Mendocino County Today: Thursday 8/29/2024

Bull Kelp Matted with Algae, Navarro River (Jeff Goll)

WARMER than average temperatures will slowly ease over the next couple of days with gradually increasing marine influence along the coast. Light coastal drizzle is possible later this weekend. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): The fog has reached us with a foggy 56F this Thursday morning on the coast. I suspect we'll clear out later but you never know. "Patchy fog" dominates our forecast into the weekend.

LOCAL EVENTS (this weekend)

ONCOLOGY AT THE COAST HOSPITAL

by Malcolm Macdonald

Weekend before last, as I made my way between Mendocino and Fort Bragg, it seemed like every encounter with a local included a question or comment about the Oncology Department at Adventist Health Mendocino Coast (AHMC). The questions were along these lines, “Are they closing oncology at the coast hospital?” The statements were more flat out, “Adventist Health is closing oncology on the coast and sending all the patients to Ukiah.”

My first reaction to dire statements or questions that invoke doom is that the truth is usually never as bad as the perceived worse case scenario. The best approach to get at the truth is to go as close to the source and ask your own question. In that situation, you may get the truth, or, if not, something that can be wielded later on.

On Monday, August 19 I texted Dr. William Miller, who has been at the Coast Hospital since before the affiliation with Adventist Health (AH) in the summer of 2020. He has always been forthright, and if he doesn't know a full answer he will try to find it out or direct you to someone who might know. I asked, “There is a rumor going around that AH is going to close the oncology department at the coast hospital. Can you confirm or squelch this rumor?”

Dr. Miller responded in a timely manner. “A decision to close oncology has not been made. Judy will email you an official statement.”

At more or less the same time I talked on the phone with a long time source/adviser on all things having to do with medical finances throughout the country. That conversation led me to respond to Dr. Miller's text with this, “To me the key phrase there is, ‘has not been made…’ The missing word may well be… ‘yet.’ My impression inside AH is that there are concerns about significant financial losses due to lack of reimbursement for the extreme high end drugs used in oncology.”

A minute or two later I added this text, “Judy’s email needs to be as realistic and specific as possible. If it is perceived as an attempt to gloss things over that will not play in the long run.”

The Judy referenced in those texts is Judy Leach, Adventist Health's top administrator at the Coast Hospital. Her email arrived promptly, not long after Dr. Miller promised it.

In full it read, “We understand that cancer care matters deeply to this community. Oncology patients are continuing to receive exceptional care from Dr. Sharma and her team at the hospital. A decision has not been made to close oncology services. We are however continually evaluating the future viability of all healthcare services including oncology.

“As a critical access hospital, stewardship of local healthcare means determining how to preserve access for essential needs like keeping our emergency room or access to local physicians readily available. These are difficult issues to process. We are evaluating how to maintain needs and demands for local care while pharmaceutical gouging, reductions in reimbursement and continued changes in state and national policy are impacting our local rural critical access hospital. The regulations for critical access hospitals is very different from that of larger hospitals.

“Citizens wanting to make their voices heard should write their congressman and ask for immediate changes in reimbursement policy and access to affordable oncology medications for critical access hospitals.”

On August 22, at the Mendocino Coast Health Care District monthly board meeting, Ms. Leach reiterated nearly every phrase from the email. Readers can go to mendocinochcd.gov to find a link to her exact words. Her comments begin at approximately 24 minutes into the recording. She began by acknowledging the comments of members of the public who spoke earlier about their own experiences then connected it to her own experience. “Cancer services are extremely needed on the coast… As a person who has gone through cancer treatments, I understand why the care is so essential,”

Leach went on to repeat the details expressed in the email above, including that Dr. Sharma, who came to the Coast Hospital from Stanford, provides oncology (the branch of medicine dealing with cancer – the root of the word comes from Greek, meaning a mass or tumor) care services three days a week. The coast hospital also has a nurse practitioner working with oncology patients. The nurse practitioner's contractual obligation to the Coast Hospital runs through the end of the year.

Leach repeated the statement that no decision has been made by Adventist Health to close oncology services at the Coast Hospital. She also repeated that AH continues to evaluate the viability of all services offered at AHMC. Those listening to her words on a recording of the healthcare district meeting or perusing them here can interpret them to their personal liking… As so often is the bottom line, time will tell.

If you are inclined to contact a lawmaker such as our State Senator Mike McGuire, the President pro tempore of the California State Senate, you can call his office in the state capitol: 916-651-4002 or his Ukiah office: 707-468-8914.
An email contact is set up at: sd02.senate.ca.gov
For Congressman Jared Huffman, go to: huffman.house.gov/contact
For U.S. Senator Alex Padilla, call: 310-231-4494 or 202-224-0357 or use his email form at: padilla.senate.gov
For U.S. Senator Laphonza Butler, call: 310-914-7300 or use the email form at: butler.senate.gov

HOW MANY BLATANT FALLACIES CAN YOU “COUNT” IN THIS POINT IN TIME COUNT COUNT PRESSER?

Results Of 2024 Point In Time (Pit) Count Released For Mendocino County

Ukiah, CA - The Mendocino County Homeless Services Continuum of Care (MCHSCoC) has released its results from the 2024 Point-in-Time (PIT) Count, an annual count of sheltered and unsheltered homeless persons in Mendocino County. More than 40 volunteers took part in this year’s PIT Count, which was held on the morning of January 24, 2024. The data collected on that night is organized and submitted to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and is typically approved and released back to the community in late summer.

In 2024, volunteers counted 779 individuals experiencing both sheltered and unsheltered homelessness – 227 of those individuals were in shelter, and 552 of those individuals were unsheltered on the night of January 23. Utilizing a location-based application, short surveys were administered to individuals and families residing on the streets and in vehicles, makeshift shelters, encampments, and other places not meant for human habitation throughout the County. Non-responsive observed persons were documented and included in the Count totals as well.

Although a PIT Count is important to establish some dimension of the problem of homelessness in our local communities, the method is complex and limited and should be considered as just one amongst a variety of data sources needed to tell the whole story of homelessness.

In years past, PIT Count organizers and volunteers had not engaged sovereign Tribal Governments to collaborate documenting the prevalence of homelessness on Tribal Lands throughout the County. This year, in order to improve our collective understanding and outcomes, the PIT Count Planning Team contacted local Tribal Nations and Northern Circle Indian Housing Authority, which were eager to help in this effort and work closely with the PIT Count organizing team to train and coordinate teams of Tribal Members and Leaders to canvas Tribal Land throughout Mendocino County. All known areas within Mendocino County were enumerated, ranging from the Cahto and Round Valley Tribes in the North to the Hopland and Yokayo Tribes in the South to the Manchester Band on the Coast. Tribal Members familiar with the local areas surveyed the land and documented persons and vehicles known to be inhabited by persons experiencing homelessness. This local knowledge and access enabled Mendocino PIT Count Teams the ability to include many vehicles of persons who were experiencing homelessness who previously would not have been reported. As a result of the new collaboration with Tribal Governments and Communities, we can now produce data that illuminates and reveals a deeper level of understanding of the impact of homelessness amongst Native populations and on Native lands.

Several significant factors influenced the PIT Count in 2024, which in turn impact our ability to compare previous years’ counts with 2024. For the first time in over a decade, the Mendocino County Homeless Services CoC retained the services of a professional consultant to assist with planning, data collection, and analysis. The introduction of an experienced professional brought new and different techniques of analysis and strategies of estimation.

As noted above, strengthened partnerships with Tribal Governments and Communities increased our collective ability to assess homelessness in and around Tribal Lands with a thoroughness and sensitivity we haven’t achieved in many years. Additionally, our PIT Count Team sought and included specific information from our school district partners about families experiencing unsheltered homelessness. As a result, our indicators for family homelessness are slightly higher than in years past, likely resulting from past under-reporting, rather than an increase in actual family homelessness.

In conclusion, although we note and acknowledge that unsheltered homelessness appears to have increased from the 2023 PIT Count, we believe that the factors described above contributed to a more accurate and comprehensive PIT Count than we’ve experienced in the recent past. The disruption of the pandemic, an influx of new opportunities to address and assess homelessness, and variation in counting methodologies have contributed to an unstable data collection environment in the past five years or so. To that end, we consider 2024 as a baseline year for the PIT Count experience in Mendocino County. We look forward to being able to analyze and understand our own data in a more robust and useful manner as we move forward toward our collective goal of ending homelessness in our communities.

A detailed PIT count report can be accessed at the CoC website at https://mendocinococ.org/pit-counts.

MARK SCARAMELLA ENUMERATES some of the fallacies, contradictions and unsupported claims:

…an annual count of sheltered and unsheltered homeless persons…
…held on the morning of January 24, 2024. The data collected on that night
…779 individuals experiencing both sheltered and unsheltered homelessness
…Non-responsive observed persons were documented and included in the Count totals
…one amongst a variety of data sources
…All known areas within Mendocino County
…persons and vehicles known to be inhabited by persons experiencing homelessness.
…include many vehicles of persons who were experiencing homelessness who previously would not have been reported.
…retained the services of a professional consultant to assist with planning, data collection, and analysis.
…strategies of estimation
…thoroughness and sensitivity
…past under-reporting, rather than an increase in actual family homelessness.
…new opportunities to address and assess homelessness
…an unstable data collection environment in the past five years or so
…a more robust and useful manner

SHI ART

The Ukiah Branch Library will host two events for the upcoming first Friday artworks featuring the work of Chinese brush artist William Shi. (Ed note. Hey! This guy is good!)

