Mendocino County Today: Monday 8/19/2024

Naked Ladies | Cool | First Rain | Fuchsia | Foot Chase | River Algae | Unmentionable Fisher | Monastery Video | Retired Today | Total Misery | Philo School | Ed Notes | McFarland Trucking | EKU 28 | Worst Wreck | Yesterday's Catch | Mounted Police | Marijuana Man | Sixties Swingers | Plastic Bags | Bombing Ineffective | Interview Ending | Warmonger McMaster | Income Disparity | No Problemo | Wildfire Costs | Hell Home | Teddy Abbott | Positive Masculinity | Atwood Message | Oakland Protest | Fifth Horseman | Abolish Preseason | Delta Blues

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DRY WEATHER and slightly below normal interior temperatures are expected through mid week. Temperatures for coastal areas will remain near normal, with the usual night and morning low clouds. Breezy conditions with low humidity is expected for interior Mendocino and Lake counties on Tuesday. An upper level trough will bring an increase chance of precipitation late in the week. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): How about that big shiny "Sturgeon Moon" out there this morning shining thru the clear skies with 54F this Monday morning on the coast. Mostly clear skies are forecast for this week leading to a chance of rain on Friday.

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PLAY MISTY DRIZZLE FOR ME

Editor,

The misty drizzle of Saturday yielded no measurable precipitation by sunset but did cause some condensation drip off my roof. But Sunday morning's sunny rise surprised me with wet ground and a full tenth of an inch in my rain gauge. The first rain of the season (I measure from July 1st to June 30th each year.) comes on August 18th. Last year it was July 11th and it too was a mere 0.1 inch.

J.D. Streeter

Mendocino

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UKIAH POLICE ARREST TWO AFTER MIDNIGHT FOOT CHASE

On 08-07-2024 at approximately 0116 hours, a Ukiah Police Department (UPD) Officer was on patrol conducting security checks in the parking lot of Kohl’s (437 N. Orchard Avenue). UPD has been made aware that there has been an increase in homeless activity in the parking lot, and the accumulation of trash has been increasing significantly.  

During the security check, the Officer observed a male and female subject inside of a white Toyota Highlander that had old “Dealer Plates” affixed to the front and rear bumper, which are no longer used in California. When a person purchases a vehicle, they are now issued a temporary paper license plate that is unique to that vehicle and owner. While speaking to the two subjects, additional UPD Officers arrived to assist. One of the Officers ran a records check on the vehicle’s VIN located on the dashboard just inside of the corner of the driver’s side windshield. UPD Dispatch advised the Officers that the vehicle was reported stolen out of Redding, CA.  

Both subjects had provided the Officer with names that did not return with any matches. This is common when criminals are trying to hide their true identity. Due to the vehicle being reported stolen, and both subjects providing false names and dates of birth, the Officer approached them to detain them in handcuffs. At that time the male subject, later identified through UPD resources as Lane Micheal Johnson, stood up and fled on foot. Three UPD Officers pursued Johnson southbound through the parking lot and west towards N. Orchard Avenue. The Officers were able to catch up to Johnson on the north side of McDonald’s in the JC Penny parking lot (205 N. Orchard Avenue), where he was tackled. During the apprehension of Johnson, he actively resisted by trying to pull away and refused to comply with lawful commands. UPD Officers were eventually able to place him into handcuffs without further incident. Suspected methamphetamine was located on Johnson’s person during a search incident to arrest.

A UPD Sergeant who had arrived prior to the foot pursuit remained at the initial scene and detained the female subject, later identified as Hanna Fierro-McGarry.  

Johnson was escorted back to the initial scene and a search of the vehicle was conducted. Inside of the vehicle, multiple social security cards were located that did not belong to Johnson or Fierro-McGarry. There was also a replica Glock 19 handgun under the driver’s seat, that was later determined to be a BB gun. 

After running a records check on Johnson’s true name, UPD Officers were advised that he had a felony warrant for burglary out of Del Norte County. Fierro-McGarry was determined to be a reported missing person out of  Redding, CA.  

Johnson was transported to the Adventist Health Ukiah Valley Emergency Room (AHUV ER) for a medical clearance prior to incarceration at the Mendocino County Jail. Fierro-McGarry was transported straight to the  Mendocino County Jail.  

As always, UPD’s mission is to make Ukiah as safe a place as possible. If you would like to know more about  crime in your neighborhood, you can sign up for telephone, cellphone, and email notifications by clicking the  Nixle button on our website; www.ukiahpolice.com.

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WE COULDN’T HELP but notice that there was no mention of John ‘Cash & Carry’ Fisher in all the local coverage around the last “Bay Bridge Series” baseball game between the Giants and the As. Of course, that doesn’t mean nobody mentioned Fisher; it just means it wasn’t in the coverage. The Oakland fans who made it onto the TV airwaves all said how “unfortunate” or “sad” it was that the As were moving out of Oakland, or similar comments. And the announcers scrupulously avoided the word “Fisher.” Just another indicator of how wealthy people can avoid public blame by dictating the coverage and focusing interest on the shallowest aspects of what’s going on. Several former Oakland As execs have pointed out how the Oakland City Council could have exerted much more leverage on Fisher if they’d wanted to. But Fisher escaped that too. Plus he gets a publicly funded new stadium in Vegas. (Mark Scaramella)

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JUSTINE IN REDWOOD VALLEY:

I am also hoping that you can add a link to a video I made that goes with MY latest “That was cool” posted on Mendocino County Today about the trails in Redwood Valley.

https://youtu.be/PcPpFzheZHQ

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75 AND FACING HOMELESSNESS

I Just Need to Express This.

In the motel room sipping an alka seltzer for comfort, watching the mind worry about 1.survival 2.running out of money 3.the future in general 4.the total misery of having no place to go anywhere and nothing worthwhile to do. Spent the past hour praying for help. I mean, it’s not that I have anything terrible to deal with, but the feeling of being out of the loop in consumerist America where there is no possibility of my being in that loop is very weird. Obviously, I am relying on spiritual reality. It would be really great to leave this world, but this may go on for awhile. The prospect of being here like this, even aging slowly, is uncomfortable. Where is the light at the end of the tunnel? And by the way, it’s not necessary for medical places to ask if I think of harming myself. I’d like to leave this world because I don’t see what the point of being in it any further is, but I am not contemplating suicide. I am easily persuaded to bury 1.materialism 2.the criminal aspects of capitalism and 3.postmodernism in general. But I’ll let God (dualistically speaking) take care of the destiny of this body-mind complex. As always, I am accepting help to resolve this ridiculous earthly dilemma. Thanks to those who have previously assisted me in getting by at Paypal.me/craiglouisstehr This is tough, but it is probably better than dying! Thanks for listening.

PS. Just saw the bartender from The Forest Club at Safeway. I told him that I had a great time yesterday afternoon, and was presently suffering through a hangover. He said that for years he drank a fifth of whiskey per day. Then he stopped. I said that I'm stopping too. It is a wonderful coping mechanism, but ultimately is making a difficult situation impossible. I can suffer sober!

