Mendocino County Today: Tuesday 5/14/24

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A MODEST WARMING TREND will continue through Wednesday. Summer-like weather will persist through the week with hot afternoons in the interior and stratus along the coast. No precipitation is expected through the week. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): On the coast this Tuesday morning I have a foggy 50F. The fog continues to hug the coast with little inland movement so we will likely see some clearing again today. Our forecast is for more of the same.

REPORT OF DISTRAUGHT MALE RESULTS IN VEHICLE VS. PEDESTRIAN TRAFFIC COLLISION 

On Sunday, May 12, 2024 at approximately 6:30 PM, Officers were dispatched to the 1200 block of N. Main Street for a report of a white male adult jumping in front of vehicles threatening to kill himself and others. Officers from the Fort Bragg Police Department, California Highway Patrol, and State Parks responded to the location utilizing both lights and sirens. While in route, dispatch advised a vehicle had struck the male, and medical had been dispatched to respond. 

Officers arrived and contacted the male subject (name withheld), who was heavily intoxicated and actively resisting treatment by off-duty Fort Bragg Fire personnel. During their investigation, officers determined the subject was heavily intoxicated, and based on statements provided by witnesses on scene had purposefully leapt in front of the moving vehicle. The involved vehicle, described as a silver or gray sedan, fled the scene prior to law enforcement arrival. 

Based on the subject’s demeanor, witness statements, and medical’s recommendation regarding injuries the subject sustained because of the collision, the subject was civilly detained per 5150 of the Welfare and Institutions code (gravely disabled or threat to self or others) and transported to the Adventist Health Mendocino Coast Hospital for treatment and mental health evaluation. The subject was released to the care of the mental health and hospital staff for treatment. 

The Fort Bragg Police Department is currently attempting to identify the driver of the vehicle which struck the subject and fled the area. Anyone with information on this incident is encouraged to contact Sgt. Ferris of the Fort Bragg Police Department at (707)961-2800 ext 213. 

This information is being released by Sgt. Ferris. All media inquiries should contact him at pferris@fortbragg.com. 

WHAT THIS PICTURE DEPICTS is beyond disgusting and is criminal. It should offend all good people.

The book-sharing “house” at Wabash and Laurel in south Ukiah was destroyed by one or more crooks sometime Saturday night into Sunday.

Anybody with information as to the perpetrator(s) of this attack on community goodwill and literacy is asked to call the Ukiah Police Department (463-6262) or the DA’s investigators (463-4211).

(DA Facebook post)

ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL

On 05/12/2024, at approximately 1:50pm, Ukiah Police Department (UPD) Officers were dispatched to the parking lot of the Wells Fargo Bank at 717 South State Street for a report of a male that was asleep behind the wheel of a running vehicle. 

UPD Officers arrived on scene and found Joseph Ornelas unconscious behind the wheel of his minivan, which was idling. UPD Officers awoke Ornelas and immediately suspecting him of being under the influence of drugs and or alcohol. Ornelas’ eyes were bloodshot and watery, his speech was slow, his movement was lethargic,  and he appeared disoriented. 

A UPD Officer asked Ornelas to step out of the vehicle, and initiated a pat search of Ornelas’ person to ensure that he was not armed with any dangerous weapons. During the pat search, the Officer felt what he recognized as a drug smoking device in a small pouch that was attached to Ornelas’ waist band. Ornelas confirmed that the object was a glass pipe used for smoking methamphetamine. 

An Officer removed the pouch from Ornelas’ waist and confirmed that it contained drug paraphernalia, as well as several small baggies of suspected methamphetamine. Ornelas was detained, and during a probable cause search of Ornelas’ vehicle, UPD Officers located a loaded .45 caliber handgun underneath the driver’s seat.  The handgun was what was commonly referred to as a “ghost gun,” which is an un-serialized and untraceable firearm that has usually been assembled with a kit. There are additional penalties in the state of California for bringing a loaded unregistered firearm into public, because when these firearms are used in the commission of crimes, they are untraceable.  

The UPD Officer who arrested Ornelas performed field sobriety tests on Ornelas and determined that he was under the influence of a controlled substance. Ornelas was placed under arrest for being in possession of a controlled substance while armed with a loaded firearm, being under the influence of a controlled substance while armed with a loaded firearm, possession of a loaded unregistered firearm, concealing a loaded unregistered firearm, and possession of drug paraphernalia.  

AV UNIFIED NEWS

Proud of students and staff and special shout out to secretarial staff at school both sites

The staff has been working very hard to move attendance rates upward including a competition at the Junior Senior High. The attendance rates for the Junior/Senior High School from the period August 15, 2022 to May 12, 2023 was 89.90%. It has improved over the same period this year to 91.29%. The elementary site is improving as well with last year’s numbers at 89.53% and this year 91.60%. This is important as kids can’t learn if they aren’t here, and also as far as the average daily attendance funding. 

A huge shout out to the secretarial staff that work those phones to get kids to school and to all of the district staff that go and pick up kids when they miss the bus.

We still have a long way to go to get to 98% daily, but this is a great improvement.

Your efforts are appreciated!

PS. Just a reminder that the free Naloxone (Narcan) training is tomorrow at the elementary school at 4:00 p.m. Anyone may attend.

Take care,

Louise Simson, Superintendent

AV Unified School District

MENDO’S LATEST EXCUSE FOR NOT DELIVERING MEASURE P MONEY TO FIRE DEPARTMENTS

Monica Huettl, reporting on the latest Redwood Valley Municipal Advisory Committee meeting on Mendofever.com describes the County’s latest excuse for not delivering Measure P money to the fire districts it was intended for.

https://mendofever.com/2024/05/13/fire-season-approaches-federal-cannabis-laws-are-changing-the-gas-station-is-in-limbo-insights-from-the-redwood-valley-mac-meeting

“After last year’s optimism about possibly getting $250,000 in funds from Measure P [for Redwood Valley Fire], things have taken a grim turn. There is a ballot initiative coming in November called the Two Thirds Voter Approval for New or Increased Taxes, requiring a two-thirds vote for new taxes. If this passes, it will be retroactive back to 2022, cancelling out Measure P. The proposed anti-tax initiative [from the Howard Jarvis tax-haters who gave us Proposition 13 that cleverly exempted corporate property transactions] would negatively affect all county Fire Departments. So far the Redwood Valley Community Fire Department has received $80,000 from Measure P, which is being held until the election in November, in case the money needs to be returned. The County has not finished the financials for last year, and they will not know the amount of property taxes allocated to fire departments until the financials are finalized. 

* * *

Ms. Huettl also notes some law enforcement news: “Three new patrol deputies and four correctional officers have been hired. There are more applicants in the pipeline. The jail behavioral health wing is under construction, and Sheriff Kendall is hoping to keep costs down as the construction progresses. Kendall is working with Humboldt County Sheriff William Honsal to staff this year’s cannabis task force.”

(Mark Scaramella)

BOB ABELES: There’s good news on AT&T’s application to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to be relieved of its Carrier of Last Resort (COLR) obligations. CPUC Administrative Law Judge Thomas Glegola has found that AT&T’s application should be rejected with prejudice. The CPUC will vote on June 20 to finalize his decision. Judge Glegola wrote, “It is not clear why AT&T filed this Application, under existing rules, and then attempted to convince the Commission that it should ignore its rules, based on flawed and erroneous assertions regarding the law and regulatory policy that slowed down the adjudication of this proceeding.”

