Mendocino County Today: Thursday 7/4/2024

By AVA News Service on July 4, 2024

Binary code for really hot (Bill Harper)

YESTERDAY'S HIGHS: Ukiah 111°, Yorkville 109°, Laytonville 108°, Boonville 108°, Covelo 108°, Fort Bragg 82°, Mendocino 73°, Point Arena 63°

EXPANSION OF ABOVE NORMAL TEMPERATURES are expected for the weekend. Heat will bring continued Major HeatRisk alongside enhanced fire weather concerns. Shallow marine inversion may be pushed offshore in time for fireworks enjoyment as we celebrate our nation's Independence. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): I reached 82F yesterday, near a record for my location about 1 mile from the ocean. Clear skies & very slowly cooling is forecast into the weekend. You can see the fog to our south, I am hopeful it stays there for our Saturday night fireworks display.

POWER WAS OUT for most of Anderson Valley from 6:45 to 10:45 Wednesday morning. Given the timing and duration and a robotic message from PG&E’s outage line, locals suspected that the cause of the outage was the hyper-senstive switches/circuit breakers that PG&E has installed in the wake of their being held accountable for the most devastating wildfires in recent years. When the breakers twitch off, it takes line crews several hours to inspect the lines, find the flipped switch(es), and turn the system back on.

TOM ENGLISH has died (03/30/1947 - 06/29/2024).

Steve Sparks interviewed Tom back in April of 2010: theava.com/archives/6075

AV FIRE CHIEF Andres Avila said Wednesday that he had not heard of any heat-related problems in the Valley — so far. But, he added somewhat ominously, “Stand by.”

MASSIVE FIRE GUTS UKIAH WASTE FACILITY, Crews Face Grueling Challenge

by Matt LeFever

A massive fire erupted early Monday morning at Ukiah’s C&S Waste Solutions Processing Facility, creating a daunting task for firefighters who are painstakingly dismantling and extinguishing smoldering bales of compressed, recycled metals and plastics.

Ukiah Valley Fire Authority’s Battalion Chief Ryan Nelson reported that as of yesterday afternoon, firefighters had managed to process about 250 of the 1,200 burning bales, estimating that it would take at least two more days to fully extinguish the blaze.…

mendofever.com/2024/07/03/massive-fire-guts-ukiah-waste-facility-crews-face-grueling-challenge

Fire at Ukiah Dump, July 2, 2024 (photo by John Strangio)

TEMPERATURES SOAR TO 100s IN THE NORTH BAY.

Here’s exactly what temperatures were recorded in the region

by Madison Smalstig

The heat wave rolling through the North Bay this week brought the hottest weather of the year so far, according to the National Weather Service, and even burst a decades-old record.

Temperatures maxed out at about 3 p.m. Tuesday across Sonoma, Napa and Mendocino counties, with Cloverdale, Angwin and Ukiah tied for hottest at 109 degrees.

Peak temperatures across the region Tuesday included:

Angwin: 109 degrees
Cloverdale: 109 degrees
Ukiah: 109 degrees
Healdsburg: 106 degrees
Santa Rosa: 106 degrees
Calistoga: 105 degrees
Monte Rio: 103 degrees
Sebastopol: 95 degrees
Napa: 105 degrees
Petaluma: 97 degrees

A high of 106 degrees recorded at Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport is a new high for July 2 in the county. The previous record was 101 degrees, set July 2, 2001.

Comparably, some temperatures recorded across the U.S. included 104 degrees in Tucson, Arizona, about 100 degrees in Houston, and 90 degrees in Miami. (On the other hand, the northernmost part of Antarctica near Drake’s Passage was 21 degrees.)

Wednesday temperatures offered a slight cool down, but not by much. Highs recorded as of 3 p.m. were:

Angwin: 109 degrees
Cloverdale: 107 degrees
Healdsburg: 105 degrees
Santa Rosa: 103 degrees
Ukiah: 109 degrees
Calistoga: 105 degrees
Monte Rio: 99 degrees
Sebastopol: 93 degrees
Napa: 100 degrees
Petaluma: 102 degrees

The heat is expected to stick around through the rest of the week, with a few fluctuations but not enough to deter the excessive heat warning, which was extended again Wednesday afternoon to end July 10.

A red flag warning is still in place through 5 a.m. Friday for areas of higher elevation in the North Bay.

(pressdemocrat.com)

Child Spraying Water on Ducks, Geese at Lake Mendocino (Jeff Goll)

BRUTAL HEAT ON TAP IN CALIFORNIA WITH ALL-TIME RECORDS EXPECTED TO FALL

by Jill Tucker & Carolyn Stein

The mind-boggling heat wave baking California over the next several days is expected to decimate dozens if not hundreds of records up and down the state, including several all-time highs and consecutive days above 100 degrees.

Saying it will be hot is an understatement. From east to west and from top to bottom, much of the state will be engulfed in oppressive if not deadly heat, which will linger for more than a week with no relief overnight.

Excessive heat warnings — the National Weather Service’s top-level alert — will remain in place through Tuesday across the Bay Area and much of the state away from the coastline. The alert comes with messages to limit outdoor activities, keep pets and people out of hot cars and to stay hydrated. Heat exhaustion and heat stroke, which are life-threatening conditions, are real possibilities, officials said.

The heat wave was also having an impact on holiday celebrations, including the cancellation of parades and fireworks in some communities.

So far, PG&E was saying no rolling blackouts were planned, an issue in past heat waves given the impact of excessive use of electricity on the power grid.

This wave, however, is expected to far surpass other stretches of excessive heat in recent years or even recent decades.

As a point of reference, the Sacramento area rarely sees more than one day in a row of such extreme heat per year, said meteorologist Kate Forrest, of the region’s National Weather Service.

“It is rare to see multiple days of extreme risk consecutively,” she said Wednesday morning as the temperature hit 90 degrees in the city before 11 a.m. “It’s really not that common.”

In San Francisco, the forecast called for temperatures Wednesday in the mid- to upper 80s, with a heat advisory in place.

At Ocean Beach in San Francisco, the sun was out and the sky was blue, offering locals actual beach weather.

Sandra Hardin, who lives close to the beach, said summer usually means summer months, “May gray, June gloom, no-sky July and Fogust,” which means she typically tells her friends to come visit her around September or October.

But Wednesday morning, she was under an umbrella parked in a beach chair, toes in the sand, with a Fremont friend by her side.

Nearby, San Francisco residents Dave Romero and Kit Ho were enjoying the weather with their two kids, Ariano and Brody, who both took shelter from the sun under a small blue tent.

“We live on Fulton, and we never really come to the beach,” Romero said.

“It’s so windy all the time,” added Ho.

Local restaurants and other retailers were hoping the weather, drawing large crowds seeking refuge from the heat, would translate into more money in the coffers.

Alex Prodhomme, general manager at French restaurant Galinette just blocks from the beach on Taraval Street, was unsure how the heat wave combined with the Fourth of July was going to affect the restaurant, which opened just weeks ago. He said he was hopeful the weather will bring more business through the holiday weekend.

“The Sunset, when it’s not foggy, is the most beautiful part of the city,” Prodhomme said.

Away from the coast, temperatures were heading into life-threatening territory, with a forecast of 110 degrees in Concord on Wednesday, and similar temperatures out to the Delta and into the Central Valley and Sacramento, where forecasters said the current record of seven consecutive days above 105 degrees could be broken next week.

That was only one of several all-time records that could be shattered in the coming days, said Brian Plantz, meteorologist at the Las Vegas National Weather Service, which covers Nevada as well as eastern parts of Southern California, including Death Valley.

“In our area here we’re on track to tie or break about 25 records here between now and next Friday,” he said. That includes an expected all-time high in Las Vegas of 118 degrees Monday and Tuesday, besting the top temperature ever seen in Sin City of 117 degrees, which has been seen just five times since record-keeping started in 1930.

Bishop, in Inyo County, was also expected to break the all-time high of 111 degrees from 2021, while Death Valley was likely to be the hottest place on the planet Sunday, reaching 129 degrees, shy of the all-time record of 134.

Other cities could also see all-time high temperatures, including Stockton and Ukiah, with many more expected to at least tie their records.

Across the region, many communities were rethinking holiday festivities because of the heat and wildfire risk. In Antioch, officials canceled the annual Fourth of July parade, while St. Helena leaders called off the city’s Fourth of July fireworks.

Back in San Francisco on Wednesday, the relatively cool weather was already pulling in folks fleeing the heat from inland.

Sergio Cebotari brought his family from Sacramento, where temperatures are expected to reach 111 degrees Friday.

“We heard it was going to be hot, so we decided to come down” for a few days, he said.

At Union Square, Jack Simpson, 36, a gardener from the city’s Recreation and Park Department, had been watering the plants in the area all morning long.

“We’re trying to increase their moisture, so that they don’t burn under this sun,” he said. “It has been pretty harsh today. I guess handling water during the day makes it a bit easier for me, but you definitely can still feel the sun.”

(SF Chronicle)

MYSTERY ASSAULT ON THE LOST COAST TRAIL

On 6/25/2024, at about 12:00 pm, Humboldt County Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to Jerold Phelps Hospital in Garberville for a possible assault victim.

Upon arrival, the investigating deputy made contact with a 34-year-old male who had sustained laceration type injuries to his arms and upper body. The injured party had been located on the Lost Coast Trail near the Petrolia area by a group of hikers who had summoned assistance. Due to the remote location, the subject was airlifted to the hospital for treatment. Through interviews with the subject, he informed deputies that he believed he had been assaulted by an unknown person(s) but had no recollection of how his injuries were sustained.

While this case is still under investigation, there has been no information obtained thus far that would indicate any on-going risk to the public in this area.

Anyone with information about this case or related criminal activity is encouraged to call the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office at (707) 445-7251 or the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office Crime Tip line at (707) 268-2539.

COUNTY FINANCES & LAYTONVILLE GROCERY STORE

by Jim Shields

Happy Independence Day!

I think we're still independent, thanks to a gang of big brain misfits who all had the King's death warrants on their heads. We can hang together or hang separately, as B. Franklin looked at it. What a crew, but they were terrorists, the giveaway was the bloody hands. But they sure knew how to make country like no one had ever dreamed of or seen before.

As is always the case, another very informative report by Mike Geniella on the “sweeping state audit of Mendocino County practices, including finance, contracts and procurements, and elections, will be conducted over the next 18 months after legislative approval of a bill that now only needs the governor's signature.”

The state action follows ongoing but as of now uncompleted federal outside, independent audits for the past two fiscal years, as well as a state Controller’s audit of the County’s internal financial controls.

So now there will be a state audit soon underway. Great the more audits the better since the public has been officially informed at BOS meetings by two Supervisors (Ted Williams and Glenn McGourty) that the County keeps three sets of books and no on knows how much money is in the bank.

But we also need another process to occur that should have happened prior to the December 2021 consolidation of the Treasurer-Tax Collector and Auditor-Controller offices. It’s something that yours truly and two Supervisors (John Haschak and Dan Gjerde) have recommended take place for some time. Here’s the request found in a response I made to Supe Ted Williams regarding the muddle of County finances:

“Ted,

As I’ve suggested, as well as Supe Haschak and I believe Supe Gjerde also, the Board should call in former officials responsible for fiscal matters (Treasurer-Tax Collector, Auditor-Controller, Assessor, CEO) and interview/question and, hopefully, learn from them how they did their jobs. This is critical information the BOS admits it is lacking. This process would include but is not limited to such things as assessments of their responsibilities and how they performed their duties, how they exercised fiscal oversight and the identification of internal financial controls, systems that were utilized (manual vs. electronic/software, etc.), staffing levels (classifications and job descriptions) narrative descriptions of interdepartmental and third-party (ex.: outside, independent audit) working relationships detailing scope of work and information disclosed and received. Since no one has explanations or answers to what caused the ongoing, untenable fiscal mess the county is in, you need to conduct an inquiry and start finding answers to all of the current unknowns prior to launching a substantially, momentous alteration to your organizational structure with this idea of a Department of Finance. By the way, if the Board does decide to hold an inquiry, it won’t be necessary for former officials to attend in-person. That’s the beauty of zoom meetings.”

Here’s a short list of former County finance-related officials who should be called into a public hearing to share their information and insights on how they did their jobs over the years:

Shari Schapmire, Treasurer-Tax Collector

Lloyd Weer, Auditor-Controller

Meredith Ford, Auditor-Controller

Dennis Huey, Auditor-Controller

Tim Knudson, Treasurer-Tax Collector

Carmel Angelo, CEO

Jim Anderson, CAO

It should be noted that Supe Mo Mulheren vehemently objected to this reasonable suggestion to talk to people who had many years of dealing with local government finances.