Craig Louis Stehr

Royal Motel

750 South State Street, Ukiah, CA 95482

Telephone: (707) 462-7536, Room 206

Email: craiglouisstehr@gmail.com

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ED NOTES

‘THE PIRATES and the Mouse: Disney’s War Against the CounterCulture,’ by Bob Levin, Fantagraphics Books. Cloth, 270pp. $24. In 1963 the San Francisco Chronicle made 21-year old Dan O’Neill the youngest syndicated cartoonist in American newspaper history. As O’Neill delved deeper into the emerging counterculture, his strip, Odd Bodkins, became stranger and stranger and more and more provocative, until the papers in the syndicate dropped it and the Chronicle let him go.

THE LESSON that O’Neill drew from this was that what America most needed was The Destruction of Walt Disney. O’Neill assembled a band of rogue cartoonists, called The Air Pirates after a group of villains who had bedeviled Mickey Mouse in comic books and cartoons. They lived communally in a San Francisco warehouse owned by Francis Ford Coppola and put out a comic book, Air Pirates Funnies, that featured Disney characters participating in very un-Disneylike behavior, provoking a mammoth lawsuit from Disney for copyright and trademark infringements and seeking hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages.

DISNEY was represented by one of San Francisco’s top corporate law firms and the Pirates by the cream of the counterculture bar. The lawsuit raged for ten years, from the trial court to the US Supreme Court and back again — changing lives, setting legal precedent, and making clear the boundaries in a still unfolding cultural war. Novelist and essayist Bob Levin recounts this rollicking saga with humor, intelligence and skill, bringing alive the times, issues, absurdities, personalities and the changes wrought within them and us all. The great O'Neill lives on in the AVA.

I LIKE THIS ONE spotted in Ukiah: “Partnership For An Idiot-Free America.” Never happen. There’s too many of us.

NOT LONG before a serious infirmity left me voiceless, a writer from San Francisco Magazine and a TV crew from France showed up in Boonville, The magazine wanted to know what “the community” thought of tourism, the French were curious about Leonard Lake, the long gone mass murderer and former Boonville volunteer fireman. “Yeah, yeah, Bruce, he was a psycho, but ya know what? He was the best recording secretary we ever had. The guy had the best handwriting we'd ever seen.”

WHAT TOURISM means to “the community”? I dare not speak for “the community,” but for me, well, we're all guilty of tourism at times, and life having long ago become an accelerating blur, it seems like only yesterday that on a full moon week day night it was possible to walk down the middle of 128 from Boonville to Philo without having to leap out of the way of so much as a single vehicle, and fun-loving drunks could butt recreational heads in the middle of the highway, one running out of the Lodge, the other running from the Post Office, and bam! Now, one waits for minutes at a time for a break in the turista flow to cross 128 from Anderson Valley Market to the Boonville Post Office, and when that break finally occurs one moves as quickly as one is able, looking in all directions and up and down too, lest one become a traffic statistic.

THE WHOLE of this dear place has changed so fast, with the events and people coming at us so fast and gone faster, what was slow in rural life is now full on frenetic, I often wonder where the country went and how this small city got here so fast.

USED TO BE you knew it was pot season in Anderson Valley when people you hadn’t seen since last summer suddenly reappeared. Welcome back, Bud! Now? The growers are local, and here year-round, no longer spending winters in Costa Rica.

I WAS IN UKIAH on my way to a court-related appointment many days ago when I felt a sharp pain around my right knee, and down I went in a beatnik heap on the sidewalk west of the County Courthouse. Quickly assuming a sitting position so as to merely appear a street mendicant in a modified lotus and not a mere drunk or early morning exhibitionist. A male pedestrian stepped around me, looking back over his shoulder to chuckle. (He bore a strong resemblance to Al Kubanis, which accounts for the chuckle.) No health insurance, of course, but as my foot went numb and a thousand sadistic harpsichordists plucked my hamstrings, I pulled myself to my feet, hobbled to my truck and drove to Adventist Hospital, where I sat in the parking lot debating with myself whether or not to enter the emergency room.

I CHOSE LIFE! And drove home to Boonville where there was a message from Susie Bright, the writer Herb Caen called a “sexpert.” Ms. Bright was staying in Philo. She said she would like to stop by for a visit. Why, moi? But I was prone and wanted to stay that way which, I suppose, wouldn’t phase a “sexpert,” but I didn’t want any misunderstandings. So I had to cancel, fearing that Ms. Bright would think I was faking it to avoid her. But the very next day, the sexpert dropped off a batch of chocolate chip cookies she’d baked all for me, me, me, along with a note saying she “hoped my back” was better, and then she had headed back south, convinced that I really was temporarily on the shelf.

BY AVOIDING the medical professionals and the third mortgage to pay them for the amputation they’d have insisted upon, my leg was soon back to about 80%, and again strong enough to hill hike at half-speed. A week later I was 100% and ready for whoever and whatever came through my door.

A SIMPLETON’S GUIDE to deficit spending, or why the Republicans’ and Democrats’ economic policies are bad: The more money government has to borrow to pay its bills, the more money government has to pay lenders to borrow it. As debt grows, the willingness of lenders to lend diminishes. Federal and state debt is reaching a point where the juice alone is so great it’s difficult to pay. And as indebtedness deepens, the dollar weakens, as it is weakening now, meaning more dollars buy less. As the dollar weakens because government is less creditworthy (and a big hunk of our debt is owned by furriners who don’t like US much anyhow), interest rates rise, as they are now rising, life moving faster and faster in an ominous direction.

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HOW TIM BUCKNER RUINED MY SUMMER

by Tommy Wayne Kramer

Summer’s here and the time is right for dancing in the street’ —Martha and the Vandellas, 1964

‘Summer’s here and the time is right for fighting in the streets’ —Rolling Stones, 1968

‘Summer’s here and the time is right for racing in the street’ —Bruce Springsteen, 1975

‘Summer’s here and the time is right for another beer’ —TWK, 2024

Oh yes it is, and what’s better on a Ukiah afternoon than a can of Coors so cold you get an ice cream headache when it hits your throat, stops your heart from beating and makes your wife scream “Why are all those empty cans laying around, and when will you mow the lawn?!?”

And I think: Tomorrow. Maybe.

Maybe I could mow the lawn an hour after the crew finishes installing astroturf in the yard, around the time I get back from Park-n-Drinkit with another 12-pack. Follow me for more summer marriage survival tips.

Yes, beer is one of the many joys in life, and yet…

…and yet there was that wicked afternoon in 1984 when my old friend (young friend in 1984, but let’s not get started on the Mayan Calendar) Tim Buckner cajoled me into leaving work, going to the Sports Attic and sampling what Tim promised was the best beer in the world.

