Mendocino County Today: Sunday 10/13/2024

By AVA News Service on October 13, 2024

SEASONABLE TEMPERATURES will resume today and Monday, then another another potential light rainfall event approaches mid week. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A foggy 54F this Sunday morning on the coast. I added another .07" of rainfall yesterday morning. Patchy fog today, mostly clear Monday, fog again Tuesday, then a smaller chance of rain now for Wednesday.

NICK WILSON (Little River): Rain 0.40" in Little River, began at 1 AM today (Saturday) and ended at
8:30 AM. Location 3 mi inland, 622 ft elevation.

CHP: HIGHWAY 101 REOPENS AFTER FATAL VEHICLE CRASH IN GEYSERVILLE

Highway 101 northbound was closed for hours Saturday near Canyon Road after crash

by Anna Armstrong

Highway 101 northbound has reopened after a fatal two-vehicle crash in Geyserville that left one person dead and others with major injuries, according to the CHP.

The crash was reported just before noon on Highway 101 northbound south of Canyon Road. The collision closed all lanes of traffic on the northbound side for the afternoon and traffic was diverted off the highway at Geyserville Avenue.

CHP officer David DeRutte said the driver of a Honda Accord traveling southbound lost control of the vehicle and spun out over a grassy area and into oncoming traffic on the northbound side, where the Honda collided with a Subaru traveling northbound.

The Honda was struck on the driver’s side, killing a passenger seated behind the driver.

Three other people in the Honda, including the driver, were taken to an area hospital with major injuries. One male was pronounced dead at the crash scene.

The Subaru had three passengers, including a baby in the backseat. Both adults were taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. The baby was not hurt in the crash, DeRutte said.

It is unclear if weather was a factor in the crash, but Sonoma County experienced its first rainfall since early May on Saturday morning and afternoon, totaling between a tenth and a quarter of an inch, according to National Weather Service Meteorologist Joe Merchant.

Rain continued through the afternoon and is expected to taper off throughout the evening.

(The Press Democrat)

ELIZABETH JENSEN

Thank You to Nancy Serna’s family & support, Alberto Espinoza and Oscar Bautista, for getting a heads start on our wood chip project! One play area done, only one more to go!

Thank you again for all the community support. It Takes A Valley!

UKIAH FOOTBALL COACH PAUL CRONIN HITS COACHING MILESTONE IN UKIAH WIN

Ukiah 34, Montgomery 7.

Ukiah started fast and never looked back en route to a pivotal win to open league play in the Redwood Empire Conference Bay division Friday.

With the win, Ukiah head coach Paul Cronin collected career victory No. 233, according to records compiled by CalHi Sports, moving him past the late Jason Franci, who led Montgomery to 232 wins over his 30-plus year career.

“We were competitors when I was at Newman and Montgomery was the second-best team in the area’ we had some really great games,” Cronin said of Franci. “I think more importantly, being able to mention his name in the paper and all the great things he did for the Montgomery community and the football community in the NBL is pretty special.”

Franci is No. 1 all-time in Sonoma County coaching wins and Cronin moves to No. 2 all-time in Redwood Empire history, trailing only Middletown’s Bill Foltmer, who has 311 and counting.

Omaurie Phillips-Porter and Darrion Dorsey each had two receiving touchdowns from junior quarterback Beau David and Jaecee Goeken added a rushing touchdown in the win for the Wildcats (4-2, 1-0).

Montgomery coach Vertis Patton praised the play of his team’s defense but said the Vikings were stung by a few untimely dropped passes.

“I think our defense gave us chances,” Patton said. “Once we settled down a little bit, made some adjustments on defense, we were able to slow them down and get our offense the ball a few times. But our offense just couldn’t get it going tonight.”

Thor Boswell connected with Chace Russell for Montgomery’s lone touchdown of the night. The Vikings are now 3-3 and 0-1 in league play.

CAL FIRE TO CONDUCT 500-ACRE PRESCRIBED BURN IN MENDOCINO COUNTY THROUGHOUT COMING WEEK

Smoke and aircraft will likely be visible in the area between Monday and Friday, the agency said.

Cal Fire is to conduct a prescribed burn in northern Mendocino County starting Monday. The 500-acre vegetation management exercise is to last for five days, until Friday, Oct. 18, the agency said.

The burn will treat grasslands, shrubs and underlying vegetation in oak woodlands and mixed conifer habitats, the agency said in a press release.

The burn will start at about 8 a.m. each day and end at about 3 p.m. Smoke and aircraft will likely be visible in the area, the agency said.

The burn — on the Shamrock Ranch east of Highway 101 and south of Laytonville — will create “a mosaic of variously burned vegetation and islands of unburned habitat,” the agency said.

AV TODAY

Free Entry to Hendy Woods State Park for local residents
Sun 10 / 13 / 2024 at 8:00 AM
Where: Hendy Woods State Park
More Information (https://andersonvalley.helpfulvillage.com/events/3670)

AV Grange Pancake and Egg Breakfast
Sun 10 / 13 / 2024 at 8:30 AM
Where: Anderson Valley Grange , 9800 CA-128, Philo, CA 95466
More Information (https://andersonvalley.helpfulvillage.com/events/3895)

I. KJELD GARDNER, DM

I've got a bit of an historical riddle…

If you've delved into the history of this county, you may have come across tales of a critter named "Club Foot." It was actually several critters with a common but meaningful name. Tonight, I was out with my wife chasing the the aurora borealis, which did not materialize at all. Certainly, a let down after the celestial spectacle of yesterday. We found a fantastic vantage point anyway though. I spotted what looks to me to be ole Club Foot hanging out in Mendocino! Do you see him?

THIRD DISTRICT SUPERVISOR REPORT

by John Haschak

With 100-degree weather in October and no forecast of rain, the D word is on my mind. As Chair of the General Government Committee, we worked on the Mendocino County Drought Resilience Plan.

The GGC is the Drought Task Force and we have to comply with SB 552. This requires a risk assessment and proposed approaches for developing short-term and long-term mitigation strategies. Whether it rains or not in the near future, we have to look at our infrastructure capabilities such as storage, interties between different water systems, and conservation.

The county was awarded the first phase of the FEMA Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) grant for fuel reduction, vegetation management, and home hardening in Brooktrails. County staff has been diligent in submitting a successful application. This will provide $3.5 million in initial planning for community safety. We are hopeful that subsequent phases will provide additional funding to complete the project.

We live in a rural county hoping to hear birds singing in the mornings and crickets at night as well as enjoying social events. We try to be good neighbors and respect the rights of others. Yet sometimes instead of a peaceful evening eating dinner on the back porch or falling to sleep to the sounds of nature, blasting music, squealing tires or loud machinery is heard.

Supervisor McGourty brought a proposal to create a noise ordinance for the county. When a raucous party is disturbing a neighborhood or community, people will call the Sheriff’s Office, a deputy will come out with few options besides appealing to a sense of propriety. The goal is to have more tools available so that our communities remain livable, enjoyable environments.

I proposed a limit on campaign contributions to candidates. This is to make for good government by preventing corruption or the appearance of corruption. Currently, the county defaults to the state limit of $5,500 per individual. Many counties have adopted limits of between $500 and $1,500 per individual and double that amount for committees.

The board approved moving forward with this item. I will be working with Supervisor McGourty and county counsel to bring back limits and ordinance language.

I am available by email haschakj@mendocinocounty.gov or 707-972-4214.

Time to vote! Voting is your superpower!

‘STUNNING’ SKY HOUSE IN UKIAH HITS THE MARKET FOR $2.45 MILLION

The main house is connected to the guest house via a suspended breezeway.

by Charles Swanson

A Ukiah hilltop enclave with sweeping Mayacamas Mountain views has hit the market.

The Sky House, a 98-acre compound at 241 Henry Station Road, is listed for $2,450,000. It boasts a main three-bedroom, three-bathroom home spanning 3,328 square feet, as well as wraparound decks, a guest house, wine cellar, grotto, and zen gardens.

“It is a stunning property unlike anything we have seen before in Mendocino County,” said listing agent Graham Sarasy of Healdsburg Sotheby’s International Realty in an email to The Press Democrat.

Sarasy and listing agent Kevin McDonald of Sotheby’s International Realty - Wine Country, Sonoma Brokerage are representing the property.

Jutting out from the hillside, the home appears “as if (it is) floating in the air,” according to the listing. The property is accessed by a long curving private driveway that ascends from the valley floor, and the main house is connected to the guest house and garage via a suspended breezeway.

According to Sarasy, the property was built in 1993 by engineer and entrepreneur Max Schlienger, who founded engineering firm Retech, specializing in custom-designed equipment for melting, refining and casting high-grade metals and metal alloys.

The Ukiah compound is actually a replica of a home Max and his wife, Joan Schlienger, previously lived in the Peacock Gap neighborhood of San Rafael, know as the “Hanging Garden House,” that was designed by architect R.R. Zahm of Burlingame in 1962, according to Sarasy.

“Family lore is that Max promised his wife Joan that if she agreed to move to Mendocino County he would build her another home just like the one she would be leaving in San Rafael,” Sarasy said in an email.

The Sky House also features several Asian-inspired design elements, according to Sarasy.

“Max and Joan traveled throughout Asia and had a great fondness for Eastern culture, which they actively integrated into the building of their home,” Sarasy said. “The metal pagoda-style peaked roof and the engineered cantilever design of the building created a stunning East-meets-West effect.”

Schlienger, who died May 4 at the age of 96, also notably invented an elevated high-speed train system propelled by air pressure similar to Elon Musk’s hyperloop system. While Schlienger built a 1/32 scale model for the train system on his property, the track has been disassembled, Sarasy said.

(Santa Rosa Press Democrat)

UKIAH SHELTER PET OF THE WEEK

Posey has the personality of a big ol’ puppy! He was unsure about playing with toys at first, but it didn’t take long for him to figure out what stuffies and tennis balls are all about. Posey is smart and eager to learn new things. We think Posey will make a great family dog. This guy is the handsomest, and has a happy and sweet glint in his eyes. Hurry down to the Shelter and meet Posey! Posey is 1-1/2 years old and 71 adorable 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.

ANNUAL CHESTNUT GATHERING

The 41st annual chestnut gathering at the Zeni Ranch will be Saturday November 2nd from 10 am to 4 pm.

Potluck dinner this year! Bring something to add to the table along with your own eating supplies.

Dogs on leashes ok, but you're responsible for your pet.

Chestnuts are $4.00 a pound if you pick, or $7.00 if already picked. No credit card service.

Call or text Jane Zeni 707-684-6892

Fresh raw chestnut honey, T-shirts and our popular nut sacks will be available, and other farm products.

MORE SIGNS that books are fading in the minds of the current generation. A friend told us recently that when her husband died recently she tried to donate her husband’s extensive specialty collection of books gathered over a lifetime to the applicable department head at Mendo college. Response. Sorry, we don’t want them. Nobody reads books. Everybody uses Google. Second sign: The County vehicle formerly known as the “bookmobile” is now called “Library Outreach,” books apparently being archaic. (Mark Scaramella)

ASK THE VET: ANIMAL EMERGENCIES

by Karen Novak, DVM

Emergencies in the veterinary world can come in all forms. Seizures, a traumatic injury, severe vomiting and/or diarrhea to name a few. Occasionally though, an emergency can be running out of medication prior to a weekend or while travelling. This can pose a surprisingly complicated situation.

In order to treat an animal, whether it’s surgery, medical treatment or prescription, there has to be a veterinarian-client-patient relationship (VCPR). That might seem obvious, but the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) has defined certain criteria that need to exist to establish this relationship which are as follows:

The veterinarian has assumed the responsibility for making clinical judgments regarding the health of the patient and the client has agreed to follow the veterinarian’s instructions.
The veterinarian has sufficient knowledge of the patient to initiate at least a general or preliminary diagnosis of the medical condition of the patient. This means that the veterinarian is personally acquainted with the keeping and care of the patient by virtue of a timely examination of the patient by the veterinarian, or medically appropriate and timely visits by the veterinarian to the operation where the patient is managed.
The veterinarian is readily available for follow-up evaluation or has arranged for the following: veterinary emergency coverage, and continuing care and treatment.
The veterinarian provides oversight of treatment, compliance, and outcome.
Patient records are maintained.

An example of how this can play out in real life is as follows.

A family is visiting our lovely Mendocino Coast with their dog that has a diagnosed heart condition. The dog is on multiple medications that their regular veterinarian has stressed is important for their dog’s continued health and well-being. In the morning, when giving the dog its medication, they realize they do not have enough to cover their dog's medication schedule while they are away. They come into our office and request enough medication to cover their trip. Our receptionist nicely stated that veterinary offices cannot act as a dispensing pharmacy, and can only dispense medication if a veterinarian-client-patient relationship is present. The options are to schedule an appointment with us so we can examine the dog and then dispense the needed medication, go home early, or go to an emergency clinic that could see them that day. The visitor is mad, frustrated, all of which is taken out on the receptionist who is just doing her job.

CALFIRE SEEKS INPUT ON JACKSON DEMONSTRATION FOREST

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CALFire), Jackson Demonstration State Forest invites the public to join us for a series of facilitated discussions to inform the development of our new 10-year Forest Management Plan.

Forests provide immense and diverse values to the citizens of California. They supply many benefits that we use and enjoy, including clean water, carbon sequestration and storage, fish and wildlife, forest products, and diverse recreational opportunities. The Forest Management Plan guides our activities to sustain and improve upon these benefits. The plan will address opportunities for Tribal co-management, restoration ecology and economy, research and demonstration, sustainable forestry, recreation, and protection and restoration of wildlife habitat.