MIKE GENIELLA:

Always amazes me how much the surrounding landscape has changed, even in our lifetimes. 

This is a great photo of Coyote Valley, which was flooded in the 1950s to create Lake Mendocino. Locals wring their hands when lake levels reach new lows but most of us forget that Russian River water users from Ukiah to Healdsburg didn't have any water storage, nor were there any guaranteed flows downstream for fish, until the mid-20th century when Coyote Dam was constructed. I've always had a personal interest in this place, since a grandmother, Sarah Burns Geniella, was born in Coyote Valley in 1864. Imagine how her farming family lived then. Thanks for posting photo, John Johns.

SUPERVISOR MULHEREN (facebook): “To respond or not to respond?, that is the question. … There’s been some letters to the editor, there have been some comments on social media about a number of things including how I run the meetings and homelessness and specific individuals. A lot of really important topics that are coming up. I’d love to address those and will be doing that here on this page [facebook: mo4mendo]. If you’d like to ask me a question instead of writing about me on the internet, it’s 707 391-6664.” 

PERHAPS a better question would be: “To respond or not to the original comment in writing?” Supervisor Mulheren could “address those comments” in writing for public review instead of with a semi-private video for her facebook friends on her own facebook page or in a private phone call. We’d be happy to post her responses. But the County Supervisor and current Board Chair prefers to refer to comments she doesn’t like indirectly phrased in her own misleading way — as she does in this recent post — with a facebook video where there’s no written record and conveniently avoiding the original complaint or who made it. We’re pretty sure one of the comments she’s bothered by is Jim Shields’ latest column pointing out Brown Act violations engineered by Supervisor Mulheren. Also criticism of her cutting off discussion of Supervisor Gjerde’s mention of a senior grant-writing position that he felt was no longer required, and people disputing her claim that homelessness is down in Mendocino County. By only summarizing what she’s responding to without quoting the original complaint or responding to the source, the Supervisor can paraphrase the original complaint, make it sound frivolous, tell her facebook friends how unfair they are, and avoid further discussion. Further, she can keep the viewers of her facebook page from seeing the original complaint, depriving her facebook friends of assessing the original complaint which provoked a response. Also, the Supervisor’s characterization of the comments as from “social media” (Shields and his paper the Mendocino Observer, the Ukiah Daily Journal and the AVA are not “social media”) and as “writing about me” is misleading. The comments were about her performance as Board chair on the public dime in a public setting, not about her personally. Either way, since this is the way she prefers to respond, we’ll be paying attention to her facebook page videos and responses as usual. 

(Mark Scaramella)

ED NOTES

YEARS AGO, I wrote a long story about the ordeal of a woman named Carol Mardeusz to get custody of her then-pre-school age daughter. A trim, attractive blonde woman on the sunny side of forty, she'd been the court reporter for one of my court appearances. She had called me to say she thought I'd been wronged, which of course endeared her to me, but had wasted no time launching into how she'd also been wronged in the courtrooms of Sonoma County. Ms. M's complaint seemed emblematic, and still does, of the raging custody disputes that rage on in courts across the land.

MS. MARDEUSZ had suffered an unfortunate infatuation with a well-connected Sonoma County fellow named Leo Magers. Magers’ mother was even better connected than her wayward son, having many personal associations with Sonoma County’s power people. Ms. Mardeusz had nobody but herself and her own dogged inability to approach the dispute with cunning and stealth. She just couldn’t keep it together long enough to fight smart for her little girl.

THE LEGAL SITE of the Mardeusz-Magers custody dispute was Santa Rosa where the court reporter's putative mother-in-law had all the advantages. Ms. Mardeusz, ordinarily sane, was instantly driven mad by what she saw as an arbitrary custody decision to give her daughter to an unfit father. She was a single woman up against a connected local family and her own unhinged courtroom behavior.

CAROL MARDEUSZ lost. Given the father's record, and properly representation, she might have won custody of her daughter, a young child who, it seemed to me, belonged with her mother, as most young children do. Ms. M had raised another daughter by herself, and that kid — a straight-A student free of even a hint of surly adolescence frequently characteristic of the teen beast, was the quality kid any parent would be grateful for. Young people generally reflect the ability of their parents to be parents, as most of us know and, on the evidence of her first daughter, Ms. M was a model parent.

WHEN I MET MS. MARDEUSZ and her daughter I was instantly on her side based simply on the evidence of this impressively together child. Also, Ms. M was restrained in my presence, only occasionally breaking into heated denunciations of “the system” she thought had wronged her. 

I THOUGHT that any social worker and family court czar who claimed that sole custody of Ms. Mardeusz’s second child should go to the child’s father and not her mother would have to be backed up by some serious evidence of Ms. Mardeusz’s parental inability.

THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE that Mardeusz was in any way unfit. There was an abundance of evidence that her ex, Leo Magers, was a drug player, woman beater, unemployed and probably unemployable — facts irrefutably documented by Sonoma County court records. If it weren’t for his mother constantly picking up the pieces of his disastrous life for him, including nearly full-time care of his and Ms. Mardeusz’s little girl, the guy would have been sleeping in doorways. But his mother wanted the little girl, and Ms. Mardeusz's unhinged behavior in court got the sedate, determined older woman what she wanted, her errant son's daughter.

MS. MARDEUSZ argued to the court that her daughter wasn’t safe with her father. Her fears did tend to express themselves in wild accusations about him she was not able to support, but Ms. Mardeusz knew her ex was dangerously out of control from her experience with him and not the kind of guy who should have custody of a five-year-old. 

MS. M went for months at a time without so much as an hour with her daughter. When she was finally allowed regular visits, they had to be in the company of a social worker, and then only for an hour or so at a time. 

THE CHILD barely knew who her mother was. 

THE SYSTEM seemed to ignore what they see every day in custody cases, that loss of a child to an unfit other can make the non-custodial parent crazy.

AND it kept getting worse for the court reporter. One day, when she dropped by her daughter’s school simply to be near enough to her to say hello and to gage the child’s well-being, mom became a criminal herself and lost all access to her daughter when she was charged with kidnapping. 

MOM fought on, but one morning I picked up the Press Democrat and read she'd been arrested again and charged, for the second time, with kidnapping. 

NOT LONG after that sad, doomed attempt by Mom to see the blood of her blood, flesh of her flesh, the Press Democrat reported that Leo Magers’ current love interest, Anna Marie Cavazos, 33, was found dead in Magers’ Rohnert Park home. 

THE POLICE said the “circumstances” of Ms. Cavazos death were “suspicious” in that Ms. Cavazos appeared to have been beaten to death.

NOT THAT I’M any more perspicuous than the next person, but I think like the large majority of my fellow citizens I can usually tell who’s nuts and who isn’t. I knew Carol Mardeusz wasn’t all that nuts, but I remember being assured “off the record” by several persons close to the case that she wasn’t “all there.” When I argued that her teenage daughter certainly had it together for a kid raised by an alleged crazy woman, one social worker calmly replied, “Lots of kids raised by crazy people have it together.”

I LOST track of Carol Mardeusz. She used to call regularly then she didn't. Her daughters would have children of their own by now, and I hope they know that their mother, in her way, tried to do her best for them. 

CATCH OF THE DAY, Monday, May 13, 2024

JASMINE BAILEY, Ukiah. Petty theft.

