Mendocino County Today: Thursday 8/15/2024

By AVA News Service on August 15, 2024

AN UPPER LEVEL TROUGH will continue to bring below normal temperatures to the inland areas through the weekend. There is a chance for rain, mainly in Humboldt and Del Norte counties, on Saturday. Next week temperatures are expected to start to return to normal. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): It's hard to have "mostly sunny" skies with all the fog on the coast. The fog does appear to have broken up offshore though? I have a foggy & warm 56F this Thursday morning on the coast. Our forecast remains for mostly sunny into tomorrow then we have a chance of rain on Saturday. No really.

JOHN LONGDON KNOEBBER

1953 - 2024

To Those Who Love Travel, Adventure, Food And Life

John Knoebber spent his childhood in Florida, one of five children, Steve, Roger, Susan, Sarah and John. At the tender age of 17, he joined Roger’s family in their homemade camper and drove across the country to arrive in Mendocino. His life would take many twists and turns as he traveled the world, but he was to call Mendocino home for much of his life.

John had an enduring love of creating and making things, especially art. As a young newly arrived transplant to Mendocino, he started a leather making shop with a partner. When this endeavor became stressed, John gave the shop's tools and inventory to his partner and moved on. He followed this pattern of moving on as he moved through life.

He became involved with the mosaic artist, Larry Fuente, and they worked together on many remarkable pieces through the decades. During the best of times, they worked and lived together. Their lives ended within days of each other. And Larry’s ashes will join John in the deep sea burial.

John worked and traveled the world with award winning photographer Louie Psihoyos between 1994 and 1999. They created articles for National Geographic, a coffee table book - Hunting for Dinosaurs - and contributed to Material World among other works.

John loved to sail, and he sailed his vessel away to Zihuatanejo looking for some heat to sooth his aching body. He met and fell in love with Ivette Servin and together they created their son Patricio, born in 2002.

In Mexico, as usual, John became involved with building houses. He created an oceanfront community and built several houses for investors and himself. His presence was the impetus for a caravan of people to come down to experience and invest in property around Barra de Potosí. He spent several years enjoying his young son and partner there on the beach.

When it was time to move on, he returned to Mendocino and took up work and residence again with Larry Fuente, until the catastrophic electrical fire that burned down the art collection of a lifetime, the buildings and worst of all, John was badly burned and barely escaped with his life. He was helicoptered to a trauma center.

When he was released, his longtime friend and nephew Cosmo Knoebber invited him home. They built a modest little dwelling suitable for an invalid. There John lived out his remaining years as a valued member of Cosmo’s tribe.

A NEW FACE ON FORT BRAGG HIGH SCHOOL CAMPUS!

School Resource Officer Beak also had his 1st Day of School!

SRO Beak will have an office at Fort Bragg High School, but you will find him on all Fort Bragg Unified School District's Schools!

Fort Bragg Police Department is excited to be joining Fort Bragg Unified School District this year!

COMMUNITY RALLIES FOR ABANDONED REDWOOD VALLEY SCHOOL TO BECOME A COMMUNITY CENTER

by Monica Huettl

A large crowd attended the August 8 Ukiah Unified School District Board meeting to show enthusiastic support for the idea of turning the abandoned Redwood Valley School into the Redwood Valley Recreation Center. First District Supervisor-elect Madeline Cline and other community leaders were in the audience.…

mendofever.com/2024/08/15/community-rallies-for-abandoned-redwood-valley-school-to-become-a-community-center/

AV ATHLETICS:

When the Sierra Nevada Festival was canceled, our Anderson Valley Sports Boosters lost a major source of funding for the upcoming season. This setback has put our sports programs in a tough spot, and we need your help to ensure our students have the equipment they need to play their best this fall.

Our kids work hard both on the field and in the classroom, and your donations can make a huge difference in their athletic experience. Every contribution helps our student-athletes reach their full potential and represent our community with pride.

Let’s come together to support our Panthers! Please consider donating today to help our students succeed this season.

You can Venmo our Booster club @AV_Boosters

Thank You AV!

PANTHERS PAD UP!

SCOTT PRATT:

Hello Anderson Valley friends and neighbors. I wanted to let you know in the next couple of days we will be shooting with a .22 a bit of here at our place above Indian Creek. I know it’s a bit of a nuisance sometimes so we’re gonna keep it to a minimum but, we’re on a rat killing spree right now! We got inundated and this seems to be the only thing that works right now. Sorry for the racket!

THE QUALIFYING ROUNDS (aka “elimination trials”) for the annual sheep dog trials are scheduled for this Saturday, August 17, at 9am to 2pm at the Boonville Fairgrounds.

Around 30 or 40 dogs and their handlers are expected to participate. The top eight dogs will be invited to compete for ribbons and awards at the Fair on Sunday, September 15. The popular event is free.

CITY OF UKIAH CELEBRATES NEAR COMPLETION OF TWO MAJOR PROJECTS; NOTIFIES COMMUNITY OF CONTINUED IMPACTS ON GOBBI STREET DUE TO CONSTRUCTION

The City of Ukiah has tackled some massive infrastructure projects in the last year. This work has been tremendously impactful-both from a traffic circulation perspective and from a community benefit perspective. In fact, these have literally been once-in-a-lifetime projects, building and replacing infrastructure that has either been or will be in the ground for 100 years. City Staff are grateful for the community's continued patience throughout these projects.

Phase 2 of the Downtown Streetscape Project is nearly finished, having transformed the main artery of the downtown core from an abandoned highway to a vibrant, walkable neighborhood. This project was paid for through a combination of grant, utility, and Measure Y funds.

Also, the distribution system of the Recycled Water Project is done, marking a significant milestone in the nearly-complete fourth phase of this momentous project. Once complete, the project will supply recycled water to Vinewood Park, Frank Zeek School, Pomolita School, soccer fields, Ukiah High School, the Ukiah Cemetery, Anton Stadium, Giorno Park, Todd Grove Park, and the Ukiah Valley Golf Course. This project was made possible with a grant of nearly $54 million from the State Water Board. With the completion of that part of the project, part of Low Gap Road was also repaved.

One major project continues-the Urban Core Rehabilitation and Transportation Project (UCRT), which consists of major street reconstruction and utility replacement on Main, Gobbi, and Perkins Streets. This project, also largely grant funded, will continue through roughly the summer of 2025.

Work began on Main Street early this construction season with the replacement of water lines. Once school let out for summer break, crews moved over to West Gobbi to replace sewer and water lines. As frustrating as it is to have work left undone (on Main Street), it was imperative to get the majority of the work on West Gobbi done before school starts, so as to avoid conflicts with school bus routes and children walking to school. Work will continue in this area through the fall with sidewalk reconstruction, ADA ramps, and street reconstruction.

Beginning later this week, utility work will begin on East Gobbi starting at Orchard and moving west to State Street. East Gobbi will have one lane closures on blocks with active construction; in those areas, traffic will be allowed westbound only. Residents, emergency, and delivery vehicles will be provided access at all times. Alternative routes are encouraged for through traffic during construction hours; it is anticipated that East Gobbi will be reopened to two-way traffic at the end of each workday.

Current plans are that, once the work on Gobbi is complete, crews will return to Main Street, where they will replace the water mains and laterals, construct sidewalks, curbs and gutters, and finally, reconstruct the street surface. The hope is that, weather providing, all of this can be done before winter sets in and it is too wet to work.

The final part of this project, Perkins Street (addition of storm drains and repaving) will not likely occur until 2025. Additional information about this project can be found on the City of Ukiah's website at cityofukiah/ucrt. From the same page, people can sign up for emailed construction updates.

With some traffic signals still "on flash" and school starting next week, the City urges community members to be extra vigilant while driving and to allow a few extra minutes during commute times.

Construction days/hours are Monday - Friday 7AM - 5PM.

*Eucomis punctata*, Pineapple Lily (Falcon)

CRAFT FAIRE AT CROWN HALL in Mendocino - Food and drinks too

Friday Aug 16th, Saturday Aug 17th, Sunday Aug 18th. 10am – 5pm

West end of Ukiah St.

Questions? Call Kevin Silva (707) 961-7004

GREAT DAY IN ELK

The 48th annual Great Day in Elk will be held on Saturday, August 24, from noon until dusk, a benefit for the Greenwood Community Center.

The noontime parade will travel through downtown Elk to the community center for the day's festivities. All afternoon there will be games and contests with prizes, do-it-yourself crafts projects for children, plus a greased pole with a $100 bill at the top.

This year's live entertainment features music by Mama Grows Funk. There will also be a silent auction, a cake auction and a raffle. Food and drinks will be served all afternoon, with a Greek dinner from 4 to 7.

The little coastal village of Elk is located five miles south of Highway 128 on Highway 1. For more information email Mea Bloyd at meabloyd@gmail.com or visit the Elk community website: www.elkweb.org. Please leave dogs at home.

YORKVILLE ICE CREAM SOCIAL!

This Labor Day Monday (September 2nd), the Yorkville Community Benefits Association will hold our 34th Ice Cream Social. We have collected a ton of books for the awesome Book Sale, we will be sellin’ books by the inch. And, we’ll be grilling burgers and dogs, serving up classic homemade salads. We have a fantastic new addition of street tacos, made to order. The kiddos can play and learn cool stuff at the Galbreath Preserve booth. The Silent Auction is already starting to look amazing. It wouldn’t be an Ice Cream Social without the main event- Ice Cream! Root beer floats and delicious cookies, pies and baked goods will round out your fabulous day! Come socialize, meet new friends and neighbors, and enjoy the fabulous community that is Yorkville. Of course, there will be fire engines and hoses to keep us all cool. All proceeds benefit the Yorkville volunteer fire station.

The whole community comes together to help put this event on, and we have many ways for you to get involved. From volunteering for a shift, to baking a luscious cake, or fabulous salad, from hosting a cool and creative event for the Silent Auction, to making a piece of art, we welcome your contributions. Please contact Lisa Bauer for any Silent Auction donations, and Val Hanelt for volunteering and/or food donations.

