Mendocino County Today: Sunday 9/8/2024

Pancake Breakfast | Coastal Fog | Quake Swarm | Water Sports | Honda v Tree | Pet Sissy | Panther Roar | AV Events | Yard Sign | Backyard Corn | Meaningful Dialogue | Fall Festival | AI Report | Abalone Arbor | Great Crimes | Yesterday's Catch | Accidental Saint | Marco Radio | Sharky Sez | 100 Days | Swept Up | Goat Head | My Moment | Nutty Nobody | Diminishing Fog | Supremes | Cruel Stunt | US Equilibrium | Meet Jesus | Election Security | Unattended Children | Hind Lick | Real Europe | Fat Sam | Gun Intervention | Tucker & Jerry | Password Relief | Nature Boy | Little Iodine

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STRATUS AND FOG continues to blanket the coast, while warm and dry conditions continue inland into the the early week. A pattern change arrives Wednesday, potentially bringing gusty winds and light rain. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): Another foggy & drizzly 55F this Sunday morning on the coast. Not as wet as yesterday though, that was something. Yes our friend "patchy fog" remains the dominant weather item. The NWS keeps trying to bring in a shower mid week, we'll see?

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WHAT'S SHAKIN' — A swarm of small earthquakes was recorded Saturday morning by the U.S. Geological Survey. A 4.4 magnitude quake was detected 3.7 miles southwest of Cobb (Lake County) at 7:30 a.m., followed by a 4.2 quake 0.6 miles southeast of the Geysers in Sonoma County at 7:30 a.m. and a 3.9 quake 1.2 miles northeast of the Geysers at 7:31 a.m.

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POSTAL SERVICE VEHICLE CRASHES INTO TREE ON SR-128, HEAD INJURIES REPORTED

by Matt LaFever

A US Postal Service vehicle crashed head-on with a tree on a windy section of State Route 128 west of Navarro this afternoon reportedly resulting in head injuries. First responders are currently converging on the scene.

Scanner traffic and the California Highway Patrol Traffic Incident Information Page indicate the incident occurred around 3:55 p.m. when a USPS vehicle described as a “small Honda SUV” collided with a tree.

Initial reports indicate the occupants suffered a head injury, successfully got out of the vehicle, and proceeded to lie on the ground nearby.

As of 4:10 p.m., a report on conditions has yet to be issued by first responders at the scene. Air as well as ground ambulance have been dispatched, but that's subject to change upon assessment of the patient.

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UPDATE 4:19 p.m.: The California Highway Patrol Traffic Incident Information page is reporting a secondary “multi-vehicle traffic collision” resulting from the initial vehicle vs. tree collision. As a consequence, there are reportedly multiple parties “stuck in the area”.

The Incident Commander confirmed the air ambulance is on its way and would land nearby to medevac the patient.

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UPDATE 4:30 p.m.: The Incident Commander told dispatch the patient’s head wound is mild to moderate in severity. He also reported that the vehicle that collided with the tree is currently impeding the eastbound lane.

(MendoFever.com)

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UKIAH SHELTER PET OF THE WEEK

Tons of fun and then some, Sissy is a high-flying, jolly girl! She’s friendly, playful, and oh-so adorable!

We see this outgoing pup doing well in any type of home environment--as long as she gets plenty of play time! Sissy has a good start on her basic training and walks politely on leash. She knows sit, and we bet she’ll be a quick study learning basic obedience. Sissy may enjoy canine training instruction, so ask us about dog classes in Ukiah. Sissy is also the perfect size—not too big or small. Beautiful Sissy is a Shepherd mix, 9 months old and 46 pounds.

To see all of our canine and feline guests, and for information about our services, programs, and events, visit: mendoanimalshelter.com.

Join us every first Saturday of the month for our Meet The Dogs Adoption Event at the shelter.

We're on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/mendoanimalshelter

For information about adoptions please call 707-467-6453.

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AV ATHLETICS

Anderson Valley High (enrollment 135)

@ Fortuna (enrollment 850)

JV Volleyball defeats Fortuna in 2 sets.

Varsity defeats Fortuna in 4 sets.

Small School - Giant Loud Roar

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AV EVENTS (today)

Free Entry to Hendy Woods State Park for local residents
Sun 09 / 08 / 2024 at 8:00 AM
Where: Hendy Woods State Park
More Information (https://andersonvalley.helpfulvillage.com/events/3669)

AV Grange Pancake and Egg Breakfast
Sun 09 / 08 / 2024 at 8:30 AM
Where: Anderson Valley Grange , 9800 CA-128, Philo, CA 95466
More Information (https://andersonvalley.helpfulvillage.com/events/3894)

The Anderson Valley Museum Open
Sun 09 / 08 / 2024 at 1:00 PM
Where: The Anderson Valley Museum , 12340 Highway 128, Boonville , CA 95415
More Information (https://andersonvalley.helpfulvillage.com/events/3991)

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CALLING ALL MIDDLE OF THE ROAD EXTREMISTS!

Laurie York: Would anyone in Albion who lives on the main road like to post a Harris/Walz yard sign? If so, please let me know by sending me a Facebook message. Thank you!

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COMMENTS ON FORT BRAGG FOREVER: THE TONE OF THE DISCUSSION

Fort Bragg Forever; I dont have a dog in that hunt, but I’m bothered by how easily, the FB4 ever ppl are dismissed as racists; to me, its akin to a sociological witch hunt. IK know many fine FB4E ppl and I hate how easily they are cancelled like that! I know that this is the discourse de Jour on the national stage, just saddened to see it show up on our shore; I’ve also seen this dynamic playing out in the online discussion; and it saddens me; so perhaps in sharing my observation it might help ? Foster a more respectful atmosphere. Thank you

— Chris Skyhawk

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Del Potter:

The phrase “the woke demand for racism far outstripping the supply” reflects a common talking point in far-right rhetoric, where “woke” is used as a catch-all term for progressive ideals, often distorted or exaggerated to stoke opposition. By framing everything as “woke,” these critics attempt to lump together all social justice concerns—whether related to race, gender, or other inequalities—into a single, nebulous enemy. It becomes an all-inclusive category to rail against, allowing any attempt to discuss real issues like racism or inequality to be dismissed out of hand as part of some imaginary ideological overreach. This tactic simplifies and delegitimizes complex social dynamics, making it easier to shut down meaningful conversations.

Rather than engaging with specific concerns or examining the realities of systemic discrimination, the far-right often weaponizes “woke” as a broad smear, positioning themselves as victims of overzealous progressivism. In this case, dismissing individuals as “cancelled” or suggesting that racism is a manufactured issue rather than a persistent one stifles the opportunity for critical, respectful discourse on important local and national issues. The characterization of any critique as “woke” becomes a convenient tool to avoid grappling with uncomfortable truths.

PS. The question, “Do you think that the local people that do not want a name change are racists?” is an example of a simplistic and revisionist framing often used to divert attention from the complexities of the debate. It suggests that any opposition to a particular position must inherently label the dissenters as racists, a reductionist view that ignores the nuance of discussions around historical context, systemic injustice, and collective memory.

First, opposing a name change does not automatically make someone a racist; the conversation is far more intricate than that. However, it's important to recognize that the resistance to such changes often stems from a reluctance to confront uncomfortable truths about history and how those legacies continue to shape the present. In the case of names tied to controversial or oppressive histories—such as honoring figures involved in racism, colonization, or violence—arguments against changing those names often reflect a defense of tradition over a meaningful reckoning with that history. The issue isn't about calling individuals “racists” but about acknowledging the historical baggage associated with certain symbols, and whether those symbols should continue to be publicly upheld.

