies. Supported by her dedicated network of animal nuts, er, animal lovers, Lydia seized on the death of her sheep to appeal Animal Control’s seizure of her other impounded animals. She demanded and got a sort of habeus corpus hearing for her seized creatures.

REPRESENTING herself before a perplexed Judge Henderson, and having what might be called the animal cunning to have filed her appeal based on laws ordinarily used by human-type persons to recover property seized during drug busts, Lydia successfully argued that her animals were safer with her than they were with Animal Protective Services. After all, she said, look what happened to my sheep, your honor. They got killed in the animal shelter where they were supposed to be safe! The Judge ruled that Lydia could have her animals back.

BUT ANIMAL CONTROL pointed out that they had legal authority to take Lydia’s animals for their own protection, which they had done. Yes, it was unfortunate that marauding dogs from nearby Ukiah had eaten Lydia’s three sheep, but the sheep wouldn’t have been at the animal shelter in the first place if Lydia hadn’t been negligent in caring for them. 

And that’s where the case of Lydia and her animals was stuck when we went to press that week.

CATCH OF THE DAY, Saturday, April 27, 2024

ANDRES AYALA-ORTIZ, Ukiah. Disobeying court order.

ALEJANDRO GUEVARA-FELIX, Ukiah. DUI.

BUCK LEGGETT, Willits. Controlled substance for sale, conspiracy, county parole violation.

SHELLY LEGGETT, Covelo. Controlled substance, contempt of court, commission of crime while released from custody, conspiracy, smuggling controlled substance into jail.

CLAUDIO LOPEZ, Ukiah. DUI, under influence.

ALLEN MCKEE, Ukiah. Tampering with vehicle registration, unlawful display of registration.

KYLE MCNAMARA, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs.

FILIBERTO MERINO-ORTIZ, Covelo. DUI, no license.

ADALBERTO MERINO-RUIZ, Covelo. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

ORLANDO MUNOZ, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs.

ERIC RUDDIS, Laytonville. DUI.

HIGH NOON

Warmest spiritual greetings,

Please know that my exit date at Building Bridges Homeless Resource Center is June 9th at noon. I have one upcoming dental appointment to repair a small upper left tooth which has a cavity. Awaiting a decision by Partnership of California as to whether it will pay for the root canal, as well as the crown replacement. I am totally available on the planet earth. Not identified with the body nor the mind, Immortal Self I am! Feel free to contact me.

Craig Louis Stehr

MITCH CLOGG

I gotta say right here that I'm embarrassed at being in a bloody nursing home. I used to inspect these places for the state & federal government, 49 years ago. I was right out of Berkeley, and found work (via Richard Nixon's 1978 CETA job program — a very good thing by a very crook) — found work in a big pink building in Berkeley. An exposé of the nursing-home industry, "Tender Loving Greed," had recently been published that showed how criminal neglect of old people was ensured by the profits-above-all policy of private corporations in what should be a government-run industry, like Medicare and the Veterans Health Administration, my big daddy.

Came I then, a superannuated grad with a background as an investigative journalist, grasping my potent diploma and eager to use it to keep rearing my adolescing chicks in the Berkeley flatlands. 'Twas a good time. Public outrage landed on the desks of the health dept's Licensing & Certification Division in Berkeley at the same time that I took a job there. What had been a warm and cozy relation between friendly regulators and friendly nursing-home managers was suddenly adversarial. Egad! But I didn't have any formerly warm associations to mess up, and I relished the opportunity to be point man, armed with a spanking-new set of state & federal laws that had TEETH! That included FINES and CLOSURES! I was privileged, I was THRILLED to be the first inspector in California to issue a cash fine! I was more than a reporter. I was an avenger, I was a champion of the forgotten, abused and neglected victims of nursing homes, skilled nursing facilities, SNFs, "sniffs"; I rode a white horse, etcetera, etcetera. That's another story; I'll tell it sometime. What I was NOT, never in my wildest dreams, was I a future denizen, prisoner of one. When, in my foot-surgeon's Stanford Hospital clinic it was suggested that I could stay in a sniff while my foot got cared for, since my Wheeler-Street home was 200 miles away, I nearly choked. So, okay, how did I want to do this?

And here I am, embarrassed (albeit that this is the only worker-owned SNF I ever heard of and the best I ever saw). Whaddayagonna do?

MEMO OF THE AIR: Pronoun Must Agree With Their Antecedent.

Here's the recording of last night's (Friday 2024-04-26) 7.4-hour Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio show on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg (CA) and KNYO.org (and, for the first hour, also 89.3fm KAKX Mendocino): https://tinyurl.com/KNYO-MOTA-0590

Coming shows can feature your story or dream or poem or kvetch or whatever. Just email it to me. Or include it in a reply to this post. Or send me a link to your writing project and I'll take it from there and read it on the air.

Besides all that, at https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com you'll find a fresh batch of dozens of links to not-necessarily-radio-useful but worthwhile items I set aside for you while gathering the show together, such as:

Something weird happens when you keep squeezing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqabT21d8VM

When my mother was a real estate saleswoman in the L.A. area she won the office sales trophy every month she worked there. With three tricks: 1. Go to the house a couple hours before the potential buyers’ appointment and bake bread in the oven. 2. Bring your cute little boy to sit quietly drawing or reading or otherwise playing while you show the house. And 3. –actually this is first: Go to the lighting store, buy a chandelier or two, just really fancy lighting fixtures, get up on a chair or on the dining table and install them. If the buyers bite, leave the lights there. If no bites, take the lights out and get your money back, or put them in the next house. I remember there was always at least one chandelier in the trunk of the Oldsmobile (which is what I thought of every time they open the trunk in /Repo Man/). After my mother finished with real estate and married Roland, we had that last real estate chandelier for years. It was a gold-painted potmetal mesh cylinder with light sockets inside, with the wire going up the chain, and it was hung all over with a hundred faceted glass teardrops the size of a Kennedy half-dollar. Every time we moved, and we moved every year, twice one year, some more of the teardrops got lost, and I would rearrange the remaining ones to make it look on purpose, like rearranging eggs in a carton as you use them, to keep it balanced. I don't know what happened to that light at last. It had a kind of kitchy magnificence. Another thing like that, that followed us everywhere, was a pink modern-art ceramic elephant with a three-inch hole in its back to keep pencils and scissors on a desk. And a green glow-in-the-dark plastic model of the Seattle Space Needle from the 1962 World Fair. https://myonebeautifulthing.com/2024/04/25/sipek-spalek

