Mendocino County Today: Friday 8/23/2024

Sneezeweed | Showers | Geese Migrating | Wharf Rock | John Isom | Local Events | PHF Groundbreaking | Clouds | Bridge Meeting | Problem Child | So Weird | McFadden Farm | River Boat | Incomplete Article | Talmage Hospital | Super Sale | Ed Notes | Libby Label | First Hotel | Yesterday's Catch | Human Situation | Bamboo Art | Zaftig Legend | Hammett Poster | Jaworski History | Fat Man | Napa Guide | School Lunch | Against Genocide | Escher! | Kamala's Speech | Broken Hearts

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AN UNSEASONABLY COLD upper low will bring cool temperatures and measurable precipitation to the area through Saturday. Temperatures expected to warm up significantly late this weekend into next week, with highs nearing 100 possible across the interior. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): Our approaching rain maker is now forecast to arrive later today with less rain than earlier advertised, between .25" & 50" likely. A cloudy 55F this Friday morning on the coast. The rain will move out Sunday morning giving us a mostly clear forecast going into next week.

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MARSHALL NEWMAN NOTES: Lots of geese on the wing these last 10 days. Seems like the migration is underway a month - maybe more - early. Likely the precursor of an early winter, but we won't know for another few weeks.

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UKIAH MAN IDENTIFIED IN FATAL MENDOCINO COUNTY CRASH

by Colin Atagi

A Ukiah man was identified Thursday as the driver who died Saturday afternoon in a crash on Highway 101, south of Willits.

John Isom, 37, died after his car went 100 feet down an embankment near Ridgewood Ranch Road about 12:40 p.m. and overturned, according to the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office.

His Chevrolet Malibu landed on top of temporary concrete barriers Caltrans had stored off the road, the California Highway Patrol reported earlier this week.

Isom, who was wearing a seat belt, was pronounced dead at the crash site.

He was the car’s only occupant.

The exact cause of the crash is being investigated, but officials said speed may have been a factor and the road was slick following brief rainfall in the area.

About 0.07 inches fell near Willits Saturday afternoon, according to the National Weather Service’s Eureka office.

(Santa Rosa Press Democrat)

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LOCAL EVENTS (this weekend)

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PHF BREAKS NEW GROUND — IN EMPTY RHETORIC

by Mark Scaramella

After more than eight years of dithering, and without much fanfare, ground was officially broken for the County’s new Psychiatric Health Facility on Whitmore Lane in Ukiah on Tuesday, August 20. There was no advance notice; no press release.

The next day, former Sheriff Tom Allman, the presumptive father of Measure B funds from which are funding the project, posted the following on his facebook page the next day:

“After eight years of gathering signatures, voting, meeting and planning, the ground breaking for the new state of the art Mendocino County psychiatric health facility happened Tuesday. Over 82% of our voters supported the tax which will soon allow us to greatly improve the quality of life for our citizens who are victims of mental illness. In the world of dark and dreary news, this is a great day for Mendocino County. The facility will be located on South State Street near Whitmore Avenue. To all of the supporters who voted for Measure B, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for allowing us to get to this day. This facility will be open in 14 months and will allow our hospitals and first responders more resources by getting better and faster services to those who truly need it. Thank you.”

The “meeting and planning” had nothing to do with the PHF. In fact, the meeting and planning had nothing to do with anything involving the PHF. The credit, if that’s what it is, goes to former CEO Carmel Angelo, who engineered the Covid-funded acquisition of the Whitmore Lane nursing home that was destroyed to make way for the PHF, and Dr. Jenine Miller, whose early take-over of the Measure B process and wizardry with byzantine mental health funding, greased the skids for the project.

Tuesday’s event featured forlorn-looking Second District Supervisor Maureen Mulheren who posted an unannotated facebook video of herself standing alone on the Whitmore Lane vacant lot with a microphone reading to an admiring, small assemblage of county staffers from a prepared but ridiculously exaggerated statement which included incongruous Kamala-infused words and phrases like “inspiring,” “a testament to this community,” “jobs and opportunities,” “a symbol of resilience,” “building a brighter future,” “everyone has access to the care they need,” etc.

Mental Health Director Dr. Jenine Miller was also on hand, but her remarks, if any, were not recorded.

It was all standard issue inflated rhetoric which, like the comically self-congratulatory speeches accompanying the construction of the Crisis Residential Unit the County gifted to the Schraeders a few years ago, glossed over lots of not-so-inspiring stuff.

For example, the claim that “everyone [will have] access to the care they need,” is belied by the County’s mental health financing system which provides millions of dollars worth of “care” via the Schraeders’ local mental health monopoly only to people they deem to be “severely mentally ill” and therefore reimbursable through MediCal. If they say someone is not quite crazy enough to be “severely” mentally ill, or retarded (“developmentally disabled”), or drug-addled (aka not “mentally ill”), the prospective patient and his or her family are not reimbursable and basically on their own. That’s because millions of Measure B dollars that were required to be spent on mental health and drug treatment services — a minimum of 25% of the revenue according to the text of Measure B — have not been spent on those services, but have instead been eaten up by overpriced, overdesigned buildings like the PHF.