The reference to Jussie Smollett is a clear example of deflection—a common tactic used by Tom in these debates to shift focus away from the real issue. Smollett's hoax has been weaponized in some circles to suggest that racism itself is a fabrication or overblown concern. This line of reasoning distracts from legitimate discussions about systemic inequality, as though one instance of dishonesty negates the broader, well-documented realities of racial injustice. Bringing Smollett into the conversation serves no productive purpose and minimizes the very real experiences of those affected by racism.

What is really at stake here is not individual morality but collective responsibility. When communities choose to keep or change a name that glorifies a problematic figure or past, they are making a statement about what values they prioritize in the public sphere. Opposing a name change out of loyalty to tradition without considering the harm that tradition might perpetuate is a position that should be examined critically, not dismissed or trivialized as a knee-jerk accusation of racism.

Moreover, conversations about names, monuments, and historical legacies often get reduced to binaries of “racist” or “not racist,” which prevents deeper engagement with the layers of these issues. Resistance to a name change may not come from overt bigotry but could instead reflect a deeper discomfort with how addressing the past might require challenging existing power structures or acknowledging privileges that many would prefer to leave unquestioned. This is where discussions about historical reckoning, accountability, and equity must come into play. Rather than asking whether people are racist for opposing a name change, the more relevant question is: What values are we prioritizing, and whose history are we choosing to center or erase in our public symbols?

Framing opposition to a name change in this way deflects from the actual question of how communities want to be remembered and how they want to evolve. Are they holding onto the past for the sake of tradition, or are they engaging critically with that past to create a more inclusive and equitable future? By confronting these deeper issues, the conversation shifts away from reductionist labels and toward a more meaningful dialogue about the values we wish to uphold.

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THERE’S A ROBOT AT LAYTONVILLE TOWN COUNCIL MEETINGS

by Jim Shields

I’m not a big fan of the internet and electronic-related technology. I especially don’t trust artificial intelligence (“AI”) technologies. Anyway, our Town Council holds its meetings at the Harwood Hall/Healthy Start community complex. My daughter Jayma is Healthy Start’s director and we use their equipment for zoom and video recording of meetings. Part of the recording process includes AI-generated summary reports of the meetings.

What follows are excerpts from the AI report. I have to admit the AI report is quite accurate.

Sheriff Kendall Report

At our August 28th Town Council (LAMAC) meeting, Sheriff Matt Kendall reported on the increase in calls for service, particularly in thefts and overdoses, which are on pace to exceed the previous two years. He mentioned ongoing efforts to address these issues, including collaboration with various groups and the upcoming implementation of Prop. 36 (Prop 36 would both roll back Prop 47 and add new penalties for drug use and a broad range of theft offenses, as well as add new sentencing enhancements that would apply to any type of crime.) The Sheriff also anticipated a decrease in calls by mid-September or early October, despite an expected increase in jail population due to Prop. 36. He also noted an uptick in mental health issues among children returning to school.

Dr. Palton’s Substance Abuse Program Discussed

Council Chair Jim Shields informed the Sheriff about a frontpage story in the upcoming Observer, featuring Dr. Sharon Paulton’s new program aimed at helping people with substance abuse issues, particularly those with serious problems like Fentanyl. The Sheriff expressed interest in the program and requested Jayma to facilitate a connection between him and Dr. Paulton.

Ford Street Expansion and Retirement Fund Shifts

Fourth District Supervisor Dan Gjerde reported that Ford Street Foundation had secured a substantial portion of funds for a new wing expansion through support from the City of Ukiah and local tribes, with a potential small gap funding from Measure B funds. He also said the county Retirement Investment Fund board agreed to shift two-thirds of its international stocks from actively managed funds to broad-based index funds, which would save about $2 million in fees to active managers. Lastly, Dan addressed a longstanding issue regarding access to a property along the Eel River, which has recently sparked concerns among new neighbors about potential fire hazards. He expressed his efforts to involve county staff and Cal Fire to address the situation, with Jim showing interest in the issue.

Cannabis Ordinance Provision Reinterpretation

Jim discussed a longstanding provision in the cannabis ordinance that was recently brought to the attention of the Board of Supervisors by the county’s Cannabis Department.

The provision, which was approved eight years ago, combined two separate types of permits: a standard 10,000 square feet grow permit and a separate permit for nurseries that would allow for a combined 22,000 square feet. The Cannabis Department claimed this provision was widely misunderstood and misinterpreted, leading to confusion and potential violations. Jim argued that the provision was not intended to allow permit holders to increase their grow sites to 22,000 square feet. Jim discussed the need to verify the recollection of former Supervisor John McCowen, who was the main architect of the weed ordinance. He said McCowen stated that the so-called “reinterpretation” of the provision by the Cannabis department is incorrect and does not allow a cultivation expansion to 22,000 square feet but is restricted to a maximum of 10,000 square feet.

This issue will be addressed on September 10th at the BOS meeting. Jim urged support for Council Member Traci Pellar’s letter to the Board of Supervisors, which was similar to an action taken two months prior regarding a letter to the Supes from the Willits Environmental Center on the “reinterpretation” issue. The motion to support Tracy’s letter was unanimously approved, by the Council.

To: Mendocino County Board of Supervisors

Dear Chair Mulheren,

Please be advised that at its August 28, 2024 meeting, the Laytonville Area Municipal Advisory Council (LAMAC) unanimously approved and endorsed the following letter from Ms. Traci Pellar regarding the socalled “Cannabis Reinterpretation” issue. We urge the Board to reject this “backdoor” attempt to circumvent an unambiguous provision in the Ordinance.

There is absolutely no authority under existing law or the Mendocino County Cannabis Ordinance for anyone, including County staff, administrators, or the Supervisors to “reinterpret”, in whole or in part, provisions of the Cannabis Ordinance. It’s widely accepted by constituents that such action gives the appearance of Cannabis Ordinance administration being an insider’s game played by staff and a self-selected few in the local cannabis industry.

Respectfully,

Jim Shields, LAMAC Chair

Pellar Letter

Dear BOS and Community, I am writing this letter in response to the reinterpretation of our cannabis ordinance, 10A17.

Firstly let me state, what so many of us are thinking “What the bloody heck?” To go ahead and actually put it into the phase 3 language as to read that a nursery permit could be turned into canopy is not only disrespectful to the intent of our ordinance, but it is inequitable and honestly quite corrupt in nature.

It has occurred to me that maybe you, BOS, and you, expansion pushers, don’t understand what we, the small farmers are doing with our insistence on a limit of 10K canopy size limit. It’s quite simple. This size represents equity for all, including the wildlife, watersheds, and our Mendo Communities. We the people have spoken on behalf of this issue many many times. It’s not just an idea or a political move, it’s a real tangible request to keep it small to benefit the good of all in our county. Increasing canopy size benefits the few and is simply not in alignment with the dream we all shared of being a unique boutique craft county. By consistency in our land use policy we have taken care of those who don’t want cannabis in this county at all, those who want to brand our county as craft/medicine, and those who want to grow just to get pounds to market. It is the will of the people that we remain at a 10K footprint. My understanding is that it is you, the BOS, that sits there specifically to represent the will of the people . I think that the referendum was enough to show you all how important our size limit on cannabis is to all of us.

Why are you not standing up and speaking against this reinterpretation?

