Mendocino County Today, Tuesday 5/21/24

Sunny | Larry Bensky | PG&E Grass | Sports Awards | Gregory Noyes | Tiny Lotus | Walking Exercise | Candy Chaos | Boss Letter | BHAB Meeting | Egregious Behavior | Westport Waves | Bridge Lead | Book Box | Covelo Library | Granddaughter Pitching | Ed Notes | Treefrog | Helicopter Training | Yesterday's Catch | Economic Shapes | AB1999 Killed | Robert Mitchum | Mountain Biking | What The | Loss Prevention | Gourmet Lunch | Trans Athletes | The Crumps | Fugazy Land | Swallowed Up | Real Housewives | Civil Obedience | Country Vista

SLIGHTLY BELOW NORMAL interior temperatures are expected through the weekend. Gusty northwest winds will persist today and Wednesday. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): It's a bit cooler this Tuesday morning on the coast with 44F. Now the NWS is calling for windy conditions next few days. The fog is down by Santa Cruz while we have these winds pushing it south.

LARRY BENSKY (May 1st, 1937 ~ May 19th, 2024)

Larry Bensky, veteran broadcaster at KPFA, passed away Sunday, May 19th, 2024 at the age of 87 in Berkeley.

Larry was best known as the national affairs correspondent for Pacifica Radio from 1987 to 1998. Larry covered numerous national and international events for Pacifica, including the Iran–Contra hearings in 1987, the confirmation hearings for four Supreme Court justices, the 1990 elections in Nicaragua, and numerous demonstrations and protests in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere. He anchored Pacifica’s live coverage of the 9/11 Commission hearings, and co-anchored Pacifica’s coverage of many Democratic and Republican conventions, as well as the Presidential debates. He was anchor for Pacifica’s extensive coverage of the post-2004 election controversy in Ohio, as well as several Congressional hearings about the misuse of executive power in the Bush administration.

Larry was also host of the public affairs show Sunday Salon for many years and later came out of retirement to host the classical Sunday morning music program, Piano.

Larry also wrote for The Nation, magazine, and was a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Times Sunday Book Review. A longtime resident of Berkeley, he was a political writer and columnist for the East Bay Express for fifteen years.

He appeared as a guest journalist on C-SPAN, CNN, The Today Show, and The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, as well as on San Francisco KQED-FM’s “Forum” and KQED-TV’s “This Week in Northern California.” In addition, he was founding managing editor (1999–2000) of the web site Mediachannel.org.

Larry won the prestigious George Polk Award for his coverage of Iran–Contra, and has won five Gold Reel awards from the National Federation of Community Broadcasters. He has won a career achievement award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and the Golden Gadfly award from Media Alliance.

In addition to his work as a journalist, Bensky spent twelve years teaching broadcast journalism classes at Stanford, and courses in mass communication, journalism, broadcasting, and political science at California State University, East Bay (CSUEB) in Hayward, California. He also taught media criticism and analysis at Berkeley City College and political science at CSUEB.

Bensky was a political activist since the 1960s, working with nuclear disarmament and anti-war groups in New York City, Paris, and San Francisco during the Vietnam War. In 1968, he signed the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War. He co-designed and wrote numerous successful direct mail appeals for Modern progressive organizations, including Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and the United Farm Workers. He was a devout pacifist and an outspoken opponent of capital punishment.

Click here to listen to a Larry Bensky Retrospective, a two-hour look at Larry’s career and after his initial retirement in 2007. Hosted by Aileen Alfandary and produced by Aaron Glantz.

Larry’s funeral is on Monday, May 20th. We will announce any plans for a memorial when those arrangements are made and update them here.

(kpfa.org)

PG&E’S LACK OF WILDFIRE CONCERN

Editor,

You've probably seen PG&E's tv commercials saying how they're reducing wildfire risk with their maintenance, burying lines, etc. and how concerned they are about the public and mitigating the wildfire risk.

These photos are of PG&E's sub-station in Redwood Valley. This grass is five feet high. Every year they do not mow it.

Their subcontractor’s yard that is adjacent to the station never mows it either. My family has been paying to have it mowed for years, as it is directly across the street.

We've called and have even left a bill for the mowing, in the past, with no response.

PG&E is not concerned about the public, only their bottom line and their shareholders. Otherwise they would be maintaining their land and caring about their neighbors.

This area is where they intend to add 180 freight (sea) containers filled with batteries for power storage in the near future.

Our electric rates keep going up and their executive salaries increase substantially year after year.

This is why utility companies should be public utilities and not be privately owned. And so much for the Public Utility Commission doing their job and regulating the industry.

Carrie Shattuck

Ukiah

SPORTS AWARDS NIGHT

Athletic Director John Toohey and his ever-energetic mother, Palma, created a night to remember for our student athletes during the reinstituted Sports Awards night. Athletes of all sports in high school were recognized by their coaches for participation and extraordinary achievement in an evening ceremony that featured a dessert bar, individual participation awards, and coaches awards. Panther pride filled the house and it was great to see so many parents and students in attendance. A huge thank you to Coach Toohey and Palma for the pride and effort, they give to each and every sport and every student, every day!

MISSING MAN FOUND DEAD BELOW CLIFF IN MENDOCINO COUNTY

The man was reported missing Wednesday and found dead Friday in Jug Handle State National Reserve.

by Madison Smalstig

A man reported missing was found dead late last week below a cliff in a Mendocino County park, authorities said.

Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office deputies found the body of Gregory Noyes, 76, of Point Arena, Friday morning on the rocks about 50 feet below an edge of Jug Handle State National Reserve, department spokesperson Capt. Quincy Cromer said in a news release.

Noyes was reported missing Wednesday to the Marin County Sheriff’s Office. He was traveling to the area starting May 12, when the reporting party last heard from him.

Mendocino County deputies were contacted about 10:46 a.m. Friday by California State Parks peace officers who found a vehicle registered to Noyes in the parking lot at Jug Handle State National Reserve, located between Fort Bragg and Mendocino. The vehicle had been parked there for “several days,” Cromer said.

Deputies and officers searched the park and quickly found a large-brimmed hat resting on a cliff facing the Pacific Ocean. Below the edge was a man’s body.

Investigators determined Noyes most likely fell down the cliff accidentally, Cromer said. No foul play is suspected.

The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office is asking that anyone with information call the agency’s 24-hour non-emergency dispatch center at 707-463-4086 or talk anonymously through the non-emergency tip-line at 707-234-2100.

