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.
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)
THE APPOINTMENT of Dina Polkinghorne as KZYX is a step forward for Public Radio, Mendocino County. She had been the director of the crucial Project Sanctuary for many years, an emotionally trying job the smart and vivacious Ms. Polkinghorne managed at the same time she kept Sanctuary fiscally afloat. Public radio is experiencing the same tumult as the rest of media as people go to their telephones for all their information of the great world beyond Zuckerburg, and the info they find in their phones is pre-selected by them for their preferred sources, few of which are what you might call catholic, or beyond confirmation of the reader's existing biases. KZYX being NPR-heavy, and heavy on audio tedium, Ms. P will be severely tested, fer shure.
NOTES from 19th century Ecotopia: A white woman who was scalped and left for dead along the Humboldt River in 1857 recovered, found her scalp and had a wig made from the hair. Immigrant Italian women were so scarce in the state in 1858 that 300 Italian miners walked nine miles to see one. A Trinity County tombstone read: “Here lies the body of Maggie McGinnity / Who lived all her life in the county of Trinity / She lived 85 years and she kept her virginity / Which is kind of a record for this here vicinity.”
A READER WRITES: “When Hollywood gets around to making a movie of the Bari Bombing, I suggest Gene Hackman play you, Bruce; that Billy Joel is cast as Irv Sutley; Renee Zellweger as the young Judi Bari, Kathy Bates as the older Bari; Arnold Schwarzenegger as Bill Staley; Randy Quaid or Quentin Tarantino as Mike Sweeney; John Rhys-Davies or Ben Stiller as Darryl Cherney; and any two NFL tackles as Tanya Brannan and Noelle Hanrahan.”
“WHAT DO YOU THINK of gay marriages?” the caller demanded. Well, I said, I think we all ought to be guaranteed civil protections without going to all the trouble and expense of tuxedos and wedding cakes, but the issue’s kinda off my screen, frankly. I really don’t care who marries whom, but if it’s the only way for some people to get those civil protections, more power to them. “Do you mean you think it’s ok if little naked fags lead big naked fags around on dog chains in public?” Seldom happens in Boonville, I replied, but most of us would probably enjoy the spectacle if it did. “Faggot,” he said, and hung up.
BUMPERSTICKER spotted in Philo: “Animals don’t like GMO foods.” Oh yeah? Who did the survey?
A UKIAH KID got in trouble for issuing “a terrorist threat.” He told a teacher to bleep off. That wasn’t the terrorist threat. But when he added, “and die,” it became one. When I was a kid (groan) a comment like that to a teacher or any other adult got the kid a fast pass to the nut house, but now? A political offense, and a routine one at that.
I KNOW this is pretty far afield, cranky even, but why do so many young women talk like The Chipmunks? And why do so many people of all the many genders talk through their noses? And grown women who talk like little girls, like the news reader on NPR mornings, really shouldn't be in the audio news biz, not to mention the screeching blondes on Fox. Can we get some voice modulation going in this country, please? Mandatory. And Miss Manners for both sexes might be a good instructional idea, too.
SPEAKING OF FOX, Thursday morning the screeching blondes and tough guys were denouncing Kamala as a “San Francisco liberal” which, I guess, is not quite as bad as a “Berkeley communist,” which she was called on NewsMax the other day. NewsMax, btw, is for people who think Fox “is too far to the left.”
YEAH, I tune in Fox and NewsMax regularly to see what's agitating the fascists. Lesson learned? The gulf between the sane — me and ava readers — and the violently hysterical is wider by the day.
DAVID SVEHLA (San Francisco):
SF’s 43 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.
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.
SKUNK SKUNKED
Federal District Court declines to consider state court’s ruling that the Skunk Train is subject to local rules and regs…
“…The panel affirmed the district court’s judgment dismissing Mendocino Railway’s federal lawsuit against the City of Fort Bragg and the California Coastal Commission under the Colorado River doctrine, which authorizes federal courts to refrain from exercising jurisdiction where there are parallel state court proceedings.
“The Railway has resisted the City’s and Commission’s efforts to regulate the use and maintenance of Railway properties in the City. The City filed a state court action seeking declaratory and injunctive relief requiring the Railway to comply with local laws regulating the use and maintenance of Railway properties in the City. The Railway asserted that the declaratory and injunctive relief sought by the City were barred by state and federal preemption. The Railway subsequently filed this federal action, seeking a declaration that the actions of the City and the Commission to regulate the Railway were preempted, and an injunction preventing the City and the Commission from interfering with the Railway’s operations.
“… The forum shopping and piecemeal litigation considerations strongly favor dismissal, and the order in which the forums obtained jurisdiction also supports that outcome.
https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2024/08/29/23-15857.pdf
THE POLITICS OF JOY got off to a bad start with CNN’s lob ball interview with Kamala Harris the other night. The optics were way off, what with The Coach sitting next to the candidate like she couldn't be trusted to talk without dad riding shotgun. Wasn't it Hubert Humphrey who repped “the politics of joy” during his campaign against Nixon? (Nixon, incidentally, accurately assessed Humphrey as “a jibbering idiot.” Like the Kennedy Assasination files, lots of the Nixon tapes are still kept away from the public.) Kamala is not impressive. She comes off as silly and inarticulate, but she's up against preposterous and unthinkable so she's got a shot at the big job, as many of US and the rest of the world looks on aghast.
THE DAY I almost met a movie star she’d stopped by with her long ago boyfriend for a visit, the former boyfriend being Kevin Burke, the talented and charming expat Brit who lives in Philo. Kevin had introduced the visitor as “Julie,” who'd won me instantly when she said, “I love your paper.” I said, “Nice to meet ya, Julie.” Kevin and Julie sat down for brief chat, an exchange of the usual cliched pleasantries. Kevin soon said he and Julie had to be on their way, and that was that. The next morning, my wife remarked, “I think that lady who was here yesterday with Kevin was Julie Christie.” Julie Christie, the movie star?, I asked, startled. No way. Yes, my wife replied, Julie Christie the movie star. She’s a good friend of Kevin’s from way back. It had occurred to me that “Julie” had looked kinda un-Boonville, if you get my drift, but being old and harried and generally distracted, I hadn’t thought one more thought about “Julie.” For all I knew she was some upscale babe the charming Burke just met at the Boonville Hotel, and for whatever reason had dragged the poor thing to my house to show her some of the local savages. Like the rest of the world, I'd loved the two Julie Christie movies I’d seen. She was great in ‘Shampoo’ and ‘McCabe and Mrs. Miller.’ Darn! If I’d known “Julie” was Julie Christie, I could have bored her for at least ten minutes telling her how much I’d liked the only two things I’d ever seen her in. Julie Christie! In Boonville! In my garage sale living room! I’ll be darned.