How did Mulheren see it?

Angrily, she lectured her colleagues, “We should not be taking elected officials to task. That’s a job for the Grand Jury.”

If that’s the case, how does Mulheren explain “taking to task” a certain Auditor who was summarily suspended without due process.

Just a few quick updates regarding the re-opening of the Laytonville Long Valley Market which is expected to occur within the next couple of weeks.

The store is a 17,000 square-foot built entirely new in 2005 by the former owner Michael Brought. The store is located conveniently on Highway 101 and serves a nearby population of approximately 3,500, along with another approximate 300 to 500 daily travelers. Its always been operated as a supermarket, hardware, meat market, and deli with kitchen, and on-sale liquor license.
The new owner, Haji Alam, appeared at our Town Advisory Council meeting on June 26, making a presentation and answering questions from the public. He’s also been on my radio show explaining his re-opening plans and other related matters.

He’s very personable, open and frank in his conversations, and quite engaging.

I realize that folks, at least some of them anyway, in Redwood Valley have a different perspective on Alam given his plans to open a gas station near their community. The Redwood Valley Municipal Advisory Council has taken an official position in opposition to the permitting and construction of Alam’s gas station. The Chair and Vice-Chair of the RV MAC appeared at our May Laytonville MAC meeting to share and explain their concerns about the proposed gas station project.

Anyway, at the Laytonville MAC meeting Alam explained in some detail his re-opening plans for the grocery store.

He plans to work with local farmers to stock a selection of organic vegetable produce, and requested they contact him so they can put a produce plan together.
He said that the Market will no longer carry hardware and tool items as was the case with the former Geiger’s Market. Instead, the new Market will offer camping, picnicking, hunting and fishing items. He explained it didn’t make any sense to him to compete with the existing Building Supply and Nursery operated by Lurane Dalton, selling hardware and tool items.
I’ve been able to verify that most, if not all, former Market employees have been contacted regarding job offers, and currently many employees are now busy preparing the store to re-open the doors
Alam also said he plans to apply for a County permit to open and operate six-pump gas station on the Market’s property. He already owns the former Strider Real Estate building and property, located next door (immediately to the south) of the Market. He plans to demolish the old building and expand the Market’s parking lot to off-set the space required for the gas station. The fuel operation will be sited on the northwest corner of the parking lot. Of course, this proposed project will have to go through the County’s Planning and Building process for final approvals. At the meeting, Alam and some of the attendees discussed plans for re-routing gas station vehicles in the parking lot exiting onto Highway 101.

I believe most folks in the Laytonville area would support and will welcome a second gas station since there’s definitely an established need for one.

I’ll keep you posted on further developments.

(Jim Shields is the Mendocino County Observer’s editor and publisher, observer@pacific.net, the long-time district manager of the Laytonville County Water District, and is also chairman of the Laytonville Area Municipal Advisory Council. Listen to his radio program “This and That” every Saturday at 12 noon on KPFN 105.1 FM, also streamed live: http://www.kpfn.org)

Jose Hueta and Son, Redwood Valley (Jeff Goll)

MENDOCINO COUNTY GROWERS HIT BY BIOLOGICAL SURVEY BOTTLENECK

by Sarah Reith

Though a reduction in the cannabis tax is on the table for the next two years, there are still complicated obstacles for those who remain in the cannabis industry.

Only 23 growers in the county have achieved the goal of obtaining the coveted combination of county license plus annual state license. Another 481 have provisional licenses. They have until the end of the year to upgrade to the state annual.

Sarah McBurney, the senior cannabis program manager with the county’s cannabis department, told the Board of Supervisors General Government committee this week that growers who are required to complete a biological survey appear to be out of luck. For example, if growers need a biological survey that includes a spring flora review, and the cannabis department is reviewing their application in July, “that window has already passed,” she noted. “We cannot compete that bio(logical) survey until next spring, which puts us past” the end-of-year deadline. She said the department has tried to get around the conundrum in a variety of ways, “but we were unsuccessful.”…

mendofever.com/2024/07/04/mendocino-county-growers-hit-by-biological-survey-bottleneck

LOCAL EVENTS (this week)

SHERIFF IDENTIFIES WILLITS MURDER VICTIM

As a part of this continuing investigation, the decedent / victim from this case was positively identified as Roberta Ann McNeil-Wood, a 77-year-old female from Willits. The decedent's legal next-of-kin was contacted and notified of McNeil-Wood's death. The official cause and manner of death is pending receipt of the final autopsy report and toxicology report.

Further information related to this investigation will be released as it becomes available. Anybody with information related to this investigation is encouraged to call the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office Communications Center at 707-463-4086. Information can also be provided anonymously by utilizing the non-emergency tip-line at 707-234-2100.

FORT BRAGG CITY MANAGER MONTHLY REPORT: issuu.com/cityoffortbragg/docs/city_manager_roundup-_june

O WELL. WE'LL CARRY ON AS BEST WE CAN

Cancellation of July 18, 2024 Planning Commission Meeting

Dear Interested Parties,

The cancelation notice for the July 18 2024, Planning Commission meeting is now available on the department website at: mendocinocounty.gov/departments/planning-building-services/public-hearing-bodies

ED NOTES

THE LAUGHABLE MEDIA response to Biden's end of last week's “debate” is even sadder than Biden's collapse, laughable because the sudden media admission that Biden is past it is an admission that America's corporate media are a lot more decrepit than Biden. The media are lying that they didn't know Biden is out of it. They were called off the story by their editors, all of whom are deep in the pocket of the Democratic Party.

THE OVERALL situation is way past irony, but lots of people are saying they'll vote for Biden even if he's embalmed by election day, such is the fear of the orange monster.

IF TRUMP is re-elected he'll meet a wall of resistance. All this scared talk that he'll assume dictatorial power like some latter-day Mussolini is gross hysteria. The anticipatory jubilation of our Fox-driven fascisti that the last 50 years of lib-lab-ism will somehow be undone by a Trump administration overlooks the obvious fact that most of the national government apparatus hates Trump, and will undo him and whatever idiocy he tries to impose, and like the great Biden “liberals,” Trump will sign off on the wholesale murders of the trapped Gazans. To my aged mind, in fundamental respects, one party's as destructive as the other. Jill Stein of the Greens or Cornel West, recently of the Greens but now running solo, or even Kennedy are respectable alternatives to whoever the Democrats put up.

THE PERSISTENT DELUSION that the Northcoast is a bastion of progressive politics is belied in the person of our Congressman, the blandly murderous Jared Huffman, on board for his political party's genocidal assault on the Palestinians. It will always rankle me that the Democrats sabbed the challenge to Huffman by Norman Solomon when they put up a gaggle of potheads in the primary who drew off just enough votes to deny the genuinely progressive Solomon a runoff election with the retro Huffman. I haven't heard or read so much as a peep of resistance to Huffman.

BUMPERSTICKER spotted on a little red car parked at the Philo Post Office: “I brake for turtles, frogs, and big leaves.”

THE LAST TIME I had to resort to a Have-A-Heart trap for stray cats, I snared a skunk. Which presented me with the tricky problem of freeing the troublesome little critter. Slow as skunks are in maneuvering themselves into position to spray, when they’re confined to a small space there’s no way to simply open the trap door to let them walk out. You’ll get hosed down for sure. Skunk spray, incidentally, is a unique shade of lime green and quite beautiful, as I discovered in the long process of removing a skunk from my Have-A-Heart. And my skunk had a seemingly endless reserve of his liquid armor, which he kept up in my general direction for a couple of minutes while I admired the display. Finally, I threw a tarp over the trap and maneuvered the cage with a ten-foot bamboo pole to where the trap’s gate would open on its own, and the skunk, having been turned upside down a few times, finally sauntered out to resume his cozy life under my front porch, with nightly dinners in my compost bin.

A TRULY TERRIFYING headline from the NY Post:

‘President’ Kamala Harris is ‘the future of the Democratic Party,’ White House says. … “One of the reasons why he picked the vice president, President [sic] Kamala Harris, is because she is indeed the future of the party,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday.

Point Arena Independence Parade from the past.

JULY 5TH FIRST FRIDAY ART WALK

ART WALK: emphasis on ART and WALK. Ukiah is a very walkable town. It’s a Holiday weekend and it's going to be a hot one! Join artists and their hosts for an evening of art, music and refreshments as you stroll from one venue to the next; each showcasing local art and artistry. Held in Historic Downtown Ukiah on the first Friday of each month, the First Friday Art Walk is the perfect way to relax your body, mind and soul. This enjoyable evening begins at 5:00 p.m. and promises to delight your senses; all while enjoying the company of others. This month start your journey at “The Lot” to receive a passport to participating businesses, collect 10 stickers and bring the map back to “The Lot” for a chance to win a prize. Please note other venues may be open so make sure you get out and explore Friday evening!

The Lot, Corner of Main Street and Standley, Ukiah

The Lot is an open air market hosting a variety of artists including House of venus, Mermaizing Scents and a new Hawaiian food vendor. Too much fun to list you have to stop by to see it all and meet Nick to learn about this revitalized energy towards the Art Walk and collect a passport.

Grace Hudson Museum, 431 S Main Street, Ukiah

Spend a part of your First Friday Art Walk by enjoying the sounds of guitarist Clay Hawkins as he returns to the Museum, this time accompanied by his pal, bassist Andrew Robertson. Let Clay and Andrew’s music be the soundtrack of your evening while you explore our current special exhibition, Deep Roots, Spreading Branches: Fine Woodworking from the Krenov School. You might also want to have a look at our core galleries featuring Grace Hudson’s artwork, exquisite Pomo basketry, and Hudson-Carpenter family history. It’s also a great time of year to stroll around our Wild Gardens and check out what’s in bloom as the early summer day starts to cool down. Light refreshments will be available. On First Fridays, the Museum is free for everyone, all day and evening!

Corner Gallery, 201 S State Street, Ukiah

Corner Gallery July 2024 ’Frame It' Assemblage Art ShowPresented by Harmony Gaits ‘Frame It’ is a collaborative assemblage art show featuring pieces made by the artists who participated in the ‘Outta the Box’ assemblage camps in 2024. *Spencer Brewer and Esther Siegel of ‘Harmony Gaits’ began these camps out of a desire to share the assemblage art form with others and to create a community of like-minded artists. *Each piece that will be featured in this group show is comprised of some sort of case and uniquely designed from found/discarded objects into a personal expression of each person’s creativity. This will be a fun and engaging exhibition comprised of all the assemblage sculptures made in the camps. Harmony Gaits is Spencer Brewer and Esther Siegel’s ranch assemblage art studio in Redwood Valley. Once a month they host ‘Outta the Box’ assemblage Art camps to folks of all ages. This show is the second assemblage show displaying pieces from five different assemblage camps. It will be a first time for many artists to participate in an art show, so everyone is excited! Virginia Macintosh is the featured artist for the Mendocino County Arts Association’s pony wall. Virginia is long time member of the arts community. Her renditions of everyday life and wild life small images in acrylic are a delight. Young Artist Wall: - Marin Lake and Tiby Owen - joint show — acrylic on canvas with collage elements. Live music will be provided throughout the evening by Steve Winkle, guitar and vocals.

Art Center Ukiah, 201 S State Street, Ukiah

Art Center Ukiah July 2024 “We The People “ The month of our country’s birthday celebration is always a good time to reflect on who we are in the United States of America, especially as we find ourselves in the middle of a presidential election year. How do you relate to “We the people” in the twenty first century? Who are we? How do you see our accomplishments, our challenges, our hopes or even our failures? Local artists answer these questions with exhibits of their paintings, photographs, fabric art, sculpture and wood work. The First Friday opening on July 5 from 5-8pm featuring music by Steve Winkle.

Brown Bear Toys, 161 Orchard Plaza, Ukiah

Brown Bear Toys is participating in the Ukiah First Friday Art Walk for the first time featuring several youth artists and a Free Kids Art Class. Event from 5-8p, kids art with Linda Tucker of Wild Child Art begins at 5:30pm

Medium Art Gallery, 518 E Perkins Street, Ukiah The Deep Valley Arts Collective is pleased to announce our July group art exhibition titled “Paper, Paste, and Pulp,” opening at MEDIUM Art Gallery in Ukiah and on display from July 5th through July 27th, 2024. Opening Reception: First Friday Art Walk: Friday, July 5th, 2024, from 5:00-8:00 p.m. Beverages and light refreshments available. Community art project - supplies provided. “Paper, Paste, and Pulp” explores how artists transform the basic elements of paper, pulp, paste, and cardboard into collage, papier-mÃ¢chÃ©, paper clay and more to create 2D and 3D artwork. Artists may use this medium to explore the topic of their choice.