The PHF has been designed to handle 16 beds, although Mendo has nowhere near that many “severely mentally ill” people at any given time. So the facility will have to import at least half the patients to keep the beds occupied and the operation in the black.

The facility has the side benefit of housing some local mental patients closer to their family than the out-of-county facilities they are currently dispatched to. But those patients are already declared “severely mentally ill” and sent out of County, and do not represent any kind of expansion of services. And the PHF certainly won’t do a thing to help the street people that Measure B was sold to us with.

Of course, we don’t know many the particulars associated with the PHF because no one has done any kind of staffing plan or proposed budget for the operation of this $13 million-plus facility which is expected to be completed toward the end of 2025. The preliminary estimate of something like 40 staff members is based on an unpublished and unreleased study by a Bay Area mental health services outfit called “TeleCare” which Mental Health Director Dr. Jenine Miller contracted with a couple of years ago to presumably staff the facility.

Sheriff Allman and others have speculated that some of the PHF staffing could come from an as yet-unestablished Psych Tech program at Mendocino College. But that program has not gone past the fantasy stage, even though the new 16-bed PHF facility is scheduled to be open long before any such program could produce licensed psych staffers, if ever.

In laying out the parameters of the 16-bed Psychiatric Health Facility, Dr. Miller’s consultant noted that almost 40 trained, licensed staffers will be required to run the Whitmore Lane Psychiatric Health Facility (at a likely cost of more than $4 million a year). Dr. Miller’s pre-chosen staffing contractor, Bay Area-based TeleCare, is not part of Redwood Community Services which employs nearly all the licensed psych staff in the County at present. There’s no mention of where Telecare Corporation will obtain the 40 additional professional “full-time equivalent” psych staffers.

From the study by the high-priced Sacramento-based architectural consulting outfit who designed the PHF: “Facility Staffing: A component of the study was to understand the staffing requirements for the psychiatric health facility to determine functional area requirements for staff and parking needs. The consultant was provided with the proposed staffing pattern from TeleCare Corporation, the prospective operator for the new facility. The staffing pattern indicated that 39.4 Full Time Equivalent staffers are needed for a 16-bed facility.”

Even though the PHF is now scheduled to open in late 2025 (maybe), no one has raised any questions about who will manage and administer the facility, who will decide which people are assigned to it, how it will be integrated with the new “mental health wing” of the jail (to be staffed with an expanded contract with NaphCare, the jail’s current medical contractor which will also need to hire more local psych staffers), how it will be staffed around the clock, or where they’ll find 40 new mental health staffers (plus whatever other support and security staff may be required), what its operation will cost, or how it will be funded. There’s been no discussion of the protocols for determining who will go to what facility under what conditions, or what priority scheme will be used to accept the out of country mental patients which will be essential to its budget.

The facility is outside Ukiah’s City Limits, so it will fall under the Sheriff’s jurisdiction when law enforcement is inevitably called in for problem patients.

Despite Supervisor Mulheren’s grand/bland claims about how wonderful the new facility will be, neither she nor her Board colleagues have raised a single question about what planning is being done to safely and efficiently operate the facility.

But maybe that’s intentional. Such planning would only highlight the problems. Better to just ignore them. If they build it, Dr. Miller will make sure that the reimbursables will come.

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NEXT TUESDAY: ALBION RIVER BRIDGE – COMMUNITY MEETING AND PUBLIC COMMENT WORKSHOP

An informal workshop aimed at providing more information about Caltrans’ proposed Albion River Bridge project and enabling community members to provide public comment.

Presented by Albion Bridge Stewards, http://www.savehighway1.org, with experts on historic and environmental preservation and coastal land use policies.

Caltrans’ so-called “public meeting” earlier this month was very one-sided, with lengthy presentations that left little time for Q&A. Worse, the meeting facilitator refused to extend the meeting to accommodate the many raised hands in the room.

We think the community should hear the full story.

We’ll start with a short presentation, and then assist community members who would like to comment on Caltrans’ plans. (Public comment is due by September 9.)

Mendocino Community Center in Mendocino

Tuesday, August 27

The meeting begins at 5:30, but you're welcome to drop in any time between 5:30 and 8 pm.

Refreshments will be served.

Jim Heid jim@heidsite.com

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UKIAH ARSONIST NABBED [from yesterday's MCT]

On Tuesday, August 20, 2024 at approximately 11:04 P.M., a Sergeant with the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office overheard radio traffic of firefighting personnel being dispatched to the area of McClure Subdivision Road in Ukiah, for a reported vegetation fire in the area. Upon the Sergeant's arrival, the fire was an estimated to be 10 by 20 feet in size and was burning in grass and vegetation along the roadway. Fire personnel quickly suppressed the fire and stopped the fire from spreading to nearby structures.

The Sergeant and fire personnel from the Ukiah Valley Fire Authority began an investigation into the cause of the fire. A male subject was contacted in the area who was observed watching the fire upon the arrival of law enforcement and fire personnel. The subject was identified as Edward Charles Vikart, who is a 63-year-old male from Ukiah.

