Mendocino County Today: Friday 10/18/2024

By AVA News Service on October 18, 2024

FROST ADVISORY remains in effect until 10 am this morning.

LOCALLY BREEZY north to northeast winds are expected to continue today with dry air across the area as a high pressure builds across the Pacific Northwest. Gusty winds and low humidity continue promoting critical fire weather conditions for southern Lake County through Saturday. Otherwise, dry and warmer conditions are expected this weekend, even at the coast. Some cooling of the inland interior is expected on Sunday and the coastal areas will likely see a return of the marine clouds as an upper level trough approaches. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): An overcast 41F on the coast this Friday morning. Mostly sunny thru the weekend & early next week. Looks like some rain for later in the week starting about Thursday, we'll see.

‘STRONGEST WIND EVENT’ SINCE 2021 IN NORTH BAY COULD STIR UP WILDFIRES. Here’s what to expect and how to prepare

The National Weather Service issued a red flag warning for 11 p.m. Thursday until 5 p.m. Saturday for the North Bay.

by Madison Smalstig

Fire officials and meteorologists say North Bay residents should be prepared Friday and Saturday as the “strongest wind event” since 2021 may lead to wildfires.

A red flag warning is in effect for the area from 11 p.m. Thursday to 5 p.m. Saturday as the National Weather Service has called for dry wind gusts and low humidity across Sonoma, Napa, Lake and Mendocino counties, as well as parts of the Central Valley.

Here’s what to know as local conditions weaken natural fire defenses.

What is expected?

Northwesterly winds were expected to increase throughout Thursday and by night reach 25 to 35 mph in higher elevations, with up to 65 mph gusts along ridges and between gaps and passes, weather service meteorologist Rachel Kennedy said.

Some winds will push into the valleys, with gusts up to 30 mph predicted in Santa Rosa Thursday night.

Winds will shift northeasterly, which is drier air, into Friday and humidity will drop between 9% and 15%.

Sustained winds are expected to reach 15 to 25 mph Friday and slow slightly Saturday.

Conditions may threaten the extremely dry trees, grasses and shrubs that grew during previous years of heavy rains and quickly dried out this year, Kennedy said.

A lot of vegetation is ready to burn, she added.

Critical conditions will last until Saturday night, when winds slow and humidity returns to about 60%.

Is a red flag warning rare?

The National Weather Service has issued two advisories, both that don’t expire until Saturday:

A red flag warning for most of the North Bay, except for the immediate coast, from 11 p.m. Thursday to 5 p.m. Saturday.
A wind advisory for the North Bay interior mountains from 11 p.m. Thursday to 8 a.m. Saturday.

The red flag warning is the third issued for the North Bay this year. The first two occurred in mid-June and early July and affected the North Bay mountains and eastern portions of Napa County.

Three red flag warnings were issued for the North Bay in August, September and October 2023, mostly for higher elevations, such as the Sonoma, Mayacamas and Vaca mountains.

Extreme heat prompted this summer’s warnings while the current red flag is spurred by a offshore winds. It also affects a more widespread area, Cal Fire Division Chief Ben Nicholls said Thursday.

“We have had all summer long for those fuels to lose moisture and become susceptible to burning,” he said.

The current wind event is the strongest that PG&E meteorologists have seen since 2021, the utility’s spokesperson Megan McFarland told The Press Democrat on Thursday. The area has not seen these winds, which are typical during the fall, in three years.

Why should residents pay attention?

The critical fire conditions will last from Thursday through Saturday night, but residents should be wary throughout the weekend, Kennedy said.

“Even after some of the main factors have ended people should still be cautious and not engage in any behaviors that could lead to the start of a fire,” she said.

Cal Fire Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit reminded residents in a social media post that multiple destructive fires, including the 2017 Tubbs Fire and 2019 Kincade Fire, started during red flag warnings in October.

The Tubbs Fire killed 22 people and destroyed 4,600 homes across Sonoma and Napa counties as it burned through 36,807 acres in October 2017. The Kincade Fire started October 2019 and scorched 77,758 acres in northeast Sonoma County.

What are officials doing?

Many area resources, including fire departments, are increasing their staffing to ensure a robust response is possible if necessary.

Cal Fire LNU is bringing in one additional engine ― leaving it with 32 at its disposal ― and have all hand crews staffed and access to full aerial resources, including two helicopters that can fly at night, spokesperson Tyree Zander said.