The Forest Management Plan is prepared by CALFire and reviewed and approved by the Board of Forestry and Fire Protection (Board). The Board requires CALFire to review Forest Management Plans for JDSF every 10-years with the current plan last approved by the Board in 2016. Once approved, CALFire is responsible for managing JDSF in accordance with the plan. The Jackson Advisory Group advises both CAL FIRE and the Board. They regularly conduct public meetings and review CAL FIRE projects for compliance with the Forest Management Plan.

This first set of meetings, to be held both in Fort Bragg and in Ukiah, are intended to gain public insight prior to the first draft of the updated Forest Management Plan. After public meetings conclude in mid-January 2025, Clifton Environmental LLC, a Mendocino County based forestry and environmental consulting firm, will work with CALFire to prepare an updated draft then seek additional public comment in the late Spring and early summer of 2025 to create the final draft.

These initial meetings will be facilitated by Kitchen Table Consulting, LLC, a Mendocino County based facilitation team, and will include presentations from experts and activities for public engagement.

The public is encouraged to pre-register for each meeting they wish to attend. Pre-registration will ensure people receive materials in advance to help prepare for the workshops at the meetings. A Zoom option for each meeting will also be provided; however, Zoom participants will be in listening mode only, and provided a path for comment after the meeting notes are posted to the public.

The Public Meeting Topics, Schedule, Locations and Times are as follows:

Topic: JDSF History, the Management Plan Process and How to Get Involved

Monday, Oct. 21, 5-7 PM: Fort Bragg - Town Hall

Tuesday, Oct., 22, 5-7 PM: Ukiah - Saturday Afternoon Clubhouse

Topic: Tribal Co-Management

Tuesday, Oct. 29, 5-7 PM: Fort Bragg - Town Hall

Wednesday, Oct. 30, 6-8 PM: Ukiah - Senior Center

Topic: Restoration Ecology

Monday, Nov. 18, 6-8 PM: Ukiah - Saturday Afternoon Clubhouse

Thursday, Nov. 21, 5-7 PM: Fort Bragg - Town Hall

Topic: Restoration Economy

Thursday, Dec. 12: 6-8 PM: Ukiah - Senior Center

Friday, Dec. 13, 5-7 PM: Fort Bragg - Veterans Hall

Pre-register for any or all meetings at https://jacksonstateforestplan.com/register

The JDSF Management Plan, which was last updated in 2016, will provide direction to the next decade of activities on the forest. The process of updating the Jackson Demonstration State Forest Management Plan will also include concurrent engagements with local tribes, which will be led by Alta Archeological Consulting, consultation with the Jackson Advisory Group, and other stakeholders, and will conclude with a presentation to the Board of Forestry, for final approval, in 2026.

CALFire values public input on the process and is grateful for continued local interest in the stewardship of Jackson Demonstration State Forest.

Pre-register for any or all meetings at: https://jacksonstateforestplan.com/register

More information www.jacksonstateforestplan.com

RON PARKER: Trout Farm, Fort Bragg, Mendocino County

FAIRFAX PHIL

by Bruce Anderson

My neighborhood is like most in Marin, suburban-sedate, a combination of young families, working people, the elderly which, of course, includes me and my wife of sixty-two years. Architecturally, we live in a mix of modest, pre-War, owner-built houses and modest post-War building-boom houses erected by licensed contractors. Up through the 1960s most housing in Marin went for well under $40,000.

There are, as the nation knows, Marin enclaves of very wealthy people whose cumulative fortunes put Marin in the top national tier of annual average incomes. But most residents are people of modest means and, in my neighborhood, there's a morning exodus of paycheck commuters replaced all over Marin by an influx of Mexican housekeepers and landscapers from the dense poor neighborhoods of the Canal and from Richmond and Oakland. (Canal housing is much like the crowded immigrant apartment buildings of South Ukiah and rent gouges the same Hispanic demographic.)

Here in the Brookside neighborhood, it's so quiet even a barking dog is an anomaly, although much of Marin is an open-air dog park and also something of an open-air game reserve, with deer and turkeys strolling the early morning streets, and coyotes a common sight. The human fauna is silent round the clock.

Except for Phil.

At least I think his name is Phil. I've seen notes on curbside piles of free stuff asking “Phil” not to make a mess out of the give aways, and one morning I heard a woman yell, “Phil! Leave my garbage cans alone!”

I've since learned that Phil lives about a half-mile north of me in a “Prop 13 house,” meaning he's inherited his modest home because property taxes were frozen at a time people were being literally taxed out of their homes to fund burgeoning public bureaucracies. Ordinary home owners benefitted mightily from Prop 13, although it was mostly a tax give away to corporate property owners.There are lots of Prop 13 properties in Marin, out of which you'll see an ancient flower child like Phil emerge who might otherwise be homeless.

Phil's place is a rather jarring sight among the scrupulously maintained properties of his immediate neighbors. In fact, his lot is a jumble of abandoned vehicles and dying vegetation offset by several American flags. Assuming his house — a two-bedroom, one-bath faded blue clapboard — is still habitable, the house and its large lot are worth well over $1 million. The lot by itself would bring a cool mil, such is property inflation in one of the richest counties in the country.

A wiry, eclectically clad six-footer, Phil's bouncing gait carries this living West Marin landmark great distances every day.

Some of us know him from wild personal encounters.

Phil is at the corner, booming at two people working in their yard: “Happy Anniversary, my fellow citizens!” He unbuttons his coat and sticks his chest out: “See what's on my shirt?” Skulls? the man asks. Phil beams: “Two skulls. The pirate life. I graduated from Drake in 1969, and have been pillaging the high seas ever since!” He thrusts his coat shut, as if he said too much, and continues hollering and marching down the street. Phil never lingers. He always moves quickly on after saying what he has to say.

I encounter him often because I'm up early when Phil is also often on the move. One memorable morning, as I mutely tried to explain the hole in my throat, Phil impulsively hugged me.

Another morning, Phil is strutting down the middle of the road like a drum major, and shouting: “I was at Jack London's old place, and fell into an artesian well. They had to use a whale bone to fish me out!” It’s before dawn. Phil is headed away from Fairfax and towards his house. Suddenly he appears like a sprite in the dark, cackling and clutching a box of some kind. He sees me and says, “There you are! Eight miles, I've been walking. All the way from a homeless encampment where my friend is living.” He makes a face and theatrically shivers. “They were drinking vodka, vile stuff! Anyway, they pass me the bottle so I take a swig, being polite. Then a gust of wind came outta nowhere and blew my friend’s tent down, and now he’s scrambling to tie it all back down, all his stuff is blowing everywhere, and they’re drinking that cheap vodka. And then another guy gives me these boots.” He extends the shoe box he’s holding and takes off the lid. “Pristine, and just my size!” It’s five in the morning and he’s shouting in a friendly way. “Eight miles I've been walking! Man, I hate vodka, but I got these boots!”

There are locals less amused by Phil. Upon watching a woman bend over to pick up her German Shepherd’s waste, Phil yells: “Dog shit, full of shit, you're a shit!” Never once breaking stride. In Marin, NorCal’s dog capitol, Phil’s canine condemnation is rare blasphemy. And a visiting nurse told me she felt “absolutely terrified” by Phil one morning when he suddenly loomed up at her car window with a maniacal grin on his face. “I think he should be locked up,” the nurse told me.

I didn't agree, although I sympathized. When women feel menaced they usually are menaced. But I think Phil is a local treasure, a rare bit of animation and humor in a county that can seem more like a mausoleum than a place where people live out their lives.

JOHNSON-STAUER, MENDOCINO

by Carol Dominy

The Johnson-Stauer building, situated on the northeast corner of Lansing and Ukiah Streets in Mendocino, is steeped in local history, reflecting the evolution of the town’s commercial and social life. In 1902, master carpenter J. D. Johnson, who owned the property, demolished an old barn on the site, which had most recently been used as a blacksmith shop. In its place, he constructed the current two-story structure, setting the stage for a series of businesses that would come to define Mendocino for over a century.

Johnson’s first tenant for the new building was John August “Gus” Leighton, a Swiss immigrant who arrived in Mendocino in 1881. Gus opened a saloon in the newly completed structure. Unfortunately, his health began to fail, and in March 1904, he sold the saloon to J. W. Barton. Gus passed away a few months later from tuberculosis at the age of 48. The saloon continued to operate under different proprietors until 1909, when liquor sales became illegal in Mendocino.

After the local prohibition of alcohol, the building transitioned into other forms of entertainment. In 1912, Justin Nelson and his half-brother Chester Barry opened a pool hall in the space, though they relocated a year later. In 1916, Henry Stauer moved his family into the second story of the corner building and opened a general merchandise store in the adjoining structure (where Goodlife Cafe & Bakery is located now). The downstairs corner space saw several ventures come and go, including an ice cream parlor and a candy store with another billiard room run by Chester Barry. The building served as a backdrop to the community’s shifting needs during a period of significant social change.

J. D. Johnson died in 1927, and Henry Stauer purchased several of Johnson’s properties from the estate, including the building on the corner and the adjoining general store. The corner saw further transformation when it became home to the Big River Justice Court following William Shaw’s election as Justice of the Peace in 1926. Although Shaw was defeated by J. D. Murray in the 1930 election, Shaw’s office and notary public service remained in the building until 1936.

Northeast corner of Lansing and Ukiah Streets, 1932. The Johnson-Stauer building on the corner housed William Shaw’s office and public notary service on its first floor. The Stauer Grocery Store is located to the left. (Gordon Kelley Collection)

That was the year that Joe King opened the Shoreline Grill downstairs, combining a restaurant and bar with a card room and billiards. King’s bar became a local fixture, remembered by townspeople for its atmosphere, the long mahogany bar, and Joe’s signature White Owl cigar, always clamped securely in the side of his mouth. Joe remodeled the upper floor into 10 apartments, further cementing the building’s place as a key part of Mendocino’s residential and commercial landscape.

Stauer sold the property to the Mendosa family in 1945, and the building’s purpose shifted once again. In 1947, Toni Robinson opened a beauty parlor, Antoinette’s Beauty Shop, downstairs. The shop closed the following year when Toni married Jack Lemos.

Starting in 1948, the downstairs space became home to a series of barber shops. Jerry McIntyre cut hair here from 1958 until 1975, and Mitch Ortiz took over from 1975 to 2009, adding to the building’s legacy. Notably, in 1987, the barbershop was featured as “Loretta’s Beauty Shop” in the fourth season of Murder, She Wrote. Today, Mendocino Gems Jewelry Store resides on the ground floor, continuing the long tradition of commerce at this historic corner of Mendocino.

Northeast corner of Lansing and Ukiah Streets, 2024. Mendocino Gems is downstairs in the corner building. Goodlife Cafe & Bakery now occupies the Stauer’s Grocery Store space. (Photographer: Robert Dominy)

(kelleyhousemuseum.org)

CATCH OF THE DAY, Saturday, October 12, 2024

JOSEPH ANDERSEN, 37, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

HERMINIA CEJA-ORTIZ, 52, Ukiah. Domestic violence court order violation.

JESUS DAMIAN, 18, Ukiah. Theft by forged access card, obtaining or using personal ID without authorization.

BRIGETTE GRIBI, 34, Redding/Ukiah. Failure to appear.

CODY MENDEZ, 21, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

MIGUEL RAMOS-GUZMAN, 26. DUI.

IAN REED, 43, Redwood Valley. Disobeying court order.

MARK SMITH, 32, DUI, paraphernalia.

THE UNITED STATES HAS OVER 1,000 LIGHTHOUSES. Michigan has the most. Go figure. But save the most remote, the hardest to build, and some of most storied for Northern California. The Lost Coast in Humboldt County is punctuated by two lighthouses. Three miles from the northern point stands Punta Gorda Lighthouse and at the Southern end, at Shelter Cove, the Cape Mendocino Lighthouse.

This region represents one the most seismically active regions in North America. The "Mendocino Triple Junction" marks where three tectonic plates come together. It's for this reason alone that California Highway 1 departs its path along the coast and turns due east where it meanders up and over the coastal range and connects to U.S. Highway 101 twenty miles inland. The three plates are also responsible for forming the many jagged rock outcroppings along the coast; some close to shore, some miles offshore. The high seas, combined with the rocky, undulating coastline, resulted in scores of shipwrecks during the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Punta Gorda, which translates to "fat point," is only eleven miles further east than the westernmost point in the contiguous United States, Cape Mendocino. Between 1899 and 1907 more than nine ships had met their fate in the seas in and around Punta Gorda. At mile three of the twenty-five mile Lost Coast trail the lighthouse offers an early welcomed site to hikers. It's powerful and introspective to think that you're looking at the same pristine coastline that the first head keeper, Frederick Harrington, gazed at over 100 years before.

Punta Gorda was decommissioned by the Coast Guard in 1951 in favor of a lighted buoy just off the point. Hippies occupied the buildings surrounding the lighthouse in the 1960s. After chasing the squatters away on repeated occasions, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management burned down the wooden structures (the quarters and stables) leaving just the lighthouse and a concrete building standing.…

https://www.coldwatercoast.com/stories/blog-post-title-three-6k4c5

MEMO OF THE AIR: The NPR hmm face.

Here's the recording of last night's (Friday, 2024-10-11) 7.5-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-0613

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.