ALBERTO BONILLA, Healdsburg/Ukiah. DUI, misdemeanor hit&run with property damage, false ID, suspended license for DUI, probation revocation.

DEMETRIUS COX, Quincy/Laytonville. DUI causing bodily injury, suspended license for DUI, probation violation.

GREGORY COX, Vallejo/Ukiah. Attempted robbery.

CESAR DELCAMPO-VELASQUEZ, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs, probation revocation.

MATTHEW FAUST, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs. (Frequent flyer.)

ISAAC GARCIA, Ukiah. Domestic battery.

GERARDO GARCIA-CORREA, Santa Helena/Ukiah. DUI.

KENDALL JENSEN, Ukiah. Assault with deadly weapon not a gun, resisting.

JUAN SANCHEZMONTIEL, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs.

CLIFFORD PEEK, Willits. Probation revocation.

ELIZABETH POE, Lucerne/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol. 

MICHAEL SCHERR, Fort Bragg. Domestic abuse.

JAIME TINAJERO, Ukiah. No license, failure to appear, probation revocation.

JALAHN TRAVIS, Ukiah. Petty theft.

CINCO DE MAYO WITH THE FAMILY

by Doug Holland

Dear Diary,

I spent Sunday afternoon at the home of my brother Clay and his wife Karen, with my brother Dick and his wife Young-sook, and with Leon, who's a lifelong friend to me and both my brothers. The six of us shared lunch, then watched a ball game, sort of, and a movie, sort of, and our time together was mostly OK.

But me being me, I have a few complaints.

First, as I've said probably every time I've gone to Clay & Karen's house, I will never understand why they choose to live so far from civilization. In a metroplex of about four million people, I can get very nearly anyplace on public transit, but their home is in an isolated patch of the next county south, miles from any bus access.

Since I don't drive, I need a ride to get to Clay & Karen's house. This puts my arrival and especially my departure at the mercy of others, and I hate that. Their house is the only place I go, where I can't arrive and depart when I wish.

This is why I limit my visits to twice yearly. 

* * *

As usual, my ride was with Leon, and I chipped in for gas. Our routine is, I take a half-hour bus ride from my house to the shopping mall, where Leon picks me up for the drive to Clay's house, which takes an hour if traffic is light.

Today, traffic sucked on the way home, so the totals are: We spent seven hours at Clay & Karen's house, plus three and a half hours in traffic. Factor in a fifteen minute walk to and from the bus stop, and it was an eleven hour day.

And for all of it except the bus ride, I had to be “on” and chatty. The last time I was “on” and chatty for so long was the previous time I'd visited my brother's house.

This is another reason I limit my visits to twice yearly. 

* * *

At their home, Karen served a lovely Cinco de Mayo spread — your choice of tortillas or burritos, with a counter full of options for fillings. I ate two excellent burritos, and also pigged out on store-bought sliced veggies and dip.

The veggies and dip tasted fine, but were leftovers from a few days earlier, perhaps past their prime. After the beany burritos and aged vegetables I spent the fifth and again the seventh inning of the baseball game passing two explosive poops in the bathroom.

Which is right off the living room. Nobody said anything, but I'm sure the whole family could hear every squirt of pressurized liquid from my anus.

* * *

The baseball game was fine, and our local team won, 5-4 — yippee, the Mariners are still in first place.

But despite being played a thousand miles away, the game was blacked out for local television. We “watched” by following text reports on screen, pitch by pitch, as the game progressed. Basically, we read the ball game instead of watching it.

* * *

After the game, came the movie. All of us like baseball, so I'd suggested a rewatch of The Rookie (2002), a pleasant enough movie about a 30-something school teacher who gets a very late-in-life shot at playing major league baseball.

Clay & Karen instead suggested Rookie of the Year (1993), which is also a baseball movie, and they promised it was great. I hadn't seen or even heard of it, so that's what we watched, and, OMG it's stupid.

It's about a 12-year-old boy who breaks his arm, and when it heals he can inexplicably throw 100-mph fastballs, so he's signed to play for the Chicago Cubs. 

The movie doesn't even know baseball. First, nobody under the age of 17 is allowed in the major leagues. The 12-year-old doesn't begin in the minors, nor does he even practice with the team before his first day in pro baseball, when he's the relief pitcher in a game against the New York Mets.

On and on I could go, but I'd rather let the movie rinse itself from my memory.

To be fair, Rookie of the Year is aimed at 6-year-olds, and when it came out in '93, Clay & Karen's two sons were about that age. I'm sure the kids loved it, and it's a happy memory for their parents. But no adult should be subjected to it without children in the room and a good book to read instead of watching the movie.

* * *

Clay asked how my job hunt is going, and I answered truthfully that I'll be homeless at the end of May. Everyone laughed, and laughed again when I added, “No, seriously.”

Other than that, the conversation with Clay and Karen and Leon was shallow and innocuous, but pleasant.

As was the conversation with Dick, but Dick is loud. I've asked him many times to speak more quietly, and any time we're at breakfast together, someone or everyone at the table asks the same.

It's something I don't understand about the guy — if people told me twice that I was too loud, I would lower my voice, probably forever. Dick never does. Today he sat beside me on the couch in Clay's living room, and everything he said was loud.

Clay, Karen, and Leon asked him to lower his voice, and he did, but only for a moment before growing loud again. I didn't even ask. He gave me a headache, but I've given up pleading with him about the volume.

Dick is also the most outspoken right-winger in the family, and today he repeatedly attempted steering the conversation into politics. Though we've never planned or coordinated a response to this, everyone else in the room ignored and/or interrupted him each time he tried telling us about yesterday's episode of Huckabee, a political talk show I'd never heard of, starring Mike Huckabee, the eminently hate-able former Governor of Arkansas.

Dick's wife, Young-sook, speaks about a dozen words of English, and spoke them all, and Dick can only speak about the same number of words in Korean, which is her only language. Their marriage remains a mystery to everyone in the family, and I try (and fail) not to judge.

When she's bored at family events like this, she always wanders off — and how could she not be bored, when we're all talking in a language she doesn't know? So she wandered off, and when Dick decided they'd be the first to leave, he had to walk the neighborhood half an hour looking for her.

* * *

After a few thank yous and hugs goodbye, Leon and I got into his car and headed back to Seattle, but here's one last complaint:

The passenger seat belt in Leon's car is kinda broken, so it sometimes comes unbuckled when we ride over a bump. Being paranoid of splattering in a wreck, I never ride unbuckled, so all the way south, and then all the way north, I held on to the buckle to ensure it wouldn't unbuckle.

And I don't mind doing this. Been doing it for years, whenever I'm in Leon's car.

The buckle is on the left side of the seat, but for reasons unknown, today I held it with my right hand, stretched across my chest, coming and going for an hour each way. This has left me with an aching chest in the evening. At least, that's my only theory for why my chest aches.

* * *

And that's my Cinco de Mayo, 2024. I gave my family the entire day, I'm exhausted, my chest hurts, I still have a Dick headache from his loud talking, and I'd like to speak with no-one, please, until at least Wednesday.

But despite everything, it was the best time I've had with family in years. 

CLUELESS LEADERSHIP

Editor,

That recent Chronicle editorial on PG&E’s fixed-fee plan shines a bright light on the dysfunction of California politics, led by the state Public Utilities Commission president who can’t understand why it’s getting so much attention. This illustrates just how out of touch an unelected leader of an unaccountable state agency can be.

