Mendocino County Today: Sunday 8/11/2024

Fog Bank | Cooling Trend | Water Wrongs | Daisies | Covelo Degenerates | Crescent Moon | AV Events | Greenwood Church | Herr Update | Albion Bridge | Pet Jack | Jazz Event | Mendocino Spirits | Sheriff Conversations | Boonville Distillery | Hiking Sinkyone | Yesterday's Catch | No Offers | Drug Lords | Armed Parrot | Modern Progressives | Meow! | Mexico Justice | Closing Time | McEwen Shorts | Charles Atlas | Marco Radio | Your Call | Personal Finance | Football Season | Mustapha Hit | Rusty Indian | Everybody Look | Bus Station | Trump Numbers | What Causes | British Riots | Chipper

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SLIGHTLY ABOVE NORMAL temperatures are forecast for the interior today. Near to below normal temperatures are expected for the upcoming week in the interior. A weak trough may bring isolated thunderstorms to the mountains of far northeast Trinity county Monday afternoon. Coastal areas will remain mostly cloudy with periods of night and morning fog and drizzle through Monday. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A foggy 54F this Sunday morning on the coast. The NWS is still calling for mostly clear skies this week, we'll see.

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WATER RIGHT, WATER WRONGS

by Lisa Nunes

Last week I posted pictures of the woeful, sad, algae infested Navarro River. This year the algae exploded during our first very hot heatwave at the beginning of July. The water is low, ugly and unhealthy. Three summers ago, during the drought, the river ran clear until the rains. I know some algae is expected. But the last two years of recreation time in the river has been cut by more than half. After incredibly wet winters the last two years, our river is in worse shape than ever before. I showed the community these pictures and questioned whether there was excessive nitrogen and phosphorous runoff from the 3 million vines planted in our small valley. Don't we all have a right to the water in our community? A vigorous discussion followed.

After posting pictures regarding my deep concern for the state of our river and inviting discussion by the community here in Anderson Valley. I have learned a lot over the last week about surface water flow, algae, water rights, permits for wells, agricultural runoff, old septic systems, fish friendly farming and climate change.

On Friday the North Coast Water Board came to take samples of the algae growth to determine if bacteria are present. They stated that the cause of excessive algae growth in the state is unknown. But that low water level and record heat is a huge factor. When asked if an old septic or excessive runoff from fertilizers could be the cause for certain areas of the river, he said it could not be ruled out. If the river was tested now for high nitrogen, it would read a low level because the algae eat the nitrogen (fixates). I also learned that I myself could test the water in the spring and send it to a lab. But for now, even if the water tests positive for bacteria, it will simply be marked on a map and a warning posted. No further investigation into causes will be conducted.

I still can't help but be astounded that there are 3 million vines in the 15 mile stretch of Anderson Valley. They need water for at least the second half of summer, according to a local vintner. Let that sink in…

So, what are Water Rights? The legal right of a user to use water from a specific source. Water rights authorize particular entities to use, sell or divert water. From landowners to corporations. According to comments online, some (maybe 4) are grandfathered in and draw from the river 24 hours a day. Others have commented that they are required to draw from the river from May to September or else they are heavily fined. What the…? Who in God's name created these rules? Can we the public demand an explanation from our elected officials? Create a petition? When does a person's or entity's limits kick in for these grandfathered rights? Are they allowed to keep sucking it out till it's gone? Does water not belong to all of us? Are we allowed to ask?

Hmmm.

Those questions probably won't go over well with some.

Others have commented how some landowners with holding ponds replenish them illegally with groundwater. I would hope that there would be some sort of safeguard against that. I also have a lot of faith that these things are monitored by our local authorities who care. Misplaced trust?

The permit process for wells includes a final decision by Local Government who reviews the application for potentially significant environmental impacts. Who is that in Mendocino County? The Environmental Health Department of Mendocino County. Are they willing to share their findings and reasoning with us? There is no limit on what is drawn out of a well? Not sure. But a new state policy for restricting well water use for large consumers in sensitive areas may go into effect. Cross your fingers it happens and we are one of those areas.

On the AgAlert website is an article (8/2/2023) regarding the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board working on creating new monitoring and reporting requirements for nitrogen applications and removals in Anderson Valley. “The North Coast is the last of the state's nine regions to develop general waste discharge requirements as part of the state's Irrigated Lands Regulatory Program.” Oh Boy! So much for the North Coast Waterboard thinking that runoff is not part of the problem with the river, this new requirement would say otherwise.

I also found that we as a community can be active in protecting our resources through different agencies: The Mendocino County Resource Conservation District. Facebook pages Mendocino County 5th District community page and on Valley Hub (facebook). There is the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service.

Fish Friendly Farming is actively educating about problems such as erosion and soil loss, stream bank failure, and water quality degradation. Commenters have talked about Dry Farming.

In conclusion, I am sure I got some things wrong and have lots more to learn. But the actions that I see available to me are:

1. Bring awareness.
2. Join in efforts of my Local and Federal Conservation Agencies.
3. I can test the water next spring.
4. I can walk the river with my camera.
5. Learn more.
6. Start a petition? To demand the environmental studies that show having so many vineyards in a small area was environmentally sound?

Anyone want to take a swim in the Napa River?

Sincerely yours,

Lisa Nunes

Philo

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COMMENT RE COVELO FUGITIVE:

A Covelo degenerate. Gentleman with this same type of persona have just basically overtaken Covelo. They just want money dollar signs in their eyes and they will pretty much do anything to get it. Have taken advantage of the entire tribal lands, hid underneath the Sovereign Nation. Lie and deny. Poison the waters trash the valley. Trash the population getting them addicted to Fetty and all of the other crap. Making the teenagers think they’re all rich in their knock off Balmain jeans and flashing some money around so all the kids are under the spell too pretty sick shit. He’s just one of hundreds. The Covelo valley suffers greatly because of this wanton attitude and tolerated culture.

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A glaring issue is MANY in that arena dump a plethora of toxic cocktails on their wares. One part of why it turns brown so fast. Machine trimmed with water added during the process, add heat to the drying room. Oxidation is complete. Spent a year growing schwag that barely goes for $1000 a box. Meanwhile shoot every deer that nears the fence. Birds trapped on plastic netting. Dam the creek and pour the chemicals in for ease. Take your family to the river to wash laundry and bathe. Don’t forget to dump your trash and diapers on the banks. Get the teen down the street pregnant. Let the pack of abandoned dogs yall bred then abandoned kill the neighbors sheep and bite the kids going by on bikes. Hey but we got Money…This is what has happened to Covelo in the Cannaland game. Tragic Ass Crap.