THE L.A. COUNTY Board of Supervisors long ago approved a plan aimed at helping troubled families keep their children at home rather than consigning the children of the poor into the failed foster home system. A state report had revealed that California counties earned more money in state and federal reimbursements placing children in foster homes than counties earned maintaining the child in his or her natural home. The fact that the typical dependent child spends his joyless youth bouncing from foster home to foster home until at the magic age of 18 when he’s shoved out the door because he no longer has cash value had provoked the attention of reformers who argued it made more sense to put the money into the kid's family rather than soul destroying foster homes and group homes.
HERE IN ‘LIBERAL’ MENDOCINO COUNTY, dependent children provide handsome livings for an array of helping professionals, including two ad hoc non-profits called TLC and Tapestry. The way it works: The county’s Department of Social Services basically sub-leases the kids to these two nebulous outfits who, in return for a large hunk of public money, place the funding unit, er, the child, in foster homes they recruit and fund, thus adding another layer of well-paid persons living off the misery of children.
I SELDOM READ press releases unless the first sentence promises satiric possibilities. We used to get lots and lots of self-satirizing pressers advertising certain charlatans who were big draws among the Northcoast's more credulous citizens. There's something about redwoods and the ocean that prompts, among the loosely tethered, an immediate shutdown of the critical faculties. Julia Butterfly, literally out of her tree, is still out there on the Credulity Circuit. Starhawk? Interesting case. The old girl was a commie who realized early that nobody paid to listen to her talk about surplus value when she could do a Rasputin and live a life of ease talking “spirituality” to purple people at hippie festivals, as she did a couple of times in Boonville. Both the above used to pack ‘em in in Mendo under the auspices of the justly defunct Alliance For Democracy, in theory a reality-based political group. And there wasn’t a structure in the county that could hold the crowd that would turn out to hear Ram Dass. Ukiah? So much as a whisper of “An Evening of Pure Bullshit with Michael and Justine Toms, and the Ukiah PD would have to call the CHP for help with crowd control. These days, only musical groups draw the mobs, which seems to be a lateral move, intellectually speaking, but a tiny step forward.
FROM THE UKIAH DAILY JOURNAL of Wednesday, March 7, 1979, courtesy Jody Martinez: “Tavern owner jailed. Hopland. The owner of the Keg Cafe on Highway 101 was booked into county jail for attempted murder early this morning after he apparently mistook a sheriff’s deputy for an intruder and shot at him, the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office said today. According to reports, James Otis Peeler, 58, shot through the door of The Keg at deputy Anthony Craver, 39, of Ukiah, as Craver checked the cafe for intruders at about 2am this morning. The sheriff’s office had responded to a report of a broken window at the cafe earlier in the evening, and Craver was reportedly investigating what appeared to be added damage to the building. When he approached the door of the building to see if there were signs of forced entry, a shot was fired from within, the Sheriff’s Office said. The shot reportedly missed Craver by about a foot. Deputies responding to reports of the incident found Peeler inside the cafe with a .22 caliber rifle, according to reports. He was arrested and booked into county jail for attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon. The Sheriff’s Office said Peeler was apparently guarding the cafe against any further vandalism and mistook Craver for an intruder.” Tony Craver went on from that close call to become Mendocino County Sheriff. Craver passed away last June in Idaho at the age of 85.
A FRIEND borrowed a high school history book to research an article he was writing about contemporary school books. “Am I weak or is this the heaviest textbook in the state?” he asked, deploying “heavy” as in weight, not content. Intrigued both ways, I hoisted the thing to weigh it for myself. It seemed to me not only heavy in the sense of ounces and pounds, it seemed uniquely heavy, disproportionately heavy, weirdly heavy in physical weight. So I got out the scale. “American History: The Modern Era Since 1865” came in at exactly 4 pounds 14 and one-half ounces. In terms of content, I’d say every paragraph, nay, every sentence, was at least debatable. As to the thing’s physical heft, school textbook manufacturers, like the crooks who produce college texts at high prices to students out of all proportion to production costs, textbook publishers similarly run up costs to school districts where, like as not, nobody, teacher or student, reads the books they foist off on inattentive school people.
BUMPERSTICKER spotted on a muddy pick-up in Ukiah: “Wanna come up and see my chainsaw?” And, same day, another very large bumper sticker-like decal that covered the rear window of another truck reading, “Phillipians 4:13” Hmmm. Very tricky, this one. The person responsible knows the average person, even the average Bible-reading person, is not going to know what exactly Phillipians 4:13 says, but a few people will scurry home to research the family Bible.
I REMEMBERED that Phillipians had something to do with the Apostle Paul, but my memory petered out there. But I was curious, as the dude sporting Phil had anticipated and maybe hoped. As soon as I got back to Boonville, I went directly to my Old Testament to see what the heck 4:13 advises, and it occurred to me that I was probably one of many locals similarly impelled.
PHILIPPIANS 4:13. “I can do everything through Him who gives me strength.” Which seems a lot like bragging, especially if you print it in great big block letters on the rear window of your vehicle. Matthew 6:1-6 is more along the lines of what Jesus and God The Father seem to have had in mind: “Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen as one of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men.” And so on. In other words, do good but keep yer piety to yourself, which is sound advice no matter who it comes from, especially in these self-aggrandizing times.