The only thing or reason I can come up with is money. You think this move will bring you greater revenue. Well, you continue to sabotage our plans of making this a contiguous well branded county that exalts best management practices and can share that ethos with the world. We need to unite and in that action of unification we can then market not only cannabis, but as a whole we brand all our small producers. Think big, think global, think the richest, most elite cannabis, only here in Mendocino where the finest wool, wine, honey, meat… you name it, our art, we’ve got it!

We are working on our branding all the time. The ONLY way we can have market share is to carve out a piece and to do that we are sticking to our passions and dreams of a cannabis garden that is workable by a mom and pop shop. That’s who made this culture for us, those are the practices and people we honor by our garden size. We fight expansion at every turn and still, you see fit to just arbitrarily and dishonestly go along with this, when you all know, we do not approve. We are the people. Are you really going to receive so much more revenue? Are they? Will we ever be able to all just calm the heck down and get on the same page so we can market ourselves as a county?

I think you don’t understand the importance of our branding of small farms or we would not still be fighting with this issue to this day. From this branding, we can launch ourselves. We can show the whole world what it means to actually care about the cannabis we grow. To give thought and consideration to our neighbors. To show equity for our wildlife and watersheds. We create a platform for ourselves. The bulk market is not our place to shine. We get the lowest prices there. None of us, and I mean none of the small farms are making a lot of money. We love to grow our beautiful plants, we love to stay at home and tend our gardens. We help with fire mitigation, we help with forest health, we are community builders, and we are holding it down for the culture that is quickly becoming extinct.

I would like you all to imagine when the dust settles and who is left standing. We will be. We stand alone now. There is nobody and I mean nobody standing with the 10K farmers except the 10K farmers. We are proud farmers because we believe in the medicinal qualities and genetics we cultivate through our Best Practices and the goodness of our land and water.

We are kindly asking that you tell the county council that this reinterpretation is missing the intent of our cannabis ordinance and the will of the people and may not be the new canopy footprint for those few people who happen to have those 2 permits and choose to turn their nursery permit into a cultivation permit. I would also bet that whomever it was that tapped the county council on the shoulder and asked for this dive into interpretation does not actually live in our county, but has a garden with some permits. Take care of us, get on our team, we have a lot of work to do, but see the vision with us please.

Traci Pellar

Laytonville

Municipal Advisory Councils Realignment

Jim discussed a legal issue regarding the jurisdictional realignment of municipal advisory councils in the county. He explained that these councils, which were established to advise local, state, and federal governments on various issues, were apparently moved under the jurisdiction of the Planning and Building Department sometime around 2016. Jim argued that this move, orchestrated by former CEO Carmel Angelo, aimed at restricting the councils’ activities to planning matters, was another example of illegal meddling by the former CEO. He emphasized that the councils should be organizationally and jurisdictionally under the Board of Supervisors, as contemplated by the state government code.

Jim sought the Council’s approval to endorse a request to the Board of Supervisors for realignment of municipal advisory councils from planning and building to the board of supervisors. The motion was approved unanimously.

Ham Radio Exercise and GMRS Radios

Council Member Ran Bush shared his experience of a recent county- wide ham radio exercise, which was an annual event and involved roleplaying for disaster preparation drills. He discussed his efforts to train staff on the use of ham and GMRS (General Mobile Radio Service) radios for emergency communications. He mentioned that while LVHC has a ham radio on site, it was rarely used. Ran and his team have been practicing with GMRS radios, which are less complex than ham radios but still require training. He also highlighted the importance of regular practice for emergency communications and his intention to stay in touch with local ham and GMRS operators. Council Member Laura corrected Ran’s earlier statement about LVHC not having a ham radio.

Emergency Preparedness and Communication Improvements

Jim recognized the efforts of the COAD emergency committee, highlighting their successful preparation and training for emergencies, which was acknowledged as a model for other parts of the county. This committee was formed in the wake of the February 2023 snowstorm debacle. Ran Bush stated he would stay in touch with the Leggett community, another area identified as needing improved radio communication. The conversation ended with Jim adjourning the session and thanking everyone for their participation.

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MENDO'S GREAT CRIMES — “We only catch the dumb ones.” — the late Norm Vroman, Mendocino County District Attorney

by Bruce Anderson

In two hours on a September night in 1987, Fort Bragg's library, Ten Mile Justice Court and the famous old Piedmont Hotel went up in flames. The very heart of the old logging town was gone. Who did it? Lots of people were questioned, even more people talked, but nobody was ever arrested for Mendocino County's grandest night of arson.

Susan Massini was Mendocino County’s District Attorney at the time, but she seemed more intent upon firing the seethingly unhappy prosecutors in her office than taking on the star members of Fort Bragg’s brazenly criminal business class. (Massini had had present Mendo DA David Eyster marched out of his job as assistant DA at gunpoint. The old girl seemed to take office dissent more seriously than major crimes.)

But then Massini always was soft on Dominic Affinito, a Sacramento transplant who had very quickly become a major property owner in the Fort Bragg area, so major he still owns the County structures housing the Mendocino Coast branches of County government.

Before Affinito began collecting big rents on Mendocino County’s extensive complex of Fort Bragg offices, he’d “loaned” the needier members of the Fort Bragg City Council attractive sums of money to ensure their support for such Affinito projects as the Glass Beach housing development at the north end of town and his later triumph, a garish one-story-too-tall motel called the North Cliff overlooking the Pacific at the north end of the Noyo Bridge. The present site of the North Cliff was conveniently cleansed of the structure previously located there by arson fires. The North Cliff exists not only in violation of Fort Bragg’s unenforced building codes, but managed to rise with an entire extra floor in flagrant violation of the otherwise rigidly enforced state Coastal Act.

The Fort Bragg police soon knew who’d burned the library, the Ten Mile Court and the Piedmont Hotel. They were young Fort Bragg men addicted to cocaine and their odd logistics man, a not-so-young proprietor of a late night janitorial service, all of them funded by a pair of Italian-surnamed Fort Bragg businessmen. Even though the FBI and the ATF dispatched small armies of agents to Fort Bragg to assist in the investigations of the fire, nobody was ever arrested, let alone charged for the crimes. (A few years later, the FBI managed not to exclude from consideration Judi Bari's ex-husband as the man who blew her up with a car bomb in downtown Oakland.)

The old Fort Bragg library and the even older Ten Mile Court were burned as a diversion for the fire that finished off the Piedmont Hotel, the Piedmont being the evening’s primary target.

Diversions? Diversions.

And how much more contempt could the arsonists have had for Fort Bragg than to have destroyed its very soul simply to get at a rival restaurant? Was it too central to the town’s history?

When I went looking for the police files on the Fort Bragg Fires. I asked the ATF and the FBI where their reports on the arsons were. “Oh, we sent them all to Mendocino County years ago,” I was told. “Surely, you can find them there.”

I surely couldn’t.

District Attorney Susan Massini either took the files with her when she left office or she shredded them to permanent oblivion before she left office. The Fort Bragg Fire files are not where they belong — the Mendocino County Courthouse.

When Dominic Affinito slugged Fort Bragg Councilman-elect Dan Gjerde in the lobby of Fort Bragg City Hallin the late 1990s, DA Massini treated the assault as if it were a kind of “boys will be boys” affair. She wasn’t even going to pursue it as a misdemeanor battery, and if she hadn’t been un-elected, Affinito, who was promptly charged and prosecuted by Massini’s successor, Norm Vroman, and subsequently sentenced to felony probation and community service he never served, would obviously have not only gone unsanctioned, he wouldn’t even have been inconvenienced by court appearances.