And what about our state legislators who voted AB205 into law apparently without even reading it? Most of them seemed surprised there was a fixed fee for utilities in it. But killing a bill in committee (AB999) that would have limited the utility fee to $10 a month is inexcusable.

The Commission had killed rooftop solar, despite state mandates to eliminate gas-powered cars and natural gas home appliances, while approving over 30% in electric rate increases the last two years.

There has never been a better case for rooftop solar for all. It’s the only way to protect ourselves from the plunder, greed and extortion by PG&E.

Lawrence Bothen

Pacifica

WHERE’S NEWSOM?

Editor,

The California Public Utilities Commission is appointed by Governor Gavin Newsom and consequently he is the only elected official with significant influence over its decisions.

Newsom’s voice has not been heard regarding the decision on fixed fees for utilities and many other decisions by the commission. Most notably the Commission's vote to radically change the compensation for home solar, which could result in the loss of thousands of solar jobs and the closure of hundreds of small businesses.

The governor needs to reclaim his environmental credentials and rein in the utility loving Public Utilities Commission.

Tom Gruly

Berkeley

EQUITABLE SOLAR POWER

Editor,

The media advocate for using all forms of renewable energy — including community solar — yet the California Public Utilities Commission has delayed its vote on the Access Program Tariffs and Community Renewable Energy Program until May 30.

The Commission’s decision that will have major ramifications on the future of community solar and in turn for the future of equitable, affordable, reliable energy choice in California.

In March the Commission approved a watered down version of a community solar programming structure that will not scale or provide meaningful benefits to citizens.

This flies in the fact of a bipartisan, industry-wide proposal called the Net Value Billing Tariff that could take advantage of state and federal funding to bring more scalable and equitable renewable energy t4o California.

I urge the state Public Utilities Commission to work with all stakeholders to ensure that the best program is considered for all Californians. 

Sarah Moon, co-founder

Fieldworks Power, San Francisco

CALIFORNIA HOME INSURANCE: MAP REVEALS STATE FARM’S LATEST PRICE HIKES BY ZIP CODE

State Farm just raised home insurance rates an average of 20% across California, but some homeowners will pay far more. 

by Megan Van Munce

This spring, State Farm General Insurance Company raised homeowners insurance rates an average of 20% in California — but the size of the increase varies dramatically in different parts of the state, company data shows.

Some Californians saw their rates more than double when the increases took effect in March, while others may be paying only about 1% more than they were before, according to State Farm’s filings with the California Department of Insurance. The Chronicle is mapping the increases for the first time, using ZIP code-level data.

More than 1.9 million policyholders were affected by the rate increase, according to the filing from State Farm, which is California’s largest property and casualty insurer.

In San Francisco, people in most ZIP codes will see increases about the size of the statewide average — 20%. But in one part of San Bernardino County, policyholders will pay nearly double. These numbers are still just averages within each ZIP code; individual homes within a given ZIP may see different rate changes, with high-risk properties generally seeing faster increases.

“This rate change is driven by increased costs and risk,” State Farm said in a statement in January, when its rate increases were first approved. Asked for comment last week, the company referred to its earlier statement.

This month, Travelers Insurance, California’s sixth-largest property and casualty insurer, was approved to raise rates an average of 15% for its Quantum Home 2.0 program. Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a plan last week to speed the state's rate-approval process, which has sometimes dragged on for a year or more and contributed to insurers’ discontent.

Rates don’t completely reflect what all individual customers pay, said Janet Ruiz, strategic communications director for the Insurance Information Institute. Instead, they set the base cost of insuring a home. A homeowner’s premium — the amount paid to the insurance company — is determined by specific characteristics of a home, she said.

Older homes, for example, typically cost more to insure. Home values also impact the amount of premium paid, according to Michael Soller, deputy insurance commissioner with the Department of Insurance.

“You may have a good loss history or improvements you do to your home. All those things are individual,” Ruiz said. “It’s a complex system, and that’s why you may pay more than your neighbor.”

The Chronicle was able to calculate the average premiums for homeowners before and after the rate increase, as shown in the map and table. That data includes only 1.2 million homeowners and excludes roughly 700,000 condo owners or people with rental policies.

When setting rates, insurance companies consider all types of risk, according to Ruiz — from destructive wildfires to devastating storms, both of which are becoming more common due to climate change. In California, rate increase requests are based on 20 years of historical loss data, she said. Insurance rates also take into account wildfire risk scores — a numerical score or category that rates a home’s wildfire risk based on factors such as what type of roof it has or how much natural fuel there is for a fire, Soller said.

Homeowners who perform wildfire mitigation efforts — such as establishing defensible space around their home or installing double-pane windows — can qualify for discounts on their insurance under the department’s Safer from Wildfires regulation, according to Soller.

In the past seven years, State Farm has raised its homeowners insurance rates six times — one in every year except 2019. In each of those years except for 2024, State Farm raised its average rates by 6.9%, according to its filings with the state. That percentage rise avoids the potential for a public hearing, which consumer advocates can request for proposed rate increases of 7% or more.

The places that saw State Farm’s biggest rate increases this March appear to largely line up with the worst wildfire risk score areas, noted Amy Bach, executive director of the consumer advocacy group United Policyholders.

Among those areas is the Sierra Nevada foothills, where large forests are vulnerable to massive blazes, such as the Caldor Fire in 2021. In the 95633 ZIP code in El Dorado County, rates rose 103.9% — an average premium increase of $4,175. There, the vast majority of homes fall into either the high or very high fire risk exposure category, the latest Department of Insurance data shows.

In Ojai in Ventura County, 882 policyholders will see their bills go up an average of $2,858 — more than 75% higher than before.

Bryan Crawford, an Ojai-based independent insurance broker, said several companies have been raising rates in the area, principally due to wildfire risk. In late 2017, the Thomas Fire burned more than 280,000 acres across Santa Barbara and Ventura counties just southeast of Ojai.

Some area residents have seen their rates as much as triple, according to Crawford. Many people living in the Ojai Valley — with its hot, dry summers and brush vegetation — feel blindsided when their bills go up hundreds of dollars at once, even if they are aware of the wildfire risk, he said.

“Truly, you don’t know the impact until it hits you,” Crawford said.

Rate increases are just one way insurance companies are responding to perceived increased risks. Many major insurers, including State Farm and Allstate, also have stopped offering new homeowners policies in the state. In March, State Farm announced it would also not renew 30,000 personal property policies in the state, as shown in a map previously published by the Chronicle.

State Farm was approved for its latest rate increase in December, three months before it announced the wave of nonrenewals, which are set to start happening this summer.

Some of the areas with the most risk, such as rural communities surrounded by brush or heavily forested neighborhoods, may see both higher rates and nonrenewals. In the 94515 area code near Calistoga, State Farm raised rates an average of 35.7% and also did not renew roughly half of its policies. By contrast, in the 95457 ZIP code, part of Lake County, State Farm raised rates by an average of 63.5% but did not drop any policies.

While the impacts of the insurance crisis are being felt most in areas with wildfire risk, policyholders nearly everywhere are affected. Brokers across the state say they are struggling to find available or affordable insurance for their clients, according to Steve Young, general counsel for the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of California.