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AV EVENTS (today)

Free Entry to Hendy Woods State Park for local residents
Sun 08 / 11 / 2024 at 8:00 AM
Where: Hendy Woods State Park
More Information (https://andersonvalley.helpfulvillage.com/events/3668)

AV GRANGE PANCAKE and Egg BREAKFAST
Sun 08 / 11 / 2024 at 8:30 AM
Where: Anderson Valley Grange , 9800 CA-128, Philo, CA 95466
More Information (https://andersonvalley.helpfulvillage.com/events/3893)

The Anderson Valley Museum Open
Sun 08 / 11 / 2024 at 1:00 PM
Where: The Anderson Valley Museum , 12340 Highway 128, Boonville , CA 95415
More Information (https://andersonvalley.helpfulvillage.com/events/3987)

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CATCHING UP WITH GENE HERR

Dear Family and Friends,

We are very sorry to let you know that our mother and long-time Valley resident, Eugenia ‘Gene’ Herr, was placed in hospice care yesterday. Mom had a series of falls during the last three months, and broke her collarbone in the most recent fall on July 3rd. She has been in the hospital and a skilled nursing facility since then, and although her collarbone is healing, she was so weakened by the falls and infections that her body no longer has the strength to keep going. She has not eaten normally in the last 6 weeks, has lost a huge amount of weight and has refused to work with the physical therapists. Her doctors have told us that there is nothing more that can be done to bring her back to a recovery track, particularly given her many pre-existing complications dating back to her serious stroke in August of 2017.

So, we reluctantly accepted the medical prognosis and decided to move Mom to Serena's house in San Anselmo, where she has been placed in hospice care. Mom is resting comfortably in a very nice sunroom, surrounded by flowering orchids, with a view out to the garden and a glimpse of Mt. Tamalpais through the trees. While she was in the skilled nursing facility, Mom often asked if she could "go home to San Anselmo", and since Serena's house is a mere third of a mile from the home that Mom grew up in on Calumet Ave, her wish has been granted.

If you would like to visit or try to talk to Mom, you could call Serena's phone at (510) 589-2980. Mom sleeps a lot, and may have difficulty talking, so another option would be to leave her a voicemail that Serena would later play for her when she was alert. It might be best to text first, so Serena knows to let the call go to voicemail. If you would like to send a card,

Serena's address is

48 El Cerrito Ave, San Anselmo CA 94960.

Thank you and take care,

John Herr and Serena Fox

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FRANK HARTZELL:

Looking for questions on Albion Bridge story for CALtrans?

Here is my story. If you ask a question at the end of the Mendo Voice story I will research the Q and ask Caltrans at the meeting...

https://mendovoice.com/2024/08/albion-bridge-stewards-to-confront-caltrans-at-meeting-tuesday-about-plan-changes-for-the-iconic-bridge/

frankhartzell@gmail.com

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UKIAH SHELTER PET OF THE WEEK

Pepper Jack is a shy but loving dog. Out on a Fido Field Trip with non-stop-wonderful volunteer, Billy, Pepper got a break from shelter life. He rode well in the back of Billy’s truck and was eager to get out and start exploring. Billy told us he and PJ went to a park for lunch and then on to Billy’s house, where Pepper explored the yards, finally deciding the best place to be was plonked down on the carpet, close to his field trip buddy. Billy continued, telling us PJ has good indoor manners, and showed no interest in the cats he ran into. Pepper Jack is a work in progress, and an adopter/guardian with shy-dog experience would be great. When he feels comfortable, PJ shows his true colors—a dog who wants to be right by your side, giving kisses. Pepper Jack is a Lab X, 1.5 years old and 65 handsome pounds. There’s lots more about Pepper Jack on his webpage: http://www.mendoanimalshelter.com/dogblog/pepper-jack

To see all of our canine and feline guests, and for information about our services, programs, and events, visit: mendoanimalshelter.com. Join us every first Saturday of the month for our MEET THE DOGS Adoption Event at the shelter. We're on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/mendoanimalshelter

For information about adoptions please call 707-467-6453.

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SEPTEMBER AT THE FORT BRAGG BRANCH LIBRARY

The Evolution of Jazz listed on our events highlights has been moved by the artist to Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024, 2-4 pm. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Unfortunately, library staff has battled illness and we've been extremely short-staffed, which saw deadlines come and go before we could catch up. I will try to be more diligent in the future, barring additional call outs. Thanks for being patient with us.

And thanks, once again, for helping us get the word out.

— Peggy McGee, Senior Library Technician/Seed Librarian, Fort Bragg Branch Library

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MENDOCINO SPIRITS

August 1989, now 35 years ago, I went to work at the Germain-Robin Distillery where I learned to craft fine spirits with time honored methods and traditions. I am proud to keep these traditions alive in Mendocino County. Before I worked in the distillery, I spent time working in wineries, including Hidden Cellars Winery. Today, at Mendocino Spirits, I am creating whiskies and gins which are well regarded by critics and consumers alike. Pictured here is a bottle of our Mendocino Spirits Rye Malt Whiskey Aged 10 Years which recently received a Gold Medal and Best in Category from the judges at the New Orleans Spirits Competition, and, from my collection, an old bottle of Germain-Robin Alambic Brandy Select Barrel XO judged to be the finest brandy produced in the USA.

I have many people to thank, including Tamar Kaye, Caitlin and Brian Riehl, Hubert Germain-Robin, Ansley Coale, Jefferson Hinchliffe, Dennis Patton, John Dickerson, Jesse Tidwell, Hubert Lenczowski, Bryan Zell, Joe Corley, Kimberly Winarske, and many more fans, friends, and comrades for all the support over the years.

— Crispin Cain, Mendocino Spirits/Tamara Distillery

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SHERIFF MATT KENDALL:

“Sheriff pops in, whether out of genuine neighborliness or simply to keep one more jerk off his back.”

I swing by for the coffee and conversation. We all know men don’t “Gossip” so we tend to call it something else. Lord knows we have scolded so many for “gossiping” we would never do that! And I enjoy visiting with folks who remember many of the happenings of our county.

When I was a young detective I would visit with Bruce Mcewen at the courthouse while awaiting my cases to be heard. I knew exactly what had happened and normally Bruce did as well. But, while visiting with him I always got a completely different perspective on the exact same subject. He looked through the lense of what the public thinks and sees, no fabrications or dishonesty, just looking from a different angle. This fascinated me and it still does.

And I wish I could write as well as he does, but my Round Valley education was cut a little short by my youthful wandering.

That’s an entirely different story.

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THAT WAS THEN

by Bruce Anderson (2003)

Alexander Cockburn and Bruce Anderson, legitimate recipients of mailings from the American Association of Retired People, hiked the arduously magnificent Sinkyone Wilderness Trail last weekend in record time. The sprightly seniors got from Bear Harbor at the northwest tip of Mendocino County down the rugged coast trail to Usal in 25 hours, a mere 11 of those hours upright and on the move. Traversing the precipitous up and down path that winds along the ridge tops above the Pacific at a steady 1.5 miles an hour, the intrepid pair emerged at Usal at 11 a.m. two mornings after setting forth from their base camp at Bear Harbor.