The Santa Rosa Fire Department is also raising staffing levels during the warning and dedicating an engine to a strike team and a battalion chief as a leader for a second team focused on quickly extinguishing fires during the warning, Division Chief Fire Marshal Paul Lowenthal said.

Fire officials also set up the quick-deploy weather station in a high elevation spot in the southeast area of the city to help track the wind event.

(pressdemocrat.com)

MENDOCINO COUNTY has a higher clearance rate for violent crimes than state averages. Of the four major violent felony categories for which data is collected at the State Justice Department (Homicide, Forcible Rape, Robbery, and Aggravated Assault), Mendo has cleared (i.e., arrested or otherwise resolved) well over half of them compared to statewide averages which are generally under half (and declining in recent years). Mendo is running well above statewide averages for property crimes as well, including arson. According to state data (as reported by Mendocino County) arsons in Mendocino County are down in the last three years (averaging 10 per year) as compared to the three years prior (averaging 23 per year) and a higher percentage were cleared in those last three years (averaging just over 50% which is very good because arsons tend to be the hardest serious crimes to clear and can be an indicator of law enforement effectiveness). Mendo cleared about half of its reported homicides in the last ten years. The only violent crime category where Mendo reported below state average clearance rates was Forcible Rape (state average around 30-40%; Mendo average around 10-30%). Mendo was better than state averages in robbery clearance rates and aggravated assaults. Among property crimes Mendo cleared only 10-18% of vehicle thefts, but that was still better than state averages which were seldom over 10% over the last ten years.

(Mark Scaramella)

GHOST GUN AND AMMUNITION Found in Ukiah Motel Room During Welfare Check

On 10/13/2024, at approximately 1:17 p.m., Ukiah Police Department (UPD) officers were dispatched to the Royal Motel (750 South State Street) to conduct a welfare check on a female subject inside a room, screaming and banging on the wall.

UPD officers arrived on the scene and contacted the room occupants, Ashtyn Taylor, Priscilla Ronco, and an 18-year-old female subject. The 18-year-old female subject appeared to be experiencing a mental health crisis, and a Mendocino County Behavioral Health unit responded to assist officers.

UPD officers conducted a record check on Taylor and Ronco. Officers determined that Taylor had a previous felony conviction, which prohibited him from possessing firearms and ammunition. Taylor was out of custody on pre-trial release for felony charges with a search waiver, and Ronco was on California Department Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) Parole out of Mendocino County with a search waiver. Ronco was on CDCR Parole for a previous violation of 451 PC-Arson.

During the UPD officers’ investigation, they observed the slide of a pistol was in plain view, protruding from under a pillow on a bed in the room. Officers inspected the firearm and found it to be an un-serialized Polymer 80 brand 9mm pistol, commonly referred to as a “Ghost gun.” The pistol had a threaded barrel, classifying it as an assault weapon. A search of the room was conducted, and officers located a 9mm magazine loaded with hollow point ammunition under the pillow were the firearm was located. A second magazine and ammunition were also located in a “fanny pack” belonging to Taylor. The officers’ investigation determined the firearm and ammunition belonged to Taylor.

Taylor was arrested for violations of 12022.1(a)(1) PC, 23920(b) PC, 29800(a) PC, 30305(a)(1) PC, and 30605(a) PC. Ronco was arrested for a parole violation-3056 PC. Taylor and Ronco were booked and lodged at the Mendocino County Jail. The Mendocino County Behavioral Health unit determined the 18-year-old female subject was having a mental health crisis. The 18-year-old female subject was transported to an area hospital and placed on a 5150 W&I hold.

VICKI WILLIAMS:

Highway 128, 13.66 mile marker. This is to the person who puts out their entire Kirkland Costco Dump load. Listen, I’ve already picked it up two times this year. I know it’s the same person over and over again and you’re actually smart enough to keep your name out of there. But here’s the thing: you’re dealing with someone who picks up trash for free for Cal Trans who loves to be a detective on the side. I will find out who you are and you will get the thousand dollar fine. PERIOD

To the Modelo drinkers out there who put your cans all the way down 128 there’s a special place for you and it’s called the dump. Why don’t you try going there?

Love this valley like it’s yours. Thank you.

WHERE'S THE RECEIPT?

Editor,

No more ballot stubs?

