Mendocino County Today: Sunday 5/5/24

LIGHT SHOWERS will continue today for mainly Humboldt and Del Norte counties. Better coverage of light rainfall will develop Monday with a weak front. Building high pressure will increase northerly winds on Tuesday as a significant warming begins that will span through at least late next week. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): Another .92" today added to yesterdays .85" gives me a 2 day rainfall total of 1.77", a winter like system to be sure. 51.20" for the season, most of it since Christmas. Clear skies & a crisp 40F this Sunday morning on the coast. Today & tomorrow will be lovely then some wind picks up into mid week. No rain in our forecast currently.

LITTLE RIVER RAINFALL (Nicholas Wilson): Rainfall was 2.14" in the last 24 hr. in Little River 3 mi. inland, 622 ft. above sea level. Season total to date is 62.30". 2024 total to date is 39.51". Water table is about 3 ft. below the ground surface at my location in nearly level transitional pygmy forest.

AARON WELLINGTON: It is with great sorrow that I come here today to announce that my grandmother, Carolyn Wellington, passed away peacefully in her sleep Friday, May 3rd. 

JOHN SHANDEL

John Robert Shandel passed away, surrounded by his family, on December 20, 2023, after a courageous 16-year battle with kidney cancer. He was born on January 27, 1943, to Fred and Vera Shandel, and was raised on Middle Ridge, only a few miles from where he spent the rest of his life in Albion. His high school years were spent at San Rafael where he attended and graduated from San Rafael Military Academy. After high school John went to San Jose State College. While there he met his loving wife and best friend of 62 years, Bettie Fisher. Soon after their marriage John went into the Army. He served 13 months stationed at Camp Stanley in the DMZ in Korea, followed by 14 months at Fort Lee, Virginia. The rest of his life he spent in Albion where everyone will remember him as a logger and contractor with a huge smile who genuinely enjoyed his work – always willing to lend a helping hand to friends and neighbors in need. He served on the Mendocino Unified School District School Board for several terms, and many years as a volunteer firefighter, Fire Chief and EMT in the Albion-Little River Volunteer Fire Department.

John is survived by his brother, Rolf, and sisters, Judy Schlafer and Myrna Sharp, wife, Bettie, and sons Eric (Trudy), Gregory (Vicki), and Steven (Stephanie). Grandchildren Nicholas Shandel, Jason Shandel, Shiloh Tillery, and Great Grandson Andrew Shandel. Granddaughters Emma and Abbie Shandel. Grandsons Michael Morgan and Travis Pitkin.

Celebration of his life and barbeque will be held on July 20, at Albion-Little River Fire Department Little River Picnic Area at 1 PM. Please come with memories to share with all. RSVP message or text to 707-489-4371 by July 6.

VEHICLE PURSUIT LEADS TO ARREST OF 13 YEAR OLD DRIVER 

On May 3, 2024 at approximately 9:20 PM, officers where conducting routine patrol in the 200 block of Cypress Street, when they observed a vehicle driving west bound at a high rate of speed. The vehicle suddenly turned into the alleyway of the 600 block of South Franklin Street in an attempt to avoid law enforcement. Officers proceeded to follow the vehicle as it drove east onto Walnut Street turning north onto South Whipple Street. The vehicle began to accelerate gaining speed and failed to at a stop sign at the intersection of Whipple Street and Chestnut Street. Having observed multiple vehicle code violations, officers attempted to initiate a traffic stop. The vehicle, a 2019 Kia, failed to yield to officers and a pursuit was initiated. 

The pursuit lasted for approximately 12 minutes, the driver committed several traffic violations, and came to a stop at a dead end road off of Sherwood Road. The driver of the vehicle was determined to be a 13 year old juvenile accompanied by two additional juvenile passengers. All parties were detained upon contact and the passengers were released to their parents. 

The driver of the vehicle was arrested, transported to the Fort Bragg Police Department and underwent the booking process. The Juvenile was cited and released to their guardian with a charge of Evading Law Enforcement. 

Anyone with information on this incident is encouraged to contact Ofc Baker of the Fort Bragg Police Department at (707)961-2800 ext. 226. 

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

UKIAH SHELTER PET OF THE WEEK 

Handsome Pepperoni is an active guy who’s always on the move! Peppy will need an active home with guardians willing to work with him on his canine skills and basic training, to help him become a well-behaved k9 citizen.

Mr. P is eager to please and already knows sit. He would make a great hiking or walking buddy. We think Pepperoni is part herding dog--intelligent and loyal breeds who excel at canine sports such as agility and obedience. If you enjoy interacting with your best buddy, come and meet peppy Pepperoni! Peppy is about 10 months old and 42 happy pounds.

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: https://www.facebook.com/mendoanimalshelter/

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

BOONVILLE TODAY

39th Annual Boontling Classic 5K
Sun 05 / 05 / 2024 at 10:00 AM
Where: Anderson Valley Elementary School
More Information (https://andersonvalley.helpfulvillage.com/events/3926)

The Anderson Valley Museum Open
Sun 05 / 05 / 2024 at 1:00 PM
Where: The Anderson Valley Museum , 12340 Highway 128, Boonville , CA 95415
More Information (https://andersonvalley.helpfulvillage.com/events/3973)

AV Historical Society Chat with John Hanes
Sun 05 / 05 / 2024 at 2:00 PM
Where: Anderson Valley Historical Museum , 12340 Highway 128, Boonville,
CA 95415
More Information (https://andersonvalley.helpfulvillage.com/events/4058)

RONNIE JAMES: Check out the Rhododendron Show at the Botanical Gardens Saturday and Sunday. It's amazing — and free.

JOHN SINCLAIR

Tune in to KZYX this Monday night at 8 for a memorial tribute to John Sinclair, a founder of the White Panther Party and manager of the seminal band MC-5, whose 10-year prison sentence for possession of two joints spurred the most iconic pot-related protest campaign of all times. You’ll hear John’s spoken-word histories of well-known Jazz and Blues artists as well as performances with our own Pilar Duran, Mitchell Holman, Kevin Burke, and Ron O’Brien at Boonville’s original Lauren’s Café. Clips from the successful effort to “Free John Sinclair” will feature John Lennon and Allen Ginsberg. That’s this Monday night at 8 on the NO Show, music from New Orleans and Beyond, with host Eric Labowitz, who became friends with John in New Orleans.

---

SINCLAIR OBIT: washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2024/04/02/john-sinclair-marijuana-pot-lennon-dead-obituary

LOCAL SEAWEED BUSINESS FOR SALE!

For Sale - Vibrant, local seaweed business that sells ethically sourced, sustainably harvested, hand-processed seaweeds for culinary, medicinal, and cometic markets. If you are interested in learning more and owning a thriving local business, contact Terry at: oceanharvestseaweed@gmail.com

VFW BREAKFAST

Ukiah area Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1900 (VFW) has been sponsoring a monthly breakfast fundraiser for decades. The next one is Saturday, May 11, 2024, 8 – Noon, Veterans Memorial Hall at 293 Seminary Ave., Ukiah. 

Redwood Empire Lions Club volunteers will be catering the breakfast.

Cost: $10! 

Proceeds go towards veterans’ assistance, maintaining flags at Ukiah cemetery, and many projects the VFW supports, including student scholarships. 

They are on Facebook. Questions, call (707) 234-7392. 

Carole Hester, TCH Consulting

MAY 18 GATHERING IN SANTA ROSA: TRIBUTE TO IRV SUTLEY

Friends and Comrades,

This link has information about the May 18 gathering/tribute to Irv Sutley that will be held at Finley Park in Santa Rosa: https://everloved.com/life-of/irv-sutley/funeral/?flow=201

I know some of you are not in northern California and won't be able to attend. I don't have time to separate out this list. Please post a memory here: https://everloved.com/life-of/irv-sutley/memories/?flow=201

COUNTY NOTES: MORE GOOD NEWS/BAD NEWS

by Mark Scaramella

For the first time in recent history, Interim Auditor-Controller/Treasurer-Tax Collector Sara Pierce has provided a budget versus actual report to the Supervisors. 