Vikart was questioned regarding the fire and as a result of the combined investigation and evidence obtained, probable cause was developed to believe Vikart was responsible for starting the fire. As a result of the investigation, Vikart was subsequently placed under arrest for arson, possession of a controlled substance, and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Vikart was transported and booked into the Mendocino County Jail for the above listed charges where he was to be held in lieu of $50,000 bail.

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LAZARUS (Willits):

Edward Charles Vikart was once from Willits. His parents Anna and Ted Vikart escaped communist-ruled Czechoslovakia, made their way to Australia, immigrated, became successful, and finally were allowed to immigrate to the United States and became more successful. I became acquainted with them in the early 90s when they moved to Willits. Their son Edward was a problem then. He was using hard drugs and had been for a while. His aged parents did everything they could to save him. They eventually died, left him the house and property, and that was the last I knew of him.

From what Ted and Anna said, he was a child of privilege and had many opportunities to succeed. It is what it is…

Be well.

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THE STORY OF OUR FAMILY FARM: McFadden Family Vineyard & Farm [Potter Valley]

Needless to say, Guinness McFadden has taken the road less traveled. Born in the Upper West Side of New York City, Guinness graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1960 with a BA in History and a varsity letter from the wrestling team. He then served in the US Navy for nine years and as Chief Engineer of a destroyer frequenting the Mediterranean, Lieutenant McFadden developed a love for wine that would dictate the future direction of his life. In 1965, after 6 months of intensive language school, he entered the Vietnam War and volunteered to succeed one of five fallen captains of all-Vietnamese riverboats patrolling the Mekong Delta. He was awarded a Bronze Star for bravery and still showcases his fluent Vietnamese whenever possible. Guinness was then given the opportunity to serve as an admiral’s aide in Lisbon, where he served his final four years solidifying his love for wine and learning to speak Portuguese.…

https://bluequail.com/pages/story

(via Falcon)

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MALCOLM MACDONALD:

Ken Kesey worked at a veteran’s hospital, not a state hospital. There are some interesting aspects to the story above, but too much jumping around in time (from a brutal attack in 1913 to somewhat subjective takes on state hospitals during the 1960s in the next paragraph). As the son of a UC Berkeley educated, psychiatric social worker who worked at the Talmage State Hospital in the 1960s, I can say from first hand observation that this article needs to dig deeper. The snake pit realities of the 1940s in mental institutions was dramatically changed for the better by the 1960s, if not the late 1950s. More is needed here to provide a thorough examination.

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THE SUGGESTION that Talmage State Hospital employees stole everything is absolutely wrong. There were bad actors but few and far between. Why would we? The hospital supplied everything we needed at a very reasonable price. My rent was $18 a month for a studio apartment including all utilities! 30 full meal tickets cost $15 and the meals were enormous! Main course steaks, chops, roast, fruit and fresh vegetables from the farm all the milk you could drink and icecream. Free laundry services for bedding and uniforms. Free movies twice a week, usually before the Ukiah theater had them. You are ill informed.

— Ronald Parker, Psychiatric Technician, 1962 – 1967

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ED NOTES

NOT to be too much of a churl, but I'd like to ban the Little League World Series, as one more example of the professionalization of what should be child's play, not the occupation of adult joy killers. My grandchildren are heavy into sports, and the amount of expensive gear that comes with their participation is, is, is… shocking, especially to us old guys who grew up nailing broken bats back together and wrapping old baseballs in black electrical tape. (I didn't see a new baseball until I got to high school.) More shocking is the behavior of some of the coaches and fans, which is a cliche by now but it's still reprehensible and doubly reprehensible because it's so widely tolerated. And prevalent. I overheard one obese cretin of a LL coach gather his team after a win to tell them, “They came into our house and we kicked their ass!” At a softball tournament for ten-year-old girls, the air was blue with F-bombs directed at the teenage umpires and even by parents at their daughters! I understand we’re on the skids as a society, but… jeez.

MARIN'S WATER AGENCY is exploring whether to connect pipelines in Petaluma and Cotati to its reservoirs in order to fortify its supply. The pipelines would transport treated Russian River water into Marin reservoirs through a 9-mile aqueduct along the Highway 101 corridor from Petaluma to the North Marin Water District in Novato. The district would send the water to the Marin Municipal Water District’s distribution system. Marin already gets water from Lake Mendocino which, itself, exists from the Eel River Diversion at Potter Valley. Marin's water “exploration” is one more sign that we're headed for water wars, and rapidly, given population growth everywhere up and down the 101 corridor.

RECOMMENDED READING, especially as a history of America's hippie beginnings circa middle 1960s, “Kesey’s Jail Journal,” introduction by Ed McClanahan.

MEMORY of this great American writer suffers from a hippie tag because Kesey should be remembered for his wonderful fiction. “Sometimes A Great Notion” is truly a great book, although it’s not nearly as well known as “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest,” also a great book. Unfortunately, both are better known as movies than as novels.