Paradigm Collective, 312 N School Street, Ukiah

Paradigm is happy to host a Makers Market for the July Art Walk.

We hope you enjoy the First Friday Art Walk, if you've missed this one please make sure you mark your calendar for next month! If you have questions about the Art Walk please contact Mo Mulheren at 707-391-3664 or email her at ukiahvalleynetworking@gmail.com

JUST ONE DAY…

Re: Peace-in-Palestine entry in Mendocino July 4th parade: Planning meeting tonight! [MCN-Announce]

Gina T wrote: This is a very divisive issue - I respect your right to believe what you believe, and take the positions that you do. But to march in the Fourth of July parade? Can't we put aside the war, and every other crisis happening around the world for just one day? ONE day, just one, where we can ALL unite as Americans, have a good time, and CELEBRATE AMERICA?

Marco here, Gina. If you don't like the way they celebrate their freedom, look away, look away.

They seem to be celebrating their freedom by using it. Just as you are by using yours, and I am by using mine. So we're all on the same page here. Have a great day.

In other news: When I went to Safeway yesterday I had trouble finding the bags of frozen meatballs, so I asked a stocker. She said, "Come with me," and she led me from the freezers full of products from a thousand and more miles away and instead to the /meat section/, of all places, where they have several flavors of meatballs that I think they make right there, out of real meat. I bought a package of twelve fresh-looking red beef and Italian sausage meatballs for less per pound than the just barely acceptable frozen gray-meat meatballs I'd been buying. Tonight I went wild and put /three/ in my dinner sauce, and they're pretty good, as good or better than the Johnsonville kind that were my favorite before, that Safeway doesn't carry anymore. If you're a fan of meatballs, you're in luck. The sale price won't last forever, but the regular price is not that bad.

In other other news. I wrote politely several weeks ago to Chuck Hathaway for information and details of the banishment process that removed four or five people from the ability to post to and read the Announce listserv. I still haven't heard back. Having been opaquely and authoritarianly shut out of a few systems myself over a long career of creatively using my freedom, I'm interested. I don't necessarily want the members back. I just would like a demonstration of the sort of transparency that the new managers of these listservs promised would be a feature when they were campaigning for control. What I asked for: Who was kicked out, when were they kicked out, exactly for /what/ were they kicked out, and the real names of the people who had the power to kick them out and did the actual kicking. I really started wondering about this when Alan Haack wrote to me to say that someone calling himself Xeno told him that he (Xeno) would allow Alan back in on the condition that he (Alan) employ a real-life notary public to legally certify that he's a person and not a robot. Consequently Xeno wrote that he would be taking a break because, among other concerns, he's under attack from outer space on the frequency 18GHz, to which he attributes an unpleasant tingly sensation in his left arm.

— Marco McClean

A KELLEY HOUSE HISTORY MYSTERY!

This photo is currently titled “Donkey Puncher and Engine, c. 1920,” but there’s no documentation with the photo. The possible water tower in the background has raised the question of whether this could be the Hoist Engine that was at the incline south of the Mendocino Presbyterian Church.

The Hoist Engine hauled cars of lumber from the flat up to the top of the incline, where they would be sent by tramway to the Shipping Point.

Does anyone recognize the machinery or the man operating this equipment?

CATCH OF THE DAY, Wednesday, July 3, 2024

BLAKE BUTLER, Berry Creek/Ukiah. Failure to appear.

RODOLFO CEJA III, Talmage. County parole violation, failure to appear.

GREGG FOURNIER, Willits. Unauthorized entry into commercial building, disobeying court order.

DARIC PARDO, Covelo. Trespassing, vandalm, county parole violation, resisting.

CYNTHIA PHILLIBER, Ukiah. Robbery.

MIGUEL SIMON CRUZ, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

LEE YECNY, San Luis Obispo/Ukiah. Trespassing, burglary, stalking with criminal threats, controlled substance, resisting.

GO BACK, CRAIG, TO YOUR ROOTS IN THE ONE TRUE CHURCH!

July 3, 2024 A.D. 1:07 p.m. Ukiah, California USA

Just sittin' here in the air conditioned room at the Royal Motel on South State Street in sunny Ukiah. Spent the morning chanting Hare Krishna with a few Catholic prayers interspersed. The mind easily performs the sadhana, with the "witness of the mind" observing dispassionately. Deeper is Parabrahman, which is prior to consciousness. That is all.

— Craig Stehr

WHY OUR CONGRESSMAN IS SCARED OF THE AMERICAN ISRAEL PUBLIC AFFAIRS COMMITTEE

On Thursday's July 4th show, at 9 am on KMUD, our guests are Pete Tucker and Norman Solomon.

PETE TUCKER
Tucker is originally from Westchester. He now lives in D.C. and covers politics. He just wrote a piece about the AIPAC attack on Congressman Jamaal Bowman.

BACKGROUND
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has been around over 60 years, but it only began intervening in Democratic primaries in a big way last election cycle. AIPAC’s move came on the heels of a string of corporate Democrats losing primary contests to progressive "Squad" members, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2018, and Bowman two years later.

To stop this trend, AIPAC — backed by millions from Republican donors — quickly became the top outside spender in Democratic primaries, dropping $26 million in 2022. This year, AIPAC plans to spend a cool $100 million, and the group’s top target is Bowman, whose primary was Tuesday, June 25.

Meanwhile, our congressman, Jared Huffman, is similarly vulnerable -- but not in the general election where registered Democrats far outnumber Republicans two to one.

Instead, Huffman, like Jamaal Bowman, is vulnerable in a primary.

AIPAC looms large in every congressional election. They are to be feared. Very feared.

WHAT HAPPENED?
What happened to Jamaal Bowman?

"In barely a month, an AIPAC-affiliated super PAC has spent $14.5 million — up to $17,000 an hour — against Bowman, filling television screens, stuffing mailboxes and clogging phone lines with caustic attacks," the New York Times reported. "With days to go, the expenditures have already eclipsed what any interest group has ever spent on a single House race."

Tellingly, AIPAC’s ads rarely mention Bowman’s views on Israel, which are thoughtful and nuanced, and supported by many progressive Jews.

"Calling for cease-fire does not mean the U.S. supports Hamas, nor does it mean the U.S. support the killing of Israelis or Jews, nor does it mean the U.S. supports antisemitism,’" Congressman Bowman said at a protest outside the White House late last year.

"We are calling for cease-fire because we don’t want anyone else to die, especially women and children.'”

Bowman, a progressive Democrat, dared to call out Israel on their war crimes in Gaza.

Rep. Jamaal Bowman’s primary was last Tuesday. He lost. He represented parts of the Bronx and Westchester. It was a bitter defeat for progressives.

NORMAN SOLOMON
Norman Solomon is well known to our listeners. He is the one and only credible candidate to ever challenge Jared Huffman for his congressional seat.

Norman Solomon, of West Marin, is national director of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His latest book, “War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine,” was published last year.

Solomon is a sharp critic of Huffman's enabling behavior towards Israel's pathological war machine and the U.S. funding of it. See:

Marin Independent Journal * June 20, 2024

www.marinij.com/2024/06/20/marin-voice-jared-huffmans-vote-on-cluster-munitions-was-misguided

KMUD
Our show, "Heroes and Patriots Radio", airs live on KMUD, on the first and fifth Thursdays of every month, at 9 AM, Pacific Time.

We simulcast our programming on two full power FM stations: KMUE 88.1 in Eureka and KLAI 90.3 in Laytonville. It also maintains a translator at 99.5 FM in Shelter Cove, California.

We also stream live from the web at https://kmud.org/

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Wherever you live, KMUD is your community radio station. We are a true community of informed and progressive people. Please join us by becoming a member or underwriter.

— John Sakowicz

WITH NEWSOM, KOUNALAKIS OUT OF STATE, MCGUIRE STEPS IN AS ‘ACTING GOVERNOR’ OF CALIFORNIA

With the Governor in D.C. and Lt. Gov. attending a funeral and wedding, the former political prodigy from Healdsburg is pinch-hitting in state’s highest office.

by Austin Murphy

Gov. Gavin Newsom was in Washington, D.C., for a meeting Wednesday – some outlets are describing it as an “intervention” – with President Joe Biden.

Lt. Gov. Eleni Koulanakis was also out of state, “attending a funeral and a family wedding,” according to a spokesperson in her office.

Who, in their absence, is acting governor of the nation’s most populous state, the world’s fifth-largest economy?

Hint: he was student body president at Healdsburg High School in 1997, went on to serve as that city’s youngest-ever mayor, and now lives in Geyserville with his wife, their young son and a flock of chickens.

Mike McGuire, the Democratic golden boy from Healdsburg, is now running the show in the Golden State.

There it is, clear as day in the California Government Code (Section 12058-12059, Article 5.5):

“In case of vacancy in the office of Governor and in the office of Lieutenant Governor, the last duly elected President pro Tempore of the Senate shall become Governor for the residue of the term.”

McGuire, a former Sonoma County supervisor, was elected to the state Senate in 2014, and became its most powerful member — President Pro-Tempore — in February 2024.

The life span of that “residue” remained unclear Wednesday, with Kounalakis’ office declining to specify when she will return to California.

It seemed a tad anticlimactic to learn that McGuire’s promotion, however temporary, included no extra trappings: no California Highway Patrol detail, or even balloons in his Sacramento office.

“Nothing like that,” said a spokesperson in his office Wednesday afternoon.

But the title is far from empty. As Acting Governor, McGuire does have the authority to sign legislation, issue proclamations, and declare a state of emergency.

In case of a natural disaster, or if a cluster of northern counties chooses this weekend to secede from California, it would be up to McGuire, 44, to lead the state’s response.

Striking an in-charge tone in his statement Wednesday, the newly minted Acting Governor assured his 39 million constituents that “we’ll be on high alert” over this 4th of July holiday “ as record-setting temperatures and challenging fire conditions set in across a wide swath of the Golden State. The State Office of Emergency Services has pre-positioned firefighting resources in the highest fire threat regions and Cal Fire is throwing everything they’ve got at the Thompson Fire in Butte County.”

While he kept a watchful eye on wildfire threats around the state, as Newsom’s stand-in, McGuire’s day job was going full boil. The Senate was in session Wednesday, operating with urgency, as lawmakers advanced a pair of $10 billion bonds, one on payments for climate change impacts, the other on funds for school repairs.

To make it onto the ballot in November, those measures would have to be passed and signed by the governor – in this case, the Acting Governor – then transmitted to the Secretary of State by midnight Wednesday.

While out of the ordinary, it’s not that unusual for the Senate president pro tem to take over as Acting Governor.

McGuire’s predecessor in that role, Toni Atkins, stepped into the Acting Governor’s role on two occasions. A year ago, she became the first LGBTQ person to sign a bill into law in California.

A decade ago this month, then-Gov. Jerry Brown, then-Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and Senate President Darrell Steinberg were all out of the state.

That left Atkins, at the time the speaker of the state Assembly, holding the state’s highest office — for all of nine hours.

During her brief reign, Atkins was interviewed on Skype by talk show host Jimmy Kimmel, who suggested, “Maybe we should invade Oregon or something.”

A DAY AT THE SACTO DMV

by William J. Hughes

Regardless of the time spent, a day at the DMV can seem that way. More like day on the DMZ.

For me, I readied myself for almost a month between getting my driver's license renewal notice and setting up an appointment. I tried to go on-line to begin the renewal process, but the site just kept kicking me out as most sites do to me. I phoned and actually got a human. Set an appointment with the hangman: June 3, 10 a.m. Might as well be “high noon” because I have to go in to take an exam — with age comes examination — which I overactingly dread, knowing in my bones I was going to fail the exam, that and holiday travel was coming up, license required, mine with about a month left.

And yes, I studied up. I'd gone last renewal and failed the exam once, twice was my lucky number, thank goodness. And I remember efficient, the whole business, down-playing the DMZness, but my perceived demons of the 'D' persisted.