It was Cockburn’s Sherpa-like combination of sure footedness and determination that ensured the elders’ mastery of the nearly 18-mile hike. He often slowed at the crests of the trail’s endless ascents to patiently encourage the plodding Anderson, “Just one more ridge, only one more until we get to our campsite,” inspiring Anderson, a week away from a hernia operation, to concentrate on the climb rather than expend scarce breath on a litany of excuses, including the alleged hernia and “all this junk I’m carrying.”

It’s a tough walk, but the raw, mostly unvisited beauty of the hike makes whatever pain one pays to endure it well worth it. The Sinkyone’s sheer cliffs disappearing into the Pacific, the groves of enormous redwoods approached from above as the trail winds back down to the sea, the many untouched streams, the majestic rock formations, the sea birds, several species of hawk and, in our case, an intransigent elk, all of it a natural magnificence unavailable to the Winnebago people. If you can’t walk you won’t see it.

The Sinkyone Trail, however, is only for the fit. Realistically, the half-fit like me should spend the recommended three days and two nights on the trail. The unfit should give it a week, maybe two weeks because it’s up and down the whole way, and lots of the ups are very steep ups, some of them as lengthy as thirty yards to forty yards up before there’s a respite of a few flat feet of switch back.

Cockburn is fully fit. He also has the right equipment, meaning his gear is lightweight as per the recommendations of our mutual hiking guru, Ray Jardine of “Beyond Backpacking — Ray Jardine’s Guide to Lightweight Hiking,” and spare me the gags that the book sounds like it’s doubly appropriate in our case.

Ray, and his wife Jenny, would certainly hike the Sinkyone at their “usual 2.75 miles per hour.” They spend much of the year backpacking and are that rare thing in America — people who know what they’re talking about because they’ve done it, and done it wrong until they learned to do it right. Ray tells us that his first go at the 2.700-mile Pacific Coast Trail his pack “weighed about 25 pounds.” On his third go at the Pacific Coast Trail, which he and Jenny did in the amazing time of three months and four days, “Our packs weighed less than 9 pounds “

I’ve read my Ray, but his only advice I seem to have recalled is the section on footwear and his recommendation that one’s circulation is enhanced if one sleeps with one’s feet slightly elevated after a long day on the trail. Immediately upon reading The Ray Way I hauled an eight-foot 2 by 4 into our bedroom and placed it beneath the casters at the foot of our bower. That night; my wife was no sooner perpendicular than she yelled, “What on earth is wrong with the bed?! My toes are higher than my eyebrows. Whatever you’ve done undo it right now!”

Which I did because it belatedly occurred to me that Ray’s recommendation to elevate your feet to aid blood flow probably applied to backpacking, not in-home slumber. Also, the Little Woman's wrath is to be avoided. A strenuous perpendicular day of hill hiking does cause one’s blood to linger in the lower torso, making it harder for your big red pump to get it flowing efficiently for the next day pounding up and down a severe hill path.

I had the wrong pack and the wrong sleeping bag for the Sinkyone, or any other over night outdoors adventure. Inside my wrong pack I carried the wrong food. “Wrong” in backpacking is a synonym for “too heavy” or “stupid.” I was both. I might as well have stuffed my wrong backpack with stones. Instead, I packed it with six pints of water, Safeway “energy bars” and a Big 5 sleeping bag that all by itself weighed 10 pounds.(Energy bars? Take a pound of sheet rock paste, mix in three raisins, four coconut flakes, five peanuts, and a dribble of molasses and you’ll need a portable nuke to get this choking glop even halfway to your gut.)

I’d intended to have my dog Perro hump the water; I even bought him a dog pack and worked him out one day with four bottles of Aqua Corporate. Perro was cool with the load; he didn’t try to shake it off or otherwise complain that he was functioning as a pack mule. But as we walked experimentally along the road that runs through my neighborhood, an older lady I’ve seen around Boonville but don’t know, slowed her passing car, and even more slowly staying abreast of Perro and me, asked rather officiously, “How much weight is your dog carrying? It’s not too much, is it?” There’s something about me that seems to cause concern in random busy bodies. It was a temptation to reply, “Solid lead, Miss. And look at my dog. He loves it so much he wants to run!” But I settled for, “Four pints of water is no sweat for a 70 pound dog.” One last skeptical lift of the eyebrows and off went the guardian of Boonville's dependent creatures.

But I decided to pack the water myself, a mistake I won’t make again. I abandoned the sleeping bag after the one night I slept in it, shucked the so-called energy bars of their wrappers and tossed them, ditto for two large bags of salted peanuts, and hung one of the two sweatshirts with the abandoned sleeping bag on the outhouse of the campground for whomever might find some comfort from them.

I wanted to leave my pack too, but I still had another half day to go. The pack's design seems to have been inspired by the Rubik’s Cube. It makes no sense. Festooned with dangling straps, hidden pockets, zippers to nowhere, and an alleged neck rest-like hunk of cloth at the top that was absolutely useless, the whole thing weighed another 8 or so pounds. As a kid in the Marines I routinely carried 60 to 70 pounds of miscellaneous gear, along with a mortar base plate, or a .30 cal machine gun, or some other excruciatingly unwieldy item, but I wasn't a kid and my Sinkyone load, even given my accrued decrepitude in the years between young and dumb and old and dumb, seemed heavier than the one at Pendleton in 1959.

It had occurred to me before setting out that for $50 I probably could have hired a high school kid to carry all my stuff for me, but I’d probably get the wrong kid; he’d want to talk, or he’d address me as “Yo, dude,” or I’d hear his music leaking out of his Walkman. And I’d have to kill him and take a couple of hours to hide his remains, thus throwing our trek way off schedule.

Cockburn was outfitted Ray’s Way, which is the super sensible way to backpack, an economical way to backpack. Ray’s designed a pack that weighs 13 and 1/2 ounces. He’s also designed what he calls “a two-person sleeping quilt that weighs 1 pound, 15 ounces.” And he carries “a silicone tarp weighing 1 pound” instead of a tent, which typically weighs almost five pounds. “These three items alone save us 20 pounds and $1,117," he rightly claims.

The Sinkyone trail is in pretty good condition considering the steep terrain, but there were areas where we made our way around downed trees or along the sides of what can be called cliffs where the trail had crumbled into invisibility. Experienced hikers and backpackers, like my friends Don and Mary Morris, wear hiking boots “for ankle support” in rough country but, as per the second piece of advice I managed to internalize from Ray’s Way, I had no problem with my feet or with footing in a pair of Big 5 hiking sandals that set me back twenty bucks. Ray’s lightweight backpack and my Big 5 sandals, are clearly modeled on their Native American originals. The pack is basically a big bag with shoulder straps, a modern update of the packs you see Indians carrying in old photos. The rubber hiking sandals come with raised heels, thick soles and velcro straps. Of course the Indians didn’t make their packs and moccasins from cancer causing industrial materials, but they did design their packs to comfortably carry significant cargo many miles, and created their footwear to comfortably carry them many more miles. Indians ought to be drawing residuals from this stuff but for now they’ll have to be content with casinos.

