Nigella | Cool Inland | Sunset | Manufactured Drought | Blackberry Festival | Bettencourt Guilty | Sculpture | Support Dog | Monitoring System | Local Events | Author Talk | Addressing Homeless | Kitten Adoption | Ed Notes | Cornhole Tournament | High Beams | Maru | Yesterday's Catch | Becoming Homeless | Emergency Run | Independent Dead | Reading/Looking | Senior Uprising | Coreopsis | Kelseyville/Konocti | Hopi Girls | Mount Shasta | Marine Energy | Force Belief | Ballot Access | Wine Health | Seat Up | Trump Loyalists | Buffalo Bill | Large Crowd | Hollywood Squares | Peace Please
AN UPPER LEVEL TROUGH will continue to bring below normal temperatures to the inland areas through the weekend. Rain is forecast for tomorrow in Humboldt, Del Norte, and Trinity counties. There is also a slight chance for thunderstorms. Next week, temperatures are expected to start to return to normal. (NWS)
STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): 51F under clear skies this Friday morning on the coast. Clear skies with light wind today, then a good chance of rain for Saturday afternoon. Not a lot of rain, just some. Patchy fog for Sunday & Monday then mostly sunny next week. Right.
‘MANUFACTURED DROUGHT’: Ukiah Demands Rehearing on Water Flow Reductions
The City of Ukiah is taking action over impacts to the Upper Russian River, including environmental and economic harm to the region, caused by PG&E dramatically reducing flows to the Russian River from the Potter Valley Project. In a formal “Request for Rehearing” filed July 29th, the City again underscored how the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) approval for PG&E’s reduction in water flows was made without fairly or adequately considering the harmful impacts to the Upper Russian River.
For 120 years, abandoned flows diverted from the Eel through the Potter Valley Project have been the foundation for progress in the Upper Russian River. But in the past few years PG&E has made yearly requests for a “variance” to reduce these flows. This year PG&E requested to reduce flows to the East Branch Russian River to match the dry water year minimum flow requirement of 25 cfs, with the “flexibility” to drop all the way down to 5 cfs. FERC granted the request.
FERC approved the request, despite the fact that this 2024 water-year is on track for a normal water-year. Eight days after FERC’s approval, PG&E immediately dropped flows all the way down to the extremely restricted 5 cfs level – as if we were in a dry or critical water year.
“Water is being diverted into the Russian River as if we were in a serious drought year, despite the fact that both water basins are clearly in at least normal conditions,” said Mari Rodin, City Council Member for the City of Ukiah. “This dramatic reduction risks creating a manufactured drought for our entire region reminiscent of the real drought in 2021, all without analyzing the impacts to our ecology, economy, and community. They dismissed our interests and took away our region’s water. It’s untenable.”
The National Environmental Policy Act requires federal agencies to carefully review the impacts of a proposed federal action on the human environment. But FERC’s Order did not include such an analysis, instead referencing a 24 year-old environmental impact statement (EIS) that is outdated and incomplete. FERC did not meaningfully discuss or consider how its approval would impact water users dependent on the Russian River and abandoned PVP flows, Ukiah’s ability to generate clean electricity through its hydropower facility, or endangered salmonids in the Russian River.
The City’s Request for Rehearing asked FERC to comply with NEPA and conduct a new or supplemental analysis of the impacts to the Upper Russian River from reduced imports of PVP water. While this analysis is conducted, and acknowledging the interests of the Eel River, the City has only asked that in the meantime PG&E be allowed to reduce flows to no lower than 25 cfs, rather than down to 5 cfs.
Following the Order, Sonoma Water notified the State Water Resources Control Board that FERC’s Order means that Lake Mendocino storage would be about 12,000 acre-feet lower by the end of this water year than it would be without the Order. This may have major impacts to the entire Upper Russian River – despite the second consecutive year of healthy rainfall.
“We recognize and acknowledge the needs our neighbors on the Eel have, but our needs must be recognized as well,” said Glenn McGourty, Mendocino County Supervisor. “There is so much at stake for our community in the greater Ukiah Valley, and yet a thoughtful consideration of our interests is entirely lacking in PG&E’s request and in FERC’s decision. It’s as if we don’t matter to them.”
“The fish and habitat in the Russian River deserve protection too,” said Sean White, a fisheries biologist who filed a successful lawsuit against the Army Corps of Engineers and National Marine Fisheries Service for failure to protect endangered salmon below Coyote Valley Dam. “There is a pattern – a systemic, institutionalized pattern by federal agencies – of disregarding the interests of the Upper Russian River. It is time for our community to say, ‘Enough – we are done being ignored.’ “
“Our farms and businesses will suffer from the acceptance of this dramatic and unnecessary reduction,” said Jazzmynn Randall, Executive Director of the Mendocino Farm Bureau. “We have worked hard to survive during dry years while waiting for the rains to return, but now in a good water year we are facing a manufactured drought that creates a standard that will harm agricultural output and cause long term economic damage.”
The City of Ukiah’s Request to FERC observes “The entire focus [of FERC’s analysis] is on the Eel at the expense of the Russian…. To be clear, we ask for nothing more than that our interests be given equal weight to others’ and that the impacts to our community: our families, our schools, our businesses, our orchards and vineyards, our listed species, and our environment, simply be identified and analyzed in accordance with the mandates of the National Environmental Policy Act.”
For more information, contact Deputy City Manager, Shannon Riley, at sriley@cityofukiah.com.
BIG THANKS to the amazing group of volunteers that helping to set up the Covelo blackberry festival site.
We are excited and can't wait for Saturday.
41st Annual Blackberry Festival August 17-18.
www.roundvalleyblackberryfestival.com
JURY CONVICTS UKIAH MAN IN BRUTAL ATTACK ON SENIOR CITIZEN
A Mendocino County Superior Court jury returned from its afternoon deliberations to announce it had found the trial defendant guilty of an unprovoked attack on a senior suffering from compromised health.
The victim had been out on his daily doctor-ordered walk and was close to being back at home when he was confronted by a random stranger and attacked.
Defendant Curtis Daniel Bettencourt, age 34, of the Ukiah area, was found guilty of felony assault by means of force likely to cause great bodily injury, said offense occurring on March 31st on Gobbi Street at the railroad tracks.
Regarding a separate charge relating to defendant Bettencourt’s later interaction on March 31st with responding law enforcement officers, the jury found the defendant not guilty of attempting to resist or deter an executive officer by threat of violence.
After the jury was excused, the defendant’s case was reset for August 29th at 1:30 p.m. in Department A of the Ukiah courthouse for a court trial on possible circumstances in aggravation alleged by the DA in the accusatory pleadings.
After the aggravation allegations are resolved, the defendant’s case will be referred to the Mendocino County Adult Probation Department for a background investigation and sentencing report.
Because the defendant has been convicted of prior felonies, including vehicle theft (2011), an earlier attempting to resist or deter an executive officer by threat of violence (2014), and an earlier assault by means of force likely to cause great bodily injury (2021), the law mandates that – when the sentencing hearing eventually rolls around — the defendant shall not be eligible for a grant of probation unless the court finds that it is in the interests of justice to override the statutory presumption applicable to felony recidivists that they not receive local probation leniency.
The law enforcement agency that assisted the victim and conducted the investigation of the March attack was the Ukiah Police Department.
Witness/evidence management and trial support was provided by the DA’s Bureau of Investigations and Victim/Witness Unit.
Special thanks are extended to the good Samaritans who were driving by that day, witnessed the attack, and deviated from their day to stop and help the victim until the police and ambulance could arrive. The information they provided allowed law enforcement to identify the defendant and effectuate his arrest within an hour.
The prosecutor who is handling this case and who presented the People’s evidence at trial was District Attorney David Eyster.
Mendocino County Superior Court Judge Patrick Pekin presided over the three-day trial. Judge Pekin will hear additional evidence, if any is needed, when the case is called again for the court trial on aggravators at the end of the month.
ROSEMARY MANGINO:
What's with the Boonville Faire scheduled for 9/13, 14, 15?? I've been trying for 3 weeks to find out the requirements for bringing an emotional support dog to the faire and no one returns my calls and the one time i did speak to someone, they didnt have a clue!!!!
PLEASE!! A visit to the faire by a three year old with cerebral palsy would really make more than a day!!!
I can be reached at oneoldwhitewoman@yahoo.com
AN UNSUNG HERO AT THE SEA RANCH
Editor,
While running the Sea Ranch Water Company, I had the pleasure of working with Richard Stover who monitored 1300 septic systems on the Sea Ranch.
Did you know there are no such monitoring systems in bankrupt Mendo County? But Richard created a website with Sonoma County for septic systems monitoring, issued permits, and corrections to ensure public health benefits. A guy with a low profile, no ego, but a definite strong cog in a wheel to protect Public Health on a local and possible regional basis. If only we had this kind of service in Mendo, we would be fortunate in the interest of public health.
Thank you Mr. Stover for your service.
Randy Burke, MPH, REHS.
Gualala
LOCAL EVENTS (this weekend)
LOCAL AUTHOR TALK AND BOOK SIGNING FOCUSES ON 1930’S HOLLYWOOD AND THE THIN MAN
Dashiell Hammett, creator of the boldest hard boiled fiction wrote The Thin Man in 1933, and launched the fun-loving, booze-swilling, mystery-solving couple Nick and Nora Charles into American Culture. MGM sold millions of movie tickets by casting William Powell and Myrna Loy as this classiest of romantic couples. Over 14 years and six films, these stars navigated some of the gravest periods of our history: the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. The novel and films live on as gems of a unique, gritty sophistication.
