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INTERIOR TEMPERATURES creep back up into the triple digits today, and there is a slight chance for thunderstorms in Trinity county this afternoon. A warming and drying trend develops next week. (NWS)
YESTERDAY'S HIGHS: Ukiah 102°, Yorkville 99°, Laytonville 98°, Boonville 98°, Covelo 97°, Mendocino 64°, Point Arena 62°, Fort Bragg 60°
STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A warm 55F with clear skies this Saturday morning on the coast. Clear skies & breezy conditions for the weekend. Patchy fog returns for next week.
LOCAL EVENTS (this weekend)
PATRICK HICKEY (Local County Employees Union Rep):
Come to the Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday, July 23 to show your support for the Board of Supervisors as they vote to give themselves a $15,000 raise.
SOCIAL SERVICES (via CEO Report)
“The Mendocino County Veterans Services Ukiah office has moved to 405 Observatory Ave. as of July 2nd, 2024. Staff worked quickly minimizing the disruption to services and organizing the space to best meet the needs of this office. In addition to the move, we are thrilled to have welcomed our newest Veteran’s Services Representative, Macy Waddington! Macy began her career with our department on July 7th and we are looking forward to have two full time VSR’s to serve our Veterans.”
Mark Scaramella notes: “Staff worked quickly minimizing the disruption to services”? Oh yes, it only took six months of service disruption to move the VSO back to 405 Observatory. Very quickly — for Mendo. PS. From what we’ve heard from local vets, Ms. Waddington is a welcome addition to the VSO staff, especially with some new federal veterans programs which have kicked in recently.
NOT GUILTY VERDICT IN CANNABIS DUI CASE
A Mendocino County Superior Court jury returned from its Wednesday deliberations this week to announce it had acquitted the trial defendant.
Sophia Faith Gonzales, age 20, of Lakeport, was found not guilty of misdemeanor driving a motor vehicle while under the influence of cannabis.
Unlike with alcohol where it is illegal to drive with a blood alcohol of .08 or greater, California has not adopted per se thresholds prohibiting driving with certain nanogram levels of drugs in one’s system.
Eighteen out of the fifty states have adopted zero tolerance or non-zero per se laws for cannabis.
Ten of those 18 states have adopted laws with zero tolerance for driving with THC or a metabolite in one’s system.
Four of the states have laws with zero tolerance for driving with THC in your system but no restriction on metabolites.
Four of the states have specific per se thresholds for nanogram levels of THC not to be exceeded if driving.
One state (Colorado) has a “permissible inference” law for prosecutions for driving under the influence of cannabis.
Colorado’s permissible inference law states that if a driver’s blood test shows a five nanogram level of THC or higher, the jury shall be instructed that they can permissibly infer that the driver was impaired at the time of driving.
With the passage of Proposition 64 in 2016, the CHP was given monies to investigate and make recommendations regarding drug-impaired driving, including driving under the influence of cannabis.
When the CHP issued its final Prop 64-related report and recommendations in 2021, the CHP did not recommend establishing per se drug DUI thresholds in California like those used for alcohol.
The law enforcement agencies involved in the investigation and prosecution of Ms. Gonzales’ case were the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office, the California Highway Patrol, and the California Department of Justice crime laboratory.
Deputy District Attorney Joshua Hopps presented the People’s evidence at trial.
Mendocino County Superior Court Judge Keith Faulder presided over the three-day trial.
UKIAH, AN ON-LINE COMMENT:
I have spent a lot of time in Ukiah. To me it has always been a mysterious place. Pulling off of 101 between Talmage and Lake Mendocino Blvd is like pulling the lever on a slot machine. You might enjoy a movie night at Todd Park, or rub elbows with a County Supe at the Co-Op. Or you could get stabbed in the Safeway parking lot. A cop might even rape you scott-free. Ukiah, man. What a trip. I’d rather take my chances in Willits.
A MODEST REQUEST
ISO Ride to Mendo from Fort Bragg Tomorrow
My boyfriend is cooking lunch for the Tibetan Monks who are visiting this week as they create a sand mandala for the community. His car broke down today and I am looking for someone to drive him with his dog Saga and a couple of hot pots of food tomorrow at about 12:30 pm from my house in Fort Bragg to The Well in Mendocino.
Is there someone that can help deliver this man, his dog, and these meals to the venerable monks please?
Many thanks,
Rachel Archuletta
CEO DARCY ANTLE:
Animal Care Services
In light of the recent departure of the Animal Care Services Director, the Executive Office has initiated a comprehensive review of the services offered by Animal Care Services. This strategic effort aims to ensure full compliance with state-mandated requirements and to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of our programs.
As part of this review, we are conducting a detailed evaluation of existing services, identifying areas for improvement, and implementing necessary changes. On July 18, CEO Antle and Deputy CEO Cherie Johnson, held an All Staff meeting with Animal Care Services personnel to discuss the review process and gather valuable input.
Additionally, the Executive Office is in the process of scheduling meetings with the Inland and Coastal Humane Societies to explore potential collaborations and best practices that can inform our approach.
To further strengthen our review, we are researching animal care service models from surrounding counties. This comparative analysis will help us identify innovative strategies that can be adopted to improve service delivery, ensuring our Animal Care Services framework is both responsive and effective in meeting community needs while adhering to regulatory standards.
We are committed to enhancing Animal Care Services and look forward to sharing further updates as the review progresses.
UKIAH CONSTRUCTION UPDATES FOR THE WEEK OF JULY 22ND:
The decorative stamping around the medians is now complete (see picture below), clearing the way for landscaping crews. In addition to the landscaping in the planters and bioswales along the sides of the project, the medians will also contain trees and plants. The landscaping crews will also be drilling new holes in the sidewalks for the flags that are put out on certain holidays.
Some concrete and asphalt patching will be done next week as needed. No significant impacts to traffic are expected for this work.
It has been determined to keep the traffic signals on flash until the final striping is completed; this, along with new signage, is expected to happen within the next two weeks. When the striping is being done, there will be some intermittent street closures.
Power lines have already been undergrounded as part of the first phase of this project. The remaining overhead lines are AT&T’s, and it is our understanding that they are ready to start taking down their lines and poles, which will clean up much of the “visual clutter” that is still seen in the project area (see image below).
We’re so close!
Have a great weekend,
Shannon Riley, Deputy City Manager
IS THE NEW MENTAL HEALTH CONTRACT RIGGED?
by Mark Scaramella
During the first year of his first term, Supervisor Ted Williams correctly pointed that Mental Health Services in Mendocino County should be competitively bid, not handed over to the Schraeders Anchor Health Management (aka Redwood Community Services) on a no-bid contract extension year after year. Williams said that the contract should be broken down into smaller segments so that other local outfits, including some of the Schraeders’ subcontractors, could bid on the parts of the contract that they could carry out, thus making them competitive (sort of, or at least for parts of the services), and also eliminating an extra layer of administration that the Schraeders rake in as the Administrative Services Organization (ASO) which, prior to privatization of mental health services, was conducted by the Mental Health Department itself. Williams has complained several times after that about the no-bid, no option nature of the Schraeders’ continuing contract.
Over the years, however, nothing has been done. Mental Health Director Dr. Jenine Miller told Williams time and again that they were working on an new RFP so that local that Mental Health providers could competitively bid for mental health services and contract administration. But Dr. Miller never said anything about breaking up the services/contract into smaller, biddable segments as Williams had requested. And Williams never proposed anything resembling that approach.
Next Tuesday, the long-awaited RFP for Mental Health Services — aka Administrative Services Organization (ASO) — is scheduled to be rubberstamped for posted for bidding by the Supervisors.
On the surface, it looks like the RFP seeks competitive bids, although there’s nothing in the RFP (misleadingly titled “Specialty Mental Health & Recovery Services”) saying that bidders can pick and choose which services they can provide or bid for or in what area of the County.
The accompanying Board presentation says the County intends to “contract with Anchor Health Management, Inc. (the Schraeders), Mendocino Coast Hospitality Center (a Schrader subcontractor in Fort Bragg), Mendocino County Youth Project, Redwood Community Services (RCS, the Schraeders), and Tapestry Family Services (a Schraeder subcontractor).”
Except for Anchor Health/RCS, each of these outfits specializes in one kind of mental health service or another.
According to the presentation package for next Tuesday, Anchor Health Management had 326 people “enter” services in 2022/2023 and 277 in 2023/2024. 431 “utilized crisis services” in 2022/2023 and 205 in 2023/2024. Are these the same people? We are not told. The 431 is said to be “(38.3%)” and the 204 is said to be “(19%)” of something, again not specified. 431 is 38.3% of 1125, but there’s no mention of the 1125 or what that number represents.
The relatively small Coast Hospitality Center had 50 people “enter services” in 2022/2023 and 41 in 2023/2024. The Youth Project had 75 people “enter services” in 2022/2023 and 84 in 2023/2024. Redwood Community Services had 343 people “enter services” in 2022/2023 and 391 in 2023/2024. Tapestry had 431 people “enter services” in 2022/2023 and 357 in 2023/2024.
There are proportionate numbers for each organization listed in various subcategories as compared to the Schraeders numbers.
But, as usual, the numbers are unexplained, confusing and out of context. The percentages are not explained. the subcategories are amorphous, the overlapping of client numbers is not explained, and the terminology is misleading.
For example, the Coast Hospitality Center reportedly “housed” 32 people in 2022/2023 and 26 people in 2023/2024; most of them have reportedly remained housed for the reporting period. Redwood Community Services, however, despite having a much larger client count, “housed” 12 and 20 respectively; less than half of them remained housed. The other three outfits didn’t “house” anybody.
Obviously, the numbers don’t add up and don’t provide much in the way of useful management information.
