Mendocino County Today: 9/4/2024

Foxglove | Hot | Firewise Meeting | Bunyan Parade | Rocio Lupian-Lopez | Whooping Cough | Local Events | Mendo PTSD | Ed Notes | Harry Richmond | Toilet Talk | Yesterday's Catch | Income Inequality | Union Card | Poem Mashup | Baseball Greats | California Wolves | Cat Men | Daunting Job | Don't Like | Forest Talk | Late Swallow | Stand Up | Military Empire | Mass Deportation | Israeli History | Idiom/Homonym | Jerry Selz | Dirty Mind

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YESTERDAY'S HIGHS: Ukiah 102°, Yorkville 101°, Boonville 98°, Covelo 97°, Laytonville 94°, Fort Bragg 71°, Point Arena 66°, Mendocino 62°

HOT AND DRIER weather conditions expected through the week. Moderate to locally major heat risk today through Friday. A gradual cooling trend is expected this weekend into early next week. Unsettled weather potential mid next week as a broad upper trough approaches the area. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): While the fog is building back in quickly it is to our south currently, hence clear skies & 51F on the coast this Wednesday morning. Mostly sunny skies thru tomorrow then our friend "patchy fog" returns Thursday night. Patchy fog is forecast for the weekend.

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FIRE SAFE POINT ARENA MEETING

Wednesday, September 4, 4:45 p.m., Coast Community Library, downtown Point Arena

Featuring a special guest appearance by: Eva King, the most knowledgeable of all things "FireWise" aka: How to do more than cross your fingers to keep your home from turning to ash in the next fire. How to make it more likely that you will keep your insurance by working with your neighbors (if their house burns it's more likely that yours will too) to keep everyone's house standing.

Just in case you want to do pre-educate yourself, here's a link to the FireWise website:
https://www.nfpa.org/education-and-research/wildfire/firewise-usa

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LABOR DAY PARADE, Fort Bragg (photos by Jeff Goll)

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UKIAH WOMAN FOUND DEAD OFF MENDOCINO COUNTY HIKING TRAIL

The 29-year-old woman had recent medical complications, which authorities said could have contributed to her death.

by Madison Smalstig

A 29-year-old Ukiah woman was found dead Sunday just off a Mendocino County trail, authorities said.

A passerby located the woman about 9:21 p.m. in the bushes near the Lake Mendocino spillway — which controls the release of water from the reservoir — that is accessed from Rafello Drive, Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office Lt. James Elmore said in a news release.

The woman, later identified as Rocio Lupian-Lopez, was unresponsive. Medical personnel pronounced her dead at the site.

As deputies were investigating Lupian-Lopez’s death, one of her family members came to the area to search for her because she had not returned from a walk.

Investigators later learned that Lupian-Lopez recently had medical complications, which Elmore said could have contributed to her death. The agency did not detail the complications.

Foul play is not suspected, according to officials.

The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office Coroner’s Division will perform an autopsy later this week. Her cause of death will not be determined until the autopsy report is complete, Elmore said.

The Sheriff’s Office is asking anyone with information related to this coroner's investigation to contact the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office Dispatch Center at 707-463-4086 or by calling the anonymous non-emergency tip line at 707-234-2100.

(Santa Rosa Press Democrat)

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PUBLIC ADVISORY PERTUSSIS PREVENTION

Pertussis (whooping cough) a contagious respiratory illness is here in Mendocino County. Babies younger than 1 year old and older adults are at greatest risk.

People with pre-existing health conditions are also at risk for developing a severe infection. Some conditions include but are not limited to immunocompromising conditions and moderate to severe medically treated asthma.

Prevent whooping cough by getting vaccinated.

Whooping cough spreads from person to person through the air from the start of symptoms and for at least 2 weeks after coughing begins.

If you've been exposed to someone with whooping cough, talk to your healthcare provider about preventive care. It's very important to treat whooping cough early!

Learn more at www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/pages/immunization/pertussis.aspx#

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ANDERSON VALLEY HOPS INTO FALL

by Terry Sites

We’ve made it to September in pretty good shape despite way too many days over 100-degrees. (Thank you climate change.) The one scary fire near the Grange in Philo was quickly extinguished by the excellent, efficient Anderson Valley Fire Department and Cal Fire. There has been very little drifting smoke coming through the Valley from other fires. In past years windows often had to be kept closed to keep smoke out and air purifiers needed to eat smoke that crept in. As most of us rely on opening windows at night to cool down our hot houses “smoke outs” have been a major drag.

As a result, attending local events that come with the approach of fall has been easier and more pleasant than in recent years.