A dance to spring. Which is to the original Pfeiffer dance to spring the way the real world now is to the way it used to be. https://www.neatorama.com/2024/04/23/An-Indian-Horror-Story-in-Dance/

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

UKRAINE LIES

Editor,

The letters the AVA published from Mr. Baumgarner of Santa Rosa have been filled with CIA talking points. The proxy war with Ukraine could never have happened without Russiagate and the hatred of Trump. This hatred of Trump has made it very easy for the CIA to dupe the stupid trolls of the "left" who think Putin is the aggressor and the bad guy when in fact the U.S. overthrew the government of Ukraine in 2014. For the next 8 years Ukraine prepared for war and killed at least 14,000 ethnic Russians. Putin has every right to de-Nazify Ukraine and isn't it hilarious that the dumbshits of the "left" are supporting Ukrainian Nazi's? Democracy Now, Pacifica radio have played a role in propagandizing for the Ukrainian war. When I called KPFA and asked their news director how many anti-Ukraine war protests have occurred in the Bay Area, he said there had been a "few." Trump is hated because he told the truth about our war in Iraq, that we are in Syria to steal their oil, and he didn't get us into another war like the vile despicable Biden. And speaking of Russia I find it very disturbing that our rapist president Joe Biden is not allowing his rape victim Tara Reade back into the U.S. from Russia where she is now. Biden is a million times more vile than Trump. I hate both of them but have enough brain cells to figure out the difference between the two scumbags. We also blew up the Nordstream pipeline, a vile act of terrorism and industrial sabotage if there ever was one. No environmental groups complained about the environmental disaster we caused by our terrorism. I am going to miss the print edition of the AVA very much. I saw the very sad video on Youtube where they dismantled Press Democrat's printing press. Newspapers have been replaced by Facebook and other outlets that are run by the CIA, AIPAC and all the other warmongering liars. Thanks for all the years of newspapers!

Sincerely,

Andrew Metrogen

San Luis Obispo

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Last night in the first round of the NFL draft I thought it was very odd that no one selected was named Jalen and no one had an apostrophe in their name. Well, we’re making up for that tonight in the second round.

Check this out:

36th pick: Jer’Zhan Newton

37th pick: Ja’Lynn Polk

38th pick: T’Vondre Sweat

and then we have a hyphenated name

41st pick: Kool-Aid McKinstry

And finally, from Rutgers, my alma mater, Max Melton was the 43rd pick.

"No matter how hard you train, Somebody will train harder. No matter how hard you run, Somebody will run harder. No matter how much you want it, Somebody will want it more. I am Somebody." 

— Steve Prefontaine

CALIF. RANGER DISHES ON DEROGATORY NICKNAME FOR BAD PARK VISITORS

On ‘tourons,’ the national park visitors that everyone loves to hate

by Ashley Harrell

“What is a touron?” someone asked me the other day. 

With the question came a link to a post in the Yosemite National Park subreddit, which read: “It’s the off season, and I’m already seeing [too] much turon behavior in the valley.”

Clearly it was derogatory, but it took a bit of research to learn that the word (which is actually spelled touron) is a mash-up of “tourist” and “moron.” Urban Dictionary defines it as “any person who, while on vacation, commits an act of pure stupidity.” 

Once you’re aware of the word touron, it seems to come up everywhere. There’s an entire subreddit dedicated to visitors who hike off trail, get too close to wildlife and bathe in the hot springs at Yellowstone National Park.

The popular Instagram account @touronsofyellowstone, which posts videos and photos of park visitors misbehaving, has amassed 486,000 followers, while @touronsofnationalparks has 176,000, and dozens more accounts have popped up (there’s @touronsofhawaii, @touronsofthepnw and @tourons_of_joshuatree just to name a few).

These accounts and numerous news stories reveal that touron activity is often found in parks, and according to the Topical Dictionary of Americanisms, the term is considered “park ranger slang.” Urban Dictionary agrees. “The term has its roots in the resort, park service and service industries and can easily be dated back at least as far as the mid-1970s,” the entry states.

Current Yellowstone officials distance themselves from the term, however. “We do not refer to park visitors by that term and do not support it,” spokesperson Linda Veress wrote in an email to SFGate, then listed some efforts the National Park Service has made to educate visitors to be good stewards of the land, including Plan Like a Park Ranger, Recreate Responsibly and Leave No Trace campaigns. 

Asked about his experience with the word touron, former park ranger Griff Griffith said it wasn’t used much around his main stomping grounds — Northern California’s redwood parks — where he worked between 1996 and 2023. Instead he associates it with big, crowded parks like Yellowstone and Yosemite.

Griffith just retired from his role as a natural and cultural resource interpreter with California State Parks, but he has continued working for conservation nonprofit groups, guiding hikes for Redwood Sightseeing Tours and hosting a podcast for Jumpstart Nature, a nonprofit organization with a goal of motivating people to care for the environment. 

While Griffith would never directly refer to someone he was guiding as a touron, he acknowledged that many can exhibit “touronic behavior.” And in certain instances that have made the news, well, the behavior has had serious consequences.

“I mean, especially that one woman who had her pants ripped off and hanging on the bison horn,” he says. (The woman was knocked unconscious during the attack, but survived.) 

Bad visitor behavior, even with the best of intentions, can “frustrate and scare the heck out of park employees,” Griffith said, particularly because it’s the rangers’ responsibility to prevent these incidents from occurring. The issue is more of an ignorance problem than an arrogance problem, he said. So unless rangers can reach visitors and educate them about how to behave and remain safe in parks, the problems will continue. 

It doesn’t help that budgets for rangers have been cut over the years, he said, even as the number of park visitors rises. Still, Griffith considers himself an optimist, and sees “touronic behavior” as an opportunity to start a conversation and shift our relationship with nature. 

When he was growing up in the 1970s in the North Bay, people around him weren’t particularly respectful of nature, Griffith remembers. They felt entitled to drive their vehicles into ecologically sensitive sand dunes and anywhere else, and truth be told, Griffith himself exhibited some borderline touronic behaviors. 