TRUE TO FORM, Trump has now taken to calling Kamala Harris “low IQ” and “stupid,” racist tropes he draws on whenever he’s confronted by minorities, women or both. But for all her faults, Harris isn’t stupid. In fact, she’s demonstrated her ability to swiftly master and deftly deploy the finer points of Clintonian triangulation, the strategy of political bait-and-switch that prioritizes running against the core issues held by her own party, even policies she once enthusiastically promoted as signature features of her own previous campaigns. Pulling this off required some pretty adroit political gymnastics, where Harris had to completely reverse herself without showing the strain over long-held positions on fracking, immigration, asylum, a human rights-based foreign policy, student loan forgiveness, torture, the death penalty, and a single-payer health care system. But she sold these policy retreats so smoothly that the Democratic base eagerly embraced her politics of joyful austerity and genocide with a smile.
(Jeffrey St. Clair)
NURSE LOUISE STILL LOOKING
I thank you all for your responses and well wishes. I've looked at several places, but no go. Either way out my price range or just too shabby. And I give thanks to this outlet for helping me get the word out. So contact me if something else comes up. 937-4837. Many thanks. Louise Mariana
NO MATTER how many warnings that the ocean can be dangerous, every year someone is carried off. Maurizio Biasini is certainly among the most memorable victims. Biasini's remains were found by a hiker at Jughandle on Christmas day on the beach at Jughandle State Park, about six miles north of the Mendocino Headlands where Biasini was washed out to sea on Thanksgiving weekend, 2008. An Italian national working in the United States as a visiting scholar in physics, Biasini, with his horrified family looking on, was overcome by a huge wave when he climbed over the bluffs at Mendocino for a closer look at a rock formation. Waving frantically for help as the powerful surf carried him farther and farther offshore, his frantic wife and sons looking on, Biasini was visible for some hundred yards until he disappeared forever. His twin sons, 18, were so distraught at what they perceived as the tardy response of rescue teams, they had to be subdued by Sheriff's deputies who feared that the boys, and the people attempting to calm them at the edge of the bluffs, might also fall into the sea.
Sons Arrested In Scuffle With Police (The Ukiah Daily Journal)
A San Francisco man was swept off the Mendocino Headlands Saturday afternoon during a family outing with his wife and 18-year-old twin sons. A scuffle with police during the rescue efforts resulted in a California Highway Patrol officer using a taser on one of the sons and Sheriff's deputies putting both under arrest.
Presumed lost at sea is 54-year-old Maurizio Biasini, of San Francisco. According to CHP Sgt. Jim Kerr, a 911 call went out after Maurizio Biasini was swept off the Mendocino Headlands by a rogue wave at around 1:45 p.m. Once rescuers from the Mendocino Fire Department, the Mendocino County Sheriff's Department, the Coast Guard and Cal Fire arrived, it was clear that the only possible search and rescue operation would have to be done from the air, not from shore, explained Kerr.
In the meantime the twin sons, Dario and Andriano Biasini were frantic about their father as some 50 or so onlookers began to gather at the scene. Kerr said the CHP went to the scene after a call for law enforcement assistance because, according to the request, the “lookee-loos are hampering the rescue effort.” At some point around 2:15 p.m., Dario and Andriano apparently began to argue with rescuers, because they believed there wasn't enough being done to find and rescue their father.
Law enforcement stepped in to try to calm the two men but, according to Kerr, the twins got into a pushing match with Sheriff's Deputy Jesse Van Wormer near the cliff's edge and CHP Officer Thad Williams stepped in to try to stop it. A video of the incident shows Dario wrestling with a Sheriff's deputy near the cliff edge and Andriano pushing and waving other rescuers away and appearing to get involved in the struggle. Williams tries to get Dario to stop the fighting and appears to taser Dario in the arm which momentarily immobilizes him after which he was told to stay put on the ground, but Dario began to get up and Officer Williams used his taser on him again. Meanwhile Dep. Van Wormer and one of the emergency medical technicians at the scene were able to get Andriano under control and handcuffed.
Both Dario and Andriano were arrested but cited and released. No prosecution is expected. Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman said that he can understand that the twins were upset having had their father just swept away to sea.
“Our hearts are very much with the family, we offer our condolences, this is a very unfortunate situation,” Allman said.
Ocean Claims Bay Area Visitor by Tony Reed, Mendocino Beacon -
Coast rescue agencies searched for hours but were unable to find Maurizio Biasini, 52, of San Francisco, who fell into the ocean from the Mendocino Headlands Saturday afternoon.
According to Sheriff's Office reports, a 9-1-1 caller reported that a man was climbing on the cliffs when he fell about 20 feet into the ocean. Although the surf was high and conditions severe, rumors that a rogue wave swept Biasini from the cliff could not be substantiated.
Mendocino Volunteer Fire Department, along with State Parks rangers and Highway Patrol officers, arrived on the headlands off the west end of Main Street minutes after the call.
The emergency response attracted dozens of people in Mendocino and along the bluffs. Mendocino Volunteer Fire Department blocked the west end of Main Street to traffic during the rescue operation. Within minutes, crowds of people clustered along the headlands and Main Street to watch, shielding their eyes from the afternoon sun.
According to Mendocino Fire Chief Danny Hervilla, Biasini was seen flailing in the water shortly after he fell, but was floating face down minutes later.
Hervilla said his department had two JetSki operators in the water to assist the Coast Guard's 47-foot lifeboat. During the early part of the search, a Sonoma County Sheriff's Department helicopter was in the area, and was summoned to help search. A Coast Guard helicopter from McKinleyville was called and searched the bay until late Saturday afternoon. Calls to Coast Guard sources were not returned as of press time.
All agencies searched the bay until nightfall.
“I'd been warning people not to go in the water," said Hervilla, adding that the department has conducted rescues Thanksgiving weekend in previous years, due to the holiday and the end of abalone season. He said seas are typically rougher this time of year. On Saturday, swells reached 14 feet at 18 seconds.
He said the conditions would have been too dangerous for a water or shore-based search effort.
"We did a thorough surface search," he said, "but the conditions were too treacherous for divers."
He said the response from involved agencies was good, but by the time emergency personnel arrived, the victim had been spotted floating face-down.