JOHN SAKOWICZ:

On KMUD, Thursday, August 29 at 9am

What Does Trump Really Know About Project 2025?

Our guest for our show is ANDRA WATKIN.

Watkins is the writer of the Substack “How Project 2025 Will Ruin Your Life.” Watkins grew up steeped in Christian Nationalist thought, and approaches Project 2025 as a Christian Nationalist text with “hidden Bible references.”

Watkins found that four contributors to the proposal clerked for Samuel Alito. One clerked for Clarence Thomas, one for Aileen Cannon, and one for James Ho. Other contributors have worked for organizations classified as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

In a recent post, Watkins found that though Trump said he knew nothing about the plan, 26 of the 36 total authors of Project 2025 worked in his administration––a total of 72 percent. Watkins believes she was the first to publish such a list. “Mainstream media,” she said, “is not doing their job.”

Of the 36 authors, Watkins found that 26 had “direct connections to Trump’s administration, either through the transition team or working in the actual administration. I found those connections in the document itself, in the authors page. Jonathan Berry, for instance, clerked for Samuel Alito and assisted with Neal Gorsuch’s nomination. Other authors are connected to [Gov.] Ron DeSantis. One worked for Jeff Sessions, who is now out of Congress, and one worked for [Sen.] Ted Cruz. This isn’t just a Trump thing. It’s about the whole party.”

Trump’s “fingerprints are all over this,” Watkins said, “even if I wouldn’t be surprised if he hasn’t read it… Everyone wants to focus on him, but the people behind [Trump] are the people we should be afraid of. Whoever comes after him is going to be much more strategic, much more ruthless, much more focused, much less impulsive than Trump is. To me, they’re using him to tee up someone young: [like Senators] Tom Cotton, J.D. Vance, Josh Hawley… Knowing the history of other authoritarian movements, it’s hard not to see it that way. They don’t need their personality. Trump’s an easy scapegoat.”

Watkins stressed how Project 2025 would “fundamentally alter” life in the U.S., including “arts and culture and Hollywood and what we can read and access.” Of particular concern is the proposal’s definition of pornography. “Someone who has not been indoctrinated in Christian Nationalism [may not] understand that any sex outside of marriage––and even descriptions of sex between married people in books or movies––is porn. It’s a more comprehensive and insidious definition of porn that is backstopping trans and LGBTQIA bans and book bans. All of that is porn to them.

“They define a family as a married man and woman having as many children as possible. Contraception is the rhythm method. They don’t believe in cohabitation [among unmarried people]. They say that in a veiled way in Project 2025… They would outlaw virtually all divorce. They started with no-fault divorce. That’s their game plan. Christian Nationalists believe marriage is a holy covenant between God, man, and one unrelated woman. You don’t break a holy covenant with God.”

KMUD

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HEROES AND PATRIOTS - Heroes Patriots, Radio

Earth Spoke Flower Stand, Pt Cabrillo Drive (Jeff Goll)

CHRIS SKYHAWK:

KZYX on Thursday 8-29, 7pm PDT; when he continuers his series: Surviving Late Stage Capitalism: What’s Next?

His guest will be Casey O’Neill, of Happyday farm; in Laytonville. Casey still lives on the land he was born and raised farms small scale craft cannabis, along with meats and vegetables as part of his Community Sponsored Agriculture program; we will discuss the difficulties Legacy Growers face in this age of corporate cannabis, and his efforts to maintain community in the face of forces that would disrupt it.

WHERE DOES A FAILED Press Democrat editor go after he retires? Answer: In 2020 former PD Editorial Page Editor Paul Gullixson went to work in a do-nothing job for Sonoma County as their “Communications Manager” where, in 2021, he made $166k a year plus about $50k in benefits. Gullixson’s former colleague at the PD, Chris Coursey, is a Sonoma County Supervisor. (Mark Scaramella)

UKIAH DAILY JOURNAL, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1975

(Thanks to Gary Smith of Hopland for finding this piece of County Fair history.)

ED NOTES

WHEN KELVIN CHAPMAN popped up in the AVA the other day, justly remembered for his spectacular first at bat as the Met's second baseman back in '84 — he hit a grandslam against the Giants. But I remember the great Ukiah athlete as a basketball player, and the memorable men’s league games where Chapman and Boonville's Gene ‘Yewgene’ Waggoner went head to head, trading memorably improbable three-pointers before there were three-pointers. Both those guys would not have embarrassed themselves in the NBA.

ALL I KNEW about Mendocino County when some starry-eyed idealists and I leased a ranch south of Boonville in 1970 for the stated but laughably failed purpose of rehabbing city delinquents was that ranch and a market in the dusty little town down the road where we bought beer. We called ourselves ‘Fern Hil’ after the poem, not realizing the irony as applied to our chaotic operation. The next year, having become aware that Boonville was a real town with a vivid history and a very nice high school gym, we formed a basketball team to play in the local men’s league. All of us had played in high school, and some of us had played at the college level. We were a pretty good men’s league team in any men’s league.

FIRST FEW GAMES we mopped up the local boys. My sole memory of those early contests is being roughed up by Ken Hurst and Lindsey Clow, who played basketball like the football both of them had excelled at. After one of those lopsided wins over the local boys, the vanquished had left the court muttering, “Well, hell, we didn't have Yewgene.” We laughed for a week about ‘Yewgene,’ Boonville basketball's mystery weapon. “Uh oh, Yewgene's gonna get us!”

YEWGENE got us and then some. An unprepossessing dude who did not at all resemble an athlete at first glance, Gene Waggoner, a little over six feet, glassed a couple of thirty-five footers to kick things off as we mumbled, “Flukes. Lucky shots.” By the end of a long afternoon, Yewgene had rung us up for about 50 from all over the court, and his supporting cast — Charlie Hiatt; Leroy Perry; Rick Cupples; Tony Summit — made for a very strong Boonville team indeed. Us “hippies” were no match. (All newcomers were generically described as hippies by locals.) Boonville was still a real community at the time, a halcyon time given what’s become of community since, reconfigured, vanished.

Fern Hill

by Dylan Thomas, 1914 –1953

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs

About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,

…The night above the dingle starry,

……Time let me hail and climb

…Golden in the heydays of his eyes,

And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns

And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves

……Trail with daisies and barley

…Down the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns

About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,

…In the sun that is young once only,

……Time let me play and be

…Golden in the mercy of his means,

And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves

Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,

……And the sabbath rang slowly

…In the pebbles of the holy streams.

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay

Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air

…And playing, lovely and watery

……And fire green as grass.

…And nightly under the simple stars

As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,

All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars

…Flying with the ricks, and the horses

……Flashing into the dark.

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white

With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all

…Shining, it was Adam and maiden,

……The sky gathered again

…And the sun grew round that very day.

So it must have been after the birth of the simple light

In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm

…Out of the whinnying green stable

……On to the fields of praise.

And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house

Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,

…In the sun born over and over,

……I ran my heedless ways,

…My wishes raced through the house high hay

And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows

In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs

…Before the children green and golden

……Follow him out of grace,

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me

Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,

…In the moon that is always rising,

……Nor that riding to sleep

…I should hear him fly with the high fields

And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.

Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,

……Time held me green and dying

…Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

I LIKE THE UKIAH WALMART. I like walking around and looking at all the stuff, much of which is new to me because I’m not allowed to shop very often because my wife says I’m not any good at it. CostCo isn't nearly as interesting, and much more impersonal. The day I visited WalMart I bought a couple of gardening tools. The kid at the register — plump, flat affect, about 18, didn't look at me when he spoke. Maybe he knew me, hence his reluctance to engage, but I've noticed lots of “service” people shun eye contact and seem disinterested to the point of psychosis.

The kid ran my short-handled pick and long-handled tree trimmer through his scanner and, looking over my left shoulder at the ceiling, said, “$269.66.”

“Kinda high, ain’t it?” I asked.

“Maybe,” he said, but he just stood there waiting for me to pay until I said, “No way these two Chinese slave labor imports can cost $269.66.”

“I’ll go check with my manager,” the kid said. “I’ll have to shut my register down.”

Martyrs everywhere.

He was gone for a long time before we resumed our joyless dance of life.

“My manager said to charge you $55 for both.”

“Your manager is a great guy,” I said. “Maybe he’d like to manage me, too.”

The kid didn’t laugh.

“Thank you for shopping at WalMart,” he said.

CHUCK ROSS

One day I guess I'll have to chronicle the evolution of the Navarro river bridges.

I find the account of the drowning of Hugh Buchanan of Cuffey's Cove in December 1907 interesting in that the mishap occurred at the ferry landing on the north bank but there were known to have been bridges long before that date. Perhaps the bridge was under retrofit and unusable in 1907.