“Every one of them tells us this is one of the greatest availability crises that they’ve ever experienced in their careers,” Young said.

“I don’t think there’s any area of the state right now that is not feeling this pressure.”

ULTRAPROCESSED DEADLY CORPORATE FOOD DEMANDS ACTION

by Ralph Nader

About forty-five years ago, at a social gathering, I asked an executive of a Minneapolis-based large food processing company if he fed heavily sugared cereals to his children. He smiled as he shook his head. Smart person. His and other major companies producing what is now called Ultraprocessed Foods (UPFs) had scientists and labs. They knew that ever higher doses of sugars, fats, and salts were being poured into nutritionally stripped foods and deceptively promoted to youngsters on kiddy television. They profitably ignored the serious damage they were causing!

These companies’ marketeers succeeded in getting these children, as my mother would say, to turn their tongues against their brains. The children were also shown how to nag their parents into buying junk food and drink. In fact, Madison Avenue advertising firms would give high ratings for ads “with a high nag factor.”

It was about 1980 when obesity rates started rising at alarming rates. Now about 30% of adults are obese, another 35% are overweight. Recently, a Goldman Sachs study estimated that by 2028 up to 70 million Americans will be taking the new weight-loss drugs, whose longer-term effects are yet to be known. Their apparent present success in suppressing extra food intake is already worrying the fast-food chains like McDonald’s that thrive on selling huge cheeseburgers.

It was also about 1980 when the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) staff and its leader, Dr. Michael Jacobson, were appearing in the mass media and on major national talk shows. They graphically showed the public the large amounts of fat, sugar, and salt that were in the hot dogs, potato chips, and soft drinks they consumed. Millions of Americans started changing their food purchases toward multi-grained breads and more fresh fruits and vegetables. Many people became vegetarians. But most consumers remained wedded to misleadingly promoted and greatly diluted UPFs, short on nutrition and long on harm to their health.

During recent decades there has been an increase in peer-reviewed scientific studies showing that certain foods you can easily buy in the markets can increase your life expectancy while others reduce your longevity. Long-time medical and science reporter/author Jean Carper boiled down these findings into a highly usable new little book titled, “100 Life or Death Foods: A Scientific Guide to Which Foods Prolong Life or Kill You Prematurely.” (See my recent column New Book: Choosing Regular Food to Extend Longevity, April 12, 2024).

On May 8, 2024 – the New York Times defined Ultraprocessed Foods (UPFs) as “using industrial methods and ingredients you wouldn’t typically find in grocery stores – like high-fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils and concentrated proteins like soy isolate. They often contain additives like flavorings, colorings or emulsifiers to make them appear more attractive and palatable. Think sodas and energy drinks, chips, candies, flavored yogurts, margarine, chicken nuggets, hot dogs, sausages, lunch meats, boxed macaroni and cheese, infant formulas and most packaged breads, plant milks, meat substitutes and breakfast cereals.”

The Times continued: “In a large review of studies that was published in 2024, scientists reported that consuming UPFs was associated with 32 health problems, with the most convincing evidence for heart disease-related deaths, Type 2 diabetes and common mental health issues like anxiety and depression.” Caution, not all UPFs are associated with these problems.

UPFs make up two-thirds of the calories consumed by children and teenagers in the United States. Still, the giant food companies are getting away with little regulation, especially for their heaviest advertising that pushes their profitable ultraprocessed foods. Have you ever seen TV ads for fresh carrots, radishes, celery, lentils, spinach, kale and asparagus? Unlikely. The mass merchandising ads go for foods, described by a report in the journal BMJ, as “designed by manufacturers to achieve a certain ‘bliss point,’ which causes us to crave and overeat them. They also tend to be low in nutrients, such as fiber, vitamins and minerals.”

We are behind other governments in our official dietary guidelines. Canada and Mexico recommend avoiding or limiting UPFs while the U.S. guidelines make no mention of them. Such is the dominance of giant agribusiness corporations over the indentured U.S. Department of Agriculture and the mostly bought members of the Senate and House Agriculture Committees.

This corporate interference also extends to constantly putting such UPFs into school lunch programs.

Absent taking over the 535 members of corporate Congress by 250 million eligible voters, we are left with parents and their children availing themselves of publications such as CSPI’s Nutrition Action newsletter to become smart buyers and consumers of safer, healthier, nutritious food. If you can, add a home garden to your food supply.

Some of these simple recipes, often called a Mediterranean diet, are in my “Ralph Nader and Family Cookbook,” (2020) with an introduction on how my mother educated us very early on to want to eat nutritious foods prepared to be delicious as well. She baked her own bread, cooked “from scratch” and avoided processed foods with unknown ingredients, such as hot dogs.

Our snacks were fresh fruits and vegetables, including chickpeas, munched while walking to school. For a sweet taste, we were treated to honey and maple syrup. We were taught not to whine because it wasn’t smart and didn’t get us anywhere.

Parents are protectors of their children. They have to be especially on guard to protect their children from pervasive direct mass marketing, using influencers, peer groups, and abduction of their youngsters into the Internet Gulag. The earlier in their child’s life that parents do their job, the easier it will be. Children so liberated can become active allies of Mom and Dad, showcasing their special knowledge. (See, “You Are Your Own Best Teacher! Sparking the Curiosity, Imagination, and Intellect of Tweens” by Dr. Claire Nader).

COHEN, IN TELL-ALL DETAIL, PAINTS DAMNING PORTRAIT OF HIS WORK FOR TRUMP

Michael ‘Mr. Fix-It’ Cohen bombs on the stand, offers no new evidence to convict Trump

by Jonathan Turley

Michael Cohen apparently wants a reality show but, if his testimony Monday is any indication, reality is about to sink in for not just Cohen but the prosecutors and the court.

In stoking interest in his own appearance, the former Trump counsel promised the public that they should be “prepared to be surprised.”

Thus far, however, Cohen has offered nothing new and, more importantly, nothing to make the case for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

Just before he took the stand, the New York Post revealed that Cohen has been peddling a reality show called “The Fixer,” including working with Colin Whelan, who helped create “Joe Exotic: Tigers, Lies and Cover-Up.” Whelan appears interested to stay within that genre.

The Cohen pitch came with a cheesy promo video where he promised viewers, “I am your fixer.” 

His first post-Trump client, Bragg, may have to disagree. 

Cohen had only one advantage for Bragg: His notoriously flexible morals and ethics, which allows him to say most anything to support his sponsors. 

With the prosecution’s case almost over, Bragg needed Cohen to clearly state that Trump intentionally committed fraud to conceal some still poorly defined crime. 

The problem is that Cohen only confirmed that Trump knew he was going to pay for the nondisclosure agreement and that it would be buried before the election. None of that is unlawful. 

On his reality show promo, Cohen tells viewers that he is now there to fix their problems because “the little guy doesn’t usually have access to people with my particular set of skills.”

Those skills seem to have escaped all of the witnesses who were compelled to work with him.

Witnesses detailed how Cohen was ridiculed as someone “prone to exaggeration” and unprofessional. 

Former Trump associate Hope Hicks said that Cohen was constantly trying to insinuate himself into the campaign and that he “used to like to call himself Mister Fix It, but it was only because he first broke it.”

Cohen only succeeded in confirming that he put together this payment and advised Trump to go forward with it.

He assured him that it would effectively kill the story before the election.