This past week we enjoyed the annual fundraisers for both the Senior Center (BBQ) and the Yorkville Fire Department (Ice Cream Social). The Anderson Valley Brewery presented “The soothing sounds of Beerhoven (sic)” in their beerpark performed live by the Mendocino Wind Quintet: Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, French Horn and Bassoon sponsored by the Ukiah Symphony. Attendees were urged to “Come ready to hear the best of chamber music written for the Quintet in a lighthearted way.”

This past weekend also included five opportunities for retail therapy fans to shop until they drop. Most unusual was Susan Bridge-Mount’s delayed and anticipated “Super Sale” in Boonville on both Saturday and Sunday. This turned out to be a bonanza for lovers of ethnic art, jewelry, rugs and fabric. Susan is a world traveler and she parted with many treasures at incredibly reasonable prices. There were also lots of housewares and garden ornaments in good condition for bargain basement prices.

The traditional Senior Center Labor Day Flea Market over Saturday, Sunday and Monday was small in scale but had a wide range of wares from antiques, plants, jewelry and collectibles. The Senior BBQ Silent Auction offered many unique items donated by Sandy Maillard some of which came from her mother Charlotte’s estate. Many local individuals also donated to the Senior Center auction. Commendations to Renee Lee, Senior Center Director, Philip ‘Mr. Generosity’ Thomas, The Lions Club of Anderson Valley who served up their delicious tri-tip and chicken dinners, and all the members of the Senior Center Board and volunteers. Fal Allen’s margueritas were especially appreciated.

The Yorkville Ice Cream Social/Yorkville Fire Department fundraiser is a well-oiled machine when it comes to fund-raising these days. Scott Hulbert who lives adjacent to the Firehouse (where the Social takes place) is always on hand for any community need especially the needs of the Yorkville Community Benefits Association. He is the first man standing and the last man standing at any Community Center event. Thank you, Scott. The board members are all so capable that it is ridiculous and truly an embarrassment of riches. The planning and execution of this event are always finely tuned. And the amount they raise proves it. This year Val Hanelt (volunteer co-coordinator) and Hans Hickenlooper turned the book sale (a huge job) over to local teachers Casey Farber and Arthur Folz who shouldered the responsibility admirably. Lisa Bauer president of the YCBA was seen flashing about as is her wont unrolling the monster Silent Auction, a juggernaut if there ever was one. Tina Walter publicity, signage, a general nuclear engine, and Peter Gordon, a high voltage food service manager who both never stopped running.

The auction was filled with high ticket “experience” items; airplane rides, beach house stays, catered dinners in beautiful locations, and tours of rarely seen properties. The book sale books were all community donated, and this year Jerry Karp (former owner of Village Books in Ukiah) and Stephanie Gold (former AVHS counselor) donated many, many books from their extensive library on their way out of town to a new life in the Big Apple.

Coming up this week is the AV Senior Center outing to the C.V. Starr Swim Center in Fort Bragg. Also new on the scene are two new restaurants. “Jumbo’s Win-Win” in Philo in the former Libby’s, former Country Kitchen building — a high-end burger joint with all the fixings. Also “Lauren’s at the Buckhorn” is morphing into a newer entity “The Boonville Distillery” with a new chef: Chris, and a new menu with the return of that well-known perennial star-chef Libby cooking on some nights.

So if you’ve got the time and the money there’s plenty to do and see. Before you know it we will be in the lull that precedes Thanksgiving and Xmas. Then it will be a race to the finish line for 2024. Have fun.

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JENI LEE SMITH

I moved back to Mendocino last year and it's so crowded in the village. They won't even get out of the street so we can drive to the post office. It's not freaking Disneyland, folks. I don't even want to go to town on the weekends. My favorite places are gone. And Mendosa’s gives me PTSD. All this clueless humanity climbing up my butt.

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ED NOTES

GLEN RICARD, the Mendocino-based owner of fire-hazard/eyesore on the south end of Boovnille, long, long ago filed formal plans and a permit request to convert the old Spenard building into a two-building, two-story commercial store/office complex. The re-make would have totaled of 2900 square feet and an elevator to get to the second floor. The work would have included new foundations, plumbing and storage for the first floor as well as second floor offices. The contractor would have been Michael Casey.

WHAT HAPPENED? The County of Mendo happened, and Ricard, a curmudgeonly old coot in the most serene circumstances, grew so frustrated with county planners he gave up, and here his tinder pile rests almost thirty years later, Mendocino County's most obvious fire hazard, which Boonville's government annually refuses to order abated.