MIKE GENIELLA:

A Productive Chance Encounter with a young Ukiah guy who is building a business.

We had a clean-up job involving our collection of aging outdoor furniture, and we called Austin London at Sudzz Powerwashing to see if he could assist or recommend someone who could. We learned Sudzz soft washes houses, commercial buildings, decks, sidewalks, etc. Austin took a look, we struck a deal, and he went to work. I can't believe the hours he saved me for a very reasonable price and how I can now move ahead with rejuvenating our outdoor treasures. Sudzz has top reviews on Yelp (how many businesses you know can claim that?) and does regular work for locals like Ron Marino, Starbucks, etc. Call him, tell Austin your needs, and see what you can work out. I highly recommend him.

https://www.yelp.com/biz/sudzz-powerwashing-ukiah

My Friend Koiya Tuttle shared this essay written by one of his college friends and posted it for all to see.

For the record, Trump and I are the same age. Like him, I didn't serve during the Vietnam era even though, at its peak, tens of thousands of people my age were being drafted to fight there. I, too, was given a 4F deferment. I did, however, have a severe medical issue stemming from a serious car crash in 1968 that left me with 37 stitches in my head and badly twisted nerves in my neck. It took several years to fully recover and become free of intense neck pain and headaches, and the medication required as a result. After being ordered three times to report for the draft at the induction center in Oakland, a team of doctors sent me home for good. I was relieved, of course. Yes, I later marched in anti-war protests, but I mourned my friends and neighbors who died in Vietnam and showed respect to those who served during a dangerous time. I always admire the bravery of those forced to fight in a far-off foreign land at such a young age. I had then and still do deep respect for veterans who protected what we relish most at home - our freedoms.

Please take time to read. I don't know how it can be any better said.

Sam Curby is in Las Vegas, NV.

I just can't anymore!

This is the one and only time I'm gonna post something like this.

I've been quiet for way too long and I can't just not say anything anymore. This is going to be a super long post so buckle in. Also if you unfollow me for this that's fine too, I guess we weren't really friends anyways. I just can't anymore. In the last few weeks the amount of people that have told me that "I'm pissing away my military career", that I'm stupid, that I have no idea what I'm talking about, that I'm lost, or that I'm blind and other stuff. I just can't keep quiet and I'm gonna speak MY truth. This is my truth and you can decide if you can see the truth in it. All of this is coming from my 13 years of service flying both the B52 and RC26 aircraft and deploying both to Iraq and Afghanistan.

So here we go. I voted for Trump in both 2016 and 2020. I liked his bravado and I liked how he said what was on his mind. At the time i accepted what he said about John McCain that he likes "people that weren't captured". Like most people i laughed it off, and I thought that he didn't really mean it and just was posturing.

Then on Jan 6th when he failed to protect his ride or die Mike Pence when people tried to hang him. Literally Pence was cleaning up Trumps messes or saying "what he meant to say", Pence literally stuck his neck out for Trump for 4 years. On Jan 6th Trump left him to the wolves because Trump wanted Pence to do something that he(Pence)believed he didn't have authority to do as the Vice President. Pence stuck to his rule of law and has been vilified by some for it. It was at that point I realized that Trump cares for no one except himself.He has no allegiance no loyalty to anyone but to himself. Yet he demands absolute fealty to him. Now looking back I truly believe everything Trump said about John McCain he truly believed.

I knew this was going to be a crazy political season. Then Biden dropped out and and Harris took over.

Within a matter of days Trump was attacking Harris. In an interview for the National Black Journalist convention that Trump spoke at, Trump said Harris "became Black" … huh? I guess he doesn't understand how bi racial works. Literally I had to explain to some of my friends, more than I care to admit, how yes she can be Black and Indian at the same time, at different times, and when she wants to….. because she is black and indian. Is he that disconnected from the citizenry thst he doesn't understand how being a multi racial person works. Yet still his followers tried to explain it away.

This struck a deep chord with me. As someone that grew up being told, I'm not really Black, how come I don't speak ebonics, I'm not the typical black person, that I'm whitewashed, that I'm an Oreo, black people don't snowboard, black people don't listen to rock music, and the one I hate the most "ya ain't from around here are ya". Yes people actually have said each of those things to me. Yes it has come from people of my own race as well as people from other races. It is absolutely WRONG for anyone to question anyone else's race when they have no idea how they grew up or what they went through growing up. Trump was absolutely in the wrong for saying this yet we will never hear an apology from him, and few if any of his followers will say it is WRONG.

Then last week he said this about the Medal of HonThis right here is my breaking pont. The Medal of Freedom DOES NOT hold a candle to the Medal of Honor. Not even close. Trump gave someone the Medal of Freedom for donating to him. Medal of Honor recipients displayed extraordinary bravery in the face of certain death. Many of them gave their lives for the possibility of their friends returning home, not even an assurance that they will live, just to give their buddies a chance. People should really read the story about Micheal Murphy, which lone survivor the movie is based off of. Literally the dude climbed a mountain to get a radio signal out to choppers in with the hopes of him saving his team. There was no assurance that anyone would make it. He ended up perishing on the mountain, because of his actions that day 1 person from his team survived. He literally did the most HEROIC thing anyone could ever do for someone else. He gave his life for his friends. For Trump to even come close to saying that someone donating is on par or "Better" than Micheal Murphy's sacrifice is absolutely ridiculous. Trump does not respect veterans. There's no higher honor for any American, than the Medal of Honor and giving your life in the hopes that one of your buddies makes it out alive. No matter policies or whatever NO person should ever talk bad at all about a Medal of Honor recipients or denigrate or minimize their sacrifice. Most of them DIED so that someone else can LIVE. How could anyone EVER minimize that. Even Jesus Christ said John 15:12-13 NIV

[12] My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. [13] Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

There's one thing that Trump said I can kind of agree with. No one "wants" to earn a Medal of Honor. The recipients aren't thinking about awards they are just thinking to get their friends home. There's no greater love than you lay down your life for your friends.

Trump is absolutely in the WRONG for his statement about the Medal of Freedom and the Medal of Honor. Yet he will never apologize and his followers won't call him out on it.

I truly implore my Republican friends to watch this video from Adam Kinzinger. I met him once on a changeover for the RC26. Literally his whole time in congress he kept our platform, and our very specialized alive. Every year he was able to secure funding for the mission we provided both abroad fighting the taliban, and loaclly working with Law Enforcement and Emergency managment during floods and forest fires. He is a very conservative person with true conservative values. I know a lot of people think of him as a RINO. I respect his opinion, and for Jim to speak at the DNC he really had to put his ego aside and do what is right for the country. My conservative friends please listen to the 7 min speech he gave at the DNC with an open mind.

My last point. Many poeple are saying we aren't marrying him, we don't have to like him. I beg to differ. Policies are great and all….. for the leader of the free world CHARACTER is the only thing that matters. Character and integrity I believe are cornerstone to great leadership. The 2 best Squadron Commanders I have ever had are Col. Tom "Drone" Hesterman Tom Hesterman and Lt Col Mark "Yak" Maryak Tammie Maryak . To this day we may not agree on everything, but i would follow either of these men into battle in a heartbeat. Because i know at the end of the day they got my back and they will do everything in their power to lead with the squadron as a whole's best interests above their own . They weren't the best Commanders because of the policies they implemented (which they had good policies) they were the best because of their integrity, their character and yes we all liked them. Ask any Bucc about the Yak and Drone days and I can guarantee you not one person has anything bad to say about either them. I was never questioning if they had my back, I was never questioning their integrity, their character, or saying "well what they really meant was….". They are both men of exceptional character and integrity.

Character and integrity is of utmost importance for the leader of the free world. Not just policy. You can have great policy and horrible character and nothing will get done.

Think of the last terrible boss you had. I bet they may have had good policies, but it was their character and integrity issues that made you say they were a horrible boss. There's 3 4-star Generals the won't endorse him, past Republican President's and Vice President's won't endorse him, 40 of 44 past cabinet members won't endorse him, and this is the first time I have seen prominent Republicans speaking at the Democratic National Convention.

CHARACTER trumps policy (pun intended). Xharacter is the only thing that matters! Policy and policy positions can change over time. One thing that doesn't change is someone's character. Character is the end all/be all to leadership. Without character any organization will eat itself alive from the inside.

Conservative and Republicans i implore you to listen to what Adam is saying. When people tell you who they are you need to believe them.

Thank you for reading my Ted Talk. Also I wrote this on my phone so excuse all the misspellings.

Remember when Tulsi Gabbard arrived in Mendocino County in 2016 to the cheers of Bernie Sanders supporters, who welcomed her into the vaulted ranks of the county's so-called progressives?

Ukiah's Barry Vogel hosted her on his Radio Curious program. The West Side swooned in her presence.

The adoration the locals afforded Tulsi (as she preferred to be addressed) rivaled that lavished on Dan Hamburg, who in an earlier era was crowned “The Hunk” by the nation's media after arriving in D.C. as a freshman Congressman.