I was young, innocent and full of trust. And I until that day I loved beer. Tim took advantage of all these weaknesses, and this is not the first nor last time I’ll scold him in print for my near-sober experience.

We both worked at ye olde Mendocino Grapevine, a weekly “alternate” newspaper back when “alternate” carried the exotic fragrance of sandalwood and Constant Comment tea. Nice guy, Tim Buckner, and a fun guy. A guy who’d traveled a lot and who knew his way around a German beer garden, a Detroit keg and a Czech Republic pilsner. If Tim can lead me to the best beer in the world, I dreamed, I’ll punch out right now and race him to the Attic.

We sat on two stools at the south end of the bar, near the door and far from the men’s room. I’m not the paranoid sort, but I sometimes wonder about the extra 20 feet Tim put between me and the toilet.

What he ordered were bottles of (write this down) EKU 28 HELL BEER and in the small print “14 Percent Alcohol by Volume.” But who reads the small print when signing papers for a 30-year mortgage, a prenuptial agreement or “Terms and Conditions of Probation” when ordering a beer?

NOTE: 14 percent alcohol equates to 28 proof in the world of wines, spirits and people who drink beer out of paper bags in alleys. I was raised in a more upscale environment, and until my encounter with EKU 28 I had sipped only delicate beers: Lucky Lager, Brown Derby, Falstaff, Schlitz Malt Liquor, etc.

Dear Readers, through the years I have written the occasional harsh sentence or mean paragraph about city officials, hippies, kittens and a District Attorney or two. None more deserved public shaming than the manufacturers of EKU 28 HELL and its co-conspirators, Tim Buckner and Sports Attic bartender Rick Cleland.

It’s not beer. It’s barely a beverage. It’s cough-syrup-medicinal, harsh as steel wool, and every sip cries out for aspirin. It was designed in a lab as a combination paint thinner / radiator flush. Somewhat tamed as a beer product, EKU Hell is now brewed with patented an Automatic Gag Reflex System (AGRS), the active ingredient in Ipecac, a stomach emptying product found in emergency rooms.

EKU 28 has no equal, not that any brewer is trying. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever consumed, and I’ve eaten fried liver, raw oysters and escargot. I’d put all three in a blender and suck down a pint of it before I’d do another EKU 28.

My first (only) EKU 28 was also my first beer served at room temperature, a European fad that should have died the morning ice was invented. Beer at 55 degrees? In America? The nerve. I did not finish my bottle of EKU 28, but I was Oh So Done with it. I left half a warm bottle on the bar.

Already dizzy, already ill, a hangover already gathering steam in my intestinal plumbing, I considered the warm comforts of the Standley Street sidewalk under a three o’clock sun. The probability of vomiting was high and moving my head just a few inches to unload sloshy juices onto the street seemed appealing. I was already beyond the pleasures of the men’s room toilet.

Tim, perhaps ignorant of my miserable state but probably not, kept up the bar chatter and laughter, had a few more EKUs and did backflips off the bar.

This was all a long time ago, and since those days beer has taken many turns, mostly for the better, mostly in the direction of EKU 28. It’s gone to craft beers, pub beers, heavily hopped beers and undrinkable beers. I’ve sampled more than a few, but always return to Coors.

And why not? Especially when summer’s here and the time is right for a frosty can of liquid perfection.

R.I.P. CHONE TRAVIS

We are truly saddened to learn of the death of Chone Travis, a bright light, a good dad, a top tier musician and way too young to leave the stage. Best to his family and to his friends, of which there were countless. Suggestion: give a (Youtube music) listen to Chone Travis perform 95482, complete with Ukiah visuals.

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I SAW FORT BRAGG’S WORST CAR ACCIDENT EVER

as told to Bruce Anderson, 2003

The following is a first-hand account of the car crash on Sherwood Road, Fort Bragg, Tuesday afternoon the 27th of August, 2003. Four persons were killed, three badly injured. Three of the fatalities were children: 17-year-old Heidi Holmes, whose recklessness caused the collision; 13-year-old Britney Morgan; 12-year-old Nick Hendy. Kyle Hawk Wilkins, 14, and Cynthia Lawley, 13, passengers in the 1993 Dodge Shadow driven by Miss Holmes, were badly injured.

Diana Sowell, 43, of Pittsboro, North Carolina, was the fourth fatality. She was driving a 1995 Buick Century eastbound on Sherwood Road when Miss Holmes’ westbound Dodge struck her at a suicidally high speed.

Ms. Sowell died on impact, as did the three children in Miss Holmes’ vehicle.

Ms. Sowell’s passenger, Judi Mitchell, 60, of Fort Bragg, suffered major injuries.

“I was gardening when I heard a car coming way too fast down Sherwood Road. I ran out to the road to yell at them to slow down. Then I saw the white car, Judy Mitchell’s car, and the other car collide, just smash together. The car driven by the young girl had to have been going 70 to 80 miles an hour, which isn’t possible for long on that part of Sherwood Road. I was maybe 50 feet away, just standing there, my heart in my mouth. When they hit everything flew up in the air. The young girl who’d been driving so fast that I could hear her coming had gone into the oncoming lane to make the turn because she was going too fast to stay on her own side of the road. That’s when she hit Judy Mitchell’s car. The impact was so massive and intense that the cars literally stopped right where they hit and then flew straight up into the air. The girl’s car came down on its roof; the other car — Judy Mitchell’s car — fell against the bank. Car parts continued to fall from the sky after both cars landed where they landed. When everything quit falling I thought to myself that I was lucky nothing had fallen on me. I just stood out there so shocked I couldn’t even move for several seconds.

The whole side of the one car with the two ladies in it, Judy’s car, was gone. The woman who’d been driving had been shoved clear into the back seat. She had been hit directly by the full impact of the girl’s speeding car. I could see that she was dying; that her soul was already leaving the earth. The woman dying was visiting from out of town. She had just picked Judy Mitchell up from Rossi’s here in Fort Bragg where Judy works in the office. I ran to that car first. I knew the lady who’d been driving was gone. Her eyes were open but I could hear the death rattle in her throat; I knew she was gone. Judy was pinned in the car, but she was calm enough that I knew she wasn’t going to hurt herself worse by struggling. I told her help was on the way.

I could feel death coming from both cars.

Then the screaming started in the girl’s car. I ran to that car. They were all young. Kids. Five of them. The driver’s sister was screaming. Then one of the other kids started to scream, “Get me out! I can’t breathe.” I was afraid the car was going to catch fire. I yelled for fire extinguishers. By then, people were running to the road from all over. I told the girl, “You can breathe because you’re screaming. You’re not suffocating. It’s OK, help is on the way.”

I ran around to the other side of the car. I could see that the young girl who’d been driving was dead, and that the little boy in the back was gone too. His sweatshirt was covering his head. I knew it was probably a head wound that killed him, but I touched him and said it was OK. All their seatbelts were buckled, by the way, but all the seatbelts in the world couldn’t have saved them from the speed and recklessness that killed them.