In theory, the County could contract with each of these organizations for the services they can provide. But in practice, there would still need to be some kind of coordination between the organizations since the “patients” are not exclusive to one outfit or service and commonly qualify for more than one, or transition from one to the other as they age, or as their conditions or circumstances or addresses or ability to pay or be funded changes. And, of course, at present, most of them are already deeply intertwined with the Schraeders organization in several ways.
The cover letter for the RFP specifically says that the County intends to award only one contract and that the winning bidder must provide “all Medi-Cal specialty mental health services,” and “have the ability to provide timely and satisfactory specialty mental health services including but not limited to billing, utilization management, quality assurance, data collection and reporting.”
So even though there are five local outfits listed as possible bidders, only one of them can claim to have experience and capability to provide “all Medi-Cal specialty mental health services” as well as the required specialized administrative functions. (Medi-Cal billing alone is extremely complex and time consuming.)
If the County wanted competitive bids they could have broken the RFP down into separate smaller RFPs by category as Williams once suggested, such as age, area (coast or inland), crisis/non-crisis, residential, medication management, case management, etc.
As it is, however, despite all the time and effort and rhetoric about competitive bidding and cost savings, the entire exercise looks like the same old Schraeder same old, since the smaller outfits are clearly not capable of providing the full range of services the RFP calls for, unless the smaller outfits turn around and subcontract parts of the contract with each other or the Schraeders — an unworkable approach.
Since there’s no narrative or explanation of the confusing, if not misleading or negative, statistics for each provider, there’s no way to know if this “new” contract will improve services as it claims to require. And the only real measure of whether this “new” RFP will save any money will be to see if the resulting contract is cheaper in real terms than the current arrangement with the Schraeders. But given the amorphous nature of the full range of contracts and services provided by the Schraeders, getting an apples to apples independent comparison will be impossible for all practical purposes.
By virtue of their years-long monopoly, the Schraeders are only one outfit in Mendocino County that’s even remotely positioned to bid on this “competitive” RFP.
Tuesday’s Mental Health Services RFP presentation is little more than a clumsy marketing opportunity for the Mental Health Director and the Schraeders to provide the Board with another collection of nearly meaningless info under the cover of a “new” mental health services RFP.
FORT BRAGG’S OFFICER FRANK HONORED FOR MAJOR DUI ENFORCEMENT SUCCESS
by Matt LaFever
Officer Jarod Frank of the Fort Bragg Police Department has been recognized by Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) California for his exceptional efforts in removing 44 impaired drivers from the road in 2023.
Natasha Thomas, NorCal Area Executive Director for MADD, highlighted the importance of these "invisible victories," emphasizing the lives saved by stopping DUI drivers before any tragic incidents occur.
FBPD Chief Neil Cervenka told us Officer Frank has worked for the agency for 3.5 years after moving to the Mendocino Coast from Sacramento. Officer Frank "has a passion for traffic safety and has become an expert in the identification of DUI drivers", Chief Cervenka explained.
The shift Officer Frank work does play a role in his high number of DUI arrest, Chief Cervenka recognized. "He was on dayshift most the year, but many of the DUI’s were at night when Officer Frank was participating in special DUI Enforcement paid for with a grant."
Chief Cervenka noted that of all the DUI stops Officer Frank has ever initiated, the highest recorded blood alcohol concentration (BAC) was 0.28%, detected at 3:15 on a Thursday afternoon.
Officer Frank's notable statistics for the year include:
- Seventeen DUI arrests were twice the legal limit or greater
- Seventeen arrests were for daytime DUIs
- Nine arrests were individuals on DUI probation (only one was a prior arrest by Officer Frank)
- Eight arrests were for DUI involving drugs or a combination of drugs and alcohol
- Three arrests were for wrong-way driving
- Two arrests involved drivers with children in the car, resulting in additional child endangerment charges
(mendofever.com)
ED NOTES
ADAM SCHIFF. Corruption squared, but he sails on even though he had to have known that he was lying during his ubiquitous tv presence about Trump being a tool, even an agent, of Vlad Putin. Nope, there he is on all the lib media putting one of the final lib shivs in Poor Old Joe's undefended back. Schiff, in an open convention, probably has a good shot at the Demo nomination.
GOSH, an open convention where any old body might get the nod? The Democrats’ billionaire donors and super-delegates must indeed be desperate. When was the last time they allowed people who weren't multi-millionaires in on the fun? McGovern? Carter?
MY OLD FRIEND, and resolutely committed middle-of-the-road extremist, Lee Edmundson of soma-serene Mendocino, was the guy famously on top of the horse statue during the '68 police riot in Chicago at the Democratic convention.
THIS YEAR'S DEMO gathering will be a lot more violent, so violent I hope Lee doesn't risk a nostalgic visit back to the scene of his turbulent youth.
MAYBE because they're over-exposed. Maybe they are soooooo annoying because we see so much of them. Trump, of course, but the aforementioned Schiff, and even minor irritants like “the second gentleman.” It's like we're force fed all these objectively repellant characters. Unappealing public people are doubly unappealing when they're trying to be cute.
KAMALA isn't exactly repellant, but you'd think one of these “media experts” would tell her how silly she comes off as, giggling her way through serious announcements like the other day when she announced student debt forgiveness. She seems perpetually out of sync. Maybe that gay dog “the second gentleman” — mother of god save us all! — was tickling her.
THE VICE-PRESIDENT should take a lesson from her co-religionist, Hillary, who consistently comes off as what she is — a mean, unhappy person. But at least Hillary is never out of character.
WHAT A CREW! Trump, Kamala, long-gone Biden, Schiff, Putin, Netanyahu… Everywhere you look, a lunatic. It's as if all the bringers-of-the-apocalypse have been carefully selected by a cosmically malign force to bring down the Final Curtain.
RECOMMENDED READING: ‘A Dangerous Place — California's Unsettling Fate’ by the late Marc Reisner. If war, economic free fall, pestilence, and the Republican Convention haven't already driven you to search for calming medications, the late Mr. Reisner's posthumous book on what the next big earthquake will do to California's most heavily populated areas when the overdue Big One hits is likely to at least get you thinking about a 72-hour supply of potable water. Reisner brings the same meticulous research to his earthquake book that he brought to his famously ominous and irrefuted book on water and the West, ‘Cadillac Desert.’ I haven't read 181 pages this fast in years as this great little earthquake book, such is Reisner's ability to predict the specifics of the apocalyptic, inevitable event he's extrapolated from the known facts.
SCOTLAND (MY PEOPLE, MY PEOPLE!)
LITTLE RIVER MUSEUM OPEN
The Little River Museum will be open 11-4 this Saturday and Sunday. Come see our Antique Train Exhibit, map to the Little River Pioneer Cemetery, including veteran and Civil War sites, locate old abandoned local railroad track sites, hold an owl egg, pick up free post cards, maps to local Pomo Indian trails, and pamphlets on Humane Exclusion of local wildlife. Built in 1885 as the Good Templars Hall, the little white cottage with the red geraniums houses an architectural surprise. 8185 Highway One, it's on the east side at the top of the Van Damme Beach "S: curve.
Ronnie James ronnie@mcn.org
IS THAT FOG?
July 23, 2024 Point Arena City Council Meeting has been Rescheduled to July 30, 2024
CATCH OF THE DAY, Friday, July 18, 2024
MICHAEL GARZA, Caspar. DUI-alcohol&drugs, controlled substance, addict driving a vehicle.
NICHOLAS HOGAN, Hillsboro, Oregon/Ukiah. Parole violation.
DELISSE JONES, Eureka/Ukiah. Trespassing, resisting.
DEBORAH LAWRENCE, Ukiah. Refuse disposal in state waters.
CHRISTOPHER MORALES, Covelo. DUI.
STEVEN NOVOA, Ukiah. Domestic violence court order violation.
SAMUEL SANCHEZ, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, trespassing. (Frequent flyer.)
JESSICA STAMNESS, Laytonville. Under influence, controlled substance, paraphernalia, probation revocation.
JESSY STEEL, Willits. DUI.
RETURNING TO THE FOLD
I will be in Ukiah at least until August 3rd.
Please know that the dental appointment went well…got a post put in and the margins shaped evenly. There is therefore one last appointment August 2nd to get the permanent crown put in. I need to check out of the motel by 11 a.m. August 5th.
My friend Don who drives me to the appointments said that what I need is permanent subsidized senior housing, and then I could go anywhere and do whatever I am called to do. He is correct, in that at 74 years of age, this would be ideal. He and I agree that we will do the best that we can as instruments of God, and that some day we are leaving this world and “going up.”
Lastly, while at the dental office, I noticed a picture of Jesus Christ which the dentist had displayed, I commented that some mornings I wake up and the mind is reciting the Hail Mary prayer…that it must have begun doing that during sleep. She gave me a picture like the one she had, which is now posted near the bed in the motel room.
Everybody is welcome to stay in touch with me. I don't know what is going to happen in the future, exactly, but as Don said: “We'll do our best and the rest is God's department.” That works for me.
Craig Louis Stehr
Royal Motel
(707) 462-7536, Room 206
Email: craiglouisstehr@gmail.com
GRAMMAR ALERT: Why is everyone now saying “I seen that” instead of “I saw that,” or “He seen me” instead of “He saw me”? Are they really not aware that the word “saw” (as the past tense of “see”) exists? It should either be “I saw that,” or “I have/had seen that,” with the use of “have” meaning in general, maybe multiple times, and the use of “had” referring to a specific instance in the past. This one kills me, as I see it ALL the time on post comments.
LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT
Editor,
Regarding a recent Chronicle article about David Sacks (‘This is the San Francisco billionaire who bashed his hometown at the RNC’) as a native and lifelong resident of San Francisco in my 70s, I’ve lived through many of the city’s highs and lows.
San Francisco has always been and continues to be, a great and vibrant place to live.