The “Home of the Politically Strange” indeed.

https://beta.prx.org/stories/178113-congresswoman-tulsi-gabbard-sen-sanders-war-a

PAMELA HOLMES (Mendocino County History)

From the collection of Sterling and Alice Holmes-First Noyo Bridge 1880. Second bridge and Noyo home owed by Harry Holmes. This is the bridge that failed when a fuel oil truck was crossing. Sterling Holmes as a young lad gave boat rides in this skif across the river while the bridge was not functional.

KZYZ: NEH GRANT RELEASED; National Endowment Gives Green Light for Action on Ukiah Studio

The National Endowment for the Humanities has just released its $148,000 grant to KZYX for the new Ukiah studio. It awarded the grant in 2023 but attached two conditions: that the historical status of the building first be officially established, and that KZYX supporters match the amount. Those conditions have now been met, and just last week, NEH released the funds, unleashing a surge of new activity.

The July 25 Grange Fire heightened the sense of urgency about moving KZYX into its new home as soon as possible so programmers and staff have reliable equipment to work on and listeners can depend on a strong, steady signal. In response, the MCPB Board of Directors has set a challenging goal for our community: to complete the building project and move KZYX into its new headquarters by the end of 2025.

That gives us, working together, 16 months to raise the 1.2 million dollars needed to reach that goal. We can do it!

Come see this exciting work-in-progress and learn more at our October 5 site party!

Saturday, October 5, 11am - 2pm

390 West Clay Street, Ukiah

Tours, refreshments, & live music by Back Porch Trio

Heidi Cusick Dickerson

Heidi Cusick Dickerson was present at the creation of KZYX, and she’s never left. She remembers the time in the mid-1980s when someone came to the door of the Mendocino home she shared with her then-husband and their two young children, asking them to donate $100 to help start a new community radio station. “That felt like a lot at the time, and I didn't know what community radio was but it sounded like a good idea. So we pulled together our contribution.” Before long, she says, KZYX was on 24/7 at home and in the car, and it still is.

Heidi has broad knowledge of Mendocino County and its place in the world, having represented two of our Congressmen and directed Leadership Mendocino for five years. Now an active writer living in Redwood Valley, she praises the high quality of local news she’s hearing these days on KZYX. And she is looking forward to the station's move to a permanent home in Ukiah "and the more reliable reception that will bring. In addition to the real-time local coverage of fire and weather events, there are programs for everyone on KZYX."

CATCH OF THE DAY, Wednesday, August 28, 2024

ANDRES AYALA-ORTIZ, Ukiah. Toluene or similar, resisting.

CODY CALDWELL, Willits. Failure to appear.

LYUBOV GALVIN, San Francisco/Ukiah. Arson, paraphernalia.

JOHN HILL, Laytonville. Parole violation.

ABEL LANDA-CASTANEDA, Ukiah. Stolen property.

ABRAHAM RODRIGUEZ, Santa Rosa/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs.

MELISSIA TURNEY, Ukiah. Domestic battery.

BRIAN WILLIAMS, Ukiah. Parole violation.

CESLEY WILLIAMS, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs.

DANIEL YEOMANS, Fort Bragg. Battery with serious injury, county parole violation.

CAPULETS, MONTAGUES & KELSEYS

Editor:

Juliet Capulet, in Shakespeare’s immortal play “Romeo and Juliet,” contemplates “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet …” These words reveal the agony Juliet feels after she discovers she has fallen in love with Romeo Montague, whose family is a mortal enemy of the Capulets. If Romeo had any other name besides Montague, he would still be the same attractive young man he is.

The truth in this line can help us understand the implications of changing the name of Kelseyville to Konocti. The Konocti Pear Festival would still be the wonderful family event it has always been. Konocti Presbyterian Church would continue as a beacon of light and service to its congregation and the community. Konocti Lumber would carry on as the outstanding multigenerational business it is. And perhaps most significantly, the town of Konocti would continue to be the friendly country town it became generations ago but without the horrid history attached to its name.

Shakespeare’s wisdom gives us insight. Kelseyville to Konocti — the time has come.

Lorene McGuire

Lakeport

ANONYMOUS COMMENTS

by Paul Modic

I’ve been an anonymous troll, also called a “sock puppet,” and there’s some freedom there to be snarky and unedited and to let your “id” flag fly, while if you use your real name you will be forever defined by that mean, stupid, or regretful thing you said. Being anonymous lets you say what you really think or feel (more or less: “I hate you and I’m afraid”) then move on with life, your nasty side hidden, clean slate, nobody knows. (Ben Franklin used to do this a lot, he stuck to it even when everyone knew he was Poor Richard, and other pseudonyms.)

I’m in a tweener situation here, for yes, it feels good not being an anonymous troll anymore after hiding for decades, but then one day I felt like being a little flippant and made a caustic comment under a fake name, on our local news website Redheaded Blackbelt. The site owner and editor Kym Kemp “busted me” quickly by replying in a comment to “me” about an inconsistency she’d noticed between my two identities, and I was surprised and embarrassed to be caught “playing troll.”

She knew I was that made-up name and that doesn’t seem fair. Yes, once you disavow your “Freudian id,” your mysterious identity, you’re unable to be truly anonymous anymore, for Kym knows you’re a sneaky wannabe troll, though sure, no one else does.

How does she do it, how is she the all-knowing one showing that I can’t hide from her, once I have the temerity to finally throw off my full-time troll shackles, and have my name listed next to my Internet Service Provider number? (Will we ever know the secrets of the temple?)

For example, when your comment pops up on her screen, whether anon or not, do all the fake or real names you’ve ever used over the years show up also, because of the ISP connection? (I remember one of them, I was “mingo” for awhile, and what were the other names I’ve used? I don’t remember, ask Kym, she probably has the list right there.)

Or maybe the fake names don’t appear like that, maybe she has to click a few buttons to see what the name history is on this person or that guy, ie me. (Rude trolls are probably overwhelmingly older guys who’ve been around long enough to think: better stay hidden?) Is she so curious that she just has to know who everyone really is? (I know, I would be just as curious.)

What if even Ernie Branscomb decides to go troll for a minute, is that so bad? Why does Kym have to know, lay off the multiple-identity commenters, Free Ernie! (Maybe her all-knowing stance is her reward for putting up with the denizens on her community website, those disillusioned bottle-babies seeking discipline at the hand of a redheaded blackbelt, as they try to work through their issues?)

WEALTHY WINERIES ROUTINELY ENDANGER WORKERS

by David Bacon

Between wildfires and immigration status, California vineyard workers contend with a host of hurdles to their health.

From mid-August through mid-November, the grape harvest in California's North Bay wine country coincides with the state's wildfire season. Every night at midnight during those 12 weeks, workers in bandanas and face masks walk quickly into the vineyards. For the next eight or 10 hours, as the darkness slowly becomes dawn, they practically run down the rows. Their curved knives cut grape bunches from the vines, dropping them into the pails held by harnesses to their chests. When the pails are full, the workers rush to the gondolas behind the slow-moving tractors, dump in the grapes, and hurry back to fill them again.

The air fills with dust from feet and machines. But often a wildfire, grown huge at the end of a dry summer, casts a pall of smoke that can extend for dozens of miles. When it reaches the vineyards in Sonoma and Napa Counties, smoke combines with dust and it's hard to breathe. "Even my saliva turns black," says Maria Salinas, who has picked wine grapes for 20 years in Sonoma County.

The danger of wildfire smoke comes from its fine particles, which lodge themselves so deeply in the lungs that the body can't easily expel them, causing shortness of breath, asthma, heart disease, and other illnesses. A study published in June 2024 has documented 2,305 premature deaths from wildfire smoke in Sonoma County, and 693 in Napa County, between 2008 and 2018.

For the farmworkers in the vineyards, however, the smoke and dust compound existing endemic health problems. The social determinants of their health - the way that their well-being is impacted by the economic and social forces acting on them - include the conditions at work, like the wildfire smoke they inhale. Poverty can also have a tremendous impact. The Rural Health Information Hub lists many potential complications from the living and working conditions of farmworkers, including heat-related illness, pesticide exposure, job injuries, urinary tract infections because of the lack of toilet facilities, high disease rates from tuberculosis and COVID caused by crowded living conditions, and depression due to poverty and stress.

Maria Salinas's experience shows the way these conditions pile up. She arrived in the U.S. in 2002 from her Chatino-speaking hometown in Oaxaca, Santos Reyes Nopala. "When I started work in the grapes, there was a lot of injustice," she remembers. "It's been 20 years of humiliation. We didn't have water or bathrooms. When I had to urinate, I had to go at the edge of the field. My father worked in the fields for 14 years, and died of cancer of the stomach."

California state law has mandated employers provide bathrooms and water in the field for years, but Salinas says that it took worker pressure on the county to get enforcement. "It's gotten better, but now the smoke is on top of all of this. My allergies have turned into asthma and I have to use an inhaler. I've had to go to the emergency room because I couldn't breathe. I'm afraid that if I keep working in these conditions, I'll have permanent damage. But I have a family to support."

A few years ago, Salinas went to a meeting to hear a professor from Berkeley explain the dangers of the smoke, where she met Max Bell Alper, the executive director of North Bay Jobs with Justice (JwJ). "We had intense fires in 2017," Alper said, "and fires every year until 2020, when it was really bad. We started training farmworkers to survey their communities, to get people's experiences and find out what they wanted to do about it."