There was no one on the trail but an obtuse Elk. Neither of us had prior experience with this particular beast, and as we descended the trail to where this splendid animal blocked the way, we saw that he was aggressively thrusting his huge set of antlers into the trail side as if at a foe. Was he getting ready to make a run at us? I leashed my Perro and Cockburn slapped a line on his Jasper as we conferred, hoping the elk would move on. Which he eventually did, but only to a vantage point a few feet above the trail from where he watched us scurry past and on down to Anderson Gulch Camp, the Sinkyone’s least attractive camp site, and its only campsite without easy access to the sea.

The Sinkyone campsites, with the exception of Anderson Gulch, were once bustling little mill towns, each with its optimistic clusters of pink ladies, lilac, lilies and, at Bear Harbor, the beautifully made remains of a stone wall that once enclosed the downstream end of a pond. Even the ghostly remains of long abandoned towns are a reminder that to the generations now gone, what things looked like was assumed to be crucial to public morale. It mattered that buildings and towns were attractive. Ask a Ukiah business mogul why the town’s main street is four miles of visual horror and he’ll look back at you, mystified, and ask, “What’s wrong with it?”

There’s water throughout the Sinkyone. An empty pint bottle or two and a little stream pump is all you really need to carry on the trail; you can refill at the many cascading streams bisecting the endless climbs and descents between Bear Harbor and Usal.

The stream at Anderson Gulch is the site’s sole attraction apart from its isolation and the sound of the surf an impenetrable jungle-like mile to the west. After re-hydrating for an hour, I was asleep by eight but wide awake at ten as the brightest moon I can recall shone down through the unsullied night air with search light intensity. The dogs had us awake again a couple of hours later when their barking deterred a four-footed intruder.

About dogs and the Sinkyone. Our two dogs were (and are) fairly well-behaved, which is what every dog owner says about his or her pet whether or not the dog happens to be leaping for your throat or doing somersaults to entertain the visitor. But our dogs do what they’re told. They weren’t going to disappear over a thousand foot cliff in pursuit of a chipmunk, and they had no apparent interest in taking on the elk.

Cockburn’s Jasper is a large, two-tone brown mutt with bobcat-like springboards for hind legs; he was better behaved than Perro, who seems to be kinda nuts, frankly. Perro was consistently sexually stimulated by Jasper, which I found perplexing because Perro is (1) neutered and (2) he had never previously indicated sexual interest in any other animal in or out of his species, male or female. And he spends quite a lot of time gamboling, wholesomely gamboling so far as I know, with my neighbor’s female Pit mix. But at irritatingly numerous junctures along the trail, typically at the objectively most asexual interludes like, for instance, the top of an exhausting thousand foot climb, or as he made his way dangerously close to the bank of a spot where a misstep would have had unhappy consequences, Perro would try to hop Jasper! These sexual attempts on poor Jasper were, as the Appropriate Police might say, about as appropriate as a human being suddenly sexually hurling him or herself at a member of the local school board in open session. Apart from his periodic sexual assaults on Jasper, Perro and Jasper were net assets in that they kept whatever worrisome predators were in the area away from us.

Dogs aren’t supposed to be on the trail. But the Sinkyone’s “signage” was contradictory and sometimes funny. At the Bear Harbor trailhead a sign warns that dogs must be leashed. Yeah, right. You’re going to hike a wilderness trail with your dog on a leash like you’re walking him down Market Street? Then, a little farther in, another sign says, “No dogs on trail.”

Too late, Governor; we’re on the trail and the dogs are on the trail with us. There was another sign at the Usal end of the trail warning hikers to “respect the cougar community” or something like that. Cockburn remarked he’d seen a sign at another state facility that reminded visitors to take pains not to disturb the “rattlesnake community.” What’s next, Del Webb retirement clusters for nature’s most solitary creatures?

The only aspect of the Sinkyone we both lamented were the patches of pampas grass thriving towards the Usal end of the trail. Our transport officer, Catherine Zakoren, was a knowledgeable and long-experienced botanist. She is also the great grand daughter of the only physician in all of Russia endorsed by the great Chekhov, who famously said that Dr. Zakoren was the only doctor he’d ever trusted. The great granddaughter of Chekhov’s doctor, I’d say, is more likely to possess reliable information than CDF.

Cockburn had said the ineradicable pest plant had been introduced “probably by someone from Carmel or some place like that who thought it was beautiful,” and it had spread from there to even the wildest parts of Northern California. Carmel was fine with me as an incubator of botanical evil, but I was even more pleased when Catherine Zakoren-Chekhov came up with a much more gratifying villain — Caltrans. She said Caltrans had introduced pampas grass “back in the early 1950’s to stabilize road banks.” Whomever or whatever is responsible for pampas grass, an acre of those lime green mounds with bushy white pompadours look like giant infected eye sockets set in the otherwise healthy skull of a vast green giant.

The Usal Road is easily the least interesting 30 miles of road in all of the Northcoast. It’s about as interesting as driving through a train tunnel. Over its entire well-maintained dirt length there’s only a few brief yards where the ocean is visible through the scrubby, stunted trees lining both sides of the road. It’s very narrow in many spots, too, so one must be alert to oncoming vehicles moving too fast for conditions. A couple of teenage girls almost barreled into me on one turn, and would have, if I hadn’t been moving at a prudent 20 miles per hour. The kid at the wheel of the Land Rover or whatever the thing was — big, box-like and way up off the ground — skidded to a stop a few inches from my front bumper clear over on my side of the road. She glared at me like I was her father or, perhaps, Jason, her boyfriend. (Are there disproportionate numbers of Jasons and Stacys in the youth population or do I just happen to encounter a lot of them?)

And CDF’s map says there’s a 1.3 mile trail from the Usal Road down to Needle Rock just north of Bear Harbor, “which was the original wagon road on Mendocino County Road 431.” The trail may be there but it’s not marked on Mendocino County Road 431, aka the Usal Road. Cockburn had hoped to walk down to the ocean on the old trail but we couldn’t find its starting point. Its end point down below at the edge of the Pacific is marked, but it’s marked on a leaning, undersized post hidden away in the roadside brush.

A very nice man by the name of Bieber, who functions as a kind of docent at Bear Harbor, told me that “the purists” wanted not only to eliminate the restored old ranch house where he and his fellow docents live, they wanted all the other “unnatural” signs of man’s intervention erased from the Sinkyone.

Maybe the purists can begin the restoration process with a frontal attack on pampas grass, but between the malign neglect of government and the pampas grass marching north from Usal, better hike the Sinkyone while you can before it gets crowded.

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Saturday, August 10, 2024

ILEANA AMRULL, Ukiah. Trespassing, vandalism, resisting.

EVAN CASTER, Fort Bragg. Probation revocation.