A READER WRITES of the late Donna Ronne, formerly of the Holmes Ranch, and once upon a time a vividly unforgettable manager of the Boonville Transfer Station:

“I saw the notice in the April 14 issue that Donna Ronne died. In 1963, there was a “Donna Michelle” Playboy centerfold model. Do you know if that was the same lady? (I ask because someone I knew had been very smitten by Donna Michelle. She was very beautiful.) It's odd that I'd feel loss over someone I never knew. She was supposed to be 17 when she was a centerfold, so she was 58 when she died. And she was a gymnast. If you look up “Donna Michelle” on the internet, you'll see how graceful and beautiful she was. The photos are still there, and they brought me back in time. The person I knew who was madly in love with her was my husband of the time, The Turk. It didn't bother me that he was so smitten because she was, after all, unattainable and besides, he'd just broken his ankle dancing the Lezginka in front of Miss California, so I knew he wasn't going to do anything outrageous in the (then) near future. Donna represented a new kind of female beauty — healthy, natural, athletic, no phony hair dyes. You might remember what the idealizations of female beauty were before 1963. For all I know, she was airbrushed. Playboy had a history of making women look different from how they really looked. But I don't think so. Playboy also had her saying that she was a freshman enrolled in a “smorgasbord of courses” at UCLA and claiming, as I recall, that she was taking something like 18 units. I was a 17 year old freshman at UCLA with more than average curiosity. In those days, students' records were like voters' addresses used to be, on cards, filed alphabetically. I could not locate her. Perhaps I thought her last name was Michelle. But no one at the university that I could locate had ever heard of her or seen her and how could they not have seen someone who looked like that? So, I wondered if Playboy made that up about her. Interesting thing to make up, indicating men were erotically interested in bright women, something I don't think has ever been true. (Men sometimes marry bright women but that's when they can't find anyone dumber.) Hugh Hefner certainly wasn't interested in smart women. What was her life like? Did her beauty and intelligence — did they do anything for her? Did she have a good life?

PS. Boy, am I going to get a lot of spam after researching Donna Michelle. I sure have been some weird places on the internet this evening. Donna Michelle (Ronne). Born December 8, 1945 in Los Angeles California. Measurements as playmate: 38-22-37. Playmate of the Year in 1964. Playmate in December of 1963. Acted in “Beach Blanket Bingo,” “One Spy Too Many,” “Mickey One” and “Goodbye Charlie.” There are a lot more pictures, but beware there is a modern Donna Michelle who says she's a playmate but isn't our Donna Michelle.

I’LL ADMIT I sit as close to the exit as I can at poetry readings, ready to flee when the solipsisms become too painful, but I'd pay money and sit right up front to hear Linda Noel read this one, the best Mendo-centric poem ever:

Maybe They Couldn’t Make

The Shoe Fit The Foot

(for Clara and those who waited)

Bring some shoes to the

…rancheria. They never did.

.

No,

…All the people waited though.

.

His gramma remembered.

.

They all washed their

…feet that day.

The man was coming all

…the way from Sacramento.

They waited and waited.

.

Finally he came, but he didn’t

…bring no shoes.

He took some paper and measured

…their feet,

Got their sizes and said he

…would bring shoes back.

.

And all the Indian people

…were glad ’cause they didn’t

Have no shoes.

.

They waited and waited.

.

He never did return.

.

Phil’s gramma would laugh

…remembering the story

Of the whiteman bending at

…the feet of old Indian women

Who had never before worn

…whiteman shoes.

.

They wondered what he thought.

.There was something about

…how he would measure the foot,

Then write it down and look

…at them as if to say

What odd and ugly feet.

.

The old woman’s laughter is

…our own as we speak:

…Maybe they didn’t know how

…To make shoes to fit Indian feet,

…Or maybe the sight of their feet

…Frightened him away.

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HARRY RICHMOND in front of his Service Station and Grocery Store.

Anderson Valley Market is at this location now. Shell Station. Irl Rickabaugh photo, via Ron Parker.

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HELP UNPLUGGING TOILET [Coast Chat Line]

Elizabeth Swenson: Looking for a plumbing help for plugged toilet.

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Marco here, Elizabeth. I don't know if you've tried it, but if you haven't, you might simply need to employ the Paulsy plunge. See my post of 6:30 Saturday night (subject line begins, “Get some shut-eye, men”).

In short, use the plunger to pull /up/ as well as force down, and be rhythmic and aggressive about it: you're not asking it politely to go down anymore, you're laying down the law.

If your toilet swallows, just not enthusiastically the way it used to when it was a puppy, you might try Rid-X. The hardware store sells it.

If the problem isn't something Rid-X can solve, you haven't hurt anything and you're only out $7.50.

If plunging properly does not work, nor Rid-X, and it turns out to be a septic tank/system issue, the local expert is Rick Ricca. Here: https://www.septicwhisperer.com

Marco McClean

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Tuesday, September 3, 2024

ILEANA AMRULL, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

RICKI AYALA, Ukiah. Resisting.

TINA CORNWALL, Ukiah. Paraphernalia, shopping cart, dumping of refuse in state waters.

AGUSTIN DIAZ-LOPEZ, Ukiah. DUI.