In previous elections our ballots had that little “receipt” thingy that you would separate from your ballot before you voted or mailed the ballot in. If I remember right, it had a number on it that matched the number on the ballot.

What happened with that?

Anyone know why that was removed?

Tom Tetzlaff

Fort Bragg

KATRINA BARTOLOMIE (Assessor, Clerk, Recorder, Registrar of Voters) mentioned previously: "To save time processing ballots, this election we did not include a perforated stub at the top of the ballot. The stub directed voters to remove it before returning it to us, many voters left the stub on the ballot. The stub had to be removed by staff before the ballot can be tabulated."

COUNTY AGENDA NOTES: DOING LESS WITH MORE

by Mark Scaramella

For next Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, lame duck Supervisor Glenn McGourty has prepared a “presentation” (i.e., a few casual notes typed into a PowerPoint format-template) alleging that the Supervisors need more “staff support” so that they can “develop an annual work plan,” “report and track progress on the Strategic Plan,” “follow up and track Board directives and initiatives and grants,” and assist with research and constituent service.

McGourty proposes an ad hoc committee be assigned to “gather information” on the subject of “developing more support for BOS either with existing staff … or plan for future staffing.”

McGourty concludes by suggesting that the Board could “address additional support when future budgets allow for new staffing.”

Instead of this casual blather masquerading as a “presentation,” McGourty could recommend a much more practical step of returning the Clerk of the Board office to Supervisors instead of being under the CEO where the Board doesn’t even have control of its own agenda. Former CEO Carmel Angelo snatched the Clerk of the Board office away from the Board back in 2010 as part of her initial power play, saying it would save money. (As usual, of course, it didn’t. Mendo officials are great at claiming unquantified savings to try to justify their own agenda.) Her ever-obedient board at the time didn’t bat an eye and the Supervisors have been high-and-dry ever since.

After that, but only after that, McGourty might be able argue that the Clerk of the Board office needs another staffer to keep track of their so-called (and poorly worded) “directives.” But we haven’t seen much interest from Board members in asking about the status of their own “directives,” so why this belated need for “tracking” them? For years, these Supervisors have been content to accept status reports that list the status of most directives as “ongoing” in report after report. But even that “reporting” has been discontinued. Like a lot of other marginally useful material in the CEO report, the list of directives has disappeared. The CEO has managed to dumb-down her report to the point that most of it is departmental filler with minimal actual “reporting.” So if they can’t generate even a passing interest in their own directives, another Board Clerk staffer would become just another feather-bedding project too, although at least there would be some rationale behind it.

Previous boards have discussed whether each board member should have an “aide,” but that idea never went anywhere because even the Board members in those days could see that “aides” for each Supervisor would simply provide a political flunky to each Supervisor at taxpayer expense, not an impartial staffer to help advance the County’s best interests. The hand-picked and well-compensated “aides” would also have a clear inside track when they later decided to run for their boss’s Board seat. (For example, if McGourty had had an aide slot to fill, it’s highly likely that he’d have picked Trevor Mockel and Mockel would then have claimed his experience as an aide would qualify him to be supervisor… And so on.)

But this board is so lazy that they’ll probably think that McGourty’s “presentation” is just peachy and they will unanimously bemoan the fact that they don’t have enough money to pay for more time-wasters on top of the six we already pay more than $1 million a year for (five board members and the CEO).

On next Tuesday’s consent calendar there’s an item proposing that the Board rubberstamp an “agreement” to “provide facilitation of Restorative Justice Youth Court Services” for November 2024 to June of 2025 (eight months) for about $134k. According to the state court’s website (www.courts.ca.gov), Restorative Justice Youth Court Services involve “identifying the youth’s personal strengths” after which the young person “agrees to repair the harm that was done while also restoring relations with their families, schools, and communities.” This is not the place to dispute these seemingly imaginary benefits or the effectiveness of trying to “restore” a few of our local incorrigible delinquents to upstanding citizen status via another unaccountable handout to a local service provider. But there’s no indication that the proposed “agreement” (as opposed to a contract) was put out for bid. Guess which contractor (agreer?) County staff has selected to provide these dubious, unbid, sole source services? If you guessed the Schraeders and their Redwood Community Services Inc., you’re a lot more savvy about these insider deals than we are. We naively thought that since this is not about mental health, the County might at least try to make it look like they had a normal bidding process and give other outfits an opportunity to bid. But no, just another hand-out, er “agreement,” for the Schraeders.