Please join us on September 2, from 11:00-4:00 at the Yorkville Fire Station/Post Office/Community Center. 25400 Hwy 128, Yorkville CA 95494. Bring the whole family for the Ice Cream and community fun! And remember, all this fun benefits your local volunteer firefighters1

If you’d like to donate or volunteer-

We are looking for unique and creative Silent Auction items. Contact Lisa theYCBA@gmail.com

Baked Goods for the Bake Sale and one-of-a-kind cakes for the Cake Walk. Contact Frosty news@theYCBA.com

If you have books for the Book Sale you may drop them in the box at the Post Office or contact Valerie news@theYCBA.com

And, we really need you to volunteer, it is a great way to meet the neighbors. Contact Valerie news@theYCBA.com

MCFADDEN FAMILY VINEYARD AND FARM - an iconic Mendocino County organic farming operation since 1970 is on the market.

Fine wines, great herbs, and the popular bay leaf wreaths, garlands and swags that sell out over the holidays.

(Mike Geniella)

THE COST OF THE RIDICULOUS, UGLY NEW COURTHOUSE is now estimated at $150 million for seven courtrooms and associated offices.

For comparison, one of the largest County construction projects, the gold-plated 16-bed, construction Psychiatric Health Facility on Whitmore Lane to extremely strict hospital and seismic specifications was recently bid at less than $13 million.

The gold-plated new high security, high-tech jail wing is now expected to come in at around $40 million — after several cost estimate increases.

How could the new courthouse possibly cost $150 million? That’s an average of over $21 million per courtroom (some of which is for the auxilliary offices like the jury assembly room, collections, clerks, etc.) And that doesn’t even include the land. What in the hell kind of palace are they building for themselves?

(Mark Scaramella)

ABERRANT DESIGN

AVA,

Courthouses are a reflection of the times and place they're situated. Ukiah building a dystopian cage and bar-code “you are guilty until proven innocent” structure for $200 million without providing facilities for all the county offices shows at least one form of manipulation. Previously, judges had their clubs outside of the courthouse, now it has to be in them too. The design of that courthouse is of a mentality that's distinct from older architecture and even of new ones, such as the below picture of the Mobile, Alabama courthouse shows. Ask anyone (who doesn't profit from it) which courthouse they would like to have in their city and I believe most, like myself, would pick the Mobile one. But citizens are spectators in the stands now.

Jeff Goll

Willits

ON LINE COMMENTS re new County Courthouse:

[1] We already have the Palace Hotel and the former Post Office anchoring downtown decay. A chainlink fence around the next corpse is all that is needed. But State Street is looking fresh and new.

[2] This courthouse design is in line with today’s judicial branch. It looks like a manufacturing plant, which it is. The barcode on the outside is symbolic of the product that the entire prison industry operates on. Which is us the citizens. We become the product after being processed through the well oiled machine backed by politicians and shareholders. I could not design a more appropriate building myself, it is absolutely genius.

[3] It’s kind of funny, the front looks like giant jail cell. What happened to beautiful Greek Roman or European beauties with style that would make downtown look better? So streets are worth beautification with old style lampost and huge sidewalks, but a courthouse is not worth making a $150 million gorgeous Ukiah building statement that will look amazing with the smalltown esthetic? Ever been to Philadelphia or Washington DC? I understand we are limited on costs. But there are some amazing smalltown era building style courthouse. This town’s building ideas are so contradictory and inconsistent in style. Can’t decide what era they want town to look like?

HAVING A BEER WITH KALI YUGI

Awoke late at the Royal Motel following a mellow evening at The Forest Club, and later enjoyed the steak and a specialty beer at The Ukiah Brewing Company. This was necessary to continue living in this abominable Kali Yuga, with all of the uncertainty and daily news reports of craziness everywhere. I am available for anything spiritually based on the planet earth. I require housing and will not demand money because apparently nobody has any surplus money anymore. However, I am able to leave the motel on the exit date of September 1st at 11 a.m. and go elsewhere, and be involved productively. Peace and justice and radical environmentalism remain a primary interest. Also “writing down the bones”. If this is not possible in America, I am willing to relocate. I will only continue sending out networking messages while continuing to occupy this body-mind complex. I promise to stop after I have left this world.

Craig Louis Stehr, craiglouisstehr@gmail.com

POOP & NEEDLES

by Adam Gaska

Growing up in Ukiah/Redwood Valley during the 80’s, there were always a handful of street people. They were mostly benign and often had quite colorful personalities. Occasionally they met tragic outcomes, such as was the case with Marvin Noble being shot by Ukiah Police Department in 1998 or Larry Long AKA “Elvis” who was robbed, assaulted, then murdered by being thrown off the Talmage bridge in 1996. Neither of these men were homeless.

Today, Mendocino County is experiencing an epidemic of homelessness intertwined with drug addiction and mental illness at an unprecedented scale that is seemingly increasing. The effects of this is tragic on a personal level with Mendocino County’s per capita rate of suicide, OD deaths and hospitalizations being much higher than the state average. It’s becoming painfully obvious that the effects are spreading throughout the community in the form of people camping in public and private spaces; burglaries/robberies/petty theft affecting persons, homes and businesses are increasing; areas becoming blighted with drug paraphernalia, trash, and human excrement. I have passed people on Perkins Street being attended to by medical personnel because they are suffering a drug overdose while I was taking my children to school. I have walked local creeks finding them littered with used hypodermic needles, human excrement and people openly abusing drugs. I have broken up and cleaned up multiple encampments from property I manage and it has become often enough that it is now a normal part of my job. As a volunteer firefighter, I have responded to overdoses, administered Narcan, performed CPR and sometimes covered the victim with a blanket after failing to revive them. We, as a community, have become too tolerant and accustomed to the situation. We have become so accepting of it that when people openly complain about the situation, they are often attacked for lacking compassion. Many of these things, such as our creeks being littered with excrement and needles, cannot and should not be tolerated. They should be seen as a crisis. We should be responding to and intervene in the emergency that it is.

There are times in a person’s life where they suffer a tragedy or event that makes it hard, if not impossible, to care for themselves. As a result of these traumas, which are often out of our control, people fall victim to drug addiction, mental illness, or both. That renders them unable to properly care for themselves and they resort to self harm. As a kind, compassionate community, we are morally obligated to help them return to a place where they can care for themselves or we must care for them. This moral obligation does not mean we should accept actions and behaviors that expand beyond self harm into harming other people, the community or the environment. When someone acts in a way that harms others or the community at large, there should be consequences regardless of it being intentional or not. Allowing the har to continue is not humane nor compassionate. Help in the form of therapy and substance abuse treatment should be offered to those willing and able to accept it. Those not willing or able to accept help should be involuntarily institutionalized. The form of institutionalization should be appropriate, used as sparingly as possible. Institutionalization comes in many forms from a 72 hour psychiatric hold at a PHF unit, being incarcerated in jail, or being committed to a mental health facility.

Currently, the efforts to combat the homelessness crisis are not enough and it’s not from lack of funding. Looking at the County budget, Mendocino County alone is throwing tens of millions of dollars a year at the problem. The state of California has spent around $24 billion to combat homelessness since 2019. The system we have has evolved into an industry that has an vested interest in maintaining the status quo to the point where we should be questioning if the funding is efficiently supporting successful programs that are achieving measurable results or, are we caught in a loop of repeatedly funding ineffectual programs. Homelessness is on the rise in the state and has reached such a level that some areas, such as San Francisco, are bussing their unhoused to other communities. This isn’t solving the problem, this is just shifting the burden to other communities. Instead of shifting the problem and blame, the issue must be confronted. Our community cannot accommodate or afford to deal with the problem we have now, much less handle more. We must set a limit of what we can handle and enforce that boundary. It is time we put up the proverbial “no vacancy” sign, assess our homeless population and prioritize those who have a connection here. Those that do not meet whatever criteria we have set, need to be sent elsewhere.

In the development of such a criteria, I believe we should prioritize those that are willing and able to be helped. There is a limited capacity of services available to help people get back on track. In the meantime, those waiting to access services need to be somewhere. Living in creeks, along the railroad tracks, on private property where they are not welcome, in their cars on the side of the road is not appropriate and neither is jail. I propose that an area(s) be identified to establish a sanctioned homeless encampment, a refugee camp of sorts, replete with security, bathrooms, showers, etc in order to establish a safe place for those that are awaiting their opportunity to access services such as a residential treatment center, a homeless shelter and to keep the community safe from the byproducts of unsanctioned camping.

Our community needs to have a conversation about where unhoused people can be. Our elected officials need to commit the resources necessary to ensure these places don’t become public health hazards and allow those that need the assistance a measure of human dignity. The assistance needs to come with the expectation that the persons needing it will make an effort to become self reliant again. Right now, it’s up to the individual and it’s chaos. By default of not making a decision, which is in fact a decision, we are deciding where they can’t be. Homeless people are setting up camps wherever they can. Property owners then react by evicting them, driving them to public spaces such as creeks. It’s like a dog chasing its own tail. We are all expending a great deal of effort and resources without addressing the problem much less solving it.

ED NOTES

THIRTY YEARS AGO, the Sonoma County Water Agency warned Sonoma County officials that the Russian River was tapped out and that the water table in many areas of the county where residents depend on water from private wells was dropping every year because of ever greater draws on it.

BUT Sonoma County and the incorporated cities and towns comprising it have continued to issue building permits as if water is an inexhaustible resource, thus ensuring what the county’s own water agency said would inevitably result in building moratoriums and rationing. How and why the moratoriums haven't occurred is, to me anyway, a mystery.

SOCO'S WATER AGENCY said that the only practical solution to the county’s finite water sources was the untapped waters of Lake Sonoma, but drawing from it would require an expensive pipeline to carry it to Sonoma County’s primary distribution site near Forestville. Such a pipeline, which would cost many millions to build, is not planned at this time. Sonoma County presently takes 25 billion gallons a year from the Russian River; the federal government is about to reduce the annual flow into the Russian River from the Eel River via the Potter Valley diversion, thus capping Sonoma County’s annual draw at its present allocation.

IN SHORT, if the Eel River isn't diverted at Potter Valley, or if the diversion is significantly reduced as seems likely, Sonoma County will be forced to stop its building boom and begin water rationing.

THE FOLLOWING letter once appeared in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat: “Editor: I want you to know that after 30 years of readership, my family and I will no longer buy your paper. In the September 21 Sunday edition, the Parade magazine featured and promoted the views of Bill O’Reilly, a man known for his vicious hate-mongering and bigotry. Shame on you for supporting such garbage. I will urge everyone I know to boycott your paper so long as you carry this magazine. I don’t want my kids or grandchildren exposed to such sick thinking. Alice Chouteau, Mendocino.”