There was another boy in there, too. His head was stuck between the seats — jammed in there. It was just horrid. He was thrashing around so bad I climbed in the car and tried to calm him down so he wouldn’t be hurt worse than he already was. His whole forehead was gashed open and he was broken up every which way. He was yelling, “My leg, my leg!” He grabbed his leg and his pants leg opened up and the bone was sticking up jagged, clear out of the skin. He was in very, very bad shape. I covered his leg up and took his hands off it. You don’t restrain the injured very hard; you just gently restrain them. The boy was conscious and he even sat up on the gurney. He should have been strapped down but he wasn’t.

The third girl, the little 12 year old, Brittney, I didn’t even know she was in there because the car had crumpled up and all the seats had encased her until she wasn’t visible. She was hidden away even more than the little dead boy with his sweatshirt up over his head. He was dead and she was gone too. I’m sure the three who were dead all died on impact. The two who were alive were very, very lucky to be alive. Very lucky.

It happened at 4:10pm. They got the wounded out pretty fast. Judy Mitchell is out of the hospital. The girl, the sister of the driver, got out of the hospital the day of the funeral services. The boy they call Hawk, whose real name is Kyle, I think he’s still in the hospital; he had the worst injuries of all. That was probably the worst wreck that there’s been in Fort Bragg, ever in the history of anything.

I understand the girl had taken the car without her mother’s permission. She was only 17 and not an experienced driver and kind of an out of control kid. At the accident people were cussing, angry at her. But she hadn’t meant to kill anyone; she was just a dumb kid and now she’s a dead dumb kid. It was heartbreaking to hear people around here so angry with her.”

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Sunday, August 18, 2024

JESSIE BRUNELL, Willits. DUI with blood-alcohol over 0.15%.

NORMAN FAZENBAKER JR., Fort Bragg. Burglary, vandalism, resisting.

ROY FERREIRA, Willits. Domestic battery, false imprisonment, damaging communications device.

KENDALL JENSEN, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation violation.

SARA JUDICE, Ukiah. Domestic battery.

RICHARD MCCORMICK JR., Ukiah. Paraphernalia, parole violation.

PAUL MCMANUS, Ukiah. Suspended license.

BARTOLO PACHECO, Covelo. DUI.

ARLIS PETERS JR., Covelo. Domestic violence court order violation.

TRENTON ROSSI, Boonville. DUI, cruelty to child-infliction of injury.

HECTOR RUIZ, Santa Rosa/Ukiah. Misdemeanor hit&run with property damage.

MARIYA SIDDONS, Willits. Vandalism, resisting.

LAWRENCE TEXEIRA, Fort Bragg. Domestic abuse, parole violation.

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JEFF GOLL:

So the DNC is returning to Chicago and one protest organization, Behind Enemy Lines, calls for:  Make it Great Like '68.  Most likely agent provocateurs.   The protests in 2003 were attended by many as well as a large police presence, though mostly peaceful (seriously).  Seems it's not going to be like that this time.  A photo of then…

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RAY OAKES

by Paul Modic

Ray Oakes is my hero. He just celebrated his 85th birthday, still has all his faculties, and writes a weekly column in The Independent. (One more to go, and then the Indie is closing down for good. In his columns Ray has that problem associated with very intelligent people: how much to dumb it down for the masses, and he often goes too low.)

He’s also the Question Man, sometimes asking inane questions and often really good ones. He takes the picture of the local citizen hiding behind the paper where you try to guess who it is, and you win Absolutely Nothing. He’s also the paperboy driving around town on Tuesdays delivering the local rag to the various businesses.

(Before that he was already a local celebrity, Captain Freak himself, star of the local low-budget eighties epic film “Marijuana Man,” and when he walked down the street people would sometimes shout from their cars, “Hey Marijuana Man!”)

I can't say Ray is actually my personal friend, after all he didn't invite me to his big 80th birthday party several years ago and I have not let him forget it, but I really like the guy. He’s always up for a shoot-the-shit session on the street or in a store, hale fellow well met indeed, has an uproarious laugh, and not one mean bone in his body.

I first got to know Ray when I was hanging around The Redwood Record in Garberville for romantic reasons, and culling all the back-to-the-land stories from the archives before it closed down (where I finally found my smoking gun: “The Anti-Hippie Petition of 1969”), while Ray banged away on the typewriter for his weekly column, and had a crush on every woman in the office. It was 1995 and that place was a zoo: stoners, neurotics, alcoholics, and freaks. I guess I fit right in.

(Ray was in love with Tall Deb, Deb was infatuated with Owl, and Owl was hot for Stephanie G. I went to a couple Record-related parties, and as they wound down we tried to persuade the inebriated fellow, and “life of the party,” to just crash out on the couch, but he always insisted on driving home to his mysterious little cabin in the woods an hour away.)

In his columns he told stories about his experiences in SoHum and growing up in Sunland, a suburb of Los Angeles (after his family moved out from Brooklyn), his time in the Air Force in Morocco, his love of jazz, and his various jobs, including being an insurance adjuster. He often meanders all over the page alluding to what he had meant to write last week, how please be patient he will soon get to his point, that some obscure Hollywood director he researched would link it all together, and various other wanderings in the world of print and sentences and verbs and more introspection and flashbacks, and wait wait I'm about to make my point, and oh now I’m out of space so maybe next week, and those of us out here in bumpkin-land lapped it up.

So what is Ray going to do now? He wrote for years in the Redwood Record, another couple decades in The Independent, won the local longest beard contest multiple times, and is possibly the most famous person in Southern Humboldt. Hell, the next thing we hear, Ray will probably have a podcast interviewing Ernie Branscomb and Kym Kemp about the hippie invasion of the seventies, back when they were at South Fork High with our editor at the Indie, Joe Kirby.

So here’s to Ray, local treasure and icon, and to all the reporters at the Independent who kept us informed weekly, as another “paper paper” bites the dust. Kudos also to Joe, keeping the Indie going all these years, after his father Rip retired from the same gig, so a toast to all the journalistic Kirbys, as Southern Humboldt moves deeper into the twenty-first century, with only the online options left, like the now-more-essential-than-ever, Redheaded Blackbelt to keep us informed about local news.

What a ride it’s been.

We will miss it.

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END PLASTIC BAGS

Editor,

In 2021, Californians threw away 230,000 tons of plastic grocery bags, according to CalRecycle. Toxic chemicals leach from plastic bags into our waterways and our food, and Americans consume a credit card’s worth of plastic each week.

These chemicals can have negative impacts on brain development and our reproductive health. Californians voted to ban single-use plastic bags in 2016, but a loophole allows grocery stores to provide thicker plastic bags at checkout and label them “reusable.”

Now plastic bag waste is at an all-time high.

Two bills in the Legislature, SB1053 and AB2236, would close the loophole and finally ban plastic grocery bags in California.

For the sake of our health, I urge readers to contact their state legislators and urge them to support these bills.

