Cloverdale Dawn | Cooling | Gualala Gas | Mendo Incident | Epic Busts | Identity Thief | Cyclamen | Prop 36 | Prop S | Firefighters | Yes All | Fun One | Ray’s Station | Jim & Tammy | Ukrainian Documentary | Come a'Thistling | Rail Car | Whistleblower Cox | Clean Up | Ed Notes | System Fit | Yesterday's Catch | Government Sucks | Hurricane Milton | Illegal Hiring | Lady Lib | Grape Glut | Odd John | ED Interview | Wringer Washer | Eaze Layoffs | DC Tip | Niner Hope | Coach Shanahan | Deindustrialization | Long Overdue | Lead Stories | Please Help | Total Control | Honesty | ASU Disinfo | Sandbagged | If Only | Sheena | Organ Banquet | Lunch Delivery
STRATUS SHROUDS THE COAST while seasonably warm and dry weather is forecast to continue for the interior during the next few days. Cooler temps and light rain possible late this week or this weekend. (NWS)
STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): 48F under clear skies this Tuesday morning on the coast. Yesterday's high was 20F less than Sunday's high temp. Patchy fog returns tonight, rain maybe Friday night & the weekend they say? As usual, we'll see.
ON THE CASE
Re: Friday Incident in the Town of Mendocino
The Mendocino K-8 School is aware of the incident that was referenced in an announce listserv post on Friday. I want to be very clear that the incident took place in the town of Mendocino, off-campus, and after school hours.
Once we were informed of the incident, school personnel worked Friday evening, over the weekend, and this morning to assist the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office and families to determine what happened as well as next steps.
Jason Morse
Superintendent, Mendocino Unified School District
FORMERLY KNOWN AS CAMP
During the last weeks of September 2024, the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office, with the assistance of the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office, served numerous warrants at unlicensed cannabis sites in the Round Valley area. These operations were performed in collaboration with state and federal partners, to target unregulated and unlicensed marijuana production and its impact on the community and the quality of life for the residents in Covelo.
Over the past several weeks, authorities identified numerous illegal grow sites operating without the necessary permits to legally cultivate marijuana in accordance with state laws. These operations not only violate state law, but also pose risks to public safety, environmental integrity, and the health of the overall community.
A total of sixteen (16) locations were targeted during the week-long operation, with the majority of locations being in the greater Covelo area and one site in the Mendocino National Forrest. Investigators located and identified numerous water diversions and extremely dangerous pesticides near local waterways. Law enforcement officials found numerous instances of pesticides being used, which are banned in the United States.
During these operations, law enforcement officials seized 30,482 marijuana plants, 23,246 pounds of processed marijuana for the purpose of sales, and 6 firearms. The seized firearms included two weapons that were determined to be illegal to possess in California (an assault rifle “ghost gun” and a sawed-off shotgun).
Investigators also seized one pound of psilocybin mushrooms and $132,010.00 in U.S. Currency. These criminal investigations are ongoing, and additional efforts are being planned to dismantle these illegal and criminal networks.
Reports will be forwarded to the Mendocino County District Attorney’s Office requesting formal charging of several individuals as a result of these investigations.
The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office would like to thank the following agencies for their efforts during these operations: Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office, California Department of Fish and Wildlife and their environmental impact team, California State Waterboard, E.P.I.C. (Eradication Prevention of Illicit Cannabis Team - formerly known as C.A.M.P), California Department of Justice (DOJ), and the Mendocino County Major Crimes Task Force.
Anyone with information regarding these illegal cannabis operations can contact the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office utilizing the non-emergency tip line at 707-234-2100.
IDENTITY THIEF
A 23-year-old Ukiah man pled guilty to felony identity theft, money laundering, and grand theft that bilked a Pleasant Hill victim of nearly 20-thousand dollars.
Andrew William McCormick was charged on February 20th, 2024, with felony violations of conspiracy to defraud, identity theft, false impersonation, money laundering, and grand theft in a scheme he executed in Florida targeting an account holder at a Chase Bank branch in Pleasant Hill.
McCormick began his financial crime by opening a legitimate account in his name on July 22, 2022, at a Chase Bank branch in Ukiah. He then scheduled an in-person appointment at a Chase Bank branch in Plantation, Florida for August 26, 2022.
He flew to Florida on August 25th and met with a co-conspirator who impersonated the Pleasant Hill victim and used the victim's stolen identifying information. While in Florida, the two went to the pre-scheduled bank meeting where they opened a joint account and linked it to the victim's checking account. Later, McCormick made phone transfers totaling $19,956.44 from the victim's account to the new one and then made an electronic transfer of $12,300 to his account in Ukiah. McCormick continued to make electronic transfers and cash withdrawals from five other bank branches until he drained the victim's account. He left Florida later that day.
Pleasant Hill Police Officer Andrew Mundy investigated for several months piecing together information obtained through multiple search warrants to build a solid case against McCormick. Contra Costa District Attorney Diana Becton noted, “When it comes to financial crimes, the challenges can be steep. But Officer Mundy’s impressive investigation and DDA Dana Filkowski’s thorough preparation for prosecution led to a just outcome for the victim of this crime”
McCormick pled guilty to the following charges shortly before the preliminary hearing began on October 3rd, 2024: Identity theft [PC 530.5(a)], money laundering [PC 186.10(a)], and grand theft of personal property [PC 487(a)]. McCormick faces 240 days in county jail and will repay the victim the amount he stole. Moreover, he will be on probation for two years.
October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. The Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency offers four easy tips to stay safe online: 1) Use strong passwords (long, random, and unique with uppercase, lowercase, numbers, and symbols); 2) Turn on multi-factor authentication (MFA), especially for financial accounts; 3) Recognize and report phishing (suspicious messages asking for personal info); 4) Keep your software updated to get the latest security patches. Learn more at cisa.gov.
SHERIFF MATT KENDALL: (Re: the Ukiah City Council’s non-endorsement of Proposition 36)
I watched this portion of the city council meeting and was a little bit shocked myself. Call me old-fashioned, however I still don’t think it’s OK to steal from anyone.
Some of the comments made seemed a little out of touch and although I’m certain they were intended to sound like they were caring and thoughtful to the plight of our fellow humans, ultimately they seemed uninformed.
Our coroner’s cases show we lose almost 50 people a year to overdoses. We have lost none to starvation.
Listening to the city council members say they understand why people steal and framing it as a necessity due to poverty was simply ridiculous. People who steal power tools aren’t eating them, they are being sold at a discount for drugs and that’s simply a fact.
When times get hard we have to raise the bar and people will meet the challenge. Obviously, our state has been lowering it and people are reaching down to meet that expectation. Sad times to at the least.
PROP S — FOR THE ALBION FIRE DEPARTMENT
Dear Albion and Little River neighbors;
Support Albion Fire District's new tax assessment
Our volunteer fire department needs our help. This election ballot includes Measure S, a $600 property tax measure that we need to pass to keep our fire and rescue service staffed, equipped and fully trained.
Our aging population and increased property and housing costs have reduced our pool of volunteers, requiring the need to hire rescuers/fire fighters in addition to our paid chief. Our volunteers are treasured and appreciated; it’s just that there are no longer enough of them to keep us safe.
In addition to the need to hire 2 or 3 staff to make up for this lack of sufficient volunteers, there have been big increases in equipment costs and training requirements. All this means our fire department needs a lot more funds than it did when we passed the last property tax assessment, now expiring, ten years ago.
Our lives and homes depend on the Albion-Little River Fire Department to protect us from fires and accidents. Let us show them our appreciation by funding them adequately. With the current tax ending, please vote in favor of this new and badly needed fire tax assessment: Yes on S!
Tom Wodetzki
Albion
THE AVA RECOMMENDS
Prop 2: $10 Bil For School Facilities. YES.
Prop 3: Right To Marry. YES.
Prop 4: Safe Water Wildfire Prevention Climate Change Risks. YES.
Prop 5: Bonds For Housing. YES.
Prop 6: Involuntary Servitude In Prisons. YES.
Prop 32: Minimum Wage To $18 Dollars An Hour. YES.
Prop 33: Rent Control. YES.
Prop 34: Ensures Healthcare Funding Gets To Patients, Not The Owners Of Medical Corporations. YES.
Prop 35: Ensures Medi-Cal Funding Remains Untampered With. YES.
Prop 36: Increases Penalties For Drug And Theft Crimes. YES.
Previously, recommendations with commentary: https://theava.com/archives/253303#14
SUPERVISOR MAUREEN MULHEREN
This will be a fun one to watch go up. I believe it will be 71 units, mixed income and it’s a project by Pinoleville. It meets the goals of having an active transportation based housing focus as it sits near the center of town with access to the Great Redwood Trail. There was another project recently approved by the City, I’ll try and get more details.
Edited to add
(the new project was a PEP Senior Housing Project on Perkins, more will follow.)
We need housing of all types.
We have developers working on “Market rate” (some people refer to this as middle income or workforce housing for professionals like nurses, teachers etc) housing subdivisions south of town near Plant Road (157 single family homes and Senior bungalows in their own senior community) and the project on the north of Lovers Lane is working with the County to start moving through planning, that one is 140 or so can’t recall the exact number.
Because of the way the funding streams work and the cost of building specific housing for Seniors, Vets, Low Income etc can sometimes move faster than those that are trying to work with market conditions.