MICHAEL KUBAS, Nice/Willits. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, petty theft, under influence.

JESUS MORALES-ABRADOR, Ukiah. DUI, domestic abuse.

RICKEY PHILLIPS III, Willits. Under influence, paraphernalia.

RONALD ROMERO, Concord/Ukiah. DUI, suspended license for DUI.

JUSTIN THORNBILL, Ukiah. DUI-alcohol&drugs, controlled substance, paraphernalia.

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LABOR DAY, an on-line comment:

It is Labor Day and September, month of the autumnal equinox, where some things become equal. It is also time for football, where things that are not equal stand out like a garish 50-foot Las Vegas jumbotron.

The topic of income inequality won’t be explored in depth (like how you can avoid it, if possible, etc.) Instead, a simple example will be given to illustrate one of the extreme excesses of rapacious capitalism.

We’ll go on the higher end and take the player who makes $60 million per year. Many bottom end workers have now seen their pay ‘skyrocket’ to twenty dollars/hr. This doesn’t even take them to 50k per year, with a 40-hour week, but let’s use that number, 50k.

Simple arithmetic shows that the ‘Labor Day’ guy will have to work for 1,200 years to make what the $60 million guy makes in just one. Toil and sweat for about 40-60 generations. Generations. Mind blowing.

Multi-millionaires making billionaires richer. The hand of sports in the glove of corporations. Consume or perish. Consume and perish.

Workers of the world, fight and unite!!

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POEM MASHUP

by Paul Modic

I mashed up someone’s poem last night and at first she liked it, some don’t when you mess with their work, and then today I got a message from her asking if it was me or AI. Now I don’t know whether to feel complimented or insulted.

AI would have done it in less than two seconds, it took me forty-five minutes to rearrange her words and sentences without changing or adding any new words, though sometimes I do in a mashup.

In a way, I was acting like a mini-AI machine putting my version of her words out there, but really I don’t want to have anything to do with AI, notwithstanding all the ways it already is interacting with me, like when GMAIL tries to finish my thoughts on an email.

(Google, you complete me!)

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Sulahue’s Poem:

Do we exist because of each other or despite of each other?

I guess it’s one of those questions we spend a lifetime dancing around.

Nothing really belongs to no one. And yet the strangest thing happens. We all fight to protect what is ours. It’s simple really, we should all just be together. We should all get to experience the world the way we feel it. Oh the love I see in you.

Let’s not let the cold water stop us.

The silence is screaming territorial power games, the cats are jumping ship. The first flower bloomed with a delicate smell. This monsoon mountain rain has got us all electric, the sheets are wet. The sun shines with its absence. Life on the mountain. Sulahue

My Mashup

We exist because we spend a lifetime dancing around

And yet the strangest thing happens when I see your life

We are fighting to protect the world the way we feel it

Monsoon screaming wet sheets of electric mountain rain

Let’s not let the territorial power games stop us

These questions are simply wet flowers blooming in silence

When the sun shines we experience delicate absence

This smell of cold water belongs to no one and everyone

The cats are jumping ship despite our being together

It’s nothing really, just life on this mountain mashup with

Salahue

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GRAY WOLF POPULATION GROWING FAST IN CALIFORNIA — up sixfold in the past five years

Since their reappearance in 2011, wolves are now found in nine of California’s 58 counties, in seven packs from the Oregon border to the mountains around Lake Tahoe, and in the Southern Sierra near Bakersfield

by Paul Rogers

One hundred years ago, in the summer of 1924, a government hunter named Frank Koehler set 21 traps near the remote town of Litchfield, in Lassen County about 75 miles north of Lake Tahoe, to catch a coyote that had killed a local farmer’s turkeys.

When he returned a few days later, one of the traps was missing. Koehler tracked large paw prints for 5 miles in the rain, thinking he had a mountain lion. Revolver drawn, he headed into a rocky canyon and heard a growl. There, he saw the last known gray wolf in California, an aging, injured animal cornered between two boulders. He fired two shots, killing it.

Now a century later, the comeback of the gray wolf is gaining momentum.

“It’s a redemption story. It’s a renewal story. It’s inspiring,” said Amaroq Weiss, a senior wolf advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit environmental group. “It has shown that California is wolf country.”

The first wolf returned to the state after an 87-year absence in 2011, when a young male walked across the border from Oregon. By 2015, the first new wolf pack had re-established, in Siskiyou County. By 2019, there were seven gray wolves in California. Now there are 44 — a sixfold increase over the past five years, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Wolves are now found in nine of California’s 58 counties, in seven packs from the Oregon border to the mountains around Lake Tahoe, and in the Southern Sierra near Bakersfield. State biologists estimate that California north of Interstate 80 could support between 371 and 497 wolves, based on populations around the Rocky Mountains and Great Lakes.