According to a footnote:

“Variance does NOT equate to a carryforward as there are other transactions which hit the fund balance directly. Until all accounts can be reviewed in Munis for proper set up, the variance total should not be thought of as additional funding available for budgeting purposes.”

Okay. Okay. We get it. We can’t assume that any momentary underrun is going to translate to money for next fiscal year because this is only a snapshot. But upon examination, we see that more caveats should have been made.

Nevertheless, this is a step forward. This budget vs. actual report is the first one that the County has produced in years. Will it continue? We’ll see.

Ms. Pierce’s budget v. actual summary is entitled: “Unaudited Year‐to‐Date (YTD) Budget vs Actuals – General Fund Only (Fund 1100)”

Let’s take a look.

According to this report, so far this year the County has received about $238 million in “actual” revenue which is just over $9 million short of budgeted revenue.

Oops. Right there we’re off to a bad start. The General Fund is nowhere near $239 million, closer to $85 million, yet the report is for “General Fund Only.”

Hmm.

Next Ms. Pierce provides the departmental rundown. 

Here again, there’s a problem. Actually, lots of them. 

The Revised Budget “Grand Total” of all General Fund departments is listed as just over $11 million. But obviously, that’s incorrect. because the column adds up to much more than that. The Sheriff Coroner alone is budgeted at about $17 million. Our rough addition shows that the revised budget for the General Fund adds up to just over $57 million including a few strange negative budget numbers and a couple of oddly precise numbers like $1,000,000 for Animal Care. We know from the 2023-2024 budget book that the General Fund budget is around $85 million.

Hmmm.

Let’s let that go for now since this is a first attempt. There’s a slight chance of some explanations during next Tuesday’s Board morning budget discussion, but the Board hasn’t expressed much interest in budget details before, so… We hesitate to ask the CEO or the Auditor any routine questions about these irregularities ourselves for fear of being accused of being “critical,” and then never seeing another budget versus actual report again.

We expected the Sheriff’s budget to be the biggest overrun. But no. The Sheriff is running about $675k over budget, which, considering that this is near the end of the fiscal year, is lower than his average overrun. In fact, the biggest overrun is for “Cannabis Management,” whatever that is or isn’t. It’s possible that the County has hired some “cannabis managers” that they didn’t expect to hire since they only budgeted about $40k for “cannabis management.” But wouldn’t the “revised budget” have picked that up, especially since it’s such a large number?

We were also surprised to see that the jail is running very close to budget. That’s good, but surprising, and should be explained. We’d like to think that the Jail is properly staffed and running as expected. 

The District Attorney is running almost $700k under budget. This could be a reflection of the difficulty of hiring prosecutors and staffers. It might also be that the DA is leery of spending money or applying for reimbursement after his unfortunate run-in with the (former) Auditor-Controller last year that mushroomed into bogus criminal charges and a civil lawsuit.

Planning and Building appears to be running significantly under budget too. We don’t know why that would be other than Planning and Building Director Julia Krog has told the board on multiple occasions that she doesn’t have enough staff to do what the Board would like her to do because they must first attend to state mandates and such. But if she’s under budget, why not hire a person or two to do what the Board has asked?

There should also be an explanation for “Public Health Administration” and “Clerk-Recorder” (Isn’t it “Clerk-Recorder-Assessor”?) which show a year to date actual of MINUS ($279k) and MINUS $87k respectively. Did they somehow spend a negative amount of money? Did they receive some money back from something? Is realignment money offsetting some expenses? (If so why is the “budget” negative?) Is there some kind of shell game going on there? Who knows?

In Home Supportive Services shows that they’ve only spent about 10% of their budget even though the fiscal year is almost over. Could that be right? If it is, why are the In Home Supportive Services staffers and their union reps frequently complaining about their low pay?

We could go on. But you get the idea. While this budget to actual report is at least an attempt to address a long-standing reporting gap, it is far from useful, and generates many more questions than answers. 

We had hoped to see annotations and caveats with this report which may have explained some of the more glaring variances. But instead Ms. Pierce only offers only “a few comments about the larger variances”:

“• Public Health Nursing – funds being used to offset expense were applied directly to fund balance 

• Cal Works/Foster Care and In Home Support Services – utilized realignment to cover expenses and offset general fund.” (Ok, that last one helps explain the low expense number for IHSS so far.)

Mendo will need substantially more explanation than this if it expects to provide a meaningful budget to actual report to the Board in the future.

FROM AN INSIDER: 

Interesting reading the Mendocino Tourism Commission annual BID report to the Board of Supervisors: https://mendocino.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=12898868&GUID=350D99C0-652C-433A-A512-DD9A3653ECA8.

Of particular note is that the organization now proposes to spend 22% more on personnel costs ($658,235) than on its mission: advertising/marketing… $537,700. 

Compare these numbers to the (erroneously labeled table) in the 2022/23 BID report. (What happened to 2023/24?)

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

The first Anthology of Women Poets of Mendocino County: Wood, Water, Air and Fire was published in 1999. We are calling for submissions for Volume II, Spirit of Place.

Submissions are open March 1st, 2024 to June 1st 2024.

We welcome all themes that respond to the Spirit of Place by women poets who have lived, are living or have participated in the writer’s community of where we live with poems that respond to the spirit of place focus.

We are accepting 1 to 3 poems, no longer than two pages per poem. Please format your poems in Times New Roman, 12 pt., single space in Word Doc and send to: poetryanthology2@gmail.com

If you do not have access to the internet you can send hard copies to:

If you do not hear from us by September 15, 2024 please e-mail us at: poetryanthology2@gmail.com

Each published poet will receive a contributor’s copy.

YORKVILLE JEEP CREEP

Hi everyone! 

Here is your once-a-year event with the Yorkville History Group. We are doing a "jeep creep” on Eric and Barbara Carlson’s ranch - the old Stanley Johnson ranch (more recently the Acorn Ranch). 

We will assemble Sunday June 23, at 9:30 for a 10 AM start time. You are responsible for bringing your own: all wheel drive vehicle or a spot in one, lunch/drink, lawn chair. We will be including a stop at the old Gaskill school at the bottom of Haehl grade. At lunch time we will be encouraging story telling - so if you have any information about the Gaskill school or the old Johnson Ranch and Stanley, we would appreciate hearing about it. We will be taping the old-timers’ stories - so please come and share.

We are staying on graded roads, but all-wheel is still required.

You will receive a reminder a few days before with parking instructions. 

Please don’t worry about responding with an RSVP - I don’t keep track. Just show up June 23 at 9:30! 

Rain cancels…. 

Val Hanelt

Yorkville

NADYA WILLIAMS ASKS: Who do you know in the area who is up on this?

None of that development ever happened around Elk except the Greenwood Meadows behind the Community Center. I don't know think there's any families with kids that live there but definitely full time residents who work and own business in Elk and surrounding areas. 

Tobi Ross, Ross Ranch

ED NOTES

‘Palms Inn Fatal Stabbing Suspect Dies Alone In Sonoma County Jail Cell, Cause Of Death Unknown’

FORMER SHERIFF TONY CRAVER used to say that the Mendocino County Jail saved a lot of people from themselves, giving the drug addicted a forced time out, time for his/her distorted physiology to recover and him/her drug-free time to perhaps reconsider his/her commitment to self-destruction. 

WITHOUT local incarceration, it's probably certain that a lot more young Mendo people would die from drugs. 

ONE GOOD COP is worth a whole office of helping professionals, most of whom help only themselves. (cf Redwood Community Services, Mendocino County's privatized welfare system, Mr. and Mrs. Schraeder, props, and you'll never know how much this up-from-hippie couple takes off the top. It's proprietary, you see.) 