Deep early morning breath, coffee cup, rental car just because, parking lot on Broadway and Stockton, Sacramento, traffic and fast food. The DMV building. Strong coffee. The non-appointment line is already anaconda-like with a bright sign that says “With Appointment” with no one in line. That's me.

Now is where the demilitarization and “the horror, the horror” begins to diminish. One lovely lady, in lovely cotton, almost a Gaugin on one seat with one small screen, a pay day line to her right, only me to her left. She allows me an audience while the long line holds its fire at me. I tell her my tale of an appointment. She listens while the soup line just about begins to bang its soup cans, waiting patiently, I repeat, patiently.

She looks me up on her little screen and sure enough, there I am, given a call number. I give an apology to the first person in the concert ticket line.

I'm in, in the bare necessity, efficient atmosphere and the democracy, the sanctity, the sanctuary, the bureaucracy assurance of our remarkable Republic bursts, washes, floods over me. I'm usually proud of my country but this, every ethnicity, every necessity to be here in America, every sex, every choice, every color, every class, every answer to up-yours Trump and all he and his might spews; heavy on the new Mexican-Americans, kind of like a bureaucratic border.

I'm a pale face in the well-behaved crowd, some within earshot complaints, the DMV clerks, saints, patient and efficient as the soft female voice calls out the next up numbers in rotation and location, a bakery call of car concerns.

I wait maybe 20 minutes for my number to come up, the UN panoply of languages around me a tower of fable. OK, I'm up, the clerk at my window, an average Joe. Then uh-oh, my appointment has arrived. What I could not do online at home, registering, has to be done, here and now. My knees buckle. But buckle up bub, you are here. Make a full day of it. A Russian sounding security guard, burly and bearish, is shouting about a misplaced bicycle, sounding a bit too East German DMZ.

But it’s a good soundtrack as I approach the fear of the little computer screen. I begin the 400-step registration process. I'm stuck. I have to ask the young, bearded Pakistani fella next to me for help, nearly pleading. He does help and I get the rhythm of it, slowly and somewhat assuredly I get it done. Crying babies, Vietnamese elders with helpful daughters, bikers, hikers, fossil fuel consumers all.

Ok, I'm back at Average Joe's window with my new pass number. Eye check, check. Thumb print, check. $45, check. I'm getting a self-induced feeling that somehow I wasn't going to have to take the exam. “Take a photo,” Joe says and then the hammer, the transmission falls. “Then take your test. Did you study? Good luck.”

I mumble disappointment in response.

The photo line creeps forward. You want the face of a nation? Just get in the DMV photo line. Turbans, bouffants, crewcuts, hoodies, dyed, fried, bandanas, hair clips, a Walmart of faces and places. Us.

I try to smile for my mug shot because the exam line is right behind. Can't avoid it, staring into the void of the lone testing room, more lab rat to me than efficiency.

In I go. I just know that I do not know enough to score A or at least a C+ (I guess you can miss two questions and still pass). I do it. I know I failed. The headline on the computer says so. I mope up to the control desk and try a complaint that the sample test examples to study hardly matched the exam questions. The central desk does not reply. So I try again. Nope, in all caps, bold.

One question about what short left turn might produce in the negative is something I'd never consider. Where in the unknown? The known is if you fail three times you have to go back into the Chancery Court, square one, all over again! But what the hell: “Into the breech once more." I could use Henry V and Will Shakespeare's help about now.

Stee-rike 3! So, I sit with the handbook and plan my advance or retreat. I'm here. I shall exam. I figure I've got three more shots at it so I'll use up two more maybe and return another time for guillotine three.

Another mini-screen re-registration, foreigners and familiars all asking an elder or a younger what's up with this or that. I sympathize with all of it.

I somehow get my next permission slip and my next calm, collected clerk, Jim Average, helpful and more so to accept another $45, with another eye test and thumb print and photo and the exam room abyss.

Failure is an option. But high and behold I somehow have passed the exam, the headlines says so. How? I do not know. Relief is all encompassing as I get my final form. I am re-born. License in two to three weeks. Phewee!

I take a moment to try for the director’s office to compliment them on their efficiency, but she's all caught up. Regardless of my distress, I feel need to let them know they are not the kiss of death. Fortunately, I have to settle for Ms. Gaugin just by chance. She’s appreciative. Chance favors the resilient.

MAJOR INSURER GIVES BRUTAL ULTIMATUM TO CALIFORNIA: LET US PUT UP PRICES BY 50% OR WE WILL LEAVE.

by Alex Hammer

A prominent insurance provider has aired an ultimatum to the entire state of California.

The firm, State Farm General, asked the state’s Department of Insurance Thursday to let them raise residential insurance rates for millions of citizens, or see them move out.

The move indicates financial trouble for the insurance giant, which currently covers homes razed by wildfires.

State Farm disclosed it is seeking a 30 percent rate hike for homeowners, a 36 percent increase for condo owners, and a 52 percent increase for renters as a result - a move that would only worsen the state’s already present housing crisis.

'This has the potential to affect millions of California consumers and the integrity of our residential property insurance market,' insurance commissioner Ricardo Lara said in a statement - as the filings make their way through the proper channels.

He added how he was now keen to 'get to the bottom' of the company’s financial situation - and will conduct an extensive review before deciding on the applications as a result.

'State Farm General’s latest rate filings raise serious questions about its financial condition,' he said of the number one insurance firm in the US.

He added how a rate hearing may even necessary, offering his commission an opportunity to hear from the public about the proposed rate changes.

Only then, he said, would officials make a decision on whether to approve the requests - a process that could end up taking months.

As it stands, the department is averaging 180 days per rate review, with some cases taking even longer, a department spokesperson confirmed to the LA Times.

This is largely due to the outsized amount of fires Californians have seen in recent year, with this year's wildfire season now underway.

The California Department of Insurance had already approved two State Farm requests that saw citizens home insurance rise drastically, including a 6.9 percent hike at the start of last year and a 20 percent rise that began this past March.

Mere months later, the company is going to the state hat-in-hand again, after being pegged to have an approximate $143.2 billion net worth as recently as 2021.

At the time, the firm was generating some $87.6 billion in yearly revenue, and this past February, it issued a statement saying its net income for the previous year was an impressive $1.2 billion.

That was up more than 100 percent from the year before, when the Illinois based insurance provider raked in $588 million in income.

However, State Farm said in one of its filings that the purpose of its request was to restore its financial condition - offering the telling statement, 'If the variance is denied, further deterioration of surplus is anticipated.'

The insurer went on to add that it was 'working toward its long-term sustainability in California', indicating a potential problem spot amongst the places it covers.

Back in March, State Farm said it had decided to drop 72,000 customers in the Golden State because of a crisis it said was occurring in all of California's insurance market, the week after it raised home insurance rates for California customers by 20 percent.

Lara, at the time, introduced new policies to address the 'catastrophic modeling' the industry appeared to be in desperate need of due to the outsized wildfire risk and climate change seen in the state.

The move allowed insurers like State Farm to use a more forward-looking modeling around its pricing policies instead of basing them solely on past trends - and while it was at first welcomed by the industry, companies stopped short of committing to returning to the state.

State Farm, however, is the first to pushback on the concept of automatic coverage in the state, which was subjected to 7,127 fires in 2023.

That was slightly down from the year before when 7,667 fires ravaged California - a relative 'quiet' year according to officials in terms of acreage.

In 2021, a total of 8,835 fires were recorded - one of the most-ever on record.

Then facing 'unprecedented fire conditions' in the words of officials, the state saw multiple fires such as the Dixie Fire, McFarland Fire, Caldor Fire, and more.

In October, some respite was offered especially to especially susceptible Northern regions, when the state received its first rain in over 200 days.

That finally reduced the wildfire risk for much of the state, where wildfires occur at a rate well above average when compared with the rest of the country.

'Rate changes are driven by increased costs and risk and are necessary for State Farm General to deliver on the promises the company makes every day to its customers,' the company said in a statement last week following its requests.

'We continue to look for ways to maintain competitive rates,' the company added, days after this years wildfire season officially went into effect.

The company previously chalked its earlier hikes to a combination of wildfires and inflation - contributors it said has raised its reconstruction costs along with the prices they pay for reinsurance bought to boost their balance sheets.

Such plans are purchased to protect the firm from the astronomical costs created by climate catastrophes as well as outdated state regulations.

State Farm cited these risk-makers when announcing the more than 70,000 non-renewals earlier this year, joining Farmers, Allstate and other firms in either not writing or limiting new policies in the famously volatile state.

Consumer advocates have disputed the claims - paving the way for a painstaking probe over the next few months from the state's insurance department.

(DailyMail.com)

EDGAR ALLAN POE, RICHMOND, VIRGINIA

On September 27, 1849, he headed for Philadelphia to edit a collection of poems. Instead, he was found in Baltimore six days later. His journey from Richmond to Baltimore remains a mystery, with no sightings or explanations to fill the gap.

When discovered, Poe’s clothing was dirty and ill-fitting, suggesting foul play or extreme disarray. His incoherence and inability to explain his state added to the mystery.

Joseph Walker, a local typesetter, found Poe and managed to alert Joseph E. Snodgrass, an acquaintance with medical training. Despite their efforts, Poe’s condition only worsened, and his final days were marked by delirium and confusion.

Unable to explain his circumstances or how he got there, Poe’s condition rapidly deteriorated.

For four days, Poe languished in Washington College Hospital, plagued by hallucinations and fever dreams. He repeatedly called out for a mysterious “Reynolds,” a person unknown to his friends and family. On October 7, 1849, Edgar Allan Poe passed away, his cause of death listed as phrenitis, or swelling of the brain, a diagnosis that has since been called into question.

FROM RALLY TOASTERS TO ROCCO: THANK YOU, KLAY THOMPSON, JOYFUL CHAMPION OF THE BAY

by Peter Hartlaub

As fun as it was to watch Klay Thompson play basketball, some of my favorite memories from his tenure are of watching the former Warriors guard not play basketball.

This Thompson-hosted 2023 video of the player commuting across the San Francisco Bay in his personal watercraft is a master class in joyous expression, recreational boating, dog ownership, civic pride and unintentional comedy. (His description of Chase Center: “There’s the office, looking beautiful, like an Avengers headquarters or something.”)

But the highest points in the video — and really all things Klay — are the moments of earnest gratitude when Thompson reminds himself, and all of us, to appreciate the serendipity-filled world in which we live.

“Look at the Golden Gate! That’s the only inspiration I need on the daily,” Thompson said, raising his voice above the wind. “It’s got to be the most recognizable bridge in the world. So much beauty.”

Thompson was traded to the Dallas Mavericks on Monday, ending his 13-year run with the Golden State Warriors. What comes next is one of the worst parts of sports and fandom. Thompson, stinging from the breakup, will use the perceived wrong to fuel his next chapter. Warriors fans and pundits will try to justify our new Klay-free reality, even criticizing the guard. Proprietors of podcasts and YouTube channels and influential social-media accounts will parse everyone’s words, looking for controversy to fuel future news cycles.

I’m choosing the Captain Klay path: all-in on gratitude. Gratitude for an athlete who embraced his Bay Area home. Gratitude for a player who treated performing for us as a privilege. And gratitude for a competitor who came to us as a consolation prize, and left as one of the most accomplished — and maybe the most delightful — presences in Bay Area sports history.

The Chronicle’s first in-depth mentions of Thompson, days before he became the No. 11 pick in the 2011 draft, were in relation to others. He was the son of Lakers center Mychal Thompson. And he was framed — with comic absurdity in retrospect — as a backup plan to BYU’s Jimmer Fredette, a college sensation who was considered the best shooter on the board.

Three days before the draft, Thompson addressed the comparisons with Fredette, who was picked No. 10:

“I know Jimmer (Fredette) is a great shooter with range, but I think I’m right there with him,” Thompson said. “I’m 6-7 with a quick release, and I think I can stretch the floor with anybody.”

(NBA 3-pointers made as of today: Thompson: 2,481; Fredette: 193.)

As Thompson and Curry grew into the all-time greatest shooting backcourt in basketball history, Curry became the franchise’s most ubiquitous face, but Klay’s performances were no less transcendent. He set NBA records, then returned triumphantly from a torn ACL and Achilles tendon that kept him sidelined 941 days.

Meanwhile, “off the court Klay” was chill, unpredictable and never seemed to say the same thing twice, whether he was gamely signing a fan’s toaster (“Wow, that’s a first”), or debuting a signature shoe that looked like a print newspaper. Peak delightfulness could be seen during every moment of China Klay, Thompson’s loveable and carefree 2017 tour to promote his sneakers.

