Mendocino County Today: Saturday 8/24/2024

PRECIPITATION will gradually taper off through this afternoon. 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): A reasonable .20" of fresh rainfall collected this morning. Cloudy skies with a warm 58F at 5am. Some morning showers are possible then clearing thru the weekend. Clear skies are forecast for next week.

LISA NUNES:

Regarding the Algae in the Navarro River, a test was done to determine if cyanobacteria is present in the Navarro River. The test came back POSITIVE for relatively low concentrations of the bacteria. Because there is a risk of an increase in bacteria, the North Coast Regional Water Board will be coming to post signs tomorrow (Friday) on the river. The letter states some recreation is still safe if you avoid mats and suspicious algae. In my neck of the woods here in Philo, that is not a possibility.

AVUSD NEWS

Dear Anderson Valley Community,

It has been an absolute pleasure meeting and working with students and parents this week! What a warm and friendly place! I know Alyson McKay, principal of AVES and Heath McNerney, principal of the Jr/Sr High have also been so grateful for the smiles, the excitement, and the kindness all around. Your kids are the absolute best.

At AVES, we are thankful to all of our parent drivers for their cooperation with the new traffic pattern at drop-off and pick-up. The dangerous U-turns in the front of the school have been eliminated, and the traffic flow is calm and orderly. It was a thing of beauty! It is lovely to see the happy faces of our students as they get out of their cars to head in to school. A special thanks to Mrs. McKay, Mr. Corey-Moran, Mr. Frazer, and Mrs. Damian for getting out there in their orange vests to help with drop-off. It’s working!

At Anderson Valley Jr/Sr High, our seventh graders were welcomed into our student body and have integrated seamlessly. Special thanks to the Jr High teachers for working through Expectations Stations, and helping our newest students learn to navigate the new campus. Our High School students have quickly gotten back into the swing of daily classes and are clearly enjoying being back with their friends. Excitement is in the air!

Construction is everywhere, and our students are doing a great job of navigating the campus while our dedicated construction crew completes the classrooms that are under construction. Special thanks to Mrs. Jenderseck, Mr. Bublitz, Mrs. Malfovon, Mrs. Johnson, and our musicians Ms. Calvache and Mr. Cook from Gabriela Franks’ Music Academy, for their flexibility in moving to portable classrooms until the construction is complete. You have made those classrooms homey and comfortable already! We look forward to the completion of our Science rooms (with amazing learning patios and fantastic large, sliding glass doors) and the classrooms in the main wing of the school toward the end of the semester.

Anderson Valley Unified School District is a bustling and exciting place to be! We are moving toward updating or replacing our gym, and are making excellent progress toward the beginning of construction on the new track. More detailed information to come! We already have the best kids and staff around; soon we’ll have the best facilities too!

I am thrilled to be working with the Anderson Valley community and welcome your thoughts and ideas. My door is open! Please reach out to me if you would like to talk one-on-one.

We are going to do great things this year together!

With respect,

Kristin Larson Balliet, Superintendent, Anderson Valley Unified School District

THE NORTHWEST TIRE & OIL IS NOW OPEN!

Located at 8500 CA-128 Philo, CA 95466

Servicing Gas only at the moment and open for our community. They are accepting cash and card payments! Thank you for everyone’s patience & support!

COME JOIN THE UKIAH VALLEY RUSSIAN RIVER CLEANUP

Ukiah – Would you like to make an immediate improvement to the environment and have fun doing it? Does the sight of litter in our creeks make you want to take action? Then come join the annual Ukiah Valley Russian River Cleanup, held on Coastal Cleanup Day, Saturday, September 28, from 8:30 AM to Noon.

The 110-mile-long Russian River snakes around serpentine hills of blue oak woodlands from northern Ukiah down south of Healdsburg, before winding westward through steep, fir-studded valleys past Guerneville, and spilling past myriad Harbor seals into the Pacific at Jenner. The Russian River is home to snails, dragonflies, turtles, newts, snakes, toads, frogs, fish, otters, ducks, hawks, and so many other important friends in our ecosystem. Many sea-dwelling fishes including Coho salmon, Steelhead trout, and Pacific lamprey visit the Russian River to reproduce.

The Russian River watershed is also home to many dedicated human stewards. Last year, in the Ukiah Valley alone, over 180 volunteers collected 3,500 pounds of trash! Cigarette butts are the most frequently collected item, followed by single-use plastic packaging, such as food wrappers. It’s tempting to pull out large objects like tires and bicycles, but small litter is just as important, and cigarette butts release toxic chemicals into the water, which can pose enormous harm to aquatic species.

Be part of the solution! To join the cleanup, pre-register through MCRCD’s website, Facebook page, or directly at https://tinyurl.com/RRCleanup24 by September 23rd. Volunteers will gather for a safety talk and to divide into teams. Come early at 8:30 to sign in and get a cup of coffee donated by Black Oak Coffee Roasters. Bring a water bottle, sturdy shoes, and work gloves. No flip flops!

The event is co-sponsored by the Mendocino County Resource Conservation District, Mendocino County Water Agency, and Redwood Waste Solutions, along with numerous local partners including the City of Ukiah and Black Oak Coffee Roasters. For questions or for more information, contact Jessica Reid at j.reid@mcrcd.org.

LOCAL EVENTS (today)

POINT IN TIME COUNTS

by Mark Scaramella

The only time Mendo’s biannual “Point In Time Count” of the County’s homeless population was discussed was at a Supervisors meeting in December of 2015. That discussion, while depressing to anyone trying to actually reduce local homelessness, was at least illuminating about the difficulties and vagaries of the process. The discussion is as relevant today as it was nine years ago. Unfortunately, with the current board of Supervisors, we can’t imagine a comparable discussion: they have demonstrated that they have no interest in it.

In 2015, Anna Shaw, Director of the Coast Hospitality Center told the Supervisors that, “Data from the count is used for pending grant projects that will positively impact local homeless.”

That was at least an honest assessment — if by “positively impact” she was referring to the grants going to the local homeless industrial complex and its many employees. Does anyone think that the tens millions of dollars in grant funding for in this century has had a positive impact on local homelessness?

Sandi Canaday, at the time Mendo’s “Program Administrator for Health and Human Services (HHS) Adult Services and the Chair of the Homeless Services Planning Continuum of Care,” told the Supervisors that the Count theoretically involves tallying people in shelters and transitional housing, plus people staying in places “not meant for human habitation” (streets, cars, bridges, tents, porches, driveways, abandoned buildings, “outdoors,” etc.). The Count does not include “couch surfers” or temporary visitors and family members who come for a visit but never leave.

Paul Davis, who worked for Fort Bragg’s Hospitality House and was Chair of the Point in Time Count committee, explained that the survey form had 40 intrusive questions addressing “service utilization, medical coverage, education history, income, runaway history, pregnancy status, and criminal history.”

It did NOT, however, include any questions as to whether the homeless person was a local or a traveler.

Mr. Davis described the difficulty he and his staff had in getting the lengthy HUD survey forms down to one legal size sheet of paper “to save on printing costs.”

The homeless counters have since converted to a fancy $60,000 cellphone app that the County bought to help the counters count and generate their fancy report.

Mr. Davis admitted that “not every homeless person encountered was individually surveyed. In cases where the counters came across groups of people who didn’t want to participate, they took ‘observational data’ — counts, ethnicity, age range, and, if known, why the people in groups weren’t surveyed.”

Mr. Davis managed the count on the Coast. He sadly noted that, “Our community volunteer trainings were not very well attended.” Plus, on the day of the count (one seemingly random day) ten homeless volunteers who had attended the trainings, didn’t show up for the count.

That bad start only got worse. “In spite of our efforts, when survey groups arrived at known homeless encampments the homeless people were not there in many cases. We were able to conduct only a relative handful of surveys on the day of the count. And our observation of homeless individuals who could not be surveyed did not come close to adding up to the amount of people that our organization has on its roster. There was evidence of recent activity in many of those locations, but not many people to be found. In the days following Count Day we attempted to identify as many street homeless as possible with the help of homeless survey workers, staff from our organization including some of our board members and several community volunteers. Many of the homeless individuals, especially young people ages 18- 24 refused to take the survey and many were agitated and had a lot of skepticism about the idea of being surveyed. In spite of that we were able to deliver approximately 150 surveys [on the Coast]. But that's only about 50 more than the number of people we typically serve.”

Note that 150 forms were “delivered,” not filled out and returned.

In the future Davis said he and his fellow counters would consider random samples from selected locations and extrapolate the number of homeless from their observations. “I'm personally in favor of that,” Davis said. “It might be better suited to us and more cost-effective.” (I.e., less work for the counters.) “And it would give us more accurate and usable data [sic]. Our committee will be discussing that for the next Count.”

Apparently, they did that because, although the 2024 Count presentation says they “counted” 774 homeless people with this note: “the [demographic] data presented reflects responses gathered from 73 unsheltered individuals with a margin of error of 10%.”

Veronica Irwin was Project Manager for Homeless Services at Ford Street Project in Ukiah in 2015.