The good news is we are doing all of it! Yay!
VINTAGE WINE ESTATES UNDER ENFORCEMENT FOR WASTEWATER MANAGEMENT FAILURES DESPITE ONGOING BANKRUPTCY
Vintage Wine Estates is under a new order to bring wastewater treatment system at Ray’s Station Winery in Hopland into compliance despite plans to sell the bottling facility as part of bankruptcy proceedings.
by Mary Callahan
Water quality regulators are raising the stakes for embattled Vintage Wine Estates over ongoing problems with wastewater treatment and disposal at its massive bottling facility outside Hopland that have left neighbors gagging on foul-smelling air and risked contamination of local surface and groundwater.
The five-member North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board acted to hasten corrective action despite company assertions that such a move was made unnecessary by Vintage Wine Estates’ plans to sell Ray’s Station Winery as part of fast-moving bankruptcy proceedings.
Negotiations with a potential buyer are underway, company attorney Theresa Dunham told the board. If a buyer isn’t secured, and in short order, the plant will be shut down, she said.
“There is no intent to continue operations in any shape or form as Vintage Wine Estates,” Dunham said.
The appointed board nonetheless approved a cease-and-desist order requiring the company submit remediation plans within 90 days and bring its system into permit compliance over the next year or face further, more serious consequences ― including possible referral to the state attorney general.
The vote was unanimous.
“Our responsibility here is to protect water quality,” board Chairman Hector Bedolla said during a hearing Thursday. “Our responsibility here is to protect the environment and groundwater.”
The order does not assign liability or impose financial penalties. Kailyn Ellison, an attorney in the Office of Enforcement for the California State Water Resources Control Board, said it would be “nearly impossible” anyway, given the company’s bankruptcy.
But “it is important to hold Vintage Wine Estates accountable,” Ellison said. “They should not be granted a free pass to continue operations in violations of the permit.”
The order is the latest enforcement action by the regional board to address complaints and wastewater violations dating to 2019, when neighbors in scenic McDowell Valley along Highway 175 first complained about noxious odors they likened to “rotting teeth” and “fecal matter.”
The stink that has disrupted their lives and, they’re sure, lowered property values at the four affected homes, has continued off and on. Most recently, odor complaints appear related to a failed wastewater treatment aerator discovered Sept. 27 that will take months to replace, Dunham conceded.
She and Rodrigo de Oliveira, Ray’s Station operations head, said in part that’s because Vintage Wine Estates’ July 24 Chapter 11 bankruptcy has made it tougher to find willing vendors and has complicated payment processes when they do.
“We understand the need to come into compliance,” Dunham said. “We aren’t disputing that.”
The aerator is just the latest problem since 2019, seven years after Vintage Wine Estates acquired what had been a “mom and pop” winery and began transforming it into a behemoth, bulk wine bottling facility capable of turning out 11 million cases a year.
The resulting wastewater generated through cleaning and sanitation of wine tanks and bottling equipment has continued to strain available treatment and discharge capacity, despite expansions of treatment and storage ponds.
Early odor complaints documented by water quality staffers resulted in a series of corrective orders that Ray’s Station addressed in part by removing a grape pomace stockpile near one neighbor’s home ― created when grapes were still crushed on the premises. They also adopted a chemical injection process to reduce wastewater odors.
In 2022, the company pulled out a 12-acre vineyard where treated wastewater had been sprayed and instead installed five elongated rapid infiltration basins where the effluent could be deposited and gradually filtered out.
But over 21 days between October 2022 and April 2023, nearly 1.5 million gallons of treated and partly treated effluent were illegally discharged to landscaped areas around the plant to reduce demand on the infiltration basins, which operators said had been working more slowly than anticipated, water quality board staff said. A pump hose broke, contributing to landscape discharges in violation of the permit, and also a 50-horsepower aerator in one of two treatment ponds failed, renewing odor issues, board staff said.
Board staffers testified Thursday that they have met with Ray’s Station operators to provide guidance on repairs, in addition to issuing enforcement orders. But each problem solved seemed to be met by some new issue, resulting in chronic deficiencies.
Among their findings were occasions on which an unidentified, organic “biofilm” was found on rocks and drainage areas, where it could find its way into surface water nearby, the cease and desist order says. Board staff is still trying to get to the bottom of it, Jeremiah Puget, senior environmental scientists in the board’s Enforcement Unit said.
In March, a “discharge of foamy, odor laden water” made its way to surface waters, including a reservoir at a neighboring vineyard across the highway, according to the cease and desist order.
In mid-June, Ray’s Station operators discovered that the impermeable liner in the first of two wastewater treatment ponds had begun bubbling due to pressure underneath from some fluid ― perhaps effluent from the pond.
The pond has since been drained, and operators have been trucking wastewater to the regional wastewater facility in west Santa Rosa.
Ray’s Station is under orders to determine if the liner of the second pond has also failed.
That investigation can’t be completed until the second pond is emptied, however, and that is held up by the failure last month of one of two, 25-horsepower aerators in the basin, Dunham said.
Operators plan to replace it with the repaired 50-horsepower unit in the now-drained first pond, but that will likely take months at least, she said.
Tod Kong, a resident since 1991 and the only Ray’s Station neighbor to attend the hearing, said he remembered when he and his family enjoyed “a beautiful 2-mile agricultural valley,” before the astonishingly large facility that now occupies the winery site.
He said the site and Vintage Wine Estates’ resources are simply inadequate for “the amount of activity going on.” And it’s the neighbors who suffer in the meanwhile, he said.
(Santa Rosa Press Democrat)
UKRAINIAN FILM & FUNDRAISER ON THE MENDOCINO COAST!
The Mendocino Film Festival will screen the Ukrainian documentary, "Porcelain War," this week:
Wednesday, October 9, 7pm at the Coast Cinema in Fort Bragg
The 2024 Sundance award-winning film is the story of two porcelain artists, a painter, (and a dog) who resist the 2022 Russian invasion with their art and humanity and as civilian soldiers.
"Ukraine is like porcelain," they say, "easy to break but impossible to destroy." For Ukrainians the defense of language and culture is fundamental to the fight for national sovereignty.
We will pass a hat for donations to our Volunteer Action projects: Hope Refugee Shelter in Przemysl, Poland and its new partner project in Ukraine, The Phoenix, for families displaced from the frontlines.
For more information -
On the film: www.porcelainwar.com http://www.porcelainwar.com/
On the projects: www.volunteeraction.org http://www.volunteeraction.org/
On the Mendocino Film Festival: www.mendofilm.org http://www.mendofilm.org/
Hope to see you there!
Linda Garrett in Mendocino
lindagarrett2009@gmail.com
WODETSKI VS STAR THISTLES
Navarro Point stewarding this Thursday,
10am-noon, 2 miles south of Albion
This coming Thursday, Oct 10th, is the second Thursday of the month Navarro Point stewarding day, and we’ll be out there removing thistles from 10am til noon on that beautiful coastal headlands! Please let me know if you’ll join us there this Thursday or not, and if you have any questions or need tools.
Tom, 937-1113, tw@mcn.org
RON PARKER
Greenwood Elk, Mendocino County.
Men in an auto adapted to the RR tracks dear across the hood. Next to the coast road below the creamy below Boonville Ave. Driver Charlie Kuhn, right front Colin Buchanan, right rear Charlie Lynch. left rear Jack Dougherty, Greenwood.
REMEMBERING JASON COX
To the Editor:
Jason Cox died on September 17. He was one of the good guys.
Jason Cox’s whistleblower lawsuit blew open a sex scandal at the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office that some have likened to “sheep dipping.” It was back when Shannon Barney was the Round Valley resident sergeant and Tom Allman was the north sector commander.
Jason’s whistleblower lawsuit was investigated, substantiated, settled out of court, and sealed.
Following the lawsuit, two deputies who served with Cox and Barney in the Covelo resident post, Eric Gore and Brett White, both died under suspicious circumstances. The deaths were ruled “suicides,” but some people, like former MCSO Sgt. Trent James and many others, have their doubts.
White died in February 2007 and Gore nearly a year later in January 2008.
At the time, Cox’s attorney, Brian Flahaven, stated: “It was difficult for Jason to sue, but he thinks it is important for issues within the sheriff’s department come to light.”
As typically occurs when official misconduct is litigated within a county, those involved in the suit signed non-disclosure agreements and records of the case were sealed. In other words, nothing leaves the county. In Jason Cox’s whistleblower complaint, clearly, an outside agency, like the state or the feds, should have been involved, but in Mendocino County, here “behind the green curtain” we have many secrets.
The county denied Jason Cox’s complaints — but what else is new.
Denials are pro forma.
Quoting from the Cox lawsuit, Jason Cox alleges he was demoted from his resident deputy post in 2007, was subsequently denied promotion to sergeant and has suffered humiliation and mental anguish by refusing to “partake in sexual activities, refusal to engage in inappropriate and illicit behavior and for reporting of inappropriate and illegal acts of other deputies and Sgt. Shannon Barney to his colleagues and to those in MCSO command positions.”
In the suit, Cox alleged reporting to commanders’ instances where Barney, Gore and White were intoxicated on duty as well, as other illegal activities, including off-duty wife sharing and sex parties, which were hosted, and sometimes videotaped or photographed, by Barney. and others.