This complete history of The Thin Man series covers the brightest stars, the tastiest scandals, headlines, and conflicts behind these classic films. Along with a cast of hundreds, we see Hammett, his lover Lillian Hellman, and their friend Dorothy Parker fight alcoholism, sexual convention, and Senator Joe McCarthy in culture wars with eerie resonance today.
Phil Zwerling, now retired to the Mendocino Coast previously taught Creative Writing at Ursinus College and the University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley. He is the author of seven books on film, theater, and history.
NEWSOM COMES OUT SWINGING ON HOMELESS ORDERS: Cities And Counties Comply Or Face De-Funding
by Jim Shields
Newsom Helps Clear Homeless Camps
Following Governor Newsom’s recent executive order directing state agencies to start enforcing homeless encampments laws and ordinances, on Thursday, August 8, Newsom (center in photo) helped clear and clean up multiple sites in Los Angeles County. Newsom vowed to start taking state funding away from cities and counties that are not doing enough to move people out of encampments.
For those of you following my ongoing series on the homeless-mental health services debacle in California and, of course, in this county, know that my primary themes are:
- It’s been 50 years of failed homeless and mental health practices, programs, and policies.
- You have to accept and understand that the homeless dilemma is the canary in the mine when it comes to analyzing the Unholy Trinity, those three inextricably intertwined maladies of Homelessness, Mental Health Afflictions, and Substance Abuse.
To clear up some of the confusion by folks about the scope of governmental purview over sites off-limits to homeless “settlements” here’s the facts.
Two months ago, the Supreme Court ruled that state and local governments have the authority to enact laws and ordinances that prohibit people from sleeping or camping on sidewalks, shopping malls, residential neighborhoods, and state, city, and county public parks and lands.
Following the Supreme Court ruling, on July 25, Gov. Gav Newsom issued an executive order directing state agencies to adopt policies to sweep encampments on state property, and urged local governments to do the same.
On August 8, a tough-talking Newsom sent an unambiguous message to local governments: clean up homeless encampments now or lose out on state funding next year.
Standing in front of one of three Los Angeles homeless encampments he helped to clear (there’s photo-ops and then there’s photo-ops), Newsom vowed (the governor doesn’t threaten, he vows) to start taking state funding away from cities and counties that are not doing enough to move people out of encampments.
“I want to see results,” Newsom told reporters at a news conference. “I don’t want to read about them. I don’t want to see the data. I want to see it.”
So what exactly is Newsom basing his vow to de-fund cities and counties who refuse to answer his call-to-action?
Here’s what you need to know.
- In 2021, responding to reports that the state’s homeless shelters were dirty and dangerous, the state Legislature crafted a plan: It would require local governments to inspect their shelters after complaints and file annual reports on shelter conditions.
- Three years later, California’s cities and counties have basically ignored the mandate.
- Just 5 of California’s 58 counties — Lake, Los Angeles, Monterey, Orange and Yuba — had filed shelter reports as of this spring.
- Only 4 of the state’s 478 cities filed reports: Fairfield, Petaluma, Santa Rosa and Woodland.
- The State Auditor’s Office released a report demanded by the state Legislature in April that found it’s impossible to figure out if California’s largest homeless programs are working because there’s almost no relevant data to be found. The same was the case with city and county programs.
- “The lack of transparency in our current approach to homelessness is pretty frightening,” said Assemblymember Josh Hoover, who co-authored the request for the audit.
So as I said in a previous piece in this series, if state and local governments have almost no data and lack basic programmatical information, how in the world are they going to solve this 50-plus year dilemma?
That’s the very same question that Newsom must have put to himself prior to issuing his de-funding vow to recalcitrant cities and counties.
Newsom’s August 8 announcement is part of his escalating campaign to push local governments into doing more homeless encampment sweeps. In late July, Newsom ordered state agencies to start clearing encampments on state land. He also pressured local government to do the same, though he cannot legally force them to act, he can (and I think he will) reduce or eliminate local funding to cities and counties that refuse to fall into line.
For local governments that don’t play ball, Newsom would cut their funding, and then, most likely, provide state assistance to run homeless programs, and then send the invoice to the offending local government. In effect, non-compliant local governments would be double-whammied.
So far, so good for Newsom but he must follow through with his “vow.”
Historically dysfunctional county governments like Mendocino, and equally dysfunctional city governments like Ukiah, won’t comply without the de-funding threat that Newsom characterizes as a solemn “vow.”
This county — and the buck stops on the Supervisors’ desks — is hopelessly clueless on homelessness, and the larger struggle between providing life-saving care and services for homeless people (who oftentimes refuse help) while balancing that reality with the other reality of the need and sworn obligation for maintaining public safety. Ditto for the city of Ukiah.
Newsom’s de-funding vow should scare the vinegar out of Mendocino County supervisors, their staff, and for sure their Homeless-Mental Health Industrial Complex private sector “partner” Redwood Community Services, Inc., who are all responsible for the abysmal failures that are homeless policies, practices and programs in this county.
When it comes to the homeless issue, compassion is a two-way street inhabited by both the public and the homeless. Never forget that it is the common, law-abiding, tax-paying citizen who compassionately supports the homeless with all of the money required for all of the services, programs, and care needed so that the homeless are no longer homeless.
The public is fulfilling their obligations on this complex issue, but it’s way past time for our more-than-handsomely compensated elected officials, department heads, and staff to fulfill their obligations and responsibilities here in Mendocino County.
After all, that’s their job, right?
(Jim Shields is the Mendocino County Observer’s editor and publisher, observer@pacific.net, the long-time district manager of the Laytonville County Water District, and is also chairman of the Laytonville Area Municipal Advisory Council. Listen to his radio program “This and That” every Saturday at 12 noon on KPFN 105.1 FM, also streamed live: http://www.kpfn.org)
KITTEN ADOPTION SPECIAL
Special adoption fee of only $75 dollars per kitten. Special fees apply to kittens already spayed/neutered. Visit mendoanimalshelter.com to see animals available for adoption.
ED NOTES
I HAVEN’T READ a novel in a long while. I seem to have abandoned fiction for THE FACTS, as found in an absorbing history of the Korean War by Stanley Weintraub called “MacArthur’s War: Korea and the Undoing of an American Hero.” It’s the clearest history of “America’s forgotten war” I’ve read, and I’ve plodded through four or five of them over the years. I also recommend “The Silent and the Damned, the Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank” by Robert Seitz and Nancy C. Thompson, a riveting account of the murder of a 13-year-old factory girl and the subsequent framing and lynching of the Jewish owner of the factory for the murder, all of it occurring in 1913 Georgia. Also highly recommended is “OK, Joe,” by Louis Guilloux, a reconstruction from his World War Two diaries by a French novelist of his experience as a translator for the court martials of American soldiers, all black, accused of raping French women. “The military court was in session nearly every morning, and every time the defendant was a black man the accusation was the same. There were also times when several defendants were tried at once, and all of them were black. One morning, there were four of them. They didn’t say a word. Why were they silent like that, why did they all plead guilty? Eventually I asked Bob. ‘Because they are!’ he answered, throwing up his hands as if to show his surprise at such a question. As If I thought it wasn’t a matter of simple evidence. Guilty. They in fact were. They admitted it themselves. ‘But why always blacks, Bob?’ ‘Ah! Yeah, that’s a hell of a problem!’”
THE SF CHRON’S sports writer Scott Ostler on Greens: “The Green Party insists it was encouraged by its one percent share of the vote. Now the party hopes to expand beyond its main demographic — Marin County hitchhikers.”
THE FOLLOWING is from a fascinating story called “The Way Willits Was” by Mark Hedges based on an interview Hedges did with a Willits old timer named Charlie Ruelle:
The second World War brought blackouts to town, and Ruelle said that “everyone had to pull four hours a week looking for enemy aircraft.” He said he remembered a captured Japanese submarine being hauled through Willits after it had been seized in Humboldt Bay in 1942. “It was a two-man sub and the guys were dead,” Ruelle said. “It was 40 feet long and 8 feet wide. They had mannequins in it dressed in their uniforms.”
Ruelle can also remember the propaganda that was plastered on the sides of buildings, “telling us not to talk about military things, that Hitler and Emperor Hirohito were listening, telling us to watch the Germans and the Japs, and to not buy their products. There was quite a hatred back then, because the Japanese were cruel to our troops. … There was a lot of hard feelings. I remember them rounding up the Japanese.”
Ruelle said today's Broiler Restaurant at the foot of the Willits grade was then owned by people who had “a shortwave radio giving info to the Germans.”
“They arrested them and closed the place,” Ruelle said. “And then a Mr. and Mrs. Southworks bought the place from the government.”
A READER WRITES: “Following the death of a 97-year-old spinster, the funeral director read the instructions she’d left for her memorial service. ‘I don’t want any male pall bearers,’ the old lady wrote. ‘They wouldn’t take me out when I was alive, so I don’t want them taking me out when I’m dead’.”
FROM the Mendocino Dispatch-Democrat (Ukiah) of October 9th, 1903: “She Married A Prince. Last Tuesday Miss Harry A. L. Floyd, daughter of the late Captain Richard S. Floyd, and sole heiress to nearly a million dollars was quietly married by Judge Sayres at Lakeport to B.M. Gopchevitch, a Serbian nobleman of the princely house of Obrenovitch, who, up to the date of his marriage was a gripman on a San Francisco street car. The bride owns the beautiful summer home, Kono Tayee, on Clear Lake and property in half a dozen counties and in San Francisco. The acquaintance of the couple began on the car on which the groom was gripman.” Oh yes, Count Grabcashovitch, distant cousin of the Romanovs, hundreds, perhaps thousands of whom married wealthy American women.