(Santa Rosa Press Democrat)

MITCH CLOGG: Tales From The Nursing Home 2

I walked the length of the halls today, a hundred-plus yards. With walker. I got back with sore calves tottering to bed as fast as I could totter.

Idiot! Stupid, STUPID me! I should have been doing this every feasible day, with or without a wound vac, if not the full distance, part of it. How many times have I heard that walking, simply walking, is excellent exercise; have I seen with my own eyes that New Yorkers are much less fat than most Americans because they WALK. They go blocks and blocks rather than mess with the subways, Ubers and taxis and all that.

When I got back to my room, I said under my breath, “That’s one.” So help me God, I will address this stupidity in the time I have left here. I should be walking upright, without any damned walker. Shit!

BOONT TRIBE COMMUNITY SCHOOL:

We are so excited to announce that we are putting on a play! The students came up with the story, we wrote the script and they are now busily gathering costumes, building the set, and learning their lines! Come join in the fun and candy chaos!!

Our one and only community performance will be on Saturday June 8th at 2pm! This will be a fundraising event for our scholarship program! Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for kids 12 and under. There will also be an intermission with snacks and drinks! Tickets are available at the door.

This is a very kid friendly event, but there will be a couple seconds of flashing lights and 2 balloons popping.

JULIE BEARDSLEY:

I was contacted by three public Health employees who said they felt coerced into signing that letter [in support of Jenine Miller as Director of Health Services — i.e., public health and behavioral health], and I suspect there are probably more who also felt that way. This was so egregious the union got involved. People speak to me because they know I will speak up for them. There are many people at Public Health who feel they will be retaliated against should they disagree with Jenine et al. I have no vendetta against anyone, but I do have a vendetta against bad decisions. And if you were there going around asking people to sign a letter saying our boss should get a promotion and a raise, one has to wonder about your level of intelligence. THAT little stunt was completely inappropriate and I hope the County takes steps to ensure it never happens again. Disgruntled? Not me. I was never happier when I retired from that dumpster fire at Public Health, but I have always, and will continue to tell the truth and support my peeps. And speak up when I smell stupidity.

ADAM GASKA:

As I stated in both my initial letter that was printed in the AVA and in my letter to all 5 supervisors, the CEO and HR what happened at the board meeting surrounding item 4i was appalling.

Bringing back the item after it had been voted on was just sour grapes. The meeting was minutes from ending when it was brought back. It was obviously brought back so some disgruntled employees in management could present their petition.

The employees who drafted and gathered signatures for the petition grossly abused their position. First off, did these employees do this on the clock while they should have been working? They were also doing this on County property. Both of these are likely against County policy. Staff is paid to do their job, they are not paid to use their position to influence policy except through the proper channels. Hopefully, they will not be paid for the time they circulated the petition or the time be retroactively deducted from their paychecks.

Secondly, asking employees to support a pay raise for the person that has the power to terminate them is also an abuse of power. It’s a form of forced coercion plain and simple. This is common sense. If someone is asked to sign such a petition, they don’t really have the power to say no. Anyone that can’t see this, doesn’t have the ethics or management skills to do their job and shouldn’t hold a management position in the first place.

On December 19, 2023 the BOS passed resolution 23-198 in the consent calendar under item 3v which created the position of director of health services with a base salary of $179,652.20. If Dr. Miller was not appointed to the position, the fault lies upon the CEO’s office for failing to follow through by bringing the item to the board during closed session which they had already been empowered to do. So the fault for Dr Miller not receiving a raise lies with the CEO, not the BOS.

Item 4i was not administrative clean up. It was an attempt to officially consolidate Public Health and Behavioral Health and Recovery Services without public notification and to deny the public the opportunity to give input. Devising and adopting policy in secret is a disservice to the public. This lack of transparency is unacceptable.

Consolidating these departments has been attempted in the past and failed. Where is the plan to succeed this time? How will it differ from past efforts? Why hasn’t a plan been presented to the board and the public?

LEAD TOXINS AT SALMON CREEK BRIDGE

Sorry for the last minute reminder to write to the Project Manager Dennis Palacios at the Department of Toxic Services Control (DTSC) by midnight of this Wednesday, May 22. The e-mail address for Dennis Palacios is <Dennis.Palacios@dtsc.ca.gov>

The reason for writing to DTSC is that the State Division of Highways since 1949 and Caltrans later on for a total of 70 years allowed unprotected sandblasting, use of lead paint, and steel of the Salmon Creek Bridge in Albion to rust and peel. The highly toxic lead and other toxic metals are at levels up to 600 times the reported background level of lead.

The lead has been discharged to the air, the water, the environment, and numerous dump sites all this time and has affected several generations. Lead in the air is a problem because the dust gets inhaled and ingested from soil, dust, and water. Lead stays around for a long time because it does not decay or decompose. Once poisoned, it’s for life and can never be reversed. Adults exposed to lead paint suffer from high blood pressure, headaches, dizziness, diminished motor skills, fatigue and memory loss.

Caltrans wants to only deal with the the lead toxins in the upper one and a half ft. and only to areas close to where its workers or subcontractors will have access to demolish the Salmon Creek Bridge and build a new bridge. It is not necessary to replace the Salmon Creek Bridge if Caltrans is committed to maintain the bridge.

Spring Grove Road would in places be 2 times as wide and would have asphalt poured over it so that two big dump trucks could pass each other on that steep hill. It would require at least 1,670 dump trucks if DTSC chooses the Targeted Removal-Preserve Natural Slopes project. Widening this road would not preserve the natural slopes present in the beautiful lower Salmon Creek Valley.

These toxins would be brought to a Superfund site close to Highway 5 in Southern California. Other toxins would be stockpiled along Spring Grove Road and close to the Ledford House restaurant for up to 90 days.

A much better solution would be on site remediation (Bioremediation, Microbial remediation, or Electro Kinetic remediation).

The Department of Toxic Services Control is refusing to force Caltrans to come up with an Environmental Impact Report (EIR). Caltrans was willing to do an EIR in 2018, but now wants to fly the lead component under the environmental radar. Instead DTSC will approve a Remedial Action Plan (RAP) and the Initial Study for the Negative Declaration unless we oppose this. In about two years will they tell us what they really want to do. 

Please write an e-mail to Dennis Palacios at the Department of Toxic Services Control and tell him why you do not agree with the proposed plan. 