I THOUGHT ABOUT CRAVER'S theory of incarceration-as-life-raft when I read the sad story of this kid, Skyler Rasmussen, who was awaiting trial for the murder of another drug person in a “supportive housing facility” in Santa Rosa. “Supportive housing” in this case was a re-tooled motel stuffed with screwed up people and the drug addicted. Rasmussen “died alone in his cell at the Sonoma County jail on Wednesday,” according to the Press Democrat. His lawyer said Rasmussen had awakened to his nowhere drug life and had wanted to lead a sane, productive life when, it seems, he got some jail house drugs strong enough to kill himself, presumably accidentally.

I'D LIKE the opinions of you Sixties oppositionists about how the widespread bad feeling over the Vietnam War compares to the Israeli-Hamas tragedy. (Lee? Lee Edmundson?) I took part in innumerable Vietnam demonstrations and was in innumerable arguments over the war, but the only violence I can recall was either by the police or the occasional Nazi group who attacked some of the marches. (And got themselves severely thumped.) The first demos I participated in were the CORE-organized civil rights demos in SF. There was huge opposition to those, including from the Frisco media. MLK was regularly denounced as a generally subversive figure who was “going too far.”)

TODAY? Seems from here, that Israel-Hamas is angrier and much, much nastier, intensified by an overlay of resurrgent anti-Semitism, and doubly intensified by the often distorted media coverage of events. You'd get the impression from not only Fox (dependably corrupt) but from the “liberal” television media at MSNBC and CNN that the campus demonstrations are the work of “outside agitators” busily duping know-nothing students. The few student spokespeople I've seen on TV have been impressively knowledgeable and articulate, and certainly not pro-Hamas.

ONE EXAMPLE of how media distort coverage of the demonstrations is that as they carefully register how many non-students are among the arrestees, they don't ask, “How many are ‘pro-Hamas’ vs ‘anti-bombing food aid convoys and targeting civilians’”?

VERY FEW PEOPLE are “pro-Hamas,” but millions of Americans are against bombing trapped Gazans and are very unhappy that the Biden Construct continues to fund the Netanyahu government of Israel. (Trump can be depended on to boost military aid to Netanyahu. The choice in November is between competing disasters.)

AS YET ANOTHER public service brought to you by the Boonville cyber-daily, here is the correct political stance re-Israel-Hamas that correct-thinking Mendo people should adopt: Immediate cease-fire; unimpeded aid to Gaza; a two-state solution. All of which is wishful thinking, especially a two-state solution, but it’s the only humane alternative to the monstrous present. 

PRINT NEWSPAPERS ARE NOT DEAD YET. AND WON’T BE UNTIL EVERYONE LIKE ME IS

by Justine Frederiksen

Print newspapers may be dying, but they’re not dead yet — and neither are their readers, I’m pleased to report.

In fact, there’s enough people that still read actual newspapers that I often lose out to them when I want to treat myself to a copy of the New York Times. Like one Saturday when my husband and I embarked on a quest to buy one, but found every copy sold out at every store we visited.

That was cool.

Why? Because even though I came home without a newspaper to read that day, I loved learning that there are plenty of other people who still want them, including another couple who was far more dedicated to their purchase than my husband and I were.

“They take turns getting here at 5 a.m. to make sure they get a copy, one morning the husband is here, the next the wife is,” the manager of a Bay Area grocery store told me when I asked how many copies they stock: “Five, and they go fast.”

I don’t know why that couple was so determined to get a newspaper, as I certainly wasn’t getting up before dawn to track them down and ask, but I loved learning that they exist, and still smile every time I think about them.

I also loved learning how many avid newspaper fans live in my hometown of Santa Cruz, where the bookshop downtown stocks nine copies of the daily NYT and 40 of the Sunday edition, “and we sell out every day,” the manager told me.

Best of all, though, is how many newspaper fans are in Ukiah, because there are just enough that I can usually find a copy of the newspaper I want downtown at a much more reasonable hour.

But why do I want a printed newspaper at all, when it’s so much easier to read news online? Because I still like reading on actual paper, and I love newspapers. Print journalism is not only my chosen profession, it is a craft I admire, done by people I admire.

And why the NYT? Because I enjoy it, have ever since it was assigned to me as required reading for a course in college. And, frankly, just like a chef who doesn’t care to cook at home after working in the kitchen all day, I prefer sitting down to read a newspaper that I had absolutely no part in putting out.

Like the mornings I spent on the ferry commuting to my newspaper job across the water from Seattle, when I read the Post-Intelligencer cover-to-cover. Not just because I was a captive audience, but because that paper featured the best writers I’ve ever read, and I am still sad that it stopped printing for good 15 years ago.

But for me, the P-I, and every other newspaper that stopped printing, still lives on. Just as many say a person doesn’t truly die until the last person who knew them dies, I say that print newspapers aren’t dead as long as people like me are here to remember them — that even if everyone stopped printing newspapers tomorrow, they won’t be dead until everyone who loves them dies.

So print is not dead, long live print.

* * *

AVA SUSPENDS PRINT EDITION by Justine Frederiksen The last print copy of the Anderson Valley Advertiser, a weekly newspaper covering Mendocino County since 1952, arrived in local stores this week.

Weeks before the May 1, 2024, edition was printed, longtime editor Bruce Anderson was asked why he decided to publish his newspaper strictly online, and about the future of print newspapers:

Q Why are you suspending your print edition?

A The decrepitude that comes with age, and a general inability to do the demanding work of print journalism at the level I think it should be done, all because of the energy deficits that come with the years.

Q What do you mean by “suspending” your print edition? Does that mean you might revive it?

A We’re finished. I’m half dead, my principal colleague, Mark Scaramella, is staving off heart problems.

Q Is there much overlap between print subscribers and on-line subscribers, or are they completely different animals?

A Not much overlap, is my general impression. Print subs began to plummet when America dove into handheld gizmos. Print interest also declined as the last print generation began to head for the big library in the sky. We have more on-line subscribers these days and, ahem, we seem to have become a daily must read for this county’s intelligentsia, deploying intelligentsia in the loosest sense.

Q What do you know about your print subscribers? Who are they, and why do they get the paper copy?

A Not much other than lots of them are/were as attached to print media as we are, and enjoyed the quality of much of the writing. Our weekly product, lo these many years, has always been a lively read.

Q What do you see as the future of print journalism? Does it have one?

A No future. It’s over. Few people get their information from print, hence a looming presidential race between senility and depravity, which wouldn’t have happened when people could still read and words had specific meanings.

(Ukiah Daily Journal)

REFLECTIONS ON AMERICA’S LAST NEWSPAPER

Editor:

The paper paper. Yes, I often start my day with coffee and a scroll on my laptop of your news. It’s enjoyable. But there is nothing like holding hard copy in your hands. I guess that’s something that, very soon, only us Geezers will know!

I remember around 2010 or 11. I was down in Berkeley with my family visiting friends. My twins were toddlers at the time. My host and I had a tradition. I’d push the stroller to a Peet’s coffee. We’d talk and get very caffeinated, then take the girls to a playground called Totland. It was a normal playground. Except all the equipment was smaller. It was pure ecstacy being caffeinated and chasing my Babies around, pushing them on swings, etc!

Anyway, around that time, I walked back into the lounge area. It was basic, some tables and a few couches. But I experienced a moment of profound disorientation, almost fear. There were about 25-30 people in there and NO ONE was talking to anyone. In my entire life these scenes always involved highly charged conversations, the passing of newspapers, etc. But this room was silent. Every single person was staring at a screen! 

After getting over my shock we sat down and resumed our activities. Now these scenes are normal and I use my laptop, too. But I still habitually scan the cafe looking for that pile of newspapers! And for 30 years I looked forward on Wednesdays to getting my copy from the Albion store.