In June 2006, Barney gave Cox a bad performance rating for being insubordinate and failing to follow directions. According to the suit, Cox was nominated for 2006 Deputy of the Year and was the top ranked deputy for promotion during the same period.
After he was allowed to transfer to the DA’s office where he was an investigator. Jason Cox privately told me that the “inappropriate and illegal sex acts” referenced in his lawsuit, particularly wife sharing, which Jason Cox said was “coerced” was a form of “sheep dipping” used to blackmail and control deputies in the MSCO’s north sector.
Why sheep dipping, I asked Jason. Why the need to blackmail and control deputies?
Simple, Jason answered.
The cannabis black market is just too lucrative, Jason said, and the opportunities for police corruption are just too numerous. In an all-cash underground economy, like the north sector, it’s an everyday thing. The top cops who control the rackets have to control the cops on the lower rungs of the ladder.
Note, I knew Jason pretty well. We worked together as corrections deputies in the Mendocino County Jail. Thereafter, we worked out together at the Redwood Health Club. We remained friends after he moved to Lake County.
A long slow hand salute to Jason Cox.
John Sakowicz
Ukiah
ED NOTES
CITY NOTEBOOK. I was on the outbound 38 Geary when three raucous fat girls clamored aboard through the exit doors. Two looked to be about 20, the third a young teenager. Entering the bus through its back doors is theoretically a misdemeanor, as is eating, smoking, drinking, and sitting in the front seats reserved for the elderly and the handicapped. But on every major bus line people of all ages routinely enter through the exits, eat, drink, smoke (dope and cigarettes), and generally behave as if the droning, mechanized warnings against bad behavior do not apply to them or anybody else.
THE THREE fat girls joined me in the rear of the bus, traditional home of the badly behaved. One was unabashedly sucking her thumb, another was washing down corn chips with Hawaiian Punch, and the third, the fattest one, was smoking Marlboros and loudly talking about “some bitches I'm gonna get one at a time, one at a time, you hear? And I don't care if the m-fers are big, little, fat, skinny, I'll fight 'em all.” The fattest girl promised to get the doomed bitches a dozen times between Kearny and Divisadero, seemingly psyching herself up for mayhem if the g.d. m-fers suddenly happened into her viewshed. The other two fat girls occasionally shouted out support. “That's right, girl. One at a time. They know who they are.” The fat girls went on in call and response fashion for several blocks before the chief avenger sighed and said, “I sure could use a Pepsi,” and all three lapsed into silence, perhaps dreaming of Pepsis.
I SAW the same handful of street drunks and the same homeless woman almost every day. The drunks camp to the rear of a public parking lot off Clement from which they emerge to panhandle, and often collapse, on Clement itself, busy shoppers stepping over and around them. One Christmas Eve, two of them were passed out in front of the busy Walgreen’s, since closed when thefts outnumbered purchases. Another guy was about to topple and, as I approached, the fourth guy did topple, falling backwards into a cluster of newspaper racks, one of which was propelled heavily into a parked car.
IT WAS VERY COLD, cold enough for all four to die if they didn't get shelter. Although dying is the point of habitual drop-fall drinking, I asked a kid with a cell phone to call emergency services. For selfish reasons I didn't want to read the next morning that a drunk had died in front of Walgreen’s at 9th and Clement. The cell phone kid was togged out in sags and the rest of the ganga banga gear, so I wasn't confident he'd be up for an electronic errand of mercy. But without a word he called the drunks in, and then he stuck a dollar bill in each of their jacket pockets.
CHRISTMAS DAY, the mummified homeless woman, a familiar sight, was shuffling east on California Street, her belongings heaped in a shopping cart. When I first noticed her, I had to take a closer look before I could safely assume she was a woman, a fact I still assume because the layers of clothes comprising her ensemble are mostly feminine and include brightly colored scarves placed at odd intervals, head to toe. Inspired by the charity of the previous night's ganga banga kid, I held out a dollar and said, “Merry Christmas,” assuming I'd just bought a buck's worth of basic civility. The mummy snatched the bill and resumed shuffling east. “What's your name?” I asked. “Get the hell away from me, you son of a bitch,” she said.
BRETT ADAME, 33, Ukiah. Recklessly causing fire.
RAFAEL AYALA JR., 47, Talmage. Disobeying court order.
JOAQUIN BAEZ-PUC, 54, Kent, Washington/Fort Bragg. Assault with deadly weapon not a gun.
STSEVEN CABORN, 42, Ukiah. Domestic battery.
HERMINIA CEJA-ORTIZ, 52, Ukiah. Domestic battery.
JUAN FLORES, 42, Covelo. Battery on peace officer.
ROYCE FULTON, 40, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.
SKYLAR HENDERSON, 25, Ukiah. Probation revocation.
BENJAMIN LOPEZ, 43, Cloverdale/Ukiah. Failure to appear.
TEVIN ARIZETTE, 30, Ukiah. Failure to appear, probation revocation.
HURRICANE MILTON is set to make landfall in Florida as a Category 5 hurricane on Wednesday morning — and it's expected to be even worse than Helene. Six million residents are under hurricane watch warnings and many have been ordered to evacuate as 'life-threatening' fifteen-foot-high storm surges and winds of up to 175mph barrel in. The National Weather Service in Tampa Bay has said that “if the storm stays on the current track, it will be the worst storm to impact the Tampa area in over 100 years.”
NOAH BERGREN (meteorologist): This is nothing short of astronomical. I am at a loss for words to meteorologically describe you the storms small eye and intensity. 897mb pressure with 180 MPH max sustained winds and gusts 200+ MPH. This is now the 4th strongest hurricane ever recorded by pressure on this side of the world. The eye is TINY at nearly 3.8 miles wide. This hurricane is nearing the mathematical limit of what Earth's atmosphere over this ocean water can produce."
EITHER OR
Editor:
The Immigration Reform and Control Act, passed in 1986, prohibits employers from knowingly hiring workers who are in the United States illegally. To improve this law, require employers to submit proof of citizenship or other legal documentation to the most appropriate labor department(s). Unlike in 1986, employers would be held responsible with increasingly severe fines.
Employers might complain about the added bureaucracy, but they won’t complain out loud about not being able to exploit undocumented workers. Politicians will be denied a non-voting scapegoat. On a positive note, working class people may look around and see that the vast income inequality they experience has nothing to do with the working class battling each other for inadequate paying jobs. Some of the ultra rich bathing in their accumulated wealth might not like this.
Just as child labor laws protect children from joining the workforce too early in life, employer responsibility laws will help stop illegal immigration. So either truly hold employers accountable to only hire documented workers or stop complaining about illegal immigrants.
Bruce Loring
Santa Rosa
‘CAUGHT OFF GUARD’: WINE GRAPE GROWERS FACING EXTREMELY TOUGH MARKET AT HARVEST
The California North Coast grape market faces oversupply and reduced demand as harvest is well past the halfway point, but there are signs the wine industry can weather the storm … if it makes adjustments.
by Jeff Quackenbush
The North Coast wine grape market is experiencing significant challenges as this year’s harvest season progresses. Growers and wineries are grappling with oversupply, reduced demand and pricing pressures. Industry experts and growers paint a picture of a market in flux.
The market for major varieties in the region — namely, Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandel and Pinot Noir — is notably slow. This appears to be being caused by a “massive market correction” because of an oversupply of fruit throughout California, said Glenn Proctor of Ciatti Co., a global broker of grapes and wine based in San Rafael.
The Cabernet Sauvignon market is particularly sluggish. Christian Klier, of Turrentine Wine Brokerage, said there is “zero market” for unsold Cab grapes in Lake and Mendocino counties, historically a supplier to vintners in neighboring counties to the south, he said. But wineries in Napa and Sonoma counties are prioritizing their local needs, leaving little interest in sourcing more from the northern North Coast.
“Growers have definitely been caught off guard,“ Klier said.
The decline in grape prices has sparked headlines that the California wine industry is in free fall. But experts interviewed by the North Bay Business Journal have a more nuanced outlook, noting there have been previous downturns in the grape market and even foreseeing a turnaround two or three years down the road as the industry adjusts to changing consumer behavior.
Bottom line: "I don't think wine is going away," Proctor said.
Harvest Status
The Sauvignon Blanc harvest is complete across all four North Coast counties (Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino and Lake), according to Christian Klier of Turrentine Wine Brokerage. Regional tonnage for the variety appears to be less than in 2023, thought to be from the grape’s characteristic for bearing heavier and lighter crops in alternate years.
Despite this, demand for Sauvignon Blanc remains high, making it the most sought-after variety in the region this season, Klier said.
The Chardonnay harvest is wrapping up, with Mendocino County experiencing a particularly large crop, Klier said. Some red grape varieties, especially Pinot Noir, are now being harvested, coinciding unusually with Chardonnay in Sonoma County.
Proctor estimates that most North Coast regions are between 40% to 60% through this year’s harvest, with some wineries closer to 60%. The Central Valley and Lodi areas are further along, at up to 70% completion.
While yields are generally holding up and even exceeding expectations in certain areas, the market for grapes not committed under purchase contracts is particularly challenging this year, he said.
“There is not a very dynamic spot market for grapes,” Proctor said. “We did see some things early in the North Coast, with some buyers coming in (to buy) Sauvignon Blanc grapes. The price then came up a little bit. Then toward (harvest, growers asked us), ‘Oh, I've got some more Sauvignon Blanc. Do they need it?’ (We told the growers,) ‘No, they're done.’”