“57 workers and volunteers participated in the inland count,” said Irwin. “About 175 surveys were completed. We had similar problems, volunteers not showing up for training, then not showing up for the count. We had a number of homeless people signed up to help with surveys, but only three showed up that morning. So a lot of our specific knowledge about the encampments was lost because we did not have those people to go out with us.

“One team went out to known encampments that are extremely remote. But unfortunately they didn't find anyone, even in places that had long established and known encampments. We ran across places where there was obviously an encampment as there were sleeping bags, camp stoves and lots of other camping equipment there, but no one was present.”

When the team went out the night before Count Day to a known encampment in the “Perkins area” (outside Ukiah city limits) “they found a huge encampment and were told they were not welcome there. And they were told to leave immediately. They did their best to get an idea of the number of people that were there but in the best interests of their own safety and out of respect for the people that were there the team quickly left.”

“We experienced a lot more aggression this year directed at volunteers than we have in the past as well as low participation by homeless persons despite the financial incentive [sic — $10 an hour for less than a day, plus $2.50 per survey].”

The total count of homeless for 2015 was 1032. Two years prior it had been 1344. In 2024, it’s now down to less than 800. One big reason the numbers are down is likely related to the collapse of the marijuana industry, not as a result of anything the homeless bureaucracy has done. But obviously nobody really knows. There are too many variables in the counting process to compare one year to any other year.

In 2017 nationally known homeless consultant Robert Marbut counted less than half the point in time count number in his mostly ignored “Marbut report.”

“Overall many of the young people simply refused to be surveyed,” continued Irwin, “and they expressed agitation and skepticism about the surveys.”

Then-Third District Supervisor Tom Woodhouse asked, “Why is the number of chronically homeless down so dramatically?”

Ms. Canaday replied: “We have not changed anything. The questions are provided by HUD specifically for the chronically homeless. It's self reporting. We just ask the questions. I would say probably a big percentage of that reduction is that we overall captured a lot less this year.”

I.e., the reason it was down was they simply didn’t find and count as many.

Supervisor John McCowen was worried that the lower count might translate into lower grant funding: “The count is way down. We're dealing with a very transient population that shifts around frequently. Plus some of the other issues described. I think it's appropriate to look at alternative methodologies but in the meantime what is the potential impact of the reduced count on our ability to receive funding? Will this hurt our chances in securing funding because the count is down? A superficial glance at that could say, Oh, they don't have much of a need any longer because of these reduced numbers? Or is there a way to overcome that?”

Canaday: “We try to capture those who we know where they are and are more visible. But they made an effort to not be visible this year and it was really hard to count them.”

Lizzie Guthrie of MCAVN (Mendocino County AIDS Volunteer Network): “Our group went out the night before. We went to 17 places right here in the Ukiah Valley where there are normally homeless people. I agree with everyone who has spoken. For whatever reason this year it was almost like, Let's all vacate. So we really do have a count that does not include many homeless people that many of our agencies are familiar with. When we would ask them a day or two later why they weren’t there, I won't even say some of the expletives that came back at us about, you know, it's no good, it's not going to help, they just want information — there is a lot of mentally ill people and people who have extreme mental health disorders that were actually the hardest to reach in this endeavor.”

“Those of us who serve those populations feel pretty badly that we were unable to get some information that would have been very very helpful,” continued Ms. Guthrie. “So that overall count — it's my belief that it's not true and that there are many many more, particularly those who are the most vulnerable who were the least likely to be surveyed.”

Two locals who have followed and participated in the Point In Time Count process and the homelessness issue in general in recent years are former First District Supervisor Candidate Adam Gaska of Redwood Valley, and Fourth District Supervisor-Elect Bernie Norvell of Fort Bragg.

Gaska: “The Continuum of Care is a requirement to access HUD and other funding to combat homelessness, improve social welfare, etc. What it ends up being in many cases is a check the box exercise to be prioritized for funding. A bunch of helping professionals, sitting at a meeting, giving updates, not really assessing or evaluating themselves but trying to look busy so they don't get their budget cut. As long as they can file the right forms, smile, sing some kumbaya, and get the people above them at the state and federal level to believe they are doing all that they can, then the checks keep getting signed and everyone is happy. Are the framework and resources available being utilized for maximum impact? Do the stakeholders being represented effectively collaborate to efficiently provide services and effect positive changes? Are the meetings being run well? Is there consensus on policy direction? Are members being assigned tasks? Is progress on objectives being measured? I doubt it. I don't see any documentation to support the notion that progress is being made and things are improving.”

Norvell: “In my opinion the Point In Time count is a worthless tool only used to justify more spending. I’ve participated for the last six years and the way they count is a joke. The process should be refined and only used to count street level homeless. You never get the local versus non-local breakdown because they don’t want you engaging during the count.” Referring to the fancy Point In Time Count report with all its out of context pseudo-data and fancy artificial demographic breakdowns based on a one out of ten sample size, Norvell added, “The Continuum of Care at times reminds me of one of my father’s sayings: ‘If you cannot dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit’.”

DOUG HOLLAND (SEATTLE)

Hey AVA,

Homelessness is a longtime issue for me, having been close enough to know a lot of them and several times come close to joining the ranks.

Big problem with a county house is the money, of course, so it needs to be either federally funded or federally required of every county. Give these folks decent shelter with counseling and/or humane care and some semblance of dignity, and make sure the people running the place aren’t monsters, and we’re well on the way to a solution.

There’s about half a dozen more paragraphs I could type, but it’s pointless, since homelessness is a problem that would cost money to solve, and nobody’s willing to spend the money except bleeding hearts like me and you.

Explaining the obvious steps, like you did, gets kinda sad when the people in charge would rather have homeless people, drug addicts, misdemeanor mavens, and out-and-out criminals on the street than spend the money it would take to get them off the street. It’s all pie in the sky when nobody really wants a solution, so make my slice blueberry please.

ON LINE COMMENTER Jim Armstrong:

Re: Ed Note: “ARE THERE 300 homeless and/or intractable outpatients in greater Ukiah? Figures vary. But there are at least that many well-paid helping professionals based in Ukiah, and that’s without factoring in clerical staff and the rest of their support apparatuses.”

Armstrong: “I came late (after Kamala) to today’s fray. Those numbers seem pretty high to me. Where do they come from? 300 well-paid professionals (or unprofessionals for that matter) would make a nice economic sector.”

Mark Scaramella replies: The Schraeders and their subcontractors alone get around $30 million a year for various helping professional services contracts. Assuming generously that maybe a quarter of that goes for facilities, overhead and private profit, that leaves maybe $23 million for salaries, Assuming they make (with generous benefits) around $100k per year, that would be 230 staffers, more if the salaries are lower). Add Dr. Miller’s mental health staff and the jail’s mental health staff (maybe 50 more) and you’re up to 280. Then add in the psych staffers at the local hospitals, and the crisis outreach and your probably over 300 give or take. If the salaries are lower than $100k per year as many of them probably are, the number goes over 300 proportionately. So the Editor’s guess of at least 300 seems reasonable to me.

NO PROBLEM AT ALL WITH SUPERVISORS “RECESS”

by Jim Shields

It's impossible not to recognize the seemingly institutional dysfunction in the governing process of this county. Too many elected officials and “public servants” who are classified as department heads, middle management, and “staff,” go out of their way to create problems when their main goal and purpose is to provide services to the public and solve problems when they arise. Most people don't have lofty expectations of their elected representatives. Most would settle for an adaptation of the Physician's Oath, “First, do no harm.”

The Supervisors don’t understand their role as elected officials. Elected officials are supposed to carry out the wishes/demands of clear majorities of constituents unless what they’re asking is unlawful or totally unfeasible, neither of which are applicable with 99.9% of the issues they deal with. It’s not the Supervisor’s job to substitute their judgment for that of their constituents when those constituents overwhelmingly demand a different course of action than that contemplated by the Supervisors.

As I like to say, there really is a reason why The Great Spirit Above created us with two ears but just one mouth.

Recently, the CEO’s office sent out the following press release:

“Board of Supervisors Recess—The Mendocino County Board of Supervisors will observe its annual August Recess from August 1, 2024, to August 30, 2024. During this period, the Board will not hold Regular Board Meetings. This annual recess, implemented in 2022, allows Clerk of the Board staff to focus on essential behind-the-scenes tasks, including records filing, completion of annually required duties, and preparation for the upcoming year. While there are no Regular Board Meetings in August, the Members of the Board of Supervisors continue to hold/attend their other regularly scheduled committee and public meetings during the August Recess.”

Altogether, including the August “recess,” the supervisors will not meet in formal meetings for seven weeks. However, as the press release says, they will “hold/attend their other regularly scheduled committee and public meetings during the August Recess.”

A lot of folks are upset that the County is calling timeout for this “recess.”

First of all, let me assure you there is no justification for the adjournment of government business to allow the “Clerk of the Board staff to focus on essential behind-the-scenes tasks, including records filing, completion of annually required duties, and preparation for the upcoming year.”

