HOT WEATHER with moderate heat risk will return in the interior today and persist for the next 7 days. There is a slight chance of thunderstorms in northern Trinity county Friday evening and Saturday. (NWS)
STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): Another foggy 57F on the coast this Wednesday morning. The fog remains large & in charge until further notice. We might see some early morning drizzle.
JEFF BURROUGHS:
I just saw the biggest wild boar pig I have ever seen in my life. I was on 253 heading home this evening when this monster of a pig started out across the road in front of me. I would guess from the ground to the top of his shoulders was 3 feet. His weight had to be well over 250 pounds. I would have snapped a photo of him but he shot back into the tall grass so fast it was crazy and it was on a blind curve so I didn't have a chance. He hasn't gotten that big by being easy to capture I guarantee you that. 50 + years of seeing these ridge devils and not one of them came close to this one!
LAYTONVILLE/BRANSCOMB COMMUNITY AWARENESS:
Seems to be a "Healing" of sorts. With Laytonville Long Valley Market open. All the nit-picking accusations and anger having subsided from the closing last year. Who did what to who and all the garbage. Maybe all the negative can fade now. It's like Laytonville itself was "wounded" and a scar was left the entire time the store was closed. The opening, as I said. Is a healing that has been needed for some time.
We need to take a minute and thank all those who stepped up during our little crisis and kept us fed. Charlie and everyone at Fosters market, talk about working over time. They stepped up and supplied most all of our needs. He even created a veggie/fruit stand out of thin air. Good job guys. Meadow at the Feed store. She created the "Farm Stand" and has kept bread, meat & veggies in stock. Excellent work girl. The Park-N-tak it liquor store, where ya gonna find a liquor store with cat food, chili, soup and crackers. Gravier's gas station with soups and cereal and bread. Our farmers market every Monday,,,Cmon,,give it up. How about Healthy Starts Food Bank program. Way to go Laytonville. Looks like we got through it. To the new owners of Laytonville Long Valley Market, many, many thanks for all you have done to help heal this little ville and for bringing back all our friends who worked there.
A READER WRITES:
IT'S ALMOST THURSDAY, when the Planning Commission will vote the most important thing to do to oppose the county’s plan to allow commercial camping on EVERY residentially zoned tract in Mendo Co is to write to the commissioners in advance of Thursday's meeting. The more letters objecting to this proposal the better.
pbscommissions@mendocinocounty.gov
FROM SUPERVISOR WILLIAMS:
The dump will remain open. (During road work on Mountain View Road.) The road closure will begin west of the dump at M.P. 22.00.
We are waiting on the final schedule from the Contractor. The road closure will occur on segments of Mountain View Road from M.P. 7.00 to 22.00 for the full depth reclamation (FDR)/recycled base process. The Contractor will likely begin the FDR work at M.P. 22.00 and move west. Typically, about a half mile of roadway can be completed in a day. The FDR will begin August 5.
The two ends of Mountain View will be getting a double chip seal, which can be completed without closing the road – just one-lane traffic with up to 20-minute delays. I don’t yet have a hard date for the start of the chip seal work.
I have updated the website and Facebook with a little more information, but am still waiting on the final schedule from the Contractor for more updates. Once the work begins, I will be updating the website daily.
Feel free to call me if you have any further questions or concerns.
Thanks,
Alicia Winokur
Deputy Director, Engineering
Mendocino County Department of Transportation
Office: (707) 234-2804
Cell: (707) 510-763
AV VOLUNTEER FIRST RESPONDERS BBQ
by Terry Sites
The Anderson Valley Lion’s Club served over 300 Anderson Valley residents a delicious Tri-Tip BBQ dinner including Tri-Tip or chicken (or a few grilled Portobello mushrooms for vegetarians) served with coleslaw, baked beans, watermelon, and a roll and butter plus a homemade dessert (cupcake, cookie, brownie, or lemon bar).
The big event was last Sunday, July 28, between 4pm and 7pm. The Lions were prepared to serve 120 (based on prior years attendance) so it was really a fishes and loaves situation. Fortunately a last minute infusion of burger patties provided by Philip Thomas padded things out. People did not get quite as much meat as they were used to getting but, everyone seemed to take this in stride as it was for such a good cause.
The timing could not have been more perfect. The embers from the “Grange Fire” were still being monitored as everyone sat down to eat. How grateful are we? Really, really grateful. The big turnout reflected this fact and the final funds raised which included the $20 dinner fee, the Silent Auction, the beverages and the donation jars broke all previous records. Well done, First Responders; and well done Lions Club.
Our sympathy goes out to Lindsay Clow and family who lost their home and suffered additional damage at their ranch on Clow Ridge. If you would like to help this family recover from their loss, go to the “GoFundMe” website on the Internet.
https://www.gofundme.com/donate-to-jack-and-alishas-recovery
Also we are very happy to report that the Baynham family whose home was at ground zero of the fire was saved. Also so grateful that Vista Ranch and Indian Creek areas that were evacuated did not lose their homes. How can we ever thank the First Responders enough?
The Anderson Valley Volunteer Firefighters, our Anderson Valley Ambulance crew, Cal Fire and neighboring firefighting crews with their trucks and air equipment and the Anderson Valley Firefighters Association all did amazing jobs. What would we do without them?
If you would like to make a donation you can send a check to AVVFFA. PO Box 414. Boonville, CA 95415.
LOCAL EVENTS (this weekend)
THE SUPERVISOR WILLIAMS RECALL
by Mark Scaramella
A “Notice Of Intention” (NOI) to circulate a petition for the Recall of Supervisor Ted Williams was filed with the County Clerk’s office on July 19 and published as a legal notice in the Ukiah Daily Journal on July 25, 2024.
The first few names on the petition are recognizable Boonville conservatives — Gina Pardini, Rhett Pardini, Craig Titus, Eddie Pardini, Dave Kooyers — who say that the grounds for Williams’ recall are:
“Failure to accurately represent the intentions and interests of residents of the 5th district. Poor decision making due to erratic behavior, open hostility towards members of the board and county staff, and inappropriate relationships with county staff. Such impropriety has a profound and adverse effect on both county employees and the community, as well as improper presentation for the position that you hold as a public figure.”
While that is not the bill of particulars we would have suggested, and woefully short of specifics, the sentiments in the recall Notice Of Intention are probably shared by more than a few voters in the Fifth District.
We have no idea what the recallers are talking about when they refer to “inappropriate relationships with county staff.” And we assume that by “improper presentation” they mean improper representation. Whatever.
The proof of service of the Notice of Intent to Supervisor Williams is signed by Jill Ales of Ukiah, a name we have not seen among the public commenters on the Supervisors’ meetings or activities so far.
According to County Elections Officer Katrina Bartolomie, as of Monday morning Supervisor Williams had not submitted a response. Technically, Williams had until last Friday to submit a response, but due to mail glitches he may have a little wiggle room if he chooses to respond.
The recallers must gather signatures from at least 20% of the registered voters in the Fifth District or about 2,229 valid signatures within 120 days of the July 19 filing date. If they do, then the recall would go to the ballot with two questions: 1. Should Williams be recalled?, and 2. Who of whatever potential candidates emerge should replace him?
Getting at least 2,229 valid signatures of registered voters in the Fifth District is a lot to ask, it also means they probably will need at least 10% more than that to cover invalid signatures or non-fifth district signatures. 120 days from July 19 would be around November 16, so any recall election would probably have to be a (costly) special election since that is after the November General Election.
For reference, in the last Fifth District Supervisor Election, Supervisor Williams defeated conservative John Redding by about 4200 to 900.
𝗜𝗡𝗗𝗜𝗩𝗜𝗗𝗨𝗔𝗟 𝗔𝗦𝗦𝗜𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗡𝗖𝗘: 𝗪𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗽𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝘃𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗶-𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗱𝘂𝗮𝗹𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝘀𝘂𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗹𝗼𝘀𝘀𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝘀 𝗮 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘂𝗻𝗳𝗼𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗲 #𝗚𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗙𝗶𝗿𝗲.
Eligibility Requirements:
- Photo ID
- Registration with our organization
- Proof of Loss (Inquire within)
- Applicants must demonstrate financial impact, such as loss of home, property, or food, and an inability to replace food.
For further details and application procedures, kindly contact us via email or phone. Deadline to apply; August 22, 2024.
Visit our website UDRNC.org for more information.
FORT BRAGG BOTANICAL CURRENT DAHLIA BLOOM; DAHLIA PERFECTION IN FORT BRAGG
by Terry Sites
This is THE moment for the Dahlia garden at the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens in Fort Bragg. Wandering through the hundreds of different varieties all at their peak of perfection is a breath-taking thing. Not one wilted petal! Oh the gorgeousness of it all. Dahlias so showy and glamorous that they could be considered the “showgirls” of the garden really have the power to knock your socks off. So many colors, such vibrant hues, the size, the vibrancy- unbeatable for those who like their flowers big and beautiful. If you are one of these people join the 100,000 annual garden visitors by beating a path NOW. Do not wait as this is THE moment. Find these 47 acres of impeccably cared for gardens at 18220 North Hwy. One 9-5 daily- there is an entry fee.
(photos by Terry Sites)
THE GREAT REDWOOD BOONDOGGLE (continued)
K.H.:
That seems a bit disingenuous, Mr Gaska.
The National Park Service was not established until 1916.
The ATC was first proposed in 1921.
It’s not like the ATC sprang into life and just happened to conveniently go thru readily available public lands and parks. The development of the trail, and the creation of nearby public lands and parks was directly correlated.
It wasn’t until 1968 – after the trail had been in progress for 40 plus years, impacted by a major hurricane, battles over private land and highways – that the national trail system was even created by Lyndon Johnson.