I coach middle-school kids, who all want to shoot like Steph Curry. But I always urge young players to watch Klay Thompson and his reverse waterfall jump shot, each one looking eerily identical to the last. Though Curry’s game seems wizard-like, superpowered and inaccessible, Thompson’s game is so impressively human. Technical excellence, paired with hard work and a demeanor somewhere between stoic and ruthless.

I’m not sure whether Thompson is a San Francisco superfan at the moment. We’re at the peak divorce phase in the news cycle. I don’t look forward to every sentence, every look, every Instagram unfollow starting a new swarm of controversy on social media.

Thompson deserves more than that. He deserves a simple, unqualified thank you. So here goes:

Thank you for bringing me closer to my family and friends with your infectious play.

Thank you for letting us see the beauty of our home through your fresh eyes.

And thank you for reminding us to be grateful, even during the tougher moments like today.

“I’m just trying to literally enjoy every single minute I’m on the floor,” Thompson said in that boat-commute video, wind in his hair, Rocco by his side.

“Because it goes by so fast, and we can’t do this forever.”

(SF Chronicle)

TEN STATEWIDE MEASURES ON CALIFORNIA’S NOVEMBER BALLOT

by Sophia Bollag & Sara Libby

On top of deciding the next president and other elected offices, California voters will face 10 statewide ballot measures, dealing with a range of issues from marriage equality to tax and voting issues.

Wednesday was the final day for lawmakers to place measures on the ballot, solidifying the lineup of issues Californians will weigh in on.

As usual, there are myriad fights and rivalries behind some of the measures that might not be obvious at first glance.

One measure, for example, appears to deal with health care spending, but is really aimed at sidelining one specific person whose nonprofit funds numerous political efforts, including other ballot measures.

Meanwhile, voters will weigh only one measure on whether to roll back parts of Prop 47, an initiative approved in 2014 that lowered criminal penalties for some crimes, after a competing measure spearheaded by Gov. Gavin Newsom collapsed at the eleventh hour.

The ballot could have been even longer, but the intervention of the California Supreme Court struck one measure from the ballot. Newsom and lawmakers struck deals with some initiative proponents to enact new laws in exchange for those groups pulling their measures from the ballot.

The state’s high court ordered a measure that would have made raising taxes dramatically harder for local governments be pulled from the ballot earlier this month. The measure was so far-reaching it would have amounted to a “revision” of the state Constitution, the justices unanimously ruled.

In other instances, lawmakers and ballot measure proponents reached deals to keep measures off the ballot that would have reformed the Private Attorneys General Act, added a personal finance course to high school graduation requirements, raised taxes on the wealthy to fund pandemic prevention efforts, expanded a state health care program for children. Oil and gas companies also yanked their effort to overturn a state law banning new oil wells near homes.

Increasing drug and theft punishments: A coalition led by district attorneys gathered enough signatures to place a measure on the ballot to roll back parts of California’s landmark 2014 sentencing law. That law, Proposition 47, downgraded drug possession and thefts worth less than $950 to misdemeanors. It intended to divert money from locking low-level offenders up into rehabilitation programs, but critics say it went too far and emboldened thieves. The district attorneys’ measure would eliminate the $950 threshold for a third theft, meaning someone caught stealing three times could be charged with a felony, regardless of the value of the merchandise stolen. It would do the same for a third drug possession charge. It would also increase jail time for repeat thefts and organized retail theft and includes provisions to compel people with multiple drug possession convictions into treatment.

Cutting Prop. 8 from the California Constitution: California’s Prop. 8, a ban on same-sex marriage, was ruled unconstitutional in 2015 and the Supreme Court went on to legalize same-sex marriage. But Prop. 8 still lives on in the California Constitution, and advocates worry that it could be revived if the Supreme Court reconsiders the issue. Democratic leaders have said they hope the marriage measure will motivate young people to vote.

Lowering the threshold for local government taxes: Speaking of the two-thirds vote threshold, when local governments want to pass a bond or a tax increase for a specific purpose – to fund more police officers, for example – they must secure a two-thirds vote. This measure would lower that threshold to 55 percent – still higher than a simple majority, but lower than the current requirement.

A minimum wage hike: Minimum wage hikes have been in the news a lot this year: A $20 an hour minimum wage for fast food workers kicked in on April 1, and the state budget delaying a $25 health care workers minimum wage that was supposed to kick in July 1. This measure would eventually raise the state’s minimum wage to $18 an hour. For companies with 26 or more workers, the new wage would kick in Jan. 1, 2025; for smaller companies, it would kick in Jan. 1, 2026.

Climate bond: A massive climate bond package would bring in $3.8 billion for water needs, $1.5 billion for forest health and combating wildfires, $1.2 billion for efforts to combat sea-level rise and about $850 million for clean energy projects.

School facilities bond: Most school district budgets are eaten up by teacher salaries. To upgrade school buildings or build new ones, public officials often turn to voters for more money. This time, it comes in the form of a $10 billion bond that would fund repairs and construction for K-12 schools and California community colleges. While many schools argue the funds are desperately needed, smaller districts have warned that the funding allocation favors wealthier districts.

Stifling one prolific ballot measure proponent: After years of battling rent control initiatives funded by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, California landlords have placed a measure on the ballot designed to stifle that organization from running any more measures. Their measure targets health care providers that have spent more than $100 million on things not related to patient care and that have more than 500 serious health and safety violations at apartment buildings they run. AIDS Healthcare appears to be the only organization matching that description. The organization has amassed funding through a federal program that allows nonprofit health organizations to buy prescription drugs at a heavily discounted price but sell them at a regular market rate. It has used those funds to run ballot measures on housing issues. The landlords’ measure would put an end to that practice and require the organization to use 98% of the money it receives through its federally discounted drugs on patient care.

Allowing cities to enact rent control measures: Californians sometimes vote on the same issue multiple times (we’re looking at you, kidney dialysis) and rent control is one of those issues. This measure would repeal a longtime state law that blocks local governments from setting rent limits on homes built after 1995, or any single-family homes. The measure would not require any cities to enact rent control measures, but it would allow them to pursue them if they choose. It is funded by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the organization being targeted in a separate ballot measure.

Ending forced prison labor: The California Constitution prohibits slavery, with one exception: as a punishment to a crime. ACA8 would remove that exception, and would prohibit the state agency that oversees prisons from disciplining incarcerated individuals who refuse a work assignment.

MCO tax: California’s Managed Care Organization tax is a rare thing: a tax that’s supported by the organizations that pay it because it allows them to unlock federal matching dollars. Essentially, they make money by paying the tax. But in recent years, hospitals and doctors have complained that the governor and lawmakers have used funds generated by the tax to plug budget deficits. This measure would require that the money be used for Medi-Cal, the state’s health insurance program for low-income people, in an effort to ensure it continues to go to doctors and hospitals instead of other areas of the budget.

(SF Chronicle)

'Early in my professional boxing career, I visited a Harlem jazz spot and saw Walt Frazier, the smooth guard for the NBA champion New York Knicks. I went over and introduced myself. 'Oh, yeah,' he said. 'I've seen you do your thing, you've seen me do mine.' End of conversation. About an hour later, I saw my childhood hero, football star Jim Brown, at another table. Again, I introduced myself. This time all I got was a polite smile and quick handshake. So that's how it's done, I thought. I was hurt, but figured I'd just picked up a lesson in handling stardom - be cool and detached. I adopted the same approach, and it took me years to unlearn the lesson. No one wants to be around a person who acts superior. They'll feel hurt just like I did. A friendly smile beats a brush-off every time!'

— George Foreman

GAVIN NEWSOM DROPS EFFORT TO PLACE COMPETING PROP 47 MEASURE ON NOVEMBER BALLOT

by Sophia Bollag

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Tuesday night he is abandoning a proposed ballot measure that would have competed with an initiative to increase punishments for theft and drug possession.

Newsom and lawmakers had introduced the measure Sunday night. It was a last-minute attempt to counter an initiative spearheaded by a group of district attorneys to roll back parts of Proposition 47. Lawmakers would have needed to pass the measure and have it signed by Newsom by midnight Wednesday to get it on November ballots. But they ran out of time to make needed amendments to the proposal, he said in a statement.

Newsom’s decision to pull the measure came the same evening he announced plans to fly to Washington on Wednesday to “stand with” Biden during a meeting with Democratic governors as questions swirl about the president’s ability to run for reelection.

Newsom did not specify what amendments were needed.

“We are unable to meet the ballot deadline to secure necessary amendments to ensure this measure’s success and we will be withdrawing it from consideration,” Newsom said.

He and legislative leaders faced heavy criticism after they introduced the measure. It represented their second attempt to draw support from the district attorneys’ ballot measure, which seeks to roll back parts of California’s landmark 2014 sentencing law, Proposition 47.

Voters passed Proposition 47 to downgrade drug possession and thefts worth less than $950 to misdemeanors in the face of overcrowded jails. The district attorneys’ measure would undo parts of Proposition 47 by eliminating the $950 threshold for a third theft, meaning someone caught stealing more than twice could be charged with a felony, regardless of the value of the merchandise stolen. It would do the same for a third drug possession charge. It would also increase jail time for repeat thefts and organized retail theft and includes provisions to compel people with multiple drug possession convictions into treatment.

The competing measure would have more narrowly cracked down on repeat theft and fentanyl dealing. It would have increased punishments for dealing fentanyl and made it easier for district attorneys to prosecute repeated thefts as felonies if they happened within three years of each other. It also stipulated that if both measures passed, the measure with more votes would become law and the other would be void.

That drew condemnation from supporters of the district attorney-led measure.

“This basically creates an either or choice,” said Cory Salzillo, a lobbyist representing sheriffs.

During a Tuesday afternoon hearing on the bill, Salzillo also pointed out that Newsom and Democratic lawmakers introduced the measure after insisting for months that they didn’t think Proposition 47 should be changed.

“Proponents, respectfully, have said that we don’t need to address our out-of-control theft crisis by amending Prop 47, by going back to the ballot. But yet here we are. It begs the question — what has changed?” he said.

In the same hearing, a lobbyist representing district attorneys argued the burden of proof in the legislative proposal was too high and that it would be difficult for prosecutors to argue that people had met the value and time thresholds in the bill.

Some civil liberties and criminal justice reform advocates raised concerns that the legislation was still too punitive, despite lawmakers’ efforts to craft it as a less-punitive alternative to the district attorneys’ measure.

Sen. Aisha Wahab, a Hayward Democrat who co-authored the measure, pushed back on criticisms from both sides.

“We are giving this back to the voters to decide,” she said. “We are threading the needle of a very sensitive subject without causing additional harm.”

Lawmakers have also drawn criticism for including in their measure a provision that could make it easier to try fentanyl dealers for murder, known called Alexandra’s Law. That proposal was introduced in standalone legislation last year and is named after a 20-year-old Temecula woman who died after taking a pill laced with fentanyl. The woman’s father, Mark Capelouto, had advocated at the Capitol in support of the measure, but lawmakers rejected it.

Alexandra’s Law is also part of the district attorney’s measure, which Capelouto supports. He said lawmakers added the policy proposal, including his daughter’s name, to their competing measure without consulting his family.

“The same politicians who blocked Alexandra’s Law are now cynically trying to use the law as part of their political maneuvers to stop our measure,” he said during a Tuesday morning press conference. “While these politicians were drafting their competing ballot measure, no one ever reached out to me or my family to ask if they could include Alexandra’s Law in their proposal. I find that shameful.”

SOCIAL MEDIA GIVEN FREE SPEECH RIGHTS

by Noah Feldman

In a blockbuster decision, the Supreme Court has held for the first time that social media platforms, just like newspapers, have First Amendment rights that bar the government from forcing them to leave up or take down content. The decision, Moody v. NetChoice, can be understood as the Brown v. Board of Education of the emerging field of social media law: It establishes basic principles and rights that the courts will use to shape the evolution of the social media industry in the United States and beyond.

The majority opinion, written by Justice Elena Kagan and joined by the court’s other liberals as well as by moderate conservatives Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, technically sent the case back to the lower courts for a do-over. But in the process of telling the lower courts what they should do, the majority opinion laid out the free-speech principles that apply to social media.

That’s what makes the case so important.