“SOMETIMES” is the only high art I can think of sympathetic to loggers and logging as a way of life, probably because Kesey, who was born and raised in the logging country of Oregon's Willamette Valley, wasn't one of these bloodless writer’s workshop log rollers (sic) who dominate creative lit today with their perfect little sensitive sentences adding up to no story of any interest to anybody except other workshop stars. (cf Rick Moody, most New Yorker fiction…)

CUCKOO'S NEST is drawn from Kesey’s government-sanctioned experiences with LSD and in lock-up mental wards that first put him in the public’s lethal eye. Then, as a very public advocate of mind-altering chemicals, the writer zoomed to the top of J. Edgar Hoover’s insanely lengthy enemies list. The Hoovers viewed Kesey as a kind of Pied Piper of Pot, then as point man for all drugs.

KESEY'S jail journals are not only very, very funny — “This is crazier here than the nuthouse ever was” — they’re absolutely true to the daily life in your basic county jail, an experience one in four Americans can look forward to if national rates of incarceration remain constant.

THE BOOK is illustrated with Kesey's drawings of his fellow jail birds, their keepers and their cages, as is the book cover. And count me among the many admirers of his fiction who hadn’t known that Kesey was also a gifted caricaturist; he draws better than a lot of people who get paid to draw, and his art is a lot more imaginative than lots of people who get paid for imaginative art.

THE JAIL JOURNALS were written back in the Summer of Love during Kesey’s stay in the San Mateo County Jail for possession of pot. Having gone on the run to Mexico after his conviction for varieties of marijuana possession, Kesey subsequently appeared in public places all over the Bay Area as the media merrily reported each “Kesey sighting” and millions of people enjoyed the writer’s insouciance.

THE COPS fumed and vowed to bring “the damn beatnik or whatever he is” to justice. A car pool load of commuting FBI agents spotted Kesey one morning on the Bayshore Freeway. Kesey, a former college wrestler, jumped out of his car and sprinted off, but the Hoovers gang tackled him and he was packed off to the San Mateo County Jail.

TWO YEARS after Kesey’s premature death at 67, his old friend McClanahan steered Kesey’s extemporaneous, illustrated account of his jail tour into book form and publication. Kesey had smuggled pages of his jail diary out of the jail to his wife, Faye. Not all of the pages made it home, but enough did to make a terrific book all these years after the Year of the Hippie.

IF YOU only buy one book this year, buy this one, a true bargain at $34.95 and a perfect Christmas gift for that old hippie uncle or anyone else curious about The Summer of Love. Another big bloc of potential readers is the one-in-four of you yet to be locked up. “Kesey’s Jail Journals” is the truest account of what it’s like to do county jail time you’ll read.

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A BUS NAMED FURTHER

by Herb Caen (1976)

I was lounging at the corner of Fifth and Mish', minding anybody's business, when along came Ken Kesey, the successful author (‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,’ ‘Sometimes a Great Notion’), who has opted out of the big money machine and is trying to fly free. He rolled up in his famous bus, the one painted all those psychedelic colors — “the Rolling Rorschach,” he calls it — and he reached out his hand to this square and said, “Climb aboard!”

His friend, Babbs, was behind the wheel wearing captain’s bars on his jacket and marksmanship medals on his chest. There was a blonde young man named Ramrod and another named John and a bright looking kid wearing thick glasses. Mrs. Kesey and her three small children. And a pretty, thin girl named Susie.

They had driven over from Fairfax where they lived aboard the bus (officially named ‘Further’), to show me San Francisco. As we drove down Mission toward the Ferry building, Babbs and Ramrod spoke to the people on the streets via amplifier. “It's a beautiful day!,” Babbs called out in a voice that carried for a block. The people looked startled. “The sun is out! Let's all enjoy ourselves!” Pedestrians looked at the bus with hostility.

We rolled back up Market, Babbs keeping up a constant stream of good-natured chatter, Kesey playing reflectively on a harmonica. From my vantage point inside the crazy-wonderful bus, the square world never looked squarer or more ridiculous. Men in hats and little dark suits, striding along. “On your way to the topless and bottomless?” heckled Babbs. They scowled. Women shoppers in drab clothes stared deadpan, compressing their lips. Only the young people were able to summon a grin in return for a smile.

As we headed for Golden Gate Park, Kesey perched on a box in the middle of the aisle. He was wearing a red, white and blue striped shirt tucked into tight gold striped pants stuffed into scuffed cowboy boots.

As has been remarked before, he looks like Marlon Brando, despite his tonsure of curly blonde hair, and he has the same sad, sweet smile. His capped right front tooth looks red from a distance, but actually it is a tiny American flag. He is a man of charm, sympathy and, obviously, talent.

“I've got to get away from the Bay Area,” he said. “There's too much going on here, it reaches out and encircles you. I've got to get back to the high country.” He glanced around the bus. “I'm sorry it’s such a mess today. We're going to fix this old bus up and travel. This is our home. Wonderful things have happened here — two babies born on it in Mexico. We're going to install a navigator’s bubble in the roof, revolving, so we can really observe.”

The famous bus inched through the crowded Haight-Ashbury. Now we were surrounded by beaming, bearded faces: everybody knew it was Kesey. He lit a stick of pungent incense — “to cover up the other smells around here,” he said, grinning. At a street corner he impulsively jumped out and handed the incense to an old man waiting for a bus. The oldster refused it, growling, “I don't use dope.” “A real clean old man,” said Babbs.