LIKE MOST LIB-LABS, I pay little attention to conservative media. I’d never heard of Ann Coulter until her moronic book popped up on the bestseller list. I haven’t read it, but I’ve read around in it enough to know that she’s either nuts or she’s some new kind of idiot savant. I did read the paragraph where she says people like me are “traitors.”

I WANT all of you reading this to stand at attention while I recite my patriotic credentials. Maestro, the National Anthem, please, while I do my voice-over, which is: Eight years active and reserve time in the Marine Corps, honorably discharged; three years in the Peace Corps where I and my Americano colleagues successfully introduced softball to the country of Sarawak, among our many notable achievements; and 40-plus years in active defense of democratic principles as editor and publisher of the Anderson Valley Advertiser!

WHICH brings us to James Kunstler, to whom some of you have taken aggressive exception, even to the point of demanding that I remove him from Mendocino County's lead daily on-line newspaper. I don't understand the desire to banish opinions one finds objectionable, so, of course, Kunstler stays. Of the conservative writers I am aware of, he's by far the best writer and often very funny. The rest of them are prose and opinion interchangeable and boring as hell.

THE CONSERVATIVE PUNDITS I'm aware of are such boring, witless writers, reading them is the equivalent of a chloroform rag suddenly placed over one's intake apparatuses. Which is also true of most liberal writers, defining liberal here the way the mainstream media define it — David Brooks and the rest of the hacks and hackettes who write for the New York Times and the Washington Post. Maureen Dowd of the Times is the only one I can read; she writes a zippy prose and is often funny.

BUT THE CONSERVATIVES, aside from being wrong about everything, are really, really boring. George Will’s phony erudition, Cal Thomas’s nutty fulminations, the utterly unamusing and predictable Limbaugh, awarded the Medal of Freedom by Trump of course before he met his reward, the stupid and nasty Savage, and so on throughout their dreary ranks, wondering why anyone would read or listen to any of them; there’s no there there.

MS. CHOUTEAU’S vehement but vague denunciation of Bill O’Reilly made me curious enough to watch him one night to see what the old girl was so upset about. I’d seen bits and pieces of O’Reilly but seldom watch television, and even more seldom do I turn to the Fox Network where he was a big draw at the time.

O’REILLY is a mixed bag, politically considered, off the evidence of that one show, the only one I’ve seen. He was liberal on some issues, conservative on others. Maybe I caught him on one of his good nights, but he led off with an editorial opinion that complained about the LA Times suspiciously tardy “reporting” on The Terminator’s serial sexual batteries. “They bring it up a week before the election?” O'Reilly wondered. (The Terminator was running, successfully, for Governor, and O'Reilly and the Fox Gang were naturally for him.)

O'REILLY said the California election was a choice between “a corrupt Democratic Party machine and its incompetent governor — Davis — and a deeply flawed candidate in Arnold Schwarzenegger. He then discussed the LA Times role in the Davis recall election with a liberal law professor named Susan Estrich. Both agreed that the LA Times was a tool of the Democrats and working “hand-in-glove” with Davis people. O’Reilly asked Estrich, “What will happen if major news organizations use their power to influence elections?” I almost fell backwards out of my chair. Is this guy this naive? What major news organizations don’t try to influence elections?

SEGMENT TWO was an interesting dissection promo-ed as “Real Racism?” Abington Memorial Hospital in or near Philadelphia, had ordered its black employees not to treat a woman in labor because both she and her husband had ordered black workers to stay away from them and stay out of their room. Hubby had threatened the black workers with violence. O’Reilly said he would have called hospital security and “thrown the guy out of the hospital.” A “bio-ethicist” replied by saying, “Lots of people go a little bit crazy during childbirth. The couple probably didn’t mean it.” O’Reilly, incredulous, insisted that the hospital should have stuck up for its black workers and had the husband arrested.

SEGMENT THREE was a tedious re-hash of a Las Vegas episode wherein a tiger had attacked Roy, of Siegfried and Roy, a circus act. O’Reilly seemed to sympathize with the tiger. (Me too.)

SEGMENT FOUR was an argument between O’Reilly and a liberal male reporter for Newsday over appropriate justice for three high school football players in New York somewhere who’d sodomized three freshman players with a broomstick.This pathologically criminal behavior was described as “hazing” and “a long-time tradition” at the school. Apparently, public opinion in the town was running heavily in favor of the perps. O’Reilly, aghast, said he still thought the three young psychos who’d done it “should be treated in the juvenile system.” The liberal insisted they deserved to be tried as adults, given the physical damage they’d done to their victims and their subsequently boasting and threats directed at other teammates if they dared testify against them. (I wondered why the team’s coaches hadn’t been charged; they claimed they hadn’t known about it until one of the kid vics complained about it.)

SEGMENT FIVE saw two retro congressmen and O’Reilly all saying things like “Seal the border,” and “Militarize it!” as they kicked around an Arizona initiative on the November ballot at the time that would deny illegal immigrants certain welfare benefits. O’Reilly said “It’s the Democrats who are bending over backwards for illegals to get their votes. No one running for President will dare take this one on.”

SEGMENT SIX featured a former NYC homicide detective named Beau Dietl and O’Reilly lamenting the purchase of drugs from Pakistan by Dietl’s 9-year-old son. As an exercise in how easy the internet makes it to buy everything from synthetic heroin to ritalin, little Dietl filled out his application giving his name, his true age, height and weight and a couple days later a bottle of Prozac appeared at his door, special delivery. O’Reilly lamented that “It’s another good idea gone bad. There are legitimate companies trying to sell people who need them affordable prescription drugs and the bad guys jump in.” He closed off by listing a legit 800 number where indigents with valid prescriptions can get free drugs. ( 1-800 762 4636)

O'REILLY wrapped up with another editorial comment under “The Most Ridiculous Item of the Day” in which he whined about how a reviewer had “misrepresented” his new book in the New York Times while “smear books” like those written by Michael Moore get respectful reviews. He then announced the results of a viewer poll answered by some 20,000 persons that asked if Rush Limbaugh would be hurt by revelations he is apparently addicted to painkillers. 76% said No, 24% said Yes. The show closed with O’Reilly talking back to mostly hostile mail, often with self-deprecating humor.

EXCEPT for the recall election and the tiger attack, I hadn’t heard of any of the episodes discussed. And except for O’Reilly’s rabid comments on “illegals” and his sniveling about his bad book review, I agreed with him on everything else he said, and I’m a lib-lab.

O’REILLY moved things right along, he’d brought in a wide variety of people, he was often funny, and he’d conducted interesting, if too brief, conversations with liberal to conservative guests. (A friend tells me he saw Greg Palast, the radical journalist, get a respectful hearing on O’Reilly.)

MS. CHOTEAU’S characterization that portrays O’Reilly as a hazard to the well-being of her and her family was silly. In a world filled with perils far more dangerous than a Fox blowhard, she picks this guy? Like most of us, save the unique specimens of human perfection dominant among the Northcoast's professional Democrats, O’Reilly is a mixed bag, sometimes liberal, sometimes conservative, sometimes hair raising. But us lib-labs ought to at least try to make some basic distinctions among the characters on the political right. Some of them aren’t as bad as others. O’Reilly is no goose-stepper and, unlike some liberals I could name, not nearly the menace they are.

RON PARKER

Cars being taken to Wendling. There was no road all the way to the coast at this time. C 1922

May be the mail stages at Johnson's Store, 1923, Philo. (Today's Lemons Market)

REMEMBERING THE CAT LADY (Coast Chatline)

Kara Steiniger:

I remember the cat lady! I worked for a time at the Visual Feast photo shop and she'd come in to pick up her prints.

Jan:

I remember the cat lady well. I believe she often made her eyes up to look somewhat cat like. I don’t remember her wearing black so much, I remember her wearing flimsy nightgown like dresses, low cut, often see through. She carried one cat around with her, but there were several (?) more in her car, an old station wagon. Don’t remember if it ran. What changed was when she continually started pooping in the same spot, in front of Lilo Glozier’s house across from Crown Hall. Lilo was as patient as she could be, but eventually called county services and the cat lady was picked up, cleaned up and reunited with her family, I believe she had a daughter in Ukiah. Last we knew she was doing well.

Richard Karch:

I was part of a video shoot with the Cat Lady as the guest. She was dressed as a mermaid (at least she thought). Had trailing kelp behind her and in her hair. Freshly colored teeth in black. She seemed coherent and verbal. Her life was important and she contributed a lot of color to the community. The shoot was at the ROP Studio. on the grounds of the Community Center of Mendocino, Much great shows came out of that studio. I think the Cat Lady was a guest on the Now and Then Show, produced by Mike Evans. Hosted by Bob Avery. Wish the tape was available now.

CATCH OF THE DAY, Wednesday, August 14, 2024

ISIDRO BARAJAS, Geyserville/Ukiah. Failure to appear.

JAMES BROWN SR., Redwood Valley. Probation revocation.

FRANCISCO DELGADO, Covelo. DUI.

ESTEBAN GAON-ABORJA, Redwood Valley. Cultivation of marijuana-conspiracy, cannabis for sale-conspiracy.

AMANDA GARICA, Covelo. Probation revocation.

MINDY GONZALEZ, Ukiah. Controlled substance, tear gas, probation revocation.

GUADALUPE GUTIERREZ, Ukiah. Controlled substance, paraphernalia.

VICTORIA IDICA, Ukiah. Stolen property-vehicle.

CODY MENDEZ, Ukiah. Controlled substance, concealed dirk-dagger, vandalism, probation revocation.

OSCAR NUNEZ-MARTINEZ, Willits. Continuous sexual abuse of child, sexual acts with child of 14-15, cruelty to child-infliction of injury, lewd-lascivious upon child under 14.

ANAELSA ORTIZ, San Francisco/Ukiah. Domestic battery.

JONATHAN ROSALES, San Francisco/Ukiah. DUI with priors, burglary, resisting.

JOSE SANTIAGO, Covelo. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, probation revocation.

KIERA SHED, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

THOMAS TORRES, Nice/Willits. Domestic battery, DUI, criminal threats.

DOUGLAS WHIPPLE III, Ukiah. Paraphernalia, parole violation.

MY CULT (& YOURS)

by Paul Modic

Nearly everyone I know is stuck in their lives and going nowhere: messed up, stressed out, depressed, and just maintaining, so how can they break on through to the other side? They need help, need to reach out, possibly an intervention, and are wandering around their empty lives wondering what to do. It’s time to take a risk, accept their flaws, and figure out what to do next.