Prior to the year of 2022 when this policy was first implemented by former County Executive Officer Carmel Angelo, the idea of a “recess” was unheard of. If the Clerk of the Board, who doubles as the CEO, can’t manage her staff so that they are completing “essential behind-the-scenes tasks, including records filing, completion of annually required duties, and preparation for the upcoming year,” the Supervisors need to find a new CEO, and perhaps a new staff, who can do their jobs and get their work done on time.

This is not a huge ask as in the past 50 years, previous Clerks of the Board and their staff never required a “recess” to do the their jobs.

Of course, during earlier decades, the Clerk of the Board was an independent position, organizationally under and reporting to the Board of Supervisors, not the CEO. As is the case with numerous governing process elements, procedures and policies were changed by the CEO, basically unchallenged by the BOS.

Now having said all of this, I’m going to tell you something.

As I’ve said many times before, it never concerns me when our elected representatives take time off, no matter what the reason is. A congressman is gone on a two-week paid junket to the South of France, good for him, I hope he has fantastic culinary experiences and plenty of five-martini lunches.

Here’s the deal.

Politics and the governing process are now so dysfunctional and unproductive, we are actually so much better off when politicians, including our Board of Supervisors, are absent from their august chambers because they are unable to make much mischief when they aren’t on the clock.

You might say the more junket-sprees politicians reward themselves with, the better off we are.

So once again, the county is at a crossroads with numerous issues that must be addressed.

Back in 2021, the CEO and the Supes implemented a so-called “Five-Year Strategic Planning Process” that was touted as to “help guide the work of county government through 2027.”

Do you have any idea of just where that much-ballyhooed $130k strategic plan is now in the latter stages of 2024?

I know I don’t have a clue and neither do the Supervisors.

Instead of talking about amorphous, indecipherable strategic plans, how about focusing on something called priorities or a fix-it list?

Here’s a short inventory of what needs to be accomplished and/or overhauled and fixed.

Overhauling five decades of failed homeless policies and programs.
Overhauling five decades of failed mental health policies and programs.
Fixing the ever-deteriorating road and bridge infrastructure.
Simplifying a marijuana ordinance that is rotting like a beached whale.
Fixing 30 years of a housing shortage brought on by short-sighted and nearly non-existent affordable housing planning.

There are many other items that could — and should — appear on this list, but let’s keep it to a manageable workload of just five priority items for the Supes to address, and hopefully make demonstrable and verifiable progress on.

Of course, permeating the entire local governing process is that both previous and current Boards of Supervisors have functioned basically as a rubber-stamp for virtually every proposal emanating from the County Executive Officer and staff.

That dynamic must change, and the Supervisors must reassert their control over the CEO and staff who are un-elected bureaucrats whose primary role is to support elected supervisors in their duties to articulate and represent the best interests of their constituents.

That reversal of roles is without a doubt the number one item on the Supervisors’ list of priorities.

(Jim Shields is the Mendocino County Observer’s editor and publisher, observer@pacific.net, the long-time district manager of the Laytonville County Water District, and is also chairman of the Laytonville Area Municipal Advisory Council. Listen to his radio program “This and That” every Saturday at 12 noon on KPFN 105.1 FM, also streamed live: http://www.kpfn.org)

WE NEED A BETTER COURTHOUSE DESIGN

To the Editor:

My husband and I were appalled to see the photo of the design for the new courthouse in a recent Ukiah Daily Journal. My first thought was that it looked like a prison. My husband noticed it was reminiscent of Russian cold war architecture. A friend noted that it sent a message that coming into the courthouse might land you in jail.

I understand that the design was created by a DC firm and is to be carried out by a company from Washington State, all with money and oversight from the State of California. Is there any possibility of local input to make the building more friendly looking and to reflect our county in some way? Can the Ukiah Design Advisory committee have input?

We have all waited so very long to replace the old courthouse and hope that it will be a building we can celebrate on its opening day.

Margo Frank

Ukiah

Mark Scaramella replies: Too late and way to little. The judges have no interest in any “input” from anybody, much less the “Ukiah Design Advisory committee” which, if they have any influence on anything, is probably negative given the way most of Ukiah looks these days. And “we” have certainly not waited so very long for this unnecessary monstrosity of a courthouse which has been dumped on an unwitting and uncaring City/County like Saddam Hussein imposed his monumental dictates on Baghdad.

THE GRANGE FIRE & KZYX

Disaster Fund donors support Anderson Valley. An Update on our Grange Fire Response.

“It was scary to think the station was almost destroyed, and beyond frustrating to Rich and the rest of the staff to not be able to broadcast at a time when it mattered most to our listeners. It warmed our hearts though to see how many people cared about the station's well-being and the community service we provide.” — Dina Polkinghorne, Interim Executive Director KZYX.

On July 25, a wave of concern swept through our community as emergency notifications illuminated our screens, alerting us to the fierce blaze raging in Anderson Valley. In those tense moments, our thoughts turned to our friends and partners residing near the evacuation zones, grappling with the compounded challenges of power outages, unreliable internet, and disrupted communications. As firefighters bravely fought against the flames, we held on to hope for a swift and safe resolution. In the days that followed, we rallied our networks to understand the extent of the damage and identify the most pressing needs.

In solidarity and support, we promptly disbursed a $5,000 grant from the Disaster Fund for Mendocino County to United Disaster Relief of Northern California, enabling them to assist individuals facing immediate losses due to the fire.

Meanwhile, KZYX's main studio was located perilously close to the evacuation zone and narrowly escaped destruction, only to contend with significant equipment damage from a power surge.

Local public radio has proven an indispensable tool for disaster preparedness, and to support our collective safety, the Community Foundation granted $15,800 from the Disaster Fund for Mendocino County to restore and upgrade its equipment. These funds help ensure its operations remain steadfast for the next emergency.

We are immensely grateful to the firefighters, first responders, and volunteers who stepped up to protect our community and to the generous donors of the Disaster Fund for Mendocino County. Together, we stand resilient and prepared.

Support the Disaster Fund.

www.communityfound.org

Community Foundation of Mendocino County

204 South Oak Street | Ukiah, CA 95482

BILL KIMBERLIN

This is one of my neighbors place in Boonville. The black case on the right usually says, "Eggs" as she sells the bounty from her chickens here to her lucky neighbors.

MENDOCINO VOICE JOINS KZYX

We're excited to announce that we've launched a new partnership with KZYX - Mendocino County Public Broadcasting to expand local news coverage in Mendocino County! This includes bringing on our new team member Sydney Fishman, who will be reporting for us and KZYX!

CALTRANS PLANS TO REPLACE THE HISTORIC ALBION RIVER BRIDGE? CONCERNED? LET CALTRANS KNOW!

Attend our informal workshop, where you can sign a petition and/or write your own comments. We'll have letter and email templates that will help you get started.

At the Albion River Bridge Project: Public Comment Workshop, this Tuesday, August 27th, 5:30 to 8 pm, at the Mendocino Community Center, in Mendocino, presented by Albion Bridge Stewards.

The meeting begins at 5:30 pm with a short presentation, but drop in any time between 5:30 and 8. Refreshments will be served. Learn more at savehighway1.org.

Tom Wodetzki tw@mcn.org

GAZA BABY KILLERS, MENDO BRANCH

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF THE FARRER BUILDING — True Boonville history from not too far back in the day

by Bruce Anderson

A simmering landlord-tenant dispute between the founding father of Boonville-brewed beer and the determined owner of Bruce Bread boiled over Wednesday afternoon at the landmark Farrer Building in downtown Boonville.

Ken Allen of the Boonville Brewery owned the Farrer Building, a rambling structure erected as an all-purpose country store and community center in 1875. Everything from household goods to farm supplies was sold downstairs. The second floor served as a dance hall and, on occasion, a courtroom.

The rambling 19th century structure had been unoccupied for many years until John Parducci, the well-known Ukiah vintner, spruced it up and began renting parts of it as shop space. Allen, who’d arrived in Boonville in the late 1970s as a chiropractor, had been cracking bones in the house behind the Farrer Building until he bought the Farrer Building from Parducci.

Allen, with the late, talented David Norfleet, had gone into the brewery business in the middle 1980s, a business that quickly grew into a nationally distributed premium beer. Allen soon built a brewpub, designed by local architect Harry Glasscock on the north side of the Farrer Building which remains open today as a bar and restaurant with a fledgling whiskey distillery downstairs.

The property is presently owned by Gary Island of Boonville. Island also owns the venerable I&E Lath Mill in Philo.

Allen's craft beer was so successful it soon outgrew its central Boonville premises and relocated its brewing facilities to a new series of industrial structures at the intersection of the Ukiah Road and Highway 128 not far from its original premises in central Boonville.

The unimproved rear area of the Farrer Building became the home of Bruce Bread, justly famed throughout Mendocino and Sonoma counties for years for combining wholesome ingredients into healthy breads free of the medicinal-like flavor and the dense heft of most organic breads.

Bruce Bread was begun by Bruce Hering and his daughters Diane and Ellen. Their bakery grew to include their friends and friends of friends as mostly part-time employees.