Nicolas Riani

Oakland

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BOMBING INEFFECTIVE

Editor,

The Israeli government justifies its relentless bombing of hospitals, homes, shelters and schools in Gaza as an effective way to eliminate Hamas’ military. But is it?

If the bombs had that effect, then Hamas’ military units would have been largely decimated by now. The continuation of the bombing implies that that has not happened. A recent analysis assessed that only a few of Hamas’ 24 military units have been eliminated.

Simple math indicates that Israel’s dreadful blitz is not effective. Why then does the Biden-Harris administration continue to supply bombs?

Michael Buckland

Berkeley

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GENERALLY SPEAKING: MCMASTER ON TRUMP FOREIGN POLICY AND TECHNOLOGY WARFARE | GOODFELLOWS - YouTube

A dyed-in-the-wool warmonger advises Trump on “foreign policy” — supporting the Ukrainian defense of its sovereignty but denying the Palestinian rights to equal justice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8oupabhYpc

A key “GoodFellow” of Stanford University’s “Hoover Institution” (led by Condoleeza Rice), McMaster served in Trump’s administration and lauds his VP nominee, J.D. Vance, as an empathic leader who speaks for the impoverished population disenfranchised by the very military-industrial complex that prioritizes overseas imperialism over economic benefits for American citizens.

Characterizing the “conflicts” in the Middle East as a form of “competition” obfuscates the existential disaster inflicted on unarmed inhabitants who are never mentioned by the talking heads. If you’re not part of the club, you’re nothing more than “collateral damage” (otherwise known as landfill).

Betsy Cawn

Upper Lake

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ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Income disparity is a prime indicator for a society gone off the rails and due for revolution or extreme political and social turmoil, with foreign wars usually the chosen solution to redirect all that pent up frustration toward foreign boogeymen, rather than the real culprits right here at home.

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HOW MUCH ARE WILDFIRES COSTING EVERY CALIFORNIAN?

by Julie Johnson & Megan Fan Munce

In October 2017, a dry windstorm swept across Northern California, exposing weaknesses in the state’s electric grid on a staggering scale. Trees toppled onto power lines and utility poles broke in half. Sparks landed on tinder-dry landscapes and exploded into deadly blazes that leveled thousands of homes. Most of the destruction occurred in just one night.

California immediately opened its coffers, spending record amounts on firefighting and fire prevention. Insurance companies paid out nearly $12 billion in 2017 — the state’s most expensive year for wildfires on record. Pushed by California officials, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. dramatically ramped up spending to prevent more power-line-sparked fires.

Seven years later, as another fire season arrives, Californians across the state are paying the price for wildfires — in rising bills that have stirred deep anger.

On a per-person basis, the costs are eye-popping.

Some residents report jumps of $10,000 or more in annual insurance premiums. An analysis by S&P Global found that private home insurance rates in California soared 43.7% from 2018 to 2023. And further jumps appear imminent: Just this past week, State Farm — the state’s largest home insurer, which has cited wildfire risk as a key reason for dropping tens of thousands of California policies — asked regulators for permission to raise rates by 30% on average for its remaining homeowner customers.

When it comes to electricity, PG&E customers are collectively paying billions of dollars to prevent wildfires. Between 2020 and 2026, customers will have spent the equivalent of about $1,500 per person in the company’s jurisdiction, according to a Chronicle analysis of data from the California Public Utilities Commission’s Public Advocates Office. PG&E rates have soared 128% in the past decade. Electricity now costs more in California than any other state, except for Hawaii.

“The costs are everywhere,” said Alice Hill, senior fellow for climate change policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and chair of the California Department of Insurance’s climate working group. The cost of wildfires, Hill said, is now embedded in nearly everything Californians pay for, from health care to food products to home construction.

California taxpayers are also shouldering massive increases in state spending. Cal Fire, the state’s firefighting agency, has spent more than $30 billion on battling and preventing wildfires since 2017. That’s about $750 per California resident and reflects a budget that has grown 72% in that time.

These services — insurance, electricity, firefighting — are crucial. But the costs are making an already expensive state even less affordable, including for those who live far from wildfire zones.

“It’s squeezing Californians, especially low-income Californians,” said Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire, whose North Coast district has been burned and menaced by major wildfires year after year.

Right now, the state is careening into another wildfire season, in which a series of early-season blazes has charred nearly 118,149 acres — more than five times higher than the recent average for this time of year. Continuing to contend with this challenge means that the costs Californians face — compounded by inflation for construction materials and other basic items — may only increase.

PG&E anticipates it will take much more money to meet its fire-prevention goals. The Public Advocates Office estimates it could cost PG&E $30 billion to bury 10,000 miles of power lines in the riskiest areas for wildfires, which the utility intends to do. That represents about $1,875 per person in PG&E’s jurisdiction — and to date, the utility has billed customers for only a fragment of that work. Insurance companies, meanwhile, are expected to seek significant rate increases — as State Farm just did — to keep up with projected risks and costs. And that’s if they remain in the state; some have stopped writing policies in risky areas or altogether.

In a future guided by climate change and severe weather events, “We’re going to make trade-offs between affordability and reliability and safety,” said Michael Wara, a Stanford University professor and member of the state’s Catastrophic Wildfire Cost and Recovery commission. “And the trade-offs are big.”

An Escalating Insurance Crisis

Dorothy Murphey has lived in Lafayette for four decades and has never seen a wildfire.

And yet last year, she found herself sharing the panic of tens of thousands of Californians after her insurance company left the state. Now Murphey, like so many others, has found herself paying hundreds of dollars more per year for insurance than she expected.

As a retired claims adjuster, Murphey never anticipated having problems finding insurance for her single-family home sandwiched between a four-lane thoroughfare and a residential neighborhood, even though it is near tree-studded hills. But as she began the process of searching for a new policy, all she heard was no, no, no.

“It’s kind of a crazy situation they put on us,” Murphey said. “We have a fire hydrant outside our house — you can’t get much better than that.”

Insurers are rapidly cutting back in California, and wildfire risk has been a galvanizing factor. Some, like Murphey’s former insurer, AmGUARD Insurance Co., have abandoned California entirely. Others, like State Farm and Allstate, have stopped writing new policies. Still others are dropping older homes that are costly to replace in the event of catastrophe, or are pulling back from big cities where they feel they have too much risk in one area.

At the same time, insurers are charging more. In the first half of 2024 alone, the state’s five largest home insurers, representing more than half the total market, all increased their prices. State Farm and Travelers, which together insure a quarter of California homeowners, have raised their average rates by double digits.

Wildfires are not the only issue for insurers. Inflation in building costs and the rising cost of reinsurance, which means insurance for insurance companies, have also put financial pressure on carriers. Some companies have also had poor stock market returns, according to Carmen Balber, executive director of the consumer advocacy group Consumer Watchdog.