The people here are the best, always resilient, resourceful and tolerant. I advise billionaire David Sacks, who called San Francisco a “cesspool,” to follow Elon Musk to Texas and good riddance to both.
We have forgotten you already. Don’t come back.
Mike Matza
San Francisco
MITCH CLOGG
Left Foot 2 - Rest Pain (continued from 7/17)
Laughable to me that medical writing can use ancient Latin, ancient Greek and throw in a little Sanskrit to describe a hangnail, while using two plain English monosyllables as the common name for this medieval phenomenon is deemed eloquent enough.
I broke my first bone at seven. I had a new filling in a tooth lose its mind and cause me a pain so unexpected and intense I fell to the ground. I broke my anterior cruciate ligament while skiing. I saw stars and planets that time, like when you get socked hard in a comic book. I got a spiral fracture in my ankle when I forgot to keep holding onto a rope I was dangling from. I've had little hurts here and there, but none was in the same constellation of galaxies as Rest Pain. None brought me closer to howling madness as Rest Pain, as close to killing myself. I flinch, just writing this. I have no written guarantee I won't have Rest Pain again, and the prospect shivers me timbers. I've mostly forgot how to cry, so I noticed myself making a mirthless chuckling sound during Rest Pain--that and swearing: Stop it! Just goddamn stop it! This is accompanied by swinging my left leg and foot this way and that, seeking a position that hurts slightly less. This goes on for hours. Hours! When it happens, it invariably happens when I turn out the light and assume a going-to-sleep position. It may last until first light. The solitariness of it makes it worse. I want someone to witness this, this Wheeler-Street Abu Ghraib. I want to pound on Ellie's door and ask her to sit and watch me suffer. The necessary scintilla of sanity stops me. All she could do would be to suffer worse, the way one does in such a situation, suffer worse and sleep not.
Medical literature gets a little vague here. "It may be a throbbing sensation," it says. "It may be a burning sensation." No. Of the many adjectives tried, none approaches the experience. It's not a "sensation" at all. It's agony.
Likewise the causes of it. They get vague. None of the attempts at explanation sounds precise--or even close. What part of me is sending what signal to whatever other part of me to produce such hellish pain is clumsily speculated on. The medical writers are loathe to come right out and say, "Strap yourself down. You're in for it." You should be able to wear some kind of badge, like the Combat Infantry Badge. That way at least Rest Pain sufferers could recognize each other and get drunk together. Or plan suicide.
So: Rest Pain. You heard it here first. Or, if not, God help you.
Four angioplasties down and the circulation in my lower extremities improved. My foot was still swollen, but less. My toes still looked dead, but less so. The ulcers on my foot and toes were sensitive to touch in a way I can only describe as electrical. I never, ever took better care of anything than I took to protect that limb from touching ANYTHING. When nurses, or Ellie, or whoever happened to be doing the dressing started work on it, I'd beg first for a generous squirt of disinfectant and analgesic. When pain becomes part of every day, you learn that you'll never, barring MORPHINE (O, Morpheus, how I love thee!), make it go away completely. You settle happily for reduction. Bactine , in a spray can, is over the counter and helps noticeably. Why doctors, clinics, hospitals , emergency rooms and first responders are so goddamn stingy with morphine beats me. It's as if they're holding out for a bribe (one I'd willingly pay). I know, I know: opioids. I like ice cream, but I dare not buy an ice cream cone because I might get addicted? Ridiculous! Morphine rocks!
SURGICAL STRIKES: EIGHT DECADES WORTH
By Jonah Raskin
The patients in Dr. Wenwu Jin's fifth-floor office on Clay Street in San Francisco's Chinatown are almost all elderly Chinese men and women. I'm one of the few exceptions: a white guy who doesn't speak a word of Chinese and doesn't understand a word of Chinese, either Cantonese or Mandarin. But like Jin's other patients, I've had prostate issues. Whether mine are resolved I don't yet know.
Dr. Jin, a urologist, performed prostate surgery on me at the California Pacific Medical Center on Castro Street near Dubose Park where healthy folks and their dogs frolic. For a couple of years, I would wake up at all hours of the night to pee because of an enlarged prostate. Something had to be done.
For those who don't know — I didn't for a long time — and would like to know, the prostate is a small walnut-shaped gland or organ below the bladder and in front of the rectum. Its primary function is to make fluids in the sperm and force the semen through the urethra during ejaculation. My high school teachers didn't say anything about it.
The more you age, the larger the prostate grows. At 18, 28 and 58 men need a prostate; as they age they don't. I put off the procedure until the end of this July; that’s when I decided I might as well go under the knife sooner rather than later, while I was still ambulatory and in decent health, at least for an 82-year-old who has had far too many surgeries than he'd like.
My first surgery took place in the late 1940s when I was five; doctors removed my tonsils, though they botched the operation and I had to return to the hospital to have the damage repaired. In bed and recuperating, my dad brought me two toy guns, a holster and caps, which distracted me for a few days. Over the next seven or so decades more surgeries punctuated my life, culminating, most recently, with the procedure to shrink my enlarged prostate. The medical staff at Davies called it a "procedure" not a surgery probably because procedure sounds less invasive than surgery. But it's still invasive.
In the late 1960s, doctors at Roosevelt Hospital stitched my head after New York City cops cracked it. They didn't bother with five fingers that still look like they've been broken. Back in the 1990s, I had surgery to repair a torn Achilles Tendon on my right leg, followed by surgery in 2000 in Redwood City to remove a benign tumor on the left side of my head that damaged my hearing, my left eye and nerves.
I don't think of myself as an expert on the receiving end of surgery, but I think that six surgeries qualify me as a specialist of sorts. I played football and lacrosse in high school and rugby in college but broke no bones. I got off easy and thought I was indestructible until I clashed with cops in the street. I still remember the nightmares I had during my tonsillectomy and its aftermath, the long recovery from a ruptured Achilles Tendon when I could not put weight on my right foot and couldn't drive. I remember the beautiful anesthesiologist who put me under for brain surgery, and the heart surgery that left me with a scar on my chest.
What these surgeries have in common, is that they've been invasive. They've disrupted routines and have taken a toll on the mind as well as the body. I put off prostate surgery for three years and relied on meds, which helped. But surgery has had a way of catching up with me.
Dr. Jin sent me home from Davies without a catheter: a bag with a tube that's normally inserted into the penis and gently pushed into the bladder. He was overly confident. I had to return to his Clay Street office; it wasn't as painful as I thought it would be. He performed the procedure as soon as I arrived.
Now, at home the catheter fills up nicely with blood and urine. I empty it a few times a day, drink liquids and rest. I thought I would bounce back quickly but I'm taking it a day at a time, spending mornings and nights in bed, skimming a trashy novel about finance capitalism and reading newspapers and magazines.
For prostate health, doctors recommend a healthy diet with fresh vegetables, a minimum of red meat, exercise, drinking eight cups of water daily, and not smoking. For a few years that regime worked. Then I had to break down and go to Davies. Will I have another surgery? I don't want to think about it.
HUFFMAN RIDES DOWN OUT OF THE HILLS TO SHOOT THE WOUNDED
Rep. Jared Huffman joined a growing wave of Democratic legislators and other prominent politicians who have called on Biden to drop his bid for a second term. By Friday their number had grown to 39
by Andrew Graham
North Coast Rep. Jared Huffman on Friday joined a growing number of fellow Democrats in Congress calling for President Joe Biden to end his reelection campaign and pass the torch to a younger candidate.
The pressure came in a joint letter to the president issued with three other lawmakers Friday morning.
“Mr. President, with great admiration for you personally, sincere respect for your decades of public service and patriotic leadership, and deep appreciation for everything we have accomplished together during your presidency, it is now time for you to pass the torch to a new generation of Democratic leaders,” the letter read.
The lawmakers said it was time for Biden, 81, to recognize that widespread concerns about his age and fitness to lead were “jeopardizing what should be a winning campaign.”
“We believe that the most responsible and patriotic thing you can do in this moment is to step aside as our nominee while continuing to lead our party from the White House,” the lawmakers wrote.
Huffman, D-San Rafael, was joined in the letter by fellow Democrat Reps. Marc Veasey of Texas, Chuy Garcia of Illinois and Mark Pocan of Wisconsin.
They represented a growing wave of Democratic lawmakers in Congress and other prominent politicians in the party who have called on Biden to drop his bid for a second term. By Friday the number had grown to 39, including Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, according to a New York Times analysis.
Earlier in the week, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank, and Sen. Jon Tester of Montana represented two of the highest-profile voices calling for Biden to drop out.
Huffman and Schiff are significant as they are both staunch allies of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker from San Francisco, who until now has been one of Biden’s closest supporters and advisers on Capitol Hill.
Pelosi, in a television appearance last week, said it would be up to Biden to make the decision on whether he stayed in the race — a message widely seen as keeping the door open on that debate when the Biden camp sought to close it, and giving cover to those in her orbit who have questioned Biden’s chances against former President Donald Trump.
This week, Pelosi was reported to have told Biden in private that polling showed his continued campaign could cost Democrats control of the House, as well as the presidency.
Many of those polls now show more swing states in the mix, and with those states in play, Trump campaign officials have touted the increasing number of paths the former president has to win back the White House in November.
Unlike some of his swing-district colleagues, who’ve come forward in part because of down-ballot pressure they face with Biden in the race, Huffman hails from a solidly blue North Coast district that stretches from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Oregon border.
His staff did not immediately respond to a request for an interview Friday afternoon.
In the letter with his colleagues, Huffman said a new candidate was needed for the Democratic Party, to counter Trump’s advantage in the polls since Biden’s disastrous debate performance last month.
“We must defeat Donald Trump to save our democracy, protect our alliances and the rules-based international order, and continue building on the strong foundation you have established over the past four years,” the letter read.