Whitney Hopkins is part of the second generation working Hopkins River Ranch off Eastside Road near Windsor in Sonoma County’s Russian River Valley. The five-decade-old family operation, which farms about 45 acres planted with Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Meunier, has faced difficulties in selling both grapes and bulk wine.
While they were able to sell their Chardonnay to a long-term winery partner, the spot market has been particularly tough this year.
“We typically, if we have uncommitted fruit, will make bulk wine and sell it on the bulk wine market,” Hopkins said. “And this was definitely the most challenging year that we've had for selling bulk wine.“
‘A Mitigate-Loss Year’
The current market conditions are forcing growers to make difficult decisions. With spot market prices often below the break-even point, particularly in areas where grape pricing has been highest, growers without purchase contracts are struggling to cover farming costs.
Hopkins pointed out that labor remains their biggest expense, with costs increasing over time. The industrywide challenges are not limited to California, with similar issues being faced statewide and internationally.
In Napa County, the weighted-average price per ton for Cabernet Sauvignon last year was $9,235, but farming costs range from roughly $9,000 to $15,000 per acre, or about $2,400–$4,000 a ton, according to Klier and the 2023 county crop report. Yet spot-market pricing in the months before this harvest have been just $1,000–$1,500 a ton.
Farming costs for Cab in Mendocino and Lake counties are about $6,000–$8,000 per acre.
For Sonoma County Zinfandel, the average price last year was $3,423 a ton, and farming costs run $6,000–$10,000 an acre, or $2,100–$3,500 a ton. But the price offered for Zin grapes not already in contract is closer to $1,000 a ton, Klier said.
“The way we’ve had to discuss it with our growers this year is it’s not necessarily a profit year. It's a mitigate-loss year,” Kllier said.
About 24 million gallons of California bulk wine were available for sale as of Tuesday, higher than the rise after the huge 2018 harvest and not following the typical draw down in late summer leading up to harvest, according to Turrentine brokerage.
About 550,000 gallons of Napa Valley Cab are on the market, and even pricing of $20 a gallon, less than half the pricing in the hot-demand years of the latter 2010s, is proving difficult to move inventory, the brokerage said in its October report. Vintners in Sonoma County are accepting offers below $10 a gallon, for the few buyers shopping.
For Sonoma County growers, the region’s official grape marketing agency has been working to expand sales opportunities, according to President Karissa Kruse.
“At Sonoma County Winegrowers, we always closely follow the marketplace and know it is incredibly complex right now and it has never been more important to support our Sonoma County grape growers and market the region,” Kruse said.
As part of the group’s seven marketing goals for local fruit and its farmers, the organization in early July contacted over 5,500 wineries around the country, pointing them to its online marketplace for grape purchase opportunities.
In August, the association reached out to Wine Growers British Columbia about buying Sonoma County fruit after vintners in the Okanagan region were allowed to import grapes from California, Washington and Oregon following damaging deep freezes and other natural disasters.
More than a quarter of Sonoma County wine grapes are sent to vintners outside its borders, Kruse said. The grape marketing campaign was undertaken in earnest after the big 2018 crop and was reengaged this year after the large 2023 harvest.
Seen This Market Before — Sort Of
There are parallels between the current marketplace to previous wine industry downturns, particularly the early 2000s up to 2008, Klier said.
The industry was moving into a down cycle prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, which temporarily disrupted the trend that began after the huge 2018 crop. The pandemic’s start in 2020 also coincided with the North Coast fires that cut Napa County grape tonnage by upward of half and Sonoma County’s by about a third.
Yet the pandemic led to increased wine sales initially at the supermarket level — commonly called “pantry stuffing” — but as consumers have worked through their home inventories, demand has slowed significantly.
However, the current situation is unique due to the lack of growth in wine consumption in recent years, disrupting a run of over two decades, Proctor noted. Unlike previous downturns where growth in certain market segments helped balance things out, the industry is now facing challenges across price levels for wine in the bottle. This has led to a shift in winery purchasing strategies, with many opting for bulk-wine purchases rather than committing to long-term grape contracts.
“They can purchase it from the bulk market by the gallon,” Klier said. ”They can taste through the lots that we have offered available, choose the wines that fit their program the best, and within a week, have that wine delivered to them, have it put through their bottling plant, have it in a bottle with a label slapped on it and shipped to their distributors as needed.“
The oversupply situation is leading to some discussions about potential vineyard removals, especially for older, less productive vineyards. However, growers face a dilemma: while removing vineyards may reduce immediate costs, replanting in the future will be significantly more expensive due to rising infrastructure and labor costs.
The industry is also grappling with broader economic challenges. The recent sale of Vintage Wine Estates bulk wine in bankruptcy court at 55 cents a gallon, compared with local market pricing 20 to 40 times that, has raised concerns about asset valuations and lending practices in the industry. Proctor mentioned that some lenders are becoming more cautious, potentially impacting the ability of growers and wineries to weather the current downturn.
Despite the challenges, there’s cautious optimism about the long-term prospects for the wine business. Klier expects the current sluggish grape market to run through 2025, potentially turning around in 2026 as part of the industry’s shift to four- to six-year cycles from previous eight- to 10-year cycles because of better market information between consumer and producer.
Proctor believes that once retail and restaurant bottle sales stabilize, wholesalers start ordering again, and wine producers work through the built-up bulk-wine inventory, there will be opportunities for profitability, though he acknowledges the industry might need to shift.
"We're just trying to understand how we compete in this new reality of wine consumption,“ Proctor said. ”And with that, we're going to have to make some adjustments."
(North Bay Business Journal)
INTERVIEW WITH ED DENSON, HUMCO LAWYER
by Paul Modic (2015)
Had you always wanted to be a lawyer or did the idea just come to you one day?
I am a from the South. My mother said I should be a lawyer, or a doctor, or in the military. I ignored her for 55 years, and had a career as a rock band manager, and record label owner. I was doing legal support work for a few years, and realized that there was a shortage of lawyers in the civil rights and marijuana fields, if you'll pardon the pun, which were closely related areas of law. With my inheritance I was able to go to law school and took to the law like a duck to water. At 59 I become a lawyer.
Was it easy or difficult for you to study for and pass the bar?
I studied at home with what we now call a "distance learning" school. It took me a few months to catch on, but once I caught on the rest of the study was easy and enjoyable. I passed the Baby Bar on the 1st try, and 3 years later, the full bar on the 1st try, Distance learning students statistically do poorly, with a bar pass rate around 17%. But I think it helped that I was 59 years old and had the maturity to do the required study on my own.
How long did the whole process take?
Almost 5 years.
What is one major aspect about the legal system that no lay person realizes?
That legal language differs from standard English, and words do not mean what they seem to in many laws. This makes it very difficult for the untrained to read the laws and understand them
Can you tell us what's the most important aspect to settling a DUI case?
Good facts. Most DUI cases become quite technical, and having a grip on the technical aspects makes assembling the good facts much easier. You asked about settling a DUI case. You can settle any DUI case by taking the DA's first offer, and these days the offer usually comes very early in the process. The trick, of course, is to get the best settlement, and that usually takes time.
If someone is stopped for DUI do you recommend submitting to sobriety, breathalyzer, or blood tests?
The ideal client refuses the field sobriety tests, and the preliminary alcohol breath tests. After being arrested they take a blood test. The problem is that people get confused about what to refuse, and end up refusing the post-arrest tests which the law requires them to take. This means they lose their license for a year for the refusal, even if they are not convicted of the DUI. So as a rule of thumb if you are confused take the tests. When they ask if you'd prefer a breath test or a blood test, take the blood test.
What's the most important aspect to settling a cultivation case?
Good facts. Like DUIs, marijuana cases are often technical. With DUIs its all about the breath machine or the blood testing machines; with marijuana its about challenging the investigation, and keeping on top of the ever changing law.
Do you think weed will be legalized in California next year?
Probably
What could derail that initiative?
Infighting, a study suggesting marijuana does serious harm (eg causes mental issues in youth), a scandal involving dispensary shipments out of state.
What specifically do you think will be a big issue that will require your expertise?
What is a reasonable amount for a grower, or dispensary operator, to earn.
Would you venture a prediction about anything in particular regarding legalization?
It will create more work for lawyers. Legislators just can't seem to say marijuana is legal just like tomatoes are legal, no restrictions, no limits, no licenses, no problems. If they could do that we defense lawyers would have to fall back on DUIs to make a living,
Is it chummy at the bar? Does a genial and well-liked (by judge and prosecutor) lawyer seem to get better client outcomes?
The bar is quite chummy. Lawyers are a group set apart from normal society, and often very helpful to each other, even on first meetings. I don't think that being liked makes better outcomes, but I do think that being disliked makes worse ones. There is a middle area of being neither liked nor disliked which doesn't affect outcomes. If you are disliked, the danger is that the opposing lawyer gets mad at you and does a lot of extra work on the case which ordinarily they would not do. Their dislike gives them motivation and energy. Of course if you dislike the opposing lawyer, then you get the benefit of the motivation and energy. I have not seen judges influenced by their personal opinions of the lawyers to change the outcomes of the cases.
What is your favorite, most fun, and rewarding part of the job?
Finding and researching the winning argument.