In 2021, one wandered across the state, his radio collar showing a 1,000-mile journey through San Benito, Monterey, San Luis Obispo and other counties before he was killed by a car near Interstate 5 in Kern County. If California follows the patterns of Washington and Oregon, there could be 100 or more wolves in the state in the next few years.

Environmentalists call the recovery a breathtaking success, similar to the comeback of other species once near extinction, like the California condor. They note that wolves once roamed across California and the American West, until ranchers and settlers in the 1800s and early 1900s shot, poisoned and trapped them.

But ranchers and rural political leaders are alarmed.

They note wolves can eat calves and other livestock, like sheep, harming their livelihoods.

“One of them killed a calf a quarter mile from our house,” said Rick Roberti, a fourth-generation cattle rancher in Plumas County. “It’s adding a lot of stress. Wolves chase the cattle. They stress them out. It gets frantic. They will run them for miles. The cattle stampede through fences.”

In other Western states with larger wolf populations, the issue has sparked fierce political battles and lawsuits.

In Wyoming, state laws allow property owners to shoot wolves on sight. They are hunted in Idaho and Montana, with hundreds killed every year. In Oregon and Washington, there are more protections, but wolves can be shot if they are attacking livestock.

California has the most far-reaching laws.

Wolves are protected under the state and federal Endangered Species Act in California. They can only be killed if they are threatening a human. Unlike with mountain lions, black bears or bobcats, property owners cannot get a depredation permit from the state to kill them to protect livestock.

“The wolf is going to spread throughout California,” Roberti said. “There’s nothing to stop it. They are going to move, and I think it’s going to be a crisis. We’re not set up for it.”

“I can understand why people in urban areas think it’s a good thing,” he added. “They think it’s a sign of a healthy habitat. But there’s got to be a balance so it doesn’t get out of control.”

Environmental groups note that far more livestock die from diseases, injuries and other animals, like domestic dogs, than wolves. So far this year statewide, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, 16 calves have been confirmed to be killed by wolves, 2 potentially killed, and 1 lamb killed. Last year, 36 livestock were killed.

That’s a tiny fraction of the 670,000 beef cattle on 11,000 ranches in the state, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“Wolves killing cattle can impact individual livestock producers,” said Pamela Flick, California program director for Defenders of Wildlife, an environmental group. “But when you look at it in total, it’s a very, very small fraction of all the cattle out on our landscape in California.”

Ranchers say many wolf kills happen in remote areas and are never reported. They say cattle exposed to wolves don’t reproduce as well, and that wolves are the latest in a series of predators, including mountain lions, bobcats and bears, that California’s environmental laws have helped grow in number against the ranchers’ wishes.

A management plan published in 2016 by the state fish and wildlife department doesn’t set a limit for when wolf protections could be relaxed as their numbers increase. It does say that after there are four breeding pairs that produce healthy pups for two years in a row, the rules could change, and after 8 breeding pairs, they could be further relaxed.

Steve Arnold, president of the California Cattlemen’s Association, said at a meeting of the state Board of Agriculture on Aug. 6 that as soon as those thresholds are reached, he plans to sue the state to force looser rules.

“We’re going to go after this for all we can,” he said.

Attacks on people by wolves are very rare. In the past 100 years, there have only been two documented cases of a person being killed by wolves in the wild — one a woman jogging in 2010 near Chignik Lake, Alaska, and the other, a male hiker who was killed in 2005 in Saskatchewan, Canada.

In 2021, state lawmakers approved spending $3 million to compensate ranchers for livestock lost to wolves, and to help them pay for strobe lights, fencing, guard dogs and other nonlethal wolf deterrents. That money ran out in March. In June, Gov. Gavin Newsom put $600,000 in the current budget to continue the program.

“We’re kind of at that point where we’re seeing the population accelerate,” said Dan Macon, an advisor at the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources office in Auburn. “It’s still rare to see one, but they are becoming more common.”

(San Jose Mercury News)

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ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Many years ago, I got my first job as a copy editor. After a couple of weeks, I told my supervisor, “I don’t think I can do this.” He assured me that I could, so I persisted. It was probably next to impossible to find anyone who had the slightest aptitude for that kind of work, so the publishing houses were willing to take what they could get.

Some years later, I was training a woman to be a photo-typesetter, using one of the old Compugraphic II machines. After a couple of weeks, she told me, “I don’t think I can do this.” I replied, “The reason you can’t do it is because it can’t be done.” By this, I meant that it was the type of work that the human mind is not equipped for, so you shouldn’t figure on really succeeding at it. Anyway, she stayed on and learned to do it.