I would be hard pressed to name one single landowner along the GRT who has shown any kind of long term vision for the lands they theoretically caretake. Many are primarily concerned with passing their inherited properties – with their ever increasing valuations – to their own offspring while paying the smallest tax possible along the way, even as they use precious water resources and add to the community chemical burden in order to monofarm a glam luxury item like wine.
I appreciate your viewpoint and I understand it. We do have a lot of real on the ground needs in Mendocino County that this path does not address. My argument in this case is that judging every public endeavor solely on your chosen economic criteria essentially limits projects to only those that benefit the already wealthy who get the most of our system already. Whether we develop the GRT or not is probably not going to affect whether our other needs get met. No one is going to stop funding the sheriff’s department because of the GRT. If anything the GRT is an effort to bring more federal and state money into the area.
I dont really trust the people behind the GRT. I can’t say whether it will be a success or a failure. But I don’t necessarily trust those who have aligned against it, either.
Adam Gaska:
Not really. I have mapped the length of the GRT from the Mendocino/Sonoma border to the City of Willits. 99% of the GRT is surrounded by private property. 99% of the Appalachian Trail is publicly owned. So basically those enjoying the GRT will have to stay within the 50 foot strip because outside of that, they would be trespassing. Any amenities made available would be by private property owners and likely cost money. Large stretches (tens of miles) will not be accessible except through private property. The ranch I manage is just outside Redwood Valley. There isn’t public access between Laughlin Way in Redwood Valley and East Hill Road in Willits. So you could get on either side but not get off in between without trespassing. I just don’t see how that would be alluring.
Everything costs money, nothing is free. At some point, spending money on something comes at the expense of something else. Even the GRT planners admit they need “partners” to commit to on going operations and management after construction. The money is going to come out of our pockets one way or another whether we directly support it or indirectly with our tax dollars funding it.
George Hollister:
“I would be hard pressed to name one single landowner along the GRT who has shown any kind of long term vision for the lands they theoretically caretake. Many are primarily concerned with passing their inherited properties – with their ever increasing valuations – to their own offspring while paying the smallest tax possible along the way, even as they use precious water resources and add to the community chemical burden in order to monofarm a glam luxury item like wine.”
OK, k h. Let me guess, the k stands for klueless. People who make a livelihood from the land by either exploiting or managing it are connected to it, and have a land ethic that is based on a vision of sustainability. There are many owners of land who are disconnected from it, yes. This is the case for the general public who own a lot of public land. Don’t be so hard pressed to name a single landowner, not everyone is like you.
Stephen Rosenthal:
This waste of money reminds me of the California High Speed Rail project to nowhere that will 1) never be completed, and 2) never attract enough riders to become profitable. As Adam notes, this is money that can be spent on much more important projects that could have meaningful (emphasis on meaningful) impacts on people’s lives. Instead, between the two projects, billions of dollars are being spent on feel good PR campaigns by politicians whose sole interests are catering to paid lobbyists and staying in office.
K.H.
The Appalachian Trail is 2190 miles long. It goes thru 14 states, from Maine to Georgia. Many of the public lands and parks that it travels through were founded after the trail itself was started in 1921, 103 years ago.
The Great Redwood Trail is a 300-mile proposed path on a former rail line from Sonoma County to Humboldt County, abutting public and private property parcels, including BLM land and private reserves. There are proposed connectors to state parks in Humboldt County, including Humboldt Redwood State Park. The trail is in proximity to wilderness areas, wildlife refuges and national parks, as well as Grizzly Creek State Park and the Headwaters Reserve. There is no reason not to believe that if it is created, in 100 years, this trail could connect multiple state, local and national parks, with offshoots to the Lost Coast Trail, the Yolly Bolly and Trinity Wilderness Areas, as well as Redwood National Park north of Eureka.
A map of the AT is here
A proposed map of the GRT is here
I’m not going to argue about how best to use tax dollars. IMHO, in terms of how those are currently being spent, a path through the wilderness sounds like a great improvement.
Adam Gaska
The crash of the cannabis industry was a given with legalization. The price had been artificially supported by prohibition. Regardless of how legalization, it would have led to the price dropping and a large number of producers being pushed out and the remaining farmers consolidating. Most of the areas traditionally used for illicit cannabis growing would be shut down through the cost of coming into compliance with state and federal environmental laws. making those areas economically unviable.
The North Coast does not have large amounts of fertile flat, easy to farm to farm raising our costs of production. Add in cost of environmental compliance and it pretty much dictates that the only way to profitably produce cannabis is through direct sales and niche markets (organic, craft, artisan, etc). Unfortunately, the states licensing framework makes direct sales very expensive and unfeasible for most small producers.
The County also shoulders some of the blame for our collective failures. They created a framework that is very onerous, especially for a group of people who, by and large, are not savvy about coming into government compliance or obtaining permits. The departments tasked with carrying out licensing/permitting have made many errors causing delays and driving up costs for those seeking to come into compliance. The County failed to act against those producing without permits, further exacerbating the difficulties faced by those attempting to come into compliance. These issues have led to a backlash from the public who have come to view good actors and bad actors as one and the same, seeking to further punish cultivators seeking permits.
BILL KIMBERLIN
This was my aunt and uncle's summer resort, then known as, "Ray's Resort" on the Navarro River outside Philo and at the end of what is now called, "Ray's Road" after my uncle. In recent years it was called, "Wellspring" and now is "River's Bend". This is a photo postcard and the writing on the back notes that "…the social hall has a radio!!" Wow.
ART WALK: emphasis on ART and WALK. Ukiah is a very walkable town. 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. For more information contact (707) 391-3664.
www.artwalkukiah.org
ED NOTES
INDULGE ME, PLEASE, while I lash out this morning. Four lashes, before a return to… to safe seas, serenity.
AMERICA’S architectural deterioration over the last hundred years can be tracked by school architecture. What schools looked and felt like to the young people studying in them used to be absolutely crucial to Americans. No more.
TODAY'S SCHOOLS are an aesthetic fist in the face that express only fear of the young people processed inside of them. Ukiah High School is an extreme example of evil school design, a lengthy tube designed to monitor and control the inmates. Compare the tube to the gracious old Ukiah High School and wonder why the old school wasn't shored up and kept in service. Boonville's schools aren't as bad as Ukiah's, but compared to the pre-war buildings that housed Anderson Valley's young they are a major architectural step backward. (The gym at the high school, erected in the middle 1950s, contains more square feet than the classrooms, to give you an idea of community priorities at the time.)
MARIJUANA, like pornography, has an overall detrimental social effect, especially on young people who get into it while their brains, already battered by negative media, are physiologically unequipped to absorb it. Today’s dope is much stronger than that of twenty years ago, not that I speak from personal experience because I don’t smoke it, but only because I don’t like the foggy state induced. I used to like to drink but, as a person unable to stop until I either hit the floor or someone hit me, and an alcoholic telling me that I was one, too, if I drank like that, and me with a payroll to meet, I quit.
BUT, AHEM, from close observation of the habitual pot smokers I know, I’d say they lack energy, the ability to think and write coherently, suffer fairly severe verbal impairment, tend to slovenliness, and always have these irritatingly smug smiles plastered onto their stoned pusses. “This stuff keeps you loaded for three to four hours!” a former contributor exulted, blissfully unaware that he’d dropped whole paragraphs from his stories as he chuckled late into the night at televised Love Boat re-runs. What kind of recommendation for a drug is that? But it still shouldn’t be illegal, if for no other reason than so many otherwise functioning (more or less) Americans are doing it.
I WONDER IF PETE BOUDOURES remembers his interesting explanation for the curved beige brick block with “J Carr Church” carved into it found in Indian Creek by firefighters while they were searching for a missing Philo man. Boudoures said he has a big fireplace made of the J. Carr bricks, that the Boudoures property used to be the old Philbrick mill where a dry kiln was heated with steam from a huge boiler adjacent to the kiln. Fire bricks made by a company called T [not J, part of the brick had crumbled off] CARR CHURCH, based in England, were used to line the boiler, which was typically heated by wood slash. “When we dismantled the kiln and boiler, we used the bricks and built a hearth out of them,” said Boudoures. “They brought them over from England using them as ship ballast; the ships would then return to England with goods from the US.” Boudoures said he’s seen the same bricks in Hawaii used as walking paths and assumes they’re fairly common. “There were other brands I recall seeing,” added Boudoures, “Snowball, and Cowan, and some others … We bought our place in 1968, so this would have been a mill that operated in the 40s and 50s mill era.” The fire-bricks were made of a combination of clay and concrete and were pre-cut for lining straight or circular walls. They were commonly used to line furnaces and boilers. “We also have an archway made out of the curved ones,” added Boudoures. “The ones that line our fireplace are regular size bricks, a little larger than the common red brick.”
COMPLAINTS about the lycra clad packs pumping up and down 128 prompt many of us to fall to our prayer rugs for their safety. On Mendo’s narrow country roads, obviously, bicyclists can be a serious safety hazard to themselves and drivers. For instance, a caller reported coming around a hilly corner on Highway 128 near the Mountain House intersection, “And there’s this old guy walking his bike very slowly up the hill. When I came around the corner he was about two feet out into the driving lane! He turned around and saw me coming and just stopped and stood there. I had to stop — it was unsafe to pass because of the hill. I talked to him, told him he was in the way. He says, ‘Go on, buddy. Go on.’ And waves me around. He totally ignored everything I said. I wanted him to move out of the lane, but he just kept waving me around him. Finally, I got him to move a little and snuck around him, but it was still dangerous because of the wide trailer I was pulling. When I called the CHP they just told me to drive safely. The officer just blew me off. I tried to tell him that somebody could have come by and hit him. There are big logging trucks out there now, and they can’t stop on a dime. How can you drive safely if the guy’s in the middle of the lane? And there are drunks out there on the roads too, making it even more dangerous. I don’t want to nail anybody. But sometimes the bicyclists are right in the way. The CHP guy I spoke to said that they have a right to be out there and for me to drive safely! They have a right to be on the side of the road, not out in the lane. This guy was exhausted and just pushing his bike slowly up the hill. He had his rubber suit on, and it said ‘Sacramento’ across his shirt.”