The lawmakers appeared to throw their support behind Vice President Kamala Harris becoming that candidate.
“Democrats have a deep and talented bench of younger leaders, led by Vice President Kamala Harris, who you have lifted up, empowered, and prepared for this moment,” the letter read.
Huffman had previously expressed deep concern about the president’s fitness to campaign and what he saw as an unwillingness by Biden to give negative polls and criticism from other Democrats the weight they deserved.
He also advocated against the Democratic National Committee’s plans for an early vote to confirm Biden as the nominee, well ahead of the party’s August convention. But until Friday morning he had stopped short of calling for him to leave the race.
Biden, who tested positive this week for COVID and was isolating at his Delaware beach house, has for now said he intends to return to the campaign trail next week.
The olive tree of Vouves, on Crete. This tree, which has a trunk 15 feet in diameter, is at least 2,000 years old, and likely 2,900 years older, based on the graveyard found nearby. This tree likely lived through the writing of the Iliad, the golden age of Athens, the rise & fall of the Roman Empire, the birth of Christ, it lived during the time of mastodons, the Aztecs - and then lived for 2,000 years after that. It still produces olives.
SATURDAY'S LEAD STORIES, NYT
- Secluded in Delaware, Biden Stews at Allies’ Pressure to Drop Out of the Race
- Indian Americans Become a Political Force, Just as Usha Vance’s Profile Rises
- Nancy Pelosi told colleagues she would favor an “open” nomination process if President Biden dropped out.
- Donald Trump’s convention speech shows that he just can’t help himself. Will that help him win?
- Christian Conservatives March Ahead for God, for Country and for Trump
- Here’s a look at some of the most-used words at the G.O.P. convention, and some that were noticeably absent.
- From Honor Student to the Gunman Who Tried to Kill Donald Trump
IN 1988, BIDEN SUFFERED two near-fatal brain aneurysms that he says “changed him into the man he wanted to be.” That “changed man” treated Anita Hill dismissively (1991), wrote the most racist and punitive crime law in US history (1994), wrote a counterterrorism bill that expanded the federal death penalty against people who hadn’t committed murder and became a model for the Patriot Act (1996), proposed cutting Social Security (1995), voted against gay marriage (1996), backed the gutting of welfare (1996), voted to repeal Glass-Steagel, setting the stage for the financial crisis (1999), voted for the Patriot Act (2001) and the Iraq War (2002/3), voted against bankruptcy protections for students (2005) and armed a genocide (2023/4). … You know your country is in a terminal tailspin when an overwhelming majority of its citizens want both candidates for president to withdraw.
— Jeffrey St. Clair
WHAT IS RFK JR. DOING IN MILWAUKEE?
by Nikki Schwab
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been spotted in Milwaukee - but not at the political events he had originally scheduled.
Instead, sources told DailyMail.com that he was working out at a Planet Fitness Sunday night, as delegates arrived for the Republican National Convention, and then he was photographed Tuesday at a Milwaukee Gold's Gym location.
At the same time, he's disappeared from the campaign trail.
Kennedy was on the schedule Monday to appear virtually at a CNN-Politico Grill event on the sidelines of the RNC, but that appearance was cancelled.
Late Wednesday afternoon he was supposed to hold an event with Wisconsin farmers in nearby Madison. That event has since disappeared from the campaign's website.
The sudden schedule changes come after footage was leaked by his son earlier this week of the independent candidate on the phone with former President Donald Trump.
The two spoke skeptically about childhood vaccines - one of Kennedy's key issues.
'I would love you to do stuff,' Trump was heard telling his rival. 'And I think it would be so big for you.'
During the call, Kennedy was heard saying 'yeah' when Trump pushed that he was going to beat Democratic President Joe Biden in the fall.
This week Donald Trump Jr. also floated that there could be a role for Kennedy to play in a second Trump administration.
In a sit-down on the sidelines of the convention with Axios' Mike Allen, Trump Jr. said he'd 'love' to see RFK Jr. endorse his father.
The younger Trump noted the new common bond between his father - who survived an assassination attempt Saturday - and Kennedy, who lost both his father, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, and his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, to assassinations in the 1960s.
'You know and again I think maybe that's one of those moments that brings people together,' Trump Jr. said. 'Maybe there's a great place for him somewhere in an administration,' the former first son added.
The GOP nominee's son admitted, however, that he and Kennedy don't see eye-to-eye on all things political.
'He comes from an obviously very left background and that's fine, but that doesn't mean there's not an incredible role that he could excecute or prosecute quite well in Washington, D.C.,' Trump Jr. said.
He then added that he didn't have any sort of 'inside scoop,' just that, 'I'd love to see that happen.'
When Allen pressed on whether Kennedy might be given a health-related task, Trump Jr. answered 'that's sort of the genesis of their original friendship years ago.'
'I've love to see that, it's just a unifying moment,' Trump Jr. said.
Kennedy's spokesperson did not respond to DailyMail.com's request for comment on his cancelled Madison event Wednesday and what the future of the campaign looked like.
Matt Corridoni, a spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee, mocked Kennedy for spending his time in Milwaukee at the gym.
'RFK Jr. was recruited to run by MAGA Republicans, his campaign is being propped up by Trump's largest donor, and now - instead of campaigning for himself - he is at the gym in Milwaukee eagerly playing lap dog to the Trumps as they float test balloons about how they could formally join forces,' Corridoni told DailyMail.com.
'RFK Jr. was always running a spoiler candidacy, and now the Trumps might have other plans for him as well.'
(DailyMail.uk)
SLOWLY, THEN ALL AT ONCE
by James Kunstler
“Biden has been jabbed at least four times. This is his third covid diagnosis. The shots are working great.” — Jeff Childers, Coffee & Covid
There was a lot of talk about divine intervention at the Republican Convention this week. The country has witnessed a rush of seemingly providential events since the fateful night of June 27th when, to universal horror, “Joe Biden” was unmasked as The Phantom of the White House. The attempt on Donald Trump’s life Saturday, with its intimations of blob involvement, was only the latest of countless trips, hoaxes, capers, and ops that smacked of demonic inspiration laid on the public, so you can’t blame them for feeling that “God is among us now.”
A huge piece of this dynamic has been the Right’s amazing impotence in the eight-year-long march of insults to the republic — especially the failure to find relief for any of that in the courts of law, until last month when the SCOTUS finally kneecapped Democratic Party lawfare operations. A paramount example of that impotence was being unable to find one jurisdiction willing to adjudicate election fraud in 2020 on the merit of the arguments.
But there was much more, starting with collective helplessness in the drawn-out RussiaGate psychodrama, even when all the players and their many nefarious acts were exposed by the alt news media, and extending to the mendacious roguery of the two-year Mueller (Weissmann) Investigation, followed by fifty-one former intel higher-ups labeling Hunter Biden’s laptop Russian disinformation, followed by Rep. Adam Schiff’s Ukraine “whistleblower” prank featuring CIA/NSC/DOD/DOJ moles Eric Ciaramella, Colonel Vindman and IC Inspector General Michael Atkinson, and then the FBI-instigated J-6 riot with the ensuing faked-up House J-6 committee . . . plus you can throw in the stupid Ukraine war, the drag queens in the kindergartens, the bumbling Durham investigation, ten million unvetted illegal migrants flowing into the country and this year’s four show-trials put on to finally break Mr. Trump.
For many in this land, it has been like the classic nightmare of being paralyzed in the presence of evil. So, it’s no wonder that the Republicans came into their convention with a tremendous tailwind of relief when events suddenly broke their way in June. Now, everyone knows that the current president is a vindictive invalid who will be tossed overboard by his own terrified party in a matter of hours now. And the entire scaffold of lies supporting “Joe Biden” and his party is wobbling badly, too.
You could see it in the deranged terror of Rachel Maddow’s increasingly contorted face last night as she rehearsed all the hoaxes she has helped to perpetrate, along with her mentally-ill posse of Jen Psaki, Joy Reid, Nicole Wallace, and the strangely mute white male Ari Melber. It seemed that any minute Rachel’s head would spin and start spewing pea soup at the camera. When will an exorcist finally pay a visit to MSNBC?
“I’m not in this for my legacy. I’m in this to finish the job.”
As the sun sets on “Joe Biden’s” career, what’s left of his campaign runs an ad in which he promises “to finish the job.” Sounds kind of sinister now, doesn’t it, like something a crime boss might tell his caporegimes? And for sure the country is suffering from this three-year-plus reign-of-terror against common sense and common decency. The wreckage is everywhere, all over this land. “Defending our Democracy,” my ass.
The party big dawgs have paid their terminal visit to the old grifter bringing the sad news that it’s over. Of course, this excites several new headaches for them. Foremost: how can “JB” bow out of the election on account of mental infirmity but still remain president? Even if they call it something else, make some other excuse, the whole world knows now that the president is gone in the head. There are six months remaining to the end of his term and a lot of urgent issues requiring a president’s attention. You can be sure that pressure will rise to shove him out of office altogether. And it may come before the Democratic Convention in late August — if we want to be taken seriously by the rest of the world.
Of course, that would elevate Kamala to the White House. Would getting to be the first female president of-color for six months be her consolation prize for graciously declining an automatic nomination to run in “JB’s” place, so that the party can stage an “open convention” free-for-all? Or would she better serve the party as a sacrificial goat to head the ticket and get buried in what’s shaping up to be an election landslide for the Republicans? Anyway, which of the various replacement politicians — Newsom, Whitmer, Pritzker, PA Gov. Shapiro — really wants to squander a political future in an election that’s as much a vote against the Democratic Party itself as any particular figure in it? Let the party go down so it can be purged of Green Woke Satanic mentally-ill communists and reorganized on a sane and decent basis.