The arsons-for-profit boys weren’t the only people to elude Massini’s benignly distracted gaze. The Orsi brothers of Fort Bragg literally got away with killing an old friend of theirs, Dan Murray, 27 when he breathed his last, but try to find a public file on that one. The cops didn’t even bother to take a report after the Orsi Brothers went out to Murray’s house on Airport Road, challenged him to a fight during which Murray was shot in the upper arm with his own handgun. A few months later Murray, complaining of pain in his shoulder from the bullet wound, went to Coast Community Hospital to see if the wound had properly healed. It hadn’t, and Danny Murray died of an embolism that raced from the bullet the doctors had left in his arm straight to his heart and killed him.

And who remembers the Orr Sisters? Accused of child molests in the context of the non-existent phenomena called Satanism, a hysteria that swept through the more primitive segments of the Fort Bragg population as intensely as it did through other areas of the country, reminding us that America is never far from the rattling of chicken bones as an explanation for the prevailing unreal reality, the Orr Sisters lost their property, one sister lost custody of her daughter to CPS and Trinity School, Ukiah, where the child was repeatedly raped by older residents of that hellish institution, and nearly lost their lives.

The Orr Sisters, you see, were witches who rented the children in their daycare home to Satanists. The little ones were ferried up the Coast — get this — in the Georgia-Pacific helicopter for unwholesome ceremonies, but were always back in time for mommy and daddy to pick them up after work, none the worse. The proof? The three and four-year-olds said so.

When I went looking for the police files on Beezlebub’s rampage through Fort Bragg, Captain Gary Hudson, then a candidate for Sheriff, told me I couldn’t have them because “a murder may have been committed, and because a murder may have been committed the files are not public record.”

Hudson had been dispatched at public expense to attend Satanist seminars. Lots of police departments sent representatives to these idiot affairs.

But the only murders committed were the psychic killings of the Orr Sisters whose lives were ruined by the cretins in County government and the sub-cretins of CPS, who not only succumbed to the hysteria, but kept it alive.

The Fort Bragg Fires, though, topped anything the Orsi Brothers and the foul incompetents of Mendocino County Social Services could bring off. The Fires were Fort Bragg’s biggest crime ever, and all of official Mendocino County aided and abetted them.

A fellow by the name of Durigan was logistics man for the Fort Bragg Fires of '87. He’s the husband of Barbara Durigan who was a helping professional ubiquitous in Fort Bragg.

Mr. Durigan, prior to the arrival of the Durigans in Fort Bragg, was employed by the San Mateo County Coroner’s Office where he was a body hauler. It was Durigan’s job to carry off the remains of the freshly dead. He and a couple of his fellow body baggers were caught stealing from the deceased; a gold watch here, a nice hunk of cash there. Durigan eluded a jail term in San Mateo County by giving up the names of his crime partners. He and Mrs. Durigan soon found their way north to Mendocino County, America’s largest open air witness protection program, and the only place in the world where you are whatever you say you are, and history starts all over again every morning.

Established in Fort Bragg around the time Satan was active in local daycare centers and Dominic Affinito was buying up some 50 Coast properties, including the thriving Tradewinds motel, restaurant and bar complex, Mr. Durigan, who often weighed within ounces of 600 pounds, started up a late-night janitorial service he mostly supervised from the seated side of the mop. Durigan quickly developed a side gig delivering cocaine for the Coast's major distributor before that distributor branched out into arsons. The big man hired young people to do the janitorial work while he ran his other late night chores.

Among Durigan’s janitorial clients were the phone company building in downtown Fort Bragg and both branches of the Savings Bank of Mendocino, whose manager was heavily addicted to white powder and sex with whomever, whenever, including children in Thailand.

While Fort Bragg slept, Durigan drove around town in his spiffy red janitorial van delivering cocaine to the fast set and arson instructions to a couple of the young men who couldn’t keep up with their drug bills. In between these errands, Durigan’s janitorial crews mopped up, so to speak.

The early morning of the most famously infamous fires — the big blazes had been preceded by several attempts and faux attempts to burn other restaurants — at about 5am on September 20th, 1987, Durigan loaded up his gas cans at Fast Gas on the north side of town and delivered them a few blocks south to young men waiting at the corner of Highway One and Laurel, Fort Bragg’s very soul.

The town’s entire history, its 150-year-old social-political archive, its historical heart, was contained in the adjoining library and court buildings on the southwest corner of Main and Laurel.

The young torches went quickly to work. Gasoline soon seeped into the old library and the even older Ten Mile Court, and both went up in flames.

Down the street to the south, and visible from Laurel and Main, sat the Piedmont Hotel where another young man waited for Durigan. As Fort Bragg’s unique volunteer fire department, Fort Bragg being the only town its size in all of America to rely on a non-professional firefighting capacity, fought to save the library and the court house, up went the Piedmont. The firefighters were overwhelmed, and all three buildings were lost.

The library and the court house were torched as diversions; the Piedmont was the evening’s target.

A young man named Ken Rick was lead torch. Rick occasionally worked for Durigan’s multi-tasking. janitorial service. The day before Rick was scheduled to tell a federal grand jury in San Francisco the names of the persons above Durigan who’d hired him to set the fires of September 20th 1987, and the fires preceding them, Ken Rick committed convenient suicide. The cops said he’d placed a shotgun between his knees and pulled the trigger with his toe; although the kid owned handguns he chose an acrobatic exit. Probable suicide, the cops said, emphasis on probable.

There’s fear and then there’s terror. I’ve never encountered people more afraid to talk than the people we encountered during the investigation and writing of our five-part Fort Bragg Fire saga. One woman begged me not to even mention her in connection with anything related to the Fort Bragg Fires. “They’ll kill me,” she said, “and I have a family and a whole new life now.”

All the material witnesses we talked to — 20 of them — said things like, “They’ll kill me. Go away and never bother me again. They’ll kill me. Don’t tell anybody where I live. They’ll kill me. How did you find me? They’ll kill me. Who gave you my number? They’ll kill me. I wasn’t involved. They’ll kill me.” That was a guy living in a hard-to-find cabin off a remote dirt road deep in the woods.

The statute of limitations ran on the Fort Bragg Fire case. DA Susan Massini just couldn’t seem to bring a case. Couldn’t quite get it up and into court although the names of the arsonists were known and the late Durigan’s role limned so vividly the whole mob amounted to a prosecutorial slam dunk. Faced with long jail terms, the arson mob probably would have come up with plenty on Mr. Big, too, despite his advising them that he’d wipe out them and their whole family trees down to the tenth generation if any of them ratted him out.

The FBI, incidentally, and true to incompetent form, hired Mr. Big’s girl friend to function as stenographer for the FBI’s Fort Bragg interviews with material witnesses. Every day after her stenography work for the G-Men this cocaine-addled floozy ran straight back to fully inform Mr. B as to who said what.

And the one guy who was going to tell a federal grand jury everything about the fires turned up dead the day before he was supposed to testify in San Francisco.

Nobody can be prosecuted now for the arsons. The statute ran long ago. And Satan hasn't been spotted lately lurking around Fort Bragg daycare centers, and the FBI gave Judi Bari's ex a free pass to kill her, and a pair of prominent Fort Bragg brothers got away with murder.

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Saturday, September 7, 2024

KELISHA ALVAREZ, Ukiah. Trespassing, county parole violation.