Besides all that, at https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com you'll find a fresh batch of dozens of links to not-necessarily radio-useful but worthwhile items I set aside for you while gathering the show together, such as:

Tiny automata. My favorites are the shrimps and the fencing mice, and the riding mouse with scrolling night background. The dinosaur flying a kite. The Roman soldier mouse's cape. The boat on the waves. Meriden's yarn hair. https://myonebeautifulthing.com/2024/10/04/stoccafisso/

3D Mamie Van Doren. Cross your eyes. I can smell the cloth, the cigaret, and some kind of furniture oil on the wood, in that order https://tinyurl.com/3DMamie

Further cross-your-eyes 3D material. (One issue of my paper /Memo/ in the early 1990s was all black-and-white cross-eye 3D. The cover was R. Buzby crucified, on E Road, by the ruined greenhouse he lived in, with spikes through his hands (he held them there in his curled fingers, like cigarets, with ketchup for blood), looking up and to the right, anguished and handsome.) https://www.facebook.com/groups/271296043894572/

And photographs of a fascinating, terrifying Spanish crowd sport. Scroll down and down. (via NewAtlas) https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2024/10/photos-building-human-towers-spain/680191/

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

STEVE HEILIG:

Pot Perspective via the NYT: I served on the CA Governor’s commission on cannabis legalization policy over a decade back. A good panel of scientific, medical, policy experts. We had lots of arguments on how to best change the law, ending prohibition w/o causing more harms, with a seeming minority of us warning about the potential “tobaccoization” of pot. We favored banning all advertising and public use, adding lots of health warnings, regulating use of additives and pesticides etc, and expanding treatment and education re related problems – based on efforts that substantially reduced tobacco smoking. We had recommendations to prevent environmental harms too. But we didn’t get much of that, and the overall results have been fairly predictably bad and sad. The movement for “medical” use has been fully co-opted by hypocritical capitalists and “big cannabis” profiteers, many well-armed, who will sell anybody contaminated herb and “CBD” for anything, w/o evidence it actually does anything. And as the NYT reports, harmful impacts have dramatically increased. Other nations and states now look at CA and say “What were you thinking?”

So while I’m very glad the primary goal of keeping users out of incarceration is working, and on balance still favor legalization for that reason, I’m not proud of the rest of it. At least many young folks now look at legal pot and those who most sell and use it and decide it’s just not cool anymore. There’s some irony there.

NORBERT GRIMSHAW

I am in despair. I've just read a post decrying the teaching of cursive writing in schools. Even worse were the many "hear hear!" comments intimating that children no longer need to learn how to use a pen because they do everything on their phones or computer keyboards…

Anyway, in answer to those many people and with respect to the skill of writing with a pen only (not the skill of writing cursively):

Have you any idea how many things that we take for granted - electricity delivered to our domiciles, food delivered to our supermarkets - are actually hanging by a very fine thread? At any time, we are one Chernobyl, one minor nuclear exchange, one explosion of civil unrest, one significant climatic event away from local, regional, or global catastrophe. And if that catastrophe arrives in your neighbourhood… sure, go make a checklist of all the things you need to survive for a few days while you struggle to find a candle and some matches. Oh, shit! Sorry, I'll just have to make that list in my head and try to remember it because no one taught me how to write… For fuck's sake.

And by the way don't diss cursive writing - it was invented because it's much quicker than printing individual letters. I write my novels longhand - fast cursive scribble, but readable. Faster in fact than using a keyboard.

Overall, i would say that writing with a pen or pencil is one of the few marks of genuine civilisation we have left.

BRUCE MCEWEN:

My lady wife Marilyn (who wrote the Progressive View in the Rossmoor News for over 15 years) and her fellow protesters have finally made international news…

Baby boomer paradise is torn apart by politics, with hair-pulling pickleball brawls and farmers market bust-ups

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

If you have always felt that you had your political compass fixed, but are increasingly feeling lost at sea, that’s because we are in the midst of a fundamental reorientation of our political landscape – a sea change. If someone had predicted eight years ago, or even four, that Dick Cheney would ever back a Democratic presidential candidate and, in the same year, RFK Jr. would side with the Republican, they would have been laughed off the stage. Aren’t Republicans supposed to be the authoritarians? Then why are the Democrats putting the foundation for totalitarian control of our lives in place? Aren’t Democrats supposed to defend our civil liberties? Then why are their leaders intent upon revoking our inalienable right to Free Speech?

TRUMP ON CLIMATE CHANGE

Editor:

A vote for Donald Trump means the climate crisis will only get worse: more frequent and intense climate disasters like Hurricane Helene and our wildfires.

Washington Post: “Trump reiterated some of his frequently repeated falsehoods and petty grievances. ‘The global warming hoax, it just never ends,’ he said.”

New York Times: “Over four years, the Trump administration dismantled major climate policies and rolled back many more rules governing clean air, water, wildlife and toxic chemicals.”

Rolling Stone: Trump “dismissed the idea that climate change is anything to worry about. ‘The oceans are going to rise 1/100th of an inch in the next 300 years and it’s going to kill everybody,’ he said sarcastically. ‘It’s going to create more oceanfront property, that’s what it’s going to do.’ ”

Trump repeatedly contradicted his own administration’s findings, including firing a scientist responsible for assessing climate change.

Politico: “Trump is once again seeking deep and unrealistic cuts to most federal agency budgets … The EPA’s budget would see a nearly 27 percent chop.”

Associated Press: “Government climate report contradicts Trump, warns of worsening US disasters.”

Financial Times: “Donald Trump would gut Joe Biden’s landmark IRA climate law if elected.”

Why isn’t his callous, irresponsible stance the major issue in this campaign?

Rich Harkness

Santa Rosa

ISRAEL

by John Arteaga

My God, is there anyone who can make a plausible case that Israel has not turned into a ravening genocidal international beast that is rampaging completely out of control?

Apparently not satisfied with the mass slaughter and forced starvation of millions of Gazans to the South, where the irresponsible media report daily on such things as herding all the desperate starving refugees into 'safe places' , schools etc., then bombing those same places, while their scribes in the Western media allow them to wave a magic wand over each obvious inhuman war crime saying simply, "there were a few Hamas terrorists deviously hiding among the 'civilian population'”. Hello! There are many amongst the religious crazies who dominate the criminal Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition who believe that it is an act of rational self-preservation to murder even Palestinian children and babies because they will inevitably grow up to become terrorists against Israel. There is a certain logic to this, given the subhuman treatment that Israel has afforded the Palestinians under their merciless apartheid state.

Why wouldn’t they? Behold the world's largest open air prison, Gaza; an area the size of Philadelphia, populated by millions of Palestinians driven out of their destroyed homes and businesses and corralled in this tiny space where they are allowed only barely enough food to fall just short of mass starvation, where they have no option to access water, power, food, or building materials other than through the good graces of Israel, who can (and does) cut them off for any reason or no reason at all.

The bloody shirt that Israel is now waving to somehow justify their mass murder campaign against all Palestinians, whether those in Gaza, who they collectively blame for the massacre of October 7, even though there was never any meaningful investigation of that tragic event, or those unfortunate Palestinian residents of the West Bank, on whom it has become open season for murderous Zionist ‘settlers’. From what I have read, the IDF must have first of all, foreseen well in advance the security risk of this massive event so close to the border of their giant open air prison, but decided to pull all the military resources away from the area. Then, when they finally got around to addressing the ongoing mayhem, they employed what they refer to as the Hannibal Directive, where the Israeli military is instructed to blow away both the kidnapper and the kidnapped, rather than allow any hostages to be taken. This was clearly obvious in the aftermath of that catastrophe where whole buildings were blown up along with their occupants, obviously far beyond the destructive capacity of the munitions available to the lightly armed Hamas attackers, who flew in on hang gliders.

As if this series of war crimes were not sufficient to slake the bloodlust of Netanyahu’s deranged ruling coalition, I was shocked the other day to hear about the unbelievably murderous ingenuity the Israelis employed in intercepting the supply chain of pagers and walkie-talkies that were widely used by Lebanon’s Hezbollah organization to avoid Israeli interception of their phone calls, diverting the far eastern supply chain and replacing the space taken by one of its two batteries to insert a lethal dose of C4 (presumably US supplied) and somehow wiring them to allow remote detonation by Shin Bet, Israel’s CIA.

About Hezbollah; though Americans are generally trained like Pavlov’s dogs to slobber with hatred toward any armed group of the Islamic persuasion, Hezbollah, in fact, came into existence solely for the purpose of expelling the brutal occupying army of Israel many years ago when it arrogated to itself the role of ruling over the people of the neighboring country of Lebanon. This smart and scrappy military force eventually drove the Israelis out of Lebanon, a personal affront that the Israeli government has never forgiven it for, any more than the US has forgiven the patriotic people of Cuba for booting the US mafiosi out of their country so many years ago.

Hezbollah, it turns out, is the second largest employer in Lebanon, after the Lebanese government, which is famously incompetent and corrupt, which is why Hezbollah, with its relatively honest and hard-working people, are not only a potent military force, but serves the people of Lebanon with a range of other services; schools, hospitals, banks, all kinds of things that the Lebanese government can’t compete against.

Surely the Israelis knew, when they pushed the button to maim and kill thousands of Lebanese citizens, overwhelming Lebanon’s whole hospital system, that many of those injured and killed would be completely unrelated to whatever minimal military threat Hezbollah presented to Israel, but in Israel’s Manichaean us-vs-them mindset, any relationship to the hated Hezbollah that had humiliated the IDF was adequate reason for summary execution or life altering maiming of each and every one of them, not sparing their children, neighbors, fellow bus passengers, etc.

Meanwhile, back in the USA, where the primary lobbying arm of Israel, AIPAC, has, for some reason, never been required to register as a foreign lobbying entity, maintains two lobbyists for every member of Congress. Every politician in Washington knows that one’s career is at risk should one utter a single criticism of the Israeli settler colonial project, as one excellent member of the so-called ‘Squad’ of young, progressive representatives, Cory Bush, found out recently after AIPAC spent a gazillion dollars to primary her out of her race for reelection.

The Israeli warmongers and their allies in the religiously afflicted pro-Zionist evangelicals would like nothing more than to draw the US into a war with Iran. People need to know, all over the world, that this would be the end of the human race. Similarly, if Israel decides to attack Iran’s estimable oil facilities and they respond by taking out other oil facilities in the region, it will be the end of a human-tolerable climate for the earth.

I will vote for Kamala despite the fact that she never says anything on the subject except that, “I will support Israel’s continued ability to defend itself”. As if their ongoing slaughter has anything to do with ‘defense’. All I can hope is that once she wins she’ll at least tell Israel to start paying for their own genocide without further US taxpayer subsidy.

For this and other columns, go to https://inarationalworld2.blogspot.com/2024/10/my-god-is-there-anyone-who-can-make.html

THE CAR WHERE BONNIE AND CLYDE'S LAST RIDE WAS MADE (Louisiana, May 23, 1934)

LEAD STORIES, SUNDAY'S NYT

Harris Struggles to Win Over Latinos, While Trump Holds His Grip, Poll Shows

Why is Donald Trump gaining with Black and Hispanic voters?

Kamala Harris is turning to her experience fighting cross-border crime, a part of her biography not often mentioned.

THE HURRICANE SPEECH PANIC IS HERE

by Matt Taibbi

A week ago, before America felt the full weight of the Hurricane Helene and Milton disasters, Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas said his Federal Emergency Management Agency “does not have the funds to make it through the hurricane season.” Late this week FEMA contradicted its own boss:

In Covid-19, health officials issuing confusing or incorrect or shifting dictates caused significant loss of trust, which was then used as an excuse to call for clampdowns on the information landscape. Now a sequel misinformation panic is upon us, with incompetent disaster management stepping in the role of the health bureaucracy. Once again, we’re told it’s Donald Trump and other online miscreants the world cannot survive.

“I’m running out of ways to explain how bad this is,” wrote Charlie Warzel in the Atlantic. “Rumors on X are Becoming the Right’s New Reality,” added Renee DiResta. Stories in Politico, the New York Times, CNN, the Daily Beast, Vox, CBS, Bloomberg, the Guardian, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times… similarly howled about the hurricane misinformation crisis.

As the theme built momentum through the week, it was only a matter of time before we saw the inevitable next-step headline, provided by Axios yesterday…

https://www.racket.news/p/the-hurricane-speech-panic-is-here

WHERE IS THE FIERCE URGENCY OF BEATING TRUMP?

by Maureen Dowd

Barack Obama got blunt in Pittsburgh on Thursday. He chided Black men who are not supporting Kamala Harris, saying that some of “the brothers” were just not “feeling the idea of having a woman as president.”

That left me mulling again: Is Harris in a dead-even race against a ridiculous person because of her sex or is that just an excuse?

Hillary Clinton did not lose because she was a woman. She lost because she was Hillary Clinton. She didn’t campaign hard enough, skipping Wisconsin and barely visiting Michigan. She got discombobulated about gender and whinged about sexism.

I asked James Carville if Kamala’s problem is that too many Americans are still chary about voting for a woman, much less a woman of color. The Ragin’ Cajun chided me.

“We’re not going to change her gender or her ethnic background between now and Election Day, so let’s not worry about it,” he said. “Time is short, really short. They need to be more aggressive. They don’t strike me as having any kind of a killer instinct. They let one fat pitch after another go by. I’m scared to death. They have to hit hard — pronto.”

Her campaign, he said dryly, “is still in Wilmington.”

Kamala spent a week answering questions on “60 Minutes” and “The View” and on the shows of Stephen Colbert and Howard Stern. And she didn’t move the needle.

“She needs to stop answering questions and start asking questions,” Carville said. He thinks that, for her closing message, she should put the issue of Jan. 6 and who won the election on the back burner.

Instead, he said, she should ask:

“How dare JD Vance say with a straight face that Trump is the father of Obamacare when Trump tried to kill it 50 times?”