As a young boy, he captured buckets full of tadpoles in the creek, and transported them to a pond in his backyard, where they slowly died. As a teenager, he strung up potentially dangerous rope swings at lakes and rivers he visited. Many friends who are now wildlife conservationists have similar stories, he explained, and suddenly the truth became clear: We are all tourons until someone teaches us not to be.

The teachers haven’t always gotten it right, though, Griffith said. From the very beginning, the conservation movement was driven by an exclusive and entitled class of people, he said, some of whom were eugenicists. In the ’90s and early 2000s, what Griffith calls “the eco-Karens” came out to warn people not to pick up or touch anything in nature, and to keep themselves separate from it. 

Casting entire groups of people as inferior and keeping people from experiencing the outdoors are not helpful approaches, he said. The ultimate environmentalists — and the people we should look to for guidance — are Indigenous people, Griffith continued. 

“They didn’t have a concept of wilderness,” he said. “They always interacted with nature. They were hardcore managers even though they didn’t consider themselves managers. They considered themselves part of the ecosystem.” 

The good news, Griffith said, is that the people standing too close to animals, walking too close to cliff edges and exhibiting “selfie-ish behavior” want to interact with nature, too. He believes that the right kind of education could turn a lot of tourons into wildlife conservationists.

“Mama didn’t teach them to keep their distance from antlers and teeth and hooves and claws, you know — but they’re often wildlife lovers,” Griffith said. “Berating them and putting them in the ‘other’ category is a waste of awesome potential.”

THE HISTORY OF 'APRONS'

I don't think most kids today know what an apron is. The principal use of Mom's or Grandma's apron was to protect the dress underneath because she only had a few. It was also because it was easier to wash aprons than dresses and aprons used less material. But along with that, it served as a potholder for removing hot pans from the oven.

It was wonderful for drying children's tears, and on occasion was even used for cleaning out dirty ears.

From the chicken coop, the apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, and sometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven.

When company came, those aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids.

And when the weather was cold, she wrapped it around her arms.

Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow, bent over the hot wood stove.

Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron.

From the garden, it carried all sorts of vegetables. After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls.

In the fall, the apron was used to bring in apples that had fallen from the trees.

When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds.

When dinner was ready, she walked out onto the porch, and waved her apron, and the men folk knew it was time to come in from the fields to dinner.

It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that 'old-time apron' that served so many purposes.

Send this to those who would know (and love) the story about aprons.

Moms and Grandmas used to set hot baked apple pies on the window sill to cool. Her granddaughters set theirs on the window sill to thaw.

They would go crazy now trying to figure out how many germs were on that apron.

I don't think I ever caught anything from an apron - but love.

THE CAROLINA TWINS had two strikes against them from the start. Born in 1851, Millie and Christine McKoy were joined at the lower spine, and their parents were slaves. Yet their life turned out to be an astonishing victory over adversity.

The twins' early years were a travesty of childhood. They were wrenched from their mother at age 2; sold three or four times; stolen, retrieved and stolen again; put on public display at fairs and freak shows from New Orleans to Montreal; then spirited across the ocean to Britain. At each new venue, impresarios called in physicians for exhaustive medical probes to appease scientific curiosity and prove to skeptics that the "two-headed girl" was no fraud. It took three years for a private detective, hired by the McKoy family's last "rightful" owner, Joseph Pearson Smith, to track the twins down in Birmingham, England. By the time they returned to Smith and their family in North Carolina, they were almost 6.

The sisters' motto was "As God decreed, we agreed," and they strove to turn impediments into assets. As toddlers, they were clumsy and fell down frequently. Before long, though, they developed a graceful sideways walk -- and a crowd-pleasing dance style. They mastered keyboard duets. Endowed with one soprano and one alto voice, they learned to harmonize.

Martell cites a raft of medical reports noting the twins' above-average intelligence.

Once the 6-year-olds returned to North Carolina in 1857, Smith and his wife undertook to educate them as well as manage their budding career as performers. Martell marshals strong evidence that the Smiths were slaveholders who treated Millie and Christine as family.

Certainly, Mary Smith broke the law by teaching slaves to read and write, and, as Millie-Christine's chosen managers after slavery ended, the couple arranged their own lives around the twins' career.

In the course of a seven-year European tour in the 1870s, Millie-Christine became fluent in German, Italian, Spanish and French. Gushed a New York Times reviewer: ". . . she is a perfect little gem or gems, or a gem and a half, we don't know which. Great care and attention must have been bestowed upon her education."

THE STUDENT-LED PROTESTS AREN’T PERFECT. THAT DOESN’T MEAN THEY’RE NOT RIGHT.

by Lydia Polgreen

On Wednesday morning, on a corner across the street from Columbia University, a man dressed in black, a huge gold cross around his neck, brandished a sign that featured a bloodstained Israeli flag and the word “genocide” in capital letters. He was also shouting at the top of his lungs.

“The Jews control the world! Jews are murderers!”

I watched as a pro-Palestine protester approached the man. “That is horribly antisemitic,” she said. “You are hurting the movement and you are not a part of us. Go away.”

The man shouted vile, unprintable epithets back at her, but the woman, who told me she had come to New York from her home in Baltimore to support the protesting students, walked away.

Hours later, a well-known congressional reporter covering House Speaker Mike Johnson’s visit to Columbia’s campus posted a photograph of the same man. “One sign here at the Columbia protest,” the reporter, Jake Sherman, wrote. “This man is ranting about Jews controlling the universe.”

The man wasn’t “at the Columbia protest.” The university’s campus has been closed to outsiders for over a week — even as a journalist and an alumnus, I had trouble getting in. He was, several people on social media told Sherman, a well-known antisemitic crank completely unconnected from what was unfolding on campus. Indeed, last week I had seen a man wearing an identical cross carrying a similarly lettered sign that read, “Google it! Jews vs. TikTok” protesting outside Donald Trump’s criminal trial in Lower Manhattan. He was, for the record, standing on the pro-Trump side of the protest area.

But the incident is emblematic of how difficult it has become to make sense of what is actually happening on college campuses right now. As the protests have spread to dozens of campuses and counting, competing viral clips on social media paint vastly different versions of what’s happening inside these pro-Palestine camps. Are they violent conflict zones, filled with militant protesters who hurl antisemitic abuse and threaten Jewish students, requiring, as some political leaders have suggested, deployment of the National Guard? Or is it a giant love-fest of students braiding daisy chains and singing “Kumbaya”?