We went through the Park toward the ocean. “Some professors at the University of Texas want to put me in for a Rockefeller grant, hoping to get me to write again,” he said, shaking his head slowly. “But I don't think I could ever write another big chunk of a book, like a telephone directory. Still, it’s $14,000 and I could go to Europe. ‘Cuckoo's Nest’ still sells — it’s in its fourth or fifth printing. A royalty check always seems to arrive just in time to keep me going.”

A motorcycle officer pulled alongside the bus, eyed it curiously, and moved away. Kesey followed him with his eyes. “San Francisco cops are okay — they leave us alone,” he said. “Soon as we get outside the city, some cop has to stop us and come aboard and look around.” He was arrested once on a marijuana charge and the jury hung 8-4 for conviction. “I know the jury liked me,” he said. “But then the prosecutor told them, ‘Don't let emotions sway you,’ like if they didn't convict me they wouldn't be doing their duty.”

“My parents made a breakthrough the other day,” he said. “They live in Oregon, very proper people, and they hate this bus — they think it’s responsible for my decline and fall. But they finally came aboard, which was a very hard thing for them to do. I think they feel better about it now.”

At Pacific and Fillmore, the bus stopped to let me off, back in squaresville. We waved goodbye and I watched it roll away, riding high above the Cadillacs and Lincolns, looking grave and defiant. And quite a bit poignant.

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MENDOCINO’S FIRST HOTEL

(Part 1 of 3; excerpted and annotated from “Mendocino’s Hotels & Saloons,” by Dorothy Bear and Beth Stebbins. Mendocino Historical Review, June, 1980.)

John E. Carlson was born in Colson, Sweden on June 20, 1827. When he was 16 years old he went to sea until 1849, when he found himself on a ship bound for California. That was the year nuggets of gold could be had for the picking on the ground, or so the story had it, and young Carlson went to the mining country to get his share. After two weeks of disillusionment, he returned to San Francisco and found a job in a sailing schooner on the Sacramento river, transporting people and supplies to the gold fields. That work lasted a year.

He decided to make a trip to Sweden, a visit home, and went aboard the bark "Susan Jane," possibly as a crewman. Sailors were scarce in those years of gold fever and an experienced man like John Carlson could easily find employment. But when the "Susan Jane" reached Rio de Janeiro, he changed his mind about going to Sweden and returned to California in the ship "Game Cock.” For several months he sailed the seas to China and then to Panama; finally in San Francisco he joined the task force bound for Big River (Mendocino) on the brig "Ontario" for the purpose of building a sawmill and logging the redwood trees. They would ship lumber to San Francisco, where Henry Meiggs would sell it.

This time Carlson stayed on land, first building the sawmill and then working in it until, in 1857, he decided to build a hotel and run it. The lot he bought at the west end of Main Street he purchased from William Kelley. There he built a three-story building to accommodate the growing number of people coming to Mendocino. He had chosen a location handy to the harbor and embarking station. He added a livery barn next to the hotel and equipped it with good horses and carriages for hire. At the time, roads out of town were scarcely more than rutted trails and most people preferred walking or riding horseback. But after stages began to run on regular schedules, roads were gradually improved and Carlson's horses, wagons and carriages were in more demand. The City Hotel continued to serve the community well and Carlson was noted as a pleasant man, "well known and generally liked along the coast.”

Since Carlson was a bachelor until July 29th, 1859, who was his cook and who was his housekeeper? In the 1860 census George Lorring or Lowring from Sweden was listed as a cook in the John E. Carlson household. Possibly he could have been there from the hotel's beginning. Could the housekeeper have been Mrs. Elizabeth Broderick Kupp, a native of Ireland and more recently from New Jersey where, it is recorded, her son John N. Kupp was born about 1853? [As a widow,] did she need to support herself and son, and did she find employment in Carlson's hotel? Perhaps she proved so capable and attractive to him that he proposed marriage for Carlson and Kupp were indeed married on that July date in 1859. How or why she happened to come to Mendocino is still a question.

In 1860, twin daughters Elizabeth and Catherine were born to the Carlsons and in 1862 a son, John Edward. The children were contemporaries of the Kelley, Ford, and Lansing children, whose fathers had come to Big River in 1852 with Carlson. The children played together and, when they became of school age, they attended school together in the first public school, located near the northeast corner of Ukiah and Lansing streets.

Then on October 17th, 1870, the disastrous fire that consumed 25 buildings on west Main Street reduced the City Hotel to ashes, and Carlson suffered a loss of $14,000 plus his income. He had no insurance, but he rebuilt immediately, a larger and more commodious hotel than before, this time based on his 13 years of experience. Continued next week.

(The Kelley House Museum is open from 11am to 3pm Thursday – Monday. Walking tours of Mendocino are avialable throughout the week. Visit the Kelley House Event Calendar for a Walking Tour schedule: https://www.kelleyhousemuseum.org/events/month/)

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Thursday, August 22, 2024

JAMES CLAUSEN, Ukiah. Petty theft, disorderly conduct-alcohol.

RYAN CRANFORD, Ukiah. Domestic violence court order violation.

RACHEL DALTON, Palo Alto/Ukiah. Domestic abuse, failure to appear, resisting.