She should display pictures of right-wing judges who Trump could appoint to the Supreme Court, and ask if Americans are ready for an even more fanatical court.

She should ask: “Do you know how destructive tariffs can be? They will kill your freaking jobs.”

She should say she’s going to end the Trump tax cuts for the rich and ask voters if they would rather use those trillion-plus dollars to help young people afford their first home.

In other words, he said: “She should scare the crap out of voters. You know, Trump is just taunting us, having a rally at Madison Square Garden just like the Nazis did in 1939.

“Black men and young Black men have to think about what they have at stake in the election. Donald Trump tells you that you have nothing to lose. Well, you have health insurance you could lose, you have a job you could lose.”

Other Democratic strategists I talked to agreed that Harris needs to let her guard down, cut loose and turn on the afterburners. Mainly, her pitch is that she’s not Donald Trump. And that’s an excellent pitch.

But she needs to make the case for herself more assertively.

It’s hard to understand why she didn’t sit down with a yellow pad or laptop long ago and decide why she wanted to be president, what her top priorities would be and how she would get that stuff done. The Vision Thing. Even when getting softballs from supportive TV hosts, Harris at times seemed unsure of how to answer.

She didn’t learn to tack to the center in bright blue California. When asked on “The View” whether she would have done anything different than Joe Biden, she said “there is not a thing that comes to mind” — a flub if you want to convey change.

Harris should distance herself from Biden when she needs to; she should just admit what we all know, that the border policy was bollixed up and that Biden was not tough enough with the execrable Bibi.

Kamala’s guarded nature leaves people feeling that she’s not fully revealing herself. Her reluctance to do serious interviews made her look fearful. She should have been interacting more with the media as a way of getting off the teleprompter and giving a sense of who she is as a person.

She does her homework but her delivery seems more scripted than from the kishkes. Even though it can get weird and duplicitous, Trump is better at riffing.

As Harris grinds it out, trying to woo white women who are ambivalent about Trump, she does have one big advantage: Abortion rights are on the ballot and, as a woman, she can conjure the medieval nightmare that Trump and Vance threaten.

When Harris linked her story about caring for her mother, dying of colon cancer, to her plan to get Medicare to cover some in-home care, she effectively offered a specific policy idea while revealing her vision for a kinder America than Trump has in mind.

His lies about the federal response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton have consequences. When Trump says the government is not helping people in red locales, those affected might not apply for aid. Perhaps Trump’s most ludicrous whopper is that he would be the Protector of Women.

It’s disturbing that Harris can’t get over the hump and outpace Trump. As Carville says, we need less mulling and more action in a do-or-die moment. She needs to do so we don’t die.

(NY Times)

VANCEPLANATION

(excerpt from the JD Vance interview by Lulu Garcia-Navarro of the New York Times)

JD Vance (Philip Montgomery for The New York Times)

You’ve talked about childless cat ladies. You’ve called childless people sociopathic, psychotic, deranged. And I know that you’ve said that those comments were sarcastic. But it’s hard to hear those words entirely as a joke. What do you actually think of childless women in society?

Well, as I said when I made those comments — and look, they were dumb comments. I think most people probably have said something dumb, have said something that they wish they had put differently.

You said it in several different venues.

In a very, very short period of time. It was sort of a thing that I picked up on. I said it a couple of times in a couple of interviews, and look, I certainly wish that I had said it differently. What I was trying to get at is that — I’m not talking about people who it just didn’t work out for, for medical reasons, for social reasons, like set that to the side, we’re not talking about folks like that. What I was definitely trying to illustrate ultimately in a very inarticulate way is that I do think that our country has become almost pathologically anti-child. I put this in a couple of different ways, right?

So, there’s one, it was actually when I was in law school — I was on a train between New York and New Haven, I think I was doing, like, law-firm interviews or something. And obviously I didn’t have kids then. And there’s this young girl who gets on the train. She’s probably 21 or 22. She’s a young Black female. I could tell by the way she was dressed, she didn’t have a whole lot of money; she had a couple of kids with her, and I remember just watching her and thinking, “This is a really unbelievably patient mother.” The reason I noticed her is because her kids, like a lot of kids that age, are complete disasters, especially on public transportation, they turn it up to 11. But she was being so patient. But then everybody around her was also noticing the kids being misbehaved, and they were so angry, and they were sighing and staring every time her 2-year-old made a noise. And that was a moment that stuck with me, and of course I’ve had similar experiences riding with my own kids on various modes of public transportation, and again it just sort of hit me like, OK, this is really, really bad.

I do think that there’s this pathological frustration with children that just is a new thing in American society. I think it’s very dark. I think you see it sometimes in the political conversation, people saying, well, maybe we shouldn’t have kids because of climate change. You know, when I’ve used this word, sociopathic? Like, that, I think, is a very deranged idea: the idea that you shouldn’t have a family because of concerns over climate change. Doesn’t mean you can’t worry about climate change, but in the focus on childless cat ladies, we missed the substance of what I said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/12/magazine/jd-vance-interview.html

THE WEEK KAMALA'S CAMPAIGN COLLAPSED!

Harris's humiliating media blitzkrieg has left top Dems terrified - and even Biden turning to stab her in the back!

by Maureen Callahan

Presidential campaigns are, to a large degree, about telling stories.

Kamala Harris is profoundly bad at telling stories. But to watch her whirlwind press tour this week — a tour that only hit sympathetic outlets — was to be told that, despite our own eyes and ears, she is the smartest, strongest, most capable leader since Lincoln.

Not to mention a true champion of women – an assertion untrammeled by those dark allegations against her husband, Doug Emhoff.

Kamala's media blitzkrieg began on Sunday, with an appearance on Alex Cooper's sex-centric podcast 'Call Her Daddy'.

Yes: The left's own Sarah Palin decided to prove her intellectual mettle on a podcast that most recently made headlines for Katy Perry's disclosure that she performs oral sex on her partner, Orlando Bloom, after he does the dishes.

But to watch her whirlwind press tour this week was to be told that, despite our own eyes and ears, she is the smartest, strongest, most capable leader since Lincoln.

This is the platform Harris chose to inaugurate her press tour, months after securing the nomination? This is what she finds most emblematic of feminism?

Speaking with a host who has done deep dives with Post Malone about his 'puffy nipples', badgered Miley Cyrus about her favorite sex acts, and titled one episode 'The Roadmap to His Assh**e' — one wonders, truly, if Kamala's team is setting her up to fail or simply putting her in front of people who, by comparison, make her look smart.

Not one legitimate press conference to date. Not one sit-down with an adversarial outlet or interviewer.

Then again, why bother?

The New Yorker — which ceased being the most august weekly publication in America circa MAGA — has just put Harris on its cover, a resplendent illustration of her in profile, bathed in regal purple, looking skyward.

Inside, the editors offer a five-page editorial endorsement that is more anti-Trump than pro-Kamala.

'As recently as three months ago,' the editors acknowledge, 'the Washington cognoscenti cast aspersions on her political skills.'

That's one way to put it. Barack Obama reportedly did not want Harris leading the ticket, so doubtful was he that she could defeat Trump.

Save his appearance at the Democratic National Convention this summer, Obama has been remarkably absent – until Thursday night.

What was meant to be Kamala's victory lap has, to top Dems, clearly become a five-alarm fire.

Speaking in Pittsburgh, Obama had the temerity to bully black male voters — a historically disenfranchised demographic that is increasingly fleeing to Trump.

'Part of it makes me think,' he said, 'that, well, you just aren't feeling the idea of having a woman as president.'

How insulting. Obama knows better, not least because his party and the media were all but begging his wife to run.

It was also announced this week that Bill Clinton, who has his own troubles with women, will be hitting the campaign trail in a last-ditch attempt to boost voter enthusiasm.

Note to Kamala: Don't leave Dougie alone with Bill.

This intra-party doubt about Harris is nothing new. Nancy Pelosi, in September last year, refused to affirm Harris as Biden's best running mate in 2024.

'[Joe Biden] thinks so,' Pelosi told CNN, 'and that's what matters.' That was back in the halcyon days when D.C. and the media were covering up Biden's cognitive decline. How quickly things change.

Back to Kamala's first interview of the week: Alex Cooper opened her podcast by making one thing clear — it was her decision to book Kamala, not the other way around.

'Daddy Gang,' Cooper earnestly began.

How juvenile. How beneath the office Harris seeks.

Cooper admitted that her lack of political fluency was a real concern: 'Do I talk about the economy? Do I talk about border control? Do I talk about fracking?'

Sex toys, check. Polyamory, check. But with a potentially devastating hurricane looming, and a good portion of the country still reeling from Helene, Harris sat down with this myopic, immature, sex-obsessed simpleton.

Had she been sitting across from someone well-informed, this interview might have taken a substantial turn.

But here was Harris, inveighing against those who harm women: 'We still have so far to go… [There is] this really warped idea that, well, what happens in the house is none of our business. But if it happened on the street, it would be our business!'

Kamala's husband Doug has been accused of smacking an ex-girlfriend in the face so hard – in public – that she spun around

Was Harris asked about that? Nope.

Just as there has been a near-total media blackout regarding Doug's affair, during his first marriage, with the nanny, who he allegedly impregnated.

But wait! On MSNBC — a network one staffer recently admitted is nothing but an arm of Kamala's campaign — Joe Scarborough, host of 'Morning Joe', asked Emhoff whether he was 'p***ed off' with 'tabloid stories about [his] personal life'.

Emhoff did not deny that he had struck his ex-girlfriend. Nor did Scarborough push him for an answer.

'It's all a distraction,' Emhoff simply said. 'It's designed to get us off our game.'

Tell that to female voters. Tell that to Doug's wife, who just said that domestic violence is serious and 'all of our business'!

Clearly, the left-wing media, which otherwise insists that we 'believe all women', will not allow these extremely concerning allegations to interrupt their coronation of Kamala Harris.

Next was '60 Minutes', in which CBS correspondent Bill Whitaker gave the appearance of a tough interview on Monday night. In fact, it was quickly determined that this former lodestar of broadcast journalism had helped Harris, editing at least one of her answers.

Pre-broadcast, '60 Minutes' teased this response to a question about whether the Biden-Harris administration has any real influence over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: 'The work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by or a result of many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region.'

The Middle East is on the brink of all-out war. Yet '60 Minutes' thought the electorate was best served by excising that appalling excuse of an answer from its final broadcast.

CBS has since refused to release a full transcript. Former network staffers are even calling for an external investigation.

Imagine if this had been a selectively edited Trump interview. Network execs would be called to testify before Congress!

But for Harris — well, as she would say, they prefer to be unburdened by what has been.

Dear lord. Our Veep is the walking, talking epitome of the Dunning-Kruger effect, in which those of low intellect and capabilities nonetheless believe they are superior.

But here she is in her designer suits, dropping her 'g's while talkin', goin', and sayin' stuff to the American people, with their 'dreams and ambitions and aspirations'; mooning over her troublesome hubby Doug; and doing everything she can to suppress that cackle while evincing an utter lack of specifics, detail, or grasp of the economy, the immigration crisis, or foreign policy.

Off she strode to The View — part of ABC News, if you can believe that — where she was greeted like The Second Coming.

Co-host Ana Navarro, who appeared on stage at the DNC, was allowed to play pretend journalist. So were Sunny Hostin and Whoopi Goldberg, both levitating with glee in Kamala's presence.

Again, a monster storm was in the offing. Millions were in the midst of fleeing Florida, but Kamala had not much to say about that. Instead, she once again offered her reason for running.

You may want to pour a stiff drink.

'One of the things that I'm very proud of,' she said on Tuesday, 'that we have done collectively, is we really are building a coalition around some very fundamental issues including that we love our country, that we have to put country before party. We have to agree about the sanctity of the oath we take to defend the Constitution of the United States, to support the Constitution of the United States.'

And people think Trump dumbed down America? Every time this woman speaks, brain cells collectively commit suicide. Her enablers in the media should be mortified.

Fluffed up and energized by her fangirls at The View, Harris went off to Howard Stern for another velvety interview, conducted by a one-time comic renegade, rendered humorless and paranoid by the long-past pandemic.

Yet Howard found the courage to emerge from his basement and talk to Kamala in person. He said he was terrified of another Trump presidency, admitted that his interview would be biased in her favor completely, and all but asked her to hold him.

'I'm really nervous,' Stern began, 'because I want this' — meaning her appearance on his show — 'to go well for you. Even when I watch 'Saturday Night Live', where they have Maya Rudolph playing you, I hate it. I don't want you being made fun of.'

This is a guy who made his estimated $800 million fortune by routinely making fun of society's most vulnerable: The homeless, the physically disabled, the mentally impaired. But God forbid that 'Saturday Night Live' gently mock a media-favored presidential candidate.

Truly, we are in upside-down world. After emitting some inanities — 'Let's not throw up our hands! Let's roll up our sleeves!' — Kamala got down to the important stuff.

'I love Doritos,' she said. 'Original, nacho.'

Stern: 'You've gotta win. You just have to… Like, the sun's eternally gonna go out.'

Such is the basis for this slanted, slavering media coverage: Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Harris capped her Tuesday whirlwind with a visit to Stephen Colbert.

With only 28 days to go, Colbert cracked open some beers, chugged with his good buddy Kamala, and asked her to describe her vision. You know, the one she's had months to articulate with a team of staffers and speechwriters.

'So, when we think about the significance of what this next generation of leadership looks like,' she said, 'were I to be elected president, it is about, frankly, um, I — I love the American people and I believe in our country. I love that it is our character and nature to be an ambitious people. You know, we have aspirations, dreams. We are, we — we have incredible work ethic, and — and I just believe that we can create, and, and build upon the success that we've achieved in a way that we continue to grow opportunity and in that way grow the strength of our nation.'