None of that is illegal. The “Fix it man” assured Trump that he fixed it and now wants Trump to go to jail for following that advice.

In the course of that representation, Cohen also admitted to taping his client without his knowledge, a breathtaking breach of trust and confidentiality.

This is the man who, according to Stormy Daniels’ attorney, Keith Davidson, expected to be Trump’s Attorney General.

Davidson said that Cohen was “depressed and despondent” and “I thought he was going to kill himself” when he realized that he would not be made a cabinet member.

Cohen contradicted Davidson and insisted that he only wanted to be Trump’s personal lawyer.

He also admitted that he was unaware that the publisher of National Enquirer, David Pecker, had long killed negative stories about Trump and other celebrities for decades.

Cohen has yet to fix the problem for Bragg.

More importantly, he has added to the problem for Judge Juan Merchan. Many of us have ridiculed this case as devoid of any criminal act.

Indeed, Merchan has allowed the prosecutors to proceed without clearly stating what crime was being concealed.

It is not even clear why paying one’s lawyer a lump sum for his services and costs (including the NDA payment) was not a “legal expense” or how it was supposed to be entered on a business ledger.

Absent a sudden epiphany in his final testimony on Tuesday, Merchan should rule in favor of a directed verdict — that is, throwing the case out before it goes to a jury. If he instead sends this farcical case to the jury, it is Merchan, not Cohen, who may have a better claim to a reality show as the ultimate “Fix It Man.”

(Jonathan Turley is an attorney and professor at George Washington University Law School.)

KILLING DOGS. TAUNTING THE HOMELESS. PRAISING AL CAPONE. THIS IS TRUMP’S PARTY.

by Michael Goldberg

John McEntee — who started out carrying Donald Trump’s bags and rose to become, in the chaotic final days of Trump’s presidency, his most important enforcer — has a TikTok account. In a video he published last week, he explains how he likes to keep “fake Hollywood money” in his car to give to homeless people. “Then when they go to use it, they get arrested, so I’m actually like helping clean up the community,” he said.

With his boyish face and slicked-back hair, McEntee, the former director of the White House Office of Presidential Personnel and a man likely to be central to staffing a future Trump administration, comes off a lot like Patrick Bateman, the homicidal investment banker played by Christian Bale in the 2000 film “American Psycho.” The clip’s smug villainy, I think, offers a clue to why South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, thirsty for a bigger role in MAGA world, might have thought she could ingratiate herself by bragging about killing a puppy.

Right wingers often rain contempt on what they call virtue signaling, a performative kind of sanctimony epitomized by the “In This House” yard signs that once dotted progressive neighborhoods. Partly in response, they’ve developed what’s sometimes called vice signaling, the defiant embrace of cruelty and disdain for social norms. Think of “rolling coal,” the practice of modifying diesel engines to make them belch dark exhaust in an effort to trigger environmentalists, or the way George Santos’s promiscuous falsehoods endeared him to hard-core MAGA acolytes.

A cult of Bateman has developed on the very online right, which is why images from “American Psycho” appeared multiple times in a bizarre ad for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis during his abortive presidential campaign. And no one, of course, does vice signaling like Trump, who keeps comparing himself to the gangster Al Capone.

For years Noem has been trying, with a parvenu’s pathos, to fit into Trump’s circle. She’s jettisoned the sensible haircuts and subtle makeup of her early political career for the Palm Beach look popular at Mar-a-Lago, and brought on Trump’s former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski as a top adviser. Two months ago, she put out a bizarre, infomercial-style social media spot about traveling to Texas for cosmetic dentistry, which seemed like an attempt to show Trump her aptitude for corrupt and shameless salesmanship. (The consumer advocacy group Travelers United is now suing her for deceptive advertising.)

Until recently she was considered a possible Trump vice-presidential prospect, and her new book, “No Going Back,” could have been titled “Pick Me!” In it, she criticizes former R.N.C. chair Ronna McDaniel for not doing more to investigate “fishy voting” after Trump’s 2020 defeat and blasts Nikki Haley for trying to distance herself from Trump after Jan. 6. Writing about what she’d do if she were to become president, she says, nonsensically, that she’d hire John Kerry just for the pleasure of being able to tell him, “You’re fired!”

The dog-killing anecdote for which Noem is now famous should be seen in the context of this effort to mold herself to the MAGA movement’s specifications. As you’ve probably heard by now, Noem devotes several pages of her slim memoir to killing first Cricket, a disobedient 14-month-old pointer, and then a “nasty and mean” goat.

According to Politico, she wanted to put this story in her first book, which came out two years ago, but her publishing team nixed it. Apparently, she felt strongly enough about it to try again; it’s a tale she sees as important to her persona. This has puzzled many observers. “Were there no other personal anecdotes available?” asked a National Review writer. “Is she unaware that humans are fond of dogs?”

The story’s inclusion makes more sense when you think about the kind of humans she’s trying to impress. The ex-president and the people who surround him often seem drawn to violence and lurid displays of dominance. Trump, of course, makes no secret either of his contempt for dogs or his admiration for brutal dictators like North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, whom Noem falsely claimed to have met.

The thuggish Lewandowski was charged with battery after grabbing a Breitbart reporter in 2016, though the charges were later dropped, and then charged again with misdemeanor battery in 2022 after making aggressive sexual advances against a Trump donor’s wife, for which he entered into a plea agreement. (That incident led Noem to cut ties with Lewandowski for a time, but he’s apparently back in her good graces, and in Trump’s; The New York Times reported that he could play a role in the 2024 Republican convention.)

McEntee, a senior adviser on personnel for Project 2025, the right’s plan for a second Trump administration, is going to be the gateway to many White House jobs. And Trump’s two older sons, of course, love posting photos of themselves with the dead trophy animals they hunt.

It makes sense that someone trying to navigate this milieu would think the Cricket story makes her look good. Though Noem now claims it was meant to illustrate her ability make hard choices, there’s a breeziness to the way she talks about it in the book. Toward the end, she tries to taunt Joe Biden over his out-of-control German shepherd: “Commander, say hello to Cricket for me.”

If such clumsy brutality blew up in Noem’s face, it’s in part because Americans tend to care about dogs more than people, but also because the scene she depicts is so squalid. Successful vice signaling should have a certain intentionality. The conservative Washington Examiner, in an article about Bateman’s appeal to young right-wing men, said, “He wields control over himself and his surroundings, something many young men, especially conservatives, feel is unattainable to them.”

Noem, by contrast, made herself look out of control; she was enraged by the dog, and when she decided on a whim to kill the goat as well, she didn’t bring enough bullets to do it right the first time. There’s nothing aspirational about this grubby, wild-eyed flailing. And I’d imagine that Republicans — though not just Republicans — find it especially distasteful coming from a woman.

Still, her failed attempt to show herself worthy of Trump is telling about how she understands the MAGA ethos. Imitation, the old saw goes, is the highest form of flattery. It can also be an inadvertent insult.

MONSTER MASH-UP

by James Kunstler

“My take is that the US is incredibly unstable right now, and could go in almost any imaginable direction between now and the election, as well as some unimaginable ones.” —John Michael Greer

Did you notice that it took just a little bit of internal chaos to alert the Party of Chaos that maybe chaos wasn’t the greatest thing to be the party of? Something went awry the past two weeks when thousands of creamy coeds on every campus across America donned the keffiyeh and, in effect, demanded submission to history’s most notorious misogynist cult. It struck a most cacophonous chord among progressives, like Kumbaya as orchestrated by Karlheinz Stockhausen. To awaken from Wokery, you see, is a brutal shock to the brain.