THE MODERN LEMONADE STAND
31ST ANNUAL ART IN THE (BOTANICAL) GARDENS HIS WEEKEND
A celebration of creative expression and blooms
On the Mendocino Coast, the first weekend of August means dahlias and the annual summer celebration, Art in the Gardens! The two-day event will take place at the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens on Saturday, August 3 and Sunday, August 4 from 11AM to 5PM.
This community event is fun for all ages. There will be live music and more than 50 art vendors on the Event Lawn. More than a dozen local wineries and North Coast Brewing Company will be offering tastings. Art, food, wine, and craft brews will be available for purchase. Musical acts include Dirt Roosters, Mama Grows Funk, West of Nowhere, and Moon Rabbit. There will be special performances by Circus Mecca and the Latino Coalition Youth Folk Dance Group.
The 2024 Featured Artist for Art in the Gardens is Linda Shearin. Linda has been studying and creating art for more than 40 years working with various media from watercolor to acrylic and collage. She is always looking for a different way to paint a subject whether through media, abstraction, collage, or line drawing. The Featured Artwork, "Garden of Joy" by Linda Shearin conveys what it feels like when you are surrounded by all the plants, flowers, animals, insects, and even weeds! The artwork will be on display at the Gardens and during Art in the Gardens. For more about Linda Shearin and her work visit prenticefineart.com/collections/linda-shearin.
Advanced tickets are recommended and will allow for speedier entry. Parking is limited so please plan to carpool. Event tickets are available online. Adult tickets are $30, Juniors age 6 to 17 are $10, kids age 5 and under are free. Wine Tasting Tickets may be purchased in advance or at the event for $65 each, they include event admission, unlimited tastings, and a commemorative glass. Members of the Gardens receive $10 off all ticket rates, just one of the many benefits of membership. Proceeds from this delightful event will directly benefit the non-profit botanical garden and its mission to engage and enrich lives by displaying and conserving plants.
Don”t miss this classic summer festival; join us the first weekend of August for a celebration of creative expression at the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens. Check www.gardenbythesea.org/aig for ticket information and to see the full schedule of Art in the Gardens activities.
WESTPORT HOTEL'S DINE OUT FOR THE LIGHTHOUSE
Celebrate National Lighthouse Day all week long with Point Cabrillo Lighthouse!
Join us at the Old Abalone Pub in Westport for a dine out event on the evening of Friday, August 9th from 5pm-9pm!
The Westport Hotel and Old Abalone Pub is donating a portion of the proceeds from all dinner sales that evening back to the Point Cabrillo Lightkeepers Association. You get to enjoy an incredible meal while supporting Mendocino's historic lighthouse.
The Old Abalone Pub is located inside the historic Westport Hotel right on Hwy 1. The Old Abalone Pub offers ocean view dining featuring comfort food, pub classics, and California coastal cuisine. They offer local wines, beer, espresso and buy from local distributors such as Roundman meats, Caito fishery, Hopper dairy, Nye Ranch and Thanksgiving Coffee.
Learn more at www.westporthotel.us
What is National Lighthouse Day all about? On August 7th of 1789, the new United States government created "The Lighthouse Act", signed by President George Washington, which established the Lighthouse Service agency to build and maintain lighthouses along the new country's shores. On the same date in 1989, 200 years later, National Lighthouse Day was turned into a national holiday on August 7th, with a proclamation signed by President George H. W. Bush.
CATCH OF THE DAY, Tuesday, July 30, 2024
DANIEL BOWES, Covelo. Parole violation.
ERIC CROUCH, Ukiah. Discharge of firearm, concealed dirk-dagger.
NICKOLAS DUNSING, Ukiah. Failure to appear.
COREY HEINE, Ukiah. Assault with deadly weapon not a gun, vandalism.
JOSE LEYVA-ZAZUETA, Ukiah. Unlawful sexual intercourse with minor, failure to appear.
ANGEL MILLER, Ukiah. Parole violation.
TIERRE WASHINGTON, Sacramento/Ukiah. Failure to appear.
PARKS SEEK PUBLIC’S HELP FINDING WHO SHOT FOUR ELK ALONG BALD HILLS ROAD
Redwood National and State Park rangers and California Department of Fish and Wildlife wardens are asking for the public’s help in an investigation of elk poaching. Officials were notified July 21 of four elk shot near the Williams Ridge area along Bald Hills Road. An investigation determined that the four elk had been killed and no meat had been taken. The area where the elk were killed is located within Redwood National Park, where hunting is prohibited by federal and state law. Officers also determined that lead shot was used to shoot the elk. Lead poisoning from ingestion of lead ammunition is the single largest threat to free-flying California condors.
The Yurok Tribe, in partnership with Redwood National and State Parks and other agencies including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and California Department of Parks and Recreation, reintroduced California condors to the region two years ago. Poaching and illegal game killing pose a grave danger to the birds. Anyone with information about this incident is urged to call 707-465-7751.
To remain anonymous, call CDFW’s CalTip line at 1-888-334-CalTIP (888-334-2258) or call the park’s anonymous crime tip line at 707-765-7353.
Redwood National and State Parks contains 133,000 acres of federal and state land in Humboldt and Del Norte Counties. Seven elk herds call Redwood National and State Parks home. The Roosevelt elk (Cervis elaphus roosevelti), is the largest of the six recognized subspecies of elk in North America; they once inhabited areas from southern British Columbia to Sonoma County, Calif.
Roosevelt elk in California persist today only in Humboldt and Del Norte Counties and western Siskiyou County. Tourists from all over the world and Californians alike enjoy the opportunity to see Roosevelt elk within their historical home range at Redwood National and State Parks. Park rangers are committed to protecting these amazing animals and urge the public to help them in this effort.
It was an odd sight in the Bald Hills — four elk, shot with lead and left behind with no meat taken. At Redwood National Park, where hunting of Roosevelt Elk is prohibited, rangers and wardens are asking for help to find who did it.
“This is the first one I recall where everything was left behind. That is a very uncommon thing,” said Stephen Troy, chief ranger at Redwood National Park. No antlers or meat were harvested from the fatally shot adult animals who were part of the Bald Hills herd, found near the Williams Ridge area.
Someone reported the scene to officials on July 21 a short period after they were shot. The herd walks through the park and nearby private lands, but were shot on Redwood National Park territory. An investigation determined lead bullets were used to shoot the elk, a keystone species.
Of particular concern in the area are 11 recently reintroduced California Condors, with lead bullets the single largest threat to the giant birds. Last year, a reintroduced condor Me-new-kwek’ (meaning “I am bashful or shy”) was one of five that ate part of a poached elk shot with lead and was treated for lead poisoning. In 2019, California banned lead bullets in hunting. Troy said it did not seem that scavengers had eaten any of the flesh from the elk.
As for poachers killing elk, Troy said it’s something they’ve seen an increase in the past five years, more than once a year now. He said lead bullets were commonly used in previous poaching investigations.
“From a criminal investigation standpoint it feels (like it happens) too often. But it’s not like it’s happening every week,” he said. From poaching cases over the years, he said they’ve had decent success getting to the bottom of it and said the public’s help is paramount to finding out what happened.
(Sage Alexander, Eureka Times-Standard)
LEO NOMELLINI (JUNE 19, 1924 – OCTOBER 17, 2000)
SF 49er - If you lived in Palo Alto in the 60's and beyond you would see Leo Nomellini driving around in his two seater Thunderbird. He took up the whole front seat just by himself. I can still see him with his right arm around the second seat coming down our street. Leo was selected by the San Francisco 49ers in the first round of the 1950 NFL draft. He played 14 seasons as a defensive tackle in the National Football League (NFL), all of them with the 49ers, playing his first three years as an offensive tackle as well. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1969. He also did pro wrestling.
LEO ‘THE LION’ Nomellini, star tackle for the 49ers from 1950-1963 died of cancer at age 76 on October 22, 2000, at Stanford Hospital. His football friends contributed tributes and anecdotes to a couple of pretty good Bay Area obits for the big bruiser the following day. But they left one anecdote out. It happens that Mr. Nomellini was a down-the-street neighbor of ours when I was a kid growing up in Palo Alto from 1953 to 1955. Mr. Nomellini was born in Italy and grew up in Chicago. He was a tough but friendly man who was well known to the neighborhood as the big 49er lineman down the street who always waved and smiled at us star-struck kids as we rode by on our bikes. These were the days of hand-powered push mowers. Nomellini, who stood 6-feet 3-inches and weighed upwards of 270 pounds, impressed us kids by being able to stand on one edge of his front lawn and give his big push-mower a giant shove and it would somehow mow 20 or so feet of grass before it came to a stop at the other end of Nomellini’s lawn. Nomellini would then stroll across the new-mown strip, turn the mower around, give the mower a couple of short pushes to catch whatever it had missed on its prior one-shove dash across the lawn, and then shove the mower back across the lawn again, and again, and again in single bursts until it was thoroughly mowed. By the time he was done, Nomellini usually had ten or twelve awestruck kids standing around watching and applauding each shove. He didn’t pay us much attention though — the future Hall of Famer was all business.
— Mark Scaramella
PEOPLE ARE FLYING ACROSS THE WORLD TO ILLEGALLY CLIMB CALIFORNIA'S REDWOODS
Redwood National and State Parks is cracking down on 'ninja climbs'
On an overcast day in May 2022, a group of men climbed to the top of Hyperion, a 380-foot tree that is currently the tallest in the world.
When their leader, Simeon Balsam, reached the crown, he and another climber drank a cup of tea. “What absolute legends,” Balsam said from behind a camera trained on the beaming group of climbers.