Alper and JwJ trained an equipo, or team, of farmworker organizers, and began holding broader meetings, which organized workers based on their employers, as well as their family and hometown networks. Maria Salinas became one of those equipo organizers. Because most farmworkers in the North Bay come from Indigenous Mexican communities, the surveys and work that came out of them had to be done in their original languages.

The broader meetings of workers decided on five basic demands to make of the area's wineries and grape growers: provide clean bathrooms and water; hazard pay; disaster insurance to ensure income if workers were sent home; community safety observers to monitor conditions in the fields; and communication in the workers' own languages. These demands were based on the fact that growers are sending workers into the vineyards even during wildfires, although evacuation orders mandate that people leave because of the danger.

In 2022, the workers, along with Jobs with Justice, took those demands to the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors. They asked the county to make their demands requirements for growers who ask permission to send workers to harvest in wildfire evacuation zones.

Many of the wineries, however, balked at the demands. To them, the effort would mean not only an increase in their costs, but also signaled the potential danger of organized workers advocating for change. In response, they brought in a notorious union-buster, Raul Calvo. As The Guardian reported in 2022, Calvo played a key role in bringing pro-company workers to testify to the county against the proposal, wearing t-shirts saying “NB [North Bay] JwJ does NOT Speak for Me.”

Alper charges that many of the workers brought by Calvo were working on H-2A visas. The H-2A program allows growers to recruit workers in Mexico, bring them to the U.S. under contracts which last just for a season, and then send them back. H-2A visa holders must apply to come back every year. They can be legally fired and blacklisted if they don't work fast enough or incur the displeasure of the grower for any reason.

Alper says the U.S. Department of Labor, which administers the program, later told growers they could no longer bring H-2A workers to testify in government meetings. Nevertheless, he charges, Calvo continues to conduct captive audience meetings at local vineyards. Workers are required to attend, and to listen to harangues about the dangers of unions and worker organizing. (Calvo did not respond to Truthout's multiple requests for comment.)

Despite the growers' opposition, however, the United Farm Workers has negotiated hazard pay into labor contracts with Gallo of Sonoma, Boeschen Vineyards and Robert Mondavi Winery, and disaster insurance to compensate workers for wages lost due to fires.

This year, workers have focused their demands on the basic economics of the vineyard labor system, the source of the poverty among farmworker families. Each year, before picking starts, growers tell their crews the price they intend to pay for each ton of grapes, and the basic hourly rate that is the guaranteed minimum compensation. The price varies by company and the variety of grapes, but Salinas says that last year it went from about $150 to $200 per ton.

"This year they're offering a 10 percent increase, which is not enough," she says. "Sonoma County is very expensive and gas and groceries are going up all the time." To reinforce the workers' demands, at the end of July, North Bay Jobs with Justice organized a march in Healdsburg, the heart of the Sonoma County wine country. The demonstration demanded a "Sueldo Digno," or decent wage, of $250/ton with a guarantee of $25 per hour.

In 2022, the price growers received for a ton of grapes in Napa County ranged from $2,815 for pinot noir to $8,813 for cabernet sauvignon, for an average of $5,814. Sonoma County prices were somewhat less. At an average picking price of $150 a ton, workers were making 2.5 percent of what growers were getting. Last year, California Sen. Alex Padilla and Sonoma County Congressman Mike Thompson introduced a bill to compensate growers for smoke damage from wildfires to the grapes, but the bill contained nothing to compensate workers for their lost wages or health impacts.

The lack of acknowledgment in protections around wildfires mirrors what workers went through during the height of the pandemic. "They called us essential workers, and wanted us to work in the smoke, and every day we were in danger of getting sick from the COVID," Salinas recalls. People went to work because they couldn't afford not to go - just one day without pay could be difficult, and a week ruinous. Often that meant traveling in a packed car or labor contractor bus, and returning home to a crowded house shared by more than one family. Not only was isolation impossible, but the cost of acknowledging an infection could potentially cut others off from their jobs and source of income.

”Undocumented farmworkers with mild cases of COVID-19 were also reluctant to self-isolate, because they were ineligible for both unemployment insurance and CARES Act-funded pandemic assistance,” health researcher Ed Kissam told Truthout. “In addition, people worried about the government using personal information for immigration enforcement.”

As a result, Alicia Riley, a health sociologist at the University of California in Santa Cruz, reported that COVID deaths of people employed in agriculture were about 1.6 times the national average in 2020. According to a report by the California Institute for Rural Studies, between March and June of 2020, agricultural workers in Monterey County contracted COVID-19 at three times the rate of workers in other industries. Some 583 people died in Sonoma County from the virus, and 174 in Napa County.

Arcenio Lopez, director of the Mixteco Indigena Community Organizing Project, explains, "People come to the U.S. and work for years and still can't access health care. What determines whether they can get it are the priorities of the family. The first priority is to pay the rent, then to buy food and clothes. Health is not a priority because their economy doesn't permit it."

"Most farmworkers are long-term settled immigrants in low-income households that include undocumented immigrants," Kissam added. "Their eligibility is compromised for a broad range of social programs because they're conditioned on immigration status." Despite the state's extension of Medicaid coverage to undocumented people last year, about half of all farmworkers in California, and 62 percent of undocumented farmworkers, still have no medical insurance, a far greater percentage than in the general population.

Lack of immigration status is one of the most important social determinants of farmworker health. The Sonoma and Napa County wine industry, like the rest of California agriculture, has always depended on immigrant labor. Ninety percent of California's farmworkers are immigrants, and more than half are undocumented.

It's for this reason that farmworkers are organizing around immigration, too. Maria Salinas and Max Bell Alper were among several hundred activists who gathered last August in Petaluma's Walnut Park, in Sonoma County's wine country. After listening to a few speeches and cheering on a local troupe of Aztec dancers, they set off on a three-day march to the San Francisco Federal Building. Their goal was to win support for a bill that could make a profound difference in the life of North Bay farmworkers.

Currently, anyone who entered the U.S. without a visa before January 1, 1972, can apply for legal permanent residence status, known as a green card. After five years as a legal resident, they can then apply for U.S. citizenship. Unfortunately, for the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S., only a tiny handful qualify under that registry date. "Ninety percent of currently undocumented people is probably an underestimate," says Renee Saucedo, who helped organize the Northern California Coalition for Just Immigration Reform, and annual marches to support changing the registry date.

HR 1511, "Renewing Immigration Provisions of the Immigration Act of 1929," known as the Registry Bill, would allow anyone in the country for seven years to apply for a green card. Many grassroots activists believe that fighting for the registry bill is also a way to mobilize communities in their own defense, over an issue that has a dramatic impact on community health.

"I was really proud to be part of that march," Salinas remembers. "I was very angry, and it gave me a way of fighting for my children, so they don't have to endure what I did, and for a world that will respect their rights."

(Truthout.org)

49ERS’ STAR-SPANGLED ROSTER MEANS NO EXCUSES, ONLY A SUPER BOWL WILL DO

by Scott Ostler

It’s unfair.

The sheer volume of elite talent the San Francisco 49ers have crammed onto their roster is eye-popping, so hold onto your eyeballs.

In the annual poll of NFL players rating the league’s top 100 players, the 49ers have nine. Seven of those nine 49ers are in the top 30.

There are 32 teams, so every team is statistically entitled to just one player in the top 30, with two teams shut out. In a salary-cap league, to have seven of the top 30 is crazy.

By comparison, the Kansas City Chiefs (remember them?) have three players in the top 100 (Patrick Mahomes at 4, Chris Jones at 6, Travis Kelce at 9).

What does this mean? Let’s kick it around.

It means the 49ers must win the Super Bowl. They just have to.

Next season, Brock Purdy will have a new contract that will pay him at least $50 million per season, a nice raise over this season’s $985,000 but not nice for the salary cap.

After this season, it might be another decade or another lifetime before the 49ers can stack up this much elite talent. These loaded-with-greatness windows close in a hurry. Just ask Stephen Curry.

Here are the 49ers in that poll: 3. Christian McCaffrey; 7. Trent Williams; 11. Fred Warner; 14. George Kittle; 27. Nick Bosa; 28. Purdy; 30. Deebo Samuel; 66. Brandon Aiyuk; 76. Dre Greenlaw.

Williams and Aiyuk are currently holding out, and Greenlaw will miss at least four games with that Super Bowl Achilles tear.

In a similar Top 100 list compiled by ESPN’s gridiron experts, the same top eight 49ers make the cut, seven of them ranked No. 33 or higher.

Therefore, there will be no sneaking up on the league by the 49ers. Their cover is blown. They will not be able to play the disrespect card.

Nobody believed in us…

Shuddup, everybody believed in you.

Purdy might be the one man who can play the disrespect card, although he won’t. He led the 49ers to the Super Bowl, was fourth in the MVP voting, yet he ranks just No. 28 (in the players’ poll), No. 30 (ESPN) and No. 85 (in CBS Sports poll). Purdy is just going to have to deal with the misconception that, with all those crazy offensive playmakers and an offensive genius for a head coach, more than a few folks seem to think Joe Six-Pack could quarterback this team to the Super Bowl.