At issue were laws passed by Texas and Florida in the wake of conservative users’ complaints that their views were being censored by the platforms. The laws were designed to limit how social media companies could remove or restrict political content. The lower courts, the majority said, hadn’t fully addressed the technical question of whether the state laws being challenged were “facially unconstitutional,” meaning they could not have been constitutional under any circumstances. The most crucial part of the case is that the platforms are no different from newspapers, the archetypal bearers of free press and free speech rights.

It’s significant that the chief gave Kagan, a lifetime strong supporter of free speech, the opportunity to write such an important decision. In setting rules for content moderation and in curating users’ feeds through algorithms, Kagan wrote, the platforms are exercising editorial discretion. And it doesn’t matter that they typically allow the great majority of posted content to stay up: Editorial discretion is protected by the First Amendment and exists even if an editor or curator only bars certain limited types of speech.

The Algorithm Question

This conclusion might sound obvious, but it wasn’t. For some years, advocates of directly regulating the platforms have claimed that they should be treated not like newspapers, but like common carriers — entities like railroads or package delivery companies that take on all comers, and therefore may be regulated by the government without worrying about freedom of speech.

Kagan’s opinion makes that argument passé. In addition to newspapers, which are entitled to First Amendment-protected editorial discretion when they decide what to publish, she also compared the platforms to cable companies, which the court has held may not be forced to carry content they don’t wish to carry.

In First Amendment law, comparing platforms to newspapers and parade organizers gives them the highest level of protection available. And that protection extends not just to human discretion in individual cases but to the algorithms that control the vast majority of content curation, Kagan wrote.

The algorithm question is especially subtle because it raises the intriguing question of whether free-speech rights should apply to purely algorithmic choice that is not oriented toward human decisions about what content should be allowed. Barrett wrote a concurrence in which she raised this problem without answering it, also invoking artificial intelligence as a potential twist. In a footnote, Kagan replied that her opinion wasn’t addressing algorithms that “respond solely to how users act online.”

But as someone who has advised various big platforms on content moderation and free-speech issues, I can tell you that I haven’t encountered an algorithm that pays no attention to curation according to content-moderation rules. If one does exist, that company could protect its algorithm by simply adding a component to the algorithm that considers such standards. And AI is itself a set of algorithms, which can be set to take account of content moderation rules — as all the public-facing, foundational LLM models already do.

The takeaway for the platforms, and their users, is that the act of curation is protected by the First Amendment.

‘Inherently Expressive’

Justice Samuel Alito, joined by the other hardline conservatives, justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, wrote a concurrence that functioned almost like a dissent. The conservatives wanted the common carrier arguments to be addressed, not sidelined the way the majority opinion did. Alito’s key argument was that there should be no First Amendment protection when someone is merely the “compiler” of material for publication and the compilation is not “inherently expressive.”

For what it’s worth, it seems obvious to me that the platforms’ curated compilations are inherently expressive, since they are meant to give users a certain experience and to differentiate their platform from the other platforms.

But Alito would appear to disagree.

We will be hearing more about free speech and social media in the future. Barrett’s concurrence devoted a paragraph to raising questions about the federal government’s TikTok ban, which is likely to reach the Supreme Court in 2025. But those future cases will be decided against the backdrop of the NetChoice decision, which is going to be a free-speech landmark for at least a generation.

(Noah Feldman is a professor of law at Harvard University.)

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

I know some of you are worried about trouble at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August, and perhaps a replay of 1968. Well, calm your fears. Apparently, any demonstrations, political gatherings or meet ups anywhere near the convention center will require a city issued permit … and the city isnt issuing any permits! Crisis averted! One wonders why Mayor Daley didnt think of this strategy back in ’68.

THE PATRIOT SPEAKS

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C892KUqJ0JB/?igsh=MTc4MmM1YmI2Ng==

Photograph of a group of men standing around a moonshine distillery located at a secret place in a forest in Claibourne, Tenn. The distillery is in the center of the image and sits on a hillside. (photo by Joe Clark)

DOING NOTHING ABOUT BIDEN IS THE RISKIEST PLAN OF ALL

by Nate Silver

After last week’s debate disaster, some Democrats are trying to circle the wagons to protect President Biden, noting that Barack Obama lost his first debate as an incumbent president, too.

But this one doesn’t pass the smell test. Mr. Obama wasn’t 81 years old at the time of his debate debacle. And he came into the debate as a strong favorite in the election, whereas Mr. Biden was behind (with just a 35 percent chance of winning).

A 35 percent chance is not nothing. But Mr. Biden needed to shake up the race, not just preserve the status quo. Instead, he’s dug himself a deeper hole.

Looking at polls beyond the straight horse-race numbers between Mr. Biden and Donald Trump — ones that include Democratic Senate candidate races in close swing-state races — suggests something even more troubling about Mr. Biden’s chances, but also offers a glimpse of hope for Democrats.

You don’t need another pundit telling you that Mr. Biden should quit the race, although I’m among those who emphatically think he should. But Democrats should be more open to what polls are telling them — and again, not just Biden-Trump polls. There is a silver lining for Democrats to be found in these surveys. Voters in these polls like Democratic candidates for Congress just fine. More than fine, actually: It’s Mr. Biden who is the problem.

The data is remarkably consistent. There are five presidential swing states that also have highly competitive Senate races this year: Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. (Sorry, Florida and Ohio don’t count as swing states anymore — and Texas isn’t one quite yet.) In those states, there have been 47 nonpartisan surveys conducted since Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump emerged as their parties’ clear nominees in March.

In 46 of the 47 polls, the Democratic Senate candidate polled better than Mr. Biden. He and the Senate candidate performed equally well in one poll. Which means that Mr. Biden didn’t outpoll the Senate candidate in any of the surveys. (I’m using the versions of the polls among likely voters, and the version with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. included if the pollster made one available.)

None of the 47 polls — not a single one of them — showed the Democratic candidate trailing in the Senate race, though two showed a tie. In contrast, Mr. Biden led in only seven of the surveys, was tied with Mr. Trump in two and trailed in the other 38.

In Swing State Polls, Democratic Senate Candidates Have Consistently Outperformed Biden

The contrast is remarkably consistent across blue-chip surveys, the dubious ones that voters probably should have some concerns about and everything in between. And the difference isn’t only at the margin. Mr. Biden is underperforming the presumed Democratic Senate nominee by a net of five points in Michigan, seven points in Wisconsin, eight points in Pennsylvania, 11 points in Arizona and an unlucky 13 points in Nevada.

Unfortunately, Democrats, once inclined to ignore the pundits and trust the data, have now soured on public opinion surveys. Contrary to what many of them — including people in the White House — will say, polls were quite accurate in 2022. Poll skepticism is a shame, because in a democracy, polls are a vital way of letting the public have their say in between the once every two to four years that they get to vote.

And for at least a year now polls have been overwhelmingly consistent in showing that voters think Mr. Biden is too old to serve another term.

But surveys like the ones above are vital for two reasons. First, they make it much less likely that there’s some sort of systematic skew in the surveys. The pollsters are finding plenty of Democratic voters, just not enough Biden voters. And second, these Senate candidates are well known to voters in their states and running in actual races, not hypothetical matchups, like those featuring other prospective Democratic presidential candidates that pollsters occasionally test. Relatively unknown candidates typically underachieve in surveys.

If you made me a Democratic superdelegate, I’d probably vote for a candidate who has proved her or his mettle in a swing state, like Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania or Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia (though Mr. Warnock running for president would cost Democrats a Senate seat). Or I’d take my chances on a member of the new generation of leaders, like Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland.

What if you’re convinced that the overall political climate — even without Mr. Biden — is actually pretty good for Democrats? In recent years, the party has won more than its fair share of special elections. That might call for someone like Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, who would at least project quiet Midwestern competence compared with Mr. Trump. And if the party really wanted to show itself to be the adults in the room, it could nominate Vice President Kamala Harris, whose approval ratings are now notably less bad than her boss’s.

But pundits don’t get to choose. Delegates do — and they should be listening to voters.

To overcome the obvious problem — the Democratic primary is over — here’s an idea. It’s not ideal, but I want a Democrat who can give the party a fighting chance. Even if the replacement candidate’s chances are below 50 percent, what matters is that he or she probably can poll better than Mr. Biden.

The party could hold an open audition for the nomination process. Candidates who raised their hands would hold two or three debates against one another. They could give speeches and hold rallies. And Democrats could vote in straw polls sponsored by donors in a combination of virtual locations and physical ones that reflected the demographic breadth of the Democratic Party — say, in Atlanta, Phoenix, Pittsburgh and one or two more rural locations. Voters would also express their opinions in regular opinion polls.

Delegates could take this information into account at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and make a more informed decision. This plan would require Mr. Biden to declare his intention to exit the race sooner rather than later.

It’s not a great plan. But there is no great plan left. At this point, any Democrat would likely be an underdog to Mr. Trump. Not because Mr. Trump is popular, which he very much isn’t, but because it’s hard to imagine a replacement being fully prepared for the race. This candidate would still have to answer for some problems, like inflation, that occurred on Democrats’ watch. In addition, the party’s current coalition puts it at a significant Electoral College disadvantage.

Poker players like me, and the accomplished risk-takers from astronauts to venture capitalists I’ve talked to for my research, understand the importance of working with incomplete information. And they understand that sometimes doing nothing is the riskiest plan of all.

(Nate Silver, the founder and former editor of FiveThirtyEight and the author of the forthcoming book “On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything,” writes the newsletter Silver Bulletin.)

"I was fighting every day, to survive! I had to fight, it was my way, you see - When I was in the street, if anybody hit somebody I knew, I used to shield that person. I never wanted people to take liberties with me. What's right is right, but I never wanted people to take liberties. I always landed the first punch, whatever happened. I'd get in first. If I'm right or wrong, I'm going to hit you, I'm not going to wait until you bang me one."

— Jack 'Kid' Berg

THURSDAY'S LEAD STORIES, NYT

Should Biden Quit? Democrats Weigh Potential Rewards and Steep Risks.

What Prominent Democrats Are Saying About Biden’s Candidacy

Donald Trump is letting Democrats dominate the public debate over the president.

President Biden’s conversations with allies suggest he knows his candidacy is on the line.

MORAL LUCK

by Arianne Shahvisi

Anyone who’d like to look a Nazi in the eye is working against the clock. An eighteen-year-old member of the Nazi Party in 1945 would now be coming up to a hundred. Soon there will be none left. When the film director Luke Holland was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2015, he was interviewing the last surviving Nazis to build an archive of their first-hand accounts of complicity. He kept going as his health declined. One of my colleagues was Holland’s hematologist, and a few of us were invited to watch some unedited footage of German nonagenarians in dowdy sitting-rooms recounting, with nostalgia, unease or insouciance, their involvement in the operation of the Nazi state. Afterwards, another colleague broke our stunned silence with the remark: ‘There but for the grace of God go I.’ At first I thought she meant we were lucky to have not been Jewish, disabled, Romani or gay in Germany in the 1930s, but she meant we were lucky not to have been Nazis.

The phrase ‘there but for the grace of God’ is generally attributed to the 16th-century Protestant martyr John Bradford, on seeing convicts being led to execution. He wasn’t referring to the misfortune of their being murdered by the state, but to their having been weak-willed enough to commit capital sins. Only God’s grace kept him from equivalent wickedness. Bradford was burned at the stake in his mid-forties for his religious views. His last words, to the man dying beside him, are supposed to have been: ‘Be of good comfort brother; for we shall have a merry supper with the Lord this night!’ If anyone were to be pitied, it should be his judge or executioner.

‘There but for the grace of God’ is now more commonly uttered in a broader sense. But Bradford’s version might be seen as a case of what Thomas Nagel and Bernard Williams identified in the 1970s as ‘moral luck’: the observation that at least some, and perhaps all, right or wrongdoing is merely fortuitous. A person’s transgressions are the result of circumstances they could not have controlled; or of details of their character or upbringing which they did not choose; or, in its strongest form, are just what a deterministic universe had in store for them.

More than half a million Germans migrated to the United States in the two decades before the rise of the Third Reich, largely for economic reasons. It would be absurd to claim they were morally superior to those who stayed and participated in the Nazi regime. They were simply spared the moral test that so many of their compatriots, whether through action or inaction, failed. There must have been potential Görings, Eichmanns and Hösses among them who instead led lives of private or localized cruelty and cowardice. By corollary, at least some of those who were swept up into the Nazi Party were unlucky rather than bad. Recognizing the role of moral luck encourages empathy and humility, but it also threatens the notions of culpability that help us to make sense of evil.