In the late 1990s, the Herings sold Bruce Bread to Mrs. Loftsgaard-Trevino. She had worked with the Herings for several years before assuming ownership of the business. Under her auspices the bakery continued to grow, with distribution throughout Mendocino County and much of Sonoma County.

As the yeast rose in mid-bake late one Wednesday afternoon, Allen suddenly appeared with a workman who proceeded to change the locks on the doors as the bellicose Allen demanded that Mrs. Bread abandon her business as soon as the bread was out of the ovens.

Mrs. Bread called for a deputy.

“He — Allen — lost it completely,” a startled passerby said of Allen’s top-decibel tantrum. “It seemed like he was yelling at everyone, including Deputy Squires. I thought maybe the deputy was going to arrest him.”

Deputy Squires chose not to arrest Allen, a long-time local resident, but instead reminded Allen that he couldn't march into an ongoing business and order it closed.

Deputies Squires and Scott Nordin escorted Allen to his vehicle and Allen drove off.

It was the lease between Allen and Mary Loftsgaard-Trevino that landlord Allen wanted to break. He also seemed to want to break his tenant’s neck.

“I called Keith,” Mrs. Loftsgaard-Trevino said. “The way he, Allen, came barging in here and the way he was yelling scared me and all my employees. They ran off and hid while he yelled at me.”

Allen had rented the rear area of the 19th century structure to Bruce Bread. Mrs. L-T had assumed the lease.

The space occupied by the bakery was barely habitable, let alone suitable for commercial bread making. Its floor was collapsing in several areas, the wiring was inadequate to the demands placed on it by industrial baking equipment, water sometimes flowed to the building and sometimes didn't, and field mice were so brazenly numerous they seemed to be mobilizing for a final assault on all of Allen’s Farrer Building tenants.

And there was the rub.

Bruce Bread said that the landlord, the imperious Allen, refused to make the basic repairs to the space he was obligated to make.

Allen said, “If you don’t like the space, leave.”

“I’ve been here two years this coming March,” Mrs. Loftsgaard-Trevino sighed. Look at it. I pay $1,450 a month for this and he wants me to pay more but he refuses to fix anything. Rent was supposed to go up 5% this month. But I called him up to tell him the electricity has gone out again and he comes over here and says, ‘Don’t touch the outlets.’ Then he throws the breaker switch back on.”

And when Mrs. Bruce Bread said she would not pay more until Allen held up his end of their contract, Allen burst through Bruce Bread’s door, ordered Mrs. Bruce Bread and her workers out, and changed the locks.

The next day, a Thursday, the bakery was up and running again.

Mrs. L-T went home, cried for a while, thought about it, and resolved to fight back. “I just decided he’s not going to do that to me,” she said. “My whole life is in this business. My family’s life is in this business. All of the women who work here have bills to pay and families to feed. All I’ve asked him to do is the basics: fix the floor so we can move new equipment in without it falling into the dirt; get an exterminator in here regularly to keep the mice out; fix the wiring so we don’t have to worry about a fire every time we turn a mixer on; and treat us like human beings. Is that asking too much?

One wouldn’t suppose so, but Allen, who began commercial life in Boonville as a starving chiropractor in a house that doubled as his office and his home behind the Farrer Building he now owned, has never been known as a particularly congenial fellow. And since striking it rich in the beer business and becoming Boonville’s only on-site working mogul, Allen’s famously pricklish personality seems to have become more prick than ish.

One doesn’t have to look hard to confirm Mrs. Bread's distress with her landlord and his ancient building. Above a skewed light fixture the ceiling is scorched from a recent fire that was discovered only because it exploded into flame while the busy bakery’s eight employees were in full production below; if the bakery had been closed it is likely the whole structure would have gone up in flames. The uneven floorboards, now some 125 years old, threatened to give out entirely and have partially collapsed in several places, making footing in the murky light of the cave-like space a kind of gamble for the busy women rushing from room-to-room with the day’s quota of fresh baked goods. The walls were a patchwork of mis-matched lengths of lumber, many of them unpainted, with the painted white ones long ago disappeared behind layers of memorial soot. Two of the bakery’s three rooms were so dark they required round-the-clock illumination. Storage space was so inadequate to the bakery’s ever-greater volume that supplies were stacked on the precarious floor where they made up a kind of free fire zone for the field mice besieging the business from all sides.

When Allen arrived to check on what he assumed were his vacated premises, he became unhinged when he discovered Bruce Bread up and baking again as if the dramatic previous day hadn’t happened.

Jackie Potter-Voll had just arrived at All That Good Stuff, a variety store in the front of Allen’s building. “Why did you let them in?” Allen shouted at Ms. Potter-Voll, a shy woman who worked as a clerk at another shop in the building, All That Good Stuff. Nonplussed, Ms. Potter-Voll tried to explain that she hadn’t let anyone in anywhere.

Allen then re-commenced shouting at Mrs. Bread, who’d changed the locks back so she and her mostly female crew could resume baking, and were baking when Allen stormed back into their workplace, sending the women scurrying to avoid him. He demanded this, threatened that and, tossing out one rather startling ethnic slur to spice up his tirade, exclaimed in response to Mrs. Bread’s statement that he had no legal right to destroy her business, “At least somebody speaks English around here.”

Mrs. Bread had already called 9-1-1 and Deputy Squires was instantly on-site for the second time in two days.

The deputy had been called the previous day to escort the ranting Allen, frothing like one of his custom beers, out the door, down the stairs, into his car, and out of his building. And here was the deputy again, the next day, and here he was escorting the raving Allen out of the building, and here Allen was again in full froth at whatever woman happened into sights, especially women impertinent enough to challenge him.

Thursday may have been Ken Allen’s worst work day ever — three consecutive women had defied him. Jackie Potter-Voll had given him an impromptu personality assessment; Diana Charles had given him a big harrumphing “Try it, big boy,” and Mrs. Bread had informed him she had no intention of abandoning her business just because she happened to have had the misfortune to rent space from a misogynistic nut case. And now the final indignity of being tossed off his own property by a cop! Didn’t any of these people know who he was?

The deputy pointed out to Allen that tenants had rights and that there were regular procedures for settling landlord-tenant disputes. Allen was incredulous as Deputy Squires escorted him to his vehicle and ordered him to leave.

The apoplectic Allen, having spotted Diane Charles next door at the brew pub building Allen also owned, and whose lease Ms. Charles is poised to liberate herself from, had shouted at her, “You’re next!”

Mrs. Bruce Bread was soon served with a letter by Peter Suddeth, who Allen identified as his “property manager” but was, at the time, also managing Allen's wife, whom he subsequently married.

The letter Suddeth served informed Mrs. Bruce Bread that she now had three days to permanently leave the Farrer Building.

“I’ve had to stay here 48 straight hours to hold him off. Where can I find the thousand square feet I need for my business anywhere in this valley?,” the worried business woman asked. “There isn’t that kind of space.”

Mrs. Bread's besieged business later found a more congenial home in Redwood Valley, and the Farrer Building, lived on with essential repairs to its aged premises made by its present owner, Johnny Schmitt.

CATCH OF THE DAY, Friday, August 23, 2024

BRETT ADAME, Ukiah. Concealed dirk-dagger.

RUSSELL BOND, Juneau, Alaska/Fort Bragg. Arson.

YECSON DELAHERRAN-RIVERA, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

JESUS HERRERA, Ukiah. Disobeying court order, failure to appear, resisting.

MICHAEL JOHNSON, Willits. Battery with serious injury.

WILLIAM OWENS, Ukiah. Parole violation.

JOHNNIE RADFORD JR., Oakland/Ukiah. Parole violation.

BRANDON STONE, Ukiah. Controlled substance, parole violation, resisting.

CHARLES WHIPPLE, Covelo. Probation revocation.

KRISTOPHER WHITE, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

BRANDON WHITMAN, Fort Bragg. Probation revocation.

KARYNA ZENDEJAS, Ukiah. Battery with serious injury.

SUICIDE NET IS WORTH IT

Editor,

I have a very different perspective of the Golden Gate Bridge suicide net than the writer of a letter to the Chronicle, “Suicide net money could have gone to services.”

I joined the fight for a suicide barrier after my 17-year-old daughter leapt from the bridge and disappeared over 16 years ago. Like so many suicide loss survivors — particularly those who lost children — my life went up in a fireball. The Golden Gate Bridge is a top destination for people determined to end their lives, with no close second. The high numbers have been a stain on our community.

I’ve heard from all the naysayers — the money could be “better spent” elsewhere, the suicidal will find “other means” or the net will obstruct “our nice view.” It was as if they are comfortable with someone leaping to their death every other week or so.

The important data is that suicides from the bridge averaged around 30-35 per year and, so far this year, there have only been a small handful. Sure, it’s possible that the net is not a perfect solution. But if that life saved by the net was your child or loved one, the cost is well worth it. Its completion speaks well of our values as compassionate human beings.