ASSUMING that most people want game wardens, community colleges, parks, prisons for the truly dangerous, and Caltrans, there are lots of other state entities that could be tossed overboard tomorrow without anybody noticing, the tax money saved by dumping them funding the services people really want. The Department of Education and the State Senate, to name two expensive bureaucratic redundancies; they could go immediately with no detrimental effect to state functioning. Ditto for all the state commissions, beginning with the utterly ineffective pork barrel called the Commission On Judicial Performance. (If you want a look at the egregious opulence your state taxes support, check out the San Francisco offices of the state’s appellate courts and the unperforming offices of the judicial performance gang next time you’re in The City.)
CALIFORNIA’S innumerable appointed commissions are simply payoffs to the big donors of both parties, and to hand to termed-out officeholders. These entities either do nothing at all or serve as a rubber stamp for whatever state agency they theoretically oversee. Think of 3,000 county school boards, all of them with offices and staffs, with each member of each board pulling down a hundred G’s plus fringes, and you’ll begin to understand the true function of state commissions.
AND THERE’S PROP 13, the biggest swindle in state history. What Prop 13 did back in 1978 was to lock in property taxes at 1 percent of assessed value for both corporations and homeowners while simultaneously freezing annual property valuations at increases of no more than 2 percent. Best of all for big and small property owners, especially big property owners, assessments were freeze-dried in place in 1978. Local government could only raise money based on this 1978 formula. Although Prop 13 was sold as homeowner relief, in living fact it was a huge give away to corporate and private wealth at the cost of public services. California’s tax structure is way, way out of whack because the rich, corporate and private, don’t tote their share of the load. The state legislature typically “solves” budget crises by borrowing at exorbitant interest rates to pay certain bills while they rollover a bunch of other due bills for next year’s legislature to somehow pay. The state pays exorbitant rates for borrowed money because state debt is so much greater than the money coming in from sales taxes and Prop 13’s forever frozen rates that lenders fear they won’t get their money back; hence the usurious interest rates.
ELEANOR COONEY REMEMBERS THE COAST CAT LADY
I may have saved her life once. Teen boys were driving round and round the Heider lot, where she was residing in a big cardboard box right near the street. I was living across the street, became aware of what seemed like the kids working themselves up to something, like maybe plowing into her box. I went out, moved my car and parked it, headlights off, so that it would be facing them on their next circuit. Got in the car, waited, and when they came round again zapped them with the high beams. Off they roared, and did not return.
MOVING LOGS WITH THE MARU by Chuck Bush
Part 2 of 2; reprinted from the June 1, 2006 Mendocino Beacon; Read Part 1
With the engine-driven Maru, rafts became much longer. A November 14, 1908 Beacon note: "A raft of logs nearly one-third of a mile long, one end invisible from the other, having 1,500 logs, which equaled 800,000 feet of lumber, was moved down the river by the ‘Maru.’ Perley Maxwell was the engineer." The log rafts still went down to the millpond only with the tide. The Maru had enough power to keep the lines taut and to keep the raft in the river channel.
On April 23, 1917, a Beacon note read "The good ship ‘Maru’ was discovered trying to impersonate a submarine. Only her smokestack was visible. It took one day to raise her, get up steam and pull herself onto land, where she was drained of water." That was an indication that the old scow was on its last legs.
The following year the second Maru, Big River #2, was completed, also designed by John Peterson, and also built at the mill. It was 51.5 feet long, 18 feet wide, drew 3.8 feet of water, weighed 17 tons, and had a larger 15 HP steam engine. The crew consisted of the captain, engineer, and three men. The second Maru could get to the boom from the mill on a slack tide in 28 minutes, with a record of 25 minutes.
By 1927, the boom up river (second boom) had been stopping logs for 68 years. The river upstream from the boom (the log storage area) had by then become cluttered with enough sunken logs and debris from the logs that it was necessary to construct a new, third boom nearly a mile further downstream, again consisting of three large, solid wooden piers to deflect and jam the logs.
In Big River was Dammed, W. Francis Jackson reminisces about the good old days: "On the Big River, men working presented another aspect to the lumbering engagement. They were doing their tasks from floating logs, rowing boats, operating sinker machine or dragsaw rafts and, yes, the Maru. At the mill or at the Boom some distance up river, men would be guiding logs to the next step of transformation from one form to another. Amidst the bank-to-bank work area along the river we would fish, principally with Mervyn Swanson and my brother, Kenneth. At other times Kenneth and Raymond Nicholson, Emery and William Escola would be companions at catching trout, perch, whiting and herring just to name a few. At times trolling for salmon was interrupted by having to get out of the river channel in order to let the Maru with a raft of logs go by."
When the mill closed in 1938, all river activity ceased. If you canoe on the river today, you can still find some remains of the second Maru on the mud flats about a mile or so up from the old mill site, and up about two and one-half to three miles are still to be seen the piers that made the third boom.
(kellyhousemuseum.org)
CATCH OF THE DAY, Thursday, August 15, 2024
BASILIO ANGUIANO, Ukiah. Failure to appear, probation revocation.
DREW ERSLAND, Ukiah. County parole violation.
JACOB HOOD, Willits. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs.
KELLY IVERSEN-BASE, Redwood Valley. Domestic battery.
KASSANDRA PHILLIPS, Covelo. Failure to appear, resisting.
DOREEN WRIGHT-HOAGLIN, Covelo. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, ammo possession by prohibited person.
ANOTHER SUNNY DAY IN AMERICA
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.
Craig Louis Stehr, craiglouisstehr@gmail.com
THE GARBERVILLE INDEPENDENT IS DEAD
by Paul Modic
What a difference a day makes: The Independent is dead, one more issue, and my last 600-word column next week should ruffle feathers and blow some people away. (Damn, only three cliches in one sentence, I’m getting better.)
Well, it was a good seven-month run: I spent hours organizing future columns, filling up folders with stories and vignettes of varying size, planning to stitch them together later. (The shorts file has pieces from 50 to 250 words, the 400 file is about 350-450, and the 600 is about 550 to 650. There are 174 shorts, 95 400’s, 100 600’s, and 174 other unedited stories over 700 words.)
Last night I was thinking, “How can we save The Independent?” I mean, there’s a free paper right there which I could take over? We could make it digital?
I made a lot of stoned notes and was pretty excited, but in the morning realized just let it go, time to have a hip replacement in a few days, recover, and maybe don’t be such an attention whore. Whore? I’m not getting paid, and now I can’t give it away! (Except here, which is better than a kick in the ass, another lazy cliché I suppose.)
MARILYN DAVIN-MCEWEN ON CHANNEL 5 NEWS WEDNESDAY: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kffpKxhVOuw
BRUCE MCEWEN:
Re: Tip lines for news outlets
We also discovered that tip lines at news outlets range from inordinately difficult to absolutely impossible for anyone who wishes to alert local media to planned events —or even for bystanders who witness incidents or events they consider newsworthy! They advise you to “call 911 if you think it’s so damned important and we’ll get the lowdown from the presser from the cop shop, thank you all the same.”
Thank goodness there’s still an AVA where the Editor-in-chief still picks up the phone!
When Marilyn called the editor of the Rossmoor News to tell her about this protest, she, Jan Petersen, the editor, wouldn’t take Marilyn’s call, despite the fact that Marilyn has been writing her column gratis for over 15 years. Later, after the story on tv aired, Jan frantically tried to call back and eventually said that next week the Rossmoor News would do a story showing “both sides” (fair and balanced, like FOX News), huh.
‘FRIENDLY COUNTRY TOWN’ OF KELSEYVILLE DEEPLY DIVIDED OVER PROPOSED NAME CHANGE
Kelseyville or Konocti? Lake County voters to cast ballots on nonbinding, “advisory” measure on Nov. 5.
by Austin Murphy
Kelseyville merchants have worked for years to brand their community as Lake County’s “friendly country town.”
These days, the community is sending out a different vibe.
The friction was on full display July 30, at a special meeting of the Lake County Board of Supervisors in Lakeport.
The sole agenda item called on the board to consider “an Advisory Election to Ascertain Voter Opinion of the Proposed Name Change from Town of Kelseyville to Konocti.”
The mood in the chamber at times was anything but friendly.
Around two thirds of the roughly 60 public commenters — some of whom appeared on Zoom — favored the name change, many of them arguing that Kelseyville is named for an enslaver and rapist and killer of Native Americans, and should be renamed.
The atrocities committed by Andrew Kelsey and his brothers in the mid-1800s won’t be undone by changing the name of the town, responded opponents, some of whose families have lived in Kelseyville for decades.
The campaign to rename Kelseyville was initiated four years ago by Citizens For Healing (C4H), a loose affiliation of Lake County residents whose primary role, said C4H member Dallas Cook, is educational. The goal is “to teach people about the history” of Andrew Kelsey, “to inform them about the need” for a name change, “and explain the process by which we’re going to get there.”
That process took an unexpected turn on July 30. Rather than make a recommendation to the federal body that is reviewing the name change proposal, and which has repeatedly asked for the board’s input, the supervisors voted 3-2 to put the issue on the November Lake County ballot in the form of nonbinding, “advisory” Measure U.
Getting that measure on the ballot will cost the county around $50,000, Registrar of Voters Maria Valadez told the board.
Who Gets To Vote?
The agenda item — sponsored by Supervisor Jessica Pyska, whose district includes Kelseyville — also tasked the board with deciding who can vote on the measure. Should it go before the entire county or only members of the Kelseyville Unified School District?
Kelseyville residents made the case that only they should have a say, because they would be most affected.
Like many of the Native Americans who commented, Jesus Campanero Jr., a Tribal Council Member of the Robinson Rancheria Pomo Indians in Upper Lake, preferred no vote at all. He wanted the board to decide.
But if the matter had to go to on the ballot, he added, it should be a countywide vote.