But the wildfires of recent years were a turning point. In 2017 and 2018, state records show that insurance companies collectively paid out more than $24 billion in claims related to wildfires — burned businesses and homes, buildings tainted by heavy smoke and destroyed cars.

Some of those costs have been reimbursed — for example, PG&E paid insurance carriers about $11 billion to partially cover claims for wildfires during those two years. Since then, insurance companies have continued to pay billions for wildfires, but have not suffered such a devastating year since.

Still, annual insurance premiums, which had been stagnant for more than a decade, immediately began to rise following the 2017 wildfires, and by 2021 had jumped by an estimated $395 to just over $1,400, according to data from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. No official data is available for the past two years. But a Chronicle analysis of data submitted to the state found the average homeowner in 2024 pays a little over $2,000 annually for home insurance with the state’s top 10 largest companies.

Many Californians are being forced to the FAIR Plan — a state-created wildfire insurer for those who cannot find insurance elsewhere — at exorbitant cost. The FAIR Plan does not disclose its average premium, but many homeowners report paying thousands of dollars a year more for a policy that only covers fire.

Victoria Roach, the FAIR Plan’s president, said during a state hearing in April that the plan, despite being designed as the insurer of last resort, is in reality “quickly moving to be the first resort for a lot of people” and has become “one of the largest writers in the state right now in terms of new business coming in.”

As of March, about 35% of FAIR Plan policyholders don’t live in fire-prone areas, a FAIR Plan spokesperson said — a reflection of how difficult it is for Californians to find insurance regardless of their location.

Soaring PG&E Bills

PG&E — a massive utility company that provides service for about 1 in 20 Americans — has dramatically increased its spending on wildfire prevention since its power lines caused devastating fires in 2017 and 2018. The utility company spent about $5.5 billion between 2018 and 2023 on clearing trees and brush away from power lines — about six times more than it had spent in the seven years leading up to the 2017 fires.

Wildfires are a central issue driving up electricity prices. Inflation plus steep investments to expand electric capacity as the state transitions away from fossil fuel energy sources are also significant factors.

For typical residential customers, PG&E bills rose by more than $400 annually this year compared to 2023, an unprecedented and abrupt jump. PG&E CEO Patti Poppe, in an interview with the Chronicle, said that much of that increase can be attributed to fire prevention and state mandates the company is obligated to follow.

Whereas wildfire programs represented about 0.5% of the company’s budget in 2019, the figure rose to 18.5% in 2021, the year of the massive, PG&E-caused Dixie Fire.

Currently, in a hypothetical $100 PG&E bill, about $10 goes directly to trimming trees and other hazardous vegetation around PG&E power lines. Another $6 funds other wildfire prevention programs like planned and automatic outages when potentially dangerous conditions threaten to snap power lines.

About $10 of that hypothetical $100 utility bill goes to shareholders, a return authorized by the state so that investor-owned utilities can remain attractive investments. Some of that money, too, has gone toward wildfire prevention, since shareholders can either reinvest that revenue in the company or use it to pay investor dividends.

Shareholders have also been required to cover wildfire costs in ways that won’t raise rates for customers. For wildfires in 2015, 2017, 2018 and 2019, for example, shareholders paid about $25 billion to cover property losses and other claims from wildfires sparked by the company’s equipment, an amount negotiated when major wildfires led PG&E to seek bankruptcy protection.

Poppe acknowledged her company’s wildfire-prevention spending is driving utility bills higher. She said her teams are trying to reduce other business costs because they must continue the wildfire-prevention spending for “the safety and wellbeing of our communities statewide.”

She insisted the costs are worth it. Poppe said she expects that future bill increases won’t be as dramatic and hew more closely to the rate of inflation.

“We know we’ve reduced the risk,” Poppe said.

An Expensive Future

Costly as wildfires are now for Californians, the future may be even more expensive.

Home insurance rates are poised to soar whether or not devastating wildfires once again rip into neighborhoods. The state’s Department of Insurance is pursuing a set of reforms called the Sustainable Insurance Strategy, set to take effect by December, that would make it easier for insurers to raise rates. Gov. Gavin Newsom, too, is backing legislation that would require regulators to process rate increase requests faster. The overall goal is to stop more insurers from leaving the state, but painful price hikes are likely. State Farm’s rate increase request this past week — 30% for homeowners, 52% for renters and 36% for condo owners — would, if approved, saddle several million Californians with hundreds or thousands of dollars more in annual payments.

Energy costs, too, could keep going up in the event of more utility-caused wildfires.

PG&E has only begun charging customers for a fraction of the $30 billion estimated cost to bury 10,000 miles of power lines in the riskiest areas for fire. Currently, only about $0.005 of that hypothetical $100 bill goes toward undergrounding.

While some forested communities are clamoring to be placed on PG&E’s priority list for future undergrounding, ratepayer advocates are pushing back on the strategy out of concern that utility bills are increasingly unaffordable (PG&E customers owed $669 million in unpaid bills as of February). These groups have urged the California Public Utilities Commission to limit PG&E’s spending. One way would be for state regulators to require PG&E to put more resources toward covering bare wires — another fire prevention tool with an estimated cost of only $800,000 per mile, compared to the current undergrounding costs of $3.3 million per mile.

Another catastrophic wildfire blamed on PG&E could also increase bills.

However, the legislature in 2019 set out to shield customers from dramatic rate increases after utility-caused wildfires and keep essential energy companies afloat by creating the California Wildfire Fund. Customers and shareholders of the state’s three investor utilities each contribute about $10.5 billion over time to establish the fund, which is a pool of money managed by the state to help utilities pay for wildfire liabilities when they are responsible.

And then there are other types of costs that don’t show up in a utility or insurance bill.

PG&E has said one of its best strategies for preventing wildfires is shutting down electricity, either in advance of risky weather or when sensors detect problems. But left without power, residents and businesses lose work hours, revenue and often must pay to replace an entire refrigerator of spoiled food. Partly due to these shutoffs, the number of minutes its customers have gone without electricity has increased by 120% since 2013, according to PG&E — though the utility believes that technology introduced in the past few years is helping to narrow the scope of fire-prevention outages.

With fire risk top of mind, homeowners are also paying hundreds or thousands of dollars to clear vegetation or, at the behest of increasingly demanding insurers, replace roofs or upgrade electrical wiring.

And then there are the costs of California’s effort to slow global climate change — and hence reduce wildfire risk — in the first place. Newsom in 2022 said the state will spend $54.3 billion to tackle problems like drought, extreme heat and air pollution that are exacerbated by rising temperatures, though lean budget years with lower-than-forecast tax revenues have led the state to reduce that commitment by about 17%.

Newsom promised that the investments would eventually save Californians money and lower energy bills, but in the near term, bills are rising.

Insurance companies can raise premiums in areas they deem at greater risk for fire. But state law requires that utilities like PG&E charge the same rates for electricity and natural gas to all residential customers, regardless of whether they live in fire-prone hills or urban neighborhoods.