Balsam documented the adventure with his crew in an hourlong film that was posted to YouTube. It’s a braggadocious watch, full of self-satisfied narration, fist-bumping and inspirational house music — and also proof of illegal activity.
According to the film, the 11 men spent months planning the trip within Redwood National and State Parks and accumulating gear before flying from the United Kingdom to California to climb Hyperion and other old-growth redwoods.
However, the group did not obtain required permits. Furthermore, they climbed into an ecologically sensitive habitat during the breeding season of threatened marbled murrelets, which nest in the redwood canopy, according to park officials and court documents obtained by SFGate. They were also caught in the act of climbing six redwoods in Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park — where they strung up a zip line and a rope swing over a riverbed — a similarly illegal venture.
Balsam and his group aren’t the only ones to have illegally scaled the national park’s redwoods. In fact, they are members of a subculture of tree maintenance workers — also known as arborists — who in recent years have increasingly utilized their equipment and skills for recreational (and oftentimes unauthorized) climbs. It’s tough to tell just how widespread the problem is, as in many cases these “tree poachers” do not get caught. But Redwood National and State Parks officials told SFGate that in the past five years, more and more arborists have found their way into the delicate canopies of the park’s keystone species.
Although arborists claim to love trees, they also feel entitled to shoot lines into the trees with crossbows and climb on up, snapping bark and branches and disrupting the rare canopy ecosystem along the way. In Redwood National and State Parks, arborists have left gear, trash and damaged trees behind, according to chief ranger Stephen Troy. They’ve also been caught — and cited — based on information they themselves have shared on social media about their exploits.
Officials are now using surveillance techniques to identify lawbreakers, and they hope that strict enforcement and new penalties — including a $5,000 fine and six months jail time — will be a deterrent. But they have their work cut out for them.
“People want to climb the biggest trees out there,” Balsam told SFGate in a WhatsApp voice memo. “You’ll never stop people from wanting to venture into these canopies.”
An ecosystem unlike any other
To understand why it’s so appalling that people would travel across the world and climb California’s protected redwoods, it helps to have some background.
The world’s tallest trees can live longer than 2,000 years, and reach heights of more than 300 feet, rivaling the Statue of Liberty. For the Indigenous people whose ancestral territory included California’s redwood forests, the trees are considered sacred beings. Redwood trunks were used to build dugout canoes and housing materials only after they had fallen.
When white settlers began arriving in the region in the mid-1800s, old growth forests spanned 2 million acres in southern Oregon and California. The newcomers brought destruction: Soon, the region’s timber industry became the country’s largest, and commercial logging operations clear cut 95% of the redwood forest before conservationists could intervene. Although redwood advocacy groups began forming in the early 1900s and a few parks were established to protect the majestic trees, it wasn’t until 1968 that Redwood National Park, where the world’s tallest trees are found, was created. Old-growth logging continued just outside the park boundaries until it was expanded in 1978.
Then, in the late 1990s, 23-year-old Julia Butterfly Hill climbed 180 feet into a redwood and stayed up there for 738 days to prevent its felling. Pacific Lumber Company agreed to spare the tree and surrounding forest. Around the same time, the world’s foremost redwood scientist Stephen Sillett and other daring botanists were also climbing into redwoods using self-taught methods for the purpose of studying the canopy — and making ground-breaking discoveries.
They learned that the redwood canopy is essentially its own ecosystem, supporting a multitude of ferns, shrubs and even other trees. (Yes, there are entire trees growing within the canopy of old-growth redwoods.) The vertical habitat also supports other creatures like insects, mushrooms, birds, flying squirrels and tree voles, and serves as the breeding grounds for marbled murrelets, which are federally listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
The enigmatic, potato-shaped seabirds travel up to 50 miles from their marine foraging areas to nest in the moss-draped canopy of old-growth forests. Each breeding pair produces a single egg each year, and relies on the height and stability of the tree to protect it. Their population remains in decline, and scientists now know that disturbances to the nesting environment have been a big part of the problem.
To climb or not to climb
In 2007, author Richard Preston released his book “The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring,” which tells the riveting story of the scientists’ ascents and discoveries. It immediately piqued the public’s interest in the tallest of the tall trees. Some readers became obsessed with seeking out Hyperion and other famous named trees. Soon enough, brazen arborists were climbing the redwoods and posting the celebratory videos online, fancying their ascents as acts of appreciation akin to the scientists’ research.
In 2010, a visitor from the Oxford Botanic Garden and Arboretum at the University of Oxford obtained a permit to collect seeds in Redwood National and State Parks. Although his permit didn’t allow for any tree climbing, he ascended Hyperion and posted a video of his illegal climb online.
“That’s when I first realized there was going to be a problem,” Redwood National Park Deputy Superintendent Leonel Arguello told SFGate.
Park officials didn’t take legal action against the seed collector as he had already gone back to the U.K. But they did ban him from the parks, and they sent a letter to Oxford Botanic Gardens and Arboretum explaining what happened, according to Arguello. They also stopped granting permits for seed collection to the organization.
Other illicit redwood climbs were soon to follow, however. Preston’s book — along with a few others that came out around that time — essentially opened Pandora’s box, said Tim Kovar, an Oregon-based tree climbing instructor who runs the world’s only legal redwood climbing operation. Kovar offers just one redwood climb in California, for nine days a year. The first group went up in 2014, but he wrestled with the moral dilemma of the operation for years before that.
Outside Magazine once called Kovar the world’s best tree climber, and he leads climbing expeditions to more than a dozen countries, including India, Brazil and Costa Rica. His company, Tree Climbing Planet, is based on 150 acres of oak savanna and mixed conifer forest just outside of Portland, where aspiring climbers enroll in courses like basic tree climbing, tree top camping and aerial rescue.
After “The Wild Trees” came out, Kovar’s inbox started filling with inquiries about climbing the world’s tallest trees.
“It got to the point where we would see ‘redwood climbing’ in the subject line and just go ‘delete, delete, delete,’” Kovar said. “We didn’t want to promote climbing redwood trees, because of the delicate situation out there.”
(SFgate.com)
WHAT TO DO ABOUT MEGA-FIRES
by Eric Horne
The Park Fire is ravaging an area larger than Los Angeles, destroying homes and displacing thousands. Our policymakers must be reminded that such destructive megafires are avoidable.
Our landscapes thrive on “good fires” that clear flammable material and are crucial to maintaining a healthy ecosystem. Selective tree thinning, controlled burns and low-intensity wildfires prevent the accumulation of fuel that leads to out-of-control megafires like the Park Fire.
Unfortunately, a web of permitting delays resulting from the abuse of well-intentioned environmental laws, underutilized technology and fragmented decision-making hamper our wildfire response.
There is cause to be optimistic, however. When wildfires make national headlines, Congress faces pressure to act.
The bipartisan Fix Our Forests Act, HR8790, recently passed out of committee. The bill would moderately reform permitting, leverage advanced technologies like artificial intelligence and create a unified fire intelligence center enabling more informed decisions by first responders.
Though we have come to expect little of our divided Congress, it is time to recognize that living with megafires is not an inevitability but a consequence of inadequate policy. We have the technology and knowledge to make a change, we just need the political will to act.
(Eric Horne is national policy director, Megafire Action)
ODD OLD NEWS: FROM CLOVERDALE TO EUREKA BY STAGE
by David Heller
Odd Old News has previously described portions of the earliest North/South stagecoach and wagon road to the North Coast via the Mail Ridge route. This week we share a travelogue written by a passenger who rode the entire distance from Cloverdale to Eureka on the Sanderson Stage Coach line in 1883 on a ‘pleasure trip.’
In 1874 Jonathan Cummings and family moved to the site of a mail carrier station along Rattlesnake Creek where the trail from newly named Laytonville turned north and went uphill to follow the ridgeline dividing the South Fork of the Eel River and the Main Eel River. This mountainous route was originally named the Cahto to Camp Grant trail on the earliest government surveyor PLAT maps. Over time it went by many names but was most commonly known as the Mail Ridge Trail. In 1877, Chinese labor completed the Mendocino County end of the Mail Ridge section of the Cloverdale to Humboldt wagon road and the route was opened for wheeled conveyances.
(Cummings Station was located three miles east of the current location of Cummings on Highway 101. Rebuilt after a 1916 fire as the Cummings Motel, reincarnated later as the Farmhouse Inn, it is currently a private residence. Today’s Bell Springs road leaves Highway 101 a short distance away.)
Historian and author Kathy Tahja shared some early stagecoach passenger etiquette in an article for the Kelley House Making History Blog, “Traveling by Coach” in Mendocino county:
In 1877, travel tips for stagecoach passengers included doing what the driver told you, as well as getting out and walking when horses faced difficult terrain. Don’t grumble about food served at stage stops. Don’t flop against those seated next to you when you fall asleep. Don’t shoot from the coach as it may frighten the horses. If ladies are present, do not point out locations where robberies and murders have been committed. Don’t discuss religion or politics.”
Seems like good advice for peaceful traveling in any era.
The stagecoach ride travelogue that follows was written six years after the opening of the Mail Ridge Wagon Road by a passenger whose appreciation of the scenery along the route was apparently quite successful in distracting him from the more customary complaints of stage travel—constant bumps, jostling, dust, and inclement weather.
San Francisco to Eureka Overland
Humboldt Times
June 20, 1883
Times Telephone–The summer season has been opened with great eclat all over the State. But more particularly in San Francisco and among its denizens, Monterey with its Del Monte, Santa Cruz with its pebbly beach, San Diego with its climate, Calaveras with its big trees, Alameda with its baths, Tahoe with its beautiful lake and splendid trout-fishing, and last but not least, the famous Yosemite with its picturesque mountain scenery, its lonely valley, its grand falls, cataracts and rapids, a description of which almost the entire world is acquainted with, attracted the attention of 99 per cent, of all the traveling public, but one per cent, and a small one at that, prepared to take a trip to Humboldt, going by the overland route. By this means it was proposed to have a summer vacation—a pleasure trip – viewing beautiful scenery, etc., all in one, and with the wind up of meeting with friends at home.