I tried to figure this out the only way I know how: by reporting. I happened to have been on campus on April 18, the day Columbia’s president, Minouche Shafik, decided to call in the New York Police Department to clear the protesters from campus, and I returned a week later to spend the day reporting on the protests and the mood on campus.

What I saw were moving, creative and peaceful protests by people seeking to end the slaughter in Gaza, where more than 34,000 people have died, the majority of them women and children. I also saw things that left me quite troubled, and heard from Jewish students both inside and outside the camps navigating a campus fraught with emotions. But while reporting on the protests up close gave me insight into how unsettling some aspects of activism can be, it doesn’t mean the protesters’ actions are misguided. These young people seek a worthy cause: to end what may be the most brutal military operation for civilians in the 21st century.

In the days since Shafik called for the N.Y.P.D. to break up protests, copycat encampments have sprung up on dozens of campuses across the country, and at least 17 of them have faced police intervention. My social media feeds have filled with horrifying images of students and professors being violently dragged away by the police. In one especially shocking video from Emory University captured by CNN, a police officer shouted at Caroline Fohlin, a middle-aged economics professor: “Get on the ground! Get on the ground!” The officer grabs her and flips her onto the grass as she screams: “Oh my God! Oh my God!”

On Wednesday afternoon, during his visit to campus, Speaker Johnson made it clear what he thought was happening there. He all but called the university a war zone and declared the protests as antisemitic, conflating, as many proponents of Israel do, opposition to Israel’s policies with hatred of Jews. “It’s detestable, as Columbia has allowed these lawless agitators and radicals to take over,” he said. “If this is not contained quickly, and if these threats and intimidation are not stopped, there is an appropriate time for the National Guard. We have to bring order to these campuses.”

While Johnson was meeting with a group of Jewish students, I was wandering among the lawless agitators, who have been camping out on a lawn on campus. In one corner of the encampment, a small group of students sat cross legged, discussing the poem “Kindness” by the Palestinian American poet Naomi Shihab Nye. Another group had broken out art supplies to reapply the paint to their Gaza Solidarity Encampment banner. Others were napping or doing yoga. There was a well-stocked food tent, with options for all — gluten-free, vegan, nut-free and more. I have spent more than my share of time in war zones. This felt more like an earnest folk music festival.

On campus, I spoke to Muslim and Arab students who told me how frightened and angry they are. I spoke to Jewish students who participated in the pro-Palestine protests and scoffed at the notion that the protests endanger them. I also spoke to Jewish students who told me that they feel the protests target them as Jews, and make them fear for their safety.

Whether you are watching student protesters on social media or experiencing the protests in person, the way you understand these protests depends on your perception of what they are protesting. It could not be otherwise. If you feel that what is happening in Gaza is a moral atrocity, the student protests will look like a brave stand against American complicity in what they believe is genocide — and a few hateful slogans amid thousands of peaceful demonstrators will look like a minor detail. If you feel the Gaza war is a necessarily violent defense against terrorists bent on destroying the Jewish state, the students will seem like collaborators with murderous antisemitism — even if many of them are Jewish.

I heard both of these perspectives from Columbia students themselves on campus. “When I sit in statistics class, and I am hearing ‘globalize the Intifada,’ ‘from the river to the sea and so on,’ I cannot study and I cannot focus on the class,” Saar, a junior at Columbia who asked that I not include her last name, told me. “I don’t know who will sit behind me in class, who might follow me after class and God knows what might happen. You’re living in fear all the time. People are hiding their faces. You don’t know who is who.”

David Pomerantz, a sophomore who was among the group that met with the House speaker, told me that he didn’t personally feel he was in imminent danger, but worried about others. “I think especially my friends who are visibly Jewish, who walk around in kipa, get dirty looks, get chastised for that,” he said. “I think they do feel like they’re in real physical danger. It’s a problem that can’t continue.”

While Jewish students who object to the pro-Palestine encampment navigate fear and uncertainty, those inside the camp are facing a different type of threat. I spoke to Jared, a Jewish student participating in the protests. He had given an interview in which his full name appeared, and said someone in his family had received a threatening voice mail.

“They like to dress us up as a token minority or as self-hating Jews,” he told me. “But I was raised as a Jewish person to call attention to injustice whenever I see it. Palestinians should be the focus, not my safety on campus. The only threat to my safety comes from the administration.”

Just outside the campus gates, the scene was more tense. The protests have become a destination for opportunists of all kinds. Nasty purveyors of chaos. Gavin McInnes, right- wing founder of the Proud Boys, turned up, student journalists reported. On Thursday, Christian nationalists descended on Columbia to stage their own, ostensibly pro-Israel protest, screaming through the campus gates to the student protesters inside: “You want to camp? Go camp in Gaza!” according to a reporter on the scene.

At times I saw pro-Israel protesters seek to provoke pro-Palestine groups into confrontations. A white-haired man in a khaki military-style shirt with a small Israeli flag stitched onto the chest approached a group of protesters I was interviewing just off campus. They were standing around, not chanting or holding signs.

“Israel has had 400 Nobel Prize winners,” he falsely claimed (13 Israelis have won the prize), tapping the flag. “How many has your side won?”

One of the protesters, a man with a kaffiyeh wrapped around the top of his head, replied: “I don’t care about Nobel Prizes right now. I care about dead Palestinian babies.”

Interactions like those make up the flood of “evidence” we’re seeing online, much of it placed there by the moral combatants themselves. Some videos, like one that supposedly depicted a Jewish Yale student getting stabbed in the eye by a Palestinian flag, turn out to be misleadingly portrayed by the victim. Others depict what appears to be clear harassment of Jewish students, such as the one filmed outside the gates of Columbia’s campus where a protester shouted “go back to Poland,” at Jewish students, and another declared that Oct. 7 would happen “10,000 times.” Many videos show peaceful, even joyful protests, or feature Jewish students who support the pro-Palestine protests and declare that they feel safe on campus.

What are we to make of these competing claims? Having spent the past week immersed in these protests, I understand the desire to fix upon some singular piece of evidence that will decode, definitively, their moral core. But there is plenty of evidence ready-made for any side to claim moral high ground here. The camps are on the whole peaceful but it must be acknowledged that problematic things are being said.