"And they had a good response time," he said, "but it happened so quickly."
A Tense Situation
In a video circulating the Internet, Biasini's 18-year-old distraught twin sons, Adriano and Dario, can be seen struggling with law enforcement only feet away from a cliff over the ocean shortly after the search began.
In the video, Deputy Jesse VanWormer can be seen wrestling with Dario before grabbing his feet and pulling him away from the bluff's edge.
Highway Patrol Officer Thad Williams used his Taser to incapacitate Dario, while Deputy VanWormer and a paramedic held Adriano. The video ends before the conflict reaches resolution.
Sheriff's Lt. Rusty Noe said both men calmed down and were cited for obstructing or delaying a peace officer and released. Both sons are San Francisco residents.
"We could have had a lot more victims really fast," said Sheriff's Lt. Dennis Bushnell, noting that the location of the struggle was directly over the edge of the rough surf.
Tuesday morning, Lt. Bushnell said he had spoken by phone with Biasini's wife and sons, who were back in the Bay Area.
Since Biasini is an Italian citizen, the Sheriff's Office has been contacted by the Italian Consulate General's Office.
News of the search for Biasini was printed in the Romagna Oggi newspaper, published in Forli, Italy. According to the Oggi, Biasini is the son of Oddo Biasini, Italy's former Minister of Cultural Assets. Biasini, a professor of physics at University of California Riverside, was still listed on the university's Website staff page Tuesday.
Search Continues
A Sheriff's Search and Rescue dive team searched the area Tuesday morning. By the afternoon, no results had been reported.
While walking on the headlands less than an hour after the search began, this reporter overheard rumors being circulated that a surfer had drowned in the rough surf and that rescue personnel had called off their search. Neither of which have any truth whatsoever.
Associated Press:
Mendocino, Calif. — Authorities believe they may have found the body of a San Francisco professor who fell from the Mendocino Headlands last month. A hiker found human remains on rocks at the water's edge Thursday afternoon. The spot at Jug Handle State Natural Reserve is only six miles north of the place where Maurizio Biasini fell from a cliff Nov. 29 during a family outing.
Mendocino County Sheriff's Lt. Rusty Noe says a scrap of clothing suggests the remains could belong to the 52-year-old Biasini, but further testing must be done to confirm the identity.
Biasini was a native of Italy who taught physics at the University of California, Riverside.
A SECOND SAD SEA STORY
AVA News Service
SUNDAY (January 11, 2008) about noon a boy’s basketball team from St. Theresa’s Catholic School in South Lake Tahoe made their way down the goat-like trails traversing the precipitous cliff face of Headlands Point Way, Caspar, to the sliver of sand at the foot of a 100 feet of sheer rock.
Three years ago a 72-year-old woman from Sacramento, walking alone on the public trail above this very same spot, had fallen into the crashing seas below and had drowned. Or died from hypothermia. If the one doesn’t get you, the other soon will because the Headlands Point waters are always roiling, are very cold, and they’re deceptively deep. The seductively tranquil bluffs above belie the oceanic turbulence at the foot of the sheer 100-foot cliff separating land and sea.
THE PUBLIC TRAIL the old lady had been walking on is literal inches from the bluff top’s straight drop to the beach, if a two by four of sand can be called a beach. After her death, nearby residents erected their own warning signs: “You only fall off the bluffs once.” There are no warnings anywhere on the Mendocino Coast to alert the landlocked that sleeper waves can carry them off at any time — low tide, high tide, ebb tide, neep tide, full tide.
THE STRIP of sand at the foot of Headlands Point Way, that narrow band of now you see it, now you don’t sand, that part-time beach, lies at the foot of as precipitous and as forbidding a hundred feet of rock as you’ll see anywhere between Big Sur and the Sinkyone. It disappears entirely at high tides and not so high tides, and it's always virtually inaccessible. Only the agile dare try the threads of trail leading down to the sand on the days there is sand at the foot of the cliff.. But even at medium tides like that terrible basketball team Sunday, only the foolish or the very young would climb down for a close-up look at the tide pools. High seas, high tides or sudden sleeper waves can, as they did Sunday, trap whomever happens to be caught between the water and the cliff face; there are no escape routes once the water hits. One either makes one’s frantic way to one of the huge rocks marking the last pieces of upthrust earth between Caspar and Hawaii, or one dies.
THE YOUNG BASKETBALL PLAYERS from South Lake Tahoe, their coaches and some of their parents, were staying only a few yards away from Sunday’s catastrophe in the plush comfort of a rented Caspar home. The boys were in the area to compete in a junior high school basketball tournament in the nearby village of Mendocino.
SUNDAY NOON, as the boys poked around the tide pools below the bluff that marks the end of Headlands Point Way, a very large wave suddenly crashed over them, dragging two boys into the surf and out towards the open sea. Two men accompanying the boys, one a chaperone, the other the father of one of the basketball players who was not harmed, immediately swam out to the boys, now struggling in the suddenly hostile waters. The two men helped the boys to what they’d hoped would be the temporary safety of one of those large, looming, last rocks, a slippery, steep hunk of sea stone, but absolutely the final chance at life anywhere between the ocean and dry land. But as big and as welcoming as it must have seemed to the four drowning visitors, that slick rock is no life boat.
AS THE TWO MEN and the two rescued boys climbed onto what they’d hoped would be their life raft until help arrived, perhaps glancing yearningly back at the scant trails leading to the final safety of the serene, suburban-like cul de sac maybe thirty yards east of them, a second sleeper wave washed the two boys and one of their adult rescuers from the slick of stone they thought had saved them. One of the boys and the man disappeared into the water. The second boy somehow made his way to shore, as did the second adult male.
WHEN EMERGENCY PERSONNEL found Michael Blank Jr., 14, and Phillip Joe Smith, 56, they were floating face down not far from shore. The Mendocino Fire Department and the Coast Guard deployed a helicopter and a rescue boat to retrieve the two victims and the surviving boy stranded at the foot of the cliff. All three were transported to Mendocino Coast District Hospital in Fort Bragg where attempts to revive Smith and young Blank failed. The surviving boy, Johnathan Camello, 13, was flown by medical helicopter to Santa Rosa where he was released in good condition Monday afternoon.