But that’s what a sensible and honorable person does when they find themselves in a job they aren’t equipped to do–or even learn to do: graciously inform your employers that you’re not the guy/gal for the job. Honestly, I think if Kamala did this, the public would respect her for it–though her handlers might be pretty pissed.

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"WE MUST NOT always talk in the market-place of what happens to us in the forest.” 

— Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

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THE LATE SWALLOW

Leave, leave your well-loved nest,
Late swallow, and fly away.
Here is no rest
For hollowing heart and wearying wing.
Your comrades all have flown
To seek their southern paradise
Across the great earth’s downward sloping side,
And you are alone.
Why should you cling
Still to the swiftly ageing narrowing day?
Prepare;
Shake your pinions long untried
That now must bear you there where you would be
Through all the heavens of ice;
Till falling down the homing air
You light and perch upon the radiant tree.

— Edwin Muir (1956)

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RESISTING THE USA'S MILITARY EMPIRE

The United States of America, unlike any other nation, maintains a massive network of foreign military bases around the world, over 900 bases in 90 countries. These bases perpetuate war-making, pollute waterways, and cost U.S. taxpayers an estimated $80 billion a year. 



The permanent stationing of more than 220,000 U.S. troops, weapons arsenals, and thousands of aircraft, tanks, and ships in every corner of the globe makes the logistics for U.S. aggression, and that of its allies, quicker and more efficient. Bases also facilitate the proliferation of nuclear weapons, with the United States keeping nuclear bombs in five NATO member countries, and nuclear-capable planes, ships, and missile launchers in many others.



Furthermore, the U.S.’s network of foreign military bases perpetuates empire — an ongoing form of colonialism that robs Indigenous people of their lands. From Guam to Puerto Rico to Okinawa to dozens of other locations across the world, the military has taken valuable land from local populations, often pushing out Indigenous people in the process, without their consent and without reparations. 



Each base has its own story of injustice and destruction, impacting the local economy, community, and environment. The U.S. military has a notorious legacy of sexual violence, including kidnapping, rape, and murders of women and girls. Yet U.S. troops abroad are often afforded impunity for their crimes due to Status of Forces Agreements (SOFAs) with the so-called “host” country. 



Status of Forces Agreements (SOFAs) also often exempt U.S. foreign military bases from adhering to local environmental regulations. The construction of bases has caused irreparable ecological damage, such as the destruction of coral reefs and the environment for endangered species in Henoko, Okinawa. Furthermore, it is well documented at hundreds of sites around the world that military bases leach toxic so-called “forever chemicals” into local water supplies, which has had devastating health consequences for nearby communities.



Over 40 speakers from around the world will address the social, ecological, economic, and geopolitical impacts of U.S. military bases in their regions, plus the powerful stories of nonviolent resistance to prevent, close, and convert bases to peacetime uses.


WHEN: Friday, September 20 - Sunday, September 22, 2024, in honor of the International Day of Peace (September 21)


WHERE: Online on Zoom and live in 4 locations: Sydney, Australia; Wanfried, Germany; Bogotá, Colombia; and Washington, DC, USA


The #NoWar2024 Conference is being organized by World BEYOND War and has been sponsored or endorsed by over 60 organizations. More information at https://worldbeyondwar.org/nowar2024/

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ISRAELI TREATMENT OF PALESTINIANS REMAINS UNCHANGED OVER 75 YEARS

by Melvin Goodman

The Biden administration’s decision to continue funding the notorious Netzah Yehuda battalion, an ultra-Orthodox unit that operates on the West Bank, is the latest indication that the United States is unwilling to take any steps to counter Israel’s genocidal campaign against the Palestinians. The funding of the battalion marks a major defeat for the human rights experts in the Departments of State and Defense, who argued that Netzah Yehuda should be barred from receiving U.S. support. This marks one more decision by Secretary of State Antony Blinken that ignores the need for accountability with regard to the barbarous actions of the Israeli Defense Forces.

The Netzah Yehuda battalion is particularly violent in dealing with the Palestinian community. The battallion has killed unarmed civilians and suspects in custody as well as committed sexual assault and torture. it has attracted many members of an extreme religious-nationalist settler group infamous for establishing illegal outposts on Palestinian land that have no legal basis in Israeli law. In recent years, the Netzah Yehuda battalion has been involved in at least a half-dozen controversial cases involving its soldiers, resulting in jail time, discharge, or harsh criticism for assaulting or killing innocent Palestinians.

U.S. funding of the battalion is a violation of the Leahy Law, passed in 1997, that prohibits the Departments of State and Defense from providing military assistance to foreign security force units that violate human rights. U.S. embassies and the appropriate regional bureaus of the Department of State vet potential recipients of security assistance. If a unit is found to have been credibly implicated in a serious abuse of human rights, assistance is denied until the host nation government takes effective steps to bring the responsible persons within the unit to justice. As a result, security forces and national defense units in Bangladesh, Bolivia, Columbia, Guatemala, and Mexico have been denied assistance in the past. The United States, of course, plays by different rules when it comes to military support for Israel.