Deadline is midnight of this Wednesday, May 22. The e-mail is Dennis.Palacios@dtsc.ca.gov

Annemarie Weibel, Albion

WHY WE HAVE A PUBLIC LIBRARY IN COVELO

by Lew Chichester

If one looked at a map of California and Northeastern Mendocino County a person would see a lot of National Forest; the Snow Mountain, Thatcher Creek and Yolla Bolly Wilderness Areas; the Round Valley Indian Reservation; a Wild and Scenic River; one paved State Highway which ends at the unincorporated community of Covelo; and a lot of otherwise roadless, blank spaces on the map.

In all of forty, fifty miles in any direction there are only about 3100 people out here and we kind of like it that way. However, along with the outstanding natural beauty, there are challenges to such remoteness. Transportation is difficult and connections to government agencies, business and employment opportunities, higher education, professional services, all of these are far away.

We have had a library in town for almost fifty years, started by a few volunteers donating their own collections, eventually in 1989 becoming part of the County of Mendocino Library system. The Round Valley Branch Library has been in our new location since 2010, has one full time librarian, three part time librarians and a host of volunteers.

Our local library is the hub, the heart, of much of the community. Along with a beautiful, clean, well lighted space graced with a collection of relevant volumes, documents, exhibits, art, and cultural artifacts we provide many of the necessary elements for a vibrant, functioning society. We have a community room for meetings and parties, with wall panelling of old growth redwood from the old days, comfortable leather chairs and a fireplace, plus outside the library in the Walnut Grove Park a Friday Farmer’s Market for the local organic produce, baked goods and all the other items one might find at an outdoor market. Then there is the certified commercial kitchen, providing a legal place for people to process their baked or canned goods for sale, as well as the core equipment for the Walnut Grove Cafe in the lobby of the library commons.

And a Seed Library, with regular weekend events for the exchange of information, plants, cuttings, and filling up the new year’s seed packets, seed swaps and scion exchanges. This is an agricultural, ranching and organic farming community and the Seed Library is a key element in the development and sharing of knowledge, new products and heirloom varieties.

One a month we produce an event featuring a documentary film on a topic related to sustainable, ecological activities shown in the Commons Community Room, with a fairly large (for out here) screen and sound system. This same setup is used for community meetings or when the senator comes to town.

In regards to how the Round Valley Public Library is helping the community transition into a more technical, digital world we have not likely been as robust as a facility in a more internet capable and connected place. The internet barely works out here, fiber optic connections are limited and cell phone and land line service is not particularly reliable. However, we keep at it, and currently the library is the center for a lot of the telecommunications needs of the local population with wifi on the premises, six public computers, equipment and the gathering space for remote teleconference meetings.

We provide public wifi access portals which are available throughout the building, in the parking areas, on the patio and into the Walnut Grove Park. These are wonderful and convenient for those with a laptop, but many people here don’t have their own laptop or desktop computer and can access the internet only through their phone. This has obvious limitations when needing to communicate with the government or corporate world with any action more complicated than a conversation, a survey or a checklist. We have chromebook laptops to loan out as well as wifi hotspots so people can use their cell phone to access the internet and connect the loaned chromebook, their own tablet or laptop and get on the web. The six desktop computers in the library are always available and get regular use. Plus the scheduled availability of the library’s media room for one on one confidential conferences with County Social Services support and the Public Defender’s Office of Legal Aid is an important and valued addition to this underserved and disadvantaged community.

The Commons Community Room, which can handle large groups, has the capability of hosting with webcams, speakers and a large projection screen teleconferencing and Zoom style meetings. This facility is used regularly by the Municipal Advisory Board and a subcommittee focused on Fire and Disaster Preparedness and has provided an effective venue for special community meetings. We are able to remain updated and fluent with current issues shared with the County Sheriff, our representative on the County Board of Supervisors, the California State Department of Transportation, the County Office of Emergency Services and the Eel River Recovery Project, to recall just a few of the gatherings regularly using the teleconference options.

Another element of technology and communication is the library’s radio station, KYBU 96.9 FM, a project sponsored by the Friends of the Round Valley Public Library. Operating out of a facility on the premises, broadcasting 24/7, the station provides local programming of current events and cultural relevance. Timely public service announcements and accurate information during periods of natural disaster and insecurity have been key contributions of our local FM station. During the August Complex Fire of over one million acres our radio station was broadcasting with regular on air interviews and updates from Emergency Services, CalFire, the US Forest Service and the Sheriff’s Department. We could facilitate call in, area specific concerns of individuals which allowed for rational responses to an otherwise frightening situation. These live updates were then posted to the KYBU website and available by cell phone and internet until the next scheduled update, either that afternoon or the next morning. We were presented with various awards and recognitions for this service.

Those of us who live in Round Valley need to be prepared for a level of self sufficiency perhaps not required in larger connected communities. Over the decades we have experienced bridges washed away, highway transportation to the rest of the world disrupted for weeks at a time, massive wildfires in the surrounding wilderness, and then there are the frequent power and cell phone outages.

Our library has responded to these challenges by insuring that we can stay open to serve the community by providing back up power with a 48kw generator. Internet connectivity is maintained with three separate, redundant systems including a fiber optic land line, micro wave transmission and a satellite link. The 14 kw solar panel grid tie on the roof helps to off set the substantial power demands of air conditioning during our very hot summer.

To summarize, the Mendocino County Library Round Valley Branch, locally known as the Round Valley Public Library, is an essential, welcoming, competent and important element in sustaining our community of diverse individuals.

ED NOTES

THE COUNTY MUSEUM is located in Willits where artifacts of our unreal history are stored and displayed, including that tribute not all that long ago to hippies with no mention of Flower Child-ism’s downside

HIPPIES, broadly considered, were a net negative. Fortunately, they’re extinct, except for certain areas of Albion, Beth Bosk’s imagination, and deep, deep Spy Rock. But their unfortunate legacy lingers, however, more or less benignly in the county’s public institutions, much less benignly in the national drug culture.

IN THEIR FULL MOON BOOGIE days, hippies created a suicidal tolerance for aberrant behavior that did a lot of human damage. Of course if you think crank is a socially useful mood elevator, and that Jim Jones, Charles Manson, Tree Frog Johnson, Kenneth Parnell, and Leonard Lake were guilty of nothing more than doing their own thing, well, you probably also think the hippies were (and are) politically progressive and Democrats are the way forward.