One of the recommendations in the recent State Controller’s office’s report which was highly critical of Mendocino County’s financial management was, “For future reorganizations, conduct a risk assessment before implementing significant changes, such as consolidating two elected offices.”

This is the state controller’s office’s passive-aggressive way of saying that Mendo screwed up in consolidating the Auditor-Controller and Treasurer/Tax Collector offices and did not conduct any kind of analysis, much less a “risk analysis,” before doing so.

In their draft response to the State Controller the Board writes that their “corrective action plan” is simply: “County Chief Executive Officer and Board of Supervisors agree with the recommendation.”

We’re supposed to believe that the next proposed half-cocked consolidation (or unconsolidation; these things are kinda random in Mendo) proposal will be accompanied by an in-depth risk assessment (not to mention a financial evaluation) now that the Board has belatedly recognized the error of their ways, albeit two years after the fact and in the face of unanimous public and official input against the consolidation at the time they did it.

And who will make sure that such “risk analyses” are conducted in advance? Why, the Board itself, of course. Because, by complaining (albeit in soft terms) about the Board’s rash consolidation decision after the fact, the State Controller’s office has demonstrated that there’s no teeth in their “recommendations” and lame “corrective action plans” that say “we agree” are a perfectly acceptable way to move past this particular fiasco.

Official Mendo Board Meetings in a nutshell: go through the motions, blunder, waste, shrug, nod, and blame-shift twice a month. Then give yourself a raise.

THE ONGOING ABUSE OF A LOCAL GIRL AND HER MOTHER by the Mexican husband/father assisted by the in-over-his-head Mendocino Judge Patrick Pekin.

AVA News Service

Shay Haverty writes:

My name is Shay Haverty and my Niece is Mylea Login. Mylea is like a daughter to me and her daughter Ileana, is like my granddaughter.

Mylea just turned 29 and Ileana 6.

Mylea was born in Fort Bragg and graduated with honors from Anderson Valley High School in 2013.

I feel compelled to try to get her story heard in hopes of perhaps getting help for these girls, but also to bring awareness to what feels like a very incompetent Court, Judge, DA Investigator and court system in Mendocino County, if not corrupt.

Mylea had moved to Mexico and become involved in a relationship with the Father of her daughter, Carlos Esparza De La Torre. Unfortunately, the relationship between Mylea and Carlos ended. However, Mylea stayed in Mexico believing that was what was best for her young daughter. But more importantly she stayed out of fear of the child’s father and family having many ties to the Cartel in Mexico.

When the situation finally become too much, Mylea left the Country of Mexico and came back to California.

She applied for and was granted a restraining order from the Mendocino Court Judge Cindee Mayfield and it was in place for over a year, pending trial. When the trial took place the case was switched to Judge Patrick Pekin, who is not a family law judge. I was in shock to witness the way the trial was handled. Judge Pekin did not allow my niece’s full testimony, rejected crucial evidence, and subjected her to victim-shaming. His lack of understanding of domestic violence laws was clear throughout the trial.

Throughout the litigation there was ongoing abuse from the opposing party and even the court-appointed minor’s counsel documented the controlling and abusive nature of the child’s father. Despite all of this, due to Judge Pekin’s ruling, the child is now facing a Hague petition that could force her to return to Mexico, tearing her away from her Mother (her only caregiver since birth) causing emotional and psychological harm that no 6 year old should have to endure.

My hopes is that someone will read this story and be able to offer my niece some help. She is a single Mother living in Mendocino County and her funds have run out! Her attorneys will not be able to proceed due to her current limited funds and she's having a hard time finding any type of Pro Bono help.

Mylea is a fantastic young mother, working at Frank Zeek Elementary school as a teacher’s aide (so her hours can accommodate her daughter’s schedule) and she scared to death of her only child being taken from her. She will have no rights in Mexico and in fact Carlos has had an arrest warrant issued for her, if she tries to enter that Country, she would be arrested.

Carlos has never taken care of the minor child for any period of time and the child has not seen him in over a year. Despite the move and changes Ileana is thriving. She is a cheerleader for the Ukiah Mighty Mites, excelling in school and a very happy little girl.

I sincerely hope this court situation can be resolved and the judge can be convinced to do the right thing.