Urban and rural California are inextricably linked when it comes to the electric grid, said Kate Gordon, CEO of California Forward, a Sacramento-based nonprofit focused on sustainable growth. Power generation facilities — natural gas plants, hydropower facilities, utility-scale solar fields and nuclear plants — are mostly in the state’s rural areas. These areas bear increased fire risk from transmission lines overhead carrying electrons to the state’s suburbs and cities, and they also experience more frequent power outages.

“We do all have a responsibility to pay for the infrastructure that supports us all living in California,” Gordon said.

For homeowners like Murphey, relief can’t come fast enough. After finally finding coverage through a smaller insurer, she now pays $2,300 a year — about 50% more than she did before.

At 81 and long-retired, she has no desire to leave Lafayette, a peaceful city of about 25,000 where she can get to San Francisco in an hour’s drive. But if she loses that insurance, or can’t afford it, she fears she may be forced to leave the state altogether.

“I was born and raised in Oakland. I’m a California girl. That’s hard to leave. That’s a hard decision to make,” she said.

“I think the normal homeowner really does not know what to do.”

(SF Chronicle)

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TEDDY BLUE

From 1874 to 1877 I was taking care of my father's cattle, and after a while the neighbors began putting cattle with me, paying me a dollar fifty a head for six months. I herded them in the daytime and penned them at night, and for the first time in my life, I could rustle a little cash. In 1875 I made twenty-nine dollars that way, and my brother Harry and I had one hell of a time. We bought a bottle of whisky, shot out the lights on the street corners, and run our horses through the streets of Lincoln whooping and yelling like Cheyenne Indians on the warpath. We'd have gone to jail for sure if some of Gus Walker's trail men had not been with us. They got the blame, as everything was laid to the Texas men, but they left next day for Texas and so it all blew over. This was my first experience standing up to the bar buying drinks for the boys, and I sure felt big.

That summer, I remember, Ace Harmon, who was one of John T. Lytle's trail bosses and a god to me, said: "In a year or two Teddy will be a real cowboy." And I growed three inches and gained ten pounds that night….

From the time I was fourteen and staying out with the cattle most all the time, I got to be more and more independent. The boys took turns staying out there with me, but Lincoln was only twelve miles from camp, and when we had a little money, one of us would slip off to town on his pony, leaving the other one on herd. We'd hang around the saloons, listening to those men and getting filled up with talk about gunfights and killings. One time I remember I was in a saloon, and I heard a fellow talking about the Yankees. He said: "I was coming down the road and I met a damn blue-bellied abolitionist, and I paunched [shot] him. And he laid there in the brush and belched like a beef for three days, and then he died in fits. The b*stard!"

He told that before a whole crowd of men. I don't know that he ever done it. But that was the way he talked to get a fight. Those early-day Texans was full of that stuff. Most of them that came up with the trail herds, being from Texas and Southerners to start with, was on the side of the South, and oh, but they were bitter. That was how a lot of them got killed, because they were filled full of the old dope about the war and they wouldn't let an abolitionist arrest them. The marshals in those cow towns on the trail were usually Northern men, and the Southerners wouldn't go back to Texas and hear people say: "He's a hell of a fellow. He let a Yankee lock him up." Down home one Texas Ranger could arrest the lot of them, but up North you'd have to kill them first.

I couldn't even guess how many was killed that way on the trail. There was several killed at every one of those shipping points in Kansas, but you get different people telling the same story over and over again and the number is bound to be exaggerated. Besides, not all that were killed were cowboys; a lot of saloon men and tinhorn gamblers bit the dust. While I saw several shooting scrapes in saloons and sporting houses, I never saw a man shot dead, though some died afterwards.

But in the 1870s, they were a hard bunch, and I believe it was partly on account of what they came from. Down in Texas in the early days, every man had to have his six-shooter always ready, every house kept a shotgun loaded with buckshot, because they were always looking for a raid by Mexicans or Comanche Indians. What is more, I guess half the people in Texas in the seventies had moved out there on the frontier from the Southern states and from the rebel armies, and was the type that did not want any restraints.

— Teddy Blue Abbott, “We Pointed them North: Recollections of a Cowpuncher,” 1939. Teddy Blue rode the trail from South Texas to shipping points in Kansas and Montana three different times. It's apparent from reading Lonesome Dove that Larry McMurtry was VERY familiar with Teddy Blue's book, which was written in Teddy Blue's plain-spoken vernacular. It's a very entertaining read. This photo of Teddy Blue was taken in 1910

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ON ‘POSITIVE MASCULINITY’

by Matt Taibbi

Newsweek published “Tim Walz, the Kelce Brothers and a New Era of ‘Positive Masculinity’”:

Many know the term “toxic masculinity” and think of the overly dominant, often aggressive personality that shapes the discourse. But now, it seems as though we’re headed toward a softer kind of masculinity, with politicians talking about fertility, football players dancing to Taylor Swift and a renowned Paralympic athlete cheering on his wife as she won Olympic gold.

[Positive masculinity] is thought to have been co-created in the early 2000s by Matt Englar-Carlson, founder and director of the Center for Boys and Men at California State University, Fullerton. He told Newsweek that the idea “creates space to realize that there’s multiple ways to be a man.”

I looked up Englar-Carlson and found him speaking in a webinar called “Introducing Positive Masculinity.” It was led by Dr. Ray Swann, host of something called, no kidding, the Understanding Boys podcast. Take down those Scarface posters; here’s your introduction to the new masculine ideal…

racket.news/p/on-positive-masculinity

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‘NOT ANOTHER BOMB’: PROTESTERS IN KAMALA HARRIS’ HOMETOWN DEMAND DNC ACTION

by Warren Pederson

A day before the start of the Democratic National Convention, hundreds of demonstrators rallied in Vice President Kamala Harris’ hometown Sunday demanding the party’s platform include an arms embargo against Israel.

The “Not Another Bomb” protest at the Lake Merritt Amphitheater in Oakland included members of more than 15 local pro-Palestinian organizations, Wassim Hage, spokesperson for the Arab Resource and Organizing Center, told the Chronicle.

The rally included speeches and performances, including by a Palestinian dance team featuring Hage, and some “really beautiful signage” stressing the need to end the war, he said.

One speaker called out through a megaphone: “Our revolution will be joyful! Our revolution will be filled with love!”

As the nation struggles with domestic problems, including the high cost the living, the White House should direct taxpayer dollars toward local communities, Wage said. “We don’t need our government funding genocide,” he said.

The protest came on the heels of the Biden administration’s approval Tuesday of a $20 billion military funding package for Israel, which has been at war with Hamas since the militant group attacked Israeli towns on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking 250 hostages. Since then, more than 40,000 Palestinians, including more than 15,000 children, have been killed during Israel’s retaliation against Hamas, much of it in Gaza, according to the Gaza health ministry.

“There’s a lot of pressure on the Israeli government as they are committing the genocide in Gaza internally and externally,” Hage said.