This is the answer of a student who didn't do the reading.

Even top Dem strategist James Carville is sounding the alarm.

'Scared to death' about Election Day, he told MSNBC this week.

Perhaps Kamala thought her briefing as Hurricane Milton approached landfall would do the trick. Alas, she was caught during Wednesday's live Zoom covering her mouth with her hands and saying, 'It's a live broadcast', to someone off-screen, seeming to surprise herself.

Immediately after, she called in to CNN, where Dana Bash asked about 'the most important' thing she'd just learned in that live briefing.

'The briefing was very helpful on a number of fronts,' said Harris.

Even an imminent catastrophe can't get Kamala off her verbal crutches, these meaningless preambles that buy her time while she tries to articulate a cogent thought.

'But most importantly in getting the word out' — isn't that the point of a live briefing? — 'to folks in Florida, in particular' — you know, the state about to get hit — 'to please heed the advice and direction of your local officials, because this storm is unlike any we have seen before.'

One official Harris could not reach was Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who she accused of playing politics by avoiding her calls.

Not so, said DeSantis — it was the other way around.

'[During] all of the storms I have dealt with under this administration, although I worked well with the president, she has never called,' he said. 'She has never offered any support. She's trying to inject herself into this because of her political campaign.'

In a surprise presser on Wednesday night Biden did not stand up for Harris. If anything, he sabotaged her.

'All I can tell you is I've talked to Gov. DeSantis,' Biden said. 'He's been very gracious. He's thanked me for all we've done. He knows what we're doing, and I think that's important.'

Kamala may have the liberal media on her side, but it seems Biden — still wounded by that palace coup — would be quite happy indeed to see Donald Trump win.

All the puff pieces in the world can't change that.

(DailyMail.uk)

KAMALA GETS A BIG ASSIST FROM 60 MINUTES

Taibbi & Kirn

Walter Kirn: So here was something that looked like traditional journalism and was worthy of the American people’s interest in this rather new figure, even though she’s been in the shadow as vice president.

Matt Taibbi: Yeah. Let’s take a look at that.

Speaker 1: 60 Minutes Overtime.

Bill Whitaker: This week on 60 Minutes, we’re following the presidential and vice presidential Democratic ticket, both in Washington, DC and here on the campaign trail in Wisconsin. We spoke with Vice President Kamala Harris and with vice presidential hopeful Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.

With only four weeks to go until election day and mail-in ballots already being marked, we watched as they campaigned, making their appeal to voters Harris, otherwise, could have met months ago during a more traditional election cycle.

Was democracy best served by President Biden stepping down and basically handing you a nomination? You didn’t have to go through a primary process. You didn’t have to fight off other contenders. That’s not really the way our system was intended to work.

Kamala Harris: President Biden made a decision that I think history is going to show is rare among leaders, which was to put country before self. I am proud to have earned the support of the vast majority of delegates and to have been elected the Democratic nominee. I am proud to have received the endorsement of leaders around this country from every background and walk of life to fight in this election over the next month for our democracy.

Bill Whitaker: But I think this truncated process is why people think or say they don’t really know who you are.

Kamala Harris: Look, I’ve been in this race for 70 days. It is without any question a short period of time, which is why I’m traveling around our country, from one state to the next, to the next. It is my responsibility to earn the vote, and I’m going to work to do that.

Walter Kirn: Okay. So what’s interesting here is that watching even that part … Let’s disregard the content, which is important and does show that he asked a tough question out of the gate. But when I watched it in light of what we know about their tricks now, it was finding out that your spouse is cheating, and then you-

Matt Taibbi: Yeah, you start thinking about all these things. Yeah.

Walter Kirn: You start thinking about other things. I go, well, look at that. In the two shots, you can’t see her face. They’re just showing her hair. So you don’t know that when they show a response while he’s asking if she’s actually listening to the thing you are. You what I mean? In other words, as he asks the question and they show her facial responses, which you imagine are really important because we’re seeing whether she’s threatened by the question, we’re seeing whether she’s angry about it being asked, whether she’s happy that it was asked. We’re not sure that that response shot has anything to do with the actual asking of the question. It could have come from anywhere.

Matt Taibbi: It could have and-

Walter Kirn: But, Matt, it …

Matt Taibbi: I guess I’ve-

Walter Kirn: Well, at a certain point, as the son of a lawyer, once the witness lies, all their testimony after that is presumed fraudulent.

Matt Taibbi: Right. Yeah. Fruit of the poison tree and all that. Well, that’s-

Walter Kirn: Right.

Matt Taibbi: It’s the wrong metaphor, but-

Walter Kirn: Well, and here we have the prosecutor and the one prosecutorial interview she’s done, and I cannot tell you, except for my accumulated childhood faith in the ticking clock of 60 Minutes and the seriousness that it vibes, that anything there that they could fake wasn’t.

Matt Taibbi: Yeah, okay. So I’m going to say something probably unpopular. They’ve always done fake reverse shots. So the correspondent going … That.

Walter Kirn: Right.

Matt Taibbi: They’ll shoot a whole bunch of those after the interview so they can edit those things in. So there’s lots of things that are artificial about how sit-down interviews look and … Or they’ll ask somebody to … Of course, they always ask people to walk in, right-

Walter Kirn: Sure.

Matt Taibbi: … and they make it look like it’s organic. But I just can’t get … So I’m a little bit more forgiving about that kind of stuff.

Walter Kirn: But, in other words, how much time passed between his asking of the question and the answer that we got?

Matt Taibbi: Well, see, that’s the thing. Now that this thing has happened, we don’t know about any of those questions.

Walter Kirn: Here’s what I’m suggesting. This format is dead. This format required the good faith of the audience and the integrity of the network and the producers and the editors. Without belief and trust in the integrity of the producers, what we get is an incredibly constructed, sculpted, and not necessarily in the right order, and perhaps even put together in various ways before we see it, to get the product … the way movies are edited.

And one has to wonder if that kind of construct, that kind of artifact, that kind of invention should even exist in a world where the integrity of the people who make them is in question. And I don’t think it should. I think this is the moment when the internet won. In other words, the very crown jewel of the Tiffany network itself, CBS, 60 Minutes being the jewel, just revealed itself to be a synthetic diamond. And after this … and was only caught by virtue of this new medium, social media, which was able to demonstrate the deception before your very eyes. And they’re not answering. That suggests to me a knockout by the new media. Because how do you go back?

Matt Taibbi: I’m not sure. Trust wise, it’s going to be difficult. And this is going to be much harder for audiences than the previous 60 Minutes scandal, which really impacted-

Walter Kirn: Once you see how a magic trick works, once the card falls out of the palm, as you suggested, you can’t watch the trick again.

Matt Taibbi: Right. Right. It’s true. It’s true. It’s going to be difficult. Probably only a certain segment of the population is going to care about this. There’s a clip I want to show because-

Walter Kirn: But you also have to understand the context for some of the criticism of this, which is, Donald Trump’s refusal to be interviewed by 60 Minutes. Which was, before this, big deal. Why is he hanging back from the star chamber? The real test of a serious candidate? Well, he’s got a pretty damn good excuse now.

Matt Taibbi: Yeah. Yeah. And we should look at this. This is Jimmy Fallon’s response to Trump complaining about this incident.

Jimmy Fallon: Meanwhile today, Trump complained that CBS edited Kamala Harris’s interview on 60 Minutes to make her look better. Trump said it was clearly edited. She didn’t say one thing about people eating pets in Ohio. Not one. Didn’t even mention it. Didn’t say it. Trump claimed it was editing. But Harris said, it’s just part of her amazing campaign strategy, not being 80.

Matt Taibbi: That’s it. That’s it. So there’s your commentary on editing a major presidential interview. I’m a little bit speechless at that, frankly.

Walter Kirn: Matt, it was a wet Kleenex that had already started to tear, which he presented. What is the logic of saying, he is complaining that it was edited, deceptively edited. Okay? That’s trivial and that’s irrelevant, because she didn’t say anything about cats and dogs and anything ridiculous. What do those two phenomena have to do with each other? Nothing.

And in fact, it undermines itself, because if Trump were to go on and say something about cats and dogs and 60 Minutes had edited it out, he’d be the one screaming. Even if they had just edited it out, let alone done for him what they apparently did for her. That would be the end of journalism. I’m saying if this had been done to favor Donald Trump, or make him look good or save his butt in a particular area. It’s said that Michigan is the one paying close attention to her statements about Israel, and it’s a state she now has to win. And might’ve been the place where she was most vulnerable with answer one. If they had done this on behalf of Donald Trump, we would never hear the end of it. It would’ve been proof of the end of democracy

Matt Taibbi: Yeah. If they had cut out something controversial that he had said. And this one wasn’t like she said some stupendous blunder or anything like that, it was just kind of a non-answer and looked a little bit … What’s the word I’m looking for? Unrehearsed, unprepared. I don’t know. But yeah, if they had cut out something to help Trump, I think the whole business would’ve been an uproar. You would see all those media writers from all those other organizations leaping at the neck of CBS, which as you say, it’s really depressing to have to wish that the news business be a business. To see them being so selective about their commercial interests it’s so bizarre.

Walter Kirn: And it also makes you wonder about the process that led to the correction. Okay?

Matt Taibbi: Well, of course. And I asked about that by the way, too. I asked CBS what happened there.

Walter Kirn: Did they just declare, “Oops.” In the sanctity of their own editing studio and change it around? Or was a phone call made? And was it the result of pressure?

Matt Taibbi: Well, Harris has made a statement. One of the only outlets oddly enough to cover this was Variety. The controversy surrounding the edited response and aid for the Harris campaign told Variety, “We do not control CBS’s production decisions and refer questions to CBS.”

Walter Kirn: Well, that’s fascinating. Okay.

Matt Taibbi: Right? Isn’t it?

Walter Kirn: Because it’s a tacit admission that what happened happened. She doesn’t dispute the facts. She merely says that if they’re playing tricks down there, they’re their tricks, not ours. Well, shouldn’t she be upset then? In other words, they just damaged her campaign. They just made it seem that A, her first answer was incompetent and that she needs all this touching up to be presentable. And they also gave a sense of possible collusion with her. If they had done something like that that resulted in blowback against me on their own, I’d be pretty pissed.

Matt Taibbi: Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. You’d be upset about editing decisions in a lot of cases, especially a presidential candidate. I think they have expectations, and you would probably make some agreements before you entered the interview about what their guidelines are going to be in terms of editing. Are you going to air the whole thing? Are you going to selectively edit? Do I have right of first refusal on things? There’s different ways you can arrange the interview.

Walter Kirn: But to keep calling this editing is in itself a little deceptive.

Matt Taibbi: Yeah, that’s true.

Walter Kirn: It’s called collage is what they usually call it. If we’re going to be specific. Editing involves shortening, tightening, sharpening, but representing the flow, the order, and the sanctity of the question/answer unit. This is something completely else. It’s called, like I say, collage or-

Matt Taibbi: Mix and match?

Walter Kirn: Mix and match. Yeah. And as I say-

Matt Taibbi: It’s almost a kind of fiction actually, because if the answer isn’t-

Walter Kirn: The great beat writer, William Burroughs calls it the “Cut Up Method”. He’d put a bunch of words in a bag and then pull them out at random, or sentences, and try to make fiction out of them. It’s refrigerator magnet writing or reporting is what it is. Let’s move the refrigerator magnets around. And she’s not properly upset about it. Because it made her look terrible.

Because as some are asserting right now, there’s this thin band of thinking people who are going to decide the election. You have the strong partisans on either side, but you have the thoughtful independents in the middle and they’re going to make all the difference. Well, this is the exact kind of thing that upsets those people and it also reduces, hugely, the press’s moral authority in making all these sweeping statements about Trump’s lack of integrity.

Matt Taibbi: Well, that’s the bigger issue.

Walter Kirn: And misinformation and disinformation. I never want to hear the word disinformation from CBS again.

Matt Taibbi: Right.

Walter Kirn: Until they’ve cleared this up to my satisfaction.

Matt Taibbi: Well, it’s very weird that they haven’t issued statement already and this is four days after. I can’t account for them not doing it except for the fact that they’re not getting pressure to do it, which is odd.

Walter Kirn: I can account for it as guilt.

Matt Taibbi: Yeah, it doesn’t look great.

Walter Kirn: I can account for it as having done exactly what they’re being accused of doing and not wanting to bring further attention to the fact.

Matt Taibbi: When we first talked about this Walter, we both thought of different scandals in the past that this reminded us of. And the commonality in both of them is that sometimes a thing gets broken and after that moment things are not really the same again, even if audiences or voters don’t recognize the import of it at the time.

One of the reasons I thought of this is because the last big scandal … actually is it really the only scandal involving 60 Minutes? Was a big story involving a tobacco whistleblower named Jeffrey Wigand and they turned it into a big movie made by Michael Mann that starred Russell Crowe and Al Pacino. Al Pacino plays Lowell Bergman. And the crux of this drama is that Bergman works very hard to do the traditional investigative journalism work of coaxing out somebody who knows something. And this process depends entirely on trust.

In order to get a source to tell you something important and make a huge sacrifice, they have to be able to know that you’re going to deliver on the other end. This person’s going to lose their job, they’re going to go through all these different things, but they’re doing it because they want their story to get out. Now, what happened with CBS is that all the bad things happened to the source before the story came out. And then CBS, and not even CBS editorial, but corporate, blinked at the threat of litigation. We’ll just show the scene.