They’re not happy, fulfilled, or have made smart choices but still somehow have hope that they can create a more enjoyable life. No one I know is inspiring, full of energy: have they given up? What are the questions they need to ask themselves to navigate this quest for fulfillment?

Each day this has to be their priority, each day do one thing to reach this goal, with zeal, focus, coffee, and desire. (No, finding some motivation or connection online isn’t the solution, it’s the problem.) And this is where I come in:

I think I’m wasting this spot, just telling my old and new silly stories and am not taking advantage of this opportunity, when I could instead be really making a difference here, and having a positive and meaningful affect on your lives.

It’s time to start my cult, using subliminal messages to recruit my followers, hypnotizing you into the path of joy, happiness, and contentment. (At least until the third sex scandal.) I need to reach the weak among us, those susceptible to suggestion, you know, all you lost souls out there who need a leader, right? (Of course the real recruiting is done online today, but as long as the editor doesn’t find out, I think we can launch ourselves into our new reality from right here!)

Yes, I’m missing this opportunity, I can say anything here, right? What do I have to lose, this column? My dignity? Yes, there are a lot of confused people floundering around who would feel better sending me some money, maybe a lot of money, so they can be happy again, and yes I’m talking to you!

Come join The Happiness Project, and as the nature of existence is sadness and grief, don’t you feel bad right now? Don’t you feel empty and depressed? Don’t you need a group of like-minded sufferers to gather with and be depressed together? (Send love.)

Confession: Maybe you thought these were just innocent stories aiming to amuse you but really I have been including subliminal messages (send sex) for the last six months of columns, did you notice? Yes, it’s time to come clean, and move on to the next level, my children.

It’s time (send love) to expand my cult beyond my 246 Facebook friends (send talent), those sheeple are just the beginning (send sex) of my cult, my flock, my automatons, who register their obedience to me with their “likes” and “smiles.”

Sure, it will be a challenge to horn in on all the other cults, which you, my true believers (send sex, love, money), are already under the trance of: the cult of your phones, your politics, and your families. (Forget the biggest local cult, Kmud, there’s no way to lure those true believers: once you get on the air that power and glory is so overwhelming that your friends don’t matter anymore, just your slot on the radio.)

The first six months have been great, we will have more (send money) talks like this soon, tell your brothers and sisters we have a family plan (send your soul, JD Vance) for you to learn to worship me and bring us wealth and happiness.

(Try it, nothing else has worked, right?)

ONE HECTARE OF HEMP produces 25% more oxygen than one hectare of forest and guarantees a cellulose supply that is approximately twice as high. One acre of hemp grows within 6 months, while a forest grows for decades before it is harvested. By making hemp paper, we could save millions of hectares of forest every year. Hemp can be used in textile production, construction and even as biofuel.

SAFETY TRUMPS FREE SPEECH

Editor,

Regarding “Exclusive: 26 charged in Golden Gate Bridge shutdown over Gaza”: When you block a major transportation artery like the Golden Gate Bridge, you’re not just causing an inconvenience, you’re endangering public safety.

There is no right under the First Amendment to endanger public safety.

As a result of the bridge shutdown, a baby missed a presurgery appointment, and the mother and baby were trapped on the bridge without any baby formula. A person with a brain tumor missed a medical appointment, a disabled child on a school bus was trapped and a surgeon had to cancel all his planned surgeries.

Actions that endanger public safety are not protected by the Constitution. If these protesters are going to break the law and endanger public safety, they need to face the consequences.

San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins should be applauded for holding protesters accountable.

Frank Sullivan

San Francisco

6-year old Carrie Fisher watching her mom, Debbie Reynolds, perform at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas in 1963.

PROTESTS ARE RIGHTEOUS

Editor,

Regarding “Exclusive: 26 charged in Golden Gate Bridge shutdown over Gaza”: The 26 activists who nonviolently shut down the Golden Gate Bridge are to be commended for protesting Israel’s horrific killing spree in Gaza. Instead, San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins is charging them with felonies.

Jenkins claimed the protester’s actions threatened people’s health and welfare. Let’s juxtapose those threats with the reality of Gaza.

Jenkins cites an infant’s missed doctor’s appointment while over a million children in Gaza have no access to medical care whatsoever, even after surviving a bombing raid.

Jenkins cites a baby hungry for a few hours while thousands of children in Gaza are starving.

Jenkins cites a brain tumor patient who missed an appointment while millions in Gaza have no hope of any treatment since most of the hospitals there are nonoperational.

Jenkins cites the lost workday of one surgeon while over 600 Gazan health workers have been killed.

The Golden Gate 26 continues a long lineage of brave activists employing civil disobedience to bend the arc of history toward justice. People are inconvenienced, but in a time of genocide, business can't continue as usual.

Defense attorney Jeff Wozniak rightly called the charges “an incredible waste of resources.” Jenkins needs to drop the charges and stand against genocide.

Wynd Kaufmyn

Berkeley

IT COULD HAPPEN HERE!

Petaluma’s hotly debated tub installation has finally been installed; Petaluma’s artistic community, and a few skeptics, gathered to see Brian Goggin’s “Fine Balance” brought to life in a riverfront park

by David Templeton

“Can you believe it? Look at this! Look at this! Look at this! It’s happening!”

Shortly before sunset Tuesday, Petaluma artist Amy Critchett ‒ standing beside performance artist and inventor Mark Pauline ‒ exuberantly applauded as Brian Goggin prepared to add the fourth and final stilt to a faux Victorian bathtub.

Critchett and Pauline represent a small fraction of local artists, community members, supporters and skeptics, who Goggin said had been trickling by all day long to finally see “Fine Balance” with their own eyes.

“Most people are nice,” Goggin said. “Most people have been great.”

To the probable consternation of those who are are not so “nice,” the much-discussed public art installation commonly known as “The Bathtubs” is now standing tall and camera ready at Petaluma’s remote H Street pocket park. Watched over by a Petaluma Police Department trailer with 24/7 video surveillance technology, the sculpture ‒ which has been the target of much hate-fueled rhetoric on social media ‒ is now visible on the other side of a temporary fence, in place until construction is complete in another week or so.

The structures resemble a pair of gleefully animated tubs who somehow teamed up to escape their domestic captivity and ‒ having improbably happened upon a stash of tall, wooden stilts‒ confidently rose above their station and proceeded directly toward the river, ever a symbol of freedom and release from bondage.

On Tuesday, the structures were still partly wrapped in cloth and tape, lovingly applied by Goggin to protect them during their journey from his studio in San Francisco to Petaluma.

“There’s still a lot to be done,” said Goggin. “I have some structural stuff to do to make them really solid. I have to install the plumbing structures that will make it look like they pulled themselves from the wall of a house and ran away. And, obviously, we have to unwrap the stilts, which I’ve meticulously hand-painted to look like wood, with intricate grain ‒ something in the style of Magritte.”

The comparison is hardly accidental, or even exaggerated. Like Goggin, the Belgian surrealist René Magritte was known for placing familiar, inanimate objects into unfamiliar contexts, intentionally provoking conversation about our assumptions regarding reality and imagination.

The day did not begin so positively, Goggin said. Early in the morning, he encountered some naysayers who confronted him and his crew of technicians.

“They were saying some confrontational things, videotaping us in a really hostile way, but we tried to keep our good sense of humor,” said Goggin. “The majority of the people who’ve come by to look have really loved ‘Fine Balance.’ I’d say 10 times as many people have stopped in to express their gratitude and appreciation for what this piece is and all the people who’ve made it possible.”

Goggin estimated that he’d be finishing up the installation for another week or so. Eventually, once the heavy equipment has been moved away, there will be landscaping added to the riverside bluffs.

Each bathtub has been fitted with colorful solar-powered lights that will glow in the dark once all of the final details of Goggin’s art installation are complete. But don’t go kayaking down the river looking for glowing bathtubs right away. Those lights will remain dark for the next few weeks, Goggin said.

“The plan is to do a kind of lighting ceremony at the official ribbon-cutting debut in September,” he said. “Can you imagine? This could be such a special moment. I have been thinking of asking local stilt-walkers to attend the event. Just to walk around on stilts before we dedicate ‘Fine Balance’ and release it into the world.”

Following the successful installation of the last faux stilt leg ‒ and the complicated uncoupling of the second tub from the crane that had been holding it aloft until all the legs could be fitted in place ‒ Goggin spent a few moments in quiet contemplation.

“I feel good,” he finally said. “After everything that we’ve been through ‒ all the dozens and dozens of people who’ve worked to make this happen, after years of imagining what this would look like at the Petaluma River ‒ I have to say, it looks even better than I ever could have imagined.”

Gazing quietly up at the tubs, dramatically silhouetted against the dusky sky, the artist was silent for several seconds.

“No piece of art will work for everybody, obviously,” he finally said. “I just hope the majority of people will be kind and openhearted to this installation, these gentle pieces of art I’ve put so much of my own heart into.”

CALIFORNIANS WILL VOTE ON A $18 MINIMUM WAGE. WORKERS ALREADY WANT $25 AND MORE

by Jeanne Kuang

California touted a victory for working people in 2016 when it enacted a sweeping series of minimum hikes, making sure the lowest-wage workers would earn at least $15 an hour by 2022.

Then-Gov. Jerry Brown, while signing the law, spoke of “giving people their due;” then-Senate leader Kevin de León spoke in Spanish of making it possible to achieve the American dream.

Now, California voters are being asked to boost the statewide minimum wage again, just two years after the landmark $15 wage championed by unions and embraced by Democratic politicians nationwide took effect.

But when Proposition 32 — the measure to raise the minimum wage to $18 next year — was confirmed for Californians’ ballots in November, it wasn’t with the same fanfare.

That’s because a lot has changed:

The current law came with boosts tied to inflation, which has pulled the statewide minimum wage steadily up to $16 this year — and which will bump it up to $16.50 in January.
The skyrocketing cost of living has prompted local officials in more than two dozen cities to enact their own, faster-growing minimum wages since 2016. Now, 40 cities and counties have a higher minimum wage than the state. Most are in the Bay Area or Los Angeles County, covering an estimated one-third of California’s low-wage workers. Several are already above $18, or just one inflationary bump away.
Unions in California took a different approach. They’ve won industry-specific wage floors for fast food, health care and, in some cities, hotels that are well above the statewide minimum. Fast food workers, who got a raise to a minimum of $20 in April, are seeking an inflationary bump for next year. In Los Angeles, hotel and airport workers are demanding a $25 minimum wage and a raise to $30 in time for the 2028 Olympics.
Many low-wage workers received more amid a tight labor market during the pandemic, marking the first economic recovery in two decades in which they got raises faster than higher-wage workers.