DONICA BARCELLO, Ukiah. Domestic battery.

MOLLY BURNS-MCCLAY, Ukiah. Resisting.

JADYN HENSON, Gualala. Controlled substance.

SHAYLYNN LOCKHART, Potter Valley. Paraphernalia, county parole violation.

GABRIEL MARTUCCI, Ukiah. More than an ounce of pot.

CHAD MCCALLUM, Ukiah. Domestic violence court order violation.

FORREST MORTIMER, Laytonville. Domestic battery, criminal threats.

DARICK PARDO, Covelo. Vandalism, county parole violation.

SEBASTIAN RICO, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

ANDREW RIFFLE, Fort Bragg. Mail theft, stolen property, probation revocation.

HARLEY SCHROEDER, Antelope/Ukiah. Taking vehicle withoiut owner’s consent, stolen property.

TY SIMPSON, Potter Valley. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, probation revocation.

JUAN VILLA, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

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CARL, THE ACCIDENTAL SAINT

by Paul Modic

You know the guy when the party is winding down who jumps up and starts doing the dishes? That is so annoying, kind of makes everyone else look bad, right? And he volunteers for community organizations and helps out clueless homesteaders (often ladies in distress) because somehow he's learned carpentry, plumbing, electricity, and other skills along the way. A handyman who doesn't care if he gets paid.

Then he takes a break from women because he always ends up remodeling their kitchens (probably for nothing) and he just wants to stay home and play music.

He's a nice guy: funny, compassionate, and a brilliant conversationalist, ie, an intelligent man.

So I'd tease him and call him The Accidental Saint. “If I were like you Carl,” I said, “I'd have a card saying Paul: Saint.”

Well, I finally did it, made him his saint card. Then I had a friend call him (just don't say Accidental Saint 'cause then he'd know I'm behind it I told him.) and say, “Hey I saw this business card up here on the laundromat bulletin board. It says you're helpful and you'll do anything for free? Well, I got some carpentry and…”

When my friend rang off I instantly got a call from Carl. “What did you do?” he said. I played dumb and he believed me.

I was going to extend the prank another day but then I got a life and confessed.

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MEMO OF THE AIR: And two hard-boiled eggs.

Here's the recording of last night's (Friday 2024-09-06) 8-hour Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio show on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg (CA) and KNYO.org (and, for the first hour, also 89.3fm KAKX Mendocino): https://tinyurl.com/KNYO-MOTA-0608

(I made two notable mistakes in that show. 1. I read chapter 14-b of Kent Wallace's new book Switcheroo, not noticing that I skipped right past 14-a. Sorry, Kent. I'll do better next week. And 2. I didn't even /look/ to check over the text of Scott Peterson's story about corruption in local nonprofit organizations, that I ripped kind of on autopilot from the PDF file, and it ended up scrambled and almost-but-not-quite readable, though I tried to read it, mangled it and gave up. Sorry, Scott. I'll do better about that next week too.)

Coming shows can feature your story or dream or poem or essay or kvetch or announcement or whatever. Just email it to me. Or include it in a reply to this post. Or send me a link to your writing project and I'll take it from there and read it on the air. That's what I'm here for.

Besides all that, at https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com you'll find a fresh batch of dozens of links to worthwhile items I set aside for you while gathering the show together, such as:

Oh, that's easy. The secret is to just make the lid first. Nah, kidding. I've tried to use a potter's wheel. Before I could get it shaped anything like a real pot it just flurped into a folded lump. Try again? Flurp. Again? Almost… almost… Flurp. Always flurp, never pot. In an ancient-times pot-based society I'd probably do okay as a hut-to-hut pot salesman. Or to make a trailside billboard for pots, out of palm leaves. Or to dream up pottery innovations, such as a ceramic kazoo or ocarina or village-crier megaphone or rat-proof breadbox. Or invent the ceramic flush toilet, like a person did on another planet, a religiously enforced pre-industrial Hindu planet, in Lord of Light, by Roger Zelazny, which I'm reading a little bit of every show, now, near the end of the show, and enjoying it all over again, as much as the first time when I was ten and every time since. “Twice or not at all!” Then you realize he is saying, /Double or nothing!/ And the ten-page lead-up to where the narrator can say, “Then the fit hit the Shan.” Zelazny wrote much of his work, including Lord Of Light, and the sprawling Chronicles of Amber, while he was a postal clerk. So many of his books and short stories cry out to be made into graphic novels and films and teevee series and stage plays, and the only thing they managed was Damnation Alley? Tch. Every few years I read that they're about to make the Chronicles of Amber for teevee, but they never do. They do other things that winkingly borrow from it, but never the real thing. It's a story about a nested multiverse, and a family of descendants of the creatures that created it out of capital-C Chaos, who live nearly forever and are casually at each other's throats for power in the place at the heart of it all. It has magic and artificial intelligence and sword fights and demons and monsters and romance and role models for good, to emulate, and for evil, to not be like. And, like real life, morally puzzling problems to urgently address without enough information, and then consequences. Anyway, here's a person with impressive pottery skills, consequences: pots. https://misscellania.blogspot.com/2024/09/tweet-of-day.html

Further in the line of women I would like to watch swallow an egg. The older I get, the less creepy that feels to say. Therefore the more creepy it is. And if something is creepy, a million people will pay for it. Except, I read an article last night about how young people have brought /consensual sexual asphyxiation/ into the mainstream. Now, that is creepy, but nobody would pay for it, because when something goes wrong and the person dies, and there was money involved, it's not just mortifying, it is, like the entire spectrum of playfulness, impossible to explain in a court of law, and that's intuitive, it's baked in, almost the only form of forethought you can count on people to show, especially in their teens and twenties, when who has to pay for it anyway? so that solves itself. You really pay later, though. Not necessarily money. I'll stop now. https://www.vintag.es/2024/09/eugene-vernier.html

Speaking of which, imagine the wild electrical activity in this barking-mad preacher's brain. Imagine afterward, when she's just gone offstage. She flops into a chair, says softly but emphatically, “Ah yeah,” like an inflatable guest bed ripping a seam and relaxing flat, or like Jack Nicholson said, pleased and exhausted after sex with Angela Huston in /Prizzi's Honor/. (via Christian Nightmares) https://twitter.com/ChristnNitemare/status/1829738752517796130

And the Shirelles – Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2e8B2CmicQ

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

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A HUNDRED DAYS IS PLENTY

Editor:

The founders didn’t take three years preparing for a presidential election or rely on Citizens United to spend billions of dollars on it. I’m an old independent. Older than Joe Biden, bless his heart, and I believe Americans can have local, state and national elections in 100 days.

Fred A. Rands

Santa Rosa

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THE SUMMER OF LOVE was over, and no one had swept up after the party.

— Francine Prose

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STEVE SCHWARTZ

This is my moment. It belongs to nobody else in the Bay Area.

Many recipients of this message, in DC and elsewhere, will understand this.

Most of those around me will be shocked.

This is my moment.

I knew this would come. In NB only Fast Eddie really understood why I talk as I do about love of country.

I was never a blind patriot. I left America in 1999 expecting to be killed in Kosovo.

I don't intend to belabor this.

I believed. I believed in myself, in my star, in Bucky, my muse.

I suffered a lot. I can't say otherwise.

A month ago I was in jail because of the extreme trumpism of one of my neighbors, Cameron Leigh Evans.