John Brooks

Fairfax

James Stewart & Kim Novak in *Vertigo* (1958)

THE GREAT DIVIDE

by Marilyn Davin

There’s much hand-wringing these days about the political polarization of our country. This angst is real and empirically provable in evolving individual state and community laws and regulations and, of course, in the very existence of Donald Trump at the top of the Republican presidential ticket. But until a week ago I had not experienced first-hand what I’m sure many others have experienced: a major political flameout in my immediate family.

It was the grandson’s 10th birthday party at my daughter’s house, a routine family gathering. Our immediate family is small, and I look forward to our get-togethers for holidays, birthdays, and the like. And my daughter’s a great cook, to boot.

I’ve always liked my sister-in-law’s husband John, who until last weekend never talked about politics. We generally chat on these occasions about books we’ve read, trips we’ve taken if anyone has gone anywhere, the fruits of his vegetable garden, or the habits of his yappy, annoying long-haired Chihuahua, who sits in the crook of his arm at the dinner table. It wasn’t that there was some kind of prohibition against talking about politics or anything; it was mostly that with all the food eating, gift opening, and general chaos of a dozen people getting together for dinner, it didn’t seem to come up. This isn’t how I grew up. In my family, dinner was never about the food; dinner was just an excuse to talk politics with my activist parents. We disagreed freely with each another, expressing our views of the world with passion—but without rancor. I see now that part of that dynamic was because, as liberal Democrats, we generally agreed with one another on major issues and shared a world view (even with my drug addict younger brother).

So, at last weekend’s family dinner John was uncharacteristically quiet. With Biden finally dropping out and Trump flipping out over the surge in Harris’ popularity, however, politics did come up at this dinner. This was great for me; I was psychologically back at my parents’ boisterous dinner table, arguing about the state and the fate of our sorry world. But that was then.

John’s first contribution to the discussion concerned energy—specifically how much power California imports from out of state. But instead of a natural segue into the state’s renewable energy resource development or the thorny issue of energy supply and demand, it was clear that his preference was for more drilling and fossil-fuel generation, and that Democrats are responsible for turning their backs on this abundant domestic resource. (Drill, Baby, Drill!)

It wouldn’t have been so bad had the discussion ended there instead of descending into poverty, homelessness, and crime, all of which he blamed on liberals: specifically California liberals. (He was born and raised in Oklahoma.) As our dinner plates were being collected, he jumped up from the table and declared that Democrats had singlehandedly ruined California, adding that “You’re damned right I’m voting for Trump!” Without even bidding anyone adieu he told his wife (my sister-in-law), who never challenges him, to get her things, they were leaving immediately and wouldn’t be coming back. As he flounced out of the house and down the driveway to his car, he offered a parting shot to my kind-hearted son-in-law that he was part of the problem by allowing such discussions in his house.

Had this been a normal conversation I’m sure we could have agreed on some points. California’s troubles are a complicated mess, to be sure, and many pols from both parties contributed to it — starting with Republican darling Ronald Reagan, who smilingly decimated the country’s weighted taxation system, along with the middle class. But exactly how Trump would cure any of these ills was not unexplored. Trump is, after all, a known quantity, and unless you happened to be either hiding out in a cave for the past eight years or myopically focused on your humongous stock portfolio, you know very well what Trump would be like a second time around—he’s just more pissed off after plotting his revenge on everyone he thinks has wronged him.

I still puzzle over John’s reaction and his promise to never return to our family events, how 20 years of celebrating together as a family could evaporate in a puff of smoke over politics. I asked myself, Why didn’t he speak up? Openly challenge opinions he disagreed with? Agree to disagree? Granted, there was surely a natural reluctance to broadcast his pro-Trump views in a roomful of Bay Area liberals. But we’ve been through presidential campaigns before as a family, to no ill effect. It’s because that, this time, John looked at me as a lesser person because of my different beliefs, which he clearly viewed as character flaws. This was no dinner-table discussion of my childhood where we all agreed to disagree on some relatively minor point before moving on to dessert and homework. This was an existential rift that separated the true believers from the liberal chaff.

And that’s a shame. I’ll miss him.

BILL KIMBERLIN

This is Cecil B Demille directing "The Ten Commandments". The film was shot in VistaVision which was about four times the size of a standard film negative. Hollywood, panicked by television, chose to fill movie screens with images so large that television couldn't compete. In fact, major movie stars avoided appearing on television in any way, because they preferred to be seen on the screens where their images were 40 feet tall. Who could blame them?

We adopted the long abandoned VistaVision format for shooting special effects at Lucas Film's ILM because it gave us the ability to recreate reality with much greater quality than ever before.

RECONCILED AT THE ROYAL

No Yesterday, No Tomorrow, No Today

Awoke at the Royal Motel early for a change. No responses as of yet from anybody to do anything nor go anywhere. Maybe there is no reason to do anything nor go anywhere anymore. Looks like that which is “prior to consciousness” is everything. Welcome to my boat ride. ;-))

Craig Louis Stehr

FREE FALL

Heart of Wisdom…

In the summer of 1977, I attended Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado taking the "100,000 Songs of Milarepa" poetry class from Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche. In my breakaway study group, I was sitting next to the poet Allen Ginsburg. Allen said that he had been speaking with Rinpoche, who told him: "The bad news is that we are all falling with no parachute." Allen asked what the good news is. Rinpoch replied: "There is no ground."

Craig Louis Stehr

MEMO OF THE AIR: Good Night Radio show all night tonight from Albion, live on KNYO!

Soft deadline to email your writing for tonight's (Friday night's) MOTA show is 6pm or so. If you can't make that, it's okay, send it whenever it's done and I'll read it on the radio next week. I might even check email on a music break and read it tonight anyway.

Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio is every Friday, 9pm to 5am* PST on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg and KNYO.org. The first hour of the show is simulcast on KAKX 89.3fm Mendocino.

Plus you can always go to https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com and hear last week's MOTA show. By Saturday night I'll put up the recording of tonight's show. Also there you'll find an assortment of cultural-educational amusements to occupy you until showtime, or any time, such as:

An absolute mess of a garden. Art types seem to like it. And it's wet enough that I don't start to feel allergic up inside my nose from looking at pictures of it. But the color saturation isn't turned all the way up like the art was, and that makes it feel oddly wan to me, and reminds me again that I was born just a little too early to be able to benefit from replacement eyeballs at this point in my life, that can do real-time HDR, and oil-paint-filter, and so on, though I probably will live long enough for cheap smart glasses that are almost as good, and that I can ask about a tool I put down thirty seconds ago, /Where the eff did it go/, and that will caption people talking to me and show their name on their forehead, and prompt me to tell a joke right, and intuitively look up the Popes and the equation for capacitance and whether or not Robert Silverberg is still alive, when I need to know that, and give me a sharp little shock when I say /Um/ or start telling someone a story I've told them a hundred times before. And alert me to rising anger in someone I thought was on the same page with me but instead has the sense of humor of a box of hammers. https://myonebeautifulthing.com/2024/08/21/repost-the-happiest-gardener/

Bathroom dreams. (via NagOnTheLake) https://www.presentandcorrect.com/blogs/blog/bathroom-palettes-1940

And Nirvana but jazz. If you're in a hurry you can skip ahead through the timeline chapter marks to the finished work. https://laughingsquid.com/jazz-band-covers-nirvana-on-the-spot/

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

THE FINAL PLAY OF THE 49ERS PRESEASON WAS PURE CHAOS

by Eric Branch

If you were one of the sickos watching all the way to the final play of the preseason for the San Francisco 49ers in 2024, you may have been given quite the treat in one of the most chaotic preseason plays in franchise history.

The 49ers and Las Vegas Raiders were tied at 24 with three seconds left, with the Niners lined up at their own 45-yard line. Mercifully, this was going to be the final play of the game regardless of the result, since the NFL ended preseason overtime a few years ago. It ended up being far longer than just the three seconds.

Fourth-string quarterback Tanner Mordecai rolled left and chucked a Hail Mary toward a group of players just inside the 10-yard line. Several Raiders defenders jumped and tried to swat at the ball, leading it to bounce twice before going directly into the hands of 49ers receiver Trent Taylor at the 10. Taylor instantly tried to run right, but quickly was swarmed by the Raiders and looked like he would end up tackled.

But Taylor somehow shovels the ball out with one hand toward the open space to his left, with the lateral rolling along the (very beat up) Las Vegas grass. Offensive lineman Sebastian Gutierrez gets the ball as he’s rolling to the ground at the 15-yard line and immediately pushes it to his right toward receiver Ronnie Bell. Bell then runs right, stops, spins back left and flips it to running back Cody Schrader as Bell gets crushed.

Schrader catches the ball behind the 20-yard line and tries to make a move, but loses his footing and flips the ball to Mordecai. The quarterback veers back and to the right, ending up behind the 30-yard line, before throwing the ball back left.

Mordecai’s throw, unfortunately, went forward, leading to a flag from the referee and ultimately meaning the play wouldn’t have given the 49ers the win. Schrader still makes an incredible effort to try and score, catching Mordecai’s fling running back to the 34-yard line, then immediately pivoting up field and blowing past a few Raiders before somehow getting a lateral away as he’s tackled.