What is the most difficult, least favorite?
I have become less fond of staying in motels than I used to be. The novelty has worn off. Of course losing a trial is the absolute worst thing that can happen. Very few DUI or marijuana cases go to trial, but having the jury come back with a one word verdict is really depressing.
Did you realize there would be so much driving?
No, my mentor came from the pre-Prop 215 days, and advised me to get a 4 wheel drive vehicle so I could get to the back country grows I was going to defend. But Prop 215 changed all that. The grows were much closer to the county roads, and I had clients coming to me from all over Northern California because local attorneys did not understand medical marijuana law. I get fewer distant clients now, but just finished 3 cases in Shasta and Tehama counties, and will be going to Del Norte in a few weeks. Most of my work is in Ukiah and Eureka, of course, and those courts are only a 200 mile round trip from my home. I was most fortunate in getting a used Volvo at the beginning of my career. I've driven nothing but Volvos ever since - I think I've had 4 of them.
How does your music career, managing John Fahey and Country Joe, as well as running Kicking Mule Records, segue into your law career?
Negotiating was important in the management, negotiating is important in the law. You need to have a feel for it and only practice gives that to you. In that sense the music was a preparation for the law. I think too that it gave me a good sense of victory being possible. Country Joe in particular went very far in the music business. You need to have seen success to understand that it is possible.
What was your best moment in court?
Winning a case is always a best moment but perhaps the best of the best came in the 20th century when I was defending some protestors against trespass charges during the timber wars in Humboldt County. During cross examination I was able to get the prosecution's key witness to admit that after the protestors were arrested, he had moved the boundary markers so it it appeared they were arrested on timber company land instead of the public right of way. The judge dismissed the case. I felt like Perry Mason. The prosecutor was so upset that she never spoke to me again during her time working for the DA.
Another best moment came during a different protestor defense when I demanded a jury trial for trespass and the Deputy District Attorney told the judge "We don't have time for the defendants to have their constitutional rights." As you might imagine the judge was not pleased with that assertion, and the case was dropped.
REMEMBER USING A WRINGER WASHER? It was a lot of work, but they really got the clothes clean!
CANNABIS DELIVERY OUTFIT FILES FOR BANKRUPTCY
California’s largest cannabis delivery company, which at one point was valued at $700 million and was dubbed the “Uber of weed,” is shutting down, according to a note from its CEO on Sunday.…
https://www.sfgate.com/cannabis/article/eaze-california-layoffs-19820734.php
OPEN HOUSE AT CRAIG'S
Presidential Inauguration January 20, 2025: https://www.usa.gov/inauguration
If you are in the district, feel free to drop by the Washington, D.C. Peace Vigil; which has been moved back behind a fence during the construction of the reviewing stands, and will (possibly) be there into February. For further updates, contact Philipos Melaku-Bello at philiposbello@gmail.com.
GARY WESTDAHL
In their three losses, the ‘Niners have been outscored by a combined 10 points. Those losses were punctuated by the kinds of mistakes that can be addressed by coaching. As Shannahan said last year during a similar losing streak, “the solution is on the roster.”
Both the offense and the defense have had some great moments this year, but both are out of syc at the moment. And, as we all know, some important pieces are still missing.
Best case scenario has them 4-4 at the bye, in my estimation. But it’s not necessarily the end of the world. In 2007, the Giants had a record of 10-6 when they won it all. Same thing in 2011, they were 9-7. The Bucs were 7-5 at the bye and had all their playoff games (until the Super Bowl stroke of good luck) on the road. It’s all about putting it together at the right time, and I absolutely believe this team can do that.
Maybe this is their year, maybe it isn’t. Like it or not, we have a coach that rolls the dice, not only with his player’s bodies but apparently by bolstering some parts of the roster at the expense of others; I have no good excuse for the situation at kicker. That’s 100% on Shannahan and Lynch.
Bottom line, this season can turn around. There’s precedent. Will it? Guess we’ll find out.
THE DEMOCRATS DID A JOB ON US WITH, NATCH, A REPUBLICAN SIGN OFF
In this recent appearance on Ezra Klein’s podcast, Harvard economist and Obama admin enforcer of neoliberal consensus Jason Furman is teed up to express at least some remorse for the Americans who were devastated by deindustrialization. Klein notes that a number of economists have argued that the human costs of deindustrialization were far higher than was predicted during the fights over NAFTA and similar free trade agreements. It’s a softball windup designed to give Furman the opportunity to say “The human costs in these places was deeply unfortunate, and we should have done far more to help them, but….” And then he could go on to treat the terrible costs of deindustrialization as some minor downside to the overall benefits of globalization. Remarkably, he does not! He does not say a single word to even empathize with the people left behind in these communities, let alone suggest that the hyper-educated elites who created this policy outcome - people like him - got anything wrong. It would have taken him 30 seconds to extend some parenthetical sympathy. He declined.…
https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/they-still-wont-say-that-theyre-sorry
ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
The only good thing I foresee coming out of a Harris administration is a jump start to the breakup of the country, which I for one think is long overdue. I have no desire to convince the folks in San Fran and Martha’s Vineyard of the errors of their ways…I wouldn’t mind having to get a visa to visit them should I have a hankering to see the Golden Gate or Skid Row…..I just want them out of my life, as eagerly and passionately as they wish to be divorced from mine.
LEAD STORIES, TUESDAY'S NYT
Poll Finds Harris Rising as She Challenges Trump on Change
Milton Is Already a Storm for the Record Books. Here’s What May Come Next
Lead Drinking-Water Pipes Must be Replaced Nationwide, E.P.A. Says
Supreme Court Will Hear Challenge to Biden Administration’s Limits on ‘Ghost Guns’
Have We Reached Peak Human Life Span?
LIKE A PRAYER
by James Kunstler
“We lose total control…” she said.
Perhaps when you heard that you thought, “What do you mean ‘we,’ Kemosabe?”
You have also known for some time now, that Hillary is exactly the something wicked that has been coming this way for many years now, to the siren song of the cable news harpies shrieking Trump Trump Trump… Putin Putin Putin at all hours, day and night, month after dreary month, and all the other avatars of ruin pretending to run the life of our nation. But this utterance begs enough questions to keep Chat GDP vexed and perplexed for the rest of its unnatural life: We lose total control…?
Yes, as matter of fact, you do. This might be a book tour too far for Mrs. Clinton and her claque, now that her basket of deplorables shivers in the cold and dark out in Appalachia amid the stink of their kinfolks’ uncollected corpses. The Party of Chaos has managed to piss-off the most ferocious demographic in the land, the wild and cross-grained Scotch-Irish who populate those devastated hills and hollows of Western Carolina and East Tennessee, the people who, for generations, were first to volunteer to fight in America’s wars, the Sargent Yorks, the moonshiners and the stock car heroes, the Johnson Boys, Boones and Crocketts, Hatfields and McCoys, the very warp and woof of our folklore, half horse and half alligator, born fighting. And now you and your gang of wine-club harpies, Beltway mezzofinukes, Hollywood Satan-conjurors, Hamptons charity-hags, globe-trotting errand boys, color revolution maestros, race hustlers, drag queens, lawfare shysters, spooks, cut-outs, beach friends, and grifters has gone and pissed these folks off royally.
My guess would be that you have not begun to see the repercussions of the Hurricane Helene fiasco, which will resound far from the gates of Dollywood for years to come. I hope Alejandro Mayorkas enjoys the waffle-weave sweater he picked up in a Georgetown boutique on Saturday while the dazed people of Buncombe County, NC, stumbled dazed through a shattered landscape of creek-bed and forest scraped down to little more than what their ancestors first came upon in the 1760s. It may have to last him through the term he serves in federal prison when this is all over. And by this, I mean mainly the reign of this wicked regime he's a major player in, with its claws slipping off the levers of power. Do you really suppose that America will elect the empty pant-suit Kamala Harris to front for this depraved cabal?
Remember what the Romanians did to Madame CeauÈ™escu on Christmas day in 1989, when she and her husband Nicolae, erstwhile president of that sore-beset country, just liberated from decades of communist captivity, were summarily tried by a provisional court after attempting to flee. I’ll tell you: they trussed the two of them up like a couple of Carpathian wild hogs (Sus scrofa), and hauled them before a firing squad. Which is not exactly to say that the United States is like Romania, but that such things happen surprisingly in formerly quiescent places. The people hated her as much, perhaps even more, than her despot husband. Just sayin’.
Why exactly Hillary Clinton would be dumb enough to come out on every news channel and Internet site on Gawd’s green earth to declare the end of free speech throughout Western Civ might remain one of those abiding mysteries of history. Bad timing doesn’t begin to explain it. What does explain it is the psychotic desperation of her party now that the days to election dwindle down and the pathetic figure they “nominated” stumbles from one campaign blunder to the next, and the whole sick crew behind her entertains dark visions of courtrooms and prison cells — including, by the way, her cohort in nation-wrecking Barack Obama, who could be liable to charges such as conspiracy to commit sedition, or even a higher crime, if the election goes the wrong way for him. You might suppose they are fighting for their very lives without being accused of exaggeration.