On Thursday, video from January began circulating of one of the student protest leaders at Columbia, Khymani James, saying that “the same way we are very comfortable accepting that Nazis don’t deserve to live, fascists don’t deserve to live, racists don’t deserve to live, Zionists, they shouldn’t live in this world,” and “be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.” On Friday James released a statement apologizing for the video.

On Monday, after the arrest of more than 100 N.Y.U. protesters, the demonstrations outside Police Headquarters went on all night. I live nearby, and went down to see the protest for myself. It was a different vibe from the night the Columbia students had been arrested. There were more chants, delivered with much tighter unison and at greater volume.

“From the river to the sea, Palestine is almost free,” one chant went.

“Move, cops, get out the way, we know you’re Israeli trained.”

“There is only one solution, intifada revolution,” went another.

I winced upon hearing the last chant. Not so much the word intifada, which has many meanings and intonations depending on the context. But why choose the word “solution,” one so redolent of the Nazis’ “final solution,” which murdered six million Jews across Europe?

When the time came for a late-evening prayer, some protesters laid down their banners to use them as prayer rugs, turning toward Mecca, which in this case meant bowing down before a line of police officers in riot gear. After the prayer concluded, some of the men wandered over to the line of officers who stood behind barricades. They singled out one officer in particular, a dark-skinned man who they seemed to think was a fellow Muslim.

“There’s no way he is a Muslim and he supports the killing of 15,000 kids,” one of the protesters said (it’s estimated nearly 14,000 children have been killed in Gaza since the war began). “Impossible, unless he is not a Muslim.”

“May Allah forgive you, bro,” another said.

The officer stared straight ahead, betraying no reaction to what he was hearing. Standing next to him was another officer, a Black woman. Another protester seemingly shouted her way: “Your ancestors are ashamed of you. Your ancestors were murdered by colonizers, and you are here standing with the colonizers.”

Almost instinctively, I took umbrage at the sight of a group of light-skinned young men badgering a Black woman doing her job. Personally, I found these tactics unpleasant, even repellent. It made me uncomfortable. I can see how they might make someone feel unsafe. But to me, this discomfort came nowhere near constituting a crisis requiring extraordinary interventions, like bringing in the National Guard.

Pretending that there is no antisemitism whatsoever in the movement is foolish and self-defeating. Antisemitism is widespread, not to mention on the American right. It stands to reason that there are some people who hold antisemitic views among a mass movement of protesters.

It is easy when looking backward to remember the fight for a good cause as pure and untainted, even if it did not seem so at the time. In the same way, we now remember the Vietnam War as an American tragedy. The students at Columbia University who protested it seem, in retrospect, to have been right. But our memories elide some of their more outré tactics. A list of popular chants employed by antiwar protesters at a time when thousands of American soldiers were dying each year fighting in the war included things like “One side’s right, one side’s wrong, We’re on the side of the Viet Cong!” and “Save Hanoi, Lose Saigon, Victory to the Viet Cong!”

These slogans are sickening. But by 1968, when the protests reached their peak, the U.S. government had already realized, according to the Pentagon Papers, that the war was all but unwinnable. Yet its brutal killing machine ground on for another five years, and an additional 38,000 Americans, and countless more Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian people died pointless deaths in a senseless, futile war.

There are clear signs that Israel is prosecuting a war just as brutal, and unwinnable, as the United States did back then. Some people might not like the slogans, tactics or proposals of today’s pro-Palestine protesters. But the truth is that a majority of Americans have qualms about Israel’s pitiless war to root out Hamas, whatever the consequences for civilians. As politicians send riot police onto campuses to try to smother a new protest movement, we’d do well to keep in mind why we’ve forgotten the ugliest aspects of the Vietnam protests: Those memories have been replaced, instead, by an enduring horror at what we did.

(Mr. Peterson is a photographer based in New York and a member of Redux Pictures.)

TAIBBI & KIRN

Walter Kirn: Matt, we now have a completely insular and impermeable establishment consensus. I’ll give you Ukraine. You give us Israel. The press will call standing up for this compromise Churchillian, and we will demonize and condescend to anyone who questions us as outside the line. And we will operate according to intelligence, which only we receive.

Once again, when I hear somebody say he went into a room with the commanders, well, what did the commanders say? Did the commanders say Europe’s about to fall to Russian tanks? The only thing between Poland and Putin rule is little Ukraine? Did they say, we’re about to win? Or we might lose? What the hell did they say? They can’t just invoke them like priests. It’s God’s will don’t questions God’s will. We were told things in the prayer room that we can’t reveal. We got revelations.

Matt Taibbi: But that is what they’re doing.

Walter Kirn: Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Taibbi: Isn’t that what they’re doing?

Walter Kirn: Yes. It’s exactly that. It’s exactly that. And like I say, I’m in complete confusion as to whether these commanders said, “Listen, it’s really bad if we don’t do this, we’re going to fail.” Or did they say, “We’re on the verge of a breakthrough and a turnaround if we just have this $60 billion?” Or did they say ... What? They don’t even describe it. They don’t characterize it.

The thing about adults that teenagers hate is that they say things like, “That’s for me to know and you to find out.” And, “When you get to be my age, you’ll understand.” And that’s pretty much what our American government’s telling us now. When you get to be our age, you’ll understand. I don’t like being treated this way personally. I don’t like being treated this way as a journalist, as a citizen, as a human being. I have no access to their decision-making process at all.

Matt Taibbi: Yeah. Walter, I think that’s a good point. There are two levels to this for me. As a journalist, this whole concept makes me want to rip something in half, frankly. This idea that yeah, the answers are in there, they’re in the box. You don’t get to see it. Trust us.

Walter Kirn: It’s like Joseph McCarthy’s sealed envelope all over again.

Matt Taibbi: Right. Yeah. There are-

Walter Kirn: I have there the names of X number of communist sympathizers. Here, look at the envelope. And it ends there. And that’s what they’re telling us.

Matt Taibbi: Which by the way, always makes me think of the Manchurian Candidate. Remember how the McCarthy character, he can’t remember how many communists there are, and she finally tells him 57 because he’s putting ketchup on his burger.