VANESSA ELIZABETH, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs, probation violation. (Frequent flyer.)

JAYSON JOHNSTON, Fort Bragg. Under influence.

HEDILBERTO LOPEZ-AGUILAR, Ukiah. DUI with blood alcohol over 0.15%, third DUI withing ten years, misdemeanor hit&run.

DANILEA MARESH, Willits. Domestic battery.

LALUNA MARTIN, Point Arena. Controlled substance, suspended license, no insurance, assault weapon, failure to appear.

ISABELLA ORTEGA, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

KEITH PRUITT, Lakeport/Ukiah. Suspended license for DUI.

BRANDON RIVERA, Lakeport/Ukiah. DUI-alcohol&drugs, criminal threats, resisting.

DAVID WORTHY, Ukiah. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, probation revocation.

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I LOVE YOU

Just sitting in the air conditioned Royal Motel room in Ukiah, CA reading through the Anderson Valley Advertiser online edition. I have no idea whatsoever where I am going to go nor what I am going to do beyond my motel exit date of September 1st at 11 a.m. The steady stream of networking emails sent out over the past two years has resulted in no solid offers to show up anywhere and do anything. No housing offer has been received from anybody anywhere. There have been many responses saying that I am loved and welcome to show up and help. I have sufficient money to show up and help. And I also love everybody else.

Craig Louis Stehr

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ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Take heart! Good news regarding the ongoing “War on Drugs” Several of the Cartel heads, big drug lords all, have been captured, with other arrests pending. El Chapo was caught months ago, just recently El Mayo. It has been suggested that “El Ketchup”, “El Relish”, and “El Mustard” will be soon brought to justice! I’m getting sick of winning….

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JEFF GOLL WRITES:

Good issue on Saturday, but don't conflate 1930s Communism with the modern “March Through the Institutions” of Western societies and their abrupt change. Soros et al is not interested in worker's rights, unions or economic equality - in fact just the opposite. Richard Wolff is a modern socialist that actually gets it with honest conviction. When Trump refers to “Communism” he's bait-clicking the limbic fear of people who have been negatively affected by this insidious agenda. James Kunstler refers to this in today's issue as “ ‘Progressives’ looking to progressively destroy the entire armature of civilized life in order to create out of ashes a nirvana of sadomasochistic persecution and punishment - their Hieronymus Bosch Wokester utopia.” I define “Modern Progressive” as the Plutocracy, Deep-State, pawns and the elephant in the room that cannot be mentioned. Concerning the letter writer that wants "Corporations, Mega Rich Need to Pay More in Taxes" I would say yes, in principle to a Democratic Republic, they absolutely should. Even if they paid at the 21% rate, all those taxes amount to 17/70,000 or 0.000242% of the national debt. Most of that 35 Trillion dollar debt was created out of thin air and the $1 Trillion in interest payments every quarter of that debt majorly goes to the already wealthy so that horse left the barn for a while now.

In the latest news, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkin's Facebook account has been cancelled after posting that male boxers shouldn't fight women. “There's some perversion that's happened in our country in the last several years” — K Harris.

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MEXICO JUSTICE

When walking down the street in the states if I stuck my foot in a hole in the sidewalk I would nurse my broken ankle, sue the bastards, and settle for a couple hundred grand for my bills plus pain and suffering.

If I stepped in a hole here in Mexico they would laugh me out of court. “Didn’t you see the hole?” the judge would say. “You have two eyes, right? Maybe you need a new prescription for your glasses?”

If I were walking down the sidewalk in the states and a low-hanging piece of rebar put my eye out I would go to court, sue and settle for half a million dollars. Here in Mexico the judge would say. “What, you again? Didn’t you see that piece of rebar? Get outta here and watch where you’re going!”

You’re Mexico
you’re a bell ringer
you’re a goat dinner
you’re Mexico
a million TV antennas
you’re Mexico
a thousand right wing winners
you’re Mexico
a smiling nina sinner
yer Mexico!
A new years eve singer
yer Mexico
a turkey on the bus now
yer Mexico
a white cloud on the horizon
yer Mexico
two hundred unrepentant bus drivers
yer Mexico
need I say it again?
yer Mexico
five hundred bells are ringing
yer Mexico
the tables turned on justice
yer Mexico
a craven saint upon us

Moctezuma and Cortez
one day Cortez said to Moctezuma
hey Monty man, why don’t you
try some of this
and Moctezuma didn’t know
what Cortez had was some Peru snow
here old man, c’mon have a blow
just call me uncle Corty, Joe…
stand up on the pyramid
here comes the great white wonder
well, Moctezuma never saw
it snow in Mexico till
old Cortez came along
hey Monty man, come try this shit
and Monty man he took a sniff
and saw it snow in Mexico
that was the last thing he did
Cortez rolled him like a drunk at dawn
Monty’s mind just a snowy song

— Paul Modic

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BRUCE MCEWEN:

Johnny Horton – Ole Slew Foot

Pleas forward this song to sheriff Kendall and I recommend the Billy Stringd version

https://genius.com/Johnny-horton-ole-slew-foot-lyrics

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Willie Nelson - Come On Back Jesus

Willie sang this song to the crowd at the on Dylan and Willie Nelson show last week…

https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/willienelson/comeonbackjesus.html

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Elon Musk's desire for UK civil war shows urgent need for social media crackdown

https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/elon-musk-social-media-far-right-riots-violence-legislation-4736101

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MEMO OF THE AIR: Nagasaki day, August 9, 1945.

Here's the recording of last night's (Friday 2024-08-09) 8-hour Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio show on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg (CA) and KNYO.org (and, for the first hour, also 89.3fm KAKX Mendocino): https://tinyurl.com/KNYO-MOTA-0604

Coming shows can feature your story or dream or poem or essay or kvetch or whatever. Just email it to me. Or include it in a reply to this post. Or send me a link to your writing project and I'll take it from there and read it on the air. That's what I'm here for.