BRANDON KENNEDY, Kelseyville/Ukiah. DUI.

JAIME MARIN-JUAREZ, Ukiah. County parole violation.

RYAN OKERSTROM, Willits. Disobeying court order, failure to appear. (Frequent flyer.)

AARON ORESCO, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

GERRELL SCRIBNER, Covelo. Burglary, stolen vehicle.

ERIC WRIGHT, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs.

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PERMISSION GRANTED

Just sitting here on computer #7 at the Ukiah, CA public library, following the daily reading of the New York Times, watching the American presidential election news reportage on the major networks, and of course perusing the local Anderson Valley Advertiser online edition. The postmodern human situation on earth is like that of worms in the fecal matter of pigs! And you may quote me.

Signed,

Craig Louis Stehr

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Upright and humble
the bamboo is flexible but will
not submit to force.

The haiku is by Basho and the ink drafts are mine, a hobby I picked up on duty in Okinawa as a US Marine. (Bruce McEwen)

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JOHN LEGEND @ DNC, BETWEEN THE CHANNELS

Editor,

I was changing channels yesterday and caught a glimpse of John Legend’s zaftig arse waddling around a stage. It’s somewhat reassuring that black people have schmaltz too.

Compared to Legend, Hootie (of The Blowfish fame) is Phil Lynnot, Arthur Lee, and Stevie Wonder rolled into one.

Is this the same John Legend who strongly backed defunding the police, and then when his car was ripped off from his L.A. mansion called the police?

David Svehla

San Francisco

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JONAH RASKIN: I moved from Ocean Beach to Post Street near Japantown. I left my big Dashiell Hammett poster which was partial payment for an essay I wrote about the artist Owen Smith. I left the poster at Ocean Beach apartment. Good bye Dash.

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FRED GARDNER:

Too bad we're not taught our own history. Just now I was reading the Wikipedia bio of Leon Jaworski, and came across…

Fort Lawton court-martial

On the night of August 14, 1944, the Fort Lawton riot between African-American U.S. soldiers and Italian prisoners of war at Fort Lawton near Seattle resulted in the lynching of Italian POW Guglielmo Olivotto. Thereafter, Jaworski prosecuted 43 African-American soldiers, of whom 28 were convicted, in what was the longest U.S. Army court-martial of World War II. In 2007 the U.S. Army Board for Correction of Military Records ordered all those convictions reversed on the grounds that Jaworski had committed “egregious error.”

War Crimes Prosecutor

After the war, Jaworski served as a war crimes prosecutor in Germany. He was involved in a case where eleven German civilians were accused of murdering six American airmen forced down over Germany in the Rüsselsheim massacre, and a case involving people who were complicit in mass murder at the Hadamar Euthanasia Centre. However, Jaworski declined to participate in the Nuremberg Trials on the grounds that the prosecution there was based on laws that did not exist at the time of the culpable acts.

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NAPA VALLEY ON $200 A DAY: A LOCAL’S GUIDE

by Jess Lander

Earlier this week, I wrote about a new report that said the average visitor to Napa Valley spent $281 per day in 2023. Even day trippers, who were the majority of Bay Area visitors, spent an average of $213.

This is a large chunk of change, but these figures immediately struck me as low. I’ve lived in Napa Valley for over a decade and have witnessed firsthand the dramatic rise in pricing over the past few years. (I’ve also reported on it extensively.) I know it’s difficult to find a wine tasting under $50 these days — Napa’s cost $75 on average — and that meals can quickly add up, especially if you’re drinking wine.

A deeper dive into the data from Visit Napa Valley, the tourism organization that published the report, confirmed my suspicions. The $281 number included tourists that didn’t go wine tasting; those that did spent an average of $128 per day on wine tasting fees alone.

So while most Napa Valley day trippers planning to hit up a few wineries will likely spend more than $213, I took this statistic as a challenge. I wanted to prove that this was more than enough money to have a fun-filled day in Napa Valley. I’ve curated two Napa Valley day trip itineraries that maximize a budget of $200 each, carefully choosing spots and activities that are on the more affordable side, or provide a ton of value for the cost. There is a caveat: These itineraries don’t account for taxes, service charges, transportation or alcohol at meals.

Napa Newcomers

This itinerary focuses on some of the most exciting new developments in downtown Napa, and as a bonus, it’s fully walkable once you’re there. Start with the Wine and Breakfast offering at the charming Gentleman Farmer bungalow($125, reservations required). Here, vintners Jeff Durham and Joey Wołosz, an endearing married couple, will cook you a three-course breakfast to pair with their wines. This two-hour experience is unlike any other food and wine pairing in Napa as it feels like you’re having a cozy meal at the owners’ real home.

Walk off breakfast downtown, forcing yourself to window shop only at the area’s art galleries, antique shops, clothing boutiques like Boho Lifestyle, and luxury chains. You can also venture along the Napa River and over the First Street bridge to the buzzing Oxbow District; peruse the Oxbow Public Market at your own risk if you want to stick to the budget. Tip: Next door, the CIA at Copia has a free culinary museum.