Gutierrez — the same lineman from earlier, yes — makes an impressive one-handed catch of Schrader’s prayer of a lateral at the 20-yard line and makes a good run for the endzone, racing past two Raiders and nearly breaking a tackle at the 5-yard line. But the defender trips up Gutierrez’s feet and finally brings him down, just a few yards shy of the endzone. At this point, everyone gives up and the game ends.

In total, the play that occurred with three seconds left in the game didn’t truly come to an end for 40 whole seconds. Almost immediately, the jokes were flying on social media about the play, with many making reference to the Stanford-Cal 1982 “Band is on the field” game — including 49ers broadcaster Greg Papa.

NBC Sports Bay Area reporter Matt Maiocco had a more succinct quip, though.

“That’s exactly how every preseason should end,” Maiocco wrote.

(sfchronicle.com)

Lime Point Lighthouse, located at the base of the North Tower of the Golden Gate Bridge

END TIMES, 2024

At Burning Man, There's Hardly Anything You Can't Do Naked

by Gabe Lehman

There’s something at Burning Man for everyone, from the pyromaniacs and day trippers to the sober-curious and cat lovers. And with weather looking better than last year, Burners should be able to take advantage of the full slate of workshops, sessions and parties.

Classic Burning Man activities will be on the docket. Sunrise dance parties start the day at 5 a.m., while a black-light art gallery can be visited every evening once it’s dark. The Midnight Pyro and Aerial Showcase, one of many fire dancing events, is scheduled to take place nightly right as the clock strikes twelve.

Staying hygienic is key on the playa, so be sure to check out It’s OK to Smell OK! (apparently many Burners disagree) and of course Brushing Man! Teeth Brushing and Pole Dancing! Feeling under the weather? Drop by for a urine analysis where Burning Man’s resident pee expert offers to “assess your pee sample's odor, pH, and potability.”

Music-wise, there’s more to Burning Man than trippy sounds and house beats — although Kim-Avicii, a session dedicated to the late DJ Avicii and to the Korean food kimchi, sounds delightful. After the proverbial Man is burned, he’s to be honored with a New Orleans-style jazz funeral in the “Black Rock French Quarter.” The Brat Hour (Charli XCX) and Taylor Swift Hour of Power prove there’s a place for pop on the playa.

It’s important to remember that not every Burning Man event is what it seems — there’s no actual ritual murder at the Virgin Sacrifice Party and vows exchanged at the KFC Wedding Chapel are not legally binding. However, some workshops’ titles — Tea and Porn, for example — are meant to be taken literally.

Other Burning Man workshops are designed to ask the big questions, like: What’s next on climate? Who do you think you are? And, Are tacos topless tapas?

If you’re sick of Burning Man’s relentless positivity, complainers are welcome at Karen Hour, or you can take out your aggression by beating up a dummy of our 45th president at the Trump ASSault.

Coming to Burning Man to work through some unresolved daddy issues? You’re in luck! Drop by any one of the eight Dear Dad sessions, a six-hour window where you’re encouraged to write a letter to the father figure of your choice.

Unsurprisingly, at Burning Man you can do just about any event you can imagine in the nude. Start your day with some naked bacon or a naked breakfast burrito. Get your heart rate up with a naked mile or naked jump rope, before cooling off with some naked yoga. Try a naked dinosaur ride before having a cocktail at the Naked Happy Hour (not to be confused with the Naked Truth Happy Hour) and hitting the town on the Naked Pub Crawl.

What you might be more surprised about are countless llama-themed events, including but not limited to: Llama Sutra, Llama Nirvana Dance Party, Echo Llama Therapy and Llamapalooza.

Check out all these events and more when Burning Man kicks off this Sunday, Aug. 25, from the playa at Black Rock Desert in Nevada.

(SFgate.com)

URBAN MYTHS

We’re informed that this Neil Armstrong moon-landing anecdote is one: “On July 20, 1969, as commander of the Apollo Lunar Module, Neil Armstrong was the first person to set foot on the moon. His first words after stepping on the moon were, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” The event was televised to earth and heard by millions. But just before he re-entered the lander Armstrong made the enigmatic remark, “Good luck, Mr. Gorsky.” Many people at NASA thought it was a casual remark concerning some rival soviet cosmonaut. However, upon checking, there was no Gorsky in either the Russian or American space programs. Over the years, many people questioned Armstrong as to what the “Good luck, Mr. Gorsky” statement meant. But Armstrong always just smiled.

ON July 5, 1995, in Tampa Bay, Florida, while answering questions following a speech, a reporter brought up the 26-year old question to Armstrong. This time he finally responded. Mr. Gorsky had died, so Armstrong felt he could answer the question. In 1938, when he was a kid in a small midwestern town, Armstrong was playing baseball with a friend in the backyard. His friend hit the ball, which landed in his neighbor’s yard by the bedroom windows. His neighbors were Mr. and Mrs. Gorsky. As he leaned down to pick up the ball, young Armstrong heard Mrs. Gorsky shouting at Mr. Gorsky. “‘Sex! You want sex? You’ll get sex … When the kid next door walks on the moon!” True story.” (Never happened.)

WAYNE CORNELIUS of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at UC San Diego: “The US-Mexican border has been ten times deadlier to Mexican immigrants in the last ten years than was the whole 28-year history of the Berlin Wall to East Germans. Over the entire history of the Berlin Wall, 287 persons died trying to cross it. Since the Clinton Administration implemented the current, stepped-up border interdiction, more than 2,500 Mexicans have died at the border. In the year 2000, only 178 American employers were fined for hiring illegal immigrants, and only an even 1,000 undocumented workers were apprehended at their jobs. There are an estimated 8-to-12 million undocumented immigrants working and living in the US.”

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR. SAYS HE'S SUSPENDING HIS PRESIDENTIAL BID AND BACKING DONALD TRUMP

by Jonathan Cooper, Ali Swenson & Gabriel Sandoval

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suspended his independent campaign for president Friday and endorsed Donald Trump, a late-stage shakeup of the presidential race that could give the former president a modest boost from Kennedy’s supporters.

Kennedy said his internal polls had shown that his presence in the race would hurt Trump and help Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, though recent public polls don’t provide a clear indication that he is having an outsize impact on support for either major-party candidate.

Kennedy cited free speech, the war in Ukraine and “a war on our children” as among the reasons he would try to remove his name from the ballot in battleground states.

“These are the principal causes that persuaded me to leave the Democratic Party and run as an independent, and now to throw my support to President Trump,” Kennedy said.

However, he made clear that he wasn’t formally ending his bid and said his supporters could continue to back him in the majority of states where they are unlikely to sway the outcome. Kennedy took steps to withdraw his candidacy in at least two states late this week, Arizona and Pennsylvania, but in the battlegrounds of Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin, election officials said it’s too late for him to take his name off the ballot even if he wants to do so.

Kennedy said his actions followed conversations with Trump over the past few weeks. He cast their alliance as “a unity party," an arrangement that would "allow us to disagree publicly and privately and seriously.”

Hours after Kennedy made his announcement in Phoenix, Trump was to hold a rally in neighboring Glendale. Trump’s campaign teased that he would be joined by “a special guest,” though neither campaign responded to messages about whether Kennedy would be that guest.

A year ago, some would have thought it inconceivable that a member of arguably the most storied family in Democratic politics would work with Trump to keep a Democrat out of the White House. Even in recent months, Kennedy has accused Trump of betraying his followers, while Trump has criticized Kennedy as “the most radical left candidate in the race.”

Five of Kennedy’s family members issued a statement on Friday calling his support for Trump “a sad ending to a sad story.”

“We want an America filled with hope and bound together by a shared vision of a brighter future, a future defined by individual freedom, economic promise and national pride,” read the statement, which his sister Kerry Kennedy posted on X. “We believe in Harris and Walz. Our brother Bobby’s decision to endorse Trump today is a betrayal of the values that our father and our family hold most dear.”

Kennedy Jr., the son of the late Attorney General and Sen. Robert Kennedy and the nephew of President John F. Kennedy, acknowledged his decision had caused tension with his immediate family. He is married to actress Cheryl Hines.

“This decision is agonizing for me because of the difficulties it causes my wife and my children and my friends,” Kennedy said. "But I have the certainty that this is what I’m meant to do. And that certainty gives me internal peace, even in storms.”

The Kennedy and Trump campaigns have ramped up their compliments of each other and engaged in behind-the-scenes discussions in recent weeks, according to those familiar with the efforts. Both campaigns have spent months accusing Democrats of weaponizing the legal system for their own benefit. And both have hinted publicly that they could be open to joining forces, with the shared goal of limiting Harris' chances.

Last month, during the Republican National Convention, Kennedy’s son posted and then quickly deleted a video showing a phone call between Kennedy and Trump, in which the former president appeared to try to talk Kennedy into siding with him.

Talks between the two camps continued, with close Trump allies quietly lobbying Kennedy to drop out of the race and support the Republican nominee, according to a person familiar with the efforts who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

Trump told CNN on Tuesday that he would “love” an endorsement from Kennedy, whom he called a “brilliant guy.” He also said he would “certainly” be open to Kennedy playing a role in his administration if Kennedy dropped out and endorsed him.