And so, over the weekend every big dog in the Democratic Party’s doghouse came out barking against the current direction of the Democratic Party — that is, over an electoral cliff, lemming-style. Bill Clinton lamented at the Milken Conference that “the political rewards of grievance politics and name-calling and being negative have been so immense that nobody could give’em up. That’s what this whole shebang has come down to now.”

James Carville had a veritable nervous breakdown on X: “It’s going the wrong way, it’s not working. Everything we’re throwing is spaghetti at a wall, and none of it is sticking, me included.” Fareed Zakaria over on CNN confessed that “None of this is playing out the way I thought it would.” Gee, really?

None of them could bring themselves to actually name the doddering donkey in the room, “Joe Biden.” Nor did they dare call out the stage manager behind the old Joe-from-Scranton show, Barack Obama, not exactly coasting into his fourth term, as expected. They’re all surprised the way things are turning out. And, of course, “JB” himself did not come out of his Rehoboth Beach hidey-hole after declaring no more bullets and missiles for you, Israel, which landed amongst the Party’s donor class like a tear-gas bomb.

Hillary Clinton popped up on the Morning Joe show wearing royal purple to remind the audience that Donald Trump is another Hitler, threatening “the sanctity of the Constitution” and adding “maybe this will be our last election.” If she’s putting herself up as possible last-minute replacement for the ever more ghostly “Joe Biden,” she was not so crass as to say so. The party will have to come pleading to her on its knees, hoping she can once again muster the legions of indignant women to oppose the wicked Golden Golem of Greatness — who was, that very day, on display in a Manhattan courtroom having to endure the jibes of the paradigmatic wronged woman, porn-star Stormy Daniels.

What else have they got, really? Gavin Newsom? If Mr. Trump is Hitler, then think of Mr. Newsom as Godzilla with hair gel. Imagine what he could do to the whole USA after trashing California, as he has managed to do. Sorry to tell you, but in an election contest between Hitler and Godzilla, Hitler would probably win. It’s a rock-paper-scissors deal. Any other ringers they might throw in? The only name that ever comes up is Illinois governor JB Pritzker, who actually looks a bit like King Kong, and has certainly done a Kong-job on Chicago. And, by the way, that’s where the Democrats’ convention will happen in August. Wouldn’t it be something to see King Kong versus Godzilla there?

All of which is to say that something beyond desperation has set in amongst the Democrats, an emotion so dire that Elizabeth Kubler Ross couldn’t find a word for it on her transect of grief. They don’t know what to do at this point. They have only a few months to figure it out and there is more at stake than a mere turnover in administrative duties. The shadow of the gibbet looms in their nightmares. Their lawfare schtick was one thing, a kind of fun-and-games compared to what’s coming at them: the actual law, trials for more serious crimes than mere book-keeping errors and mis-pricing real estate valuations. Think: sedition, treason, bribery and tack on conspiracy to commit all the above.

Meanwhile, Mr. Trump provided a further shock to the awakening Woke with a Saturday evening fan meetup down-the-shore in Wildwood, New Jersey. Somewhere between eighty to a hundred-thousand voters showed up in what is said to be among the bluest states in the country. Bruce Springsteen must have been weeping into his avocado toast over in Red Bank. Then, across the Sunday morning news digests there was talk about “a landslide win,” and even more amazed chatter about RINOs and Never-Trumpers returning to the folds of the Golden Golem’s heavenly garment, as though Mr. Trump had virtually Jeezified himself through a year of tribulation.

Will the Democrats just go through the motions the next six months, awaiting execution? Naw. One way or another, they are going to jam Hillary into this psychodrama. Stay tuned for a couple of medical emergencies. First, Kamala Harris will resign on account of a sudden “health problem” that prevents her from attending to her duties. Cancer will be implied but not spelled out. “Joe Biden” will appoint HRC of the Purple Pantsuit as veep. Three weeks later, “JB” will submit his resignation for medical reasons, and nobody will need to ask why. Voila! The first woman president, she-whose-turn-has-finally-come, flies triumphantly out of the Democratic Convention in her hometown, Chicago, like Rodan the Flying Reptile emerging from the mythic volcano, cawing her battle-cry across the land. The Golden Golem answers with a roar. The great re-match is on!

REMEMBERING WESTERN WRITER MARI SANDOZ, the author of several histories that demonstrated sympathy for Indians that was unusual for the time, is born in Sheridan County, Nebraska on May 11, 1896.

Sandoz had a difficult childhood on a Nebraska homestead. Her father, Jules, was a bitter, tyrannical man, who took out the frustrations of homesteading on his wife and children. Unusually bright and studious, Sandoz eventually escaped to the University of Nebraska, which she attended irregularly from 1922 to 1930. 

Sandoz authored a number of novels, and today she is remembered for her meticulously researched non-fiction history. Her 1935 biography of her father, Old Jules, is a bittersweet and moving history of homesteading on the Great Plains. Even more valuable, though, were Sandoz’s histories of the Plains Indians. In 1949, she published Crazy Horse, a biography of the great Sioux warrior who participated in the 1876 defeat of George Custer at the Battle of the Little Big Horn. For decades after Little Big Horn, Crazy Horse was usually portrayed as a bloodthirsty savage who helped murder a great American hero. Sandoz’s biography revealed a noble and admirable man dedicated to his people and to resisting white theft of their traditional lands.

Strong willed, ambitious, and dedicated to providing an accurate history, Sandoz’s work marked the beginning of a movement that greatly revised how Americans viewed the history of western settlement. The Indians were not the villains in this great historical drama, Sandoz suggested, but the victims. Mari Sandoz died in 1966, just as many Americans were starting to embrace her more compassionate view of the Native American.

OCCUPATION is not the real elephant in the room, despite Israelis' tendency to conveniently avoid talking about it or seriously trying to resolve the anomaly. Instead, that reality affected, even polluted and decayed, Israel – to the point that Israel is de-facto splitting into two incompatible states.

Sure, the legal system, the military, the bureaucracy and the general cultural characteristics and patriotic attributes remain ostensibly intact. But in essence, there is a civil war raging in Israel. It has not reached Gettysburg levels, but the deep and wide schism is becoming glaringly evident.

The two political value systems are just not reconcilable. “We are fighting the Arabs (or Iran) for our existence” remains the only common thread, and it is weakening. That is a negative definition of national identity: a common enemy and threat, but very little of what unites us in terms of the type of society and country we want to be…

— Alon Pinkas (Haaretz, Israel)

JAPAN RISKS CONDEMNATION TO RESTART COMMERCIAL WHALING

The industry is tiny, but for Tokyo, it is part of a much bigger picture.

by Akane Okutsu

Taiji, Japan -- Fishermen in the village of Taiji are counting the days until July, when they will be able to hunt large, fatty minke whales commercially for the first time in decades.

The community, which faces the Pacific coast of central Japan, is still haunted by its moment in the international spotlight 10 years ago, when the documentary "The Cove" criticized its dolphin culls and attracted a flood of activists. Yet, a sense of optimism is spreading.

"The availability of more types of whales will make more people interested" in eating the meat, predicted Shinichi Shiozaki, who sells processed whale products. "It's a good thing."