Back downtown, locate the Apero Wine & Spritz Bar, Napa’s new, Italian-inspired tasting room, where you can sip a flight of wines from three brands, including Mommenpop spritzes, for $40. Then grab an early dinner at Stateline Road Smokehouse, a Kansas City barbecue joint from a Michelin-trained chef that’s located inside a former auto shop. Stateline’s signature burnt ends ($12), fancy macaroni and cheese ($8) and unconventional potato salad ($8) should be enough to satisfy your appetite.

Total: $193

Adventures Upvalley

Focused on the northern parts of Napa Valley — St. Helena and Calistoga — this itinerary takes you into nature and includes some recreation to balance out the wine. Start in downtown St. Helena with a quick and early lunch at the Station. A fast-casual cafe from the owners of Gott’s Roadside, it’s set in a vintage gas station convenience store. The menu features sandwiches, salads and pizza by the slice, but I’d recommend the B.L.T. ($14) while tomatoes are still in season.

Walk across the street and rent a hybrid bike from St. Helena Cyclery ($50) and then hit the newly opened section of the Napa Valley Vine Trail for a stunningly scenic, eight-mile ride to Calistoga. (Go soon during harvest season to pedal amid the sweet smell of fermenting grapes that permeates the air.) When you reach downtown Calistoga, stop in for a tasting on the lush patio at Lola ($35, reservations required), known for fresh, light and unpretentious wines.

Back in St. Helena after another eight miles, dismount at Newfound Wines, located one block off St. Helena’s Main Street and inside a small Victorian home. Newfound specializes in elegant, high-altitude bottlings of Grenache, a grape you won’t find much of in Napa Valley. Intimate tastings ($50, reservations required) might also include other less common wines, like Semillon, Mourvedre and Chenin Blanc.

Return your bike and head back across the street to Goose & Gander for dinner. As you’re likely starving from your 16-mile bike ride, order up both of the restaurant’s locally famous dishes: the Martini House mushroom soup ($14) and the thick, juicy G&G Burger ($26).

Total: $189

(SF Chronicle)

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MARIANNE TORRES

In response to the many progressives who have consistently lectured me for my stated determination not to vote for genocide, who believe that America’s way of life and the comforts that brings to many, who believe that our devastated democracy and dying Empire are all more important than the ongoing extinguishing of an entire people trapped in a tiny area, being murdered with our bombs, tortured and starved to death and watching their children starve SOLELY because our nation supports and enables those horrors, provides the weapons with which to carry them out, and protects a criminal nation in all ways – I say perhaps we need to examine our own value systems … rather than lecturing me or others about our refusal to vote for genocide.

I am tired of being lectured about the cost of taking a moral stand against genocide. I’ve been intensely involved AND active in politics of all kinds and all levels for 65 years, since I was 15 years old and have paid a price for that involvement. I know the cost of taking that stand and I know the cost of being afraid to take that stand.

Think what a difference it would’ve made in this world if in 1938 or 39, enough German people had had the courage to rise up to do everything they could to get rid of Hitler while they still had a chance to do that without risking their own lives. Think of how much less we would have known about genocide simply because that particular genocide would not have happened.

I understand that many people believe that America’s political system and the comfort that comes with it are far more important than the lives of “others” extinguished under our genocidal bombs in Palestine. Those people have to make their own decision about how they are going to vote.

I know there are others who have their own reasons for taking the stand they do, one way or the other. They simply have a different perspective.

I understand that many of those people do not have a clue how far our own nation has fallen in the “leadership“ of nations, both in military and economic power and in the “respect“ this nation once commanded (it’s also important to remember that that “respect” was usually preceded by military or economic action or threat of same). If you’re trying to protect what was once the status quo, you’ve already lost the battle.

As I’ve said before, I have spent most of my adult life voting for the lesser of two evils. But when one of the evils is actual genocide, being carried out before our eyes, with our tax money and our government’s complete and total support of that genocide, that calls for me at least, to take my own stand. We’ll see where this takes us in the lead up to the election…

But please all, stop lecturing me!!! For every argument I’ve seen in the lectures, I can only say “been there, done that “. You vote for whoever you want. I will not vote for genocide.

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5 TAKEAWAYS FROM THE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION

A history-making candidate told grounded stories. Democrats expanded their anti-Trump playbook. And even if something “magical is in the air” for the party, as Michelle Obama said, there’s a hard road ahead.

by Shane Goldmacher

A month and a day after Democrats made a change, Kamala Harris has the party faithful believing.

The vice president’s speech on Thursday capped an ebullient four-day convention in Chicago that showcased the party’s reinvigorated chances against Donald J. Trump in the wake of President Biden’s decision to step aside.

Before a convention hall packed with supporters in symbolic suffragette white, Ms. Harris became the second woman to formally accept the Democratic Party’s nomination as she tries to break through as the nation’s first female president.

Not that she talked about that. Instead, Ms. Harris wrapped herself in the language of patriotism and American exceptionalism, unspooling the story of her upbringing by a single mother to present herself as a leader who understands the strains and aspirations of the middle class.

Here are five takeaways from her speech and the convention week that led up to it:

Harris sought out the middle ground — and the middle class.