Besides all that, at https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com you'll find a fresh batch of dozens of links to worthwhile items I set aside for you while gathering the show together, such as:

The Mark on the Wall. The thoughtful young lady is pretty and delicate, so I particularly hate it that she’s smoking. I’ve been around awhile, and I’ve seen plenty of people like this get brittle, creaky, fragile, and /sound/ like they’re sixty or seventy by the time they’re only forty or fifty, because of smoking cigarets. I hate it. I mean, I like this story a lot, but don’t start smoking. Some people have no trouble stopping, but most people who manage to quit never stop wanting a cigaret and they just start again. They see someone smoking, or they smell smoke, or their fingers are nervous and lighting a cigaret flashes across their memory, and their permanently addicted brain goes, “Hey, yeah, that would be nice,” and it’s like in the play /The Underpants/ by Steve Martin, where the young woman is trying to talk herself out of cheating on her dull husband with the rich, exciting Count character who has fallen in love with her because the wind blew her skirts up once, out in the street, and he caught a glimpse of her behind, and her jaded older friend from upstairs, played by Ruby Bell in the 2006 Mendocino Theater Company production, says archly, ruefully, deliciously, from experience, “It’s too late, dear, you’re already thinking about it.” https://theawesomer.com/the-mark-on-the-wall-short-film/747209/

A black-eyed tree frog being awoken from his slumber. Those lips, those eyes. Lid-to-lid and side-to-side all-black eyes like that have always fascinated me. When I was a little boy I dreamed about people like that, and sometimes you see people like that in a movie or teevee show, and they’re always evil demons but why? I find it attractive. Very soon you’ll be able to buy costume light-powered soft hemispheric video screens that fit over your eyes and play anything. Fire, say, so it looks like your eyes are windows to the fire inside. A teenage boy can switch them on and say to a girl who he wants to impress, “My people are made of fire.” And she’ll be like /swoon/. (Or she’ll turn /her/ eyes on and they’ll play Coyote and Roadrunner cartoons or something. Or teevee static. Teevee static eyes!) But simple all-black would work fine. And you can just take them out when you’re finished, not like those lunatics who inject dye into their own precious eyes and end up blinding themselves; that’s even worse than cigarets. https://boingboing.net/2024/08/05/see-the-freaky-and-cool-way-that-a-black-eyed-tree-frogs-eyes-wake-up-from-a-nap.html

And in the future people like this will be passed directly to the front of the line for space fighter pilot training. Or their brains will be directly connected to control multiple combat ships, reading and feeling all their conditions and changing vectors and acceleration, and to them it’ll feel like running and dancing and diving off cliffs into rushing water, all at once. https://nagonthelake.blogspot.com/2024/08/greatness.html

Marco McClean, memo@mcn.org, https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com

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CALIFORNIA WILL TEACH STUDENTS PERSONAL FINANCE. HERE’S WHAT I HOPE THEY LEARN

by Jessica Roy

I think personal finance is a topic everyone cares about, but most people feel like they don’t know enough about. I can’t help you pick stocks or become a millionaire overnight. But I want you to come away from my column feeling a little more confident when it comes to managing your money.

Personal finance matters to everyone who’s got bills to pay. That’s why I cheered when I read that California is going to mandate personal finance education for high school students, starting with the class of 2031.

When you don’t know how to manage money, you start adult life on your back foot. A recent survey from financial website Credit Sesame found that people who learned about personal finance in school were roughly twice as likely to reach a high-income household (defined as making over $75,000 a year) compared with people who didn’t, and that 85% of people who had received some financial education in school had a good or better credit score. Findings from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s 2021 survey indicated people with more financial literacy were more likely to be able to make ends meet.

I spoke to Jessica Endlich, a former high school principal and co-founder of Next Gen Personal Finance, a nonprofit that advocates personal finance education in high schools and developed its own free lessons for educators to use. I asked how students respond to learning about managing money.

“Students love this course,” she said. And the lessons extend beyond the classroom: “We found that high school students are so motivated to learn the material and so excited to learn it that they share it with their parents, their grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins,” she said. “It becomes a talking point around the dinner table.”

The state’s Instructional Quality Commission has until May 2026 to establish exactly what the syllabus will include. The text of AB2927 includes some broad strokes about what should be covered, including the fundamentals of banking, investing, loans and insurance.

I think those are a great start. Here are six lessons I’d love to see in the final version.

A lot of people look at budgets the wrong way. They think of them like crash diets: If I go on one, I have to do the financial equivalent of living off kale and plain water forever.

But a budget isn’t a limitation — it’s just a plan. In fact, it’s freedom to know exactly how much you can spend on fun stuff. It’s freedom to be out of debt. It’s freedom to know if you can afford to accept that new job, if you can afford to live in your dream city, if you can go on that once-in-a-lifetime trip without spending the rest of your 20s eating ramen.

It’s not a mandate to clip coupons forever, and it doesn’t mean you never get to have fun again. You just have to decide your own priorities and figure out how to pay for them. That’s all! Not so scary.

Have an emergency fund — any emergency fund

When I was first finding my footing in the personal finance world, I read that an emergency fund had to be three to six months of expenses. That seemed like an astronomical amount — not even worth trying to save up for. But in reality, saving anything is better than saving nothing. Most emergencies won’t necessitate the equivalent of six months of living expenses. If you have $400 in the bank for a rainy day — which plenty of Americans don’t — you can afford a brake job, a last-minute plane ticket, or a tank of gas and a hotel room. Plenty of emergency scenarios are within your grasp.

How To Spot A Scam

That person who accidentally sent you $500 on Venmo? That text from a friend of a friend telling you how they made thousands investing in crypto? That too-good-to-be-true remote job offer?

Scam. Scam. Scam.

The stereotype of scam victims is an elderly person accidentally giving away their bank password over the phone. In reality, Gen Z falls for scams more often than Boomers do. Because younger people live more of their lives online, there are more avenues for scammers to reach them. It’s costing money and sometimes lives: Some teenage victims of sextortion and blackmail have died by suicide.

How To Win At Credit Cards

Let’s say a once-in-a-lifetime travel opportunity comes up and you don’t have the cash to pay for it. If you put it on a credit card with a 23% APR and only pay the minimums, how long will you be paying it off, and how much will you end up paying?

Credit cards, especially ones with slick rewards programs and low introductory rates, are designed to make you go into debt. If you’re thinking “it’s fine that I carry a balance on my credit card every month because I use my points to pay for plane tickets” — that’s exactly what the credit card companies want you to think. They wouldn’t offer those goodies if they lost money on them.

So yes, take advantage of the protections of credit cards and the benefits of rewards programs. Then pay the balance in full every month. Never spend money you don’t have in your bank account.

How To Make A Meal Plan

Food is going to be one of the biggest categories in your budget. Learning to cook basics is a life skill many enter adulthood lacking, to their immense personal and financial detriment. In an ideal world, parents would give their kids hands-on lessons in the kitchen starting in childhood — my 2-year-old helps me rinse vegetables — but in the real world, not everyone gets that.

I’ve seen people argue that it’s cheaper to get food delivery than to buy groceries and cook, an astonishingly incorrect take. A $40 air fryer and a $7 bag of frozen dumplings is within the financial grasp of anyone who’s ever ordered a private taxi to deliver their burrito.

Meal planning, like budgeting, sounds like a punishment but isn’t. Like a budget, it’s just a plan. A lesson on how to put together a basic meal plan for a week — searching for recipes, using up ingredients, finding deals and coupons at the grocery store — along with a quick rundown of cheap and healthy meals would set students on the right track for their future. Plus, they could start helping cook dinner at home that same night.

(SF Chronicle)

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49ERS FALL TO TITANS 17-13 IN PRESEASON OPENER MADE MEMORABLE BY ONE HELLACIOUS HIT

by Eric Branch

NASHVILLE – It’s not easy to make an indelible play in a meaningless game, but Malik Mustapha did just that Saturday night.