Even before Blinken made his unfortunate decision regarding the battalion, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu obnoxiously proclaimed that “if anyone thinks they can impose sanctions on a unit of the IDF—I will fight it with all my strength.” U.S. presidents have been unwilling to stand up to Netanyahu who has led six of the eleven different Israeli governments over the past 28 years. This funding decision is particularly reprehensible because the battalion was responsible for the death of a 78-year-old American citizen whose stress-induced heart attack was brought on by being bound, gagged, and left on the ground by Israeli forces. Netanyahu’s government prosecuted no one in this case.

One of the more feckless U.S. moves regarding the war in Gaza was President Biden’s decision to deliver humanitarian aid to the Palestinians via a floating military pier. U.S. officials in the Departments of State and Defense argued that the weather conditions in the Mediterranean would compromise any effort to make the pier workable. The critics were right. They wanted the Biden administration to put pressure on Israel to open land crossings for aid, but Biden refused to do so. As a result, the pier was attached to Gaza’s coast line in May and abandoned in July.

Israeli officials maintain that they are allowing aid into Gaza, but the aid is going in slowly and humanitarian conveys are still being attacked. A UN vehicle, clearly marked, was attacked several days ago and Palestinian aid workers were killed. Meanwhile, more than 560 schools in Gaza have been hit or destroyed, and numerous shelters have been attacked. This points to the moral squalor of Israeli public declarations that deny the targeting of humanitarian missions.

In order to understand the Arab-Israeli conflict (and perhaps appreciate U.S. complicity), it helps to remember the first Israeli edicts against its Palestinian population more than 75 years ago. With the creation of the state of Israel, the Knesset adopted the British Defense Regulations that enabled Israeli military authorities to close off the Arab areas and restrict entry and exit only to those with permits. Every Arab inhabitant had to apply to the military government office or to the police in his/her district to obtain a permit to leave his/her village for whatever reason.

The Knesset added its own restrictions to the British regulations. These enabled the Israelis to deport people from their towns or villages and to summon any person to present himself at a police station or to remain confined to his/her house. Any Arab could be placed under administrative arrest for an unlimited time, without explanation and without trial. Violators were tried by military courts and not civilian ones; this is still true today on the West Bank. Tom Segev, one of Israel’s most distinguished historians, noted in his important book, “1949: The First Israelis,” that “among the soldiers and officers sent to rule over the Arabs were ones who had been found unfit for active service.” They were vengeful, which is true today on the West Bank. Segev is associated with Israel’s New Historians, a group challenging many of the country’s traditional narratives.

Another distinguished Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe, recorded in his book, “Ten Myths About Israel,” that the discussion of the forced transfer of the Arab population in Palestine began even before Israel received its independence in 1948. The discussions evolved into a master plan for the massive expulsion of Palestinians, which was known as Plan Delat. Pappe notes that the Israeli Foreign Ministry created the myth that the Palestinians became refugees because their leaders told them to leave Palestine before the “Arab armies invaded and kicked out the Jews.”

The continued violence in Gaza and the renewed violence on the West Bank points to a dark future for the Middle East, particularly for Israel, Lebanon, and the Palestinian community. Israel has become increasingly isolated in the international community, and the ultra nationalism of the right wing is increasingly dominating Israeli politics. For the past thirty years, the Israelis have hidden behind false gestures of support for a two-state solution and now the possibility of a cease fire in Gaza in order to maintain military and economic support from the United States. Sadly, it is working, and Israel shows no interest in pursuing any alternative to an endless war.

(Melvin A. Goodman is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and a professor of government at Johns Hopkins University. A former CIA analyst, Goodman is the author of Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA and National Insecurity: The Cost of American Militarism. and A Whistleblower at the CIA. His most recent books are “American Carnage: The Wars of Donald Trump” (Opus Publishing, 2019) and “Containing the National Security State” (Opus Publishing, 2021). Goodman is the national security columnist for counterpunch.org.)

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THE LETTER OF THE LAW

by Clinton T. Duffy, Warden, San Quentin State Prison, 1950

One of our lifers was Jerry Selz, a remarkable combination of brains and brawn. He proved his readiness to rejoin the society of free men and women. He was doing a life term for the murder of a Woodside widow named Ada French Bice in June of 1935. Mrs. Bice owned quite a bit of property in the Bay Area, and, after persuading her to deed it to him, Selz killed her with a fireplace poker and buried her body in a secluded spot near San Mateo. He got a job in a San Mateo gas station, where he was arrested nine months later. He said Mrs. Bice died by accident and led police to her body.