But yeah, no, forget the insult to citizens. As a citizen, it also infuriates me, this idea that, yeah, we got this, you don’t need to know. It’s operationally sensitive. It would be bad if we let it out. I whined about this a little bit this week, but this was what David Frum was saying 10 years ago that we can’t tell you what’s going on. Transparency is the enemy of liberty. And that’s why we need to pass all these rules like FISA Amendments Act, etc, etc. And it was insulting then. It’s so much more insulting now that they’re trying to pass this off on the press and the press is going for it. That’s the part I don’t get. No? I mean, they have I guess, but-

Walter Kirn: The example that we’ve got of the press on that Morning Joe, was an article about whether Mike Johnson got religion, not about our prospects in Ukraine.....

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE - ARE POLICE MISSING MURDERS?

by Ryan Sabalow

Joanna Lewis’s family never believed she took her own life.

In 2011, investigators found her hanging from a bath robe’s belt inside a closet. The Solano County Cororner’s Office declared her death a suicide. But Lewis, 36, had previously sought restraining orders against her husband, Vacaville pastor Mark Lewis, accusing him of domestic violence. 

Four years after her death, Mark Lewis was sentenced to eight years in prison after pleading no contest to hiring three people to throw a molotov cocktail through the window of his ex-girlfriend’s Vacaville house. He had started dating that woman within days of his wife’s death, she told ABC News. 

Lewis has never faced charges in Joanna Lewis’ death, although deputies have opened the case twice. This week, a Solano County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson told 

CalMatters that the agency has reopened the investigation into Joanna Lewis’s death for a third time. 

The review comes as California lawmakers consider a bill that would give the extended families of domestic violence victims the right to request additional scrutiny of death investigations they deem suspicious as well as provide additional training for law enforcement to spot cover-ups of domestic violence murders. Its supporters are citing Joanna Lewis’s death as they advocate for the bill. 

Senate Bill 989’s lead author is Sen. Angelique Ashby, a former Sacramento city councilmember who knows Lewis’s brother, Sacramento Fire Capt. Joseph Hunter. He testified beside Ashby last week before the Senate Public Safety Committee and again on Tuesday before the Senate’s Judiciary Committee. The bill passed both committees unanimously. 

As he testified, he referred to his sister by her maiden name, which her family has used since her death. 

“This bill will bring justice to Joanna Hunter and so many other victims like her,” Hunter told lawmakers. 

The bill comes amid international calls for police to take a dead woman’s history with a domestic abuser into account before declaring her death a suicide or an accident, citing examples of abusers covering up their crimes. 

Law enforcement organizations, however, argue that their investigators are already trained to spot death scenes that are staged to not look like a murder. 

In an interview with CalMatters Tuesday, Ashby said there could be as many as 800 to 1,200 “hidden homicides” in the U.S. each year, citing estimates from the bill’s sponsor, Alliance for HOPE International, an advocacy group for victims of domestic violence. Ashby said that too often, the victim’s abuser is their spouse who has the ability to block family members from pushing investigators to dig deeper, something the family alleges happened after Joanna Lewis’s death. 

“If a firefighter brother can’t get a secondary autopsy,” Ashby said, “we clearly need a legal change.” 

Lewis is no longer listed as a state prison inmate. CalMatters’ attempted to reach him through phone numbers and an email address found in public records. The numbers were disconnected, and the email account was disabled. Lewis’ attorney from his 2015 criminal case wasn’t listed on the Solano County Superior Court’s online case search. 

The Solano County officials have conducted at least two other reviews of the case, once in 2014 and again in 2019, a sheriff’s spokesman told CalMatters. Lewis has not been charged with a crime related to his wife’s 2011 death. Solano County court records show that he was convicted by plea agreement of felony domestic violence in 1997. The records don’t say who his victim was. 

Who would get domestic violence records? 

Ashby’s bill would give parents, siblings or the domestic violence victim’s children the right to obtain photos taken during a coroner’s investigation into a death declared a suicide, so that they can have them for an independent review of the case. 

Autopsy reports are generally public records, but photographs taken during a death investigation can only be given out to a victim’s “legal heir or their representative in connection with a potential or pending civil action relating to the decedent’s death,” according to the bill’s analysis. 

“Right now, only an heir — a legal heir — has access to those records,” Casey Gwinn, the president of Alliance for HOPE International, told lawmakers. “And in the cases of domestic violence homicide, the legal heir may actually be the killer. We believe family members should have the same access to records.” 

California’s District Attorneys Association supports Ashby’s bill, which has Sen. Susan Rubio, a Democrat from West Covina, as a coauthor. Before becoming a senator, Rubio accused her then-husband, Assemblyman Roger Hernandez, of domestic violence in 2016, as he was serving his final term. He denied the allegations. 

California police oppose death records bill 

But some law enforcement groups argue the training and other investigative requirements under Rubio’s and Ashby’s bill are redundant. Investigators, they say, are already trained to look for signs of hidden foul play at what’s known as an “unattended death,” when someone dies outside of a medical setting. 

“It has been our experience that these staged crimes are quickly recognized by our investigators out in the field due to our current policies and procedures that we have in place,” Lt. Julio De Leon of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office told the judiciary committee on Tuesday. “And we investigate all unattended deaths out in the field. All of them.” 

The bill also gives family members the right to request another law enforcement agency to review a death investigation officially deemed a suicide or an accident if there is a documented history of domestic violence. If the local cops won’t take up the review, the family may seek a review of the case from a federally-authorized “public or private nonprofit agency” that trains law enforcement on domestic violence investigations, according to the bill analysis. 

De Leon said the bill doesn’t say which agency would pay for the additional review or provide a means to cover the costs. 

“Why should residents of a particular city fund and pay and dedicate officers to investigate a crime that was potentially committed outside of their jurisdiction?” he asked.

(CalMatters.org)

WITCH TRIAL IN OKLAHOMA: How the Prosecutorial Slut-Shaming of Brenda Andrew Put Her on Death Row

by Jeffrey St. Clair

How do most people end up on death row in America? First, you’ve had the misfortune to be arrested and tried in one of the few states that still cling to this vindictive form of punishment. You’re likely to be male, poor, under-educated, black, Hispanic or Native American. You’ve got a criminal record. Your prosecutor was running for reelection or higher office. You were convicted of killing a white woman. Your lawyer was probably inexperienced, operating on a tight budget or incompetent. 