In the second quarter of the San Francisco 49ers’ preseason opener – a 17-13 loss to the Titans – the rookie safety woke up drowsy viewers by nearly depositing running back Hassan Haskins in the Cumberland River.

On 4th and 1 from the 49ers’ 2-yard line, the muscle-bound fourth-round pick sprinted through a hole on the left side of Tennessee's line, planted Haskins at the 4-yard line and celebrated by flexing as he nearly sprinted all the way to midfield.

The shot shed light on why the undersized Mustapha (5-foot-10, 206 pounds) was known as the “Nigerian Missile” at Wake Forest. And it also explained why safety George Odum, a seven-year veteran, spent part of a recent evening admiring the kid’s college collisions.

“He’s a hitter,” Odum said last week. “Go watch his (college) highlights. I watched them last night.”

Mustapha’s first submission for his NFL highlight reel was the biggest highlight in an exhibition game in which the 49ers played just three starters and head coach Kyle Shanahan gave play-calling duties to offensive assistant Klay Kubiak.

The 49ers opened with an 11-play, 74-yard scoring drive led by running back Jordan Mason, who grew up in nearby Gallatin, Tenn. Mason had 34 yards on six carries on his lone drive, which he capped off with a pile-driving, 4-yard touchdown run. Quarterback Brandon Allen, competing with Josh Dobbs for the backup role behind Brock Purdy, completed 3 of 5 passes for 45 yards.

It was the start of a strong performance by Allen, who routinely fired over-the-middle strikes en route to completing 7 of 13 passes for 98 yards. Dobbs completed 14 of his 19 passes for 146 yards and threw an interception on a Hail Mary on the game’s final play. Dobbs also had a 6-yard scoring run.

The 49ers’ special teams, which had costly gaffes in their overtime loss in Super Bowl LVIII in February, picked up where it left off, albeit with a crew of backups.

The 49ers quickly made it clear they need some more work on the NFL’s new kickoff by allowing a 63-yard return to wide receiver Kearis Jackson on their first try, setting up a 15-yard touchdown drive. Their first punt didn’t go much better; with just-signed punter Pressley Harvin filling in for Mitch Wishnowsky (knee), the 49ers allowed a 26-yard return to wideout Jha’Quan Jackson, setting the stage for a 64-yard touchdown drive.

But Mustapha, who has worked with the second-string defense throughout training camp, ensured the Titans wouldn’t open by scoring touchdowns on three straight possessions with his hit on Haskins.

The wallop undoubtedly earned the approval of general manager John Lynch, a hellacious-hitting Hall of Fame safety who noted after Mustapha was drafted that he often arrived at ball carriers with “bad intentions.”

Lynch has also termed Mustapha an “Adonis” and director of player personnel Tariq Ahmad has also marveled at his fire-hydrant built.

“He is solid,” Ahmad said. “My goodness.”

Of course, Mustapha isn’t a finished product. He was also badly beaten in coverage in the first half on an errant deep pass that fell incomplete. Still, his memorable shot in a meaningless game explained the optimism about his future.

“I feel like he’s a young talent right now,” Odum said. “He’s still got a little room to grow. But he’s going to be amazing for us.”

Notes: Safety Ji’Ayir Brown, right tackle Colton McKivitz and left guard Aaron Banks were the only 49ers starters who played against the Titans. … Cornerback Ambry Thomas suffered a forearm injury in the second quarter and did not return.

(SF Chronicle)

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FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH

There's something happening here
But what it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware

I think it's time we stop
Children, what's that sound?
Everybody look - what's going down?

There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking' their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind

It's time we stop
Hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look - what's going down?

What a field day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly saying, "hooray for our side"

It's time we stop
Hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look - what's going down?

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
Step out of line, the man come and take you away

We better stop
Children, what's that sound?
Everybody look - what's going down?

— Stephen Stills (Buffalo Springfield)

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TRUMP, BY THE NUMBERS

by Maureen Dowd

As long as I’ve covered Republican campaigns, there has been racial fearmongering: Dark-skinned people are coming to hurt you. Be very afraid.

With Reagan, it was “welfare queens” glomming onto tax-free cash income.

With George H.W. Bush, it was Willie Horton. Liberals would give more criminals like Horton furloughs, so they could break into your house and rape your girlfriend.

With George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, it was Arab terrorists. Democrats would let them invade America and kill us.

With Donald Trump, it was migrants swarming over the border from Central and South America with the intent to rape and kill, as well as the racist “birther” conspiracy about “Barack HUSSEIN Obama.”

Trump, who adopted his father’s view that some bloodlines are “superior” to others, has slipped into the usual Republican race-baiting by purposely fumbling Kamala Harris’s name, mispronouncing it different ways and christening her “Kamabla.”

Speaking to a group of Black journalists recently, Trump stunningly questioned Harris’s racial identity, saying, “She was always of Indian heritage,” and adding, “I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black.”

Turn Black? What does that even mean? Trump is a blend of Scottish and German, and no one says he “turned” German, even when he obsesses over bloodlines.

He is clearly befuddled by someone with brown skin who has come not to hurt Americans, but to save them from Donald Trump; someone who is not scary, as he is, but joyful, not threatening but thrilling.

And, in Trump’s worst nightmare, this dark-skinned someone is attracting huge adoring, dancing, laughing crowds.

From the first time I went on an exploratory political trip with Trump in 1999, he has measured his worth in numbers. His is not an examined life but a quantified life.

When I asked him why he thought he could run for president, he cited his ratings on “Larry King Live.” He was at his most animated reeling off his ratings, like Faye Dunaway in “Network,” orgasmically reciting how well her shows were doing.

He pronounced himself better than other candidates because of numbers: the number of men who desired his then-girlfriend, Melania Knauss; the number of zoning changes he had maneuvered to get; the number of stories he stacked on his building near the U.N.; the number of times he was mentioned in a Palm Beach newspaper.

By his mode of valuation, if his numbers aren’t better than his rivals’, he’s worthless.

That’s why Trump is always obsessing on his crowd numbers and accusing the press of lowballing head counts.

And that’s why he couldn’t admit he lost the election. If Joe Biden put more numbers on the board, Trump was worthless. The master huckster’s whole identity revolves around having higher numbers, even if they’re fake. (He always pretended his skyscrapers had more stories than they did.)

So, of course, seeing Kamala’s crowds and soaring polls drives him nuts.

When The Times’s Maggie Haberman asked Trump, at his news conference on Thursday, whether, given the riot on Jan. 6, he felt that there had been a peaceful transfer of power, Trump bizarrely veered off, averring that his speech that day on the Mall drew more people than Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

Trump was like a blender going at full speed with the top off, goop splattering everywhere. He told a story about almost crashing in a helicopter with Willie Brown, who, according to Trump, said “terrible things” about Kamala, his onetime protégé. Brown said that he was never on such a helicopter ride. Also, the ebullient Brown happens to really like his former inamorata, Harris; he has told people that she is “a special lady” and that, for a few years, in the period after he was elected mayor of San Francisco, they had wonderful times in Hollywood and Paris. Brown said Donald Trump did send his plane to bring them to New York to get Brown’s advice on a Los Angeles real estate deal. Trump was still “fun” then, Brown said, and Trump contributed to Harris’s attorney general campaign.