This year in the Legislature, business and labor groups focused on other fights, and it was uncertain whether the measure would even stay on the ballot. Some proponents argued it wasn’t nearly ambitious enough to help the working poor afford California, where MIT researchers estimate the average single, childless adult needs $27 an hour to be “self-sufficient.”

One of them, the workers’ advocacy group One Fair Wage, asked the sponsor to pull it from the ballot in favor of advocating for a $20 wage; the organization’s president, Saru Jayaraman, now says Prop. 32 is needed but only a “first step.”

And though the sponsor, investor-turned-anti-poverty advocate Joe Sanberg, said he believes the measure will make a difference in workers’ lives, even he openly agrees $18 “is not enough.”

“In some ways, at the point where this measure is heading to the ballot, it’s kind of underwhelming,” said Chris Tilly, a UCLA professor of urban planning who studies labor markets.

It’s not that workers, and their advocates, are uninterested.

The campaign estimates 2 million workers would still get a raise under the ballot measure — but that’s significantly fewer than the 4.8 million calculated by UC Berkeley economist Michael Reich in 2022, when the measure was first proposed and then delayed because Sanberg missed an administrative deadline. Under the measure the minimum wage would be $18 in January, with a delay until 2026 for employers with fewer than 26 workers.

Gustavo Miranda is one worker who would benefit. The 32-year-old Pomona resident makes $16.50 an hour sorting packages and loading trailers at an Inland Empire warehouse. Rent — $1,000 a month — swallows nearly 40% of his income, and he said grocery prices have risen. To make ends meet, he spends weekends refereeing youth sports. A raise, he said, would help him with car payments and sending money to support his daughter.

In the Central Valley, Stockton retail worker Donna Bowman said she’s been left behind by the state’s raising wages for other industries. The 55-year-old works part-time nights at a Dollar General to supplement her Social Security payments, and said the price of gas has forced her to cut back visits to her grandchildren.

“I don’t know how, with the way things are right now, and inflation, the government expects you to live on $16 an hour,” she said.

Proponents are banking on that simple message to convince voters. “From the standpoint of people who are going to be voting, the question is very clear,” Sanberg said.

After Sanberg poured more than $10 million into gathering signatures for the measure in 2022, the proponents have hardly spent anything. They don’t have a campaign account after Sanberg shut it down earlier this year.

But organizers including Ada Briceño, co-president of the Southern California hotel workers’ union UNITE HERE Local 11, say the measure is naturally popular and could turn out votes for other races.

The most powerful proponent, the California Labor Federation, which represents 2.3 million union members, isn’t yet sure how much effort it’s going to put toward passing the measure. While the federation was not involved in qualifying the measure, it endorsed it in July and plans to include it on other statewide campaign materials.

“I just don’t know how much opposition there will be, quite honestly,” said Labor Federation president Lorena Gonzalez.

Gonzalez sees the ballot measure as a “way to move things forward” at a time lawmakers are unlikely to take up the minimum wage. “When we jumped to $15 and did it legislatively, that was really profound,” she said.

But $18 today?

“Sure,” it makes a difference, she said, but “it’s not really a living wage.”

Opposition is still organizing.

A legislative deal and a state Supreme Court ruling resolved what would have been the biggest ballot fights between business and labor — a law allowing workers to sue their bosses and a ballot initiative that would have asked voters to make it more difficult to raise taxes.

So business groups say they’re now turning their sights toward Prop. 32. Three major employers’ groups with deep pockets — the Chamber of Commerce, the California Grocers Association and the California Restaurant Association — are leading the opposition.

Chamber CEO Jennifer Barrera said employers will also focus on a simple message: the threat of price hikes.

“There is a heightened sensitivity to the impact of increasing these labor costs on businesses and what that ultimately does for the cost of living,” she said. “Our belief is that the cost of living is directly impacted when you raise these costs on businesses. There’s only so many places where they can make adjustments.”

That warning could resonate with voters pessimistic about an uncertain economy.

Opponents point out Gov. Gavin Newsom this year, facing lower-than-expected tax revenues and a yawning budget deficit, delayed the state’s new $25 minimum wage for health care workers until the fall out of concern the state could not yet afford it. Private employers, they said, should be given the same time to adjust. Newsom has not taken a position on Prop. 32, and several spokespeople did not respond to inquiries from CalMatters in the last two weeks.

Unemployment in California is 5.2%, higher than the national 4.1%, and youth unemployment is worse. Business groups contend that increases in the minimum wage cause employers to offer fewer opportunities to less-experienced workers, though many economists disagree wage hikes directly lead to unemployment.

Reich, of UC Berkeley, last fall published a study with other academics finding the ramp-up to a $15 minimum wage in California and New York had little effect on employment in fast food and among youth — and in the post-pandemic years that industry even added jobs.

But employers point to recent local minimum wage hikes as test cases — particularly the small, relatively wealthy community of West Hollywood, which last year set what was the nation’s highest wage floor of $19.08 and required generous paid sick leave. (This year, Emeryville surpassed that with an inflation-induced $19.36, in another display of cities leaving $18 in the rearview.)

West Hollywood officials this year commissioned surveys in which 42% of business owners said they laid off staff or cut workers’ hours, and city council members agreed to pause the next wage increase until January. Part of the city’s challenge was that business owners had to compete with employers just down the street in Los Angeles, where the minimum wage is $17.28, and Beverly Hills, which uses the state minimum of $16.

Walter Schild, owner of a West Hollywood restaurant, said the policy forced him to raise the wages of servers who were making the minimum wage but received substantial extra income in tips, leaving little room to also give raises to back-of-house staff, who were making about $19 to $21. He said he eliminated three jobs, including a baker and a barista, and cut a third of the restaurant’s hours, but the business is “barely surviving.”

Schild called minimum wage hikes a “misguided” decision that makes little dent in the cost of living. A wage of $18 or $19 hardly makes rent affordable in West Hollywood anyway, he said.

“I don’t think the minimum wage is supposed to make sure everyone can afford rent in their area,” he said. “This is not supposed to support a family … We ought to have an environment where people can gain skills.”

The restaurant industry, still recovering from pandemic-induced losses and food price inflation, is likely to make up the bulk of the pushback to the measure. Many were already shaken up by the $20 minimum wage for fast food workers that started in April.

It may be too soon to tell the actual effects of the fast food increase, though proponents and opponents have both touted monthly jobs figures at convenient times. The latest seasonally adjusted federal employment numbers — recommended by experts because the restaurant workforce typically peaks in the summer and shrinks in the winter — show California fast food jobs have dipped since a high point in January, but remain close to last summer’s levels. Overall, the industry has about 20,000 more jobs than before the pandemic.

Still, stories of job cuts have spread, and some workers report having hours cut after receiving the raises. Some chains have hiked prices, too.

Erik Freeman, CEO of the Sacramento-based 40-restaurant chain Jimboy’s Tacos, said he’s worried restaurants are reaching a tipping point where increasing labor costs will force them to raise prices to a level consumers can’t afford.

Most of the chain’s nearly 500 workers make $16 to $20, Freeman said. Because of its relatively smaller number of stores, Jimboy’s was not subject to the fast food wage hike. But the restaurants still saw decreased sales, and Freeman suspects it’s because price hikes at other chains changed consumers’ habits. He estimated in his restaurants, there’s a 3% decrease in sales for every 5% increase in prices, which he said may have to happen if wages are raised.

“Any price increase that we do at this point, we’re concerned about pricing ourselves out of the market,” he said. “There’s never been a time that (restaurant owners are) as worried about it as they are now.”

Other business owners say they’re more or less prepared for a rising minimum wage.

“It has been on this path for the last several years,” said Katya Christian, co-owner of her family’s cabin-leasing resort in the Sierra Nevada. “We try to anticipate it.”

The seasonal business hires a handful of college students during the summers to maintain the property and accommodate guests. Christian pays most of them the minimum wage, and this year raised the cabin’s rates to make up for the past few years of wage hikes.

She said she’ll likely vote for the ballot measure, acknowledging if it passes her business is more able to absorb such increases because her customers can typically afford higher prices. Then, perhaps a year after a new wage kicks in, she said, she would likely raise the cabins’ rates.

(CalMatters)

I COULDN'T GET MYSELF to read the want ads. The thought of sitting in front of a man behind a desk and telling him that I wanted a job, that I was qualified for a job, was too much for me. Frankly, I was horrified by life, at what a man had to do simply in order to eat, sleep, and keep himself clothed. So I stayed in bed and drank. When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn't have you by the throat.

— Charles Bukowski

ANDY CAFFREY

Doesn't Kamala Harris or any Democrat remember that strength through joy is one of Hitler's slogans? And what the fuck does feeling relief that Biden won't lose to Trump, now being whipped up into a Democratic Party joy cult have to do with discerning and discussing what we actually must do to save the planet from the climate crisis, stopping Netanyahu and NATO, or protecting our rights from the Republican Party Organized Crime Syndicate?

CHARLIE MUSSELWHITE:

I knew Jonnie Mae Dunson in Chicago. I loved the fried chicken served at her restaurant. She also wrote blues tunes that guys like Jimmy Reed recorded. She once chased Big Joe Williams out of her home with a 45 automatic.

Jimi “Prime Time” Smith is her son. I knew “Zmityy” too. Jonnie Mae’s husband. We went to see Sonny Boy several times. Everybody knew Johnnie Mae!

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

It’s again time to eschew obfuscation and dispense with all the obnubilation, time to cut to the race.

There was no mistake last night that the fourth turning was here. As I watched Harris and Walz prance about, mouths agape with those ghoulish, forced grins and fingers pointing everywhere and nowhere, my stomach turned for the fourth time and I thought that it just might try to climb out of my mouth and hide in that nether region. No, Pepto Bismol wasn’t going to do any good here, and after a while the heaving did subside, but only after looking at pictures of that diabolical duo being burned in effigy.