In accordance with such desire, full and complete arrangements were made and Thursday morning of last week found us comfortably located on one of Donahue’s cars, bound for Cloverdale, the head center of Sanderson & Co.’s stage line in northern California. In reference to the trip from the city to Cloverdale there is but little to say, as most every one has some knowledge of railroad travel, the familiar sights on the route and the general lay of the Sonoma valley, and there is no need of going over the same ground again. Suffice it to say, the journey was made to Cloverdale without any occurrence worthy of note, save the simple fact that the thermometer stood 102 deg. in the shade and the atmosphere seemingly growing warmer by the minute.
Took dinner, and at 12:30 o’clock were given seats in the Ukiah Stage and fairly on our way. The ride of about 35 miles is through a beautiful country of a mountainous nature, the scenery in some places grand; the road free from dust, and the ride an enjoyable one. In the stage with us were Sisters Josephine and Theresa and Miss Maggie Cummings, for several years connected with the convent in Eureka. They go to Ukiah for the purpose of establishing a school at that point and continuing in the good work which they assume as long as life shall last.
Arrived at Ukiah, remained over night, and Friday morning bright and early, started out in a double carriage, with Doc. Curtis handling the ribbons, bound for Cahto, by this means avoiding the first night ride made by the overland stage, and having an opportunity of viewing all the scenes worthy of inspection. The road to Cahto via Little Lake and Sherwood, is in good condition, and the ride under almost any circumstances is a lovely one, but in this case was particularly delightful, as everything worked to our advantage, the weather being cool and the drive excellent. Speaking of Curtis, for six years he was in the employ of Bullard & Sweasey on the overland road, but now is engaged in the stable and livery business in Ukiah, and fortune seems to smile upon him.
Friday night remained at Bob White’s at Cahto, where we received the best of treatment, and next morning took the stage for Blocksburg. This was the longest and hardest drive to make, but the road running through such a country, such a panorama in the way of scenery which was being constantly presented to one’s vision that the little bumps and warm weather were not noticed, and the time was consumed in surveying the beauties of nature and witnessing the grand scenes that were presented to view. A ride of about 15 miles brings you to Cummings’ place, and from that point the ascent commences over Rattlesnake mountain and up the Big Chemise to Bell’s Springs, near the dividing line between Mendocino and Humboldt counties, where the highest altitude is reached—a height of 3,670 feet above the sea. The stage was stopped and we were allowed a few minutes to gaze upon the grand spectacle seemingly laid out for our particular benefit.
The weather was clear, and to the west could be seen the ocean blue, and ever and anon, the cool sea breeze would fan our cheeks. To the east were the ranges and valleys in Trinity County, while to the south was Sherwood mountain and the Mendocino peaks and ranges; to the north was Humboldt with its rolling and peaked country, green hills and pastures, presenting a strange contrast with the dry country which we had so recently passed over. And seemingly just at our feet was the large range known us Island Mountain, in Trinity, a lofty prominence in reality, but appearing insignificant from our lofty position. Then urging the steeds on, the ride was made to Blocksburg, arriving at 9 o’clock Saturday evening.
Remained with Mr. McLain of the Overland House 24 hours, where we received the kindest of treatment, and on Sunday night made the ride to Strong’s, where breakfast was served, thence to Hydesville and Eureka, arriving at 1 o’clock Monday, probably a little the worse for wear but having enjoyed the trip hugely. To the traveler and business man, and to the ladies especially, it can be said there is no more delightful or pleasant trip to be had in the State than the one overland from Cloverdale to Eureka. It must not be understood from this that all accommodations are equal to those of a Pullman car or in a Palace hotel, but much finer than the average mind conceives and Sanderson & Co. have all details and arrangements down to such a fine point that no mistakes are made and every attention is paid to comfort and convenience.
In no other section of the State other than the Yosemite valley do we believe there is such a grand army of scenery such beautiful views and lovely spectacles as are presented on the overland route, and the day is not far distant when it will be extensively traveled, And the many beautiful features will be known to the outside world. While our thanks are returned to Sanderson &Co. for courtesies extended, it is no more than right or just to say that they are paying particular attention to this route, and hope to make it popular with the traveling public. Their coaches are easy and comfortable, drivers all perfect gentlemen and experts in their particular vocation, the several stations run in the best shape possible, and no money spared to make it a success and popular.
History word of the day—Eclat: Ostentatious display, publicity.
(Courtesy, KymKemp.com)
THE INCREDIBLE SAN ANDRÉAS FAULT IN CALIFORNIA:
The famous San Andréas fault is more than a simple fissure: it is a true border between the two main tectonic plates on the planet.
Length: 1,200 km (about 250 miles); Depth: 32 km (about 20 miles)
INSURANCE DEBACLE
Editor:
The home insurance debacle has caused significant distress among homeowners who are scrambling to find coverage after long-standing policies were canceled despite years without claims. Many residents, including those with properties featuring natural elements like pastures and California oak trees, have taken extensive measures to mitigate fire risks. These measures include clearing vegetation, using livestock for grazing, installing gutter protection and maintaining fire-conscious practices. The expectation that homeowners must destroy the aesthetic and natural aspects of their properties for the sake of insurance requirements is both unacceptable and seemingly necessary to retain coverage.
This situation demands a reassessment of the policies and practices of insurance companies.
Yvonne Martin
Santa Rosa
ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
Dear America. While you’ve been preoccupied with your domestic politics, who shot JR, oops..I mean DJ, whether Kamala is smart enough to run the show, or whether single cat ladies should gather up their pitchforks and march to wherever it is JD Vance lives…. the rest of the world yawns and moves on.
IN THIS CALIFORNIA PRISON, INMATES COOK FOR THEIR GUARDS AND OTHERS, ‘RELY ON EACH OTHER’
by Carol Pogash
Through many metal gates, across an active exercise yard, past cyclone fences topped with curled barbed wire, at the end of a row of neglected warehouses at the California State Prison Solano, there is an incongruous sight: a restaurant.
The cooks are men serving time for murder and drug and gang-related crimes. They built the restaurant and then learned how to dice jalapeños not from culinary school graduates but from members of Delancey Street Foundation, a self-help residential program for ex-addicts, alcoholics and convicts that has operated in San Francisco for over a half a century. Smaller Delancey Street facilities operate in Los Angeles, New Mexico , North Carolina, South Carolina, New York and Massachusetts.
Unlike most of the California prison system, where there are gang controlled white showers, Black showers and Latino showers, white tables for eating, Black tables and Latino tables, in this open kitchen, the men in starched chef jackets, who are Black, Latino and white, work together.
While California and other states promote normalization — an effort to make prisons more closely resemble the world outside — the restaurant in the prison in Vacaville, 50 miles northeast of San Francisco, is proof that change can happen.
On a Tuesday in June, a correctional officer who processes arriving inmates, enjoyed a sourdough patty melt with a side order of fried pickles with Sriracha aioli. “I work long, crazy hours,” Officer V. Fera said, referring to her 16-hour shifts, and until this restaurant opened, there was no place to get “healthy, homemade food.”
The restaurant, with 52 seats, is open only to correctional officers, prison administrators, plumbers, teachers, doctors, gardeners and others who work at the prison and to people who work at a nearby state prison called the California Medical Facility.
In the kitchen, Shaylor Watson, 55, imprisoned for two murders he committed when he was 17 and 18, calls himself “the master of tomato soup.” He was completing his day’s work, soaking and sanitizing his knives, which, for security, are tethered to his workstation. “This is my way of making amends for the harm I caused,” he said.
Nearby, Justin Miller, who is Latino and has been in an out of institutions on drug charges since he was 13 and has tattoos climbing up his neck, stood with Ray Williams Jr., a Black inmate who has spent 24 of his 43 years in prison for first degree murder, as they bantered and managed the kitchen.
“Our idea is to teach them skills and teach them how to be decent people even though they’re in a horrible place where decency doesn’t get you far,” said Ramiro Mejia, a Delancey Street graduate who for eight years managed the prison unit.
“These guys get the experience of what it’s like to be a human again,” said Tobias Gomez, a Delancey Street graduate and manager of the prison restaurant. “This wouldn’t be possible anywhere else,” he said. At the restaurant and their cell block there are “no gangs, hatred, racism or segregation,” Gomez said.
Early concerns that correctional officers would not eat what the inmates make have dissipated. Guards, nurses, administrators and maintenance workers have been won over by the $10 buttermilk crispy fried chicken sandwiches with homemade slaw, the $15 burger with maple-candied apple wood bacon on a Brioche bun and the $6 quesadilla with pico de gallo and guacamole. Free delivery has led to a bustling take-out business since the restaurant is quite a distance from almost anywhere else in the prison, although there can be issues: When two gates malfunctioned, Rob Souza, a state assessor who also does deliveries, got stuck with brown bag lunches for delivery for an hour and a half.
Delancey Street in the prison opened in March 2015 with 90 handpicked prisoners. Plans for a restaurant were delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The engine of all things Delancey Street is Mimi Silbert, the diminutive 82-year-old co-founder and chief executive with a Ph.D. in criminology from the University of California, Berkeley. She works with sentencing judges and people who have hit bottom. Candidates commit to two years of tough commitments, learning how to live a crime-free, drug-free life. They learn vocational, academic and social skills. “We get lots of gang members,” Silbert said,” Delancey Street teaches them “how to rely on each other,” she said.