In the event of Hurricane Helena and other churning contingencies of the season, Mr. Trump is not only looking more presidential, he is apparently being regarded as something close to an actual acting president in the eerie absence of “Joe Biden,” who looks more and more like one of those three-hundred-dollar Home Depot animatronic ghouls Americans are planting in the front yard this season of the walking dead, along with the giant inflated jack-o-lanterns , beckoning skeletons, and plastic tombstones. In other words, it looks like the people are going to vote Mr. Trump back into office, since he is the only thing the least bit presidential on offer in 2024. Even the Covid-addled, the many new demoralized Woke drop-outs, and the beaten-down male youth of America are leaning his way now and it scares the Democrats down to their livers and lights.
Accordingly, I received notice late Sunday from an informant in commercial aviation, with connections to military aviation, that a massive deployment of aircraft is preparing logistics for a major operation set to go down in about a week, probably in the Middle East. I can’t guarantee you that it is for real, but it was a real warning message, at least, from a serious person, and you know that something could be up… some humdinger of an October Surprise, like a big fat world war. What else have they got now? Jack Smith’s lame-ass attempt to beef-up an “insurrection” charge against Mr. Trump in Judge Chutkan’s abject facsimile of a federal court? Everything else has been fail, fail, fail all year long … the head-cases with rifles… all the other court cases contrived by Merrick Garland, Andrew Weissmann, Norm Eisen, and Mary McCord… the ineffectual bleatings of The New York Times’s editorial board? They’re plum out of tricks and they know it. So, yes, Hillary. You lose total control. Totally. For now and forever, amen.
FOIA FILES: ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY
by Matt Taibbi
What’s going on at Arizona State University?
Our latest Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) results show that the university has done significant work on “disinformation” for the State Department. But of what sort? Back in January, Gabe Kaminsky of The Washington Examiner reported that the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC) had given three direct awards to ASU. But the redacted documents uncovered by Kaminsky don’t explain the purpose of the awards.
Last month, the House Committee on Small Business released a report that details the lengths to which the GEC has gone to evade congressional oversight. The committee sent the GEC a subpoena in June, only to be told that it would take the State Department another twenty-one months to produce the requested documents.
What might be underneath those redactions? According to the committee: The Global Engagement Center (GEC), an interagency body housed within the U.S. Department of State (State), circumvented its strict international mandate by funding, developing, then promoting tech start-ups and other small businesses in the disinformation detection space to private sector entities with domestic censorship capabilities.
In early 2023, not long after Racket first published the Twitter Files, we began filing FOIA requests with a number of government-funded “anti-disinformation” entities. One of the FOIA productions we received came from Arizona State University (ASU), home of the Center on Narrative, Disinformation and Strategic Influence. The Center seeks to “safeguard the United States, its allies and democratic principles against malign influence campaigns” by researching “how narratives shape reality and how manipulations of the information environment threaten democratic norms and institutions.”
As reported by Matt Taibbi in Twitter Files #17, the GEC used its initial budget of $98.7 million to fund at least thirty-nine different “anti-disinformation” organizations, the names of which were redacted in an inspector general’s report.
This is the same GEC that was caught bankrolling the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), a British outfit that sought to cut off advertising revenue to websites it accused of peddling “disinformation.” As reported by Kaminsky in The Washington Examiner, the GDI aimed to “remove the financial incentive” it claimed was motivating those sites to spread “disinformation.” The GEC also funded Disinfo Cloud, a database of resources used by the State Department to “push back against foreign propaganda and disinformation.” The GEC funneled $100,000 to the GDI through Park Advisors, the firm charged with developing Disinfo Cloud.
Both previous FOIA requests and new sources confirm that ASU was one of the entities that contracted with the Global Engagement Center. In 2018, the GEC awarded ASU a grant of $497,538, and it tasked university researchers with generating resources to identify and analyze “Russian state-sponsored disinformation efforts.” The end goal was the “development and/or refinement of techniques and automated tools for identification and analysis of digital disinformation and propaganda.” In 2020, as part of its Semantic Forensics (SemaFor) program, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) issued an agreement that designated ASU as a subcontractor and the New York-based software company Kitware as a contractor. The two entities would collaborate on a project called Semantic Information Defender (SID), with ASU Professor Scott Ruston serving as principal investigator. (Ruston is now a special assistant to the U.S. Navy’s vice chief of naval operations. He previously served as director of ASU’s Center on Narrative, Disinformation and Strategic Influence.)
Under this arrangement, Kitware received funding from DARPA, but it was required to reimburse ASU for certain expenditures. The SID subcontract was worth $848,513, and according to a press release from Kitware, its purpose was to develop a system that would help intelligence professionals detect “falsified media” and analyze the algorithms used to create such media.
Ruston did not respond to Racket’s request for comment. However, Joshua Garland, who serves as the Center’s interim director, provided the following details about the SID project.
It is funded by the Dept. of Defense, and the goal is to create algorithms to detect, characterize and attribute media that has been manipulated and/or created by AI.
Garland’s comments about the Defense Department might explain why Lockheed Martin is listed as a party in the associate contractor and proprietary information agreement.
ASU also held a contract with the Office of Naval Research. However, this project, titled “Fusing Narrative and Social Cyber Forensics to Understand Covert Influence,” actually appears to have an international mandate. Its goal is to study the rise of pro-China narratives in East and Southeast Asia, with a focus on Indonesia and the Philippines. Interestingly enough, this proposal comes with subaward amendments that list ASU as both a pass-through entity (with the University of Arkansas at Little Rock serving as the subrecipient) and a subrecipient (with Texas A&M University serving as the pass-through entity).
These productions, which we’ve made available here, are heavily redacted and feature a ton of contractual jargon.
Nevertheless, they illustrate how the State Department and the Defense Department appeared to disregard their foreign policy directives and allocated their energies and millions in taxpayer funding toward waging an “anti-disinformation” campaign with domestic applications. Is it any surprise that the State Department was recently caught trying to discredit Taibbi and Kaminsky?
UP TO THAT TIME I had been merely the sensitive young fellow in conflict with his town, his family, the life around him – then the sensitive young fellow in love, and so concerned with his little Universe of Love that he thought it the whole universe. But gradually I began to observe things in life which shocked me out of this complete absorption with the independent entities of self. I caught glimpses of the great, the rich, the fortunate ones of all the earth living supinely upon the very best of everything and taking the very best for granted as their right … At the same time I began to be conscious of the submerged and forgotten Helots down below, who with their toil and sweat and blood and suffering unutterable supported and nourished the mighty princelings at the top.
Then came the cataclysm of 1929 and the terrible days that followed. The picture became clearer now, clear enough for all with eyes to see. Through those years I was living in the jungle depths of Brooklyn, and I saw as I had never seen before the true and terrifying visage of the disinherited of life. There came to me a vision of man’s inhumanity to man, and as time went on it began to blot out the more personal and selfcentered vision of the world which a young man always has. Then it was, I think, that I began to learn humility. My intense and passionate concern for the interests and designs of my own little life were coming to seem petty, trifling, and unworthy, and I was coming more and more to feel an intense and passionate concern for the interests and designs of my fellow men and of all humanity.
Of course I have vastly oversimplified the process in my telling of it. While it was at work in me I was but dimly aware of it… Those were the years of the greatest doubt and desperation I had ever known. I was wrestling with the problems of my second book, and I could take in what my eyes beheld only in brief glimpses, flashes, snatches, fragments. As I was later to discover, the vision etched itself upon some sensitive film within, but it was not until that later time, when the second book was finished and out of the way, that I saw it whole and knew what the total experience had done to me…
By then life’s weather had soaked in, although I was not fully conscious yet what seepings had begun, or where, in what direction, the channel of my life was flowing… I had gone back for rest, for recreation, for oblivion, to that land which, of all the foreign lands I had visited, I loved the best… And now it seemed to me, who had so often gone a stranger and unknown to the great cities of the world, that Berlin was mine… The weeks passed… and then it happened. Little by little the world came in. At first it sifted in almost unnoticed, like dark down dropped in passing from some avenging angel’s wing. Sometimes it came to me in the desperate pleading of an eye, the naked terror of a startled look, the swift concealment of a sudden fear. Sometimes it just came and went as light comes, just soaked in, in fleeting words and speech and actions…
But even as I saw it and knew it… there came to me, most strangely, another thing as well. For while I sat the night through in the darkened rooms of German friends, behind the bolted doors and shuttered windows while their whispered voices spoke to me of the anguish in their hearts … while I heard and saw these things, my heart was torn asunder, and from its opened depths came forth into my consciousness a knowledge that I had not fully known was there. For then it was, most curiously, that all the gray weather of unrecorded days in Brooklyn, which had soaked through into my soul, came flooding back to me. Came back, too, the memory of my exploration of the jungle trails of night. I saw again the haggard faces of the homeless men, the wanderers, the disinherited of America, the aged workers who had worked and now could work no more, the callow boys who had never worked and now could find no work to do, and who, both together, had been cast loose by a society that had no need of them and left to shift in any way they could to find their food in garbage cans, to seek for warmth and fellowship in foul latrines like the one near New York’s City Hall, to sleep wrapped up in old newspapers on the concrete floors of subway corridors…
So it was … that I realized fully, for the first time, how sick America was, and saw, too, that the ailment was akin to Germany’s, a dread worldsickness of the soul … In Germany it was hopeless: it had already gone too far to be checked now by any measures short of death, destruction, and total ruin. But in America, it seemed to me, it was not mortal, not incurable – not yet … America was young, America was still the New World of mankind’s hope, America was not like this old and wornout Europe which seethed and festered with a thousand deep and uncorrected ancient maladies. America was still resilient, still responsive to a cure – if only – if only – men could somehow cease to be afraid of truth. For the plain and searching light of truth, which had, in Germany, been darkened to extinction, was the remedy, the only one, that could cleanse and heal the suffering soul of man.