‘GENOCIDE AND VENDETTA,’ the book. Without it there would be no true history of early Mendocino County. xerox copies of the book have been in circulation for years, but the book itself, when you can find it, goes for at least five hundred bucks. The problem is that the University of Oklahoma only published one edition of about 3,000 copies before the authors were sued. The suit? A Covelo man sued over unauthorized use of a diary compiled by, I believe, his grandfather. The suit prevented subsequent editions of a fascinating account of what the county was like, circa 1850. Let’s say it wasn’t a happy place for Native Americans and leave it at that.

THE HELD-POAGE LIBRARY in Ukiah has a wonderful archive of local history, including some riveting genealogies. However, much of the county’s, ahem, more sensitive episodes and interludes are found only in old court records deep in the bowels of the County Courthouse.

THIRTY-FIVE YEARS AGO, a large swathe of the Anderson Valley community convened The Mother Of All Boonville Drug Meetings. Everyone agreed that methamphetamine use was on the rise, most alarmingly among young people in their early teens. Today? Hard drugs are available, as they are everywhere, but addiction doesn't seem as prevalent as it once was.

THE DRUG MEETING of yesteryear was “facilitated” by a windy ex-police chief who nearly facilitated the audience right out the door. But by the end of the evening — the rambling discussion didn’t wind down until 9:30 — and despite the chief’s obfuscating “facilitation,” agreement had been reached on who would do what to ensure that the event was productive. The formidably on-task duo of Donna Pierson-Pugh and Marti Bradford emerged as Operation Combat Crank’s lead tacticians.

“IT’S DEFINITELY A GO,” Mrs. Pugh said later. “We have three sub-committees meeting this next Saturday to plan it; we don’t want to just have a big educational meeting without any specific follow-up on addressing the problem,” added the bustling former elementary school principal. “We definitely want young people to be part of this,” and she said she was just as optimistic at the appearance of several young people at the meeting.

ONE OF THOSE young people was a recent graduate of Anderson Valley High School. He said that just because groups of young people are often seen standing around in the Fairgrounds parking lot or in front of Pic ‘N Pay [since burned down] at night doesn’t mean they are buying, selling or using drugs. He said he was “trying to go to school to get out of this place,” adding that the problem was a combination of no work and nothing for young people to do in Boonville, adding this rhetorical zinger: “How can you get a community together to stop drugs when half the people make their living in drugs?”

WHICH GOT us to a big part of the prob. In a famously drug tolerant county, drug use by the young shouldn’t surprise anybody.

ATTENDEES included a fairly representative cross-section of Anderson Valley’s wildly diverse population, but did not include many business people, wine and vineyard people, or retired people. If, as they say, it takes a village to raise a child, there are lots of orphans in this place. Seeing as how our village, then and now, consists more of unrelated, mutually incompatible grouplets than it does a coherent community in any known sense of the term, and seeing as how even our disparate interest groups are strung out, so to speak, along 20 miles of semi-rural state highway, mobilization of Anderson Valley’s village was always tenuous.

THE METHAMPHETAMINE sold throughout the county (and the state and country), is mostly manufactured out of easily available industrial solvents, which are not ordinarily considered healthy human additives. And lots come across the porous border with Mexico.

SEVERAL PEOPLE referred to a 14-year-old girl arrested at the high school for possession of methamphetamine as the latest sad example of the drug’s prevalence. She’d already given two young female classmates some of the drug “to lose weight” before her quantity was confiscated. A youngish father said he was apprehensive at the “belligerence” the drug inspires in users.

DEPUTY SQUIRES, Anderson Valley’s widely admired long-time resident cop, now in happy retirement in Windsor, and the valley’s most knowledgeable person on the subject of local illegal drug production and use, said crank was available to anybody of whatever age who wants it. “But kids aren’t walking around openly selling it,” the deputy said. “A buyer has to make it known he or she wants it, and it takes a day or two to get it. At the level of kids, they’ll get it from someone using it at home. There are kids at the high school who have relatives who are big time dope dealers — people who grow a lot of marijuana usually have crank around, too. They get it at home and then bring it to their friends. Most adult users stay home and use it.”

THE POPULAR LAWMAN said he was “definitely” worried about “the meth problem,” remarking that he hoped the county’s drug task force would “get seriously active over here.” (Never did, and has since been disbanded.) Squires said he didn't want “something real bad to happen to get people to act.”

THIRTY-FIVE YEARS LATER? Meth is still out there but the most dangerous drug available in the county now is fentanyl, and too many young people vape and otherwise ingest very strong marijuana, Always missing from the drug conversation is Why? Why do so many people succumb?

HELICOPTER AWARENESS TRAINING

The Mendocino County Sheriff's Office Search and Rescue Team and Napa County Sheriff's Office Search and Rescue team hosted a 3-day Helicopter Awareness training at the Lake Mendocino Spillway from 5/17/2024 through 5/19/2024.

Multiple Search and Rescue Volunteers from Northern California were in attendance and learned valuable skills to assist them in their future missions.

The purpose of this training was to teach Search and Rescue volunteers the skills necessary to safely interact with helicopters in a rural search environment. The training included instruction of how to safely approach and exit an aircraft and learning the capabilities of each specific aircraft. Volunteers were able to practice being inserted and extracted from remote search areas and also practice safely packaging and loading victims onto the aircraft to be taken for medical treatment. Numerous types and designs of helicopter airframes were utilized to maximize the exposure of Search and Rescue volunteers attending the training.

This event would not have been possible without the financial support of the Mendocino Public Safety Foundation, numerous generous donations received from the public, and all local Rotary Clubs in Mendocino County.

The Mendocino County Sheriff's Office would like to thank the following agencies and companies for donating their time, equipment, or resources to make this training possible:

The following Search and Rescue Organizations were in attendance:

The Mendocino County Sheriff's Office would also like to thank the community and local residents for their cooperation, support, and understanding during this training event.

CATCH OF THE DAY, Monday, May 20, 2024

RAMON ALCAZAR, Ukiah. Burglary, vandalism.

JADE BENNETT, Fort Bragg. Parole violation, bringing controlled substance into jail.

OSVALDO GARNICA, Ukiah. Assault with deadly weapon not a gun, controlled substance, probation revocation.

COREY HEINE, Ukiah. Battery.

ELIJAH HILLMER, Point Arena. DUI.

BRIAN HURTADO, Willits. Parole violation, unspecified offense.