“I’ve been hearing comments about this only affecting residents of Kelseyville,” said Campanero. “But the Kelsey brothers’ oppression and genocide didn’t stop at the borders of Kelseyville. It went all the way around the lake. The blood of Indigenous people has been spilled all around this county.”
In the end, the Board agreed to make the vote countywide.
As critics noted, putting the name change on a nonbinding ballot measure will delay a final decision, while deepening the divide and further escalating tensions in this bucolic town of 3,800 in the shadow of Mt. Konocti.
That dormant volcano, lording 3,500 feet over the western shore of Clear Lake, was named by the East Lake Tribe of Elem.
The name Konocti “honors our beautiful mountain and the native people who have lived in sight of it for 14,000 years,” says the C4H website, explaining why it petitioned the U.S. Board on Geographic Names to change the name of Kelseyville to Konocti.
Changing the name, it adds, “is a gesture to acknowledge the wrongs done to the original inhabitants of Lake County.”
Before submitting its proposal, Citizens for Healing secured the approval of elders from all seven Pomo tribes around the lake.
The Board on Geographic Names, a federal body under the Secretary of the Interior, has the authority to change a name that’s been determined to be “derogatory or offensive.” In January, the federal board announced it would review the proposal from Citizens For Healing.
A board spokesperson told the Press Democrat in February that members have been asked to rule on approximately 75 community names over the past decade.
Of those, “two-thirds or so were approved. For a dozen of the disapprovals, it was because another name was submitted and approved.”
The spokesperson said at the time that it would be August at the earliest before the federal board could vote on the Kelseyville proposal. By putting Measure U on the November ballot, the Board of Supervisors probably pushed the federal vote back at least several months.
‘Be Mad At Us’
While Measure U may be nonbinding, it will provide some political cover for Pyska, whose constituency includes Kelseyville. Pyska, who has steadfastly remained neutral on the name change, declined to be interviewed for this story.
Some of her fellow supervisors seemed surprised, even annoyed, by the agenda item she sponsored.
“I don’t know what we’re going to learn from the election that we don’t already know,” said Supervisor Michael Green, who voted against the advisory election, along with board chair Bruno Sabatier. Both expressed the belief that it was the board’s responsibility to arrive at a decision.
Instead of asking voters to decide, Sabatier told the packed chamber, the board should do its job and make a recommendation.
“Be mad at us,” he said. “Don’t be mad at each other. We should take that responsibility.”
The results of Measure U won’t obligate the federal panel to rule one way or the other, said C4H member Kevin Engle, a local historian who has chronicled the depredations of the Kelsey brothers. Instead, he said, it will ratchet up the discord in a community known for its annual Pear Festival, and more recently, its Beer, Wine & Swine Baconfest.
Engle foresees a scenario in which name change proponents lose the countywide vote in November, then get good news from the geographic panel, which he believes will rule in C4H’s favor. “That’s just going to create more friction, make everything more divisive,” he predicted.
Infamous Massacre
Opening public comments at the July 30 meeting was Rachel White, who recalled how Kelseyville had been “blindsided” by the decision to file a name change application with the federal board, a proposal she called a “misguided” solution “to an ill-defined problem.”
White leads a group called Save Kelseyville, which was formed to stop the name change.
“I was fortunate to attend the most recent Bloody Island sunrise ceremony,” she said. “Forgiveness was the overarching theme that morning.”
White was referring to an annual event commemorating a massacre that was set in motion by Andrew Kelsey and abetted by his brothers.
In 1849, the Natives who had been brutalized by Andrew Kelsey and his associate, Charles Stone, rose up and killed them. Those executions provoked an extreme response from U.S. Cavalry and militias — including Kelsey’s brothers, Ben and Sam — resulting in the massacre of “as many as 1,000 Indians, or more, across four Northern California counties,” according to the Native American historian Benjamin Madley.
The most notorious of those mass killings occurred on May 15, 1850, at the north end of Clear Lake. U.S. Army soldiers opened fire on Natives — mostly women, children and elderly — who’d sought refuge on the mile-long island called Bonopoti.
According to conservative estimates, some 200 Indians were killed in the slaughter known today as the Bloody Island Massacre.
Clayton Duncan, a Native American elder who lives in Nice, is a great-grandson of Lucy Moore, who survived that massacre. She would rise every morning, he recalled in 2022, “put her palms to the air and [ask] the creator for his energy of forgiveness.”
Inspired by her example, Clayton and his brother, Douglas Duncan, organized an annual Sunrise Ceremony of Forgiveness. Every May for the past 25 years, they’ve marked the anniversary of the massacre with prayer, speeches and traditional dancing.
Changing the name of Kelseyville “is not about healing or forgiveness,” White, the Save Kelseyville leader, said at the meeting. “It is the sanctimonious act of forcefully removing the name of our home, hurting us to palliate the hurt of another.”
Others objected as well.
“I have a 150-foot sign up on the back of my business that says ‘Kelseyville Lumber,’” said Mark Borghesani, president and general manager of that company. “So, after the name changes, what am I?
“I’ve put my entire life into this county, into building Kelseyville and building a brand. At no time have we ever discussed honoring Andrew Kelsey.”
‘Still Hurts To This Day’
Yet the name remains offensive to Native Americans, said Joseph Weber of the Big Valley tribe, who asked the supervisors to consider how it might feel for a Jewish person to visit a town called Hitlerville. Weber and others spoke of the intergenerational trauma passed down from Kelsey’s time.
“This name is part of that trauma,” he said.
After introducing himself, then making respectful mention of his ancestors, Robinson Rancheria Tribal Chairman Beniakem Cromwell talked about his commute.
He lives in the Kelseyville Riviera, southeast of town, and works across the lake in Nice. His drive to and from work takes him past Bloody Island.
Seeing that grim landmark twice a day, spelling out the name of Kelseyville every time he fills out his address — “It hurts,” he said. “It still hurts to this day.”
Helen Finch, president of the Kelseyville Business Association, took the rostrum after Cromwell. Her remarks perfectly encapsulated the dissonance on display during the entire meeting.
Much of the intergenerational trauma “challenging our Indigenous people,” she said, “is driven by their choice to keep the past alive, and in too many cases to teach their children that they are the victims of those around them, when in fact it was evolution at work, moving white men forward then, as it continues to be now.”
Finch took to Facebook a few days later to apologize for her comments “suggesting that Native Americans hold on to the past by choice and teach their children to be victims. In fact, I have no knowledge as to how they manage their families as I do not have a personal relationship with any NA family … but I am interested in learning. I would like to better understand.”
She also clarified that her comment about evolution “was not referring to survival of the fittest or natural selection … I meant only to suggest that Native Americans were the victims of that particular stage of American / human evolution.”
Her remarks caused a stir within the Kelseyville Business Association, leading at least two businesses to withdraw from the group.
“That sent some people over the edge,” said a business owner in the town, who asked not to be identified, for fear of retaliation. “It’s a terrible look for the KBA.”
Rachel White and Mark Borghesani declined invitations to speak with The Press Democrat.
After 2½ hours of public comment, Pyska informed her colleagues that even if a countywide vote took place, they could still “bring this back” for “another discussion.” They could still give a recommendation to the Board on Geographic Names.
In that case, replied Supervisor Moke Simon, Tribal Chairman of the Middletown Rancheria Pomo Indians, “why was (the agenda item) brought this way? Why wasn’t it just brought for us to make a decision?”
But the agenda only asked supervisors to decide the narrow question of whether the issue should be presented to county voters in the November election.
In the end, two board members — Simon and Supervisor Eddie Crandell, a former Tribal Chair of the Robinson Rancheria Pomo — joined Pyska in voting to put the measure on the ballot.
Before the vote, Simon pointed to a member of the public, and elderly gentleman who’d asked if changing the town’s name “could really heal all the problems.”
After posing a variation of that question — “Would the name change help start the healing?” — Simon answered with an emphatic “YES!”
The answer to that question, he repeated, “is a pure, pure yes.”
(Santa Rosa Press Democrat)
BEHOLD THE RADIANT SPIRIT of Hopi girls from Sichomovi, nestled atop First Mesa in Arizona, captured in this timeless photograph circa 1900 by Frederick Monsen. Against the backdrop of the rugged desert landscape, these young girls embody the beauty and grace of the Hopi culture.
With traditional attire adorned in vibrant colors and intricate patterns, the girls exude a sense of pride in their heritage. Their smiles reflect the joy and resilience of the Hopi people, who have flourished in harmony with the land for countless generations.
Monsen's lens immortalizes a moment of innocence and purity, offering a glimpse into the rich tapestry of Hopi life at the turn of the century. In their laughter and camaraderie, we witness the enduring spirit of community and connection that defines Hopi culture.
As we honor the legacy of the Hopi people and their deep reverence for the earth, may we also celebrate the beauty and diversity of Indigenous cultures everywhere. Let us cherish and protect the traditions that enrich our world and inspire us to live in harmony with nature.
CALIFORNIA ENERGY COMMISSION SEEKS TO ACCELERATE DEVELOPMENT OF WAVE, TIDAL ENERGY
The feasibility report on wave and tidal energy is part of an effort to accelerate development of emissions-free marine energy in California.
by Mary Callahan
The power of the Pacific Ocean eludes no one who witnesses it.
And soon, that energy may be harnessed to make emissions-free electricity.
That’s the hope of the California Energy Commission, which, under legislation passed last year, is taking a deep dive into what it would take to advance and scale up conversion of the ocean’s energy into electricity, helping the state and the nation meet ambitious zero-carbon goals.
Several kinds of technology already are in development, testing and even deployment on a minimal scale, bolstered by millions of dollars in public grants and subsidies. Still, marine energy innovation and commercial implementation lag significantly behind solar and wind, even though it offers something the others do not: constancy and predictability.