Part of that involves food. Silbert believes meals eaten together — the inmates built a long, dining room table where they eat together — creates a sense of family. And Delancey Street members with kitchen training can enter “an industry that doesn’t discriminate,” Gomez, the manager said.
“The whole point of Delancey” and the prison honors unit “is to show that the people with the problems become their own solutions,” Silbert said. With no chef, “It’s inmates teaching each other.”
Silbert had no desire to work in a prison; Delancey Street teaches people how to live outside of prison. But her longtime friend, Jerry Brown, the former governor who calls her “a saint,” coaxed her to take it on. Gavin Newsom, the current governor, is equally supportive.
Years ago, when Brown wanted to better understand prison gangs, he often dropped by Delancey Street’s San Francisco headquarters and for hours interviewed ex-gang members. Early in his SF mayoral career, when Newsom grappled with alcohol abuse, he visited Delancey Street three times a week, Silbert said. When he became governor, he visited the Delancey Street in the prison to speak to the prisoners.
“The human is crushed by excessive institutionalization,” Brown said in a phone interview from his ranch in rural Northern California. “Mimi gives inmates their personhood,” he said.
Silbert agreed to the deal but insisted it would be on her terms.
When the warden recommended the best inmates for her program, Silbert objected. “I want the worst of the worst!” she recounted in her best you-better-not-ignore-me voice.
“We wanted guys that were violent and in that world, respected, but also had the skill set to survive,” Meja said. “If we could turn them, then we could get guys to follow them,” he said.
The restaurant opened nearly a year ago. It grosses $7,500 a month, more than covering the $5,000 food cost. Inmates earn a dollar an hour, which goes to their victims or the victims’ families. Delancey Street pays Gomez’s salary. The state pays for Souza, the assessor, who said, “The goal is not so much monetary. The inmates are learning how to be better versions of themselves.”
Only at the Delancey Street Solano does prison food come from excellent local suppliers. But nothing came easily. Silbert said, “When we started, it took us eight months to get a blackboard to write the word of the day,” a Delancey Street practice. For Thanksgiving it took eight months to get approval to serve turkey and roast beef, Silbert said. When she realized she had forgotten napkins, she said, “I called Jerry and said, ‘I need napkins.’”
Earlier this month, at the restaurant’s grand opening, inmates served meals to both Newsom and Brown.
The inmates in the Delancey Street Honors Program at the prison practice “each one, teach one,” becoming proficient in public speaking, debate and constructive criticism. On a Tuesday in June, the word of the day, selected by a group of Delancey Street Solano members, was “quintessential.”
Silbert says the inmates have gone beyond normalization. “They have so many things going against them,” she said. And yet, “they’re doing things that are extraordinary. They’re forming unity out of a world that is not unified. And they’re becoming the absolute best of themselves.”
(CalMatters)
OUT TO DINNER
Dear people,
As I was outside, there was a song playing “you're a star in heaven” and I saw it, but also that it was not like that you have nothing and rely on those things, to be. Then, moments later and when it had passed and the place returned to quietness again and being in rest, a biker rode by and shouted “Ha Jan, the pancake man” with a voice reminiscent of the talent workers from the past and who we worked with, to great redemption or effort and amidst the situation with the psychiatry, as industry of death. I was just becoming aware that it seemed that I was in the desert again and doing "great deeds", or life efforts and while the current phase is of another kind. So, we do see the reality thereof and of the true value and leveling-up of real achievements. It is not that such a case, as is mine, has no justification and that you have no desire thereto. Also, although we have an alternative and true ( rightly so ) interpretation, to be justified, or a claim awaiting a rightful outcome, it is not that we also had no content, of the child psychology to be used and between pages 1 and 191. We see the world as well, going to people being positive and reaching for solutions and doing the math, like we use to say 1 + 1 = 2 and against the peril of the wicked, who claim 1 + 1 = 3 to be true, and are left and following abandoned ways (without blessing), as we all know it will come to an end and that mankind cannot rule itself and hence, we will have WW3, with Christ returning at the near end of it all - and although we do not wish for it, or try to stay in living life, as much as we can or can possibly be.
Nonetheless, I baked pancakes and I made it make salto's in order to change the side, to be on the plate.
Kind regards,
Jan Bezemer
Ukiah
COMPARING, CONTRASTING CANDIDATES
Editor,
Less than 100 days before Nov.5, 2024. Time to look at the most likely outcomes of electing either one of the likely candidates: Donald J. Trump or Kamala Harris. One has been president before. How did he do?
He promised to “Make America Great Again,” Isn’t it darned great already? He preached hate for many would-be immigrants, especially “Mexican rapists” and “Muslims.” He promised a lot of things he didn’t deliver: full employment, a border wall on the southern border, paid for by the Mexican people (or government-?). Instead of these promises, he divided the nation, did not clean up the “swamp in Washington,DC,” cut taxes while running up the deficit. He authorized funds to develop a Covid-19 vaccine, but failed to implement crucial public health measures, while one million Americans died from the pandemic, made a Supreme Court which reversed Roe v. Wade.
Harris promises to continue Pres. Biden’s programs: stronger gun control, support for Israel and Ukraine, lower inflation, public school funding, improved infra-structure and, perhaps, some consumer aid. Vote Harris.
Frank H. Baumgardner, III
Santa Rosa
TWO MOMENTS FROM KAMALA HARRIS’ CALIFORNIA PAST HELPED HONE HER FIGHTING INSTINCTS
by Joe Garofoli
Vice President Kamala Harris’ first week as the presumptive Democratic Party presidential nominee has been surprisingly strong, raising more than $200 million and drawing millions of volunteers.
One reason for Harris’ early success is because she has remained squarely in her political sweet spot: fight mode.
Harris’ early pugilism is reminiscent of two scenes from her California past, one from the first race she ran and one from the last. It is reminding longtime associates of how Harris is appearing comfortable “in her skin,” a longtime former prosecutor taking the fight to Donald Trump.
“When we fight, we win!” Harris said to close her first speech in Milwaukee after President Joe Biden vacated the nomination and endorsed her.
It is a stock line that Harris has heard — and repeated — at rallies from the time she grew up in the Bay Area as the child of activist academics and scientists until she repeated it as a candidate years later. She’s fighting in a way that Biden couldn’t, and in the same way that Trump’s own supporters are drawn to how they perceive he fights for them.
Fight mode is a natural fit with Harris’ fledgling second presidential campaign as she tries to frame the race as “the prosecutor versus the felon.” And being laser-focused in that stance makes it easier for Harris to avoid the pitfalls of her failed 2019 presidential campaign. Like the hazy, often contradictory positions she took on key issues (her support, sort of, for Medicare for All), which often led to confusing word salads in which she tried to explain mutating or poorly thought-out policy stances.
Part of why Harris is best in fight mode is that it is largely devoid of the nuances of finessing a political position.
It’s very early in this sprint presidential campaign, but so far that word-salad version of Harris hasn’t emerged. As a result, Democrats, energized by being relieved of the burden of dragging an enfeebled Biden across the finish line, have rallied around her as the campaign says it has raised $200 million and attracted 360,000 new volunteers since the switch.
“This is the authentic Kamala,” Jim Stearns, the campaign consultant on her first district attorney race in San Francisco, told me Monday.
“When she ran for president in 2019, being a prosecutor was seen by many as a negative. She couldn’t lean into her own authentic background as much as she would have liked to. When she was running for district attorney (in 2003), she was. She feels that way to me now. It’s not just fight mode. She can authentically embrace her whole experience as a prosecutor and as a progressive,” he said.
In the first race for district attorney in 2003, Harris’ male opponents dogged her with insinuations that she would be soft on former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, who openly dated Harris for about a year in the mid-1990s when Brown had been separated from his wife for a decade. (Harris and Brown broke up before he took office as mayor.) Brown appointed Harris to two statewide commissions and introduced her to the city’s moneyed elite while she held a job as a prosecutor in the East Bay. But that was several years before she began her first run for office.
That time lag didn’t matter to Terence Hallinan, the progressive district attorney on her left and Bill Fazio, a prosecutor who was running to Harris’ right. Before a debate at the Noe Valley Ministry, Stearns, Harris and her campaign team planned for how to respond to a likely Brown attack.
Stearns has always believed that if an opponent is going to hammer you “with a negative, you have to make them pay a price.” So they planned a counterpunch, and Harris “had zero concerns about having a tough response,” Stearns said.
“She just was, and is today, very careful and wants things to be well-planned,” Stearns said. “She didn’t want any unanticipated blowback. So the question wasn’t, ‘Should we punch?’ but ‘How do we land it? ’ ”
Stearns and Harris did some last-minute prepping as they drove to the debate together. Just before they got out of the car, Stearns recalled asking her about the planned counterpunch. “Are you ready?” Stearns asked. “We’re going to do this, right?”
“And she said, ‘We are going to do this, Jim. We’re going to it’.”
The moment unfolded just as planned when an audience member asked Harris if she was going to be tough on Brown if elected.
Harris rose from her seat and told the audience that she wanted to focus on the issues that mattered to them, not answer to distractions that her opponents were firing at her. And then she stood behind Hallinan, Stearns recalled, and said, “Remember how you explained how Bill Fazio was caught in a police raid in a massage parlor?” And then she stood behind Fazio and said, “Remember how you accused the people working in Hallinan’s office of having sex on the desks in the office?”
After covering her opponents with their own dirty laundry, Stearns recalled, Harris turned to the audience and said, “I pledge to you that I will remain focused on the issues.”
The audience stood and cheered the political jujitsu. The Brown attack had been largely defanged, at least in that race. It has been revived in this campaign, however, fueled by racist and sexist online memes calling Harris a “Jezebel.” Fox News-turned-SiriusXM radio host Megyn Kelly posted on X last week that Harris “actually did sleep her way into and upwards in California politics.”
But Stearns doesn’t expect those attacks to land 20 years after Harris first faced them in the San Francisco political world she would describe as a knife fight in a phone booth. It toughened her.