Shay Haverty

From the court filings:

“Mylea is requesting that the court grant her request for a five-year Domestic Violence Restraining Order with Ileana as a protected party due to the physical abuse, sexual abuse, threats, and coercive control she underwent during and after their relationship, which has severely affected her daughter Ileana. Carlos’ violations of the temporary restraining order, conduct throughout these proceedings, and clear litigation abuse, support and corroborate Mylea’s request for formal Domestic Violence Restraining Order.”

The filings provide a large compilation of evidence demonstrating the abuse that Mylea has suffered in the aftermath of the relationship. The files also show that the appellate court has had to “correct erroneous denials” of the restraining order request.

“The appellate court reversed the trial court decision, finding that the trial court’s interpretation imposed a ‘singular vision of how an abused woman should act’.” … “On two separate occasions, Carlos and his counsel have gone behind the back of this court to try and obtain orders more favorable to him [in federal court], and which he knows would be traumatic for Ileana, including the no notice federal Temporary Restraining Order while settlement was being discussed in state court; and the ex parte request for a stay of this [Mendocino] proceeding after this Court had already ruled on this issue. This ex parte request for a stay was recognized by the Federal Court as “gamesmanship at its most transparent,” and indicated Carlos’ litigation tactics were deceptive. The Federal Court further recognized and admonished Carlos for his lack of focus on Ileana’s best interest, and stated that the way this case has been litigated tells him something about the perspective of Carlos, which he [the Federal judge] found to be appalling.”

For more information on the case or to offer any kind of assistance to Mylea contact Mylea’s aunt Shay Haverty at 530-701-8896, or Mylea at 530-354-9562. Mylea’s aunt, Ms. Haverty, can be reached by email at: shay.haverty@ymail.com.

LOCAL EVENTS

JOINT COMMUNICATION - MENDOCINO COAST HEALTH CARE DISTRICT AND ADVENTIST HEALTH ADVANCE TOWARDS AN OPTIMIZED AGREEMENT

Adventist Health and Mendocino Coast Health Care District (the District) are making steady progress on optimizing the existing agreement to provide access to healthcare on the coast. Both organizations share a mutual goal to retain Adventist Health’s expertise in providing quality healthcare for the community. Over the next month and a half, Adventist Health and the District will continue working together on the details of an updated partnership which would result in changes to the existing agreement.

Conversations between both organizations are resulting in a healthy path forward. We are working towards a mutually agreed-upon outcome that best serves the community. This shared goal unites us in our efforts. Both organizations will work to provide a weekly joint statement to keep the community informed.

“I am grateful for the good faith efforts made by our partners at Adventist Health,” said Paul Garza, Chair of Mendocino Coast Healthcare District. “I look forward to an enhanced agreement that is a win-win for both entities and the communities we serve.” “I appreciate the passion and dedication our friends at the District have for our local community hospital,” said Adventist Health Northern California Network President Eric Stevens. “The community can be confident that both organizations are reaffirming our investment in helping keep healthcare local through a sustainable model.”

As the costs for providing healthcare continue to soar, tapping into existing government reimbursements will be important for both entities. Despite one third of all critical access hospitals across California not being able to break even, we believe there is a path forward for Adventist Health Mendocino Coast. The District and Adventist Health are committed to working together to access government funding to maintain healthcare for our rural, frontier, critical access hospital.

More information may be found at the District’s website: https://www.mendocinochcd.gov

Contact information:

Kathy Wylie, MS Ed

Agency Administrator, Mendocino Coast Health Care District

kwylie@mendocinochcd.gov

FORT BRAGG TAX MEASURES ON NOVEMBER BALLOT

by Mary Benjamin

After viewing the Spring 2024 community survey results to identify local priorities and needs, the City Council voted unanimously to place two municipal measures on the November ballot. The measures are in response to specific public concerns in the survey that 82% of respondents listed as important.

Measure T, the Essential Services Measure, creates a locally controlled 3/8ths cent sales tax for public safety and emergency services. Purchases excluded in the state sales tax will be be excluded in Measure T. For example, most groceries, prescription drugs, and payment for services would be exempt.

The measure addresses the public safety needs provided by fire and police protection. The 911 emergency response system for fire and medical calls will benefit, and disaster preparedness funding, said Whippy, will address “the real possibility of being isolated or overlooked for larger communities in a catastrophe.”