The ocean’s waves and tides persist whether it’s dark out, overcast or the wind is still.
The sea also offers huge potential as a power generator, in California and across the country.
A report out of the U.S. Department of Energy in 2021 put the nation’s potential capacity for wave and tidal energy, using existing technologies, at 1,620 terawatt-hours per year. That’s equal to about 40% of the electricity generated in the United States in 2019 and enough to power 151 million homes, according to the report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
The Department of Energy’s Water Power Technologies Office on Monday called marine energy “one of the last untapped renewable energy sources.“
In California, wave and, to a far lesser extent, tidal energy potential was assessed at 141 terawatt hours per year, or about 23% of the state’s energy needs, according to newly published report on wave and tidal energy prepared for the state energy commission.
That is more than what comes from hydroelectric, nuclear, wind, geothermal and biomass sources combined. The only two larger current sources for the state are natural gas (39%) and solar (28%).
The West Coast’s narrow continental shelf makes for larger, more powerful waves than those on the East Coast, with the waters off Washington and Oregon offering the “greatest amount of extractable, near shore wave energy,” according to a 2020 study by the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
But Northern California also offers “significant power,” the report said, and particular potential lies along the coastline between Bodega Bay and the Oregon border, according to a 2007 report prepared for the energy commission by the Electric Power Research Institute.
Offshore wind power deployment has a big head start, with plans focused on harnessing electricity from hundreds of giant turbines floating in the ocean about 20 miles off Humboldt Bay and Morro Bay.
But wave technology appears to offer a far lower visibility than solar or wind generating infrastructure and can be deployed across comparatively smaller spatial areas for the same return in terms of power generation, experts say.
“Obviously, we’re making a big push into marine energy technologies, most notably with offshore wind,” California Energy Commission Chairman David Hochschild said during a commission workshop on wave and tidal energy last week. “But I am personally very hopeful about other marine technologies to complement that and support that.
“And I think one observation that’s important to keep in mind is that 80% of our country’s electric demand is in states that have a coast … around the world as well as domestically, and so the maturation of these kind of technologies can deliver a lot of benefits to coastal populations in terms of energy security and decarbonization.”
The workshop followed the July 23 release of a report on Wave and Tidal Energy: Evaluation of Feasibility, Costs, and Benefits, prepared for the energy commission under a state Senate bill passed and signed into law last year.
Authored by state Sen. Steve Padilla, Senate Bill 605 requires the commission to assess the potential for wave and tidal energy, as well as environmental, economic and regulatory hurdles, as part of its regular policy review.
The 91-page report is open to public comment from interested citizens and stakeholders until Aug. 22.
Among its findings: a wide variety of wave energy conversion technologies already exist utilizing different ways of capturing the kinetic energy of the ocean and converting it to electricity both for use in marine pursuits like aquaculture farms, and for integration into the grid on shore.
The equipment is designed to be deployed at different levels of the water column, capturing movement in different directions for conversion to usable energy. Some operate on the surface and others are submerged. Several have been tested at the PacWave wave energy testing lab led by Oregon State University off Newport, Ore., which facilitates testing because it has grid connections and existing permits to operate.
Significant hurdles exist in terms of cost, complex permitting, assessment of environmental impacts — on wildlife, especially — and durability in a harsh environment. The technologies are still young, so there’s a need for long-term demonstrations, according to the new report. Grid integration could be an expensive challenge, as well.
But experts and public officials are bullish about the potential for wave and tidal energy to complement other renewable resources going forward.
“I am very hopeful,” Hochschild said, “that for the long term we can together cultivate them and bring them into the market.”
State energy officials won’t begin evaluating priority areas to investigate for potential energy and tidal development until early next year for a report to be submitted to Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature.
(Santa Rosa Press Democrat)
ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
RFK Jr can’t get on the ballot in many states.
If he did, in fact, reach out to Kamala Harris for a cabinet position, then RFK is finished in this election cycle.
Regardless of whether or not one likes or agrees with RFK Jr, the fact that he cannot get on the ballot in many states tells one a lot about how America really works.
WHAT THE DEBATE ABOUT WINE & HEALTH GETS WRONG
by Esther Mobley
Before I joined the Chronicle, I worked as an editorial assistant at Wine Spectator magazine. Hungry for any writing assignment I could get, I constantly volunteered for the beat that no other staffer appeared eager to cover: wine and health.
It was a strange exercise, because seemingly every week a study was published that contradicted the study I’d covered the week before. Alcohol was bad for sleep quality. But red wine might help you fight the common cold! But it causes dementia. But it may reduce vision loss!
After a couple years, I learned to roll my eyes at every new report that came across my desk. Any information that one of these studies purported to convey had just come to seem rather useless to me. It felt like an endlessly circular debate that would never arrive at any definitive conclusion.
So I don’t think I was paying close enough attention to the public discourse around wine and health when, gradually over the past decade, a major cohort of the scientific community and the public turned sharply and decisively against alcohol.
This shift in sentiment is the subject of a big article I published on Tuesday, a project that has been in the works for months.
It’s probably obvious to anyone who’s lived in the U.S. or Europe in the last few years that alcohol is now widely viewed as much more dangerous than it once was. Public abstinence events like Dry January and Sober October keep growing in popularity. Youngsters are calling wine the “2024 cigarette.” Bottles sold in Ireland will soon have a cancer warning label, similar to what’s seen on tobacco packaging.
My story mainly looks at what could become a bombshell moment in the U.S. The federal government is revising its dietary guidelines, and looks likely to recommend a major reduction in alcohol use. That revision would effectively reframe an idea that our government has endorsed since introducing those guidelines in 1980: that moderate alcohol consumption is perfectly safe for adults.
It’s not that the dietary guidelines on their own will rewire a nation’s opinion on alcohol. But they could hammer the nail into the proverbial coffin that was constructed by temperance groups, negative headlines and scientific journal articles over the last several years.
Frankly, the wine industry was slow to respond to what could amount to an existential threat. Though the dietary guidelines’ revision process has been in the works since 2022, it wasn’t until this spring and summer that industry groups started sending letters and organizing campaigns around it. Maybe many industry players, as I did, initially mistook this growing movement as part of the usual airwave of anti-alcohol chatter that’s always been circulating.
Now that industry proponents are speaking up, however, they’re rushing to mount a full-blown defense of moderate drinking. They’re effectively trying to pre-debunk the new dietary guidelines before they’re even published, claiming that this revision has been placed in the hands of neo-Prohibitionist activists who have infiltrated government subcommittees.
Some wine industry insiders, meanwhile, are leaning into other arguments — like how wine can ease our society’s “friendship deficit,” as wine publicist Gino Colangelo put it.
“We do not want to be part of the medical discussion, because we’re not doctors,” said Napa wine writer Karen MacNeil. “But the current surgeon general’s report talks about social isolation being at epidemic proportions in the U.S. Without addressing that medically, I think we can say that enjoying a communal beverage brings people together.” MacNeil, Colangelo and wine publicist Kimberly Charles have launched a campaign called “Come Over October,” a retort to Sober October.
Focusing on wine’s convivial aspect is a nice idea, though I wonder whether sounding the alarm of loneliness can really compete with the anti-alcohol movement’s much more dire-sounding warnings. (Cancer!)
Ten years after leaving behind the wine-and-health beat, I still don’t quite know how to think about, or write about, alcohol’s health effects. I’ve always felt uncomfortable with the idea that people would drink wine because they believe it’s healthy for them, which is what happened after many people learned about the French Paradox and the Mediterranean Diet. Even if moderate wine consumption could be said to reduce the risk of certain problems, like heart disease, we also know that in certain doses it is certainly harmful.
Sometimes, when I hear wine professionals and enthusiasts effusively promoting the alleged benefits of moderate drinking — the ever-popular J-curve — I fear that the discussion is willfully ignoring the obvious other side of alcohol. Even if they’re correct, many of these folks seem reluctant to admit that they have a financial interest in the notion that moderate drinking can be healthy — or at the very least, a personal interest (because they like to drink!).
If it wants its arguments to be credible, the wine industry needs to do a much better job of preaching moderation, of calling out problem drinking and of acknowledging the dangers of heavy consumption. I appreciated that Laura Catena, a vintner and physician, sounded this more moderate tune when I interviewed her for this week’s story.
I’ve come to think about it like this: I know that sugar, in high doses, is awful for me. But that doesn’t stop me from enjoying dessert after dinner a couple of times a week. There’s no question in my mind that the deliciousness of a piece of cake is worth whatever health trade-off I’ve made.
I don’t drink wine because I believe it’s reducing my mortality risk. It brings me joy, and that’s enough.
(SF Chronicle)
WHY IS ORACLE ASSEMBLING A SECRET DATABASE OF TRUMP LOYALISTS?
Oracle Corp., a software company started in the Bay Area, is reportedly helping the Heritage Foundation vet thousands of conservative candidates for a second Donald Trump term.
by Raheem Hosseini
Oracle Corp., the $370 billion cloud-computing giant started in Santa Clara, is not shy about promoting a 430,000-plus-deep client roster that includes San Francisco-born tech companies like Open AI and Palantir or the government of Saudi Arabia.
But Oracle’s public-facing financial disclosures, its exhaustive customer index and searchable media releases do not mention its purported contract to build a secretive personnel database of politicos willing to implement Project 2025, a radically conservative agenda designed for a second Donald Trump term.
Published last year, Project 2025 — subtitled the “Presidential Transition Project” — is a 900-page action plan organized by the Heritage Foundation and crafted by more than 100 Trump administration officials and staffers.