“She impressed me as a very tough person the very first time I met her,” Stearns said. “She got a little glint in her eye when talking about challenges before her. There was never any kind of wilting flower to her.”
Harris went into fight mode again when she ran for Senate in 2016. Harris largely cleared the field of Democratic challengers in January 2015, and cruised to victory over Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez.
“One of the calling cards of her electoral career is that when she makes a decision, she goes hard and she goes fast,” said Brian Brokaw, the Sacramento consultant who piloted her Senate run. “She’s been accused of being too deliberative or too slow or too cautious. But once she came out of the gate (in that Senate race), there was no turning back.”
But Harris did make an adjustment on Election Night.
Many, based on errant polling, believed that Harris would be the first Black and Indian American woman to represent California in the Senate at the same time that Hillary Clinton would be the nation’s first female president.
But the early results showed that wasn’t going to happen.
So Harris ditched the speech she had prepared to deliver to supporters at the Exchange LA club in Los Angeles.
“Through the course of the night it became apparent what was happening nationally, and I just went out there and kind of just riffed on what I felt in that moment,” Harris told the Chronicle later.
Harris told the audience that when our “fundamental values are being attacked … we fight” — for immigration reform, civil rights, abortion rights and “truth and transparency.”
She would foreshadow her role as a leader of the anti-Trump resistance by asking that night: “Do we retreat or do we fight? I say we fight. And I intend to fight.”
Harris would go on to lead the resistance from her new backbench seat in the Senate. She created viral moments grilling Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, Attorneys General Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr and others during Senate committee hearings.
Now, Brokaw said, she is doing the same thing.
“It is the version of her at her best,” Brokaw told me. “Sometimes in life we try to force a situation and certain scenarios, and sometimes life chooses us. In this case, she was in the absolutely right time and place when needed most.”
(SF Chronicle)
I PAINT PEOPLE, not because of what they are like, not exactly in spite of what they are like, but how they happen to be.
— Lucian Freud
THE POWER OF YOU(TH)
Cronies and crooks
Grifters and goons
Banners of books
Losers and loons
Stealing us blind
Our votes and rights
Left behind
Out of sight
See no evil
Hear no truth
Feel the fever
And the power of you(th)
MY LIFE AS A RABBI
by Alexander Cockburn (2003)
Asked to a recent wedding in Virginia (it was a family affair on a grand scale), the proud parents asked if I would do some sort of officiation. It would be my second inning in this role, having acted as priest/judge at a rural splicing here in the Northern California backwoods some years ago. On that occasion I wrote up a laicized version of the wedding ritual in the sixteenth-century Book of Common Prayer, shorn of course of the bit of her obeying him. Then the couple nipped into a back room where there was a real judge on hand to make it legal.
This time, beside a pond in a green field in rural Virginia, there was no judge, but none was necessary since the couple had already eloped back in January, getting married on the bus the bridegroom’s film collective uses on their cinematic ventures.
Why, you ask, would anyone ask a raffish antinomian of Sixties vintage to preside at any ceremony beyond the increasingly familiar occupation of helping throw the ashes of some deceased lefty comrade over the back of a boat or off the top of a mountain? Maybe it’s all those years on the road, giving booster talks to radical groups, raising money for all the good causes. I’ve learned how to look a crowd in the eye, speak as though I mean it, and not mumble.
The male guests at the affair in rural Virginia beside the pond were all in black tie and dinner jacket. It had been years since I put on a tuxedo but I found one in an old trunk, given to me by the daughter of a British diplomat. I’d kept it for possible use at Hallowe’en. Taking it to the cleaners I noticed that the poor fellow, an ambassador, had spent so many years resting his wrists on the dinner table at a thousand dreary diplomatic dinners, mumbling “Fascinating” at the anecdotes of his neighbors, that the cloth on the buttons of his jacket cuffs had entirely worn away.
As officiator I reckoned I ought to distinguish myself from the common herd of tux wearers and so I threw around my neck a white silk scarf with a Japanese motif picked out on it in crimson thread. Later my old friend Seymour Hersh came up to me and said he’d arrived a bit late, hurried down to the pond and said to his wife Liz as they craned to observe the ceremony, “Now I’ve seen everything. Alex has become a rabbi.”
My officiation went smoothly. I kept my remarks brief, imparting to the crowd the news that the couple were already married and had demonstrated their progressive commitment by getting spliced on an instrument of mass transit, which was also a temple of the arts. Then I yielded the floor, or rather the pond-side, to the couple who spoke to each other, and the crowd, with glorious feeling and eloquence about their love for each other.
No Anglo-Irish stumblings here! Their professions of love had the grace of an aria in Mozart. If the younger crowd can talk like that, I’ll stop wailing about the grossness of hip-hop.
I kept the scarf on amid the drinking and eating that followed, and was amazed at how many people concluded that I must, against all the odds, somehow be, in a manner undivulged to them, a man of the cloth. It shows that people feel no formal event is complete without a shaman of some sort, and thus were prepared to regard me as a priest or a rabbi, all other evidence and prior knowledge notwithstanding.
So take this as a formal flaunting of my shingle as Officiator. Have scarf, will travel. I even have an Airstream as changing room, if my rig becomes more elaborate.
A final word on another ceremony. I offer my services as elegist too, though unlike many leftists I dislike cremations. Leftists tend to like cremations and subsequent dispersal of ashes in romantic surroundings because it’s good resource management, with the Phoenix motif as a bonus.
Being Anglo-Irish I regard cremations as pagan beastliness and believe in coffins lowered with dignity into the dirt. Crypts are okay too. One Anglo-Irish pal from West Waterford left directions that he was to be buried in the family crypt, with a key to the crypt in his pocket and a bottle of brandy by the coffin (lid not nailed down, naturally), and cork loosened. He hailed from an earlier generation brought up at the knee of Victorians who lived in terror of premature burial. My Aunt Joan was like that too. “When you deem me to have expired,” she would say to Dr. Galvin in her deep voice at the age of 87, “Cut deep into my wrists, to be completely sure.”
BALTHUS (1908 - 2001)
"Joan Mirò and Daughter Dolorès", 1937-1938, Oil on canvas, 130.2 x 88.9 cm, MoMa - New York
Balthus, pseudonym of Balthasar Kłossowski de Rola, was a French painter of Polish origin, known primarily for his controversial works of the 1930s depicting adolescent girls.
Stylistically, his art is closely related to the magical realism of the time, with several ambitious works that are quite complex and compelling.
I FEEL THAT OUR COUNTRY, for whose Constitution I fought in a just war, might as well have been invaded by Martians and body snatchers. Sometimes I wish it had been. What has happened, though, is that it has been taken over by means of the sleaziest, low-comedy, Keystone Cops-style coup d’etat imaginable.
— Kurt Vonnegut
“THE GREATEST ENEMY OF AUTHORITY is contempt, and the surest way to undermine it is laughter.”
— Hannah Arendt
AT THE AMAZON FULFILLMENT CENTER
by Rosa Curling & Amanda Gearing
“In 2020,” according to the Washington Post, “for every 200,000 hours worked at an Amazon warehouse in the United States – the equivalent of a hundred employees working full time for a year – there were 5.9 serious incidents, according to OSHA data”: nearly double the rate of non-Amazon warehouses. Research by the trade union GMB found that there were about a thousand serious injuries reported at Amazon warehouses in the UK during 2020, and 294 ambulance callouts.
In Amazon’s corporate-speak, a warehouse is known as a “fulfilment center” or FC. Workers are known as “associates” and are subject to a system called “ADAPT” (“associate development and performance tracker”). If a worker doesn’t pack and ship enough boxes – the targets are set by an opaque computer algorithm – their manager taps them on the shoulder and tells them to do better. The next time they get a formal verbal warning, then a written warning, then they’re fired. Even meeting your targets may not be enough because Amazon’s algorithm doesn’t only set targets, it also creates performance tables that rank workers against each other. Fall into the bottom 10% to 25% of the table and you get an ADAPT warning. The rankings are not adjusted for such factors as age, gender, disability or injuries sustained at work.
It’s a vicious cycle. You work as fast as you can to meet targets that get faster and faster. There’s no time even to go to the toilet. You push your body beyond what it can take or work faster than is safe. Then you get hurt, or your body starts to break down. Now you’re slower – and you still can’t meet your targets. The 3,000 workers at Amazon’s warehouse in Coventry (BHX4) in England know this all too well. Coventry has been at the coalface of the movement to unionize warehouses – holding the first legal strike at an Amazon facility in the UK last year, and voting earlier this month on whether to formally recognize GMB.
It’s an uphill battle. Amazon’s antipathy to unions is infamous. The US National Labor Relations Board has repeatedly accused the company of breaking the law to intimidate staff trying to unionize. At Coventry, Chloe (not her real name) was approached three times by management trying to intimidate her into voting no. They told her that if the union is recognized she and her colleagues will lose their “Amazon benefits.” They said if the union is recognized, Amazon may close BHX4 down. Such old-school methods are interspersed with thoroughly new ones. The company flooded the warehouse with QR codes – in every corridor, on every table in the canteen, even in all the toilet stalls. Scan the code on your phone and it generated an email that cancelled your union membership.
To get a union recognized in law you need more than half the workforce (or “bargaining unit”) onboard. By December 2022, despite Amazon’s anti-union campaign, GMB thought they had the numbers. Amazon responded by hiring a thousand new workers. The writer and film-maker Oobah Butler was one of them. Co-workers told him: “You were only hired because of the union vote.”
But Chloe and her colleagues refused to give up. Union membership continued to grow – including the recruitment of many of the workers brought in to sabotage GMB’s first attempt at getting legal recognition. In April, the union regulator, the Central Arbitration Committee, accepted GMB’s application:
“on the basis of the evidence before it, the panel has decided that, on the balance of probabilities, a majority of the workers in the proposed bargaining unit would be likely to favor recognition of the union.”