In this scene, you’re going to see Mike Wallace played by Christopher Plummer, basically reassure Bergman the investigative reporter that everything’s going to be all right. And then he goes on to meet with, I think it’s Eric Custer and Don Hewitt who are at 60 Minutes and they deliver the bad news. But let’s just watch.

Mike Wallace: Don’t worry, we call the shots around here.

Debbie: Hello?

Lowell: Debbie, it’s me. I want you to check some filings and give me John Wilson’s number … What now?

Speaker 2: Custer’s coming over.

Matt Taibbi: The fact that they got Stephen Tobolowski to play Custer is hilarious.

Speaker 3: Hello, Mike? Don?

Speaker 4: There has been so much soul-searching about this Wigand. I’ve decided we should cut an alternate version of the show without his interview.

Lowell: So what happened to Ms. Caparelli’s checking with outside counsel first? All that crap?

Speaker 4: That’s happening, and hopefully we won’t have to use the alternate, but we should have it in the can.

Lowell: I’m not touching that.

Speaker 4: I’m afraid you are.

Lowell: No, I’m not.

Speaker 4: We’re doing this with or without you, Lowell. If you like, I can assign another producer to edit your show.

Lowell: Since when has the paragon of investigative journalism allowed lawyers to determine the news content on 60 Minutes?

Speaker 2: It’s an alternate version. So what if we have an alternate version? And I don’t think our being cautious is so damn unreasonable.

Speaker 3: So now, if you will excuse me, gentlemen, Mr. Rather’s been complaining about his chair again.

Lowell: Before you go-

Matt Taibbi: This is good.

Lowell: I discovered this. SEC filing. The sale of CBS Corporation to Westinghouse Corporation.

Mike Wallace: What?

Speaker 2: I heard rumors.

Lowell: It’s not a rumor. It’s a sale. If Tisch can unload CBS for $81 a share to Westinghouse and then is suddenly threatened with a multi-billion dollar lawsuit from Brown and Williamson that could screw up the sale. Could it not?

Speaker 3: And what are you implying?

Lowell: I’m not implying I’m quoting. More vested interest. Persons who will profit from this merger, Ms. Helen Caparelli, general counsel of CBS News, $3.9 million. Mr. Eric Cluster, president of CBS News, $1.4 million.

Matt Taibbi: Some of that is going to be hard for people to remember what that was all about. But basically Pacino is saying … Lowell Bergman in that scene is saying, you’re killing this important story because you’re getting a payout in the coming sale of CBS.

Walter Kirn: You want to know something interesting, Matt?

Matt Taibbi: Mm-hmm.

Walter Kirn: Just a detail? CBS just got a new owner. Did you know that?

Matt Taibbi: Did they really? No, I didn’t know that.

Walter Kirn: Larry Ellison of Oracle. He just took over in concert with some associates and family members, the National Amusement Company, which is actually the parent company of Paramount Global and CBS. How telling that the actual corporate entity that controls CBS is the national amusement. That’s just a detail for the novelist in me. But it is true that ownership of networks and media companies does play a part as they just showed. And it just does happen.

Matt Taibbi: Rarely. It shouldn’t.

Walter Kirn: Well, it shouldn’t. But what year is this movie?

Matt Taibbi: Late nineties, I think. I don’t know.

Walter Kirn: Right. So Network, the original satire of network news is 1976, and it turns on the takeover of the company by a big pool of … I think Middle Eastern financiers or money. And thus leads to that speech by Ned Beatty to Peter Finch about how there are no countries-

Matt Taibbi: You have offended the gods of whatever.

Walter Kirn: Yes. And there is only money and there is only capital and shekels and dollars and rubles and so on in which he relieves Peter Finch of this illusion that they are doing anything else but serving whoever owns them and so on. Then in documentary form, much later, we get another version of network about a compromise that’s made to suit a new corporate owner. So I mean, Paddy Chayefsky with his cynicism about the whole industry was both correct and prophetic, but CBS, I guess maybe felt it had redeemed itself by allowing this movie to be made in which its sins were aired.

Matt Taibbi: Yeah, I don’t know. All I remember is when I watched that movie and I walked out of a theater in New York and it was pretty packed, and there were a couple of New Yorkers who were saying to themselves, one was saying to the other, “What was that about? I don’t even understand what the point was.”

Walter Kirn: Right, because only a journalist would feel that this was this major sin and betrayal and crime against nature to not run this guy’s interview.

Matt Taibbi: Right. And what they’re describing is something very … I don’t know how to explain it, but very subtle. In the movie, I think Bergman, Pacino, says something to the effect of what got broken in here doesn’t get fixed. And his point was, every time we go out from now on to make a deal with somebody to do an interview with us, they’re not going to trust that we’re going to deliver on our side of the promise. You can’t do the job. If you offer somebody off the record privileges and then your boss breaks them, nobody’s ever going to do an interview with you again.

And in this case, you make a series of promises to somebody who’s under a tremendous amount of pressure and they end up not delivering their side of it. Well, you’re never going to get that kind of person again, or it’s going to be much harder. It’s a thing that it’s started to happen in journalism. There were a whole series of collapses where big corporations pressured companies to kill stories or reframe them. There was the Chiquita Banana thing, if you remember that. There was some behavior in that that was a little strange from the reporter’s end, but nothing compared to what the company was doing.

Walter Kirn: But the essence of this problem is that we don’t know what the deals are that are made before interviews happen.

Matt Taibbi: Exactly.

Walter Kirn: And it can go the other way too. And I know examples of it from my professional life and scuttlebutt, and I know them to be the fact, when people have been promised anonymity and don’t get it. In other words, they’re promised anonymity. It’s not going to harm you at all to tell the story about how this powerful person sexually harassed you.

Matt Taibbi: Right.

Walter Kirn: And then there you are in the story named, and your career, say, in Hollywood, is dead.

Matt Taibbi: Yeah. I mean you can’t do that.

‘THE FIRST LIVE-STREAMED GENOCIDE’: Al Jazeera exposes war crimes

Filmed by Israeli troops themselves.

(Democracy Now!)

We play excerpts from the film ‘Investigating War Crimes in Gaza,’ now available online, and speak to two of the journalists involved in its production, director Richard Sanders and Gaza-based correspondent Youmna ElSayed. by Amy Goodman

A new documentary from Al Jazeera takes a look at evidence of war crimes in Gaza in the form of social media posted by Israeli soldiers recording and celebrating their own attacks on Palestinians. We play excerpts from the film Investigating War Crimes in Gaza, now available online, and speak to two of the journalists involved in its production, director Richard Sanders and Gaza-based correspondent Youmna ElSayed. “Israelis themselves were telling us precisely what they were doing and why they were doing it,” says Sanders about the evidence the team reviewed. “They don’t think it’s complicated. They don’t think it’s nuanced. Their rhetoric is often overtly genocidal.” ElSayed adds, “They’ve had all the courage to do that because they know that they are not even going to be condemned.”

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Health officials in Gaza say the death toll from Israel’s war has now topped 42,000, though many fear the actual death toll is far higher. We begin today’s show looking at how Israeli troops have repeatedly filmed themselves committing and celebrating war crimes in Gaza.

Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit has just released a documentary on Israeli war crimes, based in part on social media posts from Israeli soldiers themselves. The documentary begins with the Palestinian novelist Susan Abulhawa, as well as footage of the Al-Awda school massacre in July, when Israeli troops killed at least 31 people at a school sheltering displaced Palestinians. The moment the bomb exploded was captured on video by someone recording a youth soccer game in the Al-Awda school courtyard.

SUSAN ABULHAWA: The West cannot hide. They cannot claim ignorance. Nobody can say they didn’t know. We live in an era of technology, and this has been described as the first live-streamed genocide in history. And I believe that to be true.

ISRAELI SOLDIER: [translated] That blew me away!

SUSAN ABULHAWA: They are conducting a genocide now with glee. They’re setting their atrocities to music and putting them on catchy reels on TikTok. Ordinary Israelis see what their military is doing and celebrate it.

NARRATION: A crowd is singing, “May your village burn!”

SUSAN ABULHAWA: It’s not just fringe elements who see this and think it’s a good thing.

PRESIDENT ISAAC HERZOG: When a nation protects its home, it fights. And we will fight until we’ll break their backbone. It’s not true, this rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true. It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible.

AMY GOODMAN: An excerpt from a new documentary on Israeli war crimes made by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit. That last speaker was the Israeli President Isaac Herzog.

This is another clip from the documentary. We hear from Human Rights Watch’s associate director for the Middle East and North Africa, Bill Van Esveld [sic]. The clips begin with video posted online by the Israeli 202nd Paratroopers Battalion that shows a possible war crime of the shooting of unarmed Palestinians in Gaza. This is a graphic warning.

YOUMNA ELSAYED: As troops leave Gaza, they place commemorative videos online.

ISRAELI SOLDIER: [translated] When they meet the 202nd battalion, they are going to regret being born.

YOUMNA ELSAYED: This video documents the activities of the 202nd Paratroopers Battalion.

CHARLIE HERBERT: I’m just going to halt this here. I’m going to play this back again. This is extraordinary. The fact that he’s put this onto video, he’s released this on YouTube, to me, is kind of quite extraordinary, that degree of impunity.

YOUMNA ELSAYED: The video shows two other instances where unarmed men are shot by snipers.

CHARLIE HERBERT: Of course I don’t know the context of what happened before. I don’t know what happened two minutes before that. They may have been involved in contacting and shooting at Israeli forces, and they may have been legitimate targets. But it sure doesn’t look like it to me.

AMY GOODMAN: An excerpt from a new documentary on Israeli war crimes made by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit.

We’re joined now by two guests. Youmna ElSayed is a correspondent for Al Jazeera who is based in the Gaza Strip. And Richard Sanders is the director of Al Jazeera I-Unit’s new feature-length documentary, Investigating War Crimes in Gaza.

Youmna, let’s begin with you, as you narrate this film. If you can talk about the video footage that we see, that is actually taken by Israeli soldiers themselves?

YOUMNA ELSAYED: Yes. Thank you for having me on your show again, Amy.

Of course, Israeli soldiers in Gaza taking these videos and posting them on different social media platforms, they haven’t been — they’ve had all the courage to do that because they know that they are not even going to be condemned by posting these videos. They are showing off how much they dehumanize Palestinians, how much they kill. They destroy their properties. They completely torture them and dehumanize them in different ways, whether they’re children, they’re men, they’re women. They brag about it, and they’re very proud of their doings.

And all this comes back to the fact that the Israeli army acts with complete impunity, and they know that even these videos being posted online, they won’t even be shown in other Western news outlets to point out how horrific these videos have actions committed by the Israeli army towards the civilians. On the contrary, Benjamin Netanyahu comes out and says, “We are the most moral army in the world,” when in reality they are the most inhumane army in the world.

As a journalist, as a civilian in any war zone, I am supposed to have the guarantee that a soldier from any other — any other place in the world, any other nationality in the world, as long as he carries that term, that definition that he is a soldier, he must have morals, he must have ethics that he would not hurt me as an unarmed civilian, as a journalist, as a paramedic. But in Gaza, for them, every single Palestinian, as long as you are a Palestinian, you are a legitimate target.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: I just want to issue a slight correction: The person in the first clip that we showed from the documentary was not Bill Van Esveld of Human Rights Watch, but, rather, Charlie Herbert, a retired British major general.

So, Richard Sanders, if we could turn to you, talk about the origins of this documentary, the fact that it begins with the Palestinian novelist Susan Abulhawa saying we are “in an era of technology, and this has been described as the first live-streamed genocide in history.” I mean, in a way, the film itself documents precisely how it is a live-streamed genocide. If you could elaborate?

RICHARD SANDERS: Well, thank you for having me, Amy.

Yes, and that’s precisely why we begin the film with those comments from Susan Abulhawa. The essential point of the whole film is no one can hide. The Israelis themselves were telling us precisely what they were doing and why they were doing it. The film is rooted in these soldiers’ videos, of which there are thousands and thousands. And we didn’t pick particularly damaging examples. They’re all like that. I mean, one thing that’s very striking is, what you don’t see in these videos is combat, or very rarely. There’s very little combat. Every now and then you see soldiers expending an enormous amount of ammunition, but they’re frequently standing up, and there’s clearly no incoming. So, that’s what you would think soldiers would want to post online, but they don’t.

Now, it’s not only soldiers’ videos, of course, we have in the film. There is Israeli media, Israeli politicians and Israeli social media. We’re not picking — again, as Susan says at the beginning of the film, we’re not picking unrepresentative examples. In the West, there is sometimes this rhetoric — even when people aren’t overtly supportive of the Israelis, there is this rhetoric of “it’s complicated,” “it’s nuanced,” “it’s difficult.” And what we’re really saying in this film is listen to Israelis. Listen to Israelis. They don’t think it’s complicated. They don’t think it’s nuanced. Their rhetoric is often overtly genocidal. It’s certainly frequently all about ethnic cleansing. They couldn’t have been clearer about what they were doing. And if we are ignorant, we’re willfully ignorant.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Richard Sanders, how do you interpret the fact that these videos were made and posted so liberally by Israeli soldiers themselves? I mean, the obvious question is: To what extent did they think they were totally immune from any kind of repercussions as a consequence of what they were doing, which, you know, if you see those clips that you show in the documentary, are so obviously war crimes? In fact, the international legal expert whom you spoke to said that it’s very uncommon to have clips like this. He said “a treasure trove which you very seldom come across… something which I think prosecutors will be licking their lips at.” So, if you could just, you know, talk about that, how — what do you make of the fact that soldiers themselves so openly, transparently and widely distributed their own acts that could be construed as war crimes?