By the time Ms. Harris took the stage on Thursday, the convention hall had already been suffused with patriotic pageantry. Flags were waved. Veterans were cheered. USA signs were handed out.

“We are the heirs to the greatest democracy in the history of the world,” she said as she neared the dramatic finish of her speech. She was seeking to occupy some of the most frequently trod ground of winning American campaigns.

She repeatedly tried to find popular proposals. Protecting Social Security. Lowering health care costs. Cutting taxes. And, in a sign of how the politics of abortion have shifted since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, an extended riff on reproductive rights.

She also told stories of her own life that were at once new to the audience and yet familiar to millions of Americans. Of divorce and moving vans. Of living “in the flats” instead of the wealthier hills. Of her mother’s reliance on a “trusted circle” of friends to raise her and her sister.

She outlined a biting critique of Mr. Trump that Mr. Biden first floated but never successfully prosecuted.

“My entire career, I’ve only had one client: the people,” she said of her career of public service. It set up a searing contrast with Mr. Trump, who quickly called into Fox News to give his review of her speech when she was done. “The only client he has ever had,” she said of Mr. Trump. “Himself.”

Ms. Harris delivered the final word: She called her rival “an unserious man.”

Yes, there have been nightly warnings about the grave policy implications of “Project 2025.” But those segments have been leavened with humor, including when Kenan Thompson of “Saturday Night Live” fame lugged an oversize book of the 922-page Republican blueprint onstage.

“You ever seen a document that could kill a small animal and democracy at the same time?” he asked.

There was a new lightness to the way Ms. Harris and other Democrats tried to frame the potential for Mr. Trump to bring darkness.

“Simply put,” she said in one of the evening’s most memorable lines, “they are out of their minds.”

Republicans cast the effort as an audacious rewriting of the present and predicted that she would be saddled with the record of the current Biden-Harris administration, especially on the economy and immigration. The intensity of her ongoing skirmish with Mr. Trump over who is likelier to break the status quo is proof itself of the importance of the fight.

“Something wonderfully magical is in the air,” said Michelle Obama, the former first lady, who made a rhetorical passing of the baton between the Obama era and a potential Harris one. In doing so, she almost seemed to lump the Trump and Biden years together. Now, she said, the contagious power of hope was re-emerging, calling it “a familiar feeling that’s been buried too deep for far too long.”

Ms. Harris’s candidacy is only weeks old, but some of the loudest interruptions of her speech came when the crowd chanted, “We’re not going back!”, a forward-leaning posture that has become a rallying cry.

Ms. Harris hammered home the point herself, describing the election as “a precious, fleeting opportunity to move past the bitterness, cynicism and divisive battles of the past.”

Democrats are giving Harris a lot of leeway on policy.

What exactly would a President Harris do?

That question was not on top of the tongues of many delegates this week. The party sounded far more interested in ensuring that Ms. Harris can reach the White House in the first place. There were some policies highlighted. The expansion of abortion rights. Restrictions on guns.

But with only 75 days until the election, Democrats sounded more than happy to give Ms. Harris room to position herself in whatever way she thinks is needed to defeat Mr. Trump. She has backtracked on fracking, flipped on “Medicare for all” and recanted on not considering border crossings criminal — all with little blowback.

In short, the party is embracing practicality over policy particulars.

Ms. Harris directly addressed a chief vulnerability — immigration — by vowing to sign border-security legislation that Mr. Trump had scuttled.

Outside the convention perimeter, pro-Palestinian protesters voiced their anger with the administration. But inside, Ms. Harris faced little pressure on the Gaza war — or on almost any other issue. She did, however, speak extensively and confidently on the Mideast conflict, firmly stating that Israel had a right to defend itself while also calling for self-determination for the Palestinian people.

Ms. Harris has rolled out an economic agenda that includes new money for first-time homeowners, the construction of three million new homes and measures against price gouging on food. Yet the specifics were not what energized most attendees this week.

It was the possibility of making history with Ms. Harris — and, of course, stopping Mr. Trump.

Democrats are riding high. The hard part comes next.

Democrats in Chicago relished the good feelings of Ms. Harris’s upward trajectory in the polls. She has staked out a lead of two percentage points in The New York Times polling average after trailing by five points in a then-hypothetical matchup at the start of July.

But party leaders are still warning against complacency.

“Let us not forget what we are up against,” Mrs. Obama cautioned on Tuesday.

It was, after all, only a month ago that the other party was riding high off its own convention. Then it was Republicans who felt like a party of destiny after Mr. Trump had survived an assassination attempt and Mr. Biden’s party was still tearing itself apart.

While some Democrats are privately beginning to dream that Ms. Harris’s momentum might carry her for another 10-plus weeks, many are bracing for the likelihood of stumbles against the most unpredictable of opponents.

“What we had prior to this point is an enthusiasm problem, quite frankly,” Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia said in a brief interview on Thursday. “So we need all of this enthusiasm. But enthusiasm shouldn’t short-circuit discipline.”

Mr. Warnock, who is also the lead pastor at the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, then reached for a parallel in Scripture. “This is the mountaintop experience,” he said. “Then you’ve got to go into the valley. But the mountaintop gets you ready.”

(nytimes.com)

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