— Thomas Wolfe of Asheville, North Carolina from You Can't Go Home Again
HANDEL ORGAN BANQUET
by David Yearsley
Join me in a tankard-raising toast to today’s release of my colorful new album, Handel’s Organ Banquet!
Hailed along with his contemporary J. S. Bach as the greatest organist of his age, Handel left behind almost no solo works for the King of Instruments. Undaunted, I fire up the famed Cornell Baroque Organ to cook a menu of vivid reimaginings—not merely reheatings—of some of the timeless hit-maker’s winning recipes. The feast’s first and last courses are the opening and closing numbers of Messiah, the finale featuring a four-part fugal cadenza for the feet alone! In between, the table is heaped with sumptuous portions of other succulent fare from operas and oratorios, concertos and sonatas. On the way out the door, there is a bonbon of a bonus track.
This Banquet has been generously funded by the Cornell Center for Historical Keyboards and is now being served up on False Azure Records.
Handel’s Organ Banquet is now available as a CD and as a digital album on Bandcamp.
Here is an excerpt from the extensive program notes found in the CD booklet, rich with images and information:
Praised by contemporaries as one of the greatest organists of his or any time, Handel was pictured at the King of Instruments only once and in far from flattering fashion. The expatriate French artist Joseph Goupy produced his infamous caricature of Handel as a hog-headed organist after being invited to the composer’s London house for supper. The guest was not much impressed by the fare and was even more nonplussed by Handel’s frequent disappearances from the dining room. Goupy eventually sneaked after his host and found him in the kitchen, stuffing his face with far better food than he’d offered his visitor. The artist’s damning image of Handel was a thank-you card for a bad time. Not surprisingly, the friendship between the men came to a speedy end.
Goupy’s engraving pictures a long-snouted and abundantly bewigged Handel seated on a hogshead of ale with wine bottles lined up behind it. A long shopping list of delicacies spills from his coat pocket. A once-proud rooster hangs from the side of the organ; a trussed-up goose rests on a table in front of a saucepan of turtle soup; a bigger bird of indefinite species sprawls belly-up on a kettledrum, itself dwarfed by Handel’s massive left leg encased in white hose like a giant sausage.
At the bottom of the image, a motto spreads across a snaking ribbon: “I Am Myself Alone.” This is the hedonist’s creed, not simply a tautological statement but a declaration that the epicurean organist will follow his own lusts unimpeded by the dictates of society and is unlikely even to bother heeding the basic social graces of a good host. In a pointed comment on the self-destructive nature of gluttony, Goupy places Handel’s bulging shoe right above the word “Myself.” Slave to his lusts, Handel threatens to stamp himself out.
In the program heard on this recording, I mobilize Handel’s feet not for purposes of parodying a gourmand but for indulging in a different kind of excess: extravagant, four-limbed performance at an organ a lot bigger than the one Goupy has Handel bellied up to. I am unconcerned whether the virtuoso is virtuous or not. I want him to feast at the banquet that is a large and powerful organ laden with sonic delights and surprises.
But how to construct the menu since Handel left only a slender volume of solo organ music and these pieces are for hands alone? That he provided no pedal parts reflected the fact that the organs of his adopted country, England, were almost universally without a keyboard for the feet.
As a boy, Handel played the organs in his native Halle in Saxony with their full pedal divisions, also impressing dukes and kings at the splendid instruments in their courtly chapels. From the age of 18 he spent some three years in Hamburg, pursuing his career as an opera composer, but he also must have held forth on occasion on those city’s colossal organs, Europe’s richest assemblage of such sounding monuments.
We know Handel also traveled to the Hanseatic capital of Lübeck to see if he might succeed the venerable Dieterich Buxtehude as master of St. Mary’s two organs, that in the west end gallery a richly decorated color machine with a massive pedal division.
The foundation of the German organist’s art was the pedal: in flashy solos in which the hands did nothing but grip the bench for balance; the feet had also to pull off tricky fugue subjects first introduced by the fingers; and even manage two parts at once (one in the left foot and one in the right) while the hands were simultaneously involved in thick contrapuntal textures.
But Handel’s career path led away from Germany, first to Italy where he also made organ pyrotechnics a crucial feature of his Saxon brand of showmanship. On his arrival in Rome in the first days of 1707, he played the towering, ornate organ in St. John Lateran before “an extraordinary crowd of prelates, cardinals, and aristocrats… to the amazement of all.” These Italian organs had small pedalboards without independent stops: however opulent, they were not the medium for demonstrating the dazzle of German feet.
After 1710, Handel settled in London, where only the organ at St. Paul’s Cathedral had a pedal board, though it was a much smaller one than those in Germany. Of a Sunday afternoon, he would nonetheless hold forth at the cathedral, happy to get “the exercise [the organ] afforded him, in the use of the pedals.”
In an archly mixed metaphor that has buckled shoes peeking out of the cuffs of a laced shirt, Johann Mattheson, the haughty Hamburg music theorist and sometime friend and dueling partner of Handel, praised him (along with Bach) for unsurpassed brilliance “at pulling from his sleeve all that belongs to manuals and pedal.”
The comparisons with Bach were—and remain—inevitable and ubiquitous. Writing in 1788, C. P. E. Bach (Johann Sebastian’s second son, and then one of the most revered composers in Europe) chided Handel for renouncing his pedal patrimony: “Should not Handel have disposed at least one piece among his organ works in such manner that masters across the sea, too, could tell that he measured up to their higher art? Should he not have written and left behind in Germany a single work worthy of the German organ?” This meant a composition with a vigorously independent pedal.
On his occasional return trips to the mighty organs of the continent, Handel surely played pedal-rich solos. These improvisations vanished with their echo in the cavernous interiors of churches like St. Bavo in Haarlem, The Netherlands. That instrument was one of the continent’s largest and most famous organs, and Handel played it in 1740 when it had just been finished and again in 1750. For his own enjoyment and “to the amazement” of those down in the church, he must have had his way with the impressive pedal resources with the antics of his slender youth adapted to those of his corpulent maturity. Here’s betting his girth didn’t slow him down at the organ bench.
How to get Handel his organist’s feet back? With imagination and without inhibition! Handel was the most inspired and dedicated of musical plunderers, adept and unapologetic at lifting themes and even whole sections of music from teachers, competitors, and colleagues. He almost always put his inimitable spin on what he stole, “paying back the loan with interest,” in Mattheson’s memorable phrase. The organ, as Handel knew better than anyone, is the instrument of instruments—a symphony unto itself. To sit at an organ like that at Notre Dame’s Reyes Organ Hall, an instrument that would have seemed like a long-lost friend to Handel, is to have the world of 18th-century music (and beyond) at the tips of one’s fingers and toes. Let Handel steal from Handel, with Yearsley as the accomplice. Guilty as charged, your Honor!
Interview with organist/columnist David Yearsley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HWOfWseq2c
(David Yearsley is a long-time contributor to CounterPunch and the Anderson Valley Advertiser. His latest book is Sex, Death, and Minuets: Anna Magdalena Bach and Her Musical Notebooks. He can be reached at dgyearsley@gmail.com.)
A GIRL is bringing lunch to her father by Vladimir Lagrange, Soviet Union 1960's.
Vladimir Lagrange was a prominent Russian photographer known for his compelling documentation of Soviet life. Born in 1939, Lagrange worked as a photojournalist and became widely recognized for his ability to capture everyday moments, often filled with a sense of humanity and subtle emotion. His work often focused on ordinary people, street scenes, and social events, reflecting both the struggles and joys of life during the Soviet era.
Lagrange's style is marked by a focus on realism, with a deep sensitivity to the nuances of his subjects' expressions and the world around them. He was part of the "unofficial" photography movement, breaking away from state-sanctioned imagery to depict more authentic, unscripted aspects of Soviet life. His black-and-white photographs are considered timeless, showing both the starkness and tenderness of existence under the Soviet regime.
I remember gas wars when I was kid where the usual 19.9¢/gallon would dip down 14.9¢/gallon. That included full service and a bonus gift like a piece of dishware with a fill up.
“FORMERLY KNOWN AS CAMP” leaves out a lot of information known to the locals in Round Valley. Grows on “tribal” properties didn’t get raided, even though the environmental degradation, pesticides, etc. is similar to the grows which were busted. The tribal government has a “cease and desist” order with the sheriff, exempting the tribal properties from state enforcement. That allows all kinds of narco state development on the reservation with extensive grow operations leased out and managed by Spanish individuals from out of the area. A few tribal members are financially benefitting from this arrangement but it has led to a level of corruption and crime which in incompatible with the so-called “compassionate use” fictional element of this particular tribal sovereignty issue.
Meanwhile Mendocino county cannabis department is sending threatening letters to growers in the program demanding they become fully compliant by years end or else. Looks like the cartel will be the only ones operating pretty soon.
Good point Lew. If tribal leadership wants to continue with this direction, I hope it is one where they are representing their constituents. Honestly I find it doubtful based on the calls I get from Round Valley. I see and hear the winds of change blowing as many good people in the tribe are fed up with the practice of leasing lands to non tribal growers.