According to City Manager Isaac Whippy, the measure can aid the city to “attract and retain experienced police officers which Fort Bragg would otherwise lose to other cities.”

Basic services need financial support as well. Parks and trails need to be kept clean. Roads need to be in good repair. Business owners need clean sidewalks to present a welcome to customers.

Play equipment in the park needs to be monitored. Public restrooms need to be kept clean. Although local citizens know their way around town, street signs and lighting must be maintained.

The measure also provides a reliable source of funding for affording housing, a major concern to local residents unable to find rentals or purchase homes within their budgets. The measure is projected to generate about $800,000 a year.

Measure U, the Tourist Impact Measure increases Fort Bragg’s locally controlled transient occupancy tax for hotels and motels by 2%. This tax will be paid solely by hotel and motel guests.

The measure addresses the financial burden of tourism on the city’s services to maintain tourists’ comprehensive access to all the city’s public systems while they visit. This measure is projected to generate about $400,000 a year.

Tourists use the local streets, roads, and parking spaces. They go to the parks and the open spaces such as the Coastal Trail. They use the city’s recreation programs, such as the C.V. Starr Center. When needed, they use 911 services as well.

An important legal element of the measures ensures that all revenue collected will be used exclusively for Fort Bragg’s needs. Moreover, the majority of the tax will be paid by tourists and visitors. The point is to apply some responsibility to tourists for their use of the city while visiting. Citizens are already taxed for city services.

City Manager Whippy emphasized, “Funds generated by Measures T and U are subject to annual, independent financial audits and public disclosure of all spending.”

He added, “If adopted by Fort Bragg voters, funds will be spent to maintain the local services our residents rely on. All funds from both measures would remain in Fort Bragg and cannot be taken by the County or State government.”

Only voters residing within the boundaries of the City of Fort Bragg will find these measures on their ballots. Election Day is Tuesday, November 5. Voters can vote by mail or drop off their ballots prior to the election. Check your ballots for drop-off locations.

On voting day all voters will have access to polling stations in the Fort Bragg area. Voters should have received a card from the county’s election office listing all the available locations open on November 5.

(Ukiah Daily Journal)

ELIZABETH KNIGHT

This is my grandfather Arthur Knight. Hopland and Yorkville Pomo. He was raised on the June Ranch in Boonville. Him and Jack June grew up together as best friends. His grandmother Effie Luff and Grandfather Frank Luff raised him as his mother passed away pretty young. My Grandfather worked the backhoe for Smokey Blattner and eventually for Dean Titus. He helped develop a lot of properties, ponds and septic systems. I love hearing stories about him. Do you have any stories to share?

SF SYMPHONY SOLOIST IN OPUS CHAMBER MUSIC CONCERT

Experience the electrifying synergy of flutist Rayo Furuta and Grammy Award-winning pianist Michelle Cann as they celebrate 12 years of duo collaboration at this Opus Concert on Sunday October 27th! This dynamic ensemble will showcase works by composers such as Florence Price, Valerie Coleman, Gabriela Lena Frank, and Sergei Rachmaninoff. Join us for an afternoon of musical brilliance and longtime friendship. Check them out online at: Rayofuruta.com | Michellecann.com

Ms. Cann is the San Francisco Symphony Soloist in Rhapsody in Blue the day before her Opus Concert.

Tickets at symphonyoftheredwoods.org and at Out of this World in Mendocino.

Concert at 3 PM on Sunday, October 27th in Preston Hall, Mendocino.

Doors open at 2:30 PM. Coffee and cookies will be available before the concert and during intermission.

TIME PIECE AT THE GRANGE

The Anderson Valley Grange presents “Time Piece: A Play on Time” on Friday and Saturday, Nov. 8-9 and 15-16 at 8 p.m. at 9800 CA-128, Boonville. Doors open at 7 p.m.

“Time Piece” is a dialogue-less play set to music, with a story and score by local playwrights Jainned Boon and Daniel McDonnell, and visual direction by local artist Katie Williams.

Accompanied by a live band, the characters explore, through pantomime, the arrival of a new clock in their small town and the ways in which it impacts their lives. Tickets are $20 at the door.

WATER WOES

by Bruce Anderson

“No river should reach the ocean.” — Stalin

Not so long ago there was so much water in the summertime Russian River you could water ski at Healdsburg. Where did all the water go? Why has inland Mendocino County gone from abundance to red flag scarcity?