In jail I asked the young poet Scott Bird to read this with me on the telephone.

https://youtu.be/QYQr0-GixqY?si=J3xexzdDHL41QJg9

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IS CALIFORNIA’S FOG DISAPPEARING?

by Jack Lee

San Franciscans are intimately familiar with summertime fog, which keeps the city cool while temperatures elsewhere soar.

But California’s coastal fog has declined over recent decades, according to some studies, putting the future of the iconic weather phenomenon in limbo. Scientists are still disentangling how climate change will transform fog patterns, but experts say a future with reduced fog would have dire consequences for people, ecosystems and even agriculture.

Diminishing fog

Coastal California fog peaks in the summer, when a seasonal high-pressure system over the Pacific produces winds that churn up chilly ocean water along the shoreline. Marine air sweeps over the cold sea surface, condensing into water droplets that form fogbanks.

“Clouds and fog are really hard to simulate in climate models,” said Rachel Clemesha, a climate scientist at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. “There’s so many scales at play, (from) the chemistry in the raindrop to circulation that’s on the global scale.”

Scientists have largely relied on observational data to discern fog patterns. UC Berkeley ecologist Todd Dawson co-led a landmark 2010 study that reported declining summertime fog across Northern California using decades of measurements from airports in Arcata and Monterey.

“That really worried a lot of us,” said U.S. Geological Survey scientist Alicia Torregrosa. The result spurred Torregrosa to assemble an interdisciplinary fog brain trust to characterize California fog patterns.

But the 2010 study has limitations. The conclusions for Northern California rely on data from two airports, and fog varies dramatically between locations.

“A lot of people who have grown up along the California coast often say, ‘Oh, I remember when I was a kid, the fog used to be much more than it is now,’ ” said Daniel Fernandez, a professor in the department of applied environmental science at California State University Monterey Bay who specializes in studying fog. While that may be true in one location, fog may have increased in another, Fernandez said: “We’re going to have dips and bumps.”

Southern and Central California Insights

Studies focused on other parts of the state also identified long-term changes in fog. A 2015 study reported declines in Southern California fog over recent decades based on airport cloud measurements.

The biggest declines were for early morning fog in Santa Barbara, Los Angeles and San Diego. The authors attribute the change to urban warming effects.

“The concrete and the asphalt is absorbing all that heat and re-radiating it at night,” said Clemesha, who co-authored the study. Higher temperatures make it less likely for fog droplets to form at the surface.

The work agreed with earlier reports. A 2011 study also reported a reduction in Southern California, due in part to cleaner air. This is because fog droplets condense on tiny particles like air pollutants and other aerosols. Without these particles, fog develops less readily.

“As you change the concentration of aerosol particles and even the chemistry, it can change (the) formation of clouds and fog and also the duration of how long they’re going to stick around,” Clemesha said.

During a foggy August day a fisherman tried his luck at San Francisco’s Fort Point. Scientists aren’t in agreement on whether fog will decrease or increase in places like San Francisco as the planet continues to warm as a result of rising greenhouse gas emissions.

Researchers aren’t just investigating how climate change will influence fog; they’re also probing how fog could alleviate climate change impacts.

Fog plays a critical role in ecosystems like California’s redwood forests: “Between 35 and 40% of all the water that comes into the forest every year comes from coastal fog smashing into the trees and then dripping into the ecosystem,” Dawson said. Changes in fog patterns could drive losses of the majestic trees in drier parts of their ranges.

Sara Baguskas, an associate professor in San Francisco State University’s School of the Environment, found that fog is also important for strawberry plants and reported that incorporating fog into irrigation plans could conserve water.

“We want to set the stage of why we should care if fog changes,” Baguskas said.

Opposing Effects

Fog is extremely difficult to simulate, limiting predictions for what will happen to California’s coastal fog in the coming decades.

“The oceans are warming and there is reason to believe that if your surface just gets warmer, that you’re not going to be hitting the dew point as readily,” said Ian Faloona, an atmospheric scientist at UC Davis. That means moisture-laden air may not become cool enough for fog to form.

But stronger winds could counter such fog reduction. Climate change is expected to drive up temperatures on land, amplifying the temperature difference between chilly ocean waters and inland regions. Some scientists say this could produce a stronger sea breeze that ferries fog deeper inland.

Such winds could also increase upwelling, bringing more cold water to the surface. This could cool down marine air, resulting in fog droplets condensing more readily — in other words, more fog.

But scientists aren’t completely certain how these winds will change, Dawson said. “If we could do better forecasting of coastal winds and then coastal upwelling, that could really help inform (models) and then really inform better forecasting (of fog) as we go into the future.”

(SF Chronicle)

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IMMIGRATION, RECENTLY

Editor,

This letter is responding to today’s article, “U.S. border arrests on track to break record,” Dianne Solis, the Dallas Morning News. As noted in this fine article, recent “illegal” (or not?) immigrants originating from countries which have broken diplomatic relations with the U.S. - Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

Cooperating governors, Abbott, R, TX and DeSantis, R, FL used their state taxpayer funds to load busloads of families and migrant individuals to dispatch, without warnings or preparations, to Chicago, IL, Washington, DC and Martha’s Vineyard, the island near the Massachusetts coast.

This most egregious, cruel stunt, engineered by DeSantis, brought Venezeulan families to Martha’s Vineyard, a refuge for affluent American vacationers. These Venezuelans, fleeing death and oppression, only sought new lives and jobs together with safe places to rest. In contrast to the two afore-mentioned power-hungry politicians, Martha’s Vineyard’s residents did whatever was needed, giving these new prospective citizens shelter and respite, often using own money to help these strangers to our land.

Once was, whomever attained a high office like state governor was a persons of highest character who would not stoop so low. Unfortunately, such is no longer the case.

Frank Baumgardner

Santa Rosa

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ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

The US had a pretty good balance when immigration was near zero, Christianity (Catholicism) was high, men and women married young, resultant birth rates were high and the men smoked and drank at high rates and worked dangerous/high-paying jobs. Men left the work force at younger ages, allowing for the younger folks to take positions of power and make high salaries at younger ages in order to provide for their young families. The men died in their 60’s/early 70’s, limiting health care and elder care costs and the drain on pensions. The old women hung on for longer, lived with the daughters/sons families and were able to provide childcare/guidance/stability for their daughters/grandchildren. It was a pretty good equilibrium from the late 19th century to 1990 or so.

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TAIBBI & KIRN

Matt Taibbi: And quote directly from Merrick Garland’s press conference about all of this, and boy, he was on fire. Merrick Garland is the kind of person who you can’t imagine even raising an eyebrow at the moment of ecstasy. He’s the kind of person who looks like his absolutely most animated still looks like he’s doing his taxes. I mean, he is a boring person, but he was hot in this press conference, and he said a lot of interesting things in it, so let’s just go through a couple of them. This part I highlighted, “The subject matter and content of many of the videos published by the company were often consistent with Russia’s interest in amplifying US domestic divisions in order to weaken US opposition to core Russian interest, particularly its ongoing war in Ukraine,” so consistent with.

Walter Kirn: Well, yeah. Often consistent, not always. Often consistent with, and then basically he suggests that anti-Ukraine war or war-funding positions, by being consistent with what we imagine Russia’s interests are-

Matt Taibbi: Right.

Walter Kirn: … Should be added to an indictment.