Listen, this is all very serious business, and I don’t really know if I can survive this monstrous, morbid metamorphosis of Harris into Trump. As she shamelessly strips, it’s not at all a tease, but a terror, with even her soiled liberal undergarments being thrown into MAGA faces as she simultaneously dons Donald’s garb, never for a moment exposing her swarthy, revolting, naked flesh.

It must all be so smooth, like the T-1000 in the Terminator and his liquid metal, shapeshifting mimetic polyalloy. It’s all so disgusting and abhorrently apparent, one wonders how the public could fall for it, but as Hamlet said, “aye, there’s the rub.” The public, in this case.

My mind has doubts but it seems that my gut is more certain, certain that Trump is in trouble. Trump is bleak and Harris is full of joy, says her campaign, and I think they hit on something there. They are regenerating Obama euphoria into a ‘Trumpian’ Harris, energetic and ebullient.

Just look at those two, Trump and Vance, aging, angry Orange man with the tired MAGA trope, and the rat faced, bootlicking vulture capitalist. In ways, it’s a fucking pathetic duo. Trump needed the energy of someone like Nikki Haley, but I guess she was too sharp, too articulate for him, too threatening.

As Trump once did, Harris is taking all the oxygen out of the room. Next week is the convention and after that will be the endless media jubilation in debasing Trump and highlighting Harris. Perfect timing with the coup against Biden and the three-month Harris whirlwind into November.

Trump is now on the defensive and now probably worried about debating this spitfire banshee, foretelling his death, right after “Dia de los Muertos”.

In November, Harris and Walz will consummate the marriage unless the Trump campaign can foment some fireworks. That’s what my gut is telling me.

IS THE GHOST OF HUBERT HUMPHREY STALKING KAMALA HARRIS?

By Norman Solomon

After the Democrat in the White House decided not to run for reelection, the vice president got the party’s presidential nod — and continued to back the administration’s policies for an unpopular war. As the election neared, the candidate had to decide whether to keep supporting the war or speak out for a change.

Hubert Humphrey faced that choice in 1968. Kamala Harris faces it now.

Despite the differences in eras and circumstances, key dynamics are eerily similar. The history of how Vice President Humphrey navigated the political terrain of the war in Vietnam has ominous parallels with how Vice President Harris has been dealing with the war in Gaza.

For millions of liberals, during the first half of the 1960s, Hubert Humphrey was the nation’s most heroic politician. As the Senate majority whip, he deftly championed landmark bills for civil rights and social programs. By the time President Lyndon B. Johnson put him on the Democratic ticket in 1964, progressive momentum was in high gear.

LBJ defeated ultra-conservative Barry Goldwater in a landslide. As vice president, Humphrey assisted Johnson to follow up on the 1964 Civil Rights Act with the 1965 Voting Rights Act and a huge set of antipoverty measures while enacting broad social programs in realms of education, health care, nutrition, housing and the environment. Midway through the summer of 1965, Johnson signed Medicare and Medicaid into law.

Meanwhile, escalation of the U.S. war on Vietnam was taking off. And, as Martin Luther King Jr. soon pointed out, “When a nation becomes obsessed with the guns of war, social programs must inevitably suffer. We can talk about guns and butter all we want to, but when the guns are there with all of its emphasis you don’t even get good oleo [margarine]. These are facts of life.”

At first, Vice President Humphrey wrote slightly dovish memos to Johnson, who angrily rejected the advice and retaliated by excluding him from key meetings. Banished to the doghouse, Humphrey licked his wounds and changed his approach. By early 1966, he was deferring to Johnson’s war views in private and advocating for the Vietnam War in public.

As the war escalated, so did the vice president’s zeal to extol it as a fight for freedom and democracy. “By 1967 he had become a hawk on Vietnam,” biographer Arnold Offner noted. Beneath the lofty rhetoric was cold calculation.

“Humphrey’s passage from dove to hawk on Vietnam was not the result of one-sided White House briefings or of his ability, as one journalist had noted, to see silver linings in the stormiest clouds,” Offner wrote. “His change of position derived from a case of willful mind over matter, from his strong anti-Communism combined with political expediency driven by ambition, namely desire to remain in Johnson’s good graces and perhaps succeed him whenever his presidency ended.”

That desire to be in the president’s good graces did not dissipate after Johnson suddenly announced in a televised address on March 31, 1968 that he would not seek reelection. Four weeks later, Humphrey launched a presidential campaign that pitted him against two antiwar candidates, Senators Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy.

From the outset, Humphrey was plagued by his fear of antagonizing Johnson if he were to depart from a pro-war script. The United States had “nothing to apologize for,” Humphrey said. He didn’t run in any primaries and was not willing to debate McCarthy or Kennedy.

Humphrey mouthed the same old rhetoric to rationalize the administration’s policies for the war in Vietnam. Several high-level supporters — including Iowa’s Governor Harold Hughes, Vermont’s Governor Philip Hoff, and the venerable former New York governor and ambassador Averell Harriman — advised him to resign the vice presidency and thus free himself from entanglement with Johnson. But to Humphrey, such a step was unthinkable.

And so, Hubert Humphrey rode in the caboose of the war train all summer. In late August, the day before the Democratic National Convention got underway in Chicago, he told viewers of the CBS program Face the Nation that the administration’s policies in Vietnam were “basically sound.”

The convention nominated him while, outside, tear gas filled the air during what a report from a special federal commission later called a police riot that meted out violence to antiwar demonstrators as well as some journalists. Inside the turbulent convention, dissenting delegates were outshouted, outvoted and suppressed by the pro-Humphrey forces.

The chaos and bitterness in Chicago underscored how the vice president’s deference to the war president had weakened the party while undermining the chances for victory. In polls, Humphrey trailed the Republican candidate Richard Nixon by double digits.

And yet, like a true warhorse, the VP could not bring himself to break from the president’s steely insistence on maintaining the U.S. government’s horrific violence in Vietnam. The Democratic ticket of Humphrey and Maine’s senator Edmund Muskie was in a tailspin, propelled downward by Humphrey’s refusal to break ranks with Johnson.

It wasn’t until Sept. 30 that Humphrey took a meaningful step. His campaign bought 30 minutes of national TV air time on NBC, and he used it to deliver a speech that finally created a bit of daylight between him and Johnson’s war. Humphrey said that as president he’d be willing to halt the bombing of North Vietnam. The speech revived his campaign, which nearly closed the gap with Nixon in October. But it was too little, too late.

Like Hubert Humphrey six decades ago, Kamala Harris has remained in step with the man responsible for changing her title from senator to vice president. She has toed President Biden’s war line, while at times voicing sympathy for the victims of the Gaza war that’s made possible by policies that she supports. Her words of compassion have yet to translate into opposing the pipeline of weapons and ammunition to the Israeli military as it keeps slaughtering Palestinian civilians.

As the Democratic standard-bearer during carnage in Gaza, Harris has been trying to square a circle of mass murder, expressing empathy for victims while staying within bounds of U.S. government policies. Last week, Harris had her national security adviser declare that “she does not support an arms embargo on Israel.”

If maintained, that stance will continue to be a moral catastrophe — while increasing the chances that Harris will lose to Donald Trump. In effect, so far, Harris has opted to stay aligned with power brokers, big donors and conventional political wisdom instead of aligning with most voters. A CBS News / YouGov poll in June found that Americans opposed sending “weapons and supplies to Israel” by 61 to 39 percent.

Last week, Harris described herself and running-mate Tim Walz as “joyful warriors.” Many outlets have heralded their joyride along the campaign trail. The Associated Press reported that “Harris is pushing joy.” A New York Times headline proclaimed that “joy is fueling her campaign.” The brand of the Harris campaign is fast becoming “the politics of joy.”

Such branding will be a sharp contrast to the outcries from thousands of protesters in Chicago outside the Democratic National Convention next week, as they denounce U.S. complicity with the methodical killing of so many children, women and other civilians in Gaza.

Campaigning for joy while supporting horrendous warfare is nothing new. Fifty-six years before Vice President Harris called herself a “joyful warrior,” Vice President Humphrey declared that he stood for the “politics of joy” when announcing his run for the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination.

At that point, the Pentagon was several years into its massive killing spree in Vietnam, as Humphrey kicked off his campaign by saying: “here we are the spirit of dedication, here we are the way politics ought to be in America, the politics of happiness, politics of purpose, politics of joy; and that’s the way it’s going to be, all the way, too, from here on out.”

If Kamala Harris loses to Trump after sticking with her support for arming the slaughter in Gaza, historians will likely echo words from biographer Offner, who wrote that after the 1968 election Humphrey “asked himself repeatedly whether he should have distanced himself sooner from President Johnson on the war. The answer was all too obvious.”

"This Yaqui soldadera (woman soldier) is on the move during the Mexican Revolution of 1910. Yaqui women bolstered their ranks fresh out of slavery in 1911. Photographed in 1913 clad in a trench coat with a scarf on her head, she is either returning from or on her way to the chapel. In those days women had to cover their heads in church, and even today in Mediterranean states they must cover their shoulders to enter chapels if wearing sleeveless garments. These women of the revolution gave blood, sweat and tears for a better Mexico. One in which their children would have rights that they did not. The soldaderas not only fought alongside men in trenches, as they also turned around and nursed them back to health when wounded. They are being honored increasingly in Mexico today."

— Mexican History

INTIMIDATION AND WASTE: SURVEILLANCE OF TULSI GABBARD TRIGGERED BY UNSPECIFIED ‘AFFILIATION’

by Matt Taibbi

When U.S. Air Marshals were assigned weeks ago to follow former Hawaii congresswoman and presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard under the Transportation Security Administration’s Quiet Skies program, they were given a sheet with a mysterious notation. A section marked “Derogatory” contained two six-number codes, followed by entries reading: “WLS affiliates rule inbound,” and “TSDB affiliate rule inbound.”

The entries were uncommon, and at least one Marshal had to call an internal mission operations hotline to learn Gabbard was accused of being an “affiliate” of someone on a terrorist watch list. (“WLS” stands for “Watch List Service,” while “TSDB” denotes the Terrorist Screening Database.) Gabbard’s readout also featured her congressional portrait, not a government-issued ID like a passport or a driver’s license, a departure from procedure that “didn’t pass the smell test” for some Marshals.

These are just some of the details in a letter sent last night to eight House and Senate Committees on behalf of “several” whistleblowing U.S. Marshals, congressional aides told Racket. The letter also said Gabbard remained under “Special Mission Coverage” surveillance for eight flights, longer than usual absent indications of suspicious behavior.