I’ve been clear, I will assist the tribe however won’t direct them and their assertion of sovereignty over marijuana cultivation combined with threats of litigation I am currently working through.
GREAT NEWS—-FOR THE RICH
Trump tells us again that he’s not fit for office. Here’s his “humanitarian” vision for Gaza’s future— not for the people, but, Jesus, that real estate!
“Gaza could be rebuilt ‘better than Monaco,’ the Mediterranean haven for the super-rich, former U.S. President Donald Trump suggested Monday.
The Republican presidential candidate made the comments in an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, who asked him whether the coastal enclave, devastated by Israel’s yearlong military offensive, could be another Monaco ‘if it was rebuilt the right way.’
‘[Gaza] could be better than Monaco,’ Trump replied. ‘It has the best location in the Middle East, the best water, the best everything.’
….Trump’s remarks echo those of his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who said in February that Gaza’s ‘waterfront property … could be very valuable.’
One year into Israel’s military offensive, which has included airstrikes and a ground invasion, much of Gaza has been left in ruins, with a quarter of its buildings destroyed or severely damaged, according to the United Nations.”
Politico, 10/8/24
Men in an auto adapted to the RR tracks dear across the hood. Next to the coast road below the creamy below Boonville Ave. Driver Charlie Kuhn, right front Colin Buchanan, right rear Charlie Lynch. left rear Jack Dougherty, Greenwood.
Interesting phrasing, spelling, punctuation…
Worth a read: https://calmatters.org/health/2024/10/prop-35-health-insurance-tax/
RE: Our coroner’s cases show we lose almost 50 people a year to overdoses. We have lost none to starvation. — Sheriff Kendall
—>. April 13, 2023
Deaths attributed to malnutrition more than doubled, from about 650 in 2018 to roughly 1,400 in 2022, according to preliminary death certificate data from the California Department of Public Health…
Malnutrition is particularly common among older people, especially those who are ill, low-income, homebound, or without reliable access to healthy food or medical services.
It can result from not eating enough but also from poor eating habits that lead to nutritional deficiencies. The majority of deaths in California from malnutrition last year occurred in residents 85 and older.
https://laist.com/news/health/the-rate-of-older-californians-dying-of-malnutrition-has-accelerated
—> January 08, 2022
The national goal is to promote a standards-based approach that will improve the electronic exchange of mortality information, both within states and between states and NCHS. Faster, better data exchange will allow us to improve and expand how we use mortality data to monitor health and save lives…
Representatives from six states—California, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, New Hampshire, and New York—are part of the collaborative team.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/modernization/improving-data-on-drug-overdose-deaths.html
None of those were in Mendocino County. I’m also the Coroner.
A bombshell bit of reporting by Michael Shellenberger of an individual whistleblower alleging that there’s a covert UFO program called “Immaculate Constellation”. His article is mostly behind a X subscriber paywall so details will be shared as I hear more.
Gillibrand in the Senate and Mace in the House are preparing for UFO hearings in November after the election.
Someone on X has posted some of the non paywall posting by Shellenberger:
“And now, existing and former US government officials have told members of Congress that AARO and the Pentagon have broken the law by not revealing a significant body of information about UAPs, including military intelligence databases that have evidence of their existence as physical craft.
“One of these individuals is a current or former US government official acting as a UAP whistleblower. The person has written a report that says ‘the Executive Branch has been managing UAP/NHI issues without Congressional knowledge, oversight, or authorization for some time, quite possibly decades.’
“Furthermore, these individuals have revealed the name of an active and highly secretive DOD “Unacknowledged Special Access Program,” or USAP. The source of the document told Public that the USAP is a ‘strategic intelligence program’ that is part of the US military’s family of long-standing, highly-sensitive programs dealing with various aspects of the UAP ‘problem.’”
Pure BS, from liars. ET wouldn’t waste time on a dump site like this planet. Dream on and believe lying politicians if you want. I no longer trust them, and haven’t…for decades. And, by the way, where’s that report on trade talks with ET?
First news article providing a summary of the allegations:
https://www.newsnationnow.com/space/ufo/report-immaculate-constellation-uap-journalist/
I didn’t trust Shellenberger to begin with. Not only does he come from the milieu of Global Exchange (where policy matters are usually the result of who has slept with whom), but he’s also been one of those people who go on social media and depict San Francisco as if The Tenderloin were the entire city. (While he lives in the Berkeley hills.)
And then he started publishing stories that started off with ‘According to my sources in the intelligence community…’
‘Sources’ in the intelligence community are renowned for spreading disinformation. A fake alien invasion has always been on their back burner, a card to play should they deem it necessary. Even the accomplished actor Tucker Carlson has joined the show, telling the world that the “aliens” are “interdimensional” and that “It’s a spiritual thing.”
Shellenberger characterized the anti-genocide protests at college campuses last spring as “anti-civilization.” Funny, because they were the exact opposite of that.
It’s not just Shellenberger:
“Daniel Sheehan
@danielsheehan45
It’s true. We’ve known about this particular whistleblower, as well as two others, who have confirmed the existence of the ‘Immaculate Constellation’ UFO/UAP Program.
If none of these three sources are called to testify publicly, Congress will essentially be failing in its constitutional duty — they are now on notice.
This program is completely unconstitutional, a violation of Article 1 of the Constitution, which is one of its most fundamental premises.”
I’m aware of the issues you mention re MS.
From an article published last March in The Guardian:
“…after 18 months in the job, Kirkpatrick called it quits last December. Then, last week, AARO published the first part of a report he had worked on that concluded there was no evidence “that any USG [US government] investigation, academic-sponsored research, or official review panel has confirmed that any sighting of a UAP [unidentified aerial phenomenon] represented extraterrestrial technology”.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/22/ufologists-sean-kirkpatrick-pentagon-report-uaps
Sean Kirkpatrick has serious credibility problems, but he does serve as a comforting presence to those having issues with revelations now unfolding:
https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/4432225-what-has-happened-to-the-pentagons-former-ufo-hunter/
He has been caught lying. For example, he said he never attended a briefing by Brandon Fugal re Skinwalker Ranch. Fugal released a photo of Sean K at the briefing.
There are indications the new AARO head will play it straight.
The author of the above The Hill article just observed this re the functioning of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office:
”
“MarikvR
@MvonRen
45m
If allegations that IMMACULATE CONSTELLATION “quarantine[s] and transfer[s]” UAP observations to avoid “circulation” in standard DoD/IC reporting channels are accurate, that could explain how AARO can plausibly claim that very few incidents reported to it are genuinely anomalous.”
Besides the “sheep dipping” sex scandals in the MCSO north sector back when Jason Cox was a deputy — coerced wife swapping which was videotaped and photographed — I remember Jason telling me that two murders also deeply troubled him from that time frame..
On June 17, 2006, Robert Cory Want, 28, and Ivan Tillotson, 28, were killed northeast of Covelo near Murphy Ridge Road.
The two men were shot just before 2:30 p.m. on that Saturday afternoon. One of the wounded men telephoned for help but both died of gunshot wounds emergency personnel came to their aid. The two men were members of the Round Valley Indian Tribes and were killed in a marijuana field located on tribal lands.
A 5,000-plant marijuana grow located about two miles from the shooting was eradicated during the investigation. Five men including three from Santa Rosa and several undocumented immigrants were arrested for that grow. None were charged.
Shortly after the investigation into the murders began, the FBI took it over from the MCSO. The murder case remains open, I think, with no more information available to the public today than in 2006.
Jason’s thoughts?
Jason said to start any investigation of a capital crime in the MCSO’s north sector, especially Covelo, by investigating who is fronting for whom in local cash businesses in the area — trailer parks, car washes, laundromats, bars, deli markets, and restaurants. Jason said that’s where dirty cops launder their money. He called those dirty cops “angel investors”.
The December 2007 murder conviction of James Redenius, 32, of Willits, also troubled Jason.
Michael Jeffrey Marlin, 27, was sentenced to 40 years to life plus eight years, but there were evidence issues — illegally removing the victim’s bloody clothing two days after the shooting, tampering with an audio recording, falsifying the evidence property report, falsifying the death investigation report, and falsifying audio report.
I videotaped an interview I had with Jason from that time — he called it his “insurance policy” — but, again, I would love to see Jason’s full whistleblower complaint and the investigation which followed.
Note: I tried to get Jason to do an interview with me on my show, “The Truth about Money”, at KZYX, at that same time, but Jason’s NDA would not allow it.
https://theava.com/archives/806
McGourty, him and his wife being all about mental health and our county wellness, dribbled on about the wine harvest in a county devastated by addiction, and the wine growers. Gag me with a very large towel….
I don’t think people understand I feel like moving death, my spine as broken as one can be and still stand, yet I’m just getting started. Even with a brain that gains more holes every day, to add to probably dozens of TBI’s I have earned, yet I think it is worth the struggle to the podium to speak MY Truths. I wish more would do the same. We have the same tired old people running us in circles like a dog chasing a rabbit on a string with a swivel attached.
Kudu’s Adam Gaska for cleaning garbage all day for the second day in a row. I know this because even though the man lost the election, his Heart is true to the people, and he did not disappear as most other candidates that lose choose to get right back to some type of self-promotion.