Matt Taibbi: Yes, so it’s very careful not to say that they were directed to make videos of a certain kind. It just says-

Walter Kirn: Or that they were remarkably consistent, or mostly but often, which…

Matt Taibbi: Right, right. This part of yesterday’s address was very similar to what he said after Bobby Kennedy announced that he was joining up with Donald Trump. “As I’ve said before, and I will reiterate again today, these cases are a warning. If you threaten to harm or kill an election worker or official or volunteer, the Justice Department will find you, and we will hold you accountable.”

Walter Kirn: How did killing election people get into this?

Matt Taibbi: He talked about-

Walter Kirn: Or threatening them?

Matt Taibbi: This is about a broad plan to protect elections, so they go from the informational threat posed by these Russian influencers, to threats against election workers and the machinery of elections, right?

Walter Kirn: Which are tangential, let’s say, to the indictment.

Matt Taibbi: Oh, yes.

Walter Kirn: I mean, and don’t include charges yet that we’ve seen.

Matt Taibbi: Charges against any Americans.

Walter Kirn: Any Americans.

Matt Taibbi: Right, yeah.

Walter Kirn: But in other words, he contextualizes this thing, in terms of all of these plots or alleged incidents in which election workers are threatened, and this is just a general election security measure, along with this whole other unspecified move or threatened move against all kinds of people and all kinds of threats that aren’t information threats.

Matt Taibbi: Then, he writes this, and this is interesting because we did a whole show about the Transition Integrity Project once. Here he says, “Since March, the task force,” and God, I forget what the name of this task force is. I mean-

Walter Kirn: Why don’t they just give him numbers, like in spy novels, “Task Force 38.”

Matt Taibbi: Right, yeah. Exactly, right. Instead of Catch-22, right? Task Force 38. So, “Since March, the election security task force has participated in more than 25 convenings, engagements, trainings, tabletop exercises, including both with our law enforcement partners and with our partners in the election community nationwide. Over the next several weeks, task force representatives will be on the ground, meeting with election workers.” So this is three things that are interesting about the Merrick Garland thing. First of all, the broadness of the response is pretty intense. There’s treasury sanctions. There’s the state department issuing new Visa requirements, and then there’s the Justice Department announcing an indictment, threats, right? “If you even consider looking at scans at an election worker, we’re going to get you.” That kind of thing, and look, if there are actual threats against election workers, I’m not for that, but to mention that on this occasion is interesting.

Walter Kirn: Nor am I. I mean, in fact, there’s a lot of things that I’m against and for, that aren’t part of this indictment, that are included in it as contextual matter. Who wants to see election workers killed?

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TWO HILLBILLIES walk into a restaurant. While having a bite to eat, they talk about their moonshine operation.

Suddenly, a woman at a nearby table, who is eating a sandwich, begins to cough.

After a minute or so, it becomes apparent that she is in real distress. One of the hillbillies looks at her and says, Kin ya swallar?’

The woman shakes her head no. Then he asks, ‘Kin ya breathe?’

The woman begins to turn blue, and shakes her head no.

The hillbilly walks over to the woman, lifts up her dress, yanks down her drawers, and quickly gives her right butt cheek a lick with his tongue.

The woman is so shocked that she has a violent spasm, and the obstruction flies out of her mouth. As she begins to breathe again, the Hillbilly walks slowly back to his table. His partner says, “Ya know, I’d heerd of that there ‘Hind Lick Maneuver’ but I ain’t niver seed nobody do it!”

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DESPITE what tourists believe, the real Europe is not a posh cafe on the rue de Rivoli with gilded frescoes and little pots of famous hot chocolate. The real Europe is a borderless network of supply and transport. It is shrink-wrapped pallets of superpasturized milk or powdered Nesquik or semiconductors. It is windowless distribution warehouses, where unseen men, Polish, Moldovan, Macedonian, back up their empty trucks and load goods that they will move through a giant grid called “Europe,” a Texas-sized parcel of which is called “France.”

— Rachel Kushner, Creation Lake

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I HAD TO SECRETLY TAKE MY PARENTS’ GUNS AWAY FROM THEM. IT SHOULDN’T BE THAT WAY

by Rebecca Black

When I first saw the headlines about the school shooting Wednesday in Winder, Ga., like many people, I felt my stomach drop and my hands go numb. As I processed the news, I recalled I’d visited a shooting range with my brother close to Winder run by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources in February 2023.

I’d wanted to spend some time with him; he’d wanted some target practice.

I remember stuffing foam plugs deep into my ears, putting on plastic earmuffs, and picking up a pistol. In a flash, I was taken back to how alone and afraid I’d felt the last time I’d handled a gun.

In 2001, I performed what I see now as a DIY gun removal, secretly carting dozens of firearms out of my parents’ house in south Georgia after they’d threatened to kill each other. I didn’t have a sheriff to call or a judge to petition — I just decided my parents were a danger to themselves and each other and I had to get the guns out of our house.

It was a low-risk, community-supported intervention. My father had been paralyzed by a stroke that year and my mother used a cane to careen around our house. I simply waited until they were asleep in their separate rooms to start searching for their guns. They never threatened me and never actually waved guns around, but their verbal threats to kill themselves or each other had reached an apex. When they started hiding guns, I knew I had to act.

My father’s friends, all responsible gun owners, took turns coming by our house to carry away the small arms I was finding stashed in closets, tucked in between sweaters and hidden in underwear drawers. I’ll never forget meeting them outside our front door — and how fast my heart was beating as I gave them whatever pistol I’d found that day and the relief I felt when the gun was out of my hands. I didn’t know if the weapons were loaded or unloaded or where to look for the safety buttons. While I’d gone deer hunting a few times with my dad, I was a girl, and no one bothered to teach me how to unload a pistol safely, how to press the safety.

Looking back, I shouldn’t have had to do that in secret with a few close family friends. Fortunately, in California, where I’ve lived for most of the past 20 years, families and community members don’t have to.

In 2014, California enacted the first Extreme Risk Protection Orders. Otherwise known as red flag laws, these orders empower families and community members to deescalate potential violence by temporarily restricting access to guns for individuals deemed to be a threat to themselves or others through a gun violence restraining order.

It’s exactly the kind of program that could have helped me all those years ago, and while investigators are still piecing together how this week’s mass shooting unfolded, if Georgia had restraining orders like the one in California, it would allow teachers — including of secondary students — to file a petition.

These laws provide common sense opportunities for ordinary citizens and family members to have help in removing weapons from individuals in crisis, the kind of help my father’s friends informally provided to me.

Gun confiscation laws have the potential for support across the political divide. Everyone knows gun violence is a public health epidemic. Gun restraining orders are an admission: It’s not just guns that kill people, it’s people with guns who kill people.

According to the gun violence education group Everytown, Georgia ranks 46th in the nation in gun law strength, compared to California’s No. 1 ranking. Still, there isn’t much to celebrate in the Golden State: In an average year, around 3,299 Californians will die from gun violence.

Yes, an outright ban on semiautomatic weapons like the one the alleged shooter in Winder used would drastically decrease the number of mass shootings. But a federal ban or even a state ban is unlikely any time soon. To make a real impact on ending the violence, we also have to focus on the people who make credible threats of violence.

We have the power to appeal to legislators and citizens across the political spectrum. Families deserve the support of their sheriff’s office and their court systems no matter what state they live in.

Thankfully, I’ll never know if my actions prevented a family murder-suicide. My DIY gun removal was a success. My father’s friends returned the guns I took out of our closets and drawers to my brother after he graduated from college. My parents did not end up shooting each other; they just got divorced. After decades of threatening suicide, my mother, who struggled with mental illness and Parkinson’s disease, died of natural causes in 2016.