But then there’s always HRC. She’s been laying back alertly, waiting for an opening to swoop in on her leathery wings and cast a fresh spell over the batshit-crazy women who, in recent times, comprise the party’s base. At one point, not many years ago, the party was broke and had to be bailed-out by the Clinton Foundation. To what extent does that entity still own the DNC, and especially its cargo of super-delegates? I guess we’re going to find out.
LORD ALMIGHTY, JOE, LET IT GO!
by Maureen Dowd
Everyone wants Joe Biden gone.
Even the people who don’t want him gone really want him gone.
“Everyone’s waiting for Joe,” said one top Democrat. “And he’s sitting at home, stewing and saying, ‘What if? What if? What if?’ We’re doing things the Democratic way. We’re botching it.”
I have many happy memories of Rehoboth Beach. I went there growing up and have Proustian recollections of crispy French fries with vinegar sold on the Boardwalk. But now my gladdening images have been replaced by a maddening one: President Biden hunkered down in his house there, recovering from Covid, resisting talking to anyone who will tell him the truth, hoarsely yelling, “Get off my beach!” at the growing list of Democratic lawmakers and donors trying to warn him that he is pulling down his party and the country.
It makes me sad that Biden doesn’t see what’s inescapable: If he doesn’t walk away gracefully right now, he will likely go down as a pariah and ruin his legacy.
The race for the Oval today is between two delusional, selfish, stubborn old guys, and that’s a depressing state of affairs.
As for those D.C. careerists surrounding Biden who a) hid his true condition; b) gaslighted the press for focusing on what they called a nonexistent age issue; c) shielded the president from the truth about his cratering chances of winning; and d) seem to have put their self-interest first?
One way or the other, they’ll probably be out of their jobs soon.
Shockingly, even as the Republicans roar out of Milwaukee, vibrating with joy, Biden’s brain trust continues to run a lousy campaign, as though nothing has changed. Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, Biden’s campaign chair, went on “Morning Joe” Friday to say that the polls aren’t as bad as they are, that Biden is “more committed than ever” to running and that, when 100,000 homes got a knock on the door this past week, 76 percent of the respondents “are with Joe Biden.” Then, as Alex Thompson reported for Axios, Dillon went from cable news to a rah-rah call telling staffers not to pay attention to cable news because “the people in our country are not watching cable news.”
On the same day, Kamala Harris suddenly joined a call to reassure donors, but donors are in full flight.
At the convention, I went to a “Policy Fest” held by the Heritage Foundation — the folks devising the extreme Project 2025 — and their vision for America is very creepy and retrogressive.
Democrats should be alarmed thinking about Donald Trump with a Republican Senate promoting Judge Aileen Cannon to the Supreme Court.
This is already over. Democrats and journalists have moved on to other questions: Will Biden throw his support to Kamala or ask for an open convention? Would Kamala agree to be on an all-femme ticket with Gretchen Whitmer? Can a candidate other than Kamala play with the pot of gold now designated for Biden? Would the amazing ratings of a gladiatorial Democratic contest and an open convention drive Trump out of his mind? (Yes!!)
Tony Fabrizio, a Trump pollster, told reporters this week that not only does the campaign have an ad blitz about Biden’s debate brain freeze ready to go, but it also has primo oppo on Kamala. “Rest assured,” he said, “we are 100 percent ready.”
But Republicans are nervous about a Dem ticket swap. Tom Cotton posted that it would be a “coup.”
Biden has a right to be sniffy about some of the elite Democrats who want him out. Even if Barack Obama stopped messing with his Netflix money and came to Delaware to tell Biden to go, Biden wouldn’t listen. He’s still bitter that Obama pushed him aside for Hillary in 2015, so he doesn’t want to hear from either of them. Obama always seems to be leading Joe off the stage — even at that glossy Hollywood fund-raiser — and Joe resents it. He doesn’t want to have that awful feeling like he had in 2016 when he watched Trump beat Hillary, after he had stepped aside.
Now CNN reports that Biden is “seething” at his old friend Nancy Pelosi, the most respected person in the party, because he thinks she’s coordinating a campaign to force him out. Pelosi’s longtime pal in the California delegation, Zoe Lofgren, put out a letter Friday urging Biden to step aside, and New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich and Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, who is sure to bring others with him, also joined the chorus.
It’s true that Pelosi has played Madame Web in this crisis, initially trying to create a silky web that would caress Biden out of the race, and only getting tougher once he resisted. She has been sitting with her maps of the political world, working the phones and doing her head counts.
She loves Biden — he was more grateful for her help than Obama was and more effusive in his praise — but she loves the House more. She refuses to let the president burn it down for the sake of his ego and make it easy for Trump to slouch back to Washington with messianic, vengeful dreams.
Given that Biden said it would take the Lord Almighty to make him drop out, I have no doubt that Pelosi has been using their shared Catholic faith to guilt-trip the president into understanding the stakes, and what she thinks the Lord Almighty would want. Certainly, she might have said, she doesn’t like Trump claiming, as he did this week, that the Lord Almighty is on his side.
Really, what the Democrats need is a thrilling open convention, rather than a coronation. Trump just had one of those, after all.
(nytimes.com)
MIKE GENIELLA:
LABEL THIS MORONIC. And never ask again how Jim Jones convinced hundreds of poor lost souls to lay down their lives while he watched them die.
TRUMP'S PSYCHEDELIC CIRCUS OF CRAZED AMERICANA
by Kennedy
You could hear a pin drop in Milwaukee on Thursday night as Donald Trump got straight to the point:
'I will tell you exactly what happened, and you'll never hear it from me a second time, because it's actually too painful to tell.'
I stood in a circus of red, white and blue-painted faces, bedazzled MAGA jackets and baseball caps just 20 rows back from the Republican National Convention stage.
The Oregon delegation was on my left, Puerto Rico on my right. Across the floor the Wisconsin Cheeseheads were wearing their glorious orange headgear.
The Texans proudly pumping in their ivory Stetsons to the live band. The Arizonans were decked out in white ear bandages, some customized with Star Spangled-flair.
Behind me sat Trump's family in their private box.
I could make out the profile of red-hot Melania, freshly flown in on private jet. She'd just sucked the oxygen out of the arena, striding in like a WWE Diva to the quivering strings of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, before a hard-cut to Kid Rock's rousing pre-Donald performance.
Musically, the evening was starting to sound like orange juice and toothpaste tastes, but who cared?
Trump was about to make his first public remarks since a pizza-faced, 20-year-old dipstick evaded the once-most respected security service in the world to come within an inch and a stiff breeze of shooting him dead.
Rumors swirled after Saturday's attack that Trump would only appear remotely.
No chance.
This showman par excellence was going to milk this moment like an Iowa State Fair-winning dairy cow.
'It was a warm, beautiful day in the early evening in Butler Township in the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,' Trump said.
They were the opening lines of a bedtime story that one should never read to a child.
But the Trumptastic ladies decked out in custom MAGA glitter gowns, normie delegates in suits and ties and gray-haired men cosplaying Uncle Sam were primed to explode – if not slightly manic after just being firehosed with a psychadelic pop parade of Americana.
Moments ago, a jacked-up Hulk Hogan had ripped off his top to reveal a Trump-Vance t-shirt. (I saw Don blow the Hulkster a kiss from the family box).
Evangelist Franklin Graham calmed the rising animal impulses with an appeal to our Lord and Savior, who he personally thanked for saving Trump from an assassin's bullet.
Kid Rock snapped a few artificial hips with his 'Fight! Fight! Fight!' ode.
And UFC president Dana White did his best Macho Man Randy Savage impression ('Need a little excitement? Snap into the Democrats!').
A slick pre-produced video re-tracing Trump's life story from young New York City real estate magnate to reality show star to president left me wondering: Did Don Draper come out of retirement?
And then the stage lit up: 'TRUMP' in giant Broadway bulbs.
The man of the hour walked out to singer Lee Greenwood belting out 'God Bless the U.S.A'.
The helmet and jacket of slain firefighter hero Corey Comperatore, who was killed while shielding his family from the would Trump assassin's shots on Saturday, were placed stage-right.
All around me were in tears.
One woman was sobbing so hard that she wiped her eyes with her fake ear bandage.
'I heard a loud whizzing sound and felt something hit me really, really hard. On my right ear. I said to myself, 'Wow, what was that? It can only be a bullet,' Trump recalled, the audience transfixed.
'I moved my right hand to my ear, brought it down. My hand was covered with blood. Just absolutely blood all over the place.'
A elderly man wearing a white cowboy hat with Trump 2024 buttons lining the lapel of his white cotton blazer was desperately trying to hold it together - his chin quivering, his eyes misting up.
Only the naive among us are not cynical of politics, but I must say, this felt real.
'To every citizen, whether you're young or old, a man or woman, Democrat, Republican or Independent, Black or white, Asian or Hispanic, I extend to you a hand of loyalty and of friendship,' he boomed - and we believed him.
This speech transcended politics, because it wasn't about bumbling Joe Biden or Cackling Kamala.
This is the Trump that stuck-up coastal know-it-alls refuse to acknowledge.
He relates to people.
And if he had left it there, stuck to the teleprompter, wrapped up the emotional rollercaster, then there wouldn't have been a pundit in the cable news universe who could have credibility concluded that it wasn't one of the most masterful convention closers in modern history.
However that would have been too simple for such a complicated man leading such a wild, unruly, unpredictable MAGA movement.
So, the clock ticked by as the great entertainer went off-script.
When Don from Oregon bent down next to me, I thought he dropped his phone. But this sweet guy in his 60s was doing squats so his legs wouldn't fall asleep.
The entire Puerto Rico crew had taken their seats.
A nice lady from Maine asked if the paused teleprompter was broken.
'No', I reassured her as she looked genuinely worried, 'he's just freestyling.'