Harris, who was born in Oakland, has sought to bridge the divide over Gaza among Democrats, emphasizing Israel’s right to defend itself as well as the need to ease Palestinian suffering. She said she that during a private meeting last month, she urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reach a cease-fire with Hamas.

Harris’ words were not enough for the crowd at Sunday’s rally, part of a nationwide day of action organized by the Uncommitted National Movement, an anti-war group that is sending 25 delegates to the DNC, which begins Monday in Chicago.

“It’s a really critical moment, with protests all over the country,” said Hage, who was preparing to fly to Chicago after the rally to protest outside the convention. “Everyone’s eyes are on the DNC. People should stay tuned for more escalation as the politics unfold.”

(SF Chronicle)

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AFTER 49ERS’ MEANINGLESS WIN OVER SAINTS, the NFL should just eliminate pre-season games

by Michael Silver

A little more than three minutes into Sunday’s preseason game at Levi’s Stadium, San Francisco 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan threw his red challenge flag, setting up a dramatic reveal.

Shanahan had his reasons: Saints quarterback Derek Carr had just thrown a three-yard pass to Chris Olave near the 49ers’ sideline to make it third-and-4 from the New Orleans 23-yard line. A replay-assisted ruling by the officials that Olave had failed to catch the ball inbounds would instead put the Saints in — wait for it — a third-and-seven situation.

With so much on the line, how could Shanahan resist?

So, we waited. The call was upheld. Carr threw to running back Jamaal Williams, who was stopped two yards short of the first-down marker. The Saints punted. The score remained 0-0.

Preseason fever! Catch it. The 49ers would ultimately win this fugazi game by a 16-10 score.

We know who the real losers were. The 71,124 paying customers, thousands of whom actually attended the Niners’ lone preseason home game, got the worst of this exchange. In the NFL, season ticket-holders are essentially held hostage by the teams they support, forced to pay full price for these silly exhibitions as a non-negotiable part of the deal.

What are we doing here? Glad you asked. As Shanahan tries to prepare his team for another Super Bowl run, navigating contract disputes and a wave of injuries along the way, he suited up a team comprised largely of non-difference-makers and future roster-cutdown casualties.

Granted, Brock Purdy did get on the field for three series, completing 2-of-6 passes for 11 yards while absorbing a pair of hits from Saints defensive linemen. That sounds bad, but he was playing without his top four receivers, top tight end, top four running backs (including All-Pro fullback Kyle Juszczyk) and at least two starting offensive linemen, most notably absent All-Pro left tackle Trent Williams.

It wasn’t that far off from the 2022 preseason, when Purdy, then a rookie fourth-stringer, was sent out to prove his worth with a bunch of fellow no-names.

Yes, I know that theoretically there is value in evaluating younger players, especially those on the fringes of making the 53-man roster, by watching them compete in preseason games.

What I’m questioning is the necessity of ripping off fans in the process.

If it makes you feel any better, I know I’m not alone. Shanahan is part of a new wave of coaches — a group that includes the Rams’ Sean McVay, the Packers’ Matt LaFleur and the Falcons’ Raheem Morris — who have come to view these games as counterproductive. Like many coaches, they are partial to joint workouts, where two teams can practice against one another in a controlled environment.

Joint workouts tend to mitigate the absolute worst element of the preseason — the exposure of important players to the risk of significant injuries — while skipping over much of the stupidity (see: challenges on three-yard completions in the first quarter).

The 49ers were supposed to travel to Orange County last week for two days of joint workouts with the Saints, who conducted training camp in Costa Mesa, but the onslaught of injuries compelled Shanahan to cancel.

Robbed of those potentially valuable sessions, he trotted out players like undrafted rookie running back Cody Schrader, guard Nick Zakelj, wide receiver Chris Conley and tight end Brayden Willis with his first-team offense. Defensive starters included second-year safety Ji’Ayir Brown, veteran free-agent acquisition De’Vondre Campbell — Dre Greenlaw’s stand-in while he heals from the Achilles he tore in S.F.’s Super Bowl LVIII defeat — and a bunch of dudes (Kevin Givens, Robert Beal, Curtis Robinson, Rock Ya-Sin among them) who’d have to show their player card to get admitted to a SoMa nightclub.

Shanahan will likely play many of his starters in Friday’s preseason finale against the Raiders in Las Vegas, but not for long. Once they leave the field for good, fans can exhale — avoiding injuries is the most significant thing a team can achieve during fake-game season.

This is nothing new, of course. The preseason schedule has perplexed me since my earlier football-watching days, back when there were six (I kid you not) of these bogus exhibitions, followed by only 14 real games in the regular season. Even crazier, the defending Super Bowl champions were forced to play a seventh contest that didn’t count: The College All-Star Game, in which they faced a team comprised of star college seniors from the previous year, most of whom had recently been drafted by other teams.

What could go wrong? Answer: Plenty, given that a majority of the league’s teams subjected at least one key player to injury.

The College All-Star Game blessedly bit the dust after the summer of 1976. Two years later, the NFL went from 14 to 16 regular season games, reducing the preseason to four games in the process. Three years ago, it switched to a 17-and-three model. Likely, that will become 18 and two in the near future, which can’t come soon enough.

Actually, I’m fine with sticking to 17 regular-season games. It’s the latter number I’m worried about, for pre-season games. I would like it to be zero.

Say it with me: Let’s abolish the preseason, institutionalize joint workouts — perhaps with season-ticket holders allowed to attend — and end this charade once and for all.

Think how much the NFL and NFLPA have modernized training camp since the end of the 2011 lockout, eliminating two-a-days and reducing padded practices, among other negotiated reforms. Getting rid of the faux games and letting coaches and GMs pick their rosters based on practice performance and other factors is the next logical step.

I’m confident Shanahan would support my plan. In the meantime, he’s tolerating this shameless cash-grab along with the rest of us.

You can tell how little he cares by his behavior: For the second consecutive week, Shanahan ceded play-calling duties to his first-year offensive passing game specialist, Klay Kubiak. That was a title held last year by Klay’s older brother, Klint, who called the Saints’ plays Sunday night as their first-year offensive coordinator.

That strategic showdown undoubtedly was a thrill for former Texans and Broncos coach Gary Kubiak, who 16 years ago made Shanahan the NFL’s youngest offensive coordinator, but it didn’t leave the Niners’ current head coach with much to do.

After letting Klay Kubiak call plays in the 49ers’ preseason opener last Saturday night in Nashville, Shanahan admitted he’d been bored. After Sunday’s game, I asked him if boredom had been the reason he decided to throw that early challenge flag on a seemingly insignificant play.

“No,” he said, smiling. “Just heard he was out, so I just threw it.”

Alas, like the preseason as a whole, Shanahan’s challenge proved to be a total waste.

“We all need reps,” he said.

I agree, just not in a stadium full of loyal customers who paid regular-season prices for the privilege.

(sfchronicle.com)

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