Six of the 49ers’ golden nine are offensive players. That means Kyle Shanahan will never have a sweeter opportunity to unleash his genius.

That said, Shanahan is part of the riches package. In the Pro Football Focus coach ratings, Shanahan rates No. 2 (behind the Chiefs’ Andy Reid). In a CBS Sports poll, he is No. 4. So, the experts agree that Shanahan is a legit top-4 head coach.

One might wonder: If the 49ers are so loaded, why aren’t they ranked No. 1 going into this season? The answer is, of course, that they don’t have Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid. There is a prevailing belief that those two possess some special football magic.

That reverence for the Chiefs’ duo makes the 49ers’ Super Bowl quest even more compelling. If they could meet Kansas City yet again in the title game and this time knock off the Chiefs, the 49ers wouldn’t be just winning their first Super Bowl since the 1994 season. They would be dethroning a team with a mythic aura.

It’s not a crazy thought. Of the five power rankings I perused, the 49ers were ranked No. 1 on one list (Sharp Football Analysis), No. 2 on three lists and No. 3 on one list.

If you’re looking for a downside to the player rankings, note that only three of the 49ers’ elite nine are defensive players, and one (Greenlaw) is hurt. However, let’s not forget that Bosa was the league’s Defensive Player of the Year two seasons ago, and Warner finished sixth in last season’s voting.

Plus, the 49ers’ defense under new coordinator Nick Sorensen is getting favorable reviews.

Another good sign for the 49ers? Of their elite nine, all but two are smack-dab in the prime of their NFL careers. Williams is too old to be as great as he is, but nobody has the courage to tell him that, so he just keeps on dominating. Kittle is 30 and going into his eighth season, but he has not yet headed over the hill.

For the other seven, it’s conceivable that each of them could have his best individual season ever.

If you like exciting, dynamic football, the circus has arrived.

(SF Chronicle)

THESE MIDDLEMEN SAY THEY KEEP DRUG PRICES LOW. CALIFORNIA LAWMAKERS DON’T BUY IT

by Kristen Hwang

It’s no secret that prescription drugs are unaffordable for many Californians. In just five years, spending on prescription drugs ballooned from $8.7 billion to $12.1 billion, an increase of 39%, according to the most recent state data.

Consumer advocates and health economists are placing some of the blame on pharmaceutical middlemen, which they say needlessly drive up costs by tacking on fees and withholding discounts as profit. It’s a problem that has plagued regulators across the country. This week, California lawmakers are set to vote on first-time regulations aimed at curtailing their tactics.

Pharmacy benefit managers, also known as PBMs, most often serve as intermediaries between insurance companies and drug manufacturers. They process claims, negotiate the price of drugs using a complex system of rebates, and control the list of drugs that health insurance plans cover, also known as a formulary.

They’re already regulated to some degree in most other states, including Texas and Florida. The California proposal would require the state insurance department to license pharmacy benefit managers, and would require pharmacy benefit managers to disclose prices paid and discounts negotiated with drug manufacturers. It would also mandate that 100% of the discounts from drug manufacturers be passed onto health insurance plans.

“(Pharmacy benefit managers) have insinuated themselves into the nerve center of the health system where they exercise enormous leverage over the health plans, over the pharmaceutical manufacturers, over the consumers,” bill author Sen. Scott Wiener said. “They’re making enormous amounts of money at the expense of consumers.”

The companies argue that they save money for patients and insurance plans — the more patients they represent, the more leverage pharmacy benefit managers have to negotiate lower drug prices, for example. They are fiercely opposed to the legislation and warn that the proposed regulations will increase health premiums for Californians by $1.7 billion in the first year and $20 billion over a decade.

“The bottom line is (Senate Bill) 966 does nothing to reduce prescription drug costs or improve patient access and safety,” said Greg Lopes, a spokesperson for Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, an industry lobby for pharmacy benefit managers

Three pharmacy benefit managers dominate the industry: CVS Caremark, Express Scripts and OptumRx represent more than 80% of the market.

Increasingly, research suggests consolidation drives prescription drug prices higher. The biggest player, CVS, has grown to encompass the familiar retail pharmacy stores, pharmacy benefit management services, and health insurance through a merger with Aetna.

“They’re way overdue for regulation,” Wiener, a Democrat from San Francisco, said.

Previous attempts to regulate pharmacy benefit managers have failed in California. In 2021, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed legislation that would have prevented pharmacy benefit managers from “patient steering,” a practice that forces patients to use only specified pharmacies that are also often owned by the pharmacy benefit managers.

“In California we’re really behind. They have been far more aggressive in other states regulating (pharmacy benefit managers),” said Michelle Rivas, executive vice president of government relations at the California Pharmacists Association, which co-sponsored the bill. “The ideal would be comprehensive federal legislation. Unfortunately, we don’t have the luxury of time to wait for Congress to move on this issue.”

While more than a dozen proposals have been introduced in Congress, to date none has passed. A recent report from the Federal Trade Commission, which is investigating pharmacy benefit managers, suggests that the largest organizations may be engaging in practices specifically to evade regulation, such as moving portions of their operations out of the country.

“These guys are smart and historically we’ve seen them evolve and we’ve seen them find ways to make more money,” said Geoffrey Joyce, director of health policy at the USC Schaeffer Center who studies pharmaceutical markets.

California’s effort to regulate pharmacy benefit managers is commendable, Joyce said, but he’s pessimistic that regulators can adapt as quickly as the market changes.

Concessions To Pharmacy Benefit Managers

Wiener’s bill would break new ground in California, but it won’t go as far as he intended.

Amendments to the proposal significantly curtailed its reach in the final days of the legislative session. Industry groups requested the changes, but Wiener said the remainder still leaves “a very strong bill.”

Previous versions of the proposal would have prohibited pharmacy benefit managers from paying pharmacies less for a drug than they charge insurers and keeping the difference as profit. It would have also prohibited insurers from paying out bonuses based on drug cost savings.

The Assembly Appropriations Committee, which is chaired by Buffy Wicks, a Democrat from Oakland, struck those provisions.

Wiener said neither he nor the industry opponents got everything they wanted. Wicks’ office did not respond by deadline to a call asking why the amendments were added when the bill had previously made it through all committees and the Senate without a single no vote.

Lopes, with the pharmacy benefit manager lobby, said the group remains opposed to the bill even after the amendments.

“While we are taking a close look at the new language and its implications, it’s evident the bill still benefits Big Pharma at the expense of California patients,” Lopes said.

Pharmacy benefit managers argue that federal investigations and criticism of their business practices are flawed and misguided. As middlemen, pharmacy benefit managers are able to negotiate prices with pharmacy chains, health insurers and drug manufacturers on behalf of their clients. Designing preferred pharmacy networks, formularies and discounts are all strategies that allow pharmacy benefit managers to keep prices reasonable, said Ed Devaney, president of the employer division at CVS Caremark.

“This bill would not allow employers to continue to leverage those cost containment solutions that they have enjoyed over the last 10 to 20 years,” Devaney said. The proposal is also opposed by health insurers, some unions, and a coalition of business associations.

CVS Caremark is the largest pharmacy benefit manager in the country, representing more than 100 million members. Devaney said CVS passes 99% of rebates to consumers and that it has no issue with increased transparency.

Instead, the benefit managers blame pharmaceutical companies for skyrocketing drug prices.

‘No Saints’ In Pharmaceutical Industry

Reid Porter, a spokesperson for Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said Wiener’s proposal is a “step in the right direction” but that California legislators have more work to do to address “the perverse incentives and harmful practices of PBMs that lead to higher costs, including higher premiums, that patients face.” The trade organization representing drug companies supports Wiener’s measure.

Drug manufacturers have long accused pharmacy benefit managers of holding prescription drugs hostage in order to get bigger rebates that patients never see. Rebates made up just 17% of the $12.1 billion spent on pharmaceuticals in 2022, according to the Department of Managed Health Care’s most recent drug cost report.

Joyce of USC said both players are at fault.

“There are no saints. Everyone is trying to make a buck,” Joyce said.

Pharmacy benefit managers representing tens of millions of patients have enough leverage to negotiate lower drug prices, he said, but the problem is that their business practices are so opaque no one really knows how much in savings is being passed down to patients and how much benefit managers are keeping in profits.

Joyce said he has also witnessed negotiations where manufacturers withhold price discounts if the benefit manager includes coverage of competitors’ drugs.

“They run an opaque, non-transparent business, and that is never good,” Joyce said.

The Federal Trade Commission report suggests that pharmacy benefit managers increasingly make money through administrative fees and other payments tacked onto services.

Despite the leverage pharmacy benefit managers may have, Kevin Schulman, a professor of medicine at Stanford University, research shows they have only ever driven drug prices up — not down.

For example, although generic or biosimilar insulins have been available for years, patient use of the cheaper alternatives has remained low because pharmacy benefit managers exclude the generics from covered benefits in lieu of higher-profit, name-brand insulins. Newsom’s initiative to manufacture low-cost, generic insulin for Californians, will face a similar challenge, Schulman said. Schulman was an advisor to Civica Rx, the company tapped by Newsom to run its insulin project.