Just as when Trump claimed Trump Tower had New York’s “best” rolls, everything is about the best and the worst. “Tim Walz will unleash hell on Earth!” he pronounced in a Manichaean fund-raising email, painting as Lucifer a guy who, as David Axelrod put it, evokes Norman Rockwell.

A panicked Trump has been attacking Kamala as dumb. Whatever else you want to say about Harris, she is not dumb. Navigating tricky terrain, she has had one of the smartest takeoffs in political history. She looks comfortable and confident. He looks uncomfortable and rattled.

The gold-plated nepo-baby seethes at having to face Harris, whining that Democrats’ hot swap was “unconstitutional.”

So he finally cares about the Constitution?

(NY Times)

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TAIBBI & KIRN

Walter Kirn: Now that we’re getting a little closer to the election and we’re attempting to raise our credibility as commentators, I will be holding a pen in many of the shots. Every once in a while, you’ll see me look to the side as though I’m jotting notes, and I may be, or I may be making happy faces, but this pen is my new ticket to authority.

Matt Taibbi: Yeah, this is your affectation?

Walter Kirn: Yeah. Can you match it in any way?

Matt Taibbi: I absolutely can. So I’ve been watching MSNBC. And in keeping with our newfound dedication to the broadcasting arts, I’m going to be doing what’s known affectionately in the business as the paper tap, which is like that.

Walter Kirn: Right.

Matt Taibbi: So when I do that, I may actually be straightening my papers or I may be pausing to try to collect my thoughts or figure out what it was that I meant to say. It could be one or the other, but-

Walter Kirn: Do your papers have anything written on them, or are they just-

Matt Taibbi: In my case, they do, but a little known fact is that they often don’t have anything on them at all. I’ve actually seen an anchor who doodled cartoon penises during the show on blank pieces of paper and sat there going like this the whole time. But I actually have things on my paper, so-

Walter Kirn: Well, I have a coffee cup and I have a pen, and that’s going to be enough for me.

Matt Taibbi: Excellent. Excellent. Well, we need them. We need our professionalism. We need all of it this week because boy, things are accelerating again. We had a couple of maybe slow weeks, I guess, this year, but this sure as hell isn’t one of them. In addition to the story that came out in Racket about Tulsi Gabbard, which we’ve already talked about, we’ll talk about a little bit later if we have time, and some other things that came out online. The England story is exploding. All these things are all part of a piece, I think because they’re all connected to the general theme of using police surveillance and censorship as a club to keep the population in line. And we should just probably introduce people to the overall plot of what’s going on in England first. So if we could just look at… I think it’s 10 on our list. It’s just sort of a summation of some of the disturbances over the weekend.

Speaker 1: Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who’s been in office just a month, has promised to crack down on groups of what he called right wing thugs who’ve ignited a week of racist anti-immigrant riots in towns and cities across England. Nearly 400 people have been arrested in the past few days, and more arrests are expected. From England, Special Correspondent Malcolm Brabant reports.

Speaker 3: These are just some of the social media videos. The detectives are trawling through to identify and prosecute perpetrators participating in and stoking Britain’s worst riots since 2011.

Speaker 4: They’re in there.

Speaker 3: After days of unrest, the crisis deteriorated over the weekend when a mob attacked a hotel housing asylum seekers in the northern city of Rotherham. The government minister responsible for law and order is Home Secretary Yvette Cooper.

Speaker 2: It’s a total disgrace and there has to be a reckoning. Those individuals who are involved in the disorder need to know that they will pay a price.

Matt Taibbi: All right, we can stop that. So Yvette Cooper is actually an important person in the story, because among other things, she is a person, who at the beginning of this crisis, said that social media platforms have to be held accountable. But I guess Walter, we have to go back to the beginning and kind of recount how all this started. So you get the idea that there are disturbances across England. Even as we’re recording, they were just halted apparently.

Walter Kirn: I don’t know what that means. How do you halt them simultaneously?

Matt Taibbi: I don’t know. I’m assuming they’re probably going to break out again. Perhaps maybe not. So to give the briefest possible summary, last Monday, not this past Monday, but the one before, there was a horrific incident in which a 17-year-old British-born person who was the child of Rwandan immigrants attacked essentially a dance studio and killed three little girls, injured more. This triggered widespread anti-immigrant sentiment. There were some misleading posts online suggesting that this person had come in on a boat or was somehow an undocumented immigrant. And then there were, the next day in Southport England, which is a little town just north of Liverpool, the first of many very serious riots began, and this led to a press conference, which we’ll get to in a minute, where the new prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, promised basically to crack the whip, and then some against the counter protesters.

And we can get into what he said exactly, but this has continued through to the present. They have begun rolling out some old laws that have been on the books for a while that prohibit certain kinds of speech. Just yesterday, we’re recording on Thursday, this is the eighth, on the seventh, they were broadcasts by public officials talking about how they will use… They have police scouring the internet, not just for evidence that you participated in a riot, but for things that you might’ve said online. And we’ll show that in a second. But first of all, Walter, how did you hear about the story? And what did you think about it at first?

Walter Kirn: Well, I first heard about the crime, the murder of the girls. And the instant I heard about it, I also heard the rumors that the perpetrator was an immigrant of some sort. I think I suspected immediately that there would be unrest as the result of this, and it came pretty quickly. Now, it’s hard to imagine that there wouldn’t be, in some ways. The murder of children at a dance contest, especially little girls, is the stuff of rioting. And as I’ve watched it unfold, it’s become clear that on all sides, it’s now a political football, right? Is it right wing rioting? I’m not really fit to judge. Is it people fed up with crime or what they perceive as a relationship between immigration and crime? And is that necessarily right wing? I’m not fit to judge. I will say that having lived in England, I lived there for a few years in the 80s, I’m not surprised by the draconian nature of these information efforts.

There were still troubles with Northern Ireland going on when I lived there. And I had a friend at Oxford University who was a Irish kid who used to go play guitar at a pub where Irish people gathered, and he’d sort of sing songs of Irish national content. And one time he disappeared for a few days and came back. His name was Mick. And I said, “Mick, where are you been?” He said, “They picked me up, man, on my way home, and they took me, put me in jail, questioned me.”

Matt Taibbi: Wow.

Walter Kirn: And there were were those kinds of laws on the books and those practices already instituted. So England not having the civil rights provisions that we have and traditions, they go pretty far pretty fast. And this notion that now they’re going to please social media, not just to see if you were throwing a brick through a window, but to find out if the sentiments that you are espousing are somehow a problem isn’t completely surprising.

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