FORT BRAGG FOREVER, a dialog
Howard Pollack (Coast Chatline): I noticed a large "Fort Bragg Forever" sign outside of the Company Store. Does anyone know who put that up? And, what is it trying to say?
Anon: It's a non-subtle way to say "we're happy to remain racist with the name of our town.” Though they will all deny it, that is in fact the impact of those signs. Besides - if it were in fact "forever,” it would be using the original Pomo words for this place. Now, let the games begin!
Al Nunez: So anyone that doesn't care to have the town name changed is racist? Do you think that anyone or any place that flies the American flag are racists also? WOW!
Frank Hartzell: I personally oppose name change on three fronts. 1. The Fort Bragg city council spent a year studying it and found Indigenous folks have a wide variety of opinion. The general idea was that more Pomo and other Native history should be celebrated more. There is a big celebration coming up on the Noyo Headlands. The Democratic process addressed this and found name change not to be the solution. 2. There are at least 10,000 better things for Progressives to do and yet this has absorbed a community once dedicated to far more important issues like local farming, homelessness, keeping medical services on the Coast, relocalizing the economy, working with the city council to enact things like inclusiveness, dealing with global warming, buying local, making stuff locally, on and on and on. Not this. 3. I most strongly oppose this because to me it’s a disease as great as any in 2024: the present is always better. We are above that kind of thing that went on back there. NO WE ARE NOT. Look at where we are morally. We hate immigrants and the poor as a nation. We worship a proud liar who has been found responsible of sexual assualt in a court of law. Drugs and alcohol abuse and obestiy (got me on that one) are destroying us. It takes zero courage to oppose the idiot Braxton Bragg. The man was a fool, cuckold and the worst general in US history, so bad the other Confederate generals mutinied after he lost yet another battle due to incompetence and fellow idiot Jefferson Davis had to come save him, making old Braxtiel his personal secretary for the rest of the war. If you want something that would make a differnce and save the world, start a stop shopping on Amazon campaign. Or go out and picket fast food. I remember the story of a Quaker man who put his affairs in order, took his Bible and one extra suit of clothes and went to the South and preached on the street corner about the evils of slavery. He was lynched as he knew he would be. It takes no courage to do that now. Try opposing the greed economy, support tarifs on China (even if from our man above) and oppose more gas stations. 4. I believe we should celebrate Braxton with a fools festival in Fort Bragg. Braxxie is the head fool, scared of his wife, full of foolish bluster and marching about with oversized clown shoes and a big top hat. He is crowned head fool at the end, only to plummet into the water tank or something such Everyone could come as their favorite fool and it could all raise money for education and Native American efforts.
Ruby Gold:
I saw the sign Thursday for the first time.
When I try to understand why someone did something, my first way in is to ask how it made me feel.
For this I’m pretty sure the sign is a big fat f+$%k you to anyone who wants to reject the racism/misogyny of the confederacy and to Our Indigenous Community specifically.
I had the same experience about a week ago when I was about to go into the small coffee chop near the Botanical Gardens (name?). As I was about to go in I saw the same sign. It felt like a slap in the face and again f%^&&K you.
Seemed oddly unnecessary to be so hostile to to a potential customer.
I turned around and left.
Names and Naming Matters
David Alden: Oh, I vote for naming ourselves after the Bragg line of seasoning seasoning salts. That way when people ask what my town is named for I can proudly look like an absolute fool instead of a racist fool.
RALPH NADER: “Take the promises ‘for the people’ by Kamala Harris with a grain of salt. Even if sincere, she knows the realities of a corporate Congress and a corporate Supreme Court. Consider the emphatic promise by Joe Biden in 2020: ‘No more drilling on federal lands. Period. Period. Period. Period.’ Now, the Washington Post reports: ‘The Biden administration has now outpaced the Trump administration in approving permits for drilling on public lands.’ Period!”
WALTER KIRN: What’s amazing to me is that especially if you’re on the left or if you’re a Democrat, that you even are worried or concerned about who’s president. I mean, you don’t want the evil Donald Trump, of course, but the presidency itself seems to have just dissolved into a mist. I mean, it’s being administered right now by a guy who hasn’t been off the beach for two weeks and a vice president who hasn’t been in Washington. There are major conflicts going on in the world, so you can be sure decisions are being made by someone, but we don’t know who. It’s almost conventional wisdom now that the Obama machine or faction is kind of in control in some way. Had a big role in picking at least the vice president vaults and so on. So the presidency has never been more amorphous and more kind of committee-like. And yet they also have to get us into a state in which one person is all-important. That’s a strange psychological task, to convince you that the presidency is really a committee. It can just go on autopilot and maybe it should, but also it is absolutely of historic, absolute historic urgency that we nominate this one person.
ADAM GASKA: Saturday's clean up was a success! Thanks to those who came out and pitched in. Thanks to the County for helping to push out the people that were living in Gibson Creek and for supplying a dump truck to put the trash into.
This coming week I will walk the massive encampments along Ackerman Creek and the Russian River in Talmage with our Sheriff, Matt Kendall. The purpose is to assess the amount of garbage and to serve those camped out with an eviction notice prior to clean up. Anyone refusing to move on will be removed just ahead of the clean up. I estimate there to be at least 20 people camped out along the river. There's probably tens of yards of trash, possibly over 100 yards, to remove.
The tentative date for cleanup of Ackerman Creek will be Saturday, September 28th and the Russian River at Talmage will be October 12th. Again, I will be looking for support from the County in the form of hauling off the trash, the Sheriff’s office to evict the people camping, and volunteers from our community to physically remove the trash.
There will be more details to come, I just wanted to give people a heads up, especially since the next two clean ups will require more of an effort to remove the substantial amount of garbage.
It takes the entire community to make things clean and safe.
PSEUDONYMS:We try to run a reputable shop here at the cyber-ava, but fake name posts are constant and detract from our mission which, if you must ask, is to bring our readers The Truth, or at least an integrity of opinion, by which we mean opinion untethered to dogma.