People happened, lots more of them, and lots more demand on the Russian River’s finite flows, and lots more interests claiming the water, and lots more complicating bureaucracy. All this and 1905, which is when a large portion of one watershed’s largest river was diverted into the watershed next door, when the Eel was attached to the Russian by a mile-and-a-half umbilical cord.

In 1905, a largely Chinese labor force hand dug a tunnel 5,826 feet through Snow Mountain at Potter Valley through which rushed a year-round portion of the South Fork of the Eel River. The diverted water powered a huge pair of turbines on the Potter Valley end of the tunnel, and the electricity thus generated illuminated Ukiah, adding significantly to the wealth of a San Francisco entrepreneur named Van Arsdale.

Once this diverted water had turned the lights on in Ukiah it flowed into the upper Russian River as surplus water, water without value, water unclaimed except by the farmers and ranchers of Potter Valley who quickly moved to ensure that they would get it for nothing forever. It isn’t forever yet but the Potter Valley boys are into their fourth generation with all the cheap water they can use and then some.

Farmers and wine grape growers from Ukiah to Jenner are similarly blessed.

The Russian River, all the way to Healdsburg, prior to the Eel flowing through the Chinese tunnel at Potter Valley in 1905, went dry in the summertime. Suddenly, in the year before the big earthquake, there was such an abundance of summertime water in the Russian River that resorts and high dives appeared on its banks from Ukiah to Guerneville.

A hundred years later the high dives are gone because there are so many people taking water out of the unmonitored, ungauged river, if it weren’t for the diversion of the Eel River at Potter Valley the Russian River would again dry up in the summer months.

The first dam on the Eel is named after the enterprising Van Arsdale. It created Lake Pillsbury to ensure that there would be enough summer flow in the Eel to divert at Potter Valley for Ukiah’s electricity. When Van Arsdale — the lake, not the enterprising man — silted up, as dams inevitably do, Scott dam was built on the Eel to take over Van Arsdale’s water reserve electrification function.

It has since silted up too, as has Lake Mendocino, the first dam on the Russian River built in the middle 1950s to catch much of the water flowing through the Potter Valley Diversion.

The Mendocino County supervisors, the far-sighted Joe Scaramella dissenting, voted 4-1 not to participate in the building of Coyote Dam behind which would rest, everyone assumed, the infinitely ample waters of Lake Mendocino.

Sonoma County put up the money and got the water in perpetuity.

In the really, really dry years, Lake Mendocino got so low it was nothing but a big mud puddle, and its downstream dependents in places like burgeoning Santa Rosa have since been forced to enact serious water conservation measures, not that you’d know it given the major construction along the 101 corridor.

The old water deals don’t look too good today, although it’s hard to blame pre-industrial Ukiah for wanting clean power, or Van Arsdale for bringing it to them. It’s less forgivable of Mendocino County supervisors, circa 1955, to have given away both Mendocino County’s and Humboldt County’s water to Sonoma County.

Mendocino County supervisors thought Coyote Dam cost too much, and few people, except for Sonoma County’s prescient water bureaucrats, thought the water streaming year-round through the mile-and-a-half tunnel at Potter Valley, and down into the Russian River’s parched summer beds, had any value at all.

Humboldt County signed off on the 1905 diversion and hasn’t been consulted since although its mighty Eel is nearly as battered and overdrawn at the Russian River.

Sonoma County has always gotten Potter Valley diversion water for nothing, which it sells it to Marin County, particularly the dry towns of Northern Marin, for pure gain, the sales product costing nothing more but the pipes and valves to get it flowing south.

The Sonoma County water business, overseen by Sonoma County supervisors, is that rare public bureaucracy that turns hefty annual profits.

As wells often go dry all over Mendocino County because climate change has led to unpredictable winter rains. Some years the groundwater is replenished, some years it isn’t. Mendocino County’s idea man — some say wrong idea man — former supervisor John Pinches, thought he had the answer to the inland county’s water shortages. He wanted to siphon off two percent of the mainstem Eel River’s winter flow at Dos Rios.

“All that water winds up in the ocean anyway,” the supervisor observed in an irrefutable statement of the obvious. “Why not take a little bit of it for the people of Mendocino County who need it? We’re always talking about low cost housing in Mendocino County but there isn’t fifty acres anywhere with the water to build it.”