Some 20 years later, I shot one of the guns I’d removed from their house at the shooting range in Clybel. Then my brother locked it back in its case before safely locking the case back in his home gun closet. Then we went to visit my father, not at his grave and not in prison, but at his assisted living facility.

(Rebecca Black is a poet and nonfiction writer. From 2016-2020, she served as Poet Laureate of her chosen Bay Area hometown of Albany. She is originally from Albany, Georgia.)

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Interviewer: What was that like meeting Jerry?

TC: “I mean, I was thrilled. It's the only picture I have anywhere of me with a famous person, you know . . . because it's Jerry Garcia.”

What was he like?

TC: “He was kind of out of it. My father was a reporter in San Francisco in the ‘60s and covered the Grateful Dead and knew them. When I was a kid, maybe freshman year of college, I was home in Washington for vacation for Christmas. And my father's like, “Oh, the Grateful Dead are coming to my office. I knew them in the ‘60s in San Francisco.”

I was like, “The Grateful Dead are coming to your office!?” He goes, “Well, just Jerry Garcia.” I was like, “No way!”

We took a cab from Georgetown downtown to my dad's office; he was working in a federal agency. And there was Jerry standing there talking about their time in the ‘60s in San Francisco. And it was like – incredible. So my brother and I got our picture with Jerry. I have no pictures in my office. I've met a lot of people, just because that's what I do. But I have no pictures other than that one.

I'll tell you one thing about it that I'll never forget. He was missing the middle finger on his right hand – his brother cut it off with an axe by accident when they were camping on the Russian River. And you could feel it as you shook his hand. You know, his ring finger and index finger kind of collapse together. So you could feel that the hand was not solid. It was interesting.”

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“IN THE LATE 40S, there was a rumor that there was a “hermit,” disenchanted and disillusioned with the world, supposedly “out-of-sync” with society, living in California in a cave under one of the L’s in the Hollywood sign.

No one really cared about this strange man, until one night in 1947, when someone tried to enter backstage at the Lincoln Theater in Los Angeles. Nat King Cole was playing there, and the man said he had something for Cole. Of course, the employees didn't let the strange man see Cole, so he left whatever he had with Cole's manager.

What he had was a song sheet, which Cole would later take a look at. Cole liked the song and wanted to record it, but he had to find the strange man. When asked, the people who saw the man said he was strange, indeed, with shoulder-length hair and beard, wearing sandals and a white robe.

Cole finally tracked him down in New York City. When Cole asked him where he was staying, the strange man declared he was staying at the best hotel in New York - outside, literally, in Central Park. He said his name was eden ahbez (spelled all in lower-case letters). The song he gave Cole was titled, “Nature Boy.”

It became Cole's first big hit, and was soon covered by other artists through the years, from Frank Sinatra and Sarah Vaughan to Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga, most recently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqoXJCJ1Srw

Of course, the media went crazy about the strange, mysterious man who handed Nat King Cole, one of the biggest hits during that time. Everyone went out to try to find out more about him.

What little they found was that he was once an orphan, who never stayed at one place very long, living in various foster homes. He explained he just never fit in and was always searching, for something.

[“They say he wandered very far…

Very far, over land and sea…”]

They found out he would hop freight trains and walked across the country several times, subsisting solely on raw fruits and vegetables, then one day he completely vanished.

[“A little shy and sad of eye…

But very wise was he…”]

He finally showed up again in the Hollywood hills. When a policeman stopped the strange, long-haired man with the beard, sandals, and robe, ahbez simply replied, “I look crazy but I'm not. And the funny thing is that other people don't look crazy but they are.”

[“And then one day…

One magic day he passed my way…”]

He then showed up backstage at Nat King Cole's concert in Los Angeles, to present him with the song, “Nature Boy.” No one seems to really know why he selected Cole; there were some rumors that he came out of hiding when he began to hear about the racism going on and trouble throughout the world, and he thought “King” was the best person at that time to pass his message along.

[“While we spoke of many things…

Fools and Kings…”]

When he was asked about racism, he replied, “Some white people hate black people, and some white people love black people, some black people hate white people, and some black people love white people. So you see it's not an issue of black and white, it's an issue of Lovers and Haters.”

It was that theme of love that he continued to talk about, what was missing in the world, and what would be needed in the future if we are to survive.

ahbez would eventually get his message out, especially after the counter-culture finally caught up with him and the hippie movement began, when other artists such as Donovan, Grace Slick, and the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson sought him out. He also wrote songs for Eartha Kitt and had another song recorded by Sam Cooke.

In 2009, Congressman Bill Aswad recited the last lyrics of the song before the Vermont House of Representatives at the passing of his state's same-sex marriage bill in '09.

Author Raymond Knapp described the track as a “mystically charged vagabond song” whose lyrics evoked an intense sense of loss and haplessness, with the final line delivering a universal truth, described by Knapp as “indestructible” and “salvaged somehow from the perilous journey of life.”

[“This he said to me…

The greatest thing you'll ever learn…

Is just to love and be loved in return.”]

“George Alexander Aberle (April 15, 1908 – March 4, 1995), known as eden ahbez, was an American songwriter and recording artist of the 1940s to 1960s, whose lifestyle in California was influential in the hippie movement.

He was known to friends simply as ahbe.

Ahbez composed the song “Nature Boy”, which became a No. 1 hit for eight weeks in 1948 for Nat “King” Cole.

Living a bucolic life from at least the 1940s, he traveled in sandals and wore shoulder-length hair and beard, and white robes. He camped out below the first L in the Hollywood Sign above Los Angeles and studied Oriental mysticism. He slept outdoors with his family and ate vegetables, fruits, and nuts. He claimed to live on three dollars per week.

In the mid 1950s, he wrote songs for Eartha Kitt, Frankie Laine, and others, as well as writing some rock-and-roll novelty songs. In 1957, his song “Lonely Island” was recorded by Sam Cooke, becoming the second and final Ahbez composition to hit the Top 40.

In 1959, he began recording instrumental music, which combined his signature somber tones with exotic arrangements and (according to the record sleeve) “primitive rhythms”. He often performed bongo, flute, and poetry gigs at beat coffeehouses in the Los Angeles area. In 1960, he recorded his only solo LP, Eden's Island, for Del-Fi Records. This mixed beatnik poetry with exotica arrangements. Ahbez promoted the album through a coast-to-coast walking tour making personal appearances, but it sold poorly.

During the 1960s, ahbez released five singles. Grace Slick's band, the Great Society, recorded a version of “Nature Boy” in 1966 and ahbez was photographed in the studio with Brian Wilson during a session for the Smile album in early 1967. Later that year, British singer Donovan sought out ahbez in Palm Springs, and the two wanderers shared a reportedly “near-telepathic” conversation. In the 1970s, Big Star's Alex Chilton recorded a version of “Nature Boy” with the photographer William Eggleston on piano. The song was finally released as a bonus track on the 1992 Rykodisc re-release of the album Third/Sister Lovers.

In 1974, ahbez was reported to be living in the Los Angeles suburb of Sunland, and he owned a record label named Sunland Records, for which he was recording under the name “Eden Abba.” From the late 1980s until his death, ahbez worked closely with Joe Romersa, an engineer/drummer in Los Angeles. The master tapes, photos, and final works of eden ahbez are in Romersa's possession.

Ahbez died on March 4, 1995, of injuries sustained in a car accident, at the age of 86. Another album, Echoes from Nature Boy, was released posthumously.”

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