IF I WERE ANON, I’d hide behind a plainer disguise, something like “Bob Jones” or “Elizabeth Forbes” rather than advertise my anonymity in see-through disguises like Zanzibar to Andalusia and Call It As I See It. With a plain disguise no one could ever know for sure you were in disguise and dismiss your opinion out of hand.
FRED GARDNER nails it: “There’s an element of self-glorification In some of these anonymous comments. As if to say, 'What I’m writing is so daring, so dangerous, I have to protect myself from retaliation.' It also enables a kind of ugly cursing, such as calling the Zionist criminals 'subhuman scum.' That’s Nazi talk.”
A RECENT CHRON posed this question to five random citizens: “Are you counting on Social Security to support you in retirement?”
The answers:
ELEANOR CHANG of Pacific Heights: “I am counting on my son, not Social Security, to support me in my old age. This practice has worked for the Chinese people for thousands of years.”
TONY MAZZA, as reality-based as Ms. Chang, said: “I am not counting on anything from the government. And retirement? What’s that? I am hoping there will be enough shopping carts to go around. I just can’t decide between a Safeway or an Albertson’s model.”
AN ELDERLY WOMAN named Claire Jarkovsky of the Western Addition: “As one who is receiving Social Security, let me be brutally honest: There is no way you can count on it to support you in retirement. It is a joke to even contemplate, and I feel very sorry for those about to retire, unless they have savings of some sort."
DAN SOLLIDAY, South of Market, age 40: “Absolutely not. It appalls me that the fix of this deficit is on people with already shallow pockets. What about getting some help from the deep pockets? We should demand accountability for this mismanagement of our money. Where does the buck stop? Apparently with me.”
FINALLY, a kid named Andrew Allio, Potrero Hill: “I haven’t thought that far into life yet. But sure. Why wouldn’t I?”
BECAUSE OF WARREN BUFFET, to name one reason why you wouldn’t want to factor in Social Security when you’re plotting your dependent years. Warren, a billionaire, joked recently, “If this is class warfare, my class is winning.” It always is, Warren.
RECOMMENDED READING for your Northcoast history files: 'So Late, So Soon,' a memoir by D’arcy Fallon. Ms. Fallon is a former reporter for the long gone SF Examiner. As a wild and crazy 18-year-old, and just before unescorted young women became hors d’oeuvres for serial killers, Ms. Fallon hitchhiked north where she alighted at a community of lunatic Christian fundamentalists just south of Eureka.
THESE weren't any old community of loons, they were special even by loon standards. These were murderous loons affiliated with the infamously murderous military regime of Guatemala’s Rios-Montt, who was inspired by this murderous Eureka-based Jesus cult to wipe out thousands of Guatemalan Indians, not to mention non-Indian dissidents and inconvenient journalists.
THE CONNECTION between Rios-Montt and the Christian killers of Lighthouse Ranch was seldom made by America’s dependably inattentive media, but it was very real. As is Ms. Fallon’s account of her experiences at Lighthouse where she was subjected to a regimen of exhausting labor among grim communards who slapped her around with Biblical admonitions over her every perceived deficiency. Which, Ms. Fallon admits, were many, as were those of the much older persons doing the admonishing.
THE AUTHOR falls in love with another youthful Christer, they marry, she comes to her senses in New York where they’d been dispatched to do the work of the Lord and bring home the bacon, the two tasks being seen as co-equal, but finds her way back to sanity in the San Francisco Bay Area, national home of the anti-Christ.
THERE ARE LOTS of very funny stories in this fascinating account of youthful folly, one of the funniest is about how the enterprising cultists raised money by selling donuts door-to-door in Eureka. They even founded a newspaper in whose pages Ms. Fallon got her start as a journalist. A very good journalist, I should say, and here’s where we’ll veer off into true confessions. I happened to know Ms. Fallon from her days at the old Examiner. The poor thing once was assigned to write a story about me. Her story made me out better than I am, but of course endeared Ms. Fallon to me. So, when I got the review copy of her book in the mail I felt obligated to read it.
I SIGHED and began, muttering to myself, “A young girl hitchhiking around California is the last goddamned thing I want to read. Hells bells, I’m getting old, and I haven’t even read Anna Karenina yet. The clock ticks, the Reaper chuckles, but here I am late in the only life I’ll ever have on an achingly beautiful day when any normal person would be outside rolling around in the sunshine….
INSTANTLY HOOKED. (1) I realized Ms. Fallon was talking about what became the Rios-Montt cult, (2) She is such a good writer I kept on turning the pages to see what would happen to her next. Would she free herself of the cult brains? Would she dump her doofus of a first love? Would some perv-o Eureka Rotarian snag her when she appeared at his door selling jelly donuts? (The author cleaned houses, worked in the garden, cooked, wrote for the paper, sold ads, irritated the pious. The jelly donuts were men’s work.)
A COUPLE of hours later I was through the whole saga, all of it interesting, all of it ending well. Except for Rios-Montt who lived swinishly on, prospering even, the kind of man who makes the godless wish for hell so he could go there. The Lighthouse crackpots are apparently still up there in Eureka, snagging lost souls and making fascists out of them. It’s an interesting account by a very smart, very funny young woman temporarily at loose ends in a country wackier and more frightening by the day.
YOU DON’T OFTEN SEE sports commentators completely lose it after a bad call. But NBC Bay Area’s sometime host Emmy-winning Carlos Ramirez’s emotional breakdown Saturday night after the Giants 4-3 loss to the Florida Marlins was one for the record books.
The second base ump had called a Marlins runner safe on a base-stealing attempt Friday night after energetically ruling that Giants shortstop Tyler Fitzgerald had blocked the runner’s sliding path to the base. The replay showed that there was a clear path for the headfirst slide after Fitzgerald moved his foot a few inches to make way for the slide which was a close play anyway.