“There’d normally have to be an after-action report describing something troubling to extend the surveillance,” said one former Marshal, adding that this would likely be “a bridge too far” for some in the service.

“This is outrageous and my lawyers are taking appropriate action,” Gabbard said in reaction to the news.

CAPITALISM, MASS ANGER AND THE 2024 ELECTIONS

by Richard D. Wolff

In the wake of his huge defeat on June 30, 2024, when 80 percent of voters rejected French “centrist” President Emmanuel Macron, he said he understood the French people’s anger. In the UK, Conservative loser Rishi Sunak said the same about the British people’s anger, as Labor leader Starmer now says as the anger explodes. Of course, such phrases from such politicians usually mean little or nothing and accomplish less. Such leaders and their parties just keep calculating how best to regain power when they lose it. In that, they are like the U.S. Democrats after Biden’s performance in his debate with Trump and like the U.S. Republicans after Trump’s loss in 2020. In both parties, a small group of top leaders and top donors made all the key decisions and then organized the political theater to ratify those decisions. Even surprises like Harris replacing Biden are temporary departures from resuming politics as usual.

However, unlike Trump, the others missed opportunities to identify with an already organized mass base of angry people. Trump stumbled into that identification by saying loudly and crudely what traditional politicians treated as publicly unspeakable about immigrants, women, NATO, and traditional political taboos. That set the tone for Trump then doubling down by insisting he had won the 2020 election but had been cheated out of it. The mass anger of populations feeling victimized in their workaday lives found a spokesperson loudly claiming parallel victimizations. Trump and base grasped that together they might victimize their victimizers.

Whether or not they can politically exploit voters’ anger, no mainstream leader in the collective West, including Trump, seems actually to “understand” it. They mostly see only as far as what they can plausibly blame on their opponents in the next election. Biden blamed Trump for a “bad” economy in 2020, while Trump reversed the same blame over the last year and will shortly adjust to blaming Harris. Presidential opponents blame the other for the “immigration crisis,” for inadequately protecting U.S. industry from Chinese competition, government budget deficits, and job exports.

No mainstream leader “understands” (or dares to hint or suggest) that mass anger these days might be something more and different from any collection of specific complaints and demands (about guns, abortion, taxes, and wars). Even the demagogues who like to speak about “culture wars” dare not ask why such “wars” are hot now. Angry “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) folks are notably vague and poorly informed as their critics enjoy exposing. Rarely do those critics offer persuasive alternative explanations for MAGA anger (explanations that are neither vague nor poorly informed).

In particular, we ask, might the anger that the MAGA movement enrolls express a genuine mass suffering that has not yet understood its cause? Might that cause be nothing less than the decline of Western capitalism and all it represents? If ideological taboos and blinders preclude admitting it, might that decline’s results—anxiety, despair, and anger—focus instead on suitable scapegoats? Are Trump and Biden, Macron and Sunak, and so many others competitively choosing scapegoats to mobilize an anger they misunderstand and dare not explore?

After all, Western capitalism is no longer the world’s colonial master. The American empire that succeeded the European empires has now followed them into decline. The next empire will be Chinese or else the era of empires will give way to genuine global multipolarity. Western capitalism is likewise no longer the world’s dynamic growth center as that has moved eastward. Western capitalism is clearly losing its former position as the self-confident, unified, ultimate power behind the World Bank, United Nations, International Monetary Fund, and the U.S. dollar as world currency.

In terms of global economic footprints as measured by national GDPs, the United States and its major allies (G7) comprise a total, aggregated GDP now that is already significantly less than the comparable aggregated GDPs of China and its major allies (BRICS). The footprints of the two global economic power blocs were roughly equal in 2020. The difference between the two footprints has been widening ever since and continues to do so. China and its BRICS allies are increasingly the world economy’s richest bloc. Nothing prepared the populations of Western capitalism for this changed reality or its effects. Especially the sections of those populations already forced to absorb the costly burdens of Western capitalism’s decline feel betrayed, abandoned, and angry. Elections are merely one way for some of them to express those feelings.

Western capitalism’s rich, powerful, and small minority practices a combination of denial and adjustment to its decline. Prevailing politicians, mainstream media, and academics continue to orate, write, and act as if the collective West were still globally dominant. For them and their ways of thinking, their global dominance in the second half of the last century never ended. The wars in Ukraine and Gaza testify to that denial and exemplify the costly strategic mistakes it produces.

When not denying the new reality, significant portions of Western capitalism’s corporate rich and powerful are adjusting their preferred economic policies away from neoliberalism toward economic nationalism. The chief rationale for that adjustment is that it serves “national security” because it may at least slow “China’s aggressiveness.” Domestically, the rich and powerful in each country use their positions and resources to shift the costs of Western capitalism’s decline onto the mass of their middle-income and poorer fellow citizens. They worsen income and wealth inequalities, cut governmental social services, and harden police behaviors and prison conditions.

Denial facilitates the continued decline of Western capitalism. Too little is done too late against problems not yet admitted. Deteriorating social conditions flowing from that decline, especially for the middle income and the poor, provide opportunities for the usual right-wing demagogues. They proceed to blame the decline on immigrants, foreigners, excessive state power, the Democrats, China, secularism, abortion, and culture war enemies, hoping thereby to assemble a winning electoral constituency. Sadly, left-wing commentary focuses on refuting the right’s claims about its chosen scapegoats. While its refutations are often well-documented and effective in media combat against right-wing Republicans, the left too rarely invokes explicit, sustained arguments about mass anger’s links to declining capitalism. The left fails sufficiently to stress that government regulators, however well-intentioned, have been captured by and subordinated to specifically private capitalist profiteers.

The mass of people therefore became deeply skeptical about relying on the government to correct or offset the failings of private capitalism. People grasp, often just intuitively, that today’s problem is the merger of capitalists and government. Left and right increasingly feel betrayed by all the promises of center-left and center-right politicians. More or less government intervention has changed too little in the trajectory of modern capitalism. To growing numbers, politicians of the center-left and center-right seem equally docile servants of the capitalist-government merger that constitutes modern capitalism with all its failures and flaws. Thus today’s right succeeds if, when, and where it can portray itself as not centrist, its candidates explicitly anti-centrist. The left is weaker because too many of its programs seem still linked to the idea that government interventions will correct or offset capitalism’s shortcomings.

In short, mass anger is disconnected from declining capitalism in part because left, right and center deny, avoid, or neglect their link. Mass anger does not translate into or yet move to explicit anti-capitalist politics in part because too few organized political movements lead in that way.

Thus, Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer in Britain’s new Labour Party government—its top financial officer—blithely announces, “There is not a lot of money there.” She prepares the public—and preemptively excuses the new government—for how little the new government will even try to do. She goes further and defines her key goal as “unlocking private investment.” Even the words she chooses mirror what the old Conservatives want to hear and would themselves say. In declining capitalisms, electoral changes can and often do serve to avoid or at least postpone real change.

Chancellor Reeves’s words assure major corporations and the 1 percent they enrich that Starmer’s Labour Party will not heavily tax them. This matters since it is precisely in major corporations and the rich that “a lot of money” is located. The wealth of the top 1 percent could easily fund a genuinely democratic rebuilding of a seriously depleted post-2008 UK economy. In stark contrast, the typical Conservative programs prioritizing private investment are what got the UK to its present sad state. They were the problem; they are not the solution.

The Labour Party was once socialist. Socialism once meant a thoroughgoing critique of the capitalist system and advocacy of something totally different. Socialists sought electoral victories to win government power and use it to transition society to a post-capitalist order. But today’s Labour Party has thrown that history away. It wants to administer contemporary British capitalism just a bit less harshly than Conservatives do. It works to persuade the British working class that “less harsh” is the best they can hope and vote for. And British Conservatives can indeed smile and condescendingly approve such a Labour Party or else quibble with it over how much harshness today’s capitalism “needs.”

Macron, also once a socialist, plays a similar role in France. Indeed, so do Biden and Trump in the United States, Justin Trudeau in Canada, and Olaf Scholz in Germany. All offer administrations of their contemporary capitalisms. None have programs aimed at solving modern capitalisms’ basic, accumulated, and persistently unsolved problems. Solutions would require first admitting what those problems are: cyclically recurring instability, increasingly unequal distributions of income and wealth, monied corruption of politics, mass media, and culture, and increasingly oppressive foreign policies that fail to offset a declining Western capitalism. Insistent denial across the collective West precludes admitting those problems, let alone fashioning solutions to them woven into programs for real change. Alternative governments administer; they dare not lead. Would a Kamala Harris-Tim Walz regime break with this pattern?

Their administrations will experiment with and perhaps oscillate between free-trade and protectionist policies—as past capitalist governments often did. In the United States, recent GOP and Democrat steps toward economic nationalism remain vote-seeking exceptions to still widespread commitments to neoliberal globalization. Western megacorporations, including many based in the United States, welcome China’s new role as the global champion of free trade (even as it retaliates moderately against tariffs and trade wars initiated by the collective West). Support remains strong for negotiations to shape generally acceptable global divisions of trade and investment flows. The latter are seen as profitable as well as a means to avoid dangerous wars. Elections will continue to include clashes between capitalism’s free-trade and protectionist tendencies.

But the more fundamental issue of 2024 elections is mass anger in the collective West aroused by its historic decline and the effects of that decline on the mass of average citizens. How will that anger shape the elections?

The more extreme right wing recognizes and rides the deeper anger without, of course, grasping its relationship to capitalism. Marine Le Pen, Nigel Farage, and Trump are all examples. They all mock and deride the center-left and center-right governments that merely administer what they depict as a sinking ship that needs new, different leadership. But their donor base (capitalist) and long-standing ideology (pro-capitalist) block them from going beyond extreme scapegoating (of immigrants, ethnic minorities, heterodox sexualities, and foreign demons).

The mainstream media likewise cannot grasp the relationship of mass anger to capitalism. Thus they dismiss the anger as irrational or caused by inadequate “messaging” from mainstream influencers. For many months, mainstream economic pundits have bemoaned the “strange” coexistence of a “great economy” and polls showing mass disappointment at the “bad” economy. By “strange” they mean “stupid” or “ignorant” or “politically-motivated/dishonest”: sets of words often condensed into “populist.”