DAVID JOHNSON, Covelo. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs.

JUSTINE MCLEOD, San Jose/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

KIERA SHED, Ukiah. Narcotics for sale.

JACQUELINE SHEPHERD, Redwood Valley. Probation revocation, resisting.

IF YOU’RE WORRIED THAT THE NEW FIXED CHARGE FOR YOUR ELECTRICITY BILL WILL KEEP RISING, YOU SHOULD BE

Lawmakers just quietly killed a bill to keep your PG&E bill in check. They better have a backup plan

Beginning in early 2026, many of you can expect to see a new $24.15 monthly fixed charge on your utility bill thanks to a recent decision by the California Public Utilities Commission to fundamentally change how you pay for electricity.

And if you’re worried that fixed charges will keep going up, you should be.

Especially after state lawmakers killed AB1999 on Thursday, a proposal authored by Assembly Member Jacqui Irwin, D-Thousand Oaks (Ventura County), that would have established guardrails on how much the new fixed fee can jump in a given year.

And they did so without casting a single “no” vote.

Thanks to an opaque process called the suspense file, a twice-annual rite in which lawmakers on the powerful Appropriations Committees run at warp speed through a list of hundreds of bills, passing or killing them without a word of explanation — and sometimes without even mentioning them at all.

The suspense file is nominally a way for legislators to shelve proposals deemed to be too expensive. Given that California faces an estimated $28 billion deficit, more bills than usual ended up on the cutting room floor this year. The suspense file is also a way for lawmakers to quietly snuff out controversial bills without having to take politically uncomfortable votes.

Typically, the fates of bills on the suspense file are determined behind closed doors. But that wasn’t the case with AB1999.

Of the 668 bills on the Assembly Appropriations Committee’s suspense file, it was the only one to receive a roll-call vote Thursday. According to longtime Sacramento lobbyist Chris Micheli, it was also the only bill for which committee chairperson Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, didn’t have a recommendation as to whether it should pass or not.

Ultimately, only two lawmakers — Democratic Assembly Members Tim Grayson of Concord and Gail Pellerin of Santa Cruz — voted in favor of AB1999. The remaining 13 committee members didn’t vote — including Wicks and Assembly Member Matt Haney, D-San Francisco.

Abstaining from a vote, instead of voting no, is a common way to kill bills in the supermajority-Democratic Legislature. Rather than risk the political fallout of actively voting against proposals authored by their colleagues, Democrats often showcase their doubt or disapproval by remaining silent.

This cowardly cop-out doesn’t pass muster with the editorial board — especially when Californians are reeling from the nation’s second-highest electricity bills.

AB1999’s death was especially frustrating because it had received its first hearing just one day prior. After languishing for months amid intense behind-the-scenes negotiations with Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, D-Hollister (San Benito County), the bill was revived with new amendments published the same day the Public Utilities Commission approved the fixed-fee plan.

Here’s how the commission’s plan works: Beginning in late 2025 and early 2026, customers of PG&E, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric will be charged a fixed monthly fee of $24.15, $12 or $6, depending on their income. The rates they pay for electricity use, meanwhile, will fall by an average of 11.3% to 11.9%.

Proponents argue this billing structure will more equitably divide systemwide fixed costs among ratepayers, while also encouraging them to invest in clean technologies such as heat pumps and electric cars.

Unfortunately, however, the decision won’t bring California meaningfully closer to achieving either of these goals.

Not only are the fixed charge amounts largely arbitrary, but the plan’s income tiers will stick many lower-income and middle-income households with the highest fixed charge. (The income limit for a family of three to qualify for the $6 fixed charge is $49,720, and for the $12 fixed fee it’s $62,150.) The reduction in electricity rates is also negligible, given that PG&E’s rates soared 20% in January alone and are expected to keep rising as expensive wildfire mitigation projects are approved.

Utilities have made no secret of the fact that they also want the fixed fee to be much higher. PG&E, for example, originally proposed a fixed fee of as much as $92 per month.

AB1999 would have addressed these issues by preventing the Public Utilities Commission from raising the fixed charge more than the cost of inflation and by requiring accountability reports evaluating its implementation and effectiveness in reducing customer costs. The bill would also have repealed the fixed charge in 2028, at which point the commission would be authorized to charge a maximum fee of $10.

The repeal provision was perhaps the biggest point of contention. Yet as lawmakers themselves repeatedly noted, energy ratemaking is incredibly complex and there is little to no consensus as to whether the new fixed rate billing structure will actually help low-income residents or accelerate electrification.

Given these significant uncertainties, we think AB1999’s idea of a sunset date makes sense. Instead of assuming the Public Utilities Commission’s new billing structure works and putting the onus on ratepayers to prove otherwise, why not put the burden of proof on the commission and the utilities to demonstrate its effectiveness in a time-limited pilot program before agreeing to keep it in perpetuity?

In a statement, Wicks told us she “will continue to hold the (Public Utilities Commission) accountable to ensure its plan does not pose undue costs on ratepayers.”

That’s an admirable sentiment, but action is what counts.

There is still plenty of time before the fixed charges go into effect for lawmakers to impose some restraints — and demand accountability and better transparency about the efficacy of the new bill structure.

(SF Chronicle Editorial)

Robert Mitchum in Long Beach, California, 1942. In 1936, Mitchum moved to California to live with his sister Julie, who persuaded him to join the Players Guild of Long Beach. He eventually landed a seven-year contract with RKO, where he worked in a string of B-Western movies. "He has the most immoral face I've ever seen," was how one fan described the Hollywood newcomer. Mitchum’s breakthrough performance came when he starred as Lieutenant Walker in The Story of G.I. Joe (1946), which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor and helped establish him as a star.

MOUNTAIN BIKING AND TRAIL-BUILDING DESTROY WILDLIFE HABITAT!

by Mike Vandeman, Ph.D.

The major harm that mountain biking does is that it greatly extends the human footprint (distance that one can travel) in wildlife habitat. E-bikes multiply that footprint even more. Neither should be allowed on any unpaved trail. Wildlife, if they are to survive, MUST receive top priority!

What were you thinking? Mountain biking and trail-building destroy wildlife habitat! Mountain biking is environmentally, socially, and medically destructive! There is no good reason to allow bicycles on any unpaved trail

Bicycles should not be allowed in any natural area. They are inanimate objects and have no rights. There is also no right to mountain bike. That was settled in federal court in 1996.