The sprawling policy document details how Trump can achieve a vision he has described in campaign speeches, interviews and his own Agenda 47 platform. Among other things, it outlines how the Republican nominee, in his first six months in office, could push through a national abortion ban, deport every undocumented immigrant and criminalize transgender identity. It also envisions the elevation of Christianity over other faiths, an end to state sovereignty and a tax hike for the middle class.
Acknowledging that the former president’s first-term agenda was partially thwarted by federal judges, whistleblowers and even his own appointees, Project 2025 aims to use a new employment category Trump sought to create shortly before his 2020 defeat that would allow him to replace thousands of rank-and-file federal employees with political appointees.
Which is where Oracle reportedly came in.
As the New York Times reported in April 2023, Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts said his organization tapped the company to develop a secure personnel database that could provide Trump with up to 20,000 candidates by the end of this year, using artificial intelligence to speed up the vetting process.
Paul Dans, Trump’s former chief of staff at the Office of Personnel Management and Project 2025’s chief architect, even drew up whiteboard sketches of what the “conservative LinkedIn” could look like in January 2023, according to ProPublica, while Axios reported the database had more than 4,000 entries that November.
As Dans writes in the forward for Project 2025, “Our goal is to assemble an army of aligned, vetted, trained, and prepared conservatives to go to work on Day One to deconstruct the Administrative State.”
Neither Oracle Corp. nor the Heritage Foundation responded to the Chronicle’s requests for comment.
Founded in 1977 by three men who took their company’s name from a CIA project they had worked on, Oracle — which moved from Redwood City to Austin, Texas, in 2020 — has resisted wading into presidential politics or appearing partisan. Its political action committee, Oracle PAC, has distributed nearly $400,000 to candidates and committees from both major parties since January 2023, including $60,000 apiece to Republican and Democratic congressional PACs, Federal Election Commission records show.
Larry Ellison, the company’s co-founder and chief technology officer, is a different story.
Currently ranked the world’s fifth richest person by Forbes, Ellison, who owns most of an island in Hawaii and has a Walnut Creek address, according to FEC filings, participated in a November 2020 call about contesting Trump’s election defeat and more recently lobbied Trump, unsuccessfully, to choose Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., for his running mate. Ellison reportedly gave a Scott-supporting super PAC $10 million in 2022 and has donated more than $200,000 to mostly Republican causes since March 2023 — $81,600 to House and Senate Republicans and $69,500 to Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. OpenSecrets shows Ellison donating $10 million to the school choice super PAC Opportunity Matters Fund in 2022.
Some of Silicon Valley’s biggest, brashest investors and executives have been pledging in recent weeks to use their considerable wealth and influence to get Trump elected, including Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, crypto superfunders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, former PayPal executive David Sacks and Palantir founder Joe Lonsdale.
To be considered for Project 2025’s “Presidential Administration Academy,” one must access a passcode-protected questionnaire that asks applicants about their political philosophy and their opinions on immigrants, unions, gender, “censorship by Big Tech,” the “education industry,” “permanent institutions of family and religion” and whether “Life has a right to legal protection from conception to natural death.”
“It’s a dangerous manifesto,” said California state Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley. “It completely undermines women’s autonomy and relegates us to second-class citizens.”
Rabia Muqaddam, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, noted the irony of Heritage and the other conservative groups involved in Project 2025 railing against the administrative state. “The document is a how-to to use the administrative state to go after abortion,” she said. “At the end of the day, it’s really very unprincipled.”
Project 2025 has flopped spectacularly in recent weeks, as the public’s growing knowledge of the Trump 2.0 plan coincides with its rising unpopularity.
Dans left Heritage last month, while Roberts has delayed release of an upcoming book, which takes a dark view of contraception and in vitro fertilization and includes a forward from Trump running mate J.D. Vance.
Trump himself has changed his story on Project 2025, going from claiming ignorance to issuing a full-throated disavowal. The distancing attempts represent a far cry from April 2022, when Trump gave a glowing keynote address at a Heritage event in Florida, commending Roberts for the conservative vision his foundation was crafting.
Referring to Trump’s denials, Roberts told the Vince Coglianese Show on WMAL News last month that he had “no hard feelings” and that he understood the Republican presidential nominee was “making a political tactical decision there.”
(SF Chronicle)
“Buffalo Bill” Cody, galloping on his white horse, Isham, who is galloping full tilt while Bill leans back hard in the saddle riding like the professional horseman he was.
Born on February 26, 1846, in Iowa, William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody's life was deeply intertwined with his prowess as a skilled horseman. His family's move to Kansas during his childhood marked his early immersion into the frontier lifestyle, where horses played a pivotal role in daily activities.
Tragedy struck when Cody was just 10 years old with the passing of his father. To support his family, he entered the workforce under William Russell, starting as a herder and gradually ascending to the role of a wagonmaster through dedication and hard work.
At the age of 14, during the inauguration of the Pony Express in 1860, Cody ventured into the realm of riding, a talent that would later be contested by historians. Known for his stamina and reliability as a carrier, he gained recognition for his feats.
Subsequently, Cody's path led him to join the Seventh Kansas Cavalry, marking the beginning of his journey as a scout, guide, and plainsman. Horseback riding became a constant companion throughout his life, interrupted briefly only during his involvement in melodrama performances.
Cody's mastery extended beyond conventional riding; he acquired the skill of bareback riding and executing mid-gallop leaps on and off his mount, showcasing his exceptional agility and connection with horses. This skill set would become emblematic of his identity as a remarkable horseman in the American West.
HOLLYWOOD SQUARES CLASSICS
AVA News Service
Q: If you're going to make a parachute jump, you should be at least how high?
A: Charley Weaver: Three days of steady drinking should do it.
Q: True or false: a pea can last as long as 5,000 years.
A: George Gobel: Boy it sure seems that way sometimes.
Q: You've been having trouble going to sleep. Are you probably a man or a woman?
A: Don Knotts: That's what's been keeping me awake.
Q: According to Cosmo, if you meet a stranger at a party and you think he's really attractive, is it okay to come out directly and ask him if he's married?
A: Rose Marie: No, wait until morning.
Q: Which of your five senses tends to diminish as you get older?
A: Charley Weaver: My sense of decency.
Q: In Hawaiian, does it take more than three words to say “I love you”?
A: Vincent Price: No, you can say it with a pineapple and a twenty.
Q: As you grow older, do you tend to gesture more or less with your hands while talking?
A: Rose Marie: You ask me one more growing older question, Peter, and I'll give you a gesture you'll never forget!
Q: Paul, why do Hell's Angels wear leather?
A: Paul Lynde: Because chiffon wrinkles too easily.
Q: Charley, you've just decided to grow strawberries. Are you going to get any during your first year?
A: Charley Weaver: Of course not, Peter. I'm too busy growing strawberries!
Q: In bowling, what's a perfect score?
A: Rose Marie: Ralph, the pin boy.
Q: It is considered in bad taste to discuss two subjects at nudist camps. One is politics. What is the other?
A: Paul Lynde: Tape measures.
Q: Can boys join the Camp Fire Girls?
A: Marty Allen: Only after lights out.
Q: When you pat a dog on its head he will usually wag his tail. What will a goose do?
A: Paul Lynde: Make him bark.
Q: If you were pregnant for two years, what would you give birth to?
A: Paul Lynde: Whatever it is, it would never be afraid of the dark.
Q: According to Ann Landers, is anything wrong with the habit of kissing a lot of people?
A: Charley Weaver: It got me out of the army!
Q: Back in the old days, when Great Grandpa put horseradish on his head, what was he trying to do?
A: George Gobel: Get it in his mouth.
Q: Who stays pregnant for a longer period of time, your wife or your elephant?
A: Paul Lynde: Who told you about my elephant?
Q: When a couple have a baby, who is responsible for its sex?
A: Charley Weaver: I'll lend him the car. The rest is up to him.
Q: Jackie Gleason recently revealed that he firmly believes in them and has actually seen them on at least two occasions. What are they?
A: Charley Weaver: His feet.
Q: Imagine you are a child in your mother's womb, can you detect light?
A: Paul Lynde: Only during ballet practice.
Jim Shields: “So as I said in a previous piece in this series, if state and local governments have almost no data and lack basic programmatical information, how in the world are they going to solve this 50-plus year dilemma?”
Peter Drucker: “What you don’t measure you can’t manage.”
Aimless management with no use of measurable metrics for success is common in government. It is also common in the private sector. The difference between the two is that in the private sector, going out of business is the consequence. Government never goes out of business, even with a government collapse. Government just raises taxes or prints money, or both.
FROM THE AVA ARCHIVES
Take this one simple Marbut recommendation, for example:
“Mendocino County’s HMIS (Homeless Management Information System) participation rates are significantly lower than general participation rates within California. The existing HMIS data is thus ‘thin,’ which limits meaningful strategic decision making based on HMIS data. For the most part, HMIS data is currently limited to the Federal requirements and does not provide a rich enough understanding of the ‘uniquenesses’ that exist within Mendocino County. Additionally, the lack of universal quality data allows un-validated ‘myths’ to become operational ‘facts,’ thus hindering thoughtful strategic decision making. This lack of quality real-time data also prevents the ‘system’ from being integrated and coordinated, and weakens the coordinated entry system.
“In order to promote universal agency participation, all funding to any service agency provided by any governmental source and/or from a foundation should become contingent on the service agency being a proactive participant within HMIS. Carrots need to be created to encourage agencies to use HMIS, likewise, there must be financial consequences for not using HMIS. Simply put, HMIS data entry needs to be in “real-time,” it needs to be universal and it needs to extend well beyond HUD-funded programs in order to facilitate coordination of care across the entire service Continuum of Care (CoC).”