Luke Holland died in 2020, a few months before the release of Final Account. Watching it again I could not find my way to thinking: ‘There but for the grace of God go I.’ I was, and remain, quite sure that I wouldn’t have been a Nazi. This isn’t self-deception or a claim to moral superiority, but a function of the precise counterfactual I have in mind. The Nazis wouldn’t have been keen on an irascible leftist woman with a Kurdish father, so either I’d have quietly hated them on selfish grounds, or I’d have spoken up and been killed, like the million other political victims. (In addition to the more obvious bones of contention, Nazi Germany sold Turkey the planes and chemicals for the Dersim massacre, in which tens of thousands of Kurds and other minorities resisting Turkification were killed.)

But counterfactuals are just that; we can choose what we modify and what we hold constant. What if I’d been blonde, German and centrist in Leipzig ninety years ago? My truculence might easily have been turned to other uses. But in what sense would that person be me? (We can push the counterfactual further until we’re asking such questions as: ‘If I’d been a bit of a fascist at that time would I have been a Nazi?’) Our social identities matter here, as elsewhere. Those who tolerated or supported Nazism did so because it benefited them or at least didn’t directly hurt them to do so. Most of those who resisted would not have been welcome in the Nazi state.

We should be skeptical when people with no marginalized identities or history of solidarity take it for granted that they would have opposed Nazi rule. It is a commonly held delusion in the UK because its war against the Axis powers has become an outsized part of the sanitized national identity. But the intuition often amounts to a strong sense of identification with Britain and with one’s own forebears, rather than a robust antipathy to the oppression of minorities. Feeling sure that you’d have taken the position your country took in a war isn’t the same as being opposed to fascism, and may even suggest a propensity towards it.

We don’t need to transpose versions of ourselves into past atrocities to examine or prove our decency. Hypothetical moral tests are prone to grade inflation, especially when everyone already knows the answers. If we want to play at time travel, we should look at how we’re doing now and extrapolate backwards. Are we the kind of society that would open its doors to frightened, desperate, scapegoated people? Do we have the moral clarity to bring everything to a halt at the news that twenty thousand children from the same ethnic group have disappeared or been killed in the space of nine months?

Most of us have God’s grace on our side: we’re not in the position of having to decide whether to participate directly in a genocide. But that comes with other responsibilities. It’s one thing to enact violence when you are raised on lies and fear in a racially segregated state and conscripted into its murderous machinery. It’s another to look on from the outside and do nothing, or to speak up only to make excuses.

(London Review of Books)

42 Comments

David Jensen July 4, 2024

I’m calling BS on the botanical survey hurdle. Like many other planning and permitting applications, you know well in advance that a botanical survey will be required. So why wait until the last minute? If you plan to take a vacation overseas, do you wait until you arrive at the airport to apply for a passport? Failure to plan is . . .

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Chuck Dunbar July 4, 2024

A GOOD, SAFE 4TH OF JULY— AVA FOLKS AND READERS

In harrowing times for Americans, FDR repeatedly spoke to the people with clarity and simplicity, decency, caring and hope. Here’s an excerpt from one of his depression era Fireside Chats. It’s my first reading of one of his talks, moved me to want share it. Perhaps it reminds us of what we all yearn for now, in our anxious, hurting country, and of what’s possible when the right president guides us in hard times. It’s surely good to recall such old-time patriotism on this holiday:

“… I know that many of you have lost your jobs or have seen your friends or members of your families lose their jobs, and I do not propose that the government shall pretend not to see these things. I know that the effect of our present difficulties has been uneven; that they have affected some groups and some localities seriously, but that they have been scarcely felt in others. But I conceive the first duty of government is to protect the economic welfare of all the people in all sections and in all groups. I said in my message opening the last session of Congress that if private enterprise did not provide jobs this spring, government would take up the slack—that I would not let the people down. We have all learned the lesson that government cannot afford to wait until it has lost the power to act…

I never forget that I live in a house owned by all the American people and that I have been given their trust. I try always to remember that their deepest problems are human. I constantly talk with those who come to tell me their own points of view; with those who manage the great industries and financial institutions of the country; with those who represent the farmer and the worker; and often with average citizens without high position who come to this house. And constantly I seek to look beyond the doors of the White House, beyond the officialdom of the National Capital, into the hopes and fears of men and women in their homes. I have traveled the country over many times. My friends, my enemies, my daily mail, bring to me reports of what you are thinking and hoping. I want to be sure that neither battles nor burdens of office shall ever blind me to an intimate knowledge of the way the American people want to live and the simple purposes for which they put me here.
In these great problems of government I try not to forget that what really counts at the bottom of it all, is that the men and women willing to work can have a decent job to take care of themselves and their homes and their children adequately; that the farmer, the factory worker, the storekeeper, the gas station man, the manufacturer, the merchant—big and small—the banker who takes pride in the help he gives to the building of his community, that all these can be sure of a reasonable profit and safety for the savings they earn—not today nor tomorrow alone, but as far ahead as they can see.

I can hear your unspoken wonder as to where we are headed in this troubled world. I cannot expect all of the people to understand all of the people’s problems; but it is my job to try to understand those problems…

I believe we have been right in the course we have charted. To abandon our purpose of building a greater, a more stable and a more tolerant America, would be to miss the tide and perhaps to miss the port. I propose to sail ahead. I feel sure that your hopes and your help are with me. For to reach a port, we must sail—sail, not tie at anchor—sail, not drift.”
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Fireside Chat
April 14, 1938

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- Harvey Reading July 4, 2024
  
  Imagine a dullwit like Trump being able to string words together like Roosevelt could… For the life of me, I find it hard to accept that anyone could be so stupid as to vote for something like Trump, for any office. The world will be a better place when we finally make ourselves extinct.
  
  Reply
  - Chuck Dunbar July 4, 2024
    
    Indeed, Harvey, the contrast between FDR and Trump– in terms of language, intelligence, judgment, and compassion– is enormous.
    
    Reply
    - George Dorner July 4, 2024
      
      It most definitely is a contrast, but there’s no comparison.
      
      Reply
Eric Sunswheat July 4, 2024

Tens of million dollars in Ukiah waste recycling fire off site damages?
RE: Tons and tons of toxic plastic smoke went into the atmosphere
—> February 6, 2024
‘Wildfire smoke is an increasing problem for wineries in the United States and around the world and right now vineyard managers really have no tools to manage the effects of the smoke,’ said Elizabeth Tomasino, an associate enology professor at OSU…

The nanofibre coatings the team created blocked deposition of guaicol and syringol and captured meta-cresol, wildfire smoke compounds that can taint wine made using these grapes. In the case of the first two compounds, they aren’t absorbed by the coating and don’t need to be washed off prior to winemaking, while the coating does absorb the third compound and so requires removal before the grapes can be turned into wine…
Questions about how the smoke compounds that settled on the grapes might affect wines prompted many vineyard managers to write off the entire year’s harvest in those regions.
https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/protecting-wine-from-wildfire-smoke-taint-with-a-nanotech-coating/4018880.article

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Steve Heilig July 4, 2024

I wish I had the optimism of our esteemed Editor that the, ahem, “deep state” will preserve us from the GOP/MAGA takeover, but they’ve learned from Trump’s first term and plan to fully purge any resistance. The head of the Heritage Foundation just pledged/threatened “we’ll be nonviolent if the Leftists allow us to be.” And all this does and will make a huge difference to many, be they pregnant women, the poor, those relying on public healthcare and other benefits, immigrants, those harmed by pollution, etc etc etc. Yes the Dems have blown it on numerous counts, but they’re still vastly better than the New Reich (as one Trump staffer candidly slipped up) that’s coming at us.

Today, from the publisher of Heyday Books, Steve Wasserman, who has a long history in this realm:
“A dark thought for the Fourth of July: The left, or what remains of it, is on the ropes. Fifty years of steadfast organizing by the right, including the weaponization of evangelical Christianity through the use of so-called wedge issues like abortion, the triumph of the so-called information economy with the decimation of blue-collar jobs and of unions, the breaking of the consensus that had backed public education along with its privatization, among other factors, along with brilliant organizing by the Tea Party and its progeny which have sought to enroll local institutions from school boards to city councils in service to their agenda, have largely succeeded in a counterrevolution designed to destroy what remains of Roosevelt’s New Deal. They have played a long game and the left, for a variety of reasons, has eaten its own by doubling down on dead-end identity politics, spurning a unifying creed of cimmon humanity, failing to speak the language of the American working class, allowing itself to become hostage to a misbegotten and ill-conceived woke dogma that has rendered it woefully out of touch with millions of Americans, thus permitting the worst tendencies, a deforming and persistent legacy of the malign origins of the settlement and conquest of the country itself, presciently predicted by many of the country’s Founders, to bring us to the brink of tyranny. The coming reckoning will be unimaginably difficult, to say the Least.”

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- Steve Heilig July 4, 2024
  
  PS: “We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless ― if the left allows it to be,” Kevin Roberts, president of the right-wing Heritage Foundation, said on a conservative media outlet called Real America’s Voice yesterday.
  Translation: “Don’t resist MAGA or it will get bloody.” What an invading tyrant says?
  
  Reply
David Severn July 4, 2024

Happy 4th of July! Aren’t you so pleased we’re free from the King.

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- MAGA Marmon July 4, 2024
  
  The Supreme Court’s ruling made Biden a King as well. Their ruling was not just for Trump, it was for all Presidents, pass and future. I wish all you could cool it with all the hyperbole.
  
  MAGA Marmon
  
  Reply
  - MAGA Marmon July 4, 2024
    
    That should have read, “all President’s past, present and future”.
    
    MAGA Marmon
    
    Reply
  - Marshall Newman July 4, 2024
    
    Which makes every person’s vote that much more important – to protect the country from those determined to apply that unrestrained powers.
    
    Reply
    - Eli Maddock July 4, 2024
      
      I agree voting is more important than ever but, until the winner takes all system that makes the electoral college is revised or abandoned, the above statement holds little merit in presidential elections.
      
      Reply
      - Marshall Newman July 4, 2024
        
        As it is the only option at present, the current system holds all the merit.
        
        Reply
  - Harvey Reading July 4, 2024
    
    Meaning you want to be the king of hyperbole, with no competition?
    
    Reply
Call It As I See It July 4, 2024

Re: Jim Shields

If Gjerde was one of the Supervisors who agreed with your suggestion to call in past County elected officials for information on how they conducted their job, then you are being played by Mr. Gjerde.

Along with Williams, he is the architect of combining tbe two offices. With no due diligence on what this might look like’, he pushed for consolidation. He was sent by the BOS to convince the elected officials in office, that this was a good thing. When the TTC told them this could lead to financial chaos, he along with other Supervisors simply ignored her.

You ask, why they avoid to call in these officials. It will expose them on how disastrous this decision was. Haschak wasn’t in on the plan, this is why he agrees with your position The plan was simple, create a Director of Finance that they control. And now that we see the BOS budget skills, the County’s finances should never be in their control.

And by the way, they manipulated this process to where they have their appointed TTC/ Auditor Controller, Sarah Pierce. Straight from the CEO’s office. We just witnessed her knowledge of the Tax Collector side when she is willing to write off 22 million of unpaid property taxes, not knowing that taxes could be collected for the next 30 years are rarely written off. In a time of budget crisis does this seem okay? And worst of all silence from BOS. If this was Chamise Cubbison delivering this news, Williams would have ordered a public hanging at the courthouse for Ms. Cubbison. But since it’s their appointed person, well, no problem, life goes on.

They will never call these people in. They got what they want. These two elected offices are under the CEO’s office, which means under BOS control.

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- Eric Sunswheat July 4, 2024
  
  Perhaps this whole affair was a swindle to be in the dark over the budget, while large County admin executive and outside County contracts were signed and paid off for consultation on pork barrel construction projects and quagmire litigation.
  If Governor signs into law the legislation to investigate circumstances of Mendocino County, including substantial tax money owed to the state, is a possibility that each Supervisor involved in subverting the state Constitution and dispensing with an elected official from office without cause, may find themselves civilly and possibly, criminally vulnerable to prosecution for an ancillary to rebellion, by the state attorney general.
  Fairly evident, a good strategic move by Supervisor Mo Mulheren was leadership to move substantial real estate renewing sales tax base from the County to the cities, before the county goes into receivership by the state for pension liability, financial graft, and personnel corruption, thus for no following legal mandates.
  