“This strategy results in them being able to pocket billions of dollars,” Schulman said.

(CalMatters.org)

‘WHITE SUPREMACY, PATRIARCHY AND COLONIALISM:’ BEHIND S.F.’S $3 MILLION PLAN TO CULL ITS MONUMENTS

by Sam Whiting

San Francisco is about to embark on evaluating its nearly 100 statues and monuments to figure out which ones no longer represent the city’s values and should be removed from view, relocated or re-interpreted with explanatory plaques.

The debate over the city’s monuments began in 2018 with the removal of the “Early Days” sculpture from the Pioneer Monument in the Civic Center because it represented a Native American seated before a Spanish Catholic missionary. The effort gathered steam amid the racial-justice movement in 2020 that followed the murder of George Floyd. That year, crowds toppled statues throughout the country that glorified Confederate Civil War leaders, which critics said paid homage to the country’s racist past.

The survey of San Francisco’s civic art collection — funded by a $3 million Mellon Foundation grant — will be conducted by an outside firm and should be completed by January.

The project, called “Shaping Legacy,” was discussed at an Arts Commission meeting last week when senior project manager Angela Carrier explained that looking at San Francisco’s monuments and memorials as a whole shows “a concentration that talks about power, privilege, white supremacy, patriarchy, and colonialism.”

“These monuments no longer represent the values that we say the city stands for,” she added.

The monuments and memorial were listed in an inventory last updated in June, 2023. They range from Lotta’s Fountain installed on Market Street in 1875 to the bust of George Moscone at City Hall to a dozen or more statues of explorers and war heroes in Golden Gate Park. The most recent addition is a 9-foot bronze of Maya Angelou being installed at the Main Library in September. It, too, will be subject to review. The entire Civic Art Collection consists of 4,000 objects valued in excess of $100 million.

The project’s mission statement says its goal is to confront the inequities of the past in order to confront the inequities of the present.

The overall effort is a $250 million undertaking called “the Monuments Project” that seeks to remake the public art landscape, all funded by Mellon.

San Francisco is one of nine cities to receive grants. The city had its share of monuments destroyed in 2020 when bronze statues of Junipero Serra, Ulysses S. Grant and Francis Scott Key were all knocked off their pedestals by protesters in Golden Gate Park. The city removed the statue of Christopher Columbus at Coit Tower to avoid a similar fate. All four statues are now secured in storage.

In the aftermath of the vandalism, Mayor London Breed formed the 13-person San Francisco Monuments and Memorials Advisory Committee that issued its final report in 2023, recommending the equity audit now being undertaken.

“What the audit will do is decide which monuments are considered offensive today, and if so, what should replace them “ said Dorka Keehn, a former Arts Commissioner, who chaired the Visual Arts Committee in 2020 when the Columbus and part of the Pioneer statues were removed. “A broader question is, ‘how long should any monument be in existence?”

Opponents decry the removal of Civil War monuments and statues of historical figures whose actions or views are now deemed offensive, saying it is an attempt to erase history that disrespects the nation’s heritage. Some Southern states’ legislatures moved to restrict or prohibit the removal of public monuments after the 2020 topplings. But Stanford historian James T. Campbell argued in 2020 that many of these statutes were erected decades after the Civil War for the express purpose of reinforcing white supremacy and are not “innocent of any racial meaning.” Campbell could not immediately be reached for comment this week.

The consultant, HR&A Advisors, will hold three public workshops in October in advance of a final report due in January. The Arts Commission will recommend next steps toward removal or relocation based on the recommendations in the report. Public testimony and input from Mayor Breed and the Board of Supervisors will be included in the process.

As part of this phase, five artists will be commissioned for temporary installations at locations to be determined. The commissions, which could include monuments and memorials, will be installed in 2026, but not replace existing monuments or memorials.

“We are forefronting the voices of artists to think about what monuments and memorials look like in the future for San Francisco,” said Mary Chou, San Francisco’s director of public art and the Civic Art Collection.

The final phase of “Shaping Legacy” will involve more public input to determine whether to commission replacement artwork for monuments that are removed, or other actions. That phase could run into 2026.

“We will engage communities that have historically been excluded from the discussion,” Carrier told the committee. “The work of reckoning, repair and healing is not easy work.”

(SF Chronicle)

A Detroit factory worker and his family, 1954 (photo by Jun Miki)

AT DNC PROTESTS, THE UNSEEN FLIP SIDE OF JOY

In Chicago last week, Democrats reversed the legacy of 1968 by smothering protest and restoring the smoke-filled room. This time, the whole world wasn't watching - it couldn't

by Ford Fischer and Matt Taibbi

“For a while, I couldn’t find a single protester outside the convention, much less a Chicago seven.” — Dana Milbank, Washington Post, “DNC protests devolve into farce.”

“They made me shit my pants!” — unnamed man at DNC protests

In the runup to last week’s Democratic National Convention, media outlets pondered parallels between the infamous 1968 street slugfest that etched names like Bobby Seale, Abbie Hoffman, and Richard J. Daley in the pages of history. Then as now riled to fury by bloody images sent home from an unpopular overseas war, left-leaning protesters gathered in Chicago in huge numbers to oppose the nomination of a candidate who hadn’t participated in primaries and campaigned not on issues, but “the politics of joy.”

The chaos of the ensuing street battles in 1968 changed the face of American politics. That convention resulted in an iconic trial of the “Chicago 7” protest leaders that saw creative uses of incitement and conspiracy laws, and in many ways marked the end of sixties activism. That convention also inspired reforms ostensibly designed to put voters back in charge of nomination processes. New party rules were designed to prevent a repeat of the 1968 fiasco in which Democratic Party insiders installed Hubert Humphrey as a candidate over actual primary participants like Eugene McCarthy or George McGovern, who took over the campaign of murdered Robert F. Kennedy.

Would protests inspire similar changes this time around? As Ford Fischer’s News2Share crew chronicles in the 26-minute “Activism, Uncensored” mini-documentary, only a Washington Post reporter like Dana Milbank could have had trouble finding a “single protester” at the 2024 version of the “Days of Rage.” However, marches didn’t have earth-shaking consequences, either. In fact, they barely penetrated the public consciousness domestically, for a variety of reasons that may take years to sort through…

https://www.racket.news/p/activism-uncensored-at-dnc-protests

THE HOLLYWOOD JUGGERNAUT

by Alexander Cockburn (2004)

Sometimes the American film industry’s mundane economic interests were clothed in exalted language, as when the head of Paramount told the New York Times in 1946, “We, the industry, recognize the need for informing people in foreign lands about the things that have made America a great country, and we think we know how to put across the message of our democracy.”

(Of course those in Hollywood who tried to send out a different message in those crucial postwar years were swiftly red-baited out of the business by such FBI informers as Ron Reagan.)

While mythology tells us that “the message” of American democracy was conveyed through the irresistibly combined charms of American stars, stories and production values, it has actually been force-fed to the world through the careful engineering of taste, ruthless commercial clout, arm-twisting by the US Departments of Commerce and State, threats of reverse trade embargoes, and other such heavy artillery. By 1968, industry agent Jack Valenti was boasting that “the motion picture industry is the only US enterprise that negotiates on its own with foreign governments.”

The moment of political truth which struck Anthony Eden when President Eisenhower told him to call off the Suez adventure in 1956 had struck the British film industry, centered at Pinewood studios, nine years earlier. By the summer of 1947, American film corporations were taking more than $60 million out of Britain. This, coupled with Britain’s war debt, helped trigger a severe balance-of-payments problem.

On August 6, 1947, the postwar Labour government, wishing to fortify cultural nationalism and repel invasion by Hollywood, imposed a 75% tax on the box-office earnings of Hollywood films in England. The tax was to be paid in advance, on the basis of estimated revenues. On August 9, Hollywood, in the form of the MPEA, retaliated with an indefinite suspension of all films to Britain. The co-founder of Pinewood studios, J. Arthur Rank, announced that to fill the breach he would undertake the production of 47 films at a vast capital outlay, the largest commitment to film ever made in Britain.

But the Labour government was buckling under fierce pressure from the US. On May 3, 1948, the 75% levy was abandoned and replaced by a ceiling on profits that could be repatriated to Hollywood. The Hollywood films came flooding back, just in time to sink the hastily produced and cheap material being put out by Rank.

By the 1950s, all British resistance had collapsed. Across the Channel, the same battles were being fought and won by Hollywood. The US economic package designed to bail out a France bankrupted by war was withheld by US Secretary of State James Byrnes until prime minister Leon Blum agreed to annul the import quota which limited Hollywood to 120 American films a year. Blum told the French movie magnates that he was fully prepared to sacrifice the entire French film industry to get an agreement.

Surrender followed. The French war debt was erased and France was given a 30-year, $318 million loan along with $650 million in credits from the Export-Import Bank. But the collapse on quotas dealt the French film industry a near-fatal blow. Half the studios closed and unemployment in the industry soon reached 75%. The number of workers employed in the French film industry dropped from 2,132 in 1946 to 898 in 1947. Another round of layoffs in 1948 chopped 60% cent of the remaining workforce.