It's dishonest of mountain bikers to say that they don't have access to trails closed to bikes. They have EXACTLY the same access as everyone else---on foot! Why isn't that good enough for mountain bikers? They are all capable of walking….

Why do mountain bikers insist on creating illegal trails? It's simple: they ride so fast that they see almost nothing of what they are passing. Therefore, they quickly get bored with any given trail and want another and another, endlessly! (In other words, mountain biking is inherently boring!)

A favorite myth of mountain bikers is that mountain biking is no more harmful to wildlife, people, and the environment than hiking, and that science supports that view. Of course, it's not true.

To settle the matter, I read all of the research they cited, and I wrote a review of the research on mountain biking impacts. I found that of the seven studies they cited, (1) all were written by mountain bikers, and (2) in every case, the authors misinterpreted their own data to come to the conclusion that they favored. They also studiously avoided mentioning another scientific study that did not favor mountain biking and came to the opposite conclusions.

Mountain bikers also love to build new trails, legally or illegally. Of course trail-building destroys wildlife habitat, not just in the trail bed, but in a wide swath to both sides of the trail!

Grizzlies can hear a human from one mile away and smell us from 5 miles away. Thus, a 10-mile trail represents 100 square miles of destroyed or degraded habitat that animals are inhibited from using.

Mountain biking, trail building, and trail maintenance all increase the number of people in the park, thereby preventing the animals' full use of their habitat.

Mountain biking accelerates erosion, creates V-shaped ruts, kills small animals and plants on and next to the trail, drives wildlife and other trail users out of the area, and, worst of all, teaches kids that the rough treatment of nature is okay (it's NOT!). What's good about THAT?

To see exactly what harm mountain biking does to the land, watch this 5-minute video: http://vimeo.com/48784297.

In addition to all of this, it is extremely dangerous.

The latest craze among mountain bikers is the creation of "pump tracks" (bike parks). They are alleged to teach bicycling skills, but what they actually teach are "skills" (skidding, jumping ("getting air"), racing, etc.) that are appropriate nowhere! If you believe that these "skills" won't be practiced throughout the rest of the park and in all other parks, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you!…

The common thread among those who want more recreation in our parks is total ignorance about and disinterest in the wildlife whose homes these parks are. Yes, if humans are the only beings that matter, it is simply a conflict among humans. Even then, allowing bikes on trails harms the MAJORITY of park users---hikers and equestrians---who can no longer safely and peacefully enjoy their parks.

The parks aren't gymnasiums or racetracks or even human playgrounds. They are WILDLIFE HABITAT, which is precisely why they are attractive to humans. Activities such as mountain biking that destroy habitat violate the charter of the parks.

Even kayaking and rafting, which give humans access to the entirety of a water body, prevent the wildlife that live there from making full use of their habitat and should not be allowed. Of course those who think that only humans matter won't understand what I am talking about, an indication of the sad state of our culture and educational system.

TAPPING INTO THE VAST SAFETY POTENTIAL OF ‘LOSS PREVENTION’ BY THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY

by Ralph Nader

A recent newspaper article reports that GEICO, one of the largest auto insurers in the U.S., has amassed a staggering $189 billion in cash, apart from the reserves required by law to insure the volume of potential claims by its policyholders. Angry consumers have cried out about auto insurance premiums going up as the prices of new and used cars have risen sharply. Yet the company still has not joined other insurance companies like State Farm, Nationwide and Allstate as a funder of the 35-year-old non-profit Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety.

It costs about $200,000 a year for each insurer to become a sponsor of this Washington-based coalition of consumer and insurance groups that press for safer cars, safer roadways and safer driving. With a tiny budget of $2.2 million a year, the dedicated staff at Advocates has put the “loss prevention” responsibility of the insurance industry into practice.

A new study estimated that Advocates, working at the federal, state and local levels, has been instrumental in passing 495 state safety laws. Advocates was also credited with saving $2 trillion in avoided medical costs, work loss and property damage, and saving 215,000 lives (plus many more injuries prevented). This dollar figure reflects reduced insurance claims and processing costs, largely by auto insurers. (See the report by Ted Miller, PhD of the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE)).

Advocates’ activity revolves around the largely neglected and ignored historical responsibility of the powerful insurance industry called “loss prevention.” You, the people, are supposed to be protected with greater safety and health standards, safer products and safer workplaces from the vested profit interest that comes with fewer claims by injured or sickened policyholders.

Back in the 19th century when the insurance industry was big on industrial safety requirements for insured factories, boiler explosions were common. Insurance company engineers were sent to inspect industrial facilities and require safer boilers from design to inspection or the factory wouldn’t be insured. Over 130 years ago (in 1894) property/casualty insurance companies founded Underwriters Laboratories to test electrical and other equipment and press for improved safety.

Regardless of the benefits to their bottom line, most insurance company executives appear indifferent to engaging in loss prevention. Yes, people have gotten premium discounts for being non-smokers or having a good driving record, but the potential for vast advances in the prevention of road casualties through available technology, in reducing distracted and drunk driving, and in correcting highway danger spots (for pedestrian safety as well) is immense.

Advocates was key to blocking a brazen auto industry move in Congress to deregulate autonomous or driverless cars. Its legislative, regulatory and litigation victories kept double and triple trailer trucks off the highways in many states, thwarted a crazy push to allow longer hours on the road by truck drivers and pressed for automatic emergency braking as standard equipment. The federal auto safety agency National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) just issued a mandate for the latter device, but weakly gave the industry until 2029 to fully comply.

The aforementioned report cites “electronic stability control” (ESC) as one of Advocates most impactful regulatory achievements. This was accomplished through Congress. When the system is built into all motor vehicles, NHTSA estimates that from 5,300 to 9,600 lives would be saved every year, with half the lives saved from preventing rollovers.

Years ago, I did a survey of insurance company foundations whose mission was safety and published the results in the Suffolk University Law Review (Loss Prevention and the Insurance Function, 1987). Very little of insurance company grants and programs focused on the kind of tough “loss prevention” efforts championed by Advocates.

Insurance company CEOs and Presidents are not venturesome. They don’t like to rock the boat in other industries whose companies could be their customers. One bold exception was the former CEO of Allstate, Archie Boe, who stood tall and early in demanding that the auto companies install airbags in all vehicles. Sharing a national television show with him in the 1980s, I asked why he was incurring the displeasure of GM, Ford and Chrysler. His forthright reply? “Because it saves lives.”