The left is jealous of the extreme right’s significant mass base now in working-class areas. In most countries, the left has spent the last many decades trying to hold on to its working-class base as the mainstream’s center-left movement pulled it away. That meant a greater or lesser shift from communist and anarchist to ever more “moderate” socialist and democratic affiliations. That shift included downplaying the goal of a comprehensively different post-capitalism in favor of the immediate goal of a state-fostered softer, humane capitalism where wages and benefits were greater, taxes more progressive, cycles more regulated, and minorities less oppressed. For that left, what mass anger it could recognize flowed from failures to achieve such a state-fostered softer capitalism, not from Western capitalism’s decline.

As capitalism’s dynamic center moved to Asia and elsewhere in the global South, decline set in among its old, more-or-less abandoned centers. Old center capitalists participated in and profited greatly as the system relocated its dynamic center. Capitalists, both state and private, in the new centers profited even more. In the old centers, the rich and powerful shifted the burdens of decline onto the masses. In the new centers, the rich and powerful gathered the new capitalist wealth there mostly into their hands but with enough trickling down to satisfy large portions of their working classes. That’s how capitalism works and always has. For the mass of employees, however, the ride upwards when capitalism’s dynamic center is where they work and live is far more pleasant and hopeful than when decline sets in. The ride down provokes depression and traumas. When they fester without admission or discussion, they often morph into anger.

(Richard Wolff is the author of Capitalism Hits the Fan and Capitalism’s Crisis Deepens. He is founder of Democracy at Work.)

25 Comments

Craig Stehr August 15, 2024

Awoke mid-morning at the Royal Motel in Ukiah, CA. Will wait patiently until my exit date of September 1st at 11 a.m. I’ve no idea whatsoever where I am going to go nor what I am going to do. Dualistically speaking, it is all in the hands of the spiritual Absolute. Only identified with the Eternal Witness and letting the body-mind complex do whatever it does. Not interfering with the Dao working through them. Contact me if you wish to do anything significant. I’m available. Come in Mendocino County. Hello out there. Is anyone listening? ;-))
Craig Louis Stehr
Royal Motel
750 South State Street, Ukiah, CA 95482
Telephone: (707) 462-7536, Room 206
Email: craiglouisstehr@gmail.com
August 15, 2024 Anno Domini

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- Chuck Dunbar August 15, 2024
  
  I have to say, Craig, I worry some about what comes next for you. I think others join me in this. I know you literally put a lot of faith in trusting the Absolute, but life teaches most of us to plan and put our energy and efforts toward facing the future, short and long term. I am saying this with some feeling of hope and care for you, but what are you doing to prepare for the reality of September 1st and the next step in your life?
  
  Reply
MAGA Marmon August 15, 2024

RE: REDWOOD VALLEY SCHOOL PRESENTATION

My mom, June Woolley, who is 92 years old attended the meeting along with my stepsister, brother, Stepbrother and a cousin. My stepsister wrote the letter that was read out to the trustees, several of us signed it. I couldn’t make the trip over to Ukiah, but I’ve been working behind the scene for years now. I wrote about this several times over the past years here on the AVA. Those folks out there in Redwood Valley really have it together.

MAGA Marmon (aka Jim Woolley)

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- MAGA Marmon August 15, 2024
  
  One of the reasons I didn’t show was because outgoing Board President Megan Van Sant and I are at odds politically. I didn’t want politics to interfere with the message. She rose to power under Carmel Angelo. Her brother and I were close friends until I switched to Trump.
  
  MAGA Marmon
  
  Reply
  - MAGA Marmon August 15, 2024
    
    I didn’t just want this to become a Van Sant vs. Marmon event.
    
    MAGA Marmon
    
    Reply
  - Harvey Reading August 15, 2024
    
    Reads like the brother has good judgment.
    
    Reply
Craig Stehr August 15, 2024

I just explained what I am doing to prepare for the reality of September 1st. What is the next step for Mendocino County, for America in general, and for this world? You tell me. That is what needs to be figured out, and soon!! I’m just sitting here in the comfort of the motel, about to go out and send another letter to social security to ensure that all of the money is received following a successful telephone assessment, and now it’s off for a nosh and coffee. What precisely do you believe that I ought to be worrying about?

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- Chuck Dunbar August 15, 2024
  
  Where to lie down and rest, where to find a place to live. You can disavow your physical needs, but if you end up homeless, these needs will come to the fore. Common sense is not out of place with the spiritual–they can go hand-in-hand. It is kind of heedless to believe otherwise…
  
  Reply
  - Craig Stehr August 15, 2024
    
    Just finished taking care of physical needs at Taco Loco, and then walked to Smoothies Galore & More for a coffee. Following a visit to the Mendocino Book Company, am now comfortably seated in front of computer #1 at precisely 3:54 p.m. And if I did end up homeless in Mendocino County, I would leave! After all, I could be homeless at the anti-nuclear war vigil in front of the White House, where I would actually be doing something which justifies being on earth at all. Leaving this body-mind complex forever would be even better. Bye Bye Planet Earth…GOING UP. ;-)
    
    Reply
  - Chuck Dunbar August 15, 2024
    
    My response, Craig, seems snippy. I apologize for that, and I wish you well. I’m sure you will figure out what’s next for you and will prosper.
    
    Reply
    - Craig Stehr August 15, 2024
      
      Responding to the warnings about becoming destitute and at risk being posted online, and also sent to my Gmail address: Please understand that if I were to become homeless in Mendocino County, California, that I would leave! I’d probably somehow get to the anti-nuclear war vigil in front of the White House in Washington, D.C., where I could be homeless and actually doing something of importance. Or maybe I’d go somewhere else. As the Dao continues to work through the body-mind complex without interference, I’ll go where I need to go and do what I need to do. Besides, what could ultimately be better than to drop the body-mind complex altogether and just go up? I’m sitting around Ukiah, California enjoying a sunny day, eating veggie burritos and drinking good coffee. Feel free to contact me if you want to do anything. Email: craiglouisstehr@gmail.com ;-))
      
      Reply
peter boudoures August 15, 2024

You would think with the pile of dead kids under this administration that the liberals would quiet down and humble themselves but nope, full steam ahead with propaganda

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- MAGA Marmon August 15, 2024
  
  Legacy Media and the AVA are in full force, all working on putting lipstick on the pig, Kamala.
  
  MAGA Marmon
  
  Reply
  - Marshall Newman August 15, 2024
    
    As compared to Marmon putting lipstick on a lying, racist, misogynist, self centered, convicted felon pig: Donald Trump.
    
    Reply
MAGA Marmon August 15, 2024

‘Friendly country town’ of Kelseyville deeply divided over proposed name change

https://www.newsbreak.com/the-press-democrat-523952/3561820070588-friendly-country-town-of-kelseyville-deeply-divided-over-proposed-name-change?s=dmg_local_email_bucket_9.web2_fromweb

MAGA Marmon

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Mark Donegan August 15, 2024

Oh I’m listening Craig. And Adam, your proposal came out of my mouth months ago and not a single BHAB meeting has passed without my renewal of the request. Good luck getting everyone one the same page when ignorance reigns. We have all those things you talked about, they do no function properly. And to date, not a single Soul has taken any of these ‘providers’, to task. Fully engaged, on my own, I am an island. State St. is one of the most dangerous places in America to find one’s self. Covelo scares the Hell out of the people that live there having even a lick of common sense.

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Lazarus August 15, 2024

“What precisely do you believe that I ought to be worrying about?”
CS
I believe clearly nothing. It’s apparent to me, that your Karma, AKA lot in life, is destined. Why would you change now? Since you’ve been posting here circumstances have been favorable to you. I’m quite sure that come September 1, 2024, at or before 11:00 AM, circumstances will align again, and your present condition will continue.
Be well,
Laz

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- Craig Stehr August 15, 2024
  
  I could not agree with you more! ;-))
  
  Reply
  - Lazarus August 15, 2024
    
    I could not agree with you more! ;-))
    CS
    Well, that’s a first for this place.
    I must be slipping… ;-)
    Be Well,
    Laz
    
    Reply
Jac Box August 15, 2024

MCFADDEN FAMILY VINEYARD AND FARM – an iconic Mendocino County organic farming operation since 1970 is on the market. MIKE GENIELLA

ADAM GASKA…property is perfect for the new homeless next step plan.

°=°=°
Left town early this morning when around Hopland KQED kicked in. Topic of conversation? HOMELESSNESS IN CALIFORNIA⁉️ One hour – Mayors from Sacramento, Santa Cruz, Los Angeles, gov. folk from San Francisco.

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- Jac Box August 15, 2024
  
  Courthouse
  
  YES, please hurry up.
  
  IT STINKS! You can smell the bathrooms in the basement.
  
  IT’S SMALL! Wide staircases take up too much room. Too may dang floors.
  
  ONE ELEVATOR?
  
  EVERYTHING IS OLD.
  
  EVERYTHING IS DARK.
  
  EVERYTHING IS NARROW.
  
  COLD GRANITE SPELLS OLD, OUT OF TOUCH WITH TODAY’S REALITY.
  
  DARK WOOD PANELING IS DEPRESSING, LITERALLY.
  
  FEELS MORE LIKE A DUNGEON.
  
  THE CURRENT ARCHITECTURE LITERALLY DEPRESSES PEOPLE.
  
  YUCKY!
  
  Reply
Zanzibar to Andalusia August 15, 2024

DA Brooke Jennings is a Zionist – https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/brooke-jenkins-hamas-tweet-deleted-18428837.php

Crime in SF went up after she replaced Chesa Boudin. I don’t know if he’s pro-genocide like Jennings is, but he certainly came closer to exposing the deep corruption of the SFPD by bringing a case against a global fencing operation – a case in which the SFPD refused to transport to perps, refused to transport the evidence, and generally did as little as possible to support the case.

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Eric Sunswheat August 15, 2024

Ground water has mostly recharged in Sonoma County, except for a few areas, particularly Sonoma Valley.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/groundwater-storms-california-18199300.php

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Zanzibar to Andalusia August 15, 2024

Tulsi Gabbard is a war criminal who openly admitted (on her Twitter) to being in firefights in an ‘unnamed’ African country during a deployment in 2021.

To the best of my knowledge, no country in Africa has attacked the United States. She previously deployed to Iraq – another country that has never attacked the United States and had nothing to do with 9/11.

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Jac Box August 15, 2024

Redwood Valley School had good chi.

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Mendocino County Today: Thursday 8/15/2024

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