Jeff Bezos has been open about his company’s business strategy: “Amazon exploits its power in one sector to take over neighboring markets. Each new conquest adds more momentum. The flywheel accelerates.” Amazon is currently valued at more than $2 trillion. Last year, its main UK division posted a profit of £222 million and paid no corporation tax for the second year running. In the same period, workers in Coventry received a real-terms pay cut of 8%. An estimated 75% of BHX4 associates cannot afford to pay their household bills, and many are trapped in high-interest debt. In 2020, Bezos’s personal wealth soared by more than £57 billion, enough to give every Amazon worker on the planet a bonus of £38,000.
The union lost the recent Coventry ballot by 28 votes. The QR codes were scanned by 71 workers, leading to 36 giving up their union membership by the time of the ballot. Fifteen more votes and the union would have won recognition. The QR codes are being challenged in the employment courts: workers argue they are unlawful inducement, along with the harassment, intimidation and bullying so many have faced during the election process.
The fight is not theirs alone. Amazon’s employment practices are extending to the companies that partner and compete with them. Ever increasing numbers of retailers and logistics companies are copying Amazon’s tactics. The struggle to recognize GMB at Coventry is part of a broader front of resistance that it’s in all our interests to support.
(London Review of Books)
One thing I have never heard discussed about the GRT is the cost of decommissioning the rail line. If the GRT is not built then at some point all those old ties and rail needs to be removed. Has there ever been any estimate on what that cost will be?
Yes. DOT did a report on what that would be.
https://calsta.ca.gov/-/media/calsta-media/documents/sb-1029-assessment-of-ncra-report-to-legislature-111220.pdf
The summary is construction would cost $1 billion, clean up would be $4 billion.
I disagree that that old line needs to be removed. There are railroad ties slowly rotting. I think it would be better to leave them be as clean up would require a huge amount of soil disturbance that creates its own problems that would need to be then dealt with.
Thanks, Adam, for your info.
This is a huge waste of funds no matter where they come from. I wish someone sensible, like you, was making the decisions. I wish you were elected supervisor as well. The voters missed a valuable opportunity to add a huge asset to the bos.
You’re welcome and thanks for the vote of confidence. I am still around, staying involved with water policy and anything else that stirs me enough to write/speak about. I am taking classes at Mendocino Community College, working toward getting an associates almost 30 years after graduating high school at 16 and going straight to working. I am currently studying for a statistics final exam tomorrow. I am on track to get an A.
We’ll see what happens but there may be another campaign run in my future.
AT THE AMAZON FULFILLMENT CENTER
A poem for Jeff Bezos, one of the all-time exploiting parasites:
Workers of the world, awaken! Break your chains. Demand your rights.
All the wealth you make is taken by exploiting parasites.
Shall you kneel in deep submission, From your cradles to your graves?
Is the height of your ambition, To be good and willing slaves?
Arise, ye prisoners of starvation! Fight for your own emancipation;
Arise, ye slaves of every nation, In One Union grand.
-Joe Hill
That is not the San Andreas Fault, it is the Black Crack in Canyonlands National Park in Utah.
Maryellen Sheppard, whoever you leased your grow property to on Peachland road has completely trash Indian creek. Plastic bags and beer cans cover acres of land and are blowing into the creek. Looks like the sheriffs took the weed this week but not the garbage. Clean it up!
Your caller was incorrect re cyclists. According to the U.S. Department for Transportation, bicycles have the same rights and responsibilities as cars. This includes the right to occupy any part of a lane or travel in the same direction as other traffic. Drive carefully.
You are absolutely right, it is legal to be stupid, but…….
Drive carefully, ok. Apparently RIDE carefully is offensive and an infringement on the rights of foolish people.
Legalities aside, in the summer time especially, I cringe when I pass bicycle riders on the coastal roads and backroads, 128, 20 and others. Often there is little or no safe roadside ground beyond the pavement fog line. The blind corners are especially dangerous if you come upon a rider you can’t see until you are mere feet away. I try to constantly remind myself to stay sharp and watchful as I drive and to go more slowly on corners. Still, I pretty much agree that such riders are foolish in taking great risks of serious injury or death. Sure, it’s pretty countryside, beautiful and a fun ride, until it’s not….
A cyclist is someone riding a bicycle. A walking person pushing a bicycle is a pedestrian and should not imperil self or others by walking in the road when a shoulder is available.
“When a shoulder is available “ and there in lies the problem. Accommodating cyclists or pedestrians for that matter has almost never been a priority with Cal-Trans. Why aren’t the shoulders wider on state highways? Meanwhile, everyone must slow down and be alert and give the cyclists and pedestrians the respect and courtesy they deserve. Share the road, it’s the law!
Bicyclists are also obligated to obey traffic laws. The great majority don’t, especially in urban areas with traffic signals. How many bicyclists stop for stop signs or ride through red lights when there is no traffic? And before you go there, I’m an avid cyclist as well as a driver.
Isn’t there a requirement for all slow moving vehicles to pull over and let faster moving traffic by when there is an opportunity to do so?
Section 6 DMV Handbook
You must use a turnout area or lane to let other vehicles pass when you are driving slowly on a two-lane road, where passing is unsafe, and there are five or more vehicles following you….
Section 7 DMV Handbook
When you cannot change lanes to pass a bicyclist, allow at least three feet between your vehicle and the bicyclist.
If you cannot give three feet of space, do not pass the cyclist until three feet of clearance can be given. This will help you avoid putting the bicyclist in danger…
You must drive slower when there is heavy traffic or bad weather. At the same time, you should not block normal and reasonable traffic flow by driving too slowly. If you drive faster or slower than the speed limit, you may be cited.
When another driver is close behind you and wishes to drive faster, move to the right. If you choose to drive slower than other traffic, drive in the right lane.
https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/handbook/california-driver-handbook/laws-and-rules-of-the-road-cont1/
RE: MARIJUANA, like pornography, has an overall detrimental social effect, especially on young people who get into it while their brains, already battered by negative media, are physiologically unequipped to absorb it. Today’s dope is much stronger than that of twenty years ago… — ED NOTES
—> April 17, 2024
Among those aged 17 to 30, the use of passionate and romantic pornography was associated with greater sexual satisfaction, while the use of power, control and rough sex pornography was associated with lower sexual satisfaction.
Bőthe believes that the more “realistic” scenarios in romantic or passionate content can inspire young adults with ideas they can apply during their own sexual experiences. With pleasant settings, caring exchanges and good communication between partners, these scenarios “also evoke more positive emotions in general,” she said.
https://phys.org/news/2024-04-explores-benefits-pornography.html
—> May 31, 2024
The Benefits of Micro-dosing Porn. It’s not just for mushrooms and cannabis anymore—turns out a tiny dose of sexy brain chemicals can also lift your mood…
Turning porn dosing into a habit might sound like a gateway drug” to a porn addiction, but Lust notes that such an affliction is better thought of as, “more of a symptom of deeper psychiatric issues or relational conflicts…than [a problem] with the porn consumption itself.”
https://lifehacker.com/relationships/what-is-porn-dosing
—> January 26, 2024
Despite being a nascent research area, an increasing body of compelling research and conclusive findings confirms that exposure to noise, particularly from sources such as traffic, can potentially impact the central nervous system. These harms of noise increase the susceptibility to mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety, suicide, and behavioral problems in children and adolescents…
Some direct adverse phenotypic changes in brain tissue by noise (e.g. neuroinflammation, cerebral oxidative stress), feedback signaling by remote organ damage, dysregulated immune cells, and impaired circadian clock may also play important roles in noise-dependent impairment of mental health…
By sharing pathomechanisms, noise can either promote the development of mental health problems or increase their severity in a bonfire fashion.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41370-024-00642-5
Sobriety is wisest choice:“just say no.” Then there is our often depressing real world. We all probably have known drunks and potheads. Do the latter ever cause as much mayhem (fights, car crashes, hospitalizations, jail, etc.) as the former? I don’t think so.
James, as you get ready to ride your Harley again, an old memory and a haiku for you:
Many years ago, in my 20’s, was riding my Honda in the hills east of San Diego, great place to fly about. Warm day, wearing a t-shirt, riding along fast, suddenly felt a jolt of pain in my upper chest, thought “what the hell”— looked down, dang hornet had come along and stung me. No matter, road on, I was young and tough back then.
Long old road beckons
Harley roaring flyin fast
Bugs in teeth—Grinning
In my early twenties, my main transport was a BSA Gold Star, a 500cc four stroke single cylinder motorcycle made in England.
I rode it to work on LA freeways, toyed with flat track racing in Gardena and TT’s in Riverside.
At 55, it would vibrate to the point my arms went numb.
I would like some more rides on one. Might even wear a helmet.
Jim, I loved the looks of those BSA’s, never got to ride one. My first Honda, the one noted above, was a 305 Scrambler, loved it. Rode it up most of the coast in my mid-20’s from SD to Mendocino to visit a girlfriend, my whole body was pretty numb from the vibrations. Also, had to put newspapers inside my jacket, as had not dressed warmly enough for N. California. Those were the days… long time ago for both of us.
Should be “rode on”–old man brain fails again
Hike and Bike Trail – San Antonio Missions National Historical Park (U.S. National Park Service)
https://www.nps.gov/saan/planyourvisit/hikebike.htm#:~:text=The%20Hike%20%26%20Bike%20Trail%20along,way%20to%20visit%20the%20missions. San Antonio Missions National Historical Park
Cars vs Bikes
Imagine if we had a wide, paved bike trail – completely separated from cars – from Willits to Ukiah, that people could use to travel safely every day. People could even commute from town to town by bicycle.
Oh right. No one like that idea.