But back to the AVA. A while back I suggested that you call yourselves “America’s last newspaper” and was mightily pleased to see that appear on the masthead! Now, perhaps it was there before and my stroke brain just missed it. But whatever the case, I meant it metaphorically. Now its literal. But please keep up the good work; I know you fellas have taken a lot of heat over the years; and let’s be honest, SOME of it deserved. You are a couple of cranky old farts. But for those actually interested in how our county is running; you are a vital resource; for those willing to look beneath the chicanery and gaslighting that is so common from our elected officials. I know some of the criticism you take is from folks who find it easier to shoot the messenger. Onward!

Chris Skyhawk

Fort Bragg

THE LAST COPY

Editor,

Dudes!

I’ve had an inordinate smile plastered on my face, accompanied by a few whoops! now and then, the last hour or so since I got my copy of the Last Paper Paper.

What a great send-off and hope yours is going well also.

Thanks…

Paul Modic

Redway

THE OLD SWALLOWTAIL BURGER which used to fly so proudly o’er the Mighty AVA ‘s County Seat Bureau.

— Bruce McEwen

WHY I LIVE BOONVILLE

by Bill Kimberlin

I asked a real estate agent once why Boonville wasn’t more popular with the Napa Valley set. She lowered her voice and said, almost conspiratorially, “It’s the name”.

Boonville…it is a hick name. But then Sagaponack, in The Hamptons , where all the swells summer, doesn’t exactly slip grandly off the tongue either. No, its more than the name. Outwardly, there is nothing to do here. No golf courses, no Wine Train, no Steinbeck connection, nothing to register on the quaint meter.

Most travelers slow down to gaze at Boonville and then speed off after having completed the survey. Some poor folks even park and walk around expectantly, but their hopes soon fade, and they drive off quickly.

The Valley kids will tell you in an instant what the problem is, “There’s nothing to do here”. It’s a lament that I’m quite familiar with, having heard it all through Anderson Valley High from my fellow scholars during the 1960's.

It’s true, there is nothing to do here. But it is also true that some people can find something, in “nothing”. Young children can do it. They find plenty to do here, and always have. It’s when they get a little older and more worldly that they first discover the problem. This used to happen at about the age of thirteen. Now I suspect that it happens even earlier.

On a recent trip to France I noticed that this was not just a Valley phenomenon. The college kids I met in French villages were plainly disinterested in the ancient ruins, art museums and the other charms of life I was reveling in. “There’s nothing to do here,” was the gist of what they said. Many were dreaming of the wonderful life they would have if only they could get to Los Angeles.

Of course, this is exactly as it should be. We go away so that we can come home again, each place letting us reflect back on what we had at the other. The Valley kids will surely do this. They will go away, but they will also come back, if only in their minds, to what they had here.

To walk along Clow Ridge, or down the Navarro River, or into the cathedral of Hendy Woods, I would argue, is about as profound an adventure as any you are likely to experience, even if it doesn’t seem like much is happening.

I’ve been chasing the faint charms of this little rural town for some time now and am still hard pressed to describe them. My brother says they are just an illusion. Yet, if so, it’s still one that enchants. I am reminded of the painter who is forever trying to capture the look of sunlight falling on nature. He knows that he will never quite achieve it, but he also knows that there is a gift in trying.

For instance, I once stopped by the organic farm of Vicki and Mike Brock. Usually, I just scan the vegetables set out for sale and count out my change from the little self-serve cash box. But this day, Vicki approached asking, “Would you like some corn?”

What a question, I thought. Would I like to walk with her into the corn fields with her tiny daughter, Julia, trailing behind us in her birthday suit, to pull ears of young fresh corn from the stalk; corn which I would be eating at my dinner table within the hour? As calmly as I could, I said, “Yes, I would like some corn.”

So we headed out into the fields in the warm sun of a late summer afternoon, first stopping to admire the giant pumpkin crop that Mike was growing for the contests he enters.

Little Julia marched right up to one behemoth that was approaching 900 pounds and pulled back the netting that shaded this carefully nurtured specimen. “Daddy’s pumpkin”, she announced triumphantly. This pumpkin would later win him a prize, once he had figured out how to move it.

As I looked around this idyllic farm with its original 13 star American Flag flying high atop a pole securely planted amongst the organic crops, I thought of the imprint this simple ritual of going into the fields on the Valley floor, surrounded by Redwood forests on the one side and rolling grassy hills on the other, would make on this little girl, just as it did on me so many years before her.

If there is an illusion to this place it was present that day, watching Julia’s own senses drinking it all in, as she stumbled over dirt clods trailing Mommy to the corn patch at golden hour in Boonville.

(Some of this is excerpted from my book, “Inside The Stars Empire: A Memoir.)

CATCH OF THE DAY, Saturday, May 4, 2024

LORIE ABERNATHY, Fort Bragg. Carjacking by means of force or fear, stolen property, disorderly conduct-alcohol, resisting.

JEANIE BETTEGA, Covelo. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

CARLOS DANIEL-PEREZ, Cloverdale. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

JOHAN ESPINOZA, Ukiah. Controlled substance for sale, interception of law enforcement communications, conspiracy.

CLAYTON FIGUEROA JR., Redwood Valley. Rape by use of drugs.

KATE KUMMER, Ukiah. Littering, failure to appear, probation revocation.

DENA MORRIS, Ukiah. Parole violation. (Frequent flyer.)

ISSA NIAMBELE, Redwood Valley. Indecent exposure, controlled substance, paraphernalia, resisting.

AARON OSBORNE, Mendocino. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

WILLIA OWENS, Ukiah. Parole violation.

ISIDRO PEREZ-VARGAS, Elk. DUI.

CARLOS SANICRENOJ, San Rafael/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs.

BRITTANY SMITH, Fort Bragg. Controlled substance for sale, interception of law enforcement communications, conspiracy.

STEPHANI SMITH, Fort Bragg. Controlled substance for sale, false personation of another, evidence tampering, interception of law enforcement communications, conspiracy, disobeying court order, failure to appear.

CALIFORNIA GROUNDWATER LEVELS GOT A HUGE BUMP FROM 2023’S HISTORICALLY WET WEATHER

by Kurtis Alexander

Diminished by decades of over-pumping, California’s groundwater reserves saw a huge influx of water last year, in some places the most in modern times, according to state data that offers the first detailed look at how aquifers fared during the state’s historically wet 2023.

The bump was driven, in part, by deliberate efforts to recharge aquifers — the porous underground rock that holds water and accounts for about 40% of the state’s total water supply. The intentional water banking, or managed recharge, resulted in at least 4.1 million acre-feet of water pushed underground, nearly equivalent to what California’s largest reservoir, Shasta Lake, can hold.

About 90% of that recharge occurred in the San Joaquin Valley, the state’s agricultural heartland, where aquifers have been heavily taxed by pumping. But other places also stashed significant supplies underground, including the Oxnard area, Glenn and Colusa counties and Santa Clara Valley. Most recharge is done by simply letting water pool on the surface, sometimes in recharge basins, and slowly soak into the ground.
 
“Last year was an exciting time,” said Steven Springhorn, supervising engineering geologist with the California Department of Water Resources. He called the year “one of the biggest years on record for managed recharge.”

The new groundwater data comes from reports water agencies were required to file last month with the state Department of Water Resources. Unlike reservoir measurements, which are calculated in real time, groundwater takes time to seep into subsurface rock and be measured. The new reports cover the prior “water year,” which runs Oct. 1 to Sept. 30, and captures the winter rainy season in a single year.

The 2023 water year was one of the wettest in decades. A series of drenching atmospheric rivers provided a welcome end to a three-year drought but also caused billions of dollars in damage from flooding, landslides and power outages.

Even with so much water steered underground last year, however, California’s groundwater reserves remain in deficit after more years of over-pumping than replenishment. This trend has been particularly pronounced over the past decade, as droughts have dried up rivers and reservoirs and increased reliance on groundwater. In some spots, so much water has been pumped from the ground that wells have run dry and the land has sunk as the water below disappears.