Kennedy's running mate, Nicole Shanahan, also suggested on a podcast this week that his campaign might “walk away right now and join forces with Donald Trump.” While she clarified that she is not personally in talks with Trump, she entertained the idea that Kennedy could join Trump's administration as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

“I think that Bobby in a role like that would be excellent,” Shanahan said. “I fully support it. I have high hopes.”

Earlier Friday, Shanahan posted on X that she isn’t a Kamala Democrat or a Trump Republican.

“I’m an INDEPENDENT American who is endorsing ideas, not a person or a party,” she wrote. “I will continue working to give a voice to the voiceless and bring power back to the people.”

At Kennedy's Phoenix event, 38-year-old Casey Westerman, a Chandler, Arizona, resident who works in software sales, said she trusted Kennedy’s judgment and had planned to vote for him, but would support Trump if Kennedy said that was who he was endorsing.

“My decision would really be based on who he thinks is best suited to run this country,” said Westerman, who wore a “Kennedy 2024” trucker hat and voted for Trump in the last two presidential elections.

Kennedy first entered the 2024 presidential race as a Democrat but left the party last fall to run as an independent. He built an unusually strong base for a third-party bid, fueled in part by anti-establishment voters and vaccine skeptics who have followed his anti-vaccine work since the COVID-19 pandemic. But he has since faced strained campaign finances and mounting legal challenges.

Recent polls put his support in the mid-single digits. And it's unclear if he’d get even that in a general election, since third-party candidates frequently don’t live up to their early poll numbers when voters actually cast their ballots.

There's some evidence that Kennedy's staying in the race would hurt Trump more than Harris. According to a July AP-NORC poll, Republicans were significantly more likely than Democrats to have a favorable view of Kennedy. And those with a positive impression of Kennedy were significantly more likely to also have a favorable view of Trump (52%) than Harris (37%).

(AP)

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

I hope there isn’t any American over 30 who thinks that a real third party is possible in this country. At most, you could have a party disappear and reappear with a new name, like the Whig/Republican rebranding. There will only ever be one party with two branches. The Evil Party and the Stupid Party. Sometimes they get together and do something that is both evil and stupid. This is called “bipartisanship.”

A READER WRITES: I suppose Ms. Harris would be a better president than Mr. Trump. But that’s not saying much. Reportedly, she has received over $500 million in donations since Biden named her as his designated successor. That probably includes some small donations, but one assumes that most of that money came from large donations from the very wealthy people she implies she will tax to benefit the middle class she says is so important to her. I doubt that will happen because most if not all of her big donors would not keep donating if she did, and the Republicans in Congress would oppose it at every turn. Given the Clintonian cynicism of the DNC Democrats (including Biden) who call the shots for the “party,” I wonder if Ms. Harris was the third choice in the Woman Of Color Sweepstakes after Michelle Obama and Oprah turned them down? And I worry that her reference to America having “the most lethal military on Earth” will translate into an attempt on her part to prove she can be at least as tough as a male Republican when it comes to questions about the use of the military overseas that will inevitably arise.

TIM WALZ originally decided to run for office as a Democrat after being denied entry to a George W. Bush rally in 2004. He flipped a longtime red Congressional District in 2006, and then proceeded to be one of the most conservative Democrats in the U.S. Congress, ironically aligning himself with many of the Bush Administration policies. He had an ‘A’ rating from the NRA, voted for the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline, supported the big agriculture industry, and was obviously pro-military after serving in the Minnesota National Guard for 24 years.

counterpunch.org/2024/08/23/the-whitewashing-and-greenwashing-of-tim-walz

END OF HOAXES

by James Kunstler

“Kamala, you are supposed to drink AFTER the speech.” — Charlie Kirk, Turning Point USA

“The entire Democrat campaign will now be focused on gaslighting the country into believing Trump has been president for the last 4 years and Kamala has been an innocent bystander the whole time. They can’t run on her record, so they’re going to invent one and lie about it.” — Sean Davis, The Federalist

Get this: there is one thing, one lurking terror, behind every fake and desperate move the Democratic Party has made this dire election cycle: the fear that hundreds of high officials might have to pay for their crimes of recent years if they lose on November 5. That’s why they lie about everything, and work so hard to construct false narratives, and struggle to obliterate the memory of Joe Biden’s ruinous term in power.

Of course, they can’t talk about it. It’s like the darkest secret in a wrecked human soul that has lost itself in mental illness, some abscess of shame and guilt sealed off in the mind’s attempt to protect itself — like the memory of an incest or an unsolved family murder — which explains the rich show of various derangements actually highlighted at this year’s Democratic Convention, their Cluster-B personality disorder freak show. It is an anguished, guilt-ridden collective mind leaking clues to its own disordered debasement.

So, the deed is done now. The odious “Joe Biden,” fake president, is dumped in the ditch of history, and a mighty operation is mounted to put over Veep Kamala Harris, who ignored “JB’s” incapacity to head the US government for four years, carrying out no duties meanwhile, hiding from the public, answering nothing, going nowhere, abetted by a treasonous news media bent on hiding her as she drank away the months in the old Naval Observatory.

The conventions are over and the contest is on. Have you heard enough of their fake war-cry: “defending our democracy?” From a party that has tortured the law to jail and silence its critics and scrape its challengers off every ballot. The pretense is perfect. Their “democracy” is actually a colossal “spoils” system — to the victor goes the spoils! — a grotesque political machine funneling trillions of federal dollars to their client voter groups, and especially to the non-profit orgs and NGOs that form a sinister secondary bureaucracy accountable to nobody. And all done with direct connivance of the federal intel blob at war with everyone outside this matrix of turpitude. And, by the way, the money is gone. Trillions. And nothing to show for it.

This is what Mr. Trump opposes, and has been fighting against since 2016. No wonder it wants to stuff him in prison or kill him. It is a mighty enemy because it holds the levers of official power, especially the federal prosecutors and the state and county prosecutors put in place by the Democrats’ chief “influencer,” the George and Alex Soros NGO empire. And the big picture includes the monumental crime against our country — against all the countries of Western Civ, really — which was the Covid-19 operation that left millions disabled or dead from a phony, poisonous “vaccine.”

And now we hear — as I write early this Friday morning, hours before any official announcement — that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is about to suspend his campaign, kneecapped by the Democratic Party so busy “defending our democracy,” and perhaps throw his support to Donald Trump in order to defeat this mafia of the mentally ill. I hope he does that. And I hope he denounces the party of his ancestors in the most vividly opprobrious terms so that no one can misunderstand the gravity of what has been going on.

I’d also look forward to Mr. Kennedy playing an important role in the second Trump government. Mr. Kennedy knows probably better than anyone in America exactly how the gigantic racketeering operation was constructed that grafted pharma onto the US public health agencies, the FDA, CDC, NIAID, and others. This monster that has left so many Americans dead and injured, and wrecked the health of the nation’s young people especially, must be slayed. It must be disassembled and its pieces reconstructed into institutions that actually serve the public. This includes the hospital holding companies, the private equity pirates out to asset-strip medicine, the insurance-driven, overgrown doctors’ practices, and the mendacious medical boards, professional orgs, and journals that unjustly punished dissident doctors and nurses who tried to oppose the extralegal Covid-19 vaxx mandates.

If it happens that Mr. Kennedy joins forces with Mr. Trump, it could be a momentous turn in an election so far marred by Democratic Party hoaxes, coups, and lawfare ops. Naturally, The New York Times played the story this morning in a tiny headline below-the-fold, saying nothing about the rumored stunning alliance between the Kennedy and Trump campaigns.

We await the Sept 18 sentencing hearing of Judge Juan Merchan in the Alvin Bragg book-keeping error (“34 felonies”) fake case that threatens to jam Mr. Trump into a Riker’s Island jail cell. I’d like to see them try that. I’d like to see Mr. Kennedy explain to readers of The New York Times and viewers of CNN how all that worked. Those news agencies, in turn, will not be able to get around the fact that “X” (Twitter) has become the dominant source of news for Americans, a platform the old news orgs have no control over, and may not be able to ignore.

Mr. Kennedy has the chance to elevate the argument against the now-debased party of his father and his uncle that has weirdly become a national wrecking crew. He has the ability to remind the voting public exactly what has gone wrong, in language that won’t be misunderstood or twisted, and to point a way back, with Mr. Trump, to being a country worth caring about.

I INTEND THAT THIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY shall become a model for all future autobiographies when it is published, after my death, and I also intend that it shall be read and admired a good many centuries because of its form and method—a form and method whereby the past and the present are constantly brought face to face, resulting in contrasts which newly fire up the interest all along, like contact of flint with steel. Moreover, this autobiography of mine does not select from my life its showy episodes, but deals mainly in the common experiences which go to make up the life of the average human being, because these episodes are of a sort which he is familiar with in his own life, and in which he sees his own life reflected and set down in print. The usual, conventional autobiographer seems to particularly hunt out those occasions in his career when he came into contact with celebrated persons, whereas his contacts with the uncelebrated were just as interesting to him, and would be to his reader, and were vastly more numerous than his collisions with the famous.