RICHARD SANDERS: They clearly felt this would be popular in Israel. They were competing for clicks, you know. And they were right. These videos were popular. You know, they were using some of the photos they took of themselves on dating apps. And yes, as you say, it speaks to an astonishing sense of impunity. I mean, the clip you’ve played there, where you actually see unarmed men being shot, that’s fairly unusual, but even so, that was put on YouTube by the people who did it.

Now, you know, what we very much hope is that this material — and, of course, there’s an awful lot of material additionally which isn’t in the film — this material will be of use to the ICC. It’s quite interesting, within Israel, if you follow Hebrew-language social media, there’s been a panicky deleting of social media accounts over the last few days. But it’s too late. We’ve got it all saved.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to another clip from your new Al Jazeera Investigates documentary, when we see Israeli soldiers, in footage that they themselves shared, talking about the complete destruction of the Shuja’iyya refugee camp in Gaza.

ISRAELI COMMAND: [translated] Butterfly station, this is command. We’re launching Operation 8th Candle of Hanukkah, the burning of Shuja’iyya neighborhood. Let our enemies learn and be deterred. This is what we’ll do to all our enemies, and not a memory will be left of them. We will annihilate them to dust. Command out.

YOUMNA ELSAYED: The destruction of buildings is regularly featured, often set to music.

BILL VAN ESVELD: You see huge blocks getting blown up, universities getting blown up.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, that clip ended with Human Rights Watch, Bill Van Esveld. Richard, could you respond to what we saw there? And also, you know, what most surprised you as you were researching this documentary? I mean, there’s extremely disturbing testimony that we hear. And just a couple of examples: a man who says he was forced to lie on a decomposing corpse, as well as another in a detention center in southern Israel who witnessed a young inmate being raped by a dog.

RICHARD SANDERS: To be absolutely honest with you, nothing surprised me. It’s what I would have imagined was happening inside Gaza. I would say, imagine 40 years ago, before social media and, you know, before every camera — every phone had a camera. This would all have been done in the dark. But, in a sense, it makes no difference, as we say in the film, because they’ve posted it all online.

One of — the only thing, I would say, that surprises me — I’m not surprised that the Israeli soldiers feel complete impunity and so on, but the fact that higher up the chain of command and in the government, they clearly feel the same impunity, as well. No one has come down the line and cracked down on this and said, “Stop doing it.” It’s quite clear that Israeli politicians and Israeli military commanders feel that they enjoy complete impunity for what they’re doing in the Gaza Strip, as well.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to bring — go back to Youmna Elsayed. Last year, we spoke with you in Gaza shortly after an Israeli airstrike had just killed the family of your colleague, Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh. He learned of the deaths of his wife, son, daughter and grandson while reporting live on the air. The Israeli strike on the Nuseirat refugee camp killed at least 25 people in total. And Wael Dahdouh had fled to the refugee camp with his family after Israel ordered residents of northern Gaza to vacate their homes. This, Youmna, is what you said then.

YOUMNA ELSAYED: When we say there is no safe place in Gaza, we’re not lying. We’re not being biased. We’re not exaggerating. The north, Gaza City, and the south, they’re all just the same in terms of bombardment, in terms of targeting, and in all the life conditions.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that was last October. Before this, we spoke to you, Youmna, in 2021 when you were reporting in Gaza and Israel bombed and leveled a 12-story building that housed the offices of media organizations that you worked for, including the Associated Press and Al Jazeera. Israel claimed, without evidence, the building was being used by Hamas operatives.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you think the message is that was delivered to the media by this attack on the main media offices, Al Jazeera and AP, where you work, other media organizations, now Tony Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, saying he was not told of any direct evidence of Hamas working in this building?

YOUMNA ELSAYED: Yes, and I’m sure that there isn’t going to be any. I mean, the Israeli army, when it has the proof for anything to back its story, it provides it, one, at once, instantly. I mean, it wants to back its stories. It has to. OK? But it’s not a coincidence that three towers hosting media offices would be completely destructed. This is no coincidence. I mean, this is just a deliberate targeting to the media voice in the Gaza Strip.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Youmna Elsayed in 2021. You notice there we’re not seeing her face, because the media building that we would talk to her in was blown up, that housed Al Jazeera, that housed AP. And then speaking again after — well, at this point, we’re talking about something like 174 journalists and media workers killed in Gaza. If you can talk about the significance of this and, in your reporting on this documentary, the killing of journalists in addition to doctors and nurses, paramedics and ambulance drivers, Youmna?

YOUMNA ELSAYED: Well, Amy, I’ve always said this, and I continue saying it, that every single time there is a war or a conflict in the Gaza Strip, military escalation, something that was so much easier than what we have been going through for the past year, this ongoing genocide, there was always an attack on the journalists and their offices in the Gaza Strip. In 2021, the largest three towers, media buildings, housing all media offices in Gaza, were completely destroyed. Al-Johara had over 50 media offices; al-Sharouk tower, the same; and Al Jazeera and the AP, as well, in that tower alone. This is Israel’s first approach towards journalists and their offices in Gaza at the beginning of any war. It’s always to try to make their job as difficult and as impossible as ever.

And it’s not just in wars and military escalations. I mean, at the protests of the Great March of Return, when we used to cover these protests, and these protests were taking place in the borders — on the borders and from the Palestinian side, where there’s a buffer zone of 300 meters away from that security fence, that was infiltrated on the 7th of October. When someone approached those 300 meters away from the security fence, they were shot. And we were labeled as journalists. And even away from that area, we would be targeted with gas grenades, that drones came and dropped them over our head. So, it was not a coincidence at any of those times.

This time — we have always spoken for many years about the suppression and oppression and violations and aggression of the Israeli army towards Palestinian journalists. But this year or last year, this suppression and oppression and fight against the freedom of press has not only been against the Palestinian journalists. If you’ve seen, it has reached and affected all international journalists, as well, because Israel has banned them from entering the Gaza Strip. And no matter how much letters they have issued, no matter what kind of pressure they have tried to put on the Israeli government to allow them to enter the Gaza Strip to do their legitimate responsibility and work, they were banned. They were declined. So, that oppression, that we have been speaking about for years, has also affected the international journalists today.

But on the other hand, the violation, the aggression against the Palestinian journalists, because we are Palestinian and we are inside the Gaza Strip, has been unprecedented, the killing. One hundred seventy-five Palestinian journalists, until today, have been killed. How many others, dozens others have been injured, and our families threatened and killed and injured? Unimaginable numbers.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you both for being with us, Youmna ElSayed, Al Jazeera correspondent based in the Gaza Strip, though speaking to us from London, and Richard Sanders, director of Al Jazeera I-Unit’s new feature-length documentary, Investigating War Crimes in Gaza.

"The most painful wounds are not the ones inflicted by others, but the ones we inflict on ourselves. They are the wounds of regret, of guilt, of knowing that we have failed to live up to our own ideals. These wounds fester in the darkness, hidden from the world, but they bleed us dry, sapping our strength, our will to go on. And as we carry these wounds with us, we begin to realize that they will never heal, that we are destined to suffer in silence, prisoners of our own making."

— Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day

30 Comments

Chuck Dunbar October 13, 2024

TRUMP’S CRUEL PLANS FOR IMMIGRANTS

Here’s an excerpt from Politico on Trump’s escalating threats to immigrants. Is this what we want for our country?

“…(Trump) is no longer just talking about keeping immigrants out of the country, building a wall and banning Muslims from entering the United States. Trump now warns that migrants have already invaded, destroying the country from inside its borders, which he uses as a means to justify a second-term policy agenda that includes building massive detention camps and conducting mass deportations.

In his lengthy speech Friday, Trump delivered a broadside against the thousands of Venezuelan migrants in Aurora (C0). And he declared that he would use the Alien Enemies Act, which allows a president to authorize rounding up or removing people who are from enemy countries in times of war, to pursue migrant gangs and criminal networks.

‘Kamala [Harris] has imported an army of illegal alien gang members and migrant criminals from the dungeons of the third world … from prisons and jails and insane asylums and mental institutions, and she has had them resettled beautifully into your community to prey upon innocent American citizens,’ Trump said.

His rhetoric has veered more than ever into conspiracy theories and rumors, like when he amplified false claims about Haitian immigrants in Ohio eating pets. And Trump has demonized minority groups and used increasingly dark, graphic imagery to talk about migrants in every one of his speeches since the Sept. 10 presidential debate, according to a POLITICO review of more than 20 campaign events. It’s a stark escalation over the last month of what some experts in political rhetoric, fascism, and immigration say is a strong echo of authoritarians and Nazi ideology.

‘He’s been taking Americans and his followers on a journey since really 2015 conditioning them … step by step instilling hatred in a group, and then escalating,’ said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a history professor at New York University who writes about authoritarianism and fascism and has been outspoken about the dangers of a second Trump administration.

‘So immigrants are crime. Immigrants are anarchy. They’re taking their jobs, but now they’re also animals who are going to kill us or eat our pets or eat us,’ she continued. That’s how you get people to feel that whatever is done to them, as in mass deportation, rounding them up, putting them in camps, is OK’… ”
Myah Ward
“We watched 20 Trump rallies. His racist, anti-immigrant messaging is getting darker”
POLITICO
10/12/24

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- Falcon October 13, 2024
  
  ‘Trump now warns that migrants have already invaded, destroying the country from inside its borders, which he uses as a means to justify a second-term policy agenda that includes building massive detention camps and conducting mass deportations.’
  
  Christopher Columbus was Spanish and Jewish, documentary reveals
  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/13/christopher-columbus-was-spanish-and-jewish-documentary-reveals?
  
  Today, we celebrate the first recorded European man, and civilization (human, social and cultural development organization that is considered most advanced) who/that changed history, forever.
  
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  - Harvey Reading October 13, 2024
    
    My calendar shows tomorrow (Oct. 14) as Columbus Day. I have always considered it to be October 12, as I was taught in my “civilized” grade school. Europe has no civilization, and, thanks to Columbus, we never will. We, in fact, did our best to erase the civilizations that existed here before his arrival.
    
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Falcon October 13, 2024

Puppies

4 of 10 lab/ border collie still waiting to be adopted. Born 7/19.
Really cool dogs. Located in Comptche.

Call/text Alex (707) 472-7596

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Paul Modic October 13, 2024

Happy Ending
Sometimes you get help from an unexpected source and it renews your faith in criminality and good ol’ boy-ism. This happened to a friend:
Remember that crooked (HumCo) planning department worker who went to jail for aggressively demanding bribes from growers? Well, before that he went to check on my friend’s backyard rental scene which could be abatable, it’s debatable, and he just ignored the harmless violations. He saw she was just a struggling petty landlord, said have a nice day, and didn’t try to squeeze something from her.
More recently, one of her renters said if she tried to kick him out (for being obnoxious and more) he would report her, and he sent a complaint to the Planning Department. Coincidentally she was talking with her Supervisor about something else, happened to mention that her renter was hassling her about little things, and that he had contacted the Planning Department.
The Supe picked up the phone, called the PD, told them to lay off parcel #————, and told them there was nothing to worry about there.
The complaint went nowhere…
(PS: Hey Chuck, and anyone else. I’m putting the word out that a friend and her husband are looking for a 3br house to rent in Ukiah, two dogs, one child, $2000. Any leads email me hillmuffin@gmail.com. Thanks.)

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Harvey Reading October 13, 2024

Well, well. From reading today’s edition, I am reassured that my belief that the species is near extinction is valid. Too bad. Getting its population down to carrying capacity of its habitat would have been easy, but we let the dumb biblethumpers, their imaginary gods, and their fairy tales defeat us. Now, we have to put up with the con artists and their tales of “renewable energy” spread their propaganda. We can’t even extinct ourselves in a dignified manner, preferring propaganda and other lies to keep us in our self-created, imaginary dream world, as it crumbles around us.

Electromobiles, windmills and solar panels aintagonna save your sorry butts, suckers!

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- Brian Wood October 13, 2024
  
  “…but we let the dumb biblethumpers, their imaginary gods, and their fairy tales defeat us. Now, we have to put up with the con artists and their tales of “renewable energy” spread their propaganda…”
  
  Worse even than religions, economic systems demand population growth. Voluntarily getting populations down to carrying capacity is impossible.
  
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  - Harvey Reading October 13, 2024
    
    Not impossible at all. Encourage vasectomies and tubal ligations for those of breeding age (and allow those who have the surgeries to claim TWO kids as tax deductions for eighteen years), end tax deductions for actually having kids, limit couples to no more than two kids, etc. But no, the bible thumping “society” we live in would never have it. RIP, monkeys.
    
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    - Brian Wood October 13, 2024
      
      Except governments won’t give tax deductions for helping reduce population, certainly not for for the long term. Governments are inseparable from their economic system. Capitalism must grow. Ergo, populations, at the very least, cannot shrink but be relied on to consume ever more. And grow. So, yes, impossible in my opinion. Global populations will be reduced eventually by catastrophe but not by reasoned human intervention.
      
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      - Harvey Reading October 13, 2024
        
        Kaputalism can be overthrown, if people have the will. It’s run by a bunch of dumb, greedy thugs. Trouble is the species is so dumb that it doesn’t know its own power against the relatively few dullwits whom they allow to exert control over them. If they lack the will, then they deserve the end that awaits them. Given how they’re buying into the “renewable energy” nonsense, it should be over soon.
        
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Marianne McGee October 13, 2024

Do you want to see Fort Bragg sold to the highest bidder? Do you want to see uncontrolled development on our prime coastal property?