This defeat duly produced an ironic sort of Vichy regime, in the form of young French cineastes immersing themselves in the American movies now flooding the country, evolving the auteurs and movie pantheon that had enthusiasts of my generation in the early Sixties scuttling from one end of London to the other, Cahiers du Cinema in hand, trying to track down B-pictures by Sam Fuller, Frank Tashlin and other Hollywood favorites of the French crowd.

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Mayhem in the cities and bedlam on the roads. All of this will end once the country is much too poor to afford to spend billions of dollars on locking people up at around $30,000 a year for each inmate. Instead of comfy, air conditioned jails, the hangman's noose and the whipping post will return. Both are very inexpensive to operate and both are very effective in terrorizing and disciplining evil doers. In my hometown in the 1800s there was a spot for hanging people outside the jail. My guess is justice went very quickly in 1840 or so. A hangin’ judge found you guilty, and before the week was over, you were underground. No appeals lasting for years, no tens of thousands spent on lawyering. Just a quick trip out back and it’s over. Problems solved.

ETHNIC CLEANSERS OPEN ANOTHER FRONT

At Least 10 Killed as Israeli Military Steps Up West Bank Raids

Hundreds of troops entered cities in the occupied territory, targeting Palestinian militants. It was a significant escalation after months of raids that have unfolded alongside the war in Gaza.

by Aaron Boxerman, Adam Rasgon and Raja Abdulrahim

Hundreds of Israeli troops backed by drones and armored vehicles carried out raids in the occupied West Bank, Israeli and Palestinian officials said on Wednesday, a growing third front in conflicts that extend from the Egyptian border with the Gaza Strip to southern Lebanon.

At least 10 Palestinians were killed, the Palestinian Health Ministry said, in what Israeli officials described as an ongoing operation targeting militants and concentrated in Jenin and Tulkarm, two West Bank cities that an Israeli military spokesman, Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, said have become militant strongholds. The Israeli military said it had killed nine militants.

A Palestinian armed group based in Jenin said it had fired on Israeli forces in two villages on the city’s outskirts, and Palestinian residents in both cities described hearing intermittent gunfire.

(NY Times)

Nickolas Muray with Frida Kahlo and her unfinished painting “Me and My Parrots,” 1941. Photograph. / © Nickolas Muray Photo Archives, courtesy Mimi Muray.

20 Comments

Bob A. August 29, 2024

Re: Detroit 1950. That’s a 1953 Ford in the driveway.

Chuck Artigues August 29, 2024

Nines have two weak points. Other than Williams at left tackle, the offense line is mediocre at best. And Shanahan, for all his brilliance, over thinks it in the playoffs. But it’s true we have a roster loaded with skill players, should be a fun season to watch.

Chuck Dunbar August 29, 2024

ED NOTES

Funny story with a fine outcome, Bruce. That unchatty kid cashier and his generous manager did an old guy right–bill down from $269.66, to $55. Now that’s good fortune for sure. As we used to say, “the customer is always right.” But those times are gone-gone-gone, with a rare exception now and then…

Lazarus August 29, 2024

Editor Notes:
“WHEN KELVIN CHAPMAN popped up in the AVA the other day,”
B.A.

Your comment made me think about when Kelvin had the Batting Cages in Ukiah years ago. My youngest son was playing Little League in Willits and we often went to the cages for a workout. Kelvin was personable and eager to help a kid with correct batting techniques.
My son went on to play JV and Varsity Base Ball in High School, and then on to a collegiate team.
Kelvin was one of the good guys. When I drive by the building the cages occupied, I often wonder what happened and where Kelvin ended up.
Be well and thanks for the poke.
Laz

- MAGA Marmon August 29, 2024
  
  I remember when his brother, Ben, officiated at the races at the fairgrounds. He sure was a big dude. He was killed in a logging incident.
  
  MAGA Marmon
  
  - MAGA Marmon August 29, 2024
    
    85 Ben Chapman Memorial B Main Event
    
    https://youtu.be/JpwICI6GjmA
    
    MAGA Marmon
    
Eric Sunswheat August 29, 2024

RE: The air fills with dust from feet and machines. But often a wildfire, grown huge at the end of a dry summer, casts a pall of smoke that can extend for dozens of miles. When it reaches the vineyards in Sonoma and Napa Counties, smoke combines with dust and it’s hard to breathe. “Even my saliva turns black,” says Maria Salinas, who has picked wine grapes for 20 years in Sonoma County.
— David Bacon

—> November 2023 Wine Business
Going into this project, we felt that a mindset for quality versus production is important. It’s easy for people to default to a production-centered focus when bringing a mechanical harvester into the vineyard. When using mechanical harvesters, the temptation is to let the vineyard get as much yield as possible. Instead, our goal was to duplicate hand harvesting. Anthony groomed the Clone-4 Chardonnay in the vineyard for Pellenc success early on to create a true comparison with a hand-harvested control. We farmed the vineyard exactly the same way for both lots.
https://www.winebusiness.com/wbm/article/277925

Mike J August 29, 2024

Former State Dept official (who in recent yrs traveled to Europe with former President Obama) writes a summary of what’s up with the emerging big revelations re the ET presence:
https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/4852117-new-insider-memoir-highlights-urgency-of-ufo-disclosure-legislation/

James Clapper was Elizondo ‘s boss when Obama made him Director of National Intel. Last year on CNN he advocated for full transparency re UAP and even noted he was part of the “crime” of not being transparent when he was in office…..It’s being alleged (by a significant govt contractor named Matthew Pines) that a former high official will confirm soon testimony from Elizondo, Grusch and others re recovered alien tech and bodies. Clapper is thought by many to be that person. Some think Obama, who has made many statements saying UAP are real (with big hints it’s ET), may be that one.

- Mike J August 29, 2024
  
  I might have to revisit my conclusion that the public is apathetic: Elizondo ‘s book is #1 non fiction on NY Times bestseller list.
  
  - Harvey Reading August 29, 2024
    
    People have always fallen for con artists.
    
    - Mike J August 29, 2024
      
      Clapper here notes that he was part of the crime of non transparency re this….
      https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2021/05/17/pentagon-ufo-report-clapper-nr-sot-vpx.cnn
      
      Interestingly, on another front, John Brennan was head bowed, hand gripping it, when he answered an interviewer re UAP. He said the phenomenon “constituted a different form of life”.
      
      - Harvey Reading August 29, 2024
        
        LOL. If you want bad scifi, read the Bible (either “testament”). Funny how reports of ET get popular as things go from bad to worse in this pathetic country…
        
        
        Mike J August 29, 2024
        
        Speaking of sci fi-like elements, James Woolsey (former CIA head) told an inquiring interviewer about a report given to him from a jet fighter friend. The pilot encountered a craft and next thing he knew his jet had STOPPED midair.
        https://nypost.com/2021/04/06/former-cia-director-says-he-believes-ufos-could-exist-report/
        
        
        Harvey Reading August 30, 2024
        
        Speaking of Clapper valves, that tale has been around for years. I believe it about as much as I believe the rest of the non-factual nonsense you ETers peddle. It’s like religion, total wishful “thinking”.
        
Zanzibar to Andalusia August 29, 2024

Free speech includes anonymous speech.

Let’s hope the 9ers get past this Aiyuk idiocy – and then roll over the 17 + 3 games where they’ll face lesser teams.

The day I heard the statue of Junipero Serra was taken down, I couldn’t stop smiling. Proud of those kids.

Every time I yearn for a perspective that is both leftist and against the climate change narrative, I miss Cockburn.

David Svehla August 29, 2024

SFs 3 Million $ Plan To Cull Its Monuments: They’ve commissioned 5 artworks, so they’ve ALREADY targeted 5 statues for removal. Mayor Breed years ago has funneled untold millions of dollars unfunded from the police to her vastly African – American political supporters, Nonprofit Grifters and virtue signaling consultants. The Commies only destroy, never build. Anything of European Origin- Columbus, Moscone, Amerigo Vespucci- is beyond suspect and has to GO.
…And the fact that somebody could even THINK about removing the bust of Moscone from City Hall infers a complete and total ignorance of San Francisco History. This purported ignorance jibes well with the leftist fantasy of repeating sad eras w/ the races reversed: The eradication of Europe’s descendants by the black and brown- skinned.
…Not the Leftists THEMSELVES, of course. They plan on being well and gun guarded and physically removed, many of them using our tax dollars. Some of them on Mendocino ranches…
– A Happy Labor Day to All, DSS

Ernie Branscomb August 29, 2024

Bruce
Just Curious, How does one make a submission the AVA.

- Bruce Anderson August 29, 2024
  
  We’d be delighted to have you aboard, Ernie. Send to ava@pacific.net
  
Liri Heller August 29, 2024

If food is medicine why hasn’t the City of Ukiah bought McFadden Family Farm?

https://bluequail.com/?srsltid=AfmBOorVj6n9wF98YM4oTeyDMTumF0SiQTqaQUfPLUALgKGhhkTnOL_f

Eric Sunswheat August 29, 2024

Old website, doesn’t seem current except for copyright.

20 Comments

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