Until now, Japan has been catching minkes only for "research purposes" under its scientific whaling program. But last December, the government announced its withdrawal from the International Whaling Commission, meaning whalers will no longer be subject to prohibitions on catching certain species. It will be open season in Japanese waters and the country's exclusive economic zone.

Abandoning a widely accepted international framework never looks good -- particularly not when it relates to an issue as sensitive as whale conservation. So why did Tokyo stick its neck out to defend an industry that barely registers economically?

Taiji, which has historically depended on whaling, is home to about 3,000 people. Cetaceans, including dolphins, accounted for roughly 20% of the village's fishing volume in 2015. The villagers currently catch species that are not protected under IWC rules, such as pilot whales, using one medium-size vessel and numerous small boats.

"The sea is where people find jobs," said Yoshifumi Kai, councilor of the local fisheries association, noting the village is nearly surrounded by water and is ill-suited to agriculture.

But there are only five medium-size whaling boats operating in all of Japan, along with one large vessel and three catcher boats that accompany it. The total whaling crew count is under 200, according to Japan's Fisheries Agency.

Even if those who cut up and process whales are included, very few Japanese livelihoods truly depend on whaling.

Not many Japanese eat whale these days, either.

Annual consumption stood at around 3,000 to 5,000 tons in the past few years, far below the 200,000 tons recorded in the 1960s. The meat may induce nostalgia among older generations -- it used to be a staple of school lunches, thanks to its high nutrition and relatively low cost -- but today demand is limited.

Stores, meanwhile, have faced international pressure to take whale off their shelves. Back in 2003, top retailer Aeon agreed with the Environmental Investigation Agency, a U.K. nongovernmental organization, to cap the number of locations that sell the meat.

At first glance, Japan is tarnishing its global reputation to sustain a minor business with questionable prospects.

"Japan will now join Norway and Iceland as rogue outlaw whaling nations in the North Pacific and the North Atlantic," Linda Gonzales, campaign coordinator of the anti-whaling organization Sea Shepherd, said after the IWC withdrawal announcement.

Still, from the government's perspective it was now or never, and whaling is part of a much bigger picture.

The industry was on the verge of collapsing last year, insiders and experts say.

Sheer cost was one problem. Japan's large whaling ship has been sailing into Antarctic waters, where whales are relatively abundant. But the voyages are expensive, and the vessel is over 30 years old.

The Japan Whaling Association says renewing the ship, which is large enough to dismantle and store whales on board, would cost about 10 billion yen ($91.3 million) -- a huge investment in a business with no clear future.

It is cheaper to hunt commercially in Japan's waters and the EEZ, compared with the Antarctic. Smaller vessels can be used for whaling close to home. It is also easier for Japan to claim it is entitled to hunt within its own maritime territory; the government has said whalers will stop hunting in the Southern Hemisphere.

On top of those considerations, Japan suffered two heavy blows at the IWC last September. At a meeting in Brazil, the commission adopted a declaration that it "reaffirms the importance in maintaining the moratorium on commercial whaling." This dashed Japan's hopes that the moratorium was only temporary.

The whole point of Japan's scientific whaling, according to the government, was to collect enough data so that whale stocks could be maintained without a complete ban.

A Japanese proposal to allow commercial whaling of relatively abundant species was also struck down, nudging Prime Minister Shinzo Abe closer to a grave decision.

Even before the IWC rejection, representatives from the Fisheries Agency and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had been scurrying around the Nagatacho political district in Tokyo, visiting members of Abe's Liberal Democratic Party. "The proposal is likely to be rejected, so we will proceed with a withdrawal plan," one government official told party members.

The government's insistence on whaling, though, is also its way of pushing back against a growing movement to restrict the use of marine resources in general.

Japan's position on whaling "is intended to be a sea wall" to prevent other bans on fishing, said Hideki Moronuki, director for fisheries negotiations at the Fisheries Agency. The world's No. 3 economy still relies on fish for protein.

The agency was especially concerned that bowing to the IWC on whaling would undermine Japan's similar position on tuna, one of the country's most popular fish. Japan is often criticized for being the biggest consumer of bluefin tuna, identified as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Tokyo made a proposal to increase its fishing quota for bluefin last year but was rejected by the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission.

Domestic politics were also a factor.

Small as the whaling business may be, both Abe and powerful LDP Secretary-General Toshihiro Nikai have the industry in their constituencies. "Nikai was constantly pressing the Foreign Ministry and the Fisheries Agency [to enable commercial whaling]," said a source in Nagatacho.

Abe appears to have full confidence in Nikai, having appointed him secetary-general for an unusual third term. And with an upper house election scheduled for July -- with the possibility of a simultaneous lower house election -- this might be the last time two leaders capable of making the decision are in power at the same time.

A minke whale caught on a research voyage is brought into port in Kushiro, on Japan's northern island of Hokkaido. © Kyodo Even after they are freed from IWC constraints, Japanese whalers will still have to abide by certain rules. The Fisheries Agency on Feb. 1 presented draft guidelines to an LDP special committee, identifying the locations and types of whales they will be allowed to catch from July.

A quota will be calculated each year, in line with a standard set by the IWC to conserve whales for a century, the draft said.

Kai, of the fisheries association in Taiji, welcomed the policy shift. "Now we can provide more delicious fresh whale," he said, since fishermen will be able to chase better whales in different areas. The hope is that this will make the meat more appealing to consumers.

Japan's position on whaling "is intended to be a sea wall" to prevent other bans on fishing

While scientific whaling is state funded, Kai added, fishermen hope to eventually turn a profit without subsidies.

It is not clear whether the agency's commercial plan will lead to an increase or decrease in the actual number of whales caught, compared with the research hunts. Another question is what diplomatic price -- if any -- Japan will pay over the long term.

The outcry from activists aside, international criticism of the IWC withdrawal has been relatively mild so far.

The U.K. is a fierce opponent of whaling, and Environment Secretary Michael Gove tweeted in December that he was "extremely disappointed" with Japan's decision. But in January, when Abe visited London, Prime Minister Theresa May did not raise the issue.

When Abe misunderstood a reporter's question, thinking it pertained to Sea Shepherd, May cut in to rescue him. "No," she said, "no need to respond."

Tokyo seems to have correctly calculated that the backlash would not cause significant harm. But the tide could change, experts warn.

Japan's decision could take a toll on international negotiations "in unexpected ways," said Kobe University political science professor Tosh Minohara. "Japan will be in a weaker position to urge other countries to comply with international frameworks."

It could even have a negative impact on the fishing industry -- the Fisheries Agency's priority. Japan has been calling for international regulations on catching Pacific saury, to prevent overfishing by other countries such as China. "Not complying with the international framework for whaling could weaken Japan's standing," said Waseda University researcher Yasuhiro Sanada.

The owner of a Taiji food processing company that handles whale and tuna said he is unsure what the future holds. "All we can say is we will follow whatever the government decides."

(asia.nikkei.com)

Do we really want to travel in hermetically sealed popemobiles through the rural provinces of France, Mexico and the Far East, eating only in Hard Rock Cafes and McDonalds? Or do we want to eat without fear, tearing into the local stew, the humble taqueria's mystery meat, the sincerely offered gift of a lightly grilled fish head. I know what I want. I want it all. I want to try everything once.

— Anthony Bourdain