Howells was here yesterday afternoon, and I told him the whole scheme of this autobiography and its apparently systemless system—only apparently systemless, for it is not really that. It is a deliberate system, and the law of the system is that I shall talk about the matter which for the moment interests me, and cast it aside and talk about something else the moment its interest for me is exhausted. It is a system which follows no charted course and is not going to follow any such course. It is a system which is a complete and purposed jumble—a course which begins nowhere, follows no specified route, and can never reach an end while I am alive, for the reason that, if I should talk to the stenographer two hours a day for a hundred years, I should still never be able to set down a tenth part of the things which have interested me in my lifetime. I told Howells that this autobiography of mine would live a couple of thousand years, without any effort, and would then take a fresh start and live the rest of the time.

He said he believed it would, and asked me if I meant to make a library of it.

I said that that was my design; but that, if I should live long enough, the set of volumes could not be contained merely in a city, it would require a State, and that there would not be any multi-billionaire alive, perhaps, at any time during its existence who would be able to buy a full set, except on the instalment plan.

Howells applauded, and was full of praises and endorsement, which was wise in him and judicious. If he had manifested a different spirit, I would have thrown him out of the window. I like criticism, but it must be my way.

— Mark Twain

German cycling soldiers advancing beyond Volga towards Astrakhan. Russia, August 1942 (photo by Heinrich Hoffmann)

HOW TO BE TRULY FREE: Lessons From a Philosopher President

Pepe Mujica, Uruguay’s spartan former president and plain-spoken philosopher, offers wisdom from a rich life as he battles cancer.

by Jack Nicas

A decade ago, the world had a brief fascination with José Mujica. He was the folksy president of Uruguay who had shunned his nation’s presidential palace to live in a tiny tin-roof home with his wife and three-legged dog.

In speeches to world leaders, interviews with foreign journalists and documentaries on Netflix, Pepe Mujica, as he is universally known, shared countless tales from a life story fit for film. He had robbed banks as a leftist urban guerrilla; survived 15 years as a prisoner, including by befriending a frog while kept in a hole in the ground; and helped lead the transformation of his small South American nation into one of the world’s healthiest and most socially liberal democracies.

But Mr. Mujica’s legacy will be more than his colorful history and commitment to austerity. He became one of Latin America’s most influential and important figures in large part for his plain-spoken philosophy on the path to a better society and happier life.

Now, as Mr. Mujica puts it, he is fighting death. In April, he announced he would undergo radiation for a tumor in his esophagus. At 89 and already diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, he admitted the path to recovery would be arduous.

Last week, I traveled to the outskirts of Montevideo, Uruguay’s capital, to visit Mr. Mujica at his three-room home, full of books and jars of pickling vegetables, on the small farm where he has grown chrysanthemums for decades. As the sun set on a winter day, he was bundled in a winter jacket and wool hat in front of a wood stove. The treatment had left him weak and hardly eating.

“You’re talking to a strange old man,” he said, leaning in to look at me closely, a glisten in his eye. “I don’t fit in today’s world.”

And so we began.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Q: How is your health?

They did radiation treatment on me. My doctors said it went well, but I’m broken.

(Unprompted.)

I think that humanity, as it’s going, is doomed.

Q: Why do you say that?

We waste a lot of time uselessly. We can live more peacefully. Take Uruguay. Uruguay has 3.5 million people. It imports 27 million pairs of shoes. We make garbage and work in pain. For what?

You’re free when you escape the law of necessity — when you spend the time of your life on what you desire. If your needs multiply, you spend your life covering those needs.

Humans can create infinite needs. The market dominates us, and it robs us of our lives.

Humanity needs to work less, have more free time and be more grounded. Why so much garbage? Why do you have to change your car? Change the refrigerator?

There is only one life and it ends. You have to give meaning to it. Fight for happiness, not just for wealth.

Q: Do you believe that humanity can change?

It could change. But the market is very strong. It has generated a subliminal culture that dominates our instinct. It’s subjective. It’s unconscious. It has made us voracious buyers. We live to buy. We work to buy. And we live to pay. Credit is a religion. So we’re kind of screwed up.

Q: It seems you don’t have much hope.

Biologically, I do have hope, because I believe in man. But when I think about it, I’m pessimistic.

Q: Yet your speeches often have a positive message.

Because life is beautiful. With all its ups and downs, I love life. And I’m losing it because it’s my time to leave. What meaning can we give to life? Man, compared to other animals, has the ability to find a purpose.

Or not. If you don’t find it, the market will have you paying bills the rest of your life.

If you find it, you will have something to live for. Those who investigate, those who play music, those who love sports, anything. Something that fills your life.

Q: Why did you choose to live in your own home as president?

The cultural remnants of feudalism remain. The red carpet. The bugle. Presidents like to be praised.

I once went to Germany and they put me in a Mercedes-Benz. The door weighed about 3,000 kilos. They put 40 motorcycles in front and another 40 in back. I was ashamed.

We have a house for the president. It’s four stories. To have tea you have to walk three blocks. Useless. They should make it a high school.

Q: How would you like to be remembered?

Ah, like what I am: a crazy old man.

Q: That’s all? You did a lot.

I have one thing. The magic of the word.

The book is the greatest invention of man. It’s a shame that people read so little anymore. They don’t have time.

Q: Nowadays people do much of their reading on phones.

Four years ago, I threw mine away. It made me crazy. All day talking nonsense.

We must learn to speak with the person inside us. It was him who saved my life. Since I was alone for many years, that has stayed with me.

When I’m in the field working with the tractor, sometimes I stop to see how a little bird constructs its nest. He was born with the program. He’s already an architect. Nobody taught him. Do you know the hornero bird? They are perfect bricklayers.

I admire nature. I almost have a sort of pantheism. You have to have the eyes to see it.

The ants are one of the true communists out there. They are much older than us and they will outlive us. All colony beings are very strong.

Q: Going back to phones: Are you saying they are too much for us?

It’s not the phone’s fault. We’re the ones who are not ready. We make a disastrous use of it.

Children walk around with a university in their pocket. That’s wonderful. However, we have advanced more in technology than in values.

Q: Yet the digital world is where so much of life is now lived.

Nothing replaces this. (He gestures at the two of us talking.) This is nontransferable. We’re not only speaking through words. We communicate with gestures, with our skin. Direct communication is irreplaceable.

We are not so robotic. We learned to think, but first we are emotional beings. We believe we decide with our heads. Many times the head finds the arguments to justify the decisions made by the gut. We’re not as aware as we seem.

And that’s fine. That mechanism is what keeps us alive. It’s like the cow that follows what’s green. If there is green, there is food. It’s going to be tough to give up who we are.

Q: You have said in the past that you don’t believe in God. What is your view of God in this moment of your life?

Sixty percent of humanity believes in something, and that must be respected. There are questions without answers. What is the meaning of life? Where do we come from? Where are we going?

We don’t easily accept the fact that we are an ant in the infinity of the universe. We need the hope of God because we would like to live.

Q: Do you have some kind of God?

No. I greatly respect people who believe. It’s like a consolation when faced with the idea of death.

Because the contradiction of life is that it is a biological program designed to struggle to live. But from the moment the program starts, you are condemned to die.

Q: It seems biology is an important part of your worldview.

We are interdependent. We couldn’t live without the prokaryotes we have in our intestine. We depend on a number of bugs that we don’t even see. Life is a chain and it is still full of mysteries.

I hope human life will be prolonged, but I’m worried. There are many crazy people with atomic weapons. A lot of fanaticism. We should be building windmills. Yet we spend on weapons.

What a complicated animal man is. He’s both smart and stupid.

(NY Times, Brazil Bureau)

A policeman patiently reasoning with a two-year-old boy trying to cross a street during a parade - 1958 (photo by William C. Beall)

5 Comments

Rick Swanson August 24, 2024

I encourage everyone to watch RFK jrs. speech yesterday. He is spot on. Our country is very sick. If Trump puts him in charge of Health and Human Services it would be wonderful. I can see a new slogan in the future. MAHA. Make America Healthy Again!

- Lazarus August 24, 2024
  
  “President Biden sent [then-UK Prime Minister] Boris Johnson to Ukraine to force President [Vladimir] Zelensky to tear up a peace agreement that he and the Russians had already signed, and the Russians were already withdrawing troops,” RFK Jr.
  “The Biden White House repeatedly spurned Russia’s offers to settle this war peacefully,” Kennedy claimed.
  What a Country…
  Laz
  
- Stephen Dunlap August 24, 2024
  
  BINGO !
  
Harvey Reading August 24, 2024

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR. SAYS HE’S SUSPENDING HIS PRESIDENTIAL BID AND BACKING DONALD TRUMP

Signs of a country whose day came and went, decades ago…

Harvey Reading August 24, 2024

HOW TO BE TRULY FREE: Lessons From a Philosopher President

Too bad the US cannot come up with someone of his stature these days…instead, we run utter trash.

5 Comments

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