“It’s been equated to a ball bouncing down stairs,” Springhorn said. “This year was a bounce up, but over the long run there’s been a lot more bounces down.”

Between 2022 and 2023, according to the new data, the nearly 100 groundwater basins and sub-basins tracked by the state logged 8.7 million acre-feet of additional water. During the previous three years, however, those basins experienced losses of almost twice that amount, the data show.

The basins tracked by the state represent only a fraction of California’s total groundwater, but they account for more than 90% of all groundwater use, offering a near-full picture of the impacts of pumping on the state’s aquifers.

Last year’s increase in groundwater is the first year-over-year uptick since 2019, and it was likely the biggest annual increase over a longer period, though past data is lacking.

Reporting groundwater conditions has only recently been required under the state’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. The act, passed in 2014, marks the first statewide effort to regulate groundwater and will require water agencies to manage their aquifers sustainably by 2040. Many large agricultural producers and leaders in rural communities, including the California Farm Bureau, opposed the regulation.

Sustainably managing aquifers generally involves both less groundwater pumping and more water soaking into the ground. As illustrated last year, water agencies can do a lot to help aquifers by augmenting what naturally percolates into the subsurface with managed recharge.

“Recharge is a great opportunity to restore water in the really wet years and rely on it in the dry years,” said Russ Freeman, deputy general manager of resources at Westlands Water District, one of the state’s largest irrigation agencies, which serves Fresno and Kings counties.

Westlands recently recharged record amounts of water in the Westside Sub-basin, the sprawling 1,000-square-mile basin beneath the region. Nearly 162,000 acre-feet of water went underground during the 2023 water year, according to state data, and more than 200,000 acre-feet has gone underground since, according to the district.

An acre-foot is the amount of water it takes to cover an acre with 1 foot of water and is generally enough to supply two or three California households annually.

After recharging virtually no water in 2022, Westlands credits its tremendous amount of recharge recently to both the widespread availability of surface water — it received 100% of its requested water from federal reservoirs in 2023 — and a dedicated effort to put more water underground.

Among many programs the district launched after realizing it had surplus water was paying farmers, or crediting them for future water purchases, to do managed recharge on their land, either in designated basins or in fields where crops are dormant. The district also established more than 60 injection wells, adding to 20 they previously had, to more precisely steer water into the aquifers, sometimes as deep as 2,000 feet.

The Westside Sub-basin was further buoyed by a lack of pumping, the lowest level of pumping on record by Westlands farmers, according to district data going back to 1955.

While managed recharge has been on the rise in California for decades, supporters have advocated for more. The total storage capacity of the state’s aquifers is at least 850 million acre-feet of water, far more than the estimated 50 million acre-feet of water that the state’s reservoirs can hold.

Gov. Gavin Newsom sought to increase recharge in 2023 by expediting the permitting. The need to have a water right to divert flood waters from swollen rivers and creeks was temporarily waived when the water was used for recharge.

Nearly 400,000 acre-feet of water were put underground as a result of the governor’s executive action, according to preliminary state estimates. This added to hundreds of thousands of acres of recharge that was already permitted by the state in 2023. The governor’s stated goal for recharge has been 500,000 acre-feet annually.

Even with recharge levels far surpassing expectations, Ellen Hanak, senior fellow with the Water Policy Center at the Public Policy Institute of California, said more needs to be done to bring groundwater levels into equilibrium.

“The challenge is that there are still deficits,” she said. “Even every three or four years, getting a wet year like 2023, you still see (aquifers) in decline. It’s very encouraging to see the high numbers for 2023. But we’re not there yet.”

(SF Chronicle)

MEMO OF THE AIR: Kitten is angry.

"An audience is never wrong. An individual member of it may be an imbecile, but a thousand imbeciles together in the dark – that is critical genius." 

–Billy Wilder

Here's the recording of last night's (Friday 2024-05-03) 7-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-0591

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:

Hampstead beatnik party. Insert your own beatnik music and reefer smoke. Bare feet, sunglasses at night, pet monkey on a string, the works. https://www.weirduniverse.net/blog/comments/hampstead_beatnik_party

Malcolm Maclaren – Double Dutch. "All over the world high school girls take to the ropes and skip." (via Everlasting Blort) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ4jMSCBswY

Our sun, the heating system. With stunning real-life video taken from close enough to carbonize your eyeballs. https://gizmodo.com/new-close-up-video-shows-the-sun-s-surface-as-the-hells-1851451405

Looking the other way, Webb telescope's latest triumph. https://nagonthelake.blogspot.com/2024/05/iconic-horsehead-nebula-in-amazing.html

And color photographs of Vietnamese women in 1915. They're so tiny. Like the little island priestesses who guard the egg in /Mothra/ (say MAH-thih-dah!). There was a porcelain-skin red-haired girl in the co-ed dorm of one of the schools I went to who was like four-feet-one, smart and sparkling-pretty. What a doll. She's probably a great-grandmother now of a whole colony of little people better adapted to the coming world of scarcity and conflict over resources that we could have put off for another few hundred years but we used it all up on aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines and bombs and missiles and zooming bombers and fighter jets around and smashing up whole countries ten thousand miles away like a giant corporate schoolyard bully that we just keep giving all the lunch money to rather than tell him to go fuck himself and instead, what a concept, spend the money on lunch. https://www.vintag.es/2024/04/vietnamese-women-by-leon-busy.html

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

CALIFORNIA’S INSURANCE CRISIS IS RATTLING THE REAL ESTATE MARKET. IT COULD IMPACT ‘ALMOST EVERY SALE’

by Megan Fan Munce & Christian Leonard

When Cindi Koehn listed her Lake County home for sale last year, she didn’t expect any trouble selling the beautiful 1.7-acre property overlooking the lake. But three interested buyers walked away. The cost to insure it, they told her, would be too expensive.

Koehn was surprised and disappointed. In 2015, dozens of Lake County homes had burned to the ground in a series of wildfires. Four years later, Koehn was dropped by Farmers Insurance over concern about the risk of fire on her property. Still, she didn’t expect insurance problems to prevent her from selling her home.

“I feel like I’m at the mercy of the insurance industry,” Koehn said. “We thought that there wouldn’t be any issues when we went to sell.”

Before insurance companies started retreating from the state, home insurance was divorced from the process of searching for a home. Only after getting their offer accepted would buyers begin to look for insurance, which is required for a mortgage. Now, with the insurance market in turmoil, some sellers like Koehn are finding buyers backing out due to the high cost or unavailability of insurance. Buyers, meanwhile, are scrambling preemptively to obtain insurance, making all-cash offers or choosing not to purchase homes at all. 

 “Homeowner’s insurance used to be a rounding error, depending on where you lived. It’s not that way anymore,” said David Russell, a professor of insurance at CSU Northridge.

The problems are especially acute in areas of high wildfire risk, but they have rapidly spread across the state, including the Bay Area.

In Lake County, the availability and affordability of insurance has been an issue for several years, according to Marie Wotherspoon, a real estate agent in the area. But the effects of the crisis have begun manifesting elsewhere. In San Diego, where Wotherspoon was based until last year, Foremost Insurance’s decision to stop offering condo insurance caused a number of condo owners to lose coverage, she said. Even in some coastal cities, buyers have struggled to find insurance, she said.

It’s not clear exactly what impact the insurance crisis will have on home prices. A report published in 2023 from research and technology nonprofit First Street Foundation found that a home worth $300,000 whose annual insurance premium rose from $1,400 to $3,200 — which the report says is the average cost of the FAIR Plan, the state-created wildfire insurer of last resort — could lose about 12% of its value.

 “I think we’re just beginning to understand that (insurance) might be an issue on almost every sale,” said Emma Morris, a Berkeley-based Realtor with Red Oak Realty.