If you answered yes to either question, then vote for Scott Hockett and Ryan Bushnell! While claiming they to want to protected our fair City, they also appear to want unregulated change as well. While claiming not to be Skunk Train/Mendocino Railroad candidates, their biggest supporters appear to be Mendocino Railroad.

Mendocino Railroad, with deep pockets, appears to be filing legal action after legal action against the City of Fort Bragg. This current City Council has done a good job fighting off unregulated development on that property.

Additionally this Council has developed new responsible housing, improved the homeless issue, has added new water storage and the list goes on.

Becoming an elected official takes a great deal of time, education and leadership skills. Lindy Peters has proven himself over 22 years of serving the City of Fort Bragg. We need Lindy now, more than ever!!

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- Chris Hart October 13, 2024
  
  Please provide any evidence that our company has financially supported any candidate in this race. I have written one Op Ed correcting numerous false statements by Lindy Peters, and I have responded to false accusations like yours on line. That is it. Financial reports are available and you can see that we have not provided any financial assistance, nor will you when the final reports are done.
  
  I have asked you for 2+ weeks to back up your statements and all you do is repeat your false rumors. Please provide evidence.
  
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- Chris Hart October 13, 2024
  
  Please tell me what you base your accusation of “uncontrolled development”? I think you’ve been listening to Councilman Peters’ rhetoric too much. At the debate, he said, “They should play by the same rules as everyone else,” which sounds nice but is misleading. Peters claims the lawsuit is to prevent Mendocino Railway from using Federal preemption to cover hotel, residential, and retail development, but that was never the case. In 2019, the railroad agreed to the City suggestion of a master development agreement to lay out what was or wasn’t preempted. If the City felt the railroad strayed from the agreement, they could then challenge it. For whatever reason, however, the City ignored their own suggestion and launched a legal attack against the railroad in anticipation of what they thought the company might do, costing all of us over a million dollars in taxpayer money.
  
  Instead of making up rumors, please provide evidence that there was going to be uncontrolled, unregulated development.
  
  PS If Councilman Peters is all that, why did he make so many misstatements in the forum? He divulged what he thought was protected information, didn’t know the status of the negotiations, ignored 37 miles of active railroad, falsely said a railroad has no environmental oversight, hid from the fact that he has blocked us from reopening our tunnel for 3 years, and accused us of shooting down the city zoning process when it was actually the City that did it. I guess you don’t care much about facts or accuracy.
  
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- Jacob October 13, 2024
  
  What kind of total bullshit is this? Scott and Ryan have literally no connection to the Skunk Train or development on the Mill Site. I know you support Lindy for some reason–it doesn’t make sense to most of us–but what is with the dirty campaign tactics based on lies? I think your “advocacy” on here may even be hurting his campaign. It certainly reduces your credibility to about zero, IMO. Neither Scott nor Ryan have said anything about “unregulated development” on the Mill Site or supporting lawsuits against the City. Have you even spoken to either of them or attended any events or are you just repeating lies? It is sad that Lindy and his supporters are engaging in dirty campaign tactics attacking his challengers rather than just running on what he can bring to the table. Both Scott and Ryan explicitly said that the Skunk Train shouldn’t be able to use eminent domain to acquire private property and they should have to get all applicable permits for development on their property in the City of Fort Bragg. They have precisely the same position as Lindy on those two topics. They aren’t aware of all the private and confidential information from the closed sessions or settlement negotiations but none of the candidates but Lindy does since he is the only incumbent. I am not sure what meetings you have been watching but I haven’t seen Lindy exhibit leadership skills at any point. He is regularly rude and bullies his fellow councilmembers who disagree with him, particularly the female councilmembers, and he has a nasty habit of “explaining” what other people meant by aht they just said as if he is there self-appointed spokesperson. You aren’t even stating your opinions, you are alleging false and defamatory things about both Scott and Ryan. Perhaps you should attend Scott’s meet and greet Monday night at 6 PM at his restaurant, the Noyo Fish Company, so you can actually talk to him and find out his positions rather than misrepresenting them. I wouldn’t be surprised if other candidates attend Scott’s event as well. You are beyond ridiculous with these diatribes and false allegations that have already been refuted numerous times.
  
  Reply
  - Bruce Anderson October 13, 2024
    
    “Most of us”? “Regularly”? Please, Jacob. Lindy has been wholly, selflessly devoted to the greater interests of Fort Bragg for many years. In my time, there have been two Mr. Fort Bragg’s — the late, great Vern Piver and Lindy Peters. Re-elect Lindy!
    
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    - Jacob October 13, 2024
      
      IMO, Lindy Peters might have had a lot of support in the past but most people I have spoken with about this election have said his time has passed and they do not want to continue supporting him. He would also likely be a criminal if anyone had prosecuted him for his many past misdeeds, which is disqualifying for me. I haven’t witnessed anything selfless about Lindy and he appears driven almost completely by his ego. You don’t live in Fort Bragg so I’ll let your Mr. Fort Bragg thing go but that is insulting to the town any everyone who actually lives here. Lindy is a transplant and a blowhard and despite his many years here doesn’t actually have a local perspective.
      
      Reply
      - Bruce Anderson October 13, 2024
        
        Straight up libeling the guy now, Jacob. I’ll be surprised if Lindy doesn’t win election by his usual wide margin. I’m offended on his behalf that he has to endure a lot of gratuitous insults like you’re dishing out.
        
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        Jacob October 13, 2024
        
        Nothing I said is libel. He has a sordid history that is well-known; otherwise, I wouldn’t have written what I did. Libel doesn’t apply to matters of opinion, only alleged facts, and something that is factually accurate can’t be libelous, although you should know that already. In fact, you need look no further back than his last election when he illegally altered his nomination papers to attempt to run for a different seat than the one he was nominated for. If he had been prosecuted and convicted, I believe it would have even been a felony. You know what is also a crime, domestic violence. I understand he has three ex-wives all of whom likely could fill you in on his temper.
        
        I assume you are only talking about his city council election since he lost his supervisor race to Dan Gjerde who beat him with over 60% of the vote.
        
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        Bruce Anderson October 14, 2024
        
        Opinion when you state “He has a sordid history that is well-known”? Libel by implication with zero facts. you claim to have but don’t produce.
        
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        Jacob October 14, 2024
        
        I am hardly one of his ex-wives so I can’t write a first-person account. If you need proof, I recommend running a background check and review arrest records. I haven’t seen anyone provide what can be described as proof in any comment on here, including Lindy’s own prior posts, and certainly not Marianne’s. Interesting that you didn’t demand proof for the nomination paper alterations, perhaps because you already know it is true. I didn’t provide copies of the altered papers so how is that any different? I think that may be more concerning for some people because it directly relates to him serving on the city council.
        
        Regardless, the truth of a matter, whether or not someone believes it or demands so-called proof, defeats any allegation of libel. Lindy is free to try to sue me if he likes but I doubt he’d do that because he would have to prove that what you assert I alleged or implied isn’t actually true and he wouldn’t be able to do that because I only write things that I have personally verified or are based on multiple sources supporting the allegations.
        
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        Chris Hart October 14, 2024
        
        Bruce,
        People came on to your page and anonymously claimed my company is “buying” candidates in opposition to the candidate that you support. If those claims were true, that would be an illegal activity. And yet, you remained quiet and didn’t ask for facts.
        
        I confirmed the anonymous person is a City employee and campaigner for Peters. She double-downed on her claims. Again, you remained quiet and didn’t ask for facts.
        
        Today, you repost Peter’s letter that repeats these accusations. And once again, you remain quiet and don’t ask for his facts.
        
        Every opponent of Peters has stated they have not received an endorsement from my company, nor have they received any donations. The campaign donation information is available and you can see zero contributions from me or my company. Those are facts.
        
        And yet you let unsubstantiated claims against me and against Lindy’s opponents to go without you asking for facts. You have stated your support for Lindy Peters, which is fine, but I find your requests for facts to be uneven and inconsistent.
        
        Reply
        
        Bruce Anderson October 14, 2024
        
        Beat me daddy. It seems to me the “facts’ have gotten a pretty good airing, including your facts. But if you have more, bring ’em.
Zanzibar to Andalusia October 13, 2024

“My God, is there anyone who can make a plausible case that Israel has not turned into a ravening genocidal international beast that is rampaging completely out of control?

Only liars, [redacted], [redacted], Democrats, Republicans, and those that vote for them. Every single vote for a Democrat or a Republican is a stab in the heart of a Palestinian child.

“WHERE IS THE FIERCE URGENCY OF BEATING TRUMP?”

What’s happening is clear. Harris and the Democrats are so evil – so deeply evil – that tens of millions of Americans are willing to vote for a mob-connected, Epstein/Mossad-connected, illiterate, Adderall & Sudafed (UK formula!) addicted cartoon character.

The enforced dumbing-down of the population, started in the mid-70s at the request of the elite who saw that too many “over” educated people were asking too many difficult questions (like, why did you bomb that village?) has now spread throughout the population – including those in Gen X and Boomers who seemingly have absorbed being idiots through osmosis.

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- Harvey Reading October 13, 2024
  
  Well-stated. By the way, your use of a handle rather than your name doesn’t bother me a bit.
  
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Falcon October 13, 2024

Pickleball Bruce

After reading in disbelief what is going on at my former home Rossmoor, I can say with certainty it isn’t the fault of the R’s or the D’s, but of the coming together, at a time like this.
Maybe they can come together, at the last moment, to help each other find PEACE.

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Marco McClean October 13, 2024

Re: The Bonnie and Clyde car. Five or so years ago the Vallejo police did that to someone. I was reminded of it then by a question in Quora: “What would you say to a police officer who knocks on your window while you’re trying to take a nap in your car before work in your company’s own parking lot?” I answered:

Whenever a cop wakes me up in my car I say, “Thank you for checking on me. I realized I was too sleepy to drive safely, so I pulled over,” and that’s the truth. Every single time, the cop wiggles his light around in my car, says, “Thank you, you can go back to sleep, sir,” and he or she goes away. But I usually wake up immediately relatively articulate. And I never smell like booze or weed because I don’t drink or smoke. And I’m white, which might be the main thing that makes it okay for me, and that reflects very badly on our country.* A couple of times it was someone who lived nearby wherever I stopped, who saw the car and came out just to see if I was okay. Same result. So I suppose if a cop woke me up from sleeping in the car in the work lot I would say, “Thanks for checking on me. I work here. I’m early for my shift, that’s all.”

*I was just watching a video where a young black musician fell asleep in his car at a fast-food place in Vallejo, California. His car was blocking the drive-through lane so someone called the cops. Several cop cars drifted in (here’s where the recording begins, made by someone far across the lot), the cops get out and array themselves around the front and side of the man’s car. All of the cops empty their guns into the man’s head and chest. It sounds like when popping popcorn gets to the fast, enthusiastic phase. Then there’s a pause. And here’s the creepy part: it’s /then/ the cops all begin to yell frantically, “PUT YOUR HANDS WHERE WE CAN SEE ‘EM! HANDS UP! PUT YOUR HANDS UP!” in tones that sound to me like a cross between /Maybe I can confuse any witnesses as to the order in which things happened here/ and /Please don’t let happen what just happened. Please don’t let me have done what I just did. Please let this all be just a bad dream./

By all accounts, Bonnie and Clyde were mad dogs that needed to be put down. I think of the incident in Vallejo as being on the other end of the scale from that. Other writers, including someone calling himself Heywood Jablowme (tch), wrote to bitch that I misrepresented things; they suggested that the black man must have been on heroin to be blocking the lane like that, that they found a gun in his car and so the police were justified to preemptively protect their lives. But I’ve read articles since then of similar provocation, for example, a (white) police captain, piss drunk, asleep behind the wheel in his pickup truck full of guns, idling in an intersection (in Maine, I think). Other cops show up, they chuckle about it, take him and his truck home and put him to bed, and that’s the end of the matter. He even got to stay chief of police. Comments after that story were mostly along the lines of, “Oh, well. Anybody can have a weird day once in awhile.”

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Sarah Kennedy Owen October 13, 2024

Norbert Grimshaw:
To help ease your despair over the disappearance of teaching handwriting in schools: there are teachers who do teach it, my daughter is one. When she was a little girl she practiced handwriting (calligraphy, also) and became pretty good at it. Admittedly her calligraphy was better than her handwriting, as the handwriting was speed-writing to take notes, etc., whereas with calligraphy she could take her time. She believes now, as a teacher of fourth grade, that handwriting is a good way to teach hand-eye coordination as well as aesthetic appreciation. AND as you mentioned, it is actually faster than clumsy printing. Maybe handwriting is making a comeback! I have a few old books that I bought second-hand that have inscriptions or the owner’s name on them. Some of the handwriting is heart-breakingly beautiful. Heartbreaking because people can’t do it any more.

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- Chuck Dunbar October 14, 2024
  
  Good, and thank you, Sarah, there is some hope. Some of the old ways were better ways. In fact a lot of them. Bless your daughter and all teachers, who do their best to guide and educate children in this new world of “innovation” and a level of chaos and uncertainty that is unnerving.
  
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Jim Armstrong October 13, 2024

My god, this edition of MCT is a veritable Garden of Earthly Delights.
A young Palestinian prisoner raped by a dog is not even the worst of it.
Israel is raping the world.

And Cape Mendocino is not the westernmost point in the contiguous United States.

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- gary smith October 14, 2024
  
  Yes, correct about Cape Mendocino. Cape Blanco, Oregon is further west, but Cape Flattery, Washington is the westernmost point in the lower 48 or “contiguous United States”. Why does this error persist so? It’s easily verified with google maps.
  
  Reply

Mendocino County Today: Sunday 10/13/2024

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