But that doesn’t fit the profile of Brenda Andrew, the only woman on death row in Oklahoma. Andrew’s terrible journey to death row began when she fell in love with someone she got to know in a Bible study group at her church. The love affair ended with the murder of Andrews’ estranged husband, Rob, killed by her lover James Pavatt. Pavatt confessed to shooting Andrew’s husband and told the cops and prosecutors he acted alone. 

But the prosecutors weren’t satisfied. They wanted Brenda Andrew, too, and charged her with being part of a murder plot with Pavatt to kill her husband and collect the life insurance money. In 2004, Brenda and Pavatt were both convicted of capital murder and the prosecutors asked the jury to impose the death penalty against both defendants. The case against Andrews was thin, much thinner than the case against Pavatt. In order to try to secure a death penalty verdict against Brenda, they put her character on trial, her sexual character. They accused her of being a bad wife, a bad mother, and a sexual predator. 

Women are regularly sent to prison for murder in the US. In 2020, more than 2000 women were convicted of homicide offenses. But rarely are they sentenced to death. There are only 48 women on death row in the entire country. And few of them have the life story of Brenda Andrew: a white, educated, middle-class Christian mother of two with no criminal record.

No, Brenda Andrew doesn’t fit the modern profile of a death row inmate. The case against her is as old as the country itself, as old as the Salem Witch Trials. Andrew didn’t need to be put to death because she committed murder. She needed to be executed because her sexual allure was so intoxicating that she could seduce others to commit murder for her.

* * *

Brenda Andrews met James Pavatt in 1999 at the North Pointe Baptist Church in Edmond, Oklahoma. Both were married, unhappily it seems. The Pavatt and Andrews families socialized together. Ate dinners at each other’s houses. A sexual attraction developed between Brenda and James while they were teaching Sunday school classes together. They launched into an affair. It wasn’t Brenda’s first fling. Pavatt’s marriage unraveled. His wife, Suk Hui, filed for divorce in 1991. News of the affair spread through the church and both were asked to stop teaching Sunday school. 

James Pavatt was an insurance broker. He sold some policies to his friends Brenda and Rob, including an $800,000 life insurance policy. Brenda was the prime beneficiary. 

By the time of Pavatt’s divorce, Brenda and Rob’s 17-year marriage was also on the rocks. A few months later Rob moved out, leaving Brenda with the couple’s two children, Tricity and Parker. Soon the Andrews’ were also seeking a legal separation. Rob tried to have Brenda removed as his beneficiary.

Then strange things began to happen. Someone cut the lining to the brakes on Rob’s car. Rob, an ad executive, called the cops. He blamed Brenda and James. No charges were filed.

But a few weeks later, Rob drove to Brenda’s to pick up the couple’s two children for a Thanksgiving dinner with his family. Brenda asked Rob if he could light the pilot on the furnace. Brenda and Rob were in the garage talking, while the kids were inside watching TV. Then, according to Brenda’s story, two men dressed in black and wearing masks appeared in the driveway, carrying shotguns and fired into the garage. Rob was hit twice, killing him. Brenda emerged with a gunshot wound to her arm. Brenda called 911, telling the operator: “I’ve been shot. My husband and I, we’ve been shot.”

The cops arrived to discover Rob’s body on the floor of the garage. He had two wounds from a 16-gauge shotgun: one to the chest and one to the neck.

There were holes in Brenda’s story, gaping ones. For example, her superficial gunshot wound wasn’t from a shotgun. There was evidence Brenda or James had surreptitiously altered Rob’s life insurance policy to make her the owner. The cops quickly focused on Brenda and James as the prime suspects. But before they could be arrested, Brenda and James absconded to Mexico, taking the two Andrews children with them. The money lasted only three months. James called home frequently, begging his daughter Janna to send them cash, not knowing she was relaying each conversation to the FBI. In February, they crossed the border back into the states at Hidalgo, Texas, were promptly arrested, and extradited back to Oklahoma to face trial.

* * *

Brenda was born in 1963 in Enid, Oklahoma to a devout Christian family called the Evers. She was a good student, attended church several times a week, and like many teenage girls in the Bible Belt, excelled at activities like baton-twirling. She met Rob Andrews when she was a senior in high school through her older brother. They began dating and Brenda eventually followed Rob, who was a couple of years older than her, to Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Two years later, in June 1984, they were married and soon moved to Texas. By 1990, they were back in Oklahoma and had welcomed their first child, Tricity. Rob was working for an ad agency. Her husband didn’t want Brenda working outside the house, so she became a stay-at-home mom, growing increasingly bored and restless.

By the time Brenda gave birth to Parker in 1994, the marriage was on the skids. She told friends she should have never married Rob. She began to look elsewhere for affection, romance and sexual gratification. In 1999, Rob introduced her to his new friend James Pavatt, a 44-year-old insurance broker, who attended the local Baptist church. Brenda and James hit it off, almost immediately.

By all accounts, Brenda liked sex. On occasion, she dressed provocatively, at least in the eyes of the god-fearing people of Edmonds, Oklahoma. She showed cleavage, wore hot pants and short skirts in public. She’d had multiple sexual partners. She’d had sex before marriage and affairs while married. She liked to flirt. She dyed her hair. Surely, none of these things are all that uncommon, even for Oklahoma.

But Brenda’s husband had been murdered and Brenda’s boyfriend had killed him. Brenda had to pay. Not just for the murder of Rob Andrew, but for the mesmerizing power she exerted over James Pavatt. Brenda’s erotic magnetism had corrupted a good man, a Sunday school teacher. She’d seduced him into committing murder. And that kind of dangerous force not only needed to be punished, it needed to be extinguished. 

Pavatt and Andrews were charged with the same crimes: 1st-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. The case presented against him was all about the facts: the guns, the insurance policy, the flight to Mexico. Andrew’s trial was about her being a slut, a dangerous woman, the alleged danger being her sexual appetite. The trial of Brenda Andrew was less about the evidence and motives for the murder and more about how Brenda could have convinced Pavatt to shoot Rob. It was some kind of sex magic, practiced by a temptress. 