Diane Britto, a Walnut Creek-based real estate broker, said she first noticed insurance becoming an issue for buyers near the end of 2023. Earlier that year, both State Farm and Farmers Insurance — the top two home insurers in the state — stopped writing new homeowner's policies, even as they continue, for the most part, to renew existing policies.

Even if a buyer finds a policy, they’re often blindsided by the high cost, Britto said. The average annual premium in California rose by about $400 from 2017 to 2021, double the national increase, according to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

“First-time buyers, they’re always shocked,” Britto said, noting that rental insurance typically costs hundreds annually, far less than home insurance.

Higher premiums can affect buyers’ ability to secure a loan. Some buyers are preapproved for a mortgage based on the average cost of insurance, only to discover that the cost of coverage could be double what they expected, according to Michael Koran, a Bay Area mortgage agent.

Buyers are running into insurance issues in San Francisco too, said Chris Lim and Michelle Balog, real estate agents with Christie’s International Real Estate. While the city doesn’t have the same wildfire risks as other parts of the Bay Area, they explained, its older buildings sometimes have outdated wiring that can present a fire risk, forcing sellers to replace their electrical systems or buyers to call multiple insurance brokers.

Backing out of a deal can be costly, according to Daryl Fairweather, chief economist at online real estate brokerage Redfin. If a buyer retracts an offer that’s been accepted, they usually forfeit their earnest money, a deposit that’s usually between 1% and 3% of the sale price.

Some options, such as making an offer contingent on finding insurance, might make a seller more likely to choose a different offer — especially in high-demand areas like Walnut Creek, according to Britto.

In one situation, Britto recounted, a buyer made an offer only to learn later that the insurance company wouldn’t cover the property without expensive upgrades to the home’s plumbing system — a bill the seller wasn’t willing to foot.

Sandy Jamison, a broker with Tuscana Properties in Campbell, said she’s helped clients try to persuade sellers to lower their asking price or offer other concessions to offset high insurance prices, though sellers don’t always agree.

Costly insurance payments increase a buyer’s debt-to-income ratio at a time when high interest rates have already done so, according to Koran. With too high a ratio, a buyer might be seen as a risky investment for a bank loan.

Koran hasn’t had anyone back out of a contract yet due to insurance, he said. If that possibility threatens, he encourages buyers to get help from their family or use their funds to pay off other debts and lower their debt-to-income ratio. 

But he has seen some buyers walk away from a home purchase due to high insurance costs, citing the example of a roughly $2 million home in Marin County that would have cost $9,500 annually to insure under the FAIR Plan.

The FAIR Plan, whose clientele more than doubled in the last five years to 339,000 dwelling policyholders, is often the only option in fire-prone areas. Buyers throughout Lake County, for example, have struggled to find insurance, but it’s especially hard to find homes in forested areas, Wotherspoon said. FAIR Plan premiums, though, are generally higher than those in the normal market, and offer more limited coverage. Its rates are likely to rise even further, according to the plan’s president. 

The plan also caps coverage limits for homes at $3 million. Mortgage lenders will typically require an insurance policy that would completely cover the cost of replacing the home, according to Tom Banducci, a San Diego-based branch manager for Cornerstone First Mortgage.

In high-risk areas, some properties “might become ineligible for mortgages if insurance is not readily available and affordable,” Koran said. 

As insurers pull out of the state and the availability of coverage dwindles, the impacts are also being felt in areas believed to have a lower risk for wildfires. In September, about 30% of FAIR Plan policies covered properties not located in wildfire-prone areas, according to recent testimony by FAIR Plan President Victoria Roach. As of March, that share is now 35%, according to a FAIR Plan spokesperson.

“There’s this big black box where we cannot see how these (insurance) companies are rating properties,” Jamison said. “We can’t really tell how they’re drawing the lines (or) where they’re drawing them until we go to apply for an insurance policy and they … give us a terrible rating.”

Still, mortgage rates are affecting the housing market more than insurance issues, said Fairweather, the economist. High mortgage rates are leading fewer homeowners to sell, restricting supply and raising prices. Though many real estate experts had predicted rates would fall this year, that has yet to happen. 

In the short term, home values in competitive markets such as the Bay Area remain high. Megan Micco, a Berkeley real estate broker with Compass, said that while “the natural buyer instinct” is to offer less money to account for insurance or fireproofing costs, there are so few homes available that most sellers can find someone willing to pay full price.

That hasn’t been the case in some high wildfire-risk regions such as Lake and Mendocino counties, which are among the few counties in California where home values have declined over the past year, according to real estate brokerage site Zillow.

Koehn, a military veteran, finally got insurance for her Lake County home through USAA, but she has lost hope that her home will sell barring an end to the insurance crisis and high interest rates. For now, she’s renting a home in Santa Barbara County while paying the mortgage and utility bills for the empty house in Lake County, which has taken a deep cut out of her retirement savings.

“I’m 62,” she said. “The rest of my time is going to be spent with my grandchildren, but at the same time, I’m now worrying about a house which is seven hours away.” 

FINE TUNING FAKE NEWS

Editor: 

Per Donald Trump and his enablers, CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, Washington Post, et al, are “fake news.” We learn from David Pecker, testifying under oath, that as National Enquirer publisher, he not only worked with Trump to “catch and kill” stories harmful to him, but promoted stories harmful to his opponents for several months prior to the 2016 election, regardless of outlandish lies. Even if a tiny fraction at the grocery checkout stand sees the false headlines, it could create doubt and influence voting. Critical in swing states.

Like the mosquito in a nudist colony, where to begin? Keeping this simple, you don’t buy baldness cures from Dr. Phil, you don’t buy a new car based only on a slick ad, and you sure as hell should not trust the former president on just about anything he says.

Larry Batson

Sonoma

CRITICAL THINKING

Editor,

There is chatter lately about teaching our youth to think critically in order to resist foreign propaganda. Please note the Tik Tok brouhaha. American propaganda good; foreign propaganda bad. Our youth see very clearly the hypocrisy of American propaganda, and for that they are being arrested and silenced. Clearly, the US cannot continue weapon sales to Israel for the continued destruction of Gaza and genocide of Palestinians, while wringing their hands and talking of a fantasy two state solution.

Turning to Russia and the Ukraine, our country has ringed Russia with countries promising death from US weapons. For a decade, the CIA has been relentless and effective in promoting the Ukrainian/Russian war, which we continue to support to the detriment of all involved. Congress has added Taiwan to the wars that our rulers wish to animate.

We the people are controlled by an Military/Industrial/Congressional/ Plutocratic elite that seeks only profit and power. They have no concern for human welfare in our country or any other.

It does not have to be this way. Resist the US warmongers.

Joan Vivaldo

San Francisco

JEFFREY ST. CLAIR NOTES: Here's a sitting member of the New York City Council (Queens) calling for students, who she refers to as “monsters," to be slain and their schools and faculties "razed."…

EVEN AT THE TRUMP TRIAL in Manhattan, the action is elsewhere. A few miles uptown, at Columia University, the student protests over Israel’s war in Gaza have drawn international attention, and provoked a media frenzy that has overshadowed Trump’s trial. (The coverage of the protests, a little bizarrely, has also crowded out news from the actual war.) With polls showing the Presidential race essentially tied, Biden might prefer to run against the ominpresent Trump of the 2020 election cycle, whose lies and threats were easier to get people to notice. The dynamic of the trial could carry over to the election: Trump is diiminshing, but the public is tuned out, because everyone already knows exactly who he is.

— Benjamin Wallace-Wells (The New Yorker)

THE THREE FACES OF DON

by Maureen Dowd

When I worked at Time magazine in the early 80s, I bought a frame at the company gift shop that was a mock-up of the Time Man of the Year cover, but it was Mother of the Year. I put in a picture of my mom, looking chic in a suit, holding me as a baby.

I gave it to her for Mother’s Day as a goof.

But for Donald Trump, whose office at Trump Tower was an infinity mirror of his magazine covers, the annual Time rite has always been a serious obsession. He complained after it was changed in 1999. He asked women at a rally in 2016, “What sounds better, Person of the Year or Man of the Year?”