The minutes turned into what felt like weeks as 45 took a trip down memory lane from his love affair with Kim Jong Un to Venezuelan rapists.
I swear I heard the narrator from Sponge Bob announce in a French accent 'three…hours…later…'
Though when I looked over at the Trump family box, I felt a sense of relief. The entire thing had emptied out!
Surely that meant they'd been ushered backstage to join their patriarch any moment now.
Nope!
For 40 minutes he kept going.
Jean from Delaware agreed that it had all gone on a little long, but added wisely: 'that's to be expected from a man who cheated death.'
And as the entire Trump family gathered on stage and balloons fell from the ceiling, I reflected on the mad spectacle we'd all just watched.
In more ways than one, Jean is right.
Trump has escaped death - and now it feels like he's just getting started again.
(dailymail.co.uk)
HYMN FROM HELL: GREENWOOD BURNS FOR TRUMP
by David Yearsley
The country singer Lee Greenwood was born three weeks before Joe Biden. A self-styled evangelical Christian Republican, Greenwood is a wiry octogenarian, well-spoken and exuding a fiery intelligence. At 81, he pursues a performing schedule that would exhaust many a crooner or candidate half his age.
It his piercing tenor voice, aided by electronic amplification and spiritual fervor, that presents the most politically potent threat to Democratic hopes in November. For those listening to the ardent strains of his patriotic anthem “God Bless the U. S. A.” on the first night of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum, Greenwood’s crusading chorus hit like a sonic airstrike that blew to smithereens what’s left of the already wrecked border Wall separating Church and State. Monday’s processional sounded a lot like the funeral dirge of Democracy.
Greenwood had not been slated to appear at the convention, but after Saturday’s failed assassination attempted in Pennsylvania, the Trump campaign set the singer a Higher Calling than concerts at casinos and evangelical conclaves. Greenwood immediately changed his schedule and rushed to the Brew City.
On Trump’s arrival in the convention auditorium so soon after Saturday’s shooting the zealots may have been thinking of the Resurrection, but the event was staged more like Jesus’s pre-Crucifixion entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday riding on donkey. I half-expected Trump to be hoisted onto an emaciated Democratic ass and festooned with palm fronds droned up from Mar-a-Lago. Trump is supremely adept at self-anointing, has been probably from the time he was a toddler. “I was saved by the grace of God,” Trump confirmed in the hours between getting shot and coming to Milwaukee: “It was God alone that prevented the unthinkable from happening.”
Unlike in the Roman Coliseum, hungry lions did not await him in the Fiserv arena, but the rabid MAGA faithful instead.
His triumphant entry needed music. That music had to be “God Bless the U. S. A.”
Greenwood released his most famous tune in May of 1984 and it shot into the top 10 on the country charts. It was rapidly deployed a few weeks later at the Republican National Convention for a re-election film for Ronald Reagan, another entertainer-turned-President, one, like Trump, intent on collecting Christian votes. At 73, the Gipper was already way farther gone than Biden is now.
Four years later, Greenwood did the song live at the 1988 convention, performing it just after Reagan’s speech. Those were simpler technological times. Greenwood sang alone to a canned backing track and without rear screen images of the Stars and Stripes, the heartland, the troops.
Greenwood’s signature hit is ardent yet anodyne. This is music that both assures and enflames. Also known by the alternate title “Proud to Be An American,” it is the musical equivalent of Reagan’s senile countenance. There is nothing of substance behind either smile or song. It became forever linked with Reagan and his supposed Revolution, as Greenwood has made sure to stress in the many interviews he did this past week. For the forty years since, Greenwood’s song has acted as the sonic glue charged with keeping the unlikely Christian—Country Club Coalition together.
Back at the 1988 RNC, Greenwood crooned at the podium as Reagan stood like a stone nearby, his frozen in a seemingly benign grin, his hand gripping Nancy’s and releasing it reluctantly to join the crowd in applauding the chorus’s euphoric words: “God Bless the U. S. A.”
In Milwaukee this week, Trump moved to the music with serene purpose.
Over the last four decades, “God Bless the U. S. A.” has been called on continually by Republicans, but Trump has made it essential. He has walked out to the song at countless rallies over the course of his three campaigns. The Bibles that Trump started flogging this spring for $59.99 in hopes of raising money to pay off his mounting legal bills include the handwritten chorus of “Proud to Be an American” along with texts of the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence and the Pledge of Allegiance.
With that bundling, Trump canonized “God Bless the U. S. A.” But on Monday evening in Milwaukee it sounded different, sounded like it had found its destiny. The song, like Trump, had been transfigured.
In his improvised prayer of praise spoken over the easy, unctuous vamp that began his appearance, Greenwood invoked God’s providence in saving Trump’s life on Saturday. The power of prayer would now persuade God “to make some changes in this country.” God would even intervene for lower gas prices.
The vamp is a soft-focus, perfumed elaboration of the “Amen” still familiar as the concluding chords tagged onto Protestant hymns. Greenwood’s backup boys turned it into cruise-ship lite-rock, aka Christian Praise music. To this mega-church riff, Trump walked through the backstage corridor towards his entrance amongst the throng. His hair had become a halo tinged with red. His face glowed and glistened as if reflecting the Tongues of Flame of the Pentecost. Rather than bare the ear-wound as a stigmata, his pure white bandage proclaimed his heroism and holiness.
Greenwood’s spoken campaign litany then lifted into song.
The melody of “God Bless the U. S. A.” begins with repeated notes that limply echo the opening shots of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, that anthem so long associated with the Party of Lincoln. Greenwood glazes John Brown’s body in saccharine goo.
The song continues with the warm, fuzzy harmonies of the intro until there is a tonal lurch to a dark place outside the governing tonality: “I’d worked all my life / but had to start again / with just my children and my wife.” But just as quickly, adversity is overcome as the music plants itself right back in the harmonic homeland. “I’d thank my lucky stars to be living here today, / ‘cause the flag still stands for freedom and they can’t take that away.” With the most minimal of musical means over just four visionary bars, Greenwood prophesied the economic populism of a Trump convention at which a Teamsters president speaks.
The patriotism and God-loving of the chorus follow to those same churchy chords. When Trump appeared in the arena, the faithful erupted. Greenwood’s voice rose into the refrain as the Chosen One ascended the steps to the dais-cum-altar and towards the Holy Family. Don Junior’s eyes glistened with emotion, but Daddy did not embrace him, offering only a manly handshake instead. Eric got one too, but not the women. Apostate-turned-Apostle, ex-Judas Vance beamed through his beard. Beatified by self and party, the Savior-in-Chief gleamed as the music enfolded him in its aura. And at the words of benediction—“God bless the U. S. A.” —Greenwood had the congregation join in.
Trump did not sing along. He raised his fist, lifted involuntarily by the groundswell of feeling and belief.
Country Club Republicans hadn’t really been listening to Greenwood when they first invited him to entertain them so long ago. Forty years later, the Old Guard guys weren’t even in the room. Trump now literally owned the Country Club and the Establishment had long since stepped out for cigars and Scotch. Yet from the 19th hole in the sky, Reagan smiled down on Monday night, humming along with “God Bless the U. S. A.”
Greenwood and his band of Christian men are off to play the Log Still Distillery in Nelson County, Kentucky next weekend. The Tongues of Flame make bourbon too.
(David Yearsley is a long-time contributor to CounterPunch and the Anderson Valley Advertiser. His latest book is Sex, Death, and Minuets: Anna Magdalena Bach and Her Musical Notebooks. He can be reached at dgyearsley@gmail.com.)
Before his senior year of high school, Wilt Chamberlain took a summer job at Kutsher's Country Club, a resort in the Catskills. By day, he was making $2 an hour. At night, he played on Kutsher's basketball team, coached by athletic director, Red Auerbach.
ISRAELI SOLDIERS TELL STORY OF SAVAGE CRUELTY IN GAZA
Women and children are being targeted intentionally, say Israeli whistleblowers. From ground troops to commanders, the rules of war have been shredded
by Jonathan Cook
They just keep coming. On the weekend, Israel launched another devastating air strike on Gaza, killing at least 90 Palestinians and wounding hundreds more, including women, children and rescue workers.
Once again, Israel targeted refugees displaced by its earlier bombs, turning an area it had formally declared a “safe zone” into a killing field.
And once more, western powers shrugged their shoulders. They were too busy accusing Russia of war crimes to have time to worry about the far worse war crimes being inflicted on Gaza by their Israeli ally - with weapons they supplied.
The atrocity committed at al-Mawasi camp, packed with 80,000 civilians, had the usual Israeli cover story – one rolled out to reassure western publics that their leaders are not the utter hypocrites they appear to be for supporting what the World Court has described as a “plausible genocide”.
Israel said it was trying to hit two Hamas leaders – one of them Mohammed Deif, head of the group’s military wing – although Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seemed uncertain as to whether the strike was successful.
No one in the western media appeared to wonder why the pair preferred to make themselves a target in an overcrowded, makeshift refugee camp, where they were at huge risk of being betrayed by an Israeli informant, rather than sheltering in Hamas’s extensive tunnel network.
Or why Israel deemed it necessary to fire a multitude of massive bombs and missiles to take out two individuals. Is that Israel’s new, expansive redefinition of a “targeted assassination”?
Or why its pilots and drone operators continued the strikes to hit emergency rescue crews dealing with the initial destruction. Was there intelligence that Deif was not just hiding in the camp, but had hung around to dig out survivors, too?
Or how killing and maiming hundreds of civilians in an attempt to hit two Hamas fighters could ever possibly satisfy the most basic principles of international law. “Proportion” and “distinction” require armies to weigh the military advantage of an attack against the expected toll on civilian life.