After the game Ramirez began his commentary by complaining that the umps are unaccountable and the bad call cost the Giants the one-run game after the runner later scored. Fellow commentator and former Giants outfielder Randy Winn deadpanned that bad calls are part of the game and they can’t be reviewing every play because the game’s too slow even with the new speed up rules. This seemed to upset Ramirez even more. Then they cut away to Giants Manager Bob Melvin who told reporters that the call was questionable and that there was no obvious interference. When the camera came back to Ramirez, he was totally bereft, sitting at his announce desk with his head in his hands, shaking his head at the Giants terrible misfortune. Winn started to ask, “Do you want to …” probably wondering if they should take a break to allow Ramirez to collect himself. Ramirez, head still in hands and nearly in tears, shook his head again and emotionally waved Winn off before he finally recovered a little to note that he admired Melvin for keeping his cool after such a horrible call — in obvious contrast with Ramirez himself. Ramirez had them show the play video several more times as Ramirez got more upset. “He was out!” cried Ramirez. “He was out!” Ramirez went on at hilarious length as Winn continued to shrug his shoulders, noting that the Giants just have to suck it up and play better and not let one bad call get in their way. Ramirez wasn’t having it. He couldn’t bear the idea that the umps could cost the Giants the game, never mind that the Giants are essentially out of the wild card race and are struggling to get above .500 this year, and the rest of the world is falling apart. As entertainment, Ramirez’s crack up was great, even though it was clearly over the top. It’s fun to see an announcer come unglued once in a while. (Mark Scaramella)
A READER WRITES: The Fort Bragg Labor Day Parade was a disappointment. Too spread out and slow. But also, a lousy showing of the Labor movement (not even one sign) and for Kamala Harris. One little Prius with signs, no marchers, whereas the Repugs showed up in force. Good showing by the sports teams and cheerleaders, at least. Think I'll skip next year.
Dobie Dolphin: I was in the parade with the Noyo Center and the parade was stopped several times by the Skunk Train passing, which slowed everything down. Sorry you didn't enjoy the parade.
Frank Hartzell: My favorite was the Vaquero trick riders who were excellent this year, lots of riders and doing more tricks than usual. Lots more from the right than left. I enjoyed the parade. Big crowd! Perfect weather! Tough to get photos with the sun so bright and where it was, no clouds!
PROP 13 is among the biggest swindles in state history. What Prop 13 did back in 1978 was to lock in property taxes at 1 percent of assessed value for both corporations and homeowners while simultaneously freezing annual property valuations at increases of no more than 2 percent. Best of all for big and small property owners, especially big property owners, assessments were freeze-dried in place in '78. Local government could only raise money based on this 1978 formula. Although Prop 13 was sold as homeowner relief, in living fact it was a huge give away to corporate and private wealth at the cost of public services. The Prop 13 loophole that more than half of a property has to be sold in a single transaction means that corporations can buy and sell their property a half at a time over two years or more and their assessment doesn’t go up. Attempts to close this loophole by state proposition have failed in the past because corporate advertising convinced voters that closing it was a tax on them.
GIVEN that about a third of the one million (!) California persons locked away for non-violent crimes, a huge savings could be accomplished by releasing those prisoners admin deems harmless. It costs the state between $30,000 and $40,000 per inmate per year to keep non-violent offenders behind the walls.
SOME OF YOU may remember the late prison writer and novelist, Dannie Martin, a frequent contributor to the Boonville weekly. Martin, an unsuccessful bank robber, had spent many years locked up, and came away from the experience with firm ideas about incarceration. He recommended shorter sentences but much harder time, by which he meant no tv, limited access to phones, limited family visits, but unlimited access to prison libraries. Another prison veteran told me he thought about 20% of the prison population should never get out because they're violently incorrigible. I thought twenty percent was kinda high, but my informant said twenty percent was the consensus opinion of prison staff and inmates.
IT WAS MARSHA WHARFF and her all-female crew of Mendocino County Clerks who established for all time the reliability of the late Votomatic machine. They presided over the famous one-vote 4th District supervisor’s punch card election of 1992 between Liz Henry and Heather Drum without inspiring so much as a single beef over so much as a single dangling chad. Liz won by a single punch in a single card, overcoming by that one tiny tear in that one little Votomatic-tabulated card both liberal treachery and conservative nastiness to win a second term in office. An honest, intelligent, all-round good person, the most capable woman by far to function as a Mendo supervisor, Liz took such an emotional beating in and out of office during the eight long years she occupied the seat that she sold her house and moved away. Her experience is a textbook example of why we’re perennially short of competent people in local elected office these days.
MARSHA and Co. had the vote unofficially totaled and posted by 1am, a mere five hours after the polls closed.
THE SF CHRON’S sports writer Scott Ostler on Greens: “The Green Party insists it is encouraged by its 1% share of the vote. Now the party hopes to expand beyond its main demographic — Marin County hitchhikers.”
AS OF 2020, the latest data we can find, 79% of Mendocino County’s eligible population is registered to vote. Of those registered, about 49% are Democrats; about 21% Republican; about 24% declined to state; and about 6% “other,” mostly American Independent and Green with a few Natural Law meditators, and a sprinkling of Peace and Freedom Party dinosaurs up from La Brea for one more tilt at the political windmills.
WITH THE WEST NILE VIRUS back in the news, I remember when the county passed out free mosquito fish to the worry worts, the idea being that the fish would eat the mosquitoes that were expected to carry the West Nile to the Northcoast, cautioning citizens “not to introduce them to rivers, stock ponds, lakes or creeks.”
MOSQUITO FISH, we learned, are not only omnivorous, they’re sexually ravenous, only pausing from their perpetual meals to reproduce at something like double the rate of goldfish. I’ve maintained a horse trough of maybe 10 goldfish for several years and all they do is eat. Not a single repro. I thought about picking up a few free mosquito fish to see if they lived up to their voracious billing but never got around to making the trek over the hill. West Nile must have scared someone in the Health Department given the potential harm to what’s left of the fish in Northcoast rivers and streams. Never heard more about it.
QUESTION for AVA sophisticates: Have you ever heard the term “consciousness” uttered un-ironically?
MARK SCARAMELLA REPLIES: Only by Greg Sims and Craig Stehr.