In 2015, when Time made Angela Merkel Person of the Year, he whined that he wasn’t the choice. “They picked a person who is ruining Germany,” he sour-grapes tweeted.

Even though the prestige of the once-mighty Time had dwindled, Trump was thrilled when he finally got Person of the Year in 2016. About the cover line, “President of the Divided States of America,” he demurred that the country would be “well healed” under his leadership.

Well, turns out he was just a heel.

In 2017, David Fahrenthold revealed in The Washington Post that the framed copies of Trump on the cover of Time, hung in at least five of the president’s golf clubs from Florida to Scotland, were fakes.

The red border of the faux covers was skinnier; even my Mother of the Year frame got that detail right.

Time is a shadow of its former self, but Trump is in a media time warp, so he was delighted to land on the cover again this past week.

(Maggie Haberman had a hilarious detail about Trump’s media anachronisms in a recent story about his New York trial: One spectator was Natalie Harp, a former right-wing OAN host, who totes around a portable printer to print out positive stories or social media posts for the ex-president, who still prefers to read articles and posts on paper.)

It is telling to read the new Time cover story at this bizarre moment, when Trump is both a grumpy, sleepy defendant in a criminal trial in a city where he once towered, and a confident former president campaigning to get the Oval back and leading in many polls.

The guises of Trump add up to a fascinating triptych: In the trial, we see who Trump was; at his campaign rallies, we see who Trump is; and in his Time interview, we see who Trump would be.

The trial is a vivid reminder of the louche world of porn stars and Playboy models inhabited by Trump when he cavorted through Gotham as a larger-than-life cartoon figure, spinning his image in the tabloids day and night.

Keith Davidson — who negotiated payments for Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal to tell their stories in The National Enquirer, which then killed them — testified on Thursday about the demimonde. That included a “sex-tape broker” who helped him when he was trying to suppress scandalous stories for other clients, like the pro-Hitler reality star Tila Tequila and Charlie Sheen.

Trump has a stern demeanor in court, giving his mug-shot glare. But in his social media posts, he can be playful, such as: “Contrary to the FAKE NEWS MEDIA, I don’t fall asleep during the Crooked D.A.’s Witch Hunt, especially not today. I simply close my beautiful blue eyes, sometimes, listen intensely, and take it ALL in!!!” He also posts memes; on Friday, he put up one recommending security for the southern border that is “guaranteed to work.” It was a gaggle of alligators.

At rallies in Wisconsin and Michigan on Wednesday, he was a buoyant showman, using humor and a warm tone to undercut Democratic cries that he aspires to be a dictator.

In Waukesha, he talked about how much he loves chicken despite the higher price, and then introduced a supporter who owns a vegan restaurant. “I’m not into the vegan stuff,” he said, butchering the pronunciation of the word “vegan.”

The lighthearted, human side that Trump shows in rallies and funny posts is belied by the dark-hearted, inhumane side he sometimes reveals.

In the new “If He Wins” Time cover piece, Eric Cortellessa extracted insights from Trump about how far he would go if elected.

Trump shared schemes about “an imperial presidency.” If he returns, there will be no eminences grises. He will lead his hard-core crew and there will be no pushback on his authoritarian lunacy. No aides will be hiding his papers or sneaking around behind his back to protect the country.

In a second term, Trump told Time, he would deport more than 11 million migrants, using the military and detention camps. He also wants to go full Margaret Atwood, letting red states monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute violators. He is mulling pardoning the insurrectionists who broke into the Capitol on Jan. 6, and he may fire any U.S. attorney who is not a lackey.

We have seen the truculent face Trump shows at trial and the affable face he shows at rallies. But the most important face is the one Trump has when he conjures the years ahead — because his vision of America’s future is terrifying and apocalyptic.

HOUSEWIFE POSES with a weeks’ worth of groceries in 1947. 

She spent a total of $12.50 a week (not including milk) to buy her groceries. On this budget, she is able to feed herself, her husband, her four-year-old twins and her cat.

IT'S GETTING MEAN OUT THERE

Washington (AP) The House passed legislation Wednesday that would establish a broader definition of antisemitism for the Department of Education to enforce anti-discrimination laws, the latest response from lawmakers to a nationwide student protest movement over the Israel-Hamas war.

The proposal, which passed 320-91 with some bipartisan support, would codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a federal anti-discrimination law that bars discrimination based on shared ancestry, ethnic characteristics or national origin. It now goes to the Senate where its fate is uncertain.

Action on the bill was just the latest reverberation in Congress from the protest movement that has swept university campuses. Republicans in Congress have denounced the protests and demanded action to stop them, thrusting university officials into the center of the charged political debate over Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza. More than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war was launched in October, after Hamas staged a deadly terrorist attack against Israeli civilians.

If passed by the Senate and signed into law, the bill would broaden the legal definition of antisemitism to include the “targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity.” Critics say the move would have a chilling effect on free speech throughout college campuses.

* * *

TAIBBI & KIRN REACT

Israel has really been a pioneer in the development of the model of modern digital censorship. Glenn Greenwald did one of the earliest stories about this in 2015 where he talked about Facebook making a deal with the Israeli Government and the Mossad, where basically 95% of the requests that the Mossad made to Facebook for moderation were honored. And from what I understand, Facebook was really one of the only ways that people can communicate in Gaza. They don’t have very many press organs that really work. There’s significant digital censorship of outlets, like The Electronic Intifada. And so this was a big deal and that basic arrangement that they had, which was, “If you want to make money having Facebook in Israel, this is the price that you’re going to pay. You’re going to allow us to control content that means a lot to us.” And I think since then, you’ve seen that model replicated to various degrees in other countries and it’s starting to come a little bit to the United States.

So that’s another area where I’ve always looked at this issue and thought the Palestinians have been the Canary in the coal mine when it comes to modern censorship tools. They’re like the testing ground for how all these things work. So, that’s true, but leaving all that aside, yeah, you’re right, it’s now come back to our shores. And this week and last week, this story has exploded domestically in a way that it really hadn’t before with both takeovers of college... Not takeovers, encampments on college campuses that have garnered a tremendous amount of attention. And then... Should we start with the House bill? The reaction to all of this has been really amazing. There have been things that have gone on on both sides, but the official reactions-

Walter Kirn: I think we should start with the House bill, because it affects everyone. Depending on whether you live anywhere near an Ivy League campus, you may or may not care, or UCLA, you may or may not care about what’s going on on the campuses. But this is a bill to manage the speech of all Americans. And it’s, for me, a bill that sets a terrible precedent, besides being bad in itself. It takes an entire topic, the discussion of Israel and Jews in general, I guess, and attempts to set parameters for our discussion of it. They’re very vague parameters in some cases, and they, to me, are stupendously unconstitutional. To make a kind of constitution for how you can talk about Israel and then enforce it is unprecedented to me.

Matt Taibbi: Yeah. And we can talk about this too in a minute, but the House bill, which... What did it pass? It passed 320 to 91, by the way, which is unbelievable. But let’s just hear how they’re selling it first. This is a CBS report on the bill.

Speaker 1: On Capitol Hill, the House Rules Committee advanced a bipartisan bill that aims to define anti-Semitism. The House vote on legislation is expected this week, and it could not only reunite division among Democrats, but also impact student protests against the war in Gaza on campuses around the U.S. Nicole Killian is on the Hill for us and joins us now to discuss. So Nicole, let’s talk about the impact that this legislation could have on the protests.