Translation: Each homeless person who gets help from the “Continuum of Care” needs to be identified, assessed and tracked in one single coordinated system so that better decisions can be made for individuals and for the homeless in general. And steps need to be taken to make sure that each of the 30 agencies making up the Continuum of Care are participating.
https://theava.com/archives/188267
MAGA Marmon
Mr. Marmon,
I believe you are the person we need at the helm of this new homeless city project. Sounds like you, and Mr. Norvell are already working together.
MCFADDEN FAMILY VINEYARD AND FARM – an iconic Mendocino County organic farming operation since 1970 is on the market.
Let’s do this✅
Fort Bragg has the data.
In Ukiah you’re going to have to get Plowshares on board. A lot of homeless folks eat there that don’t receive services from any of the helping agencies. I don’t believe Plowshares is part of the CoC, correct me if I’m wrong.
MAGA Marmon
Letter: Marbut has the wrong attitude
“Plowshares’ mission statement tells us to treat every person with respect and dignity. Our Community Dining Room offers a free hot meal and other assistance to all who are hungry or in need, homeless or not. The Plowshares staff recognizes most of the homeless here as longtime local residents—almost all are part of this community, not just traveling strangers. Some have mental health and other challenges that government services may never be able to fully address; some may never be able to benefit from a “hand up.” But these people need extra attention and support, not blame and scorn. Even if the homeless include some “travelers,” not all of those are in the category of “trimmigrants” (who have jobs and don’t need services). In cultures throughout the world, hospitality is considered a sacred duty to strangers even if—especially if—they’re in distress.
Whatever causes a person’s homelessness, we all need good food and safe shelter. Plowshares’ work to feed the hungry may be “only a bandaid” but (in the words of late homeless advocate Judy Judd) bandaids are good! We don’t throw them out just because we have emergency rooms.
Dr. Marbut, I hope that you will consider writing an addendum to your report, or perhaps just a letter to the editor, reminding all of us about sensitivity and caution in judgment – even compassion and generosity of spirit – toward our fellow humans, homeless and otherwise. I am hoping that community attitudes can begin to shift away from fear and hostility and toward helping Plowshares help those most in need of our empathy and assistance.
Thank you.
-Mary Buckley, Plowshares Interim Executive Director
https://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/2019/04/27/letter-marbut-has-the-wrong-attitude/
MAGA Marmon
I guess I’m saying the quiet part out loud.
MAGA Marmon
MANUFACTURED DROUGHT’: Ukiah Demands Rehearing on Water Flow Reductions
Ukiah, welcome to reality. Better late than never. Now challenge your Congressman, Jared Huffman, for orchestrating the end of water certainty for Ukiah, and the Russian River. If you want a change, vote for the only other choice for Congress this November, Chris Coulombe. Insanity is to continue to do the same thing over and over again, and complain about the results.
I’m a bit confused about Ukiah’s request…. Seems like most of their supply is from groundwater. Increasing downstream releases benefits fish, but mostly the surface water is already pre-allocated to Sonoma County.
“FERC approved the request, despite the fact that this 2024 water-year is on track for a normal water-year. Eight days after FERC’s approval, PG&E immediately dropped flows all the way down to the extremely restricted 5 cfs level – as if we were in a dry or critical water year.”
This quote from above has been in every local news source.
I follow Eel River stats pretty closely and never saw this flow level.
Anyone know when?
Ukiah ground water is tied directly to water coming from Lake Mendocino.
I’d like to see the data on that…nothing is predictable in our north coast Franciscan melange geology.
Some folks could argue that Lake Mendocino itself has a greater benefit to Ukiah valley groundwater than surface water releases below the Lake Mendocino spillway
Yes.
In response to Jim Shields.
I whole heartedly agree. I’m a formula driven person. We need to take stock of our capacity for services-drug treatment, homeless shelter beds, etc-and assess if we are running at full capacity. Do we need to increase, decrease, or is it just right? Home many people do we have waiting to access services? Let’s set a goal of getting people through the gauntlet with a ETA of reducing the problem to a reasonable level. Do assessments on progress. If we aren’t making progress, look at the programs and adjust.
My current campaign to clean out encampments from certain areas stems from my frustration on lack of progress. The community should be a safe and clean place. Creeks shouldn’t be fouled with feces and needles. Kids should be able to safely walk or bike to school. As a community, we aren’t holding the people doing the funding or getting the funding accountable. As an individual, I can’t easily affect policy. What I can do is clean up the areas around me. I can get buy in from other community members to help me do this. Besides the obvious of helping maintain a community that is clean and inviting, I am hoping it pressures the powers that be to do a better job. If we don’t have the capacity to quickly treat those with drug abuse and mental illness, we still need to address their need for some sort of housing. My idea of a sanctioned camp is a suggestion on how to deal with that. Some like the idea, some don’t but for it to be put into action, there needs to be sufficient buy in and resources devoted to making it happen. The community needs to collectively say yes to whatever strategies we employ.
In the meantime. I am going to use my voice to say where encampments can’t be. Creeks, near schools, private property I manage are all a hard no so I am going to do everything within my power to keep those areas free of encampments.
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.
Let’s do this✅
Let’s talk about what got us here. A liberal 9th Circuit judge ruled that you can’t arrest someone for being homeless if you have no place to put them.
So your idea of a designated area is following that ruling. And yes, people have called you names, called this idea a free campground. And yet they seem totally fine with this judge’s ruling that basically made our streets a free public campground. At least your idea is a solution following this judge’s stupidity.
Unfortunately the homeless are just not people down and out on their luck. A good majority have drug or mental illness and are committing crimes. The Craig Stehr’s are few, meaning, a person who is trying to use the system correctly and not be homeless. What does he get for his efforts? Roadblocks by our system.
The system is the problem!!!! We have allowed our justice system to be hijacked by no consequences policy. Judges have been stripped to order someone to drug court, now, the defendant must agree to drug court. Really! This allows the Scotty Willis’ and Jaylan Travis’ the ability to be arrested over a 100 times and released. In the end, you get the law enforcement and DA just throwing their hands up in the air saying they have no direction.
Well, the Supreme Court just ruled basically striking down the 9th Circuit. Now there is direction. Let’s see if are leaders will adopt this and apply it.
I applaud Adam for his efforts. The only thing so far that has made an impact is business owners and citizens taking back normalcy. John McGowan, who donates his time cleaning up homeless encampments on a daily basis. Property owners not allowing their properties to be free campgrounds. So call us socialist’s and unhinged while we are trying to make are community safe, we got broad shoulders.
Who is failing you, City of Ukiah and County of Mendocino! It’s time to put Supervisors and City Council members on notice, if they continue to ignore this issue then we need to vote them out. We do have hope, two new Supervisors will take their seats in January. Bernie Norvell, who has not ignored this in Ft. Bragg as mayor. Madeline Cline seems ready to take this head on as she has made herself available with citizens on this subject.
We can all agree we have a problem. Homeless people camping out in the creeks or private property and bringing all the negative impacts-used needles, feces, fire hazard, trash, etc-is unacceptable. We can easily say “no, they can’t be here”
So, where can we say “yes, they can stay here”? at least until we can get them the help they need to get them off the street whether that’s back on the horse of self reliance and into their own home or for those that will never be fully self reliant, into some form of government subsidized housing.
Where ever this it, requires structure and resources to be successful in not becoming a nuisance and health hazard.
If there is no place we can say yes to, then we may as well buy them a bus ticket, a happy meal and wish them well.
“If there is no place we can say yes to, then we may as well buy them a bus ticket, a happy meal and wish them well.”
Since many have no ties elsewhere, doing that would be a criminal act. You guys are going overboard.
Many of the homeless here have received bus tickets from Humboldt County, Santa Rosa, Windsor and Healdsburg. How do I know? They told me. What’s your solution?
So what is your suggestion as to a place that we can say yes to? Not tomorrow, today.
A sanctioned Campground.
Clinics, Hospital, Govt., Social Services, BOS, MTA, everyone provides the necessary infrastructure at the campground.
For Gavin Newsom OFF THE SIDEWALK is what he wants, #1.
Exercise eminent domain, purchase the property that once was slated for a tiny home development just east of BB, and let an encampment there and then actualize the conditions you envision for a sanctioned camp. Which is almost what I do…..I differ in that I would have a designated area for alcohol and cannabis usage. Why this area? Homeless seem to already feel safe there….camping on the sidewalk on the west side of BB. And the cops don’t seem to end that either. The private owner of the lot across the street used to okay camping there, if I’m remembering correctly, but something changed. The heavy drinkers and others hang there now. The location is walkable to plowshares and county social services.
PS: I’ve suggested at FB and here the sanctioned campground idea, for years ….good luck maybe they will hear YOU.
It’s a MANDATE
“Housing and homelessness are top of mind as California lawmakers wrap up their 2024 legislative session. Democratic Senator Josh Becker is sponsoring a bill to create more shelter options for people experiencing homelessness, like these tiny homes.
Once you’re in one place, we can get you services.”
https://www.capradio.org/articles/2024/08/12/several-housing-bills-are-still-in-play-in-the-california-legislature/
So you agree with Adam? His first solution is an area designated for homeless. If that can’t be done, then he offered the bus ticket solution.
Also you don’t really know the homeless in Ukiah. Their drug of choice is meth. Not alcohol and cannabis.
Meth is illegal and very unhealthy (alcohol also bad for health but is legal).