Jerry was a magnificent athlete. He organized a tumbling team at San Quentin after I became warden and trained each member himself. They put on a spectacular show for prison visitors, with Jerry as the key man. He could balance half a dozen men on his shoulders in acrobatic pyramids, and his high-pole tumbling acts were sensational.

A physical-culture enthusiast. Jerry exercised vigorously at every opportunity and was always recruiting others to work out with him. He asked for food that would help build his body and consumed as much meat as he could get. He was an excellent prisoner and a fine influence on other inmates.

After a while I had Jerry assigned to my home and gave him a sleepout in a small building near by. where the boiler plant was. He had the job of taking care of it and the prison automobiles and was also a general handyman.

He did a good job, for he was as thorough in his work as in his play. Some of our friends who remembered his trial, which had been well-publicized in the Bay Area several years before, thought it was unwise for us to be in such close contact with an admitted killer. Others were afraid that Jerry might try to escape, which would have been comparatively easy for him. He worked alone, and he wouldn't have been missed for hours if he decided to leave.

But both my wife Gladys and I had confidence in him, and he never did anything to make us regret it. There was an air-raid alert at about midnight one dark night, soon after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. It was in the early days of blackouts, and everyone around San Quentin was a little nervous. I wanted to be at the prison in case anything happened there. It was a lovely evening and Gladys walked with me to the end of the terrace by our house.

After I left her, she started back home, strolling along through the pitch black. There wasn't a light in sight, and she had to feel her way along. When she reached the steps of the house, someone said softly, “Mrs. Duffy?”

Startled for an instant, Gladys relaxed when she recognized the voice. “Oh hello. Jerry,” she said.

The two chatted in the dark for a few moments. Suddenly a full yellow moon appeared from behind the hills to the east, casting a soft glow across the bay. Fascinated, my wife stood with Jerry Selz, a man strong enough to have killed her with one blow, and gazed at a sight which she still remembers as one of the most beautiful she has ever seen. Not once did it occur to her to be afraid, and not once did it occur to Jerry to harm her. After a few minutes they bade each other good night, and Gladys went back into the house.

Later, when she described the scene to a guest, her friend exclaimed, “You mean you stood in that blackout alone with a killer?”

“No,” said Gladys. “I stood there with our handyman.”

On my recommendation, Jerry was eventually transferred to Chino, where the life was easier and there were fewer restrictions. His mother lived nearby and she could visit him more frequently. For some months he did as well at Chino as he had at San Quentin. Some time after he arrived he volunteered for a job working on a truck. The men wore army fatigues, and Jerry was very proud of his, since he had wanted to join up ever since Pearl Harbor.

One day, while riding along several miles from Chino, Jerry slid off the truck and was picked up by military police. They sent him to Camp Hahn, from where they thought he was AWOL. When it was determined that he didn't belong there, the Army turned him loose. Jerry hitchhiked north, and when he got across the border, he joined the Canadian Army.

He served with distinction, setting up an efficient physical-fitness program for recruits. With his education and intelligence he was soon in a position of responsibility. There seems little doubt that he might eventually have become an officer if given the opportunity.

But California had never given up the chase for Jerry, and he was finally caught. He readily admitted his identity but, with the backing of Canadian Army authorities, he fought extradition. Even though they now knew that Jerry was an escaped convict, they were quite willing to keep him because of the excellent job he had done.

I was in favor of letting him stay in Canada, and if Jerry hadn't escaped from another prison, I might have been able to do so. But I had no control over what happened at Chino. All I could do was appeal to the Prison Board to give Jerry a break by allowing him to stay in the Canadian Army. However, he had violated a trust, and, while it was admitted that he had proved his ability to make good on the outside, it was decided to have him brought back to California.

Jerry returned to San Quentin, where he had to start all over again. Soon after he arrived I left there to join the Adult Authority. Under Harley O. Teets, who succeeded me as warden, and Fred Dickson, who succeeded Teets, Jerry did well enough to work himself back into a position of trust. He was again assigned to the prison fire department and again had a sleepout.

But Jerry had lost his drive and his spirit and his ambition. He still went through the motions of trying to keep in physical condition, but his heart wasn't in it any more. He once enjoyed status and importance at San Quentin, now he was becoming just another garrulous old-timer whose days of glory were far behind. He harbored no resentments and was as good a prisoner then as he had been in his youth, but fundamentally he was a beaten man.

There were still people who were convinced that Jerry Selz was potentially dangerous and would be a menace if he had been released. They point to his conviction and his prison escape to prove it. If Jerry were ever to have been considered for parole, they would have done all they could to stop him from getting one.

It is unfortunate that he had to spend the rest of his life in prison, for Jerry was a good citizen in the years that followed his escape, and I'm sure he would have remained one. It's too bad the letter of the law got in his way.

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