Nicole Killian: Well, I don’t know that there will be an immediate impact, simply because this is a bill that is now making its way through the House. There is a companion bill in the Senate. We don’t know how quickly they will move this legislation per se, but as you mentioned, this does modify the working definition of anti-Semitism, holds it to a more stricter standard when it comes to enforcing anti-discrimination laws, potentially, which could have an impact on the type of language, for instance, that is used in some of these protests. But again, I would not expect any kind of immediate impact, although this bill is likely to clear the House. But that being said, there are a number of efforts underway in both chambers. We know later today, for instance, Speaker Johnson is set to announce a House-wide crackdown, to use the Speaker’s terms, when it comes to combating anti-Semitism on college campuses...

Matt Taibbi: Okay. So we get the idea with that. But more specifically, there are nine things about this that are terrifying. They’re essentially going to bar certain kinds of speech on university campuses. It’s going to put it on the Department of Education to enforce anti-discrimination laws. And the definition of what anti-Semitism will be could be things as vague as claiming that the existence of the state of Israel is racist, using certain symbols and images, drawing comparisons of Israeli policy to that of Nazis. That’s the same thing that happened to C.J. Hopkins, the playwright in Germany. He’s in trouble for comparing basically modern authorities to Nazis by using a swastika.

But similarly, there was an executive order passed in Texas, by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, and this also has created a state definition of anti-Semitism that will now be enforced. Here’s the executive order, and here’s a phrase that you’re going to hear a lot in the coming weeks. “Texas supports free speech, but...” You’re going to hear that over and over again. Mike Johnson said it this week too, the Speaker of the House. “We support free speech, but free speech comes with responsibilities,” and then they basically outline a series of things that they will define as anti-Semitic that won’t be allowed on Texas universities, like phrases like, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” and so on. So, Walter, how do you feel about any state definition of an idea being barred?

Walter Kirn: I don’t feel good about it at all. To think that individual phrases are being outlawed in America is shocking. And these bills will not just apply to university discourse, which should be the freest of any place. In other words, how upside down is it to start at universities censoring ideas? They should be the last place that that censorship should reach if it exists at all. But in any case, yeah, we’re now going to have, like George Carlin saying that there were seven words you couldn’t say on television, there are going to be 15 phrases you can’t say on campus.

But it’s a terrible trend. I don’t understand why they think this is the problem. What is this unique challenge called anti-Semitism that we have to throw over the constitution for? I have Jewish friends, including strenuously, pro-Israel friends who are appalled by this. I think it bothers them that something is being done in their name that is so offensive to the American spirit. And I can understand that. If I were Jewish and pro-Israel, I doubt that I would want to have to answer for this bill, which looks like special pleading and a carve out and kind of, I think, has a reverse effect, making you think, “Well, well, this lobby must be particularly influential.” How many groups get federal laws that bar criticism of them?

Matt Taibbi: Yeah. How many get to send a missile directly into the First Amendment in a week or whatever it is. It’s pretty intense. And boy, was it predictable that the Republicans, who for the last three or four years stamped their feet up and down and played in the role of free speech absolutists, suddenly come out and they want to bar hate speech, which was exactly the opposite position that they had for a couple of years.

Walter Kirn: I’ve long been sympathetic to the idea that hate speech laws can indeed, through mission creep, become chilling to discourse in general. I think that’s a legitimate concern. And here we go, because this is not hate speech. It’s intellectual speech. They’re banning ideas and calling them hate speech. This is the fruit of what the Republicans warned about, and yet they’re embracing it. Nothing scares me more now, Matt, than something that has bipartisan support in the U.S. Congress, where the worst of the intolerant, left and right, get together to, whatever, broaden FISA, or ban TikTok, and now Israel. Do people not see that we are answering every challenge in the same way, with censorship? It’s their only answer anymore. Well, it might be bad, but don’t talk about it, or get social media to suppress it. So, I’m shocked that the Republicans, shocked to unshocked, would go from a principled and somewhat unpopular position on these hate speech laws to championing the worst of them.

THE ATLANTIC COMPARES WALTER KIRN TO DONALD TRUMP

by Matt Taibbi

The Atlantic churned out a paint-by-numbers hit piece on my friend Walter Kirn this week, and yes, I’m pissed about it. Really, is there no end to this nastiness? The chief complaint of “The Blindness of Elites” is that Walter, formerly well-regarded smart person, spends too much time complaining about “elites” instead of Donald Trump: He cares less about Trump’s rampage through American democracy, or even the lunacy and violence of January 6, than he does about the selfish and self-satisfied elites—all noblesse, no oblige—who sparked that anger and sustained it.

Much of the rest of the article strains in search of a narrative that just isn’t there. The strongest thing one could say about Walter Kirn’s attitude toward Donald Trump is that the man occupies such a tiny percentage of his thoughts as to be totally irrelevant to any effort to describe who Walter is. He doesn’t stay up nights thinking about Trump one way or another, which isn’t described as evidence of a healthy life outlook but treated with suspicion, like a kind of deception. God knows how many times author Thomas Chatterton Williams had to prod Walter about Trump before he said he doesn’t believe he is a “unique challenge in American history for which we should throw away all sorts of liberties and prerogatives that we are going to want back.” Jackpot! With such an attitude, he might as well be Trump, which is what Williams suggested after Walter referenced a famed story that’s been told a million times — by the New York Times, NBC, ABC, the Washington Post, even NPR — about George Bush’s grandfather Prescott stealing the skull of the warrior Geronimo:

The story might be apocryphal (there’s no hard evidence that Geronimo’s grave was looted, though some historians consider it plausible). But it captures something essential about Kirn, who can seem, like Trump himself, less concerned with the strict facticity of the claims he makes than with the sins of the people he’s attacking. There’s high comedy in a magazine edited by leading WMD proponent Jeffrey Goldberg fretting about anyone else’s “facticity,” but it gets worse: ...

CHESS MASTER, 1920

Samuel Herman Reshevsky (born Szmul Rzeszewski; November 26, 1911– April 4, 1992) was a Polish chess prodigy and later a leading American chess grandmaster. He was a contender for the World Chess Championship from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s: he tied for third place in the 1948 World Chess Championship tournament, and tied for second in the 1953 Candidates tournament. He was an eight-time winner of the US Chess Championship, tying him with Bobby Fischer for the all-time record.

He was an accountant by profession and also a chess writer.

Reshevsky was born at Ozorków near Łódź, Congress Poland, to a Jewish family. He learned to play chess at age four and was soon acclaimed as a child prodigy. At age eight, he was beating many accomplished players with ease and giving simultaneous match exhibitions.

In November 1920, his parents moved to the United States to make a living by publicly exhibiting their child's talent. Reshevsky played thousands of games in exhibitions all over the US. He played in the 1922 New York Masters tournament; at that stage, he was likely the youngest player ever to have competed in a strong tournament.

For a period in his youth, Reshevsky did not attend school, for which his parents appeared in District Court in Manhattan, facing a charge of improper guardianship. However, Julius Rosenwald, wealthy co-owner of Sears, Roebuck and Company in Chicago, soon afterward became Reshevsky's benefactor, and he guaranteed Reshevsky's future on the condition that he would complete his education.

Reshevsky never became a truly professional chess player. He gave up most competitive chess for seven years, from 1924 to 1931, to complete his secondary education while successfully competing in occasional events during this period.

Reshevsky graduated from the University of Chicago in 1934 with a degree in accounting and supported himself and his family by working as an accountant. He moved to New York City and lived there or in its suburbs for the remainder of his life. He and his wife, Norma Mindick, had three children. As a religious Jew, Reshevsky would not play on the Sabbath nor on the major Jewish Festivals; his games were scheduled accordingly.

THE BOOMER ELITES have lost a generation, and instead of listening to the young, they search for excuses. What they cannot comprehend is that maybe they lost this generation—including many of my fellow Jews—because they have been selling a lie about Israel and the United States being forces for good, and the young are tired of pretending that it is anything other than an ugly hoax. 

— Dave Zirin

“YOU THINK it will never happen to you, that it cannot happen to you, that you are the only person in the world to whom none of these things will ever happen, and then, one by one, they all begin to happen to you, in the same way they happen to everyone else.”

— Paul Auster