Biblical vengeance
But Israel has torn up the rulebook on war. According to sources within the Israeli military, it now considers it acceptable to kill more than 100 Palestinian civilians in the pursuit of a single Hamas commander – a commander, let us note, who will simply be replaced the moment he is dead.
Even if the two Hamas leaders were assassinated, Israel could not have been in any doubt that it was perpetrating a war crime. But it has learned that, the more routine its war crimes become, the less coverage they receive – and the less outrage they provoke.
In recent days, Israel has struck several United Nations schools serving as shelters, killing dozens more Palestinians. On Tuesday, another strike in the “safe zone” of al-Mawasi killed 17.
According to the UN refugee agency, Unrwa, more than 70 percent of its schools – almost all of them serving as refugee shelters – have been bombed.
Last week, western doctors who had volunteered in Gaza said Israel was packing its weapons with shrapnel to maximise injuries to those caught in the blast radius. Children, because of their smaller bodies, were being left with much more severe wounds.
Aid agencies cannot properly treat the wounded, because Israel has been blocking the entry of medical supplies into Gaza.
Committing war crimes, if western publics have not worked it out by now, is the very point of the “military operation” Israel launched in Gaza in the wake of Hamas’s one-day attack on 7 October.
That is why there are more than 38,800 known deaths from Israel’s 10-month assault – and likely at least four times that number unrecorded, according to leading researchers writing in the Lancet medical journal this month.
That is why it will take at least 15 years to clear the rubble strewn across Gaza by Israeli bombs, according to the UN, and as much as 80 years – and $50bn – to rebuild homes for the remnants of the enclave’s 2.3 million people still alive at the end.
Israel’s twin goals have been biblical vengeance and the elimination of Gaza – a genocidal rampage to drive the terrified population out, ideally into neighbouring Egypt.
Shoot-everyone policy
If that was not clear enough already, six Israeli soldiers recently stepped forward to speak out about what they had witnessed while serving in Gaza – a story the western media has entirely failed to report.
Their testimonies, published by the Israel-based publication 972 last week, confirm what Palestinians have been saying for months.
Commanders have authorised their troops to open fire on Palestinians at will. Anyone entering an area the Israeli military is treating as a “no-go zone” is shot on sight, whether man, woman or child.
Back in March, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz warned that the Israeli military had created just such “kill zones”, where anyone entering was executed without warning.
After months of an Israeli aid blockade that has created a man-made famine, Israel’s military has turned the people of Gaza’s ever-more frantic search for food into a game of Russian roulette.
This perhaps explains, in part, why so many Palestinians are unaccounted for – Save the Children estimates some 21,000 children are missing. The soldiers quoted in 972 say the victims of their shoot-everyone policy are bulldozed out of view along routes where international aid convoys pass.
A reserve soldier, identified only as S, said a Caterpillar bulldozer “clears the area of corpses, buries them under the rubble, and flips [them] aside so that the convoys don’t see it – [so that] images of people in advanced stages of decay don’t come out”. The soldier also noted: “The whole area [of Gaza where the army operates] was full of bodies… There is a horrific smell of death.”
Several of the soldiers reported that stray cats and dogs, denied food and water for months just like Gaza’s population, feed on the dead bodies.
The Israeli military has repeatedly refused to publish its open-fire regulations since it was first challenged to do so in the Israeli courts in the 1980s.
A soldier named B told 972 that the Israeli army enjoyed “total freedom of action”, with soldiers expected to shoot directly at any Palestinian approaching their positions, rather than a warning shot in the air: “It’s permissible to shoot everyone, a young girl, an old woman.”
When civilians were ordered to evacuate from a school serving as a shelter in Gaza City, B added, some mistakenly exited right towards the soldiers, rather than to the left. That included children. “Everyone who went to the right was killed – 15 to 20 people. There was a pile of bodies.”
According to B, any Palestinian in Gaza can inadvertently find themselves a target: “It is forbidden to walk around, and everyone who is outside is suspicious. If we see someone in a window looking at us, he is a suspect. You shoot.”
'Like a computer game'
Drawing on military practices familiar in the occupied West Bank too, the Israeli army encourages its soldiers to shoot even when no one is engaging them. These random, indiscriminate eruptions of fire are known as “demonstrating presence” – or more accurately, terrorising and endangering the civilian population.
In other instances, soldiers open fire just to let off steam, have fun, or, as one soldier put it, “experience the event” of being in Gaza.
Yuval Green, a 26-year-old reservist from Jerusalem, the only soldier prepared to be named, observed: “People were shooting just to relieve the boredom.”
Another soldier, M, similarly noted that “the shooting is very unrestricted, like crazy” – and not just from small arms. Troops use machine guns, tanks and mortar rounds in a similar, unwarranted frenzy.
A, an officer in the army’s operations directorate, pointed out that this mood of utter recklessness extended all the way up the chain of command.
Although the destruction of hospitals, schools, mosques, churches and international aid organisations requires authorisation from a senior officer, in practice, such operations are almost always approved, A said.
“I can count on one hand the cases where we were told not to shoot. Even with sensitive things like schools, [approval] feels like only a formality … No one will shed a tear if we flatten a house when there was no need, or if we shoot someone who we didn’t have to.”
Commenting on the mood in the operations room, A said destroying buildings often “felt like a computer game”.
In addition, A cast doubt on Israel’s claim that Hamas fighters comprised a high proportion of Gaza’s death toll. Anyone caught in Israel’s “kill zones” or targeted by a bored soldier was counted as a “terrorist”.
Burning homes
The soldiers also reported that their commanders destroyed homes not because they were suspected of serving as bases for Hamas fighters, but purely out of an urge for revenge against the entire population.
Their testimonies confirm an earlier Haaretz report that the army is implementing a policy of torching Palestinian homes after they have served their purpose as temporary locations for soldiers. Green said the principle was: “If you move [on], you have to burn down the house.” According to B, his company “burned hundreds of houses”.
A policy of wanton, vengeful destruction is similarly implemented – on a far larger scale – by Israel’s fighter pilots and drone operators, explaining why at least two-thirds of Gaza’s housing stock has been left in ruins.
There are other deceptions too. One of the stated reasons for Israel being in Gaza is to “bring back the hostages” – many dozens of Israelis who who were dragged into Gaza on 7 October. That message, however, has apparently not reached the Israeli military.
Green noted that, despite a blunderbuss operation last month that killed more than 270 Palestinians to rescue four Israeli hostages, the army is actually deeply indifferent to their fate.
He said he heard other soldiers stating: “The hostages are dead, they don’t stand a chance, they have to be abandoned.”
Back in December, Israeli troops shot dead three hostages waving white flags. Reckless shooting into buildings poses the same threat to the lives of hostages as it does to Palestinian fighters and civilians.
Such indifference might also explain why the Israeli political and military leadership has been willing to conduct such a comprehensive bombing of buildings and tunnels in Gaza, risking the lives of the hostages as much as Palestinian civilians.
Culture of violence
The story told by these soldiers in 972 should not surprise anyone – apart from those still desperately clinging to fairytales about Israel’s “most moral army in the world”.
In fact, an investigation by CNN last weekend found that Israeli commanders identified by US officials as committing particularly heinous war crimes in the occupied West Bank over the past decade have been promoted to senior positions in the Israeli military. Their job includes training ground troops in Gaza and overseeing operations there.
A whistleblower from the Netzah Yehuda battalion who spoke to CNN said the commanders, drawn from Israel’s religious extremist ultra-Orthodox sector, stoked a culture of violence towards Palestinians, including vigilante-style attacks.
As the CNN investigation indicates, the wanton death and destruction in Gaza is very much a feature, not a bug.
For decades, the Israeli military has been implementing its inhumane policies towards Palestinians not just in the tiny enclave, but across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem too.
Israel has been suffocating Gaza with a siege for 17 years. And since 1967, it has been suffocating the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem with illegal settlements - many of them home to violent Jewish militias – to drive out the Palestinian population.
What is new is the intensity and scale of the death and destruction Israel has been allowed to inflict since 7 October. The gloves have come off, with the West’s approval.
Israel’s agenda – of leaving historic Palestine empty of Palestinians – has been advanced from an ultimate, distant goal to an urgent, immediate one.
Snake-like politicians
Nonetheless, Israel’s much longer history of violence and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is about to come sharply into focus, despite the best efforts of Israel to keep our attention fixed on a Hamas “terrorism” threat.
The International Court of Justice in the Hague, often referred to as the World Court, is considering two cases against Israel. Best known is the one launched in January, putting Israel on trial for genocide.
But on Friday, the World Court is due to issue a ruling on an older case – one that predates 7 October. It will pronounce on whether Israel has broken international law by making the occupation of Palestine permanent.
While stopping the genocide in Gaza is more pressing, a ruling from the court recognising the illegal nature of Israel’s rule over Palestinians is equally important. It would give legal backing to what should be obvious: that a supposedly temporary military occupation long ago mutated into a permanent process of violent ethnic cleansing.
Such a ruling would provide the context for understanding what Palestinians have been truly up against, while western capitals and western media have gaslit their publics year after year, decade after decade.
This week, Oxfam accused the new British government under Keir Starmer of “aiding and abetting” Israel’s war crimes by calling for a ceasefire from one side of its mouth while actively supplying Israel with weapons to continue the slaughter. The Labour government is also dragging its feet on restoring funding to Unrwa, best placed to address the famine in Gaza.
At Washington’s behest, Labour is seeking to block efforts by the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor to issue arrest warrants against Netanyahu and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, for war crimes. And there are still no signs that Starmer has any plans to recognise Palestine as a state, which would put a UK marker down against Israel’s ethnic cleansing programme.
Sadly, Starmer is typical of the West’s snake-like politicians: flaunting his outrage at Russia’s “depraved” attacks on children in Ukraine, while keeping silent on the even more depraved bombing and starvation of Gaza’s children.