We need more CEOs like Archie Boe and more funders of the Advocates’ small but very effective budget. I’m sending this column to some of the insurance company holdouts with a cover letter.

Let’s see if each company can shake a few dollars from their ample investment earnings – an amount equal to a couple of the full-page ads some place in the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. If only for the safety of their extended families, friends, workers and neighbors, insurers should write that modest annual check.

IT’S TIME TO STOP THE UNFAIR, UNEQUAL MADNESS OF TRANS ATHLETES DESTROYING WOMEN’S SPORTS

by Piers Morgan

The boos said it all.

As Aayden Gallagher crossed the finish line Saturday to become the Oregon girls’ 6A 200-meter state champion, the crowd booed loudly.

And they loudly booed again when sophomore Gallagher, from McDaniel High in Portland, stood on the podium to receive a winner’s medal.

But they cheered when the second-place runner’s name was announced.

It was a very unusual reaction to the result of a state athletic competition, yet it might turn out to be a historic one.

Because the reason Gallagher was such an unpopular winner is that the sprinter is a transgender woman born a biological male with a demonstrably superior physiology to the female competitors.

In fact, as the viral video clips from the race showed, Gallagher towered over the vast majority of the other runners, displaying a vastly greater height, power and speed that made an absolute mockery of any pretense at fairness or equality.

Gallagher won the 200 meters in 23.82 seconds, one of the fastest times in state history.

For women, that is — not for men.

Spectators cheered when the second-place runner was announced.

The runner-up was Roosevelt sophomore Aster Jones, the younger sister of University of Oregon track standout Lily Jones and a rising star of women’s athletics, who won the 100 meters.

She would have expected to win this 200-meter race too, and indeed would have won it if not for the presence of a biological male.

Despite initially leading, Jones was blown away by a surging Gallagher.

It was like watching Usain Bolt compete in the women’s 200 meters and annihilating current world champion Shericka Jackson.

He’s run it in 19.19 seconds, while Jackson’s fastest time is 21.41, over two seconds slower.

That’s not because Bolt is a “better” runner, it’s because he has a bigger, stronger, faster male biology, which is why the sexes are separated in athletics.

And that’s why it’s so unfair for trans athletes to compete against women.

World Athletics has already concluded this and barred them, but many lower-level US sports bodies have been shamefully slow to follow.

Why?

Simple: state-sponsored moral cowardice.

The Oregon School Activities Association (OSAA) has a policy for transgender participation in high school sports that says: “The OSAA endeavors to allow students to participate for the athletic or activity program of their consistently asserted gender identity while providing a fair and safe environment for all students … rules such as this one promote harmony and fair competition.”

What a load of disingenuous bulls–t.

As Gallagher’s win and the crowd’s hostile response to it proved, this absurd policy is in reality promoting the complete opposite: disharmony and unfair competition.

Gallagher has only been competing in track and field for two months, yet is already supposedly the fastest “girl” to ever come out of Portland, Ore.?

It’s a farce.

As for the supposedly “fair and safe environment” that the OSAA purports to provide with its transgender policy, Gallagher needed security at her hotel and at the athletics field during the past few days.

There was even a sheriff standing on the track in case she was attacked, such were the levels of anger building among spectators at the obvious unfairness of the situation.

Across the US, girls and their families have advocated to not allow transgender girls to compete with their daughters.

Does that sound safe to you?

One mother of another female runner in the race accused Gallagher of “taking spots away from our girls, and he doesn’t deserve it, he needs to be with the men. I don’t care if he’s transgender, you can have your own opinion and do what you want to do, but you have no right to be taking away from these girls. Their emotions matter too.”

I understand that mother’s frustration, though if Aayden Gallagher wants to be called “she,” that’s fine with me.

Trans women deserve to be treated with respect and kindness and have the same human rights to fairness and equality that the rest of us enjoy.

Preferred pronouns don’t affect those rights.

But what’s not fine with me is when trans rights erode or destroy the rights of women to fairness and equality, as we’re seeing happen more and more in women’s sports.

Nor when anyone who dares to challenge this nonsense is intimidated into silence.

Shockingly, the mother said a lot of parents were too afraid to speak out of fear they might breach the OSAA rules on discrimination and not just disqualify their children from competing, but get themselves banned from attending events.

“It’s not fair,” she said. “Why is it that transgender and LGBTQ (activists) have taken away so many rights for women? We have fought so hard for years, and here they are taking it from us in sports, from girls who don’t deserve it.”

I totally agree.

Nobody should remove Aayden Gallagher’s right to compete as an athlete in America.

But not against females.

Gallagher should either compete against other biological males, or there should be a new open category established for trans athletes.

What happened at Heyward Field in Oregon on Saturday cannot be allowed to keep happening, or the hopes and dreams of every athletic young girl in the country will be shattered on the altar of morally bankrupt virtue-signaling garbage.

FUGAZY LAND

by James Kunstler

“The crisis of meaning only becomes a problem when society becomes resigned to it, accepts a condition of meaninglessness, and seeks to dispossess humanity from the insights and truths it learned through the ages.” — Frank Furedi

Really, you must agree: just about anything can happen now, and probably will, and possibly all at the same time — war, sickness, a disordered economy, chaos in money and finance, savages pouring across the open borders, assassination, mayhem in the streets, systems failure, mental illness everywhere you look. You have a sinister, blob-infested government acting like a desperate, cornered animal, fronted by a venal phantasm trailing a personal history of crime. What could go wrong? All of it.

The doings in Judge Merchan’s Manhattan court present the rectified essence of America’s authority problem. You will stipulate that judges are authorities in a pretty pure sense of the word. Their role is to determine what is right and what is wrong, or, at least guide the proceedings that would result in such a fair determination. And, of course, the officers of this court, the District Attorney and his prosecutors, are also entrusted with bringing comprehensible cases that follow the facts fairly, and the laws pertaining to those facts.

This maliciously misguided prosecution has only accomplished one thing so far: to demonstrate to the American public that the authority of our law has been contorted to become a sick joke. That is a ruinous lesson for the country. The free-for-all of our national life has required reliable adjudication of all the quarrels and inequities that arose out of it. For a long time, the rule of law was America’s great draw. If that goes out the window, all you’re left with is the free-for-all which pretty soon devolves into Thomas Hobbes’s nightmare existence in the state of nature where life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

The current Trump trial in Manhattan will likely resolve this week, one way or another, though there is no way that the candidate will land in jail, even if he is convicted and sentenced to go there. That will only be another quandary for the foundering rule of law, and a dreadful challenge. Altogether this trial has alerted even the deranged news channels that the nation is still capable of feeling grossly insulted by its own rulers, and insults will be answered.