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Mike J July 4, 2024

Sitting at his San Rafael district office desk, Jared Huffman was just now in a long interview with CNN, focused on the Biden candidacy issue. He clearly feels a change is in order but isn’t yet willing to make a “definitive” statement yet. He supports Harris being the possible replacement.

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Mazie Malone July 4, 2024

Happy 4th ……………..it is so freakin hot, thank god for A/C….Happy Birthday James.

I hope everyone stays safe and cool.

mm 💞

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- Craig Stehr July 4, 2024
  
  Staying safe and cool in the air conditioned room at the Royal Motel in sunny Ukiah. Spent the morning chanting and offering prayers for world sanity. Enjoyed the AVA publisher’s comment that I oughta return to the “one true church”, except that the “one true church” is a bit of a myth, and in fact the real “one true church” is within each and every one of us; the altar is located in the heart center, and we are all moving temples. This is a concept taught by Saivites in south India in the tenth century, by the way. We are each and every one of us a “moving temple”! Happy 4th of July, and remain forever free. Craig Louis Stehr (Email: craiglouisstehr@gmail.com)
  
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Eric Sunswheat July 4, 2024

RE: change is in order
—> July 2, 2024
Sinclair, one of the largest owners of US television stations, has established itself as an influential player in the conservative movement by using trusted local news channels to spread disinformation and manipulated video of Joe Biden, media analysts say.
The company, which gained notoriety in 2018 for requiring local anchors across the country to read the same segment, has since created a national news show that produces stories distributed to its stations – often at the expense of local news coverage, the experts say…

While local newspapers have seen their subscription and advertising numbers decline significantly over the last couple decades, their TV counterparts remain the most common source of local news – outside of personal contacts – and their advertising revenue has remained relatively stable, according to the Pew Research Center…

“We have these older Americans who tend to also be the ones most likely to vote, the ones most politically active, and they are now being exposed to this very partisan coverage of political events,” said Josh McCrain, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Utah who co-authored a study on Sinclair’s impact on national politics…
“It’s being distributed through the lens of these trusted local outlets that are branded with ABC, CBS, NBC – media brands that people do not view in the same category as a Fox News – but if you look at a lot of what they are covering, it’s a lot of the issues you might find Trump talk about in a stump speech,” said Judd Legum, author of the Popular Information newsletter.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/02/sinclair-tv-disinformation-conservative-news

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Betsy Cawn July 4, 2024

Eighty years ago, as my father fought in hand-to-hand combat in France, the specter of unstoppable fascism unified Americans whose survival of the Great Depression depended on institutional complicity — granting to the Executive Office unprecedented powers that remain unchallenged today.

Individual survival today is no less fraught for people lacking basic resources, all of us dependent on the whims and ambitions of new imagineers with powers no longer constrained by reason.

When and by what means is the President determined to be unsafe to govern? What are the qualifications of those under his/her command? How is an enfeebled Commander in Chief allowed to remain in office when his faculties are profoundly impaired?

Respecting the “sovereignty” of the individual who is incapable of maintaining a semblance of fundamental conformance occludes the lack of alternatives. Pretending that mentally disturbed homeless humans have chosen their “life styles” (and condemning them for seeking psychological escape from mind-altering “substances”) perpetuates the myth that everyone is “equal.”

As is the “leader of the free world” — to wander off stage, to lose his powers of speech while reading a prepared statement from a teleprompter, and to “freeze” in moments of extemporaneous discourse — while political parties wrestle for control of his executive authorities.

I find myself dumbfounded by the acceptance of these extreme examples of national disfunction, in which the “voters” are cast as the final decision makers. We cannot even prevent our county supervisors from ducking their responsibilities for managing legislatively-defined government operations. Oh, say can you see . . .

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Chuck Wilcher July 4, 2024

Esteemed Editor said: “IF TRUMP is re-elected he’ll meet a wall of resistance. All this scared talk that he’ll assume dictatorial power like some latter-day Mussolini is gross hysteria.”

I wish I could share your certainty, Bruce. Trump’s back benchers like Patel, Miller, Bannon, Stone, Flynn, Prince along with the entire Heritage Foundation have repeatedly stated they’ll clear house of any perceived dissenters before they can offer up even a whimper.

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- Harvey Reading July 4, 2024
  
  The question would seem to be this: do the morons who think they’re geniuses at Heritage, et al. have the power, along with the guts, to pull off their wet dream? Personally, I doubt it, especially given their quality and that of their sympathizers and supporters that I’ve come across…
  
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D. Merit July 4, 2024

I enjoy the history lessons of rfk, jr.

https://rumble.com/v55iz67-rfk-jr.-freedom-triumphs.html

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Stephen Rosenthal July 4, 2024

On our country’s birthday, for those of you that are more interested in sports than being reminded of and depressed by the shitshow that is politics, indulge me as I take a deep dive into the Klay Thompson situation.

A year ago, Thompson rejected a 2 year 48 million dollar extension to stay with the Warriors. More recently he rejected a 2 year $40m offer, instead signing with the Dallas Mavericks for 3 years at $50m. Since both Warriors offers were significantly more, why did he choose to leave? It’s revealing that he cited his mental well-being, and here’s some of the factors that played into it.

Draymond Green has sabotaged two seasons and two playoff series with his out-of-control assaults that resulted in lengthy suspensions. During a nationally televised game he got into an on-court dispute with 2x final’s MVP Kevin Durant – his teammate! – which resulted in Durant leaving for another team after the season. In 2019-20, when the Warriors were the worst team in basketball due to season-long injuries to Steph Curry and Thompson, Green verbally stated on more than one occasion that he had a hard time “getting up for games and competing”, essentially taking the entire season off. He punched a teammate during preseason practice and was not disciplined by the Warriors. Despite all that and more, Green was rewarded with a 4 year $100m extension.

Andrew Wiggins helped the Warriors win the 2021-22 NBA Championship and was gifted a 4 year $125m extension. The following season he took off for more than 2 months due to “personal reasons”, no further explanations offered. Then last season he did it again, albeit for “only” 2 weeks. Problem is, when he did deem to honor his lofty and vastly overpriced contract, he was invisible – he stunk. The Warriors have tried to trade him numerous times, but as yet no other team is stupid enough to take the NBA’s greatest underachiever.

Is it any wonder why Klay Thompson, one of the foundational components of the Warriors dynasty and part of the greatest shooting backcourt of all-time, felt disrespected and chose to leave for less money (pro-rated)? I wish Thompson all the best with Dallas. He’s certainly not the same player he was prior to his two devastating and often career-ending injuries, but here’s hoping he captures a 5th Championship ring, even and especially at the expense of the Warriors.

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MAGA Marmon July 4, 2024

RE: EARLIER TODAY

Biden tells a Philadelphia radio station that he’s “proud” to be “the first black woman to serve with a black president”, sorry Kamala.

MAGA Marmon

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Casey Hartlip July 4, 2024

I’ll give Huff credit, he’s willing to post his democratic “accomplishments” on Facebook and then about 80% of the comments are nasty towards him. I’m not a fan either.

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Mike J July 4, 2024

This will please the Sheriff:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-07-03/newsom-shocks-california-politics-by-scrapping-crime-measure

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- Matt Kendall July 4, 2024
  
  It did please me. My sources disagree with the governors statement “there wasn’t enough time”.
  Whispers around the State Capitol are telling a different story.
  The progressives were upset a law which would increase penalties was being pushed forward. The moderates we upset a competing initiative was being brought forward in hopes of defeating the DA’s bill. Many of the state’s residents had already signed off on when they had to collect signatures to get it on the ballot.
  A straw headcount was quietly conducted and it came up short for the votes to move it forward. I was also told the legislation was thrown together in a mad dash which made it shoddy and lacking in several areas.
  Thats what I’m hearing and it may not be the gospel however it makes sense.
  
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  - Stephen Rosenthal July 4, 2024
    
    Knowing Newsom he’ll try to find a way around if the voter’s approve it. Just like he did with the reinstatement of the death penalty that a majority of the voters approved. Richard Allen Davis, et al, I say off with their heads!
    
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    - Matt Kendall July 4, 2024
      
      You make a good point. everyone needs to understand what is truly at stake here. From the governor side, there are NGOs and a full-blown industry of supportive services that are being funded because of the closures of several state prison. Personally I think that’s great if they are working. If they aren’t working , not so great.
      NGOs often don’t accomplish what they set out to do or they would be done and have to pack up the car and head home, or have to keep moving the goal post further ahead. If they don’t everyone stops getting a paycheck.
      A recent report in CAL-MATTERS detailed the fact our state had “lost track” of over a billion dollars in funding which was handed out to programs working on homelessness and drug addiction. There isn’t much over site or transparency when money goes to things which are popular.
      The other side if the coin is we have to find a balancing point of funding public safety and supportive services., we can’t get out of this without both. I think we will get there and I’m hopeful we will get our arms around the fentanyl crisis. We had another suspected overdose yesterday in Ukiah.
      
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MAGA Marmon July 4, 2024

My youngest granddaughter called me a few minutes ago to wish me a happy birthday, I told her I was 70 years old and she responded by telling me I didn’t look a day over 50. We talked about our genes and how she is blessed on both sides of her family. Yesterday I made a remark at the dollar tree that i would be 70 years old and people in line also claimed I looked no older than 50, good skin.

MAGA Marmon

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- Matt Kendall July 4, 2024
  
  Hey, happy birthday!
  
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- Bruce Anderson July 4, 2024
  
  Your granddaughter has a bright future as a diplomat, but happy birthday Maga Man.
  
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- Lazarus July 4, 2024
  
  ” people in line also claimed I looked no older than 50, good skin.”
  JM
  
  I’ve heard that crap too. It’s BS…but it’s nice. I guess.
  Born on the 4th of July, Happy Birthday!
  Be well,
  Laz
  
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Matt Kendall July 4, 2024

https://calmatters.org/housing/homelessness/2024/04/california-homelessness-spending/

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- Eric Sunswheat July 4, 2024
  
  —>. May 20, 2024
  But according to Elliott Currie, a professor of criminology, law and society at the University of California Irvine, the measure is based on a false assumption.
  “The theory is that people are homeless because we’ve been too lenient with drug addiction,” Currie said. “I think I can safely say that I don’t see one shred of serious evidence that that’s what’s going on.”…
  As evidence Prop. 47 is tied to homelessness, backers of the measure point to states with stronger drug laws and smaller homeless populations. Illinois, for example, has a homeless rate about five times less than California’s.
  But there are a lot of other factors — especially housing costs — contributing to the state’s homelessness crisis. Fair market rent for a two-bedroom in Chicago is just $1,714 – nearly half the going rate in San Francisco. The San Francisco area rate increased 72% since Prop. 47 passed, hitting $3,359 this year, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development…
  But where does homelessness factor into this tough-on-crime measure? The initiative includes no money for housing, shelter or treatment beds — leading some experts to question how it would help get California’s more than 181,000 unhoused residents off the street in a state where recent research shows loss of income is the leading cause of homelessness. Nor does the measure allocate or create new funding sources to pay cities or counties to enforce it.
  https://calmatters.org/politics/2024/05/prop-47-measure-crime-homelessness/
  
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  - Matt Kendall July 4, 2024
    
    There’s another factor, I read a study somewhere that 97% of researchers tend to agree with whoever is paying for the research… In the world we are currently living in, that science seems solid to me.
    
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    - Harvey Reading July 5, 2024
      
      They must be consultants, rather than real “researchers”.
      
      Reply
Mark Taylor July 4, 2024

Thanks, Marco, for the meatball tip. I bought some on your say so and they were delicious. A good deal, too, and a nice diversion from worrying about the decline and fall of American civilization. Happy 4th of July!

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MAGA Marmon July 5, 2024

RE: POSSIBLE BAD NEWS FOR MO-TOWN

“The recent SCOTUS decision is predicted to pave the way for more “public nuisance” lawsuits against cities and their leaders for neglect. It is also predicted that these suits will reveal misappropriations of funds and other violations of the public trust far and wide.”

-Ken McCormick Ukiah CA Vagrant Watch

Downtown residents, business owners sue Phoenix over growing homeless encampment

https://cronkitenews.azpbs.org/2022/09/16/phoenix-downtown-residents-businesses-file-lawsuit-homeless-camp/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0wpjovW2ULoaG7RH2kZC23TDuN0Nn5qKjc8JY4JkYABMEyr286j3Z_EhA_aem_dMHqn7YuR1xK6faT_kqleQ

MAGA Marmon

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Mendocino County Today: Thursday 7/4/2024

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