He vows that his support for Ukrainians “won’t falter”. But his support for Palestinians in Gaza facing a genocide never even started.
The Palestinians of Gaza – and the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem – are not just up against a law-breaking, savage Israeli military. They are being betrayed each day afresh by a West that gives such barbarity its blessing.
(jonathancook.substack.com)
The olive tree of Vouves, on Crete.
Mastodons went extinct about 10,500 years ago, long before this tree came to life.
Domestic Bliss
“a tea party with samovar”—what a comfy domestic scene, cat brings a nice touch…
Two comments today;
First to Mike Matza, you took the words right out of my mouth. The City has always gone through booms and busts, but remains a special place especially for weirdos and dreamers and odd folks that wander around looking for someplace different. Let the rich fucks move to texas, good riddance!
To Mr. Reisner, people are constantly predicting disaster of epic proportions; Run in circles, scream and shout!, Get ready for the apocalypse! I cannot say I have read his book, but I will debunk one thing; most people do not need to have 72 hours of water stored away. Need some water, there standing in your garage is a water heater holding all the water you need for many days. I had two grandparents who live through 1906, they were little kids and didn’t remember alot but the both said they walked all over and that everybody helped everybody else out.
Same thing in ’89, I was there. People were out at intersections in the dark directing traffic. Passing motorist would drop off highway flares (remember those things, we all had them in our trunk). to assist those volunteers. We all checked on out neighbors and we all got through it.
One of the biggest dangers I see is in downtown Ukiah where there are so many unreinforced masonry buildings. Heads up Craig, if you are in the Forest Club and feel the least little jiggle, run like hell for the exit!
Hey Mark, I bet you the Schrader’s helped write the RFP for MH Services…..someone needs to ask the county that question. Who was on the team that put the RFP together. Who?
AN ORDINANCE OF THE MENDOCINO COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS AMENDING
SECTION 3.04.071 OF TITLE 3 OF THE MENDOCINO COUNTY CODE INCREASING THE
BASE SALARY FOR MEMBERS OF THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS
This Ordinance is amending Section 3.04.071 of Title 3 of the Mendocino County Code,
regarding Board Compensation, to increase the base salary for each member of the Board of
Supervisors from $95,302 to $110,715, over two fiscal years. The Board of Supervisors
will continue to receive COLA’s every year.
IN 1988, BIDEN SUFFERED…
Thank you Mr. Sinclair. I’ve had no use for Biden since he became well known. I liked the moniker given him: the senator from Citibank. Never voted for the jerk and never will. He should just do the right thing and keel over dead.
WHAT IS RFK JR. DOING IN MILWAUKEE?
The world would be a better place without Kennedys in it.
Re Grammar Alert:
Not exactly grammar, but the obsequious use of “I’m not mad at that” by 20-40 somethings is beyond annoying. Memo to whatever “Gen” you belong to: replacing a positive exclamation of appreciation with a negative expression is not a good thing.
Is the Photo of Sergeant York with his mother a phony? The photo that appears on the Wilipedia site, with him, his mother, and sister depicts a different person as his mother. I’m not sure which, if either, photo depicts the truth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_York
???????????????
Compared to the Wiki photos I’d say you’re right, we got a phony here. She looks too young (and dark) and the clarity of the image is too sharp. Good call.
We’re at the point where any “photos” that appear in social media are suspect. A quick way to sort out the phonies is to subject them to an image search. The provenance of actual historical photos can found this way while the phonies will show up endlessly repeated on Facebook and its ilk.
It occurred to me that Sgt. York — famous as a war hero — looked a little plump for those times, and sure enough….. I wonder why people do the fakes. What’ the point of this one?
This looks like an incorrect attribution applied to a genuine photo by “Old Past Days” of Facebook, so probably no reason at all. I invoked all the voodoo I could muster, but couldn’t find a source for the original photo.
Biden is 81, Mick Jagger is 81. The latter is currently on tour with his band, The Rolling Stones. I think everyone has heard of them. A few nights ago they put on a 2+ hour show in Las Vegas, with Jagger prancing around the stage like he was 25. Biden could barely make it to the podium for the debate. Long live sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll!
Should be Los Angeles. For whatever reason, my phone “corrected” it to Las Vegas.
If you have an iPhone, go to Settings>General>Keyboard>Auto-Correction. I just changed mine yesterday due to unwanted “corrections”.
Well I hate to be the one to say it but Biden looks much better than Trump. In fact, I think Biden looks good. Statesmanlike. But I agree about Jagger and crew. But then Edie Ceccarelli loved to dance, too, so it could be the dancing, not necessarily sex and drugs. Just sayin’, not that I disagree.
Saul Landau pointed out that Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America” is sacreligious because it’s giving an instruction –or issuing an order– to The Almighty. Same thing applies to “God Bless the USA.”
Agreed, and perhaps more pointedly qualified as heretical, or blasphemous.
Same with anyone who purports to identify
“God on our side,” “divine intervention” or my favorite, “God’s plan.”
Secret service says the building used to shoot from was outside their perimeter and it was manned by bethel park police. Bethel park police say they were only responsible for traffic control and SS manned the building used. Secret service says they weren’t on top of the building because of safety concerns with the slope. The shooter was identified by bethel park 60 minutes before shooting, he was again identified by SS 20 minutes before shooting and pictured by SS. He spent over 20 minutes on the roof.
It really is an astounding failure, hard to fathom.
The question is was the SS screw up incompetence or intentional.
Assume incompetence, or negligence. When Lincoln was assassinated his bodyguard, and valet had gone to a nearby bar and gotten drunk, leaving Lincoln unprotected. No conspiracy was indicated. Keep in mind the numerous sex scandals involving the SS during the period between 2013 to 2017. I would not put any label on the SS other than they are human. Their jobs are likely mostly boring with very brief moments high anxiety, and stress.
Maybe a little guilt, too, eh, since they arrest and put away people, like Assange, for distributing the truth about government lies and its wars based on lies? Up to my early 20s, I still had faith in our policing agencies. Seeing how they behaved toward protestors at Berkeley and S.F. State, not to mention their shameless behavior during the Civil Rights era, they soon lost their charm, and respect, as far as I was concerned. They are not worthy of being placed on a pedestal for all to worship.
As a kid I couldn’t wait for the annual Sears catalog to arrive. It was akin to fatso being turned loose in a pastry shop.
The Lafayette Radio catalog was the gem that I waited for. Paging through a catalog in search of a particular item was a sensual journey of discovery unmatched by the sterile online catalogs of today.
The Sears and Montgomery Wards catalogues were treasures to me as a kid. Sportsman’s Guide became my favorite catalogue by middle age, but it, too, is gone, though they still have a web site, I think.
As a kid, those catalogs were used as booster seats at grandma’s Sunday dinners for us kiddos :-)
The horrific, but unsurprising, picture of Gaza painted by Jonathan Cook is the best argument for the removal of Joe Biden from the possibility of renomination.
Keep in mind these ear bandagers are the same folks who mocked you for wearing a mask during a pandemic.
Ear bandage photo
Makes magats and fascists look like the idiots they truly are. Imagine celebrating getting shot in the pinna of the ear! Whadda bunch of lowlifes.
It might be considered as a sign of solidarity…solid between the ears that is.
Just sitting here in the air conditioned Royal Motel reading through the AVA online, particularly the insightful comments. Watching the mind go over for the ten thousandth time the sheer madness of my social situation in the American experiment in democracy. I’ve no idea what is going to happen after exiting the motel August 5th at 11 a.m. I’ve no precise idea where I am going to go. The national leadership appears to require effective therapy of one sort or another. I’m not sure if the Mendocino County leadership is relevant to my situation. I’ve no idea whatsoever how to obtain long term subsidized senior housing. I lived for over two years at Building Bridges Homeless Resource Center before the wonderful housing navigator got me into the Royal Motel for two months. Made all of the medical and dental appointments and am therefore in fairly good shape. Enjoyed a couple of beers now and then to make it all bearable. Planning to visit St. Mary of the Angels this afternoon and will attend Catholic Mass. Just rambling here, but I am not running for public office. Thanks for listening. In solidarity,
Craig Louis Stehr
July 20, 2024 Anno Domini
If you do stay in Mendocino County after August 5th, may I suggest you run for the Board of Supervisors? I’d vote for you.
Thank you for your support! ;-))
Dear AVA Compadres,
“Thank You, for the memories.” I feel a zeal and a zing every time I see the Blankfort Ramparts Magazine photo. Such Intense Ferocity! And, yeah, I’m OK with being considered a “middle-of-the-road extremist.” For that is who/what I am. I follow Oscar Wilde’s wisdom, “Everything in moderation… especially Moderation.”
So young and so full of spit and vinegar and self-righteous outrage at the injustice(s) of the Viet Nam War. Now its Gaza. And Gaza. And Gaza. The Israeli outrage in Gaza. Fomented with American 500 pound stupid bombs. “The Horror. The Horror.” –Colonel Kurtz, ‘Apocalypse Now’.
Gonna take a pass on going to Chicago next month although, once again, the Democrats are eating their young, just like in 1968. Only worse this time. A single contentious Democratic Party convention in my lifetime is quite enough.
I want President Joe Biden — who pledged in 2020 that he was a “bridge candidate” implying he would serve only a single term if elected– to echo the finest let-out in modern political history: “I do not seek, and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your President.” — Lyndon Johnson, March 1968.
Keep Healthy. Stay Sane. PAX
Hwy 20 IS CLOSED – SUNDAY, 7/21/24
at state route 53, due to wildfire.
https://roads.dot.ca.gov/roadscell.php?roadnumber=20
https://www.geni.com/people/Mary-York/6000000004005349680. What was the source of your pic of Sgt Alvin York and his mother(?)? -Tex