Tribulation may be the only answer that will avail to correct America’s tragic capture by blobs foreign and domestic. And you must understand that our nation’s bad choices have brought these tribulations upon ourselves. Fugazy finance is finally hitting the wall it has been seeking. Wealth based on pretense eventually runs out of hallucinatory mojo. Zooming gold and silver prices signal that the US dollar is in distress. The eagle is flying upside down.

A system based on credit is one thing, when credit can plausibly be paid back. But that system is gone. Finally, you must learn what truth or consequences really means, and the truth is that our debts are unpayable and everybody knows it. The consequences await. Any way you slice that — bond market blow-up, raging inflation, bank failures, stocks cratering, a “great taking” of collateral (your property) — the effect is the same: a crashing standard of living. That will get everybody’s attention in a way that Pride Month marches won’t. If “Joe Biden” thinks he will put over a central bank digital currency to cover for all this failure, he and the blob he rode in on will be in for a rude surprise.

Fugazy war isn’t working either. When did Ukraine become a problem for Western Civ? When Victoria Nuland & Company in the US State Department decided to make it a problem in 2014. Before that, going back into the mists of history, Ukraine was not a problem. It was a rather poor frontier province of Russia, and for a while was badly mistreated by Stalin, but it was not a problem outside of Ukraine and, frankly, it was none of our business. And in a matter of months, as Russia rolls up on the Zelensky regime, it will cease to be a problem for anyone.

The notion that the USA and NATO can reverse this now is insane. The nations of Western Civ won’t draft troops to battle on the ground there. There’s no will to fight in Ukraine among the young people of Europe and America. And we have no more guns or ammo to give. The war will end in humiliation for all concerned in the West, especially the “Joe Biden” regime, which has been recklessly flirting with nuclear aggression — as if this would accomplish anything but turning Western Civ into an ashtray.

Fugazy pandemic sponsored by a Globalist pharmaceutical cabal has shot its wad. It has already accomplished a great deal in the way of bringing death and injury to millions. Dim as the people have become in their fog of TikTok mind-fuckery, they have started to notice the dead and dying around them. And the people who stupidly or maliciously caused it to happen — Deborah Birx, Robert Redfield, all the treasonous news-readers like Chris Cuomo and Andy Cooper — have commenced their modified-limited-hangouts to try to escape culpability. They won’t, of course. There’s a fair chance that they will hang, and many others with them. But don’t expect the public to line up in the parking lots for more shots. And in the event of another bioweapon outbreak, the doctors may even remember their Hippocratic oaths and actually treat people with existing anti-virals. But do expect the public to get extremely pissed-off, if it happens again.

What has the blob (or blobs foreign and domestic) got left after those biggies? They can gin-up their Antifa mobs again. This time, though, they might be met by a million Kyle Rittenhouses. They can stuff every ballot box in the land, and surely will try with all their might and all their wiles. But I wouldn’t want to be a blobist the week after a fugazy election. They can signal their beloved “newcomers” to blow up bridges and power stations and shoot up a stadium or a mall here and there, but it won’t save their blobish necks. A lot of bad things are likely to happen over the year ahead, but it looks like America will finally refuse to become Fugazy Land.

Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and being alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You have to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes too near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could.

— Louise Erdrich (from her book ‘The Painted Drum’)

THE PROBLEM ISN’T CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE, It’s Civil Obedience

by Caitlin Johnstone

Our society does not have an antisemitism crisis. It doesn’t have a crisis of far left radicalism, Islamist extremism, support for terrorism, or fomenting of dissent by foreign powers.

Our society has a moral crisis. A cruelty crisis. An imperialism crisis. A militarism crisis. A propaganda crisis. An insincerity crisis. A stupidity crisis. An obedience crisis.

Empire managers and imperial spinmeisters try to pretend there’s some horrifying existential emergency involving hatred of Jews or love of Hamas or some other ridiculous nonsense in our society, because the empire too is in a state of crisis. People are waking up from its lullaby of propaganda and are rejecting its narrative manipulation like never before, which is why instead of relenting and accepting the empire’s destruction of Gaza, opposition to it is only growing stronger.

So the authorized custodians of imperial narratives flail around desperately trying to regain some control by spinning all the civil disobedience we are seeing in a way that makes it seem like some sort of problem which needs to be fixed. But as Howard Zinn said, “Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience.”

Our problem is not that more and more people are opposing Israel’s empire-backed atrocities in Gaza with more and more aggression, our problem is that people are not opposing it aggressively enough. Our problem is that too many people still have their minds jacked into the mainstream worldview and ignore the most urgent matter of our time, letting their thoughts be preoccupied with frivolous garbage and trusting that our leaders are doing what’s best for us.

Mainstream culture is so shallow, vapid and idiotic that when an artist rapped about this issue of unparalleled urgency, he included the line “I want a ceasefire, fuck a response from Drake” — and everyone knew what he meant. He meant mainstream culture is fixated on phony public spats between millionaire pop stars while the US empire funnels weapons of annihilation into Israel to be dropped on a giant concentration camp full of children. It says so much about this fraudulent dystopia we live in that such a thing would need to be said. But it did.

The problem isn’t that people are becoming too disobedient, the problem is that people remain too obedient. The problem isn’t that people are becoming too radicalized against their government, the problem is that people aren’t radicalized enough. The problem is that the freaks who rule over us are not sufficiently afraid of us. The problem is that we have not yet come to the collective realization that there are a whole lot more of us than there are of them, and that we don’t actually need to put up with them doing crazy and evil things right in front of our faces.

Instead people sit around drooling with their eyes fixed on screens full of endless diversion while children are ripped to shreds by western-supplied military explosives for no other reason than because they happen to belong to the wrong ethnic group. 

That is the real crisis of our society. Not an imaginary antisemitism epidemic. Not college kids disobeying authority figures. Not leftists. Not anarchists. Not Islam. Not Hamas.

The real crisis in our society is that too many people are still blindly obedient to a murderous and tyrannical empire which should be hacked to pieces and scattered to the winds.

(caitlinjohnstone.com.au)