They indicted her character. She was a lustful woman, a harlot who was never faithful. She was called a “hoochie” by a witness. Pavatt was referred to repeatedly as “one of her lovers.” In his opening statement, the prosecutor told the jury, “Brenda had extracurricular activities. She liked to cheat on Rob…throughout the marriage Brenda had a boyfriend on the side.” She was accused of making passes at teenagers who were replacing a deck at her and Rob’s house. One of the items the prosecutor flourished as damning of Andrew’s guilt was a book the cops found in the second drawer of the nightstand next to her bed: 203 Ways to Drive a Man Wild in Bed by Olivia St. Claire (No relation, as far as I know..) The prosecutors put about as much emphasis on this book as they did on the altered insurance policy.

The prosecution put on a witness who told the jury that Brenda wore leather skirts and had rolled up her hair “really big.” The state claimed this ridiculous evidence demonstrated “her ability to manipulate and control men.”

As evidence of her witch-like ability to “control men,” the prosecutors called one of Andrew’s former lovers, Rick Nunley, whose affair with Brenda had ended four years before the murder. Even though their affair was remote in time from the murder and Nunley said that Brenda had never spoken ill of her husband or expressed any intention or desire to harm or kill him, the testimony was permitted, purely, it seems, to sex-shame Brenda before the jury:

Prosecutor: When did you begin to have a more than friendly relationship with the Defendant Brenda Andrew?

A: In the late Fall of ’97, probably late October or early November of ’97.

Q: Was there something [in] particular that caused that relationship to escalate?

A: Brenda seemed to experience common marital problems that I also experienced and we shared those things over the years, that may have contributed to it.

[…]

Q: Now, at the time you began your affair with Brenda Andrew were you married, sir?

A: I was married, however, we had filed for divorce I think on October 1 of 1997.

Q: And was Brenda Andrew married?

A: Yes.

Q: Was she married to Rob Andrew?

A: Yes.

Q: Did Rob Andrew know about your relationship with Brenda Andrew at the time it was going on?

A: Not to my knowledge.

…

Q. Had your affair ended with Brenda at the time you’re testifying about, around the 1st of October of 2001?

A. Yes. We had stopped seeing each other that way for a number of years.

Q. And while you were having an affair with Brenda Andrew was that a sexual relationship?

A. Yes.

…

Q: You testified that Brenda Andrew was a very hospitable person. She was really hospitable to you, wasn’t she, Mr. Nunley?

A: Yes.

Q: And she was hospitable to Mr. James Higgins as well, wasn’t she?

A: I haven’t heard his testimony.

Q: She was hospitable to Mr. Pavatt as well, wasn’t she?

A: I haven’t heard his testimony either.

In the state’s closing arguments jurors were treated to the spectacle of the prosecutor in Brenda’s case, Gayland Gieger, hauling a suitcase toward the jury box, from which he extracted a pair of her thong panties, which he waved in front of them, saying, to audible gasps in the courtroom: “This [dangling a pink thong] is what we found in [the suitcase]. It’s been introduced into evidence. The grieving widow packs this [brandishing a red thong] to run off with her boyfriend. The grieving widow packs this [pulling out a black thong] to go sleep in a hotel room with her children and her boyfriend. The grieving widow packs this [pulling out a lacy bra] in her appropriate act of grief.”

Not only did the prosecution suggest that Brenda was a sex-crazed adulterous, but they also argued (against all evidence from people who knew her) that Brenda was a bad mother, whose execution would in some depraved way benefit her children: “Would a good mother allow her children to read murder mysteries with their father laying in his grave?” “Would a good mother take them out of school…and have them eat tuna fish and wash dishes in a pot and live on the beach?”

The appalling tactic, which an appellate judge later said had “no purpose other than to hammer home that Brenda Andrew is a bad wife, a bad mother and a bad woman,” worked. The jury convicted Brenda of first-degree murder and two days later sentenced her to death.

In Brenda’s case, as in so many others of women convicted of spousal murder, the enhancing factor was not the “profit motive” of the insurance policy, but the adultery, the penultimate transgression. The sociologist David Baker studied 42 cases of women given the death sentence by American courts between 1632 and 2014 and found that the women’s sexual affairs were used as evidence against each of them.

Brenda Andrew has been on death for 20 years now. Her character has been grossly savaged by the state, not only in her trial and its penalty phase, but she has been repeatedly dehumanized and humiliated, reduced to some kind of contagious sex object, in every appeal her lawyers have brought before state and federal courts. But is this 60-year-old woman still a threat to the men of Oklahoma? Does she retain the power of sexual enchantment, the ability to seduce men from behind bars and bend them to her murderous will? 

In his dissenting opinion in Brenda’s appeal, 10th Circuit Judge Robert E. Bacharach wrote:

The state focused from start to finish on Ms. Andrew’s sex life. This focus portrayed Ms. Andrew as a scarlet woman, a modern Jezebel, sparking distrust based on her loose morals. The drumbeat on Ms. Andrew’s sex life continued in closing argument, plucking away any realistic chance that the jury would seriously consider her version of events.

Bacharach rightly said the evidence was so prejudicial and irrelevant that it fatally tainted the entire trial against Andrew and he would have overturned not just her death sentence but her conviction for murder as well.”

Brenda Andrew may well have helped arrange the murder of her husband. But by all accounts, Brenda is not the cold, morally depraved, sexual deviant portrayed by the state in its morbid quest to execute her. Brenda was a dutiful and doting mother. She was a kind and considerate neighbor, who helped care for a friend stricken with Alzheimer’s. She was described by a former boss as a good employee when her husband allowed her to work. Brenda’s cousin said she was “the glue” that held her family together after their father died prematurely. Until she moved to Stillwater, Brenda helped raise and care for her brother, who suffered from a severe mental impairment. This woman is not a witch.

Now Brenda’s fate rests with a Supreme Court that has rejected its own precedents in favor of divining Constitutional meaning through historical traditions, traditions that in this case a jurist like Samuel Alito is likely to trace back to the Court of Oyer and Terminer, set up by Governor William Phips in 1692, to decide the fate of the Salem women accused of practicing witchcraft. At the time of the Salem trials, women were regularly whipped for cheating on their husbands. By contrast, there’s not a single record of a man being prosecuted for adultery. 

We’ve come a long way, baby.

(Jeffrey St. Clair is editor of CounterPunch. His most recent book is An Orgy of Thieves: Neoliberalism and Its Discontents (with Alexander Cockburn). He can be reached at: sitka@comcast.net or on Twitter @JeffreyStClair3. CounterPunch.org.)

RANDY BURKE (Gualala) touring the Peak District near three shires, Derbyshire, UK