—> August 8, 2024
A groundbreaking University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), study last year found 90% of the unhoused population was living in California before they fell into homelessness; nearly half of unhoused adults were age 50 and over; and many older residents were experiencing homelessness for the first time due to high housing costs. Incarceration, mental health challenges, substance use and past experiences of violence were also common factors that preceded older adults’ homelessness, UCSF found… — The Guardian
—> June 20, 2024
The research from UCSF’s Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, based on a representative survey of nearly 3,200 unhoused people, contradicts several persistent myths about the population, including that most unhoused people come from out of state to take advantage of services, as well as stereotypes that homeless people are mostly young adults who prefer to live outside and don’t want help…
The crisis has become a public health catastrophe in recent years as an ageing population is forced to live in tents, cars and other makeshift shelters, with thousands dying on the streets each year. California is considered the most unaffordable state for housing, where minimum-wage earners would have to work nearly 90 hours a week to afford a one-bedroom apartment. — The Guardian
We should have built shelter, individual and private, for every older homeless person….a long time ago. That study hits the mark, we see it here: old people living on the streets.
How could this have been tolerated for so long? And, still?!?!
Seems simple enough
An important part of William Cody’s life was his family’s involvement in the anti-slave movement in Leavenworth, Kansas.
https://www.leavenworthks.org/visitors/page/wayside-tour-4-buffalo-bill
Any discussion of homelessness must include the cost of housing. What happened to all the SROs? Why is it allowed to turn long term housing into short term vacation rentals? How many units are owned by people or corporations that don’t live in them, but merely hold them for speculation. This is most frequently done by overseas money. Unfettered Capitalism is a root cause of homelessness. Housing should be a human right, especially in a nation as wealthy as ours.
Exactly–Housing has been turned into a yet another commodity for making money in our country. You are right, Chuck, “Housing should be a human right.”
Housing is a human right, alright, but it is not right that there’s no affordable housing anymore. I’d take affordable housing which is supposed to be 30% of income. My social security is $1300 monthly. Thirty percent of that is about $450. I am wiling to pay $450 per month for senior housing in California. I need to leave the Royal Motel by 11 a.m. September 1st. For those of you with political connections, please forward my information so that I may remain a housed California resident. Thank you very much. P.S. I am not willing to do any slave work exchange and there will be no sexual favors. Trim your own hedges and get a masseuse. ~Peaceout~
Craig Louis Stehr
Royal Motel
750 South State Street, Ukiah, CA 95482
Telephone: (707) 462-7536, Room 206
Email: craiglouisstehr@gmail.com
August 16, 2024 Anno Domini
Uh, Craig… sexual favors?
Ya, you know Bruce, sex in exchange for a place to live. I’m not interested.
I wouldn’t have thought at your age sexual favors would be an ask, but if you say so, Craig
Hey dude, that’s the world that we are living in. If everybody were sane and spiritually wiser, this conversation would not be taking place. I’m ready to move into subsidized senior housing in California right now. Where is it? Is there any way that you can get my message to Governor Newsom?
Do you have a voucher now?
No, the voucher timed out and nobody can explain why. Answers from the housing navigators, staff persons at Building Bridges Homeless Resource Center, and Redwood Community Services range from 1.Rules and regulations changed, 2.Maybe the B2 staff did not sufficiently communicate internally, so that the time that was spent in hospitals and skilled nursing centers, which was reported to B2 staff, would be communicated to the voucher administration so that the termination date would be moved forward, and 3.We’re not sure what happened.
Can you get this message to Governor Newsom?
Craig Louis Stehr
Royal Motel
750 South State Street, Ukiah, CA 95482
Telephone: (707) 462-7536, Room 206
Email: craiglouisstehr@gmail.com
August 16, 2024 Anno Domini
A possibly viable option, requiring maybe 50% plus of your income, are SF Bay area single room occupancy units (SRO). I think they’re cheaper in Oakland compared to SF….maybe look this option up online?
Like a monastic cell with bathroom down the hall.
I’ve reached the end of my tether in attempting to secure anything from the State of California, which of course I am entitled to, as a senior citizen of the United States of America.
I am on the receiving end now, God is on my side (dualistically speaking), and I’m not really sure if this is all basically sane and functional, given the near total dysfunctionality and concomitant lack of results following my interactions with the Federal Government and the State of California over the past three years.
Can you get this message to Governor Newsom?
Craig:
“Can you get this message to Governor Newsom?”
I don’t run in his circle but maybe someone on his staff subscribes to the AVA and see this.
If you’re unsheltered after Sept 1, you’re idea to camp alongside the trail makes sense as an immediate measure. Law enforcement here seems to not arrest most camping in Ukiah. There is a loud citizen contingent now seemingly going a tad overboard on their anti camping anywhere crusade. I agree with the idea by Adam for a sanctioned site, especially given that’s an idea I have suggested for years on the pages of the AVA comment section. Sadly, he and I are simply ignored on that front. But, I wouldn’t worry much if you pitch a tent on the trail. Reportedly, trail security forces have tried to move people away from there which suggests to me law enforcement seems to recognize folks need a place to sleep, and that the trail area is left alone at least by them when the camper isn’t disruptive. So they make few arrests and don’t seem to be bothering people much. Look in front of the Building Bridges. Cops aren’t moving them out.
Mayor of Santa Cruz offered yesterday on KQED-FM to shelter everyone.
“…As of August 11th, the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. campaign has all the signatures needed to make the ballot in every state thanks to an historic effort by more than 100,000 real, live human being volunteers and 250,000 small dollar donors concerned about our future”.
All 50 States Petition Signatures | Kennedy24
https://www.kennedy24.com/all50
I wanted to learn more about the flowers at the top of the page. I did a search of Xylocopa varipuncta. That is a carpenter bee. I’d still like to learn more about the flowers.
Love-in-a-mist
Nigella damascena
Apologies to Gary.
Thank you to my ___________at the AVA (“newspapers have no friends”), and Peter Boudoures for the rescue.
Nigella damascena with Xylocopa varipuncta bee
https://gardeningnirvana.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/bees-variety-001.jpg?w=1024
There have been claims that after Lue Elizondo ‘s memoirs comes out (in four days) high level officials will “come out”. Lue will be interviewed Monday on CBS Mornings. The NY Times today did this:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/16/books/booksupdate/imminent-luiz-elizondo.html
Spoiler alert: Lue confirms the reality of special access programs beyond any oversight by ANY elected officials that have retrieved ET tech and “biologics” (bodies).
BTW: I told you so.
Time to emphasize this data now:
https://www.et-cultures.com/post/a-briefing-glimpses-of-uap-related-non-human-intelligences-and-their-activities
Where’s that report on the trade talks between ET and the US guvamint? Screw the other nonsensical daydreaming and propaganda, intended to. to divert attention from other issues, like US support for Zionist genocide against Palestinians, the rightful inhabitants of what is now called Israel by some.
Sorry to see the non existent trade report still bouncing against the walls of your cranium.
Anyway: I told you so!!
(I can say that now, lol)
YOU opened the subject with your comments about how ET was in trade talks with the guvamint, no matter how you twist things around (as do most ET freaks). Since then, you have produced not an iota of proof. You need to produce a valid report, and I don’t mean some sci-fi blather that you made up or read in some ET magazine or web site. You know as well as I do that IF ET exists, it wouldn’t be wasting time on a plundered, overpopulated (with human monkeys) dump like Earth. Enjoy your dream world…and I’ll continue to dispute your nonsense.
I’m sure you will remain so devoted to this task too!
Like I told you countless times, the sort of thing you want me to report on is merely a notion that disinformers from the IC and AFOSI injected into the UFO field in the 1980s. The alleged (but not true) story they conveyed was that the Greys would give us some tech in exchange for us not interfering in their abduction program. People like John Lear spread this around. Maybe I should give you one of those bogus MJ12 documents that reference that nonsense? I don’t know why I would do that: it’s a distraction, frankly.
As to what has been reportedly observed re ET intent and activities, read the paper at my link above.
A Pulitzer prize journalist named Howard Blum wrote Out There about the disinformation program I mentioned. Read that for details
Reads like bad science fiction. I cannot see any reason whatsoever for ET to visit planet earth. You have confirmed for me my conclusion that there were never any trade talks and that ET is something insecure people claim as real to brighten their otherwise colorless lives. Enjoy your ET fantasies.
MANUFACTURED DROUGHT
Poor babies. Thems wanna keep stealing Eel River water, and Eel fishery restoration be damned! After all, thems feel “entitled” to that diverted water. I hope they lose, and that the Eel water is kept where it belongs: IN THE EEL. The wine farmers have had their day; now the welfare queens can take a hike!
“Mendocino County Court delays decision on whether to grant former payroll manager mental health diversion”
https://www.willitsnews.com/2024/08/16/mendocino-county-court-delays-decision-on-whether-to-grant-former-payroll-manager-mental-health-diversion/?utm_medium=browser_notifications&utm_source=pushly&utm_campaign=5251817
And the beat goes on…
What a County!
Laz
Just finished a day of sending out email messages 1.To the eastern seaboard, particularly Washington, D.C. , because I choose to remain socio-politically active on the planet earth and 2.To just about everywhere imaginable in the State of California, because being based here would be a stability factor. I could always travel and go anywhere for frontline activist related participation and write about it. But I would have a home base to return to, which would be good. Meanwhile, my complaint with the United States of America, is that after 74 years of consistently being a good citizen, which includes 23 years of unpaid work with Catholic Worker (which is why my social security benefits are so relatively low), following graduation from the University of Arizona, plus having been fully on through the civil rights movement, the radical environmental movement, the peace movement, and individually successful cultivating a spiritual life, that I am now receiving nothing from the United States of America experiment with democracy. The monthly social security benefits are legally mine, and the government has no choice but to give that to me. Anything that I might add to this message would miss the point. You are welcome to contact me at any time. Yours for a global spiritual revolution in this insane quagmire of samsara,
Craig Louis Stehr
Royal Motel
750 South State Street, Ukiah, CA 95482
Telephone: (707) 462-7536, Room 206
Email: craiglouisstehr@gmail.com
August 16, 2024 Anno Domini