A UKIAH reader of mysteries reports that B.J. Bock’s latest, called ‘Savage Run,’ begins, “On the third day of their honeymoon, infamous environmental activist Dewey Woods and his new bride Annabelle Billotti were spiking trees in the forest when a cow exploded and blew them up. Until then their marriage had been happy.” B.J. Bock has obviously spent time on the Northcoast.
FROM the April 18th, 1954 edition of the Fort Bragg Advocate: “Timberwolves amaze baseball world by holding Humboldt State College nine to 7-inning, 1 to 1 deadlock.”
MAYBE AN OLD TIMER will know if Anderson Valley was ever seriously prospected for gold. I walked up on an old mine about six miles east of Boonville, not far off the Ukiah Road. It would seem to have been an exploratory gold mine, but… The always informative column in the Sunday edition of the Ukiah Daily Journal by Jodie Martinez tells us that in 1904 a fellow called William Van Allen “worked on gold bearing ledges on the mountain three miles west of Ukiah… Mr. Van Allen has run three tunnels into the hill, the longest being 200 feet. Three ledges are laid bare. Mr. Van Allen says that the ore assays show from $3.65 to $26 per ton in gold. The ore can be worked by the cyanide process. There are also oil indications on the land.”
TWO NEW DEPUTIES IN TRAINING
The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office sponsored two local residents to attend the basic police academy at the Santa Rosa Junior College, who graduated on Friday 8/23/2024.
Jace Kroh and Jacob Stewart attended the 20-week training course and will begin their assignments and training at the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office.
There were 28 graduates who comprised the 214th Class at the Santa Rosa Junior College, Public Safety Training Center campus in Windsor.
Please join us in congratulating Jace Kroh and Jacob Stewart in their accomplishment of graduating the police academy and their commitment to serving Mendocino County.
ON LINE COMMENTS OF THE WEEK
[1] 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.
[2] “To give the appearance of something holding up, like, say, the US economy, when there is actually nothing underneath. Nothing real, that is.”
Not to be contrarian to this statement but I can only report on what I see. I work in the development field and in my community there are numerous residential subdivisions that are quickly being built out with new $650K homes. People still seem to have plenty of money to buy over priced homes at 6% interest resulting in a monthly mortgage payment of $3,000.
Our industrial sector is cruising. New businesses are moving to town and building new structures on currently vacant sites.
The highways are crowded with new cars, semi trucks loaded with building supplies, and other work type trucks.
If you want to go to Hawaii or Cancun you have to book a year in advance. Even the hotels that charge $4K per night are booked solid.
Disneyland and Disneyworld are still ever popular.
WWE Smack Down and NFL games are still selling out.
People are still buying $100K Ford F 350s to pull their $120K fifth wheel and $75K toy haulers with two $50K UTVs and still have enough money to gas them up, pay insurance on them and cover the costs of registrations.
Taxes are still going up and people are still paying them.
Movie trash like Wolverine & Deadpool are raking in hundreds of millions of dollars.
I keep hearing that the economy is doomed, built on nothing, but when I look around all I see is EVERYONE living the good life.
It causes me significant cognitive dissonance. I know in my gut that things are amiss in the good ole democratic USA but I’m not seeing it in my fellow man. Inflation hasn’t stopped anyone.
I read once that it takes a lot to bankrupt a Republic. Took Rome 400 years. I don’t think we are there yet. We are getting there but we have a fair distance to go still.
[3] Yes, all humans are flawed, and most cops are human. Consider, however, that there are qualitative differences between people. Some people have a sense of humanity, and there are others who do not. The flawed cops are out there to suppress those predators who have little humanity and would prey on others. The cops, as flawed as they are, are generally a better class then your neighborhood burglar, rapist, or marauding Canadian..
[4] POLIO, an on-line comment: I got the Salk vaccine in 1954. I was vaxxed at school in a double blind test to see if the vax worked. I remember going into a classroom specifically designed for mass injections. There were 2 lines in the room. One for the vax and one for the placebo. I just happened to be in the vax line. A few months later the vax people sent my mother a notice that I got the real thing. Along with that I got a note thanking me personally for being a “Polio Pioneer”, and a Polio Pioneer button. Like I had a choice. I still have them.
At that time it was the middle of the polio epidemic. The lead news on the radio began with the daily victim count: “today there were 73 new cases, etc.” It was very scary. And polio was nasty. Surviving victims often had permanent disability, like partial paralysis in the legs. A few poor children had to be encased in an iron lung because their lungs got paralyzed.
I never got polio and I assumed it was because of the vax. Maybe that’s why I got the covid vax?
[5] Americans hate themselves, for a lot of good reasons.
Capitalism corrupted us, and addiction, and poor health, too often taking the easy accepted path. We aren’t supposed to challenge ourselves, unless you appear in a reality tv show.
After a generation of the internet, most everyone is somehow dumber.
Hate turns to resentment and then disdain outwardly. How else can we understand how many Americans can live their lives in lies? I think this is a terrible truth, that the system was effective at becoming a visual dystopia, that programmed us to exist in a constant compartmentalized state.
What compounds it all is the constant stew of propaganda being made to gorge us with.
I heard the “joy” meme that Kamala/DNC are pushing, and it just seems another obvious signal to say to those of us who get it, that fuck you haha we do it cause we keep getting away with it. Americans don’t/can’t/won’t care.
All I could think is the og demented Ren & Stimpy cartoon, “happy happy joy joy,” they HAVE to know people would reference it… Incredible, they leave easter eggs for us to find on their way to total control.
[6] The country is teetering, and with it, the world.
The main reason is that virtually no one cares – all is fine, you see. They all just got back from the lake cabin with a golfing side-trip.
The secondary reason is that we have let ourselves be backed into an inescapable corner (by today’s standards of “polite society”) by “elected leaders” who are no smarter than a part-time 7-Eleven clerk. We know this because most of our neighbors don’t care, and are often morons. With that polity pulling the voting levers, see what you get.
Maybe we need to revive the agoge. Purpose and accountability has lost its place. And hey – there’s a new season of Squid Game coming out, after all, so we’re busy.
[7] 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.
[8] 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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