The Pinches Plan, in total, would amount to an annual diversion of about half of Lake Mendocino’s capacity and cost a quarter of a billion dollars to purify and pump to holding tanks in Redwood Valley from where it would be made available to communities straddling the Russian River as far south as Hopland.

One of the many ironies involved in Pinches’ plan is there’s already considerable water processing machinery 35 miles away in Willits. (Willits’ treated sewage water is emptied into Outlet Creek, which flows northeast and on into the Eel.)

If Pinches’ plan were to become reality, that reality would be a decade away and would not only violate the Eel River’s protected federal status as “wild and scenic”. Environmentalists went into panic mode simply at the suggestion the winter Eel might be tapped.

Pinches countered by pointing out that Humboldt County towns continue to be copiously watered by the Eel because Humboldt County municipalities were grandfathered in when the Eel was declared “wild and scenic.” Pinches also maintained that he simply wanted to “get Mendocino County in line” for water money when and if it became available. Governor Newsom has wanted an updated Peripheral Canal scheme that would ship water to the desert megalopolis of Los Angeles from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta where the two mighty rivers meet to feed San Francisco Bay. The Governor has wrapped his scheme in a few green-ish conservation proposals.

But even if Mendocino County ever gets in line for some serious water money, Mendocino County has always been a low-priority for projects that require large sums of state tax money. The irrepressible Pinches, however, pointed to funding for the Willits By Pass. “We got that funding because we had a place in line for transportation money,” he says. “We should do the same for water money.”

Pinches’ water plan is the only plan out there. And Mendocino County, especially inland Mendocino County, is drying up because the water that might ordinarily be available to it belongs to Sonoma County. Pinches’ plan has the advantage of being the only plan to specifically address Mendocino County’s water shortages, which have now become chronic and border on critical. Pinches’ plan also has the disadvantage of being promoted by a man perceived as conservative, Mendocino County being hopelessly divided along the liberal-conservative fault line.

It’s impossible to discuss the water issue, and most issues, without an automatic taking of sides on either side of the great divide. Many people opposed the Pinches Plan simply because Pinches suggested it. And many people supported it simply because Pinches thinks it’s doable and because the persuasive supervisor has easily beat back the plan’s detractors because he’s a superior propagandist.

And Pinches’ two percent of the Eel plan is the only plan, so far, and is unlikely, given the size of the supervisor’s megaphone, to ever be shelved in favor of much less costly but far more innovative conservation and catchment ideas suggested by local water researchers like Rachel Olivieri, a Willits mail carrier who probably knows more about North County water than anybody in that population besides Pinches.

Ms. Olivieri begins with the specific suggestion that Lake Mendocino’s 69,000 acre feet of stored water, almost all of it the property of Sonoma County because Sonoma County largely funded the construction of Coyote Dam, has a 122,000 acre foot capacity, the difference being allotted for flood control space. Why not use that capacity for Mendocino County rather than go to Pinches’ new and expensive plan?

“In an average year Mendocino County gets 19 million acre feet of water in rainfall,” Olivieri says. “If there were a five foot ring around the county, the county would fill up to that depth every winter. We have 2% of the state’s land mass, but we get 15% of state’s rainfall. 5 acre feet falls, on average, on one acre of Mendocino County ground. An acre foot can easily supply two families for a year, which is the amount of rain that falls on them. If we captured water right where it falls, and used it at least twice, ‘stacking the functions,’ as they say, there would be plenty of water everywhere in Mendocino County. Why not capture water where it falls and store it there?”

The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Department isn’t known to be on the cutting edge of ecological technology but, As Olivieri noted recently when she walked past it, “The sub-station at Covelo is designed to capture rainfall, redirecting the water to a pond and windmill, thus creating a kind of natural water and energy loop. So there are people in local government not only thinking about how to conserve water they’re doing it.”

Rachel Olivieri’s ideas, long-term, are sound. They naturally appeal to many county residents, especially people living in the county’s vast outback, who already trap and save water through ingenious systems of their own devising. But water shortages are much more acute, or soon will be much more acute, in Mendocino County’s more densely populated areas, especially the 101 corridor.

Fort Bragg has reached the limits of its growth without new sources of water and has enacted a series of conservation measures which enables the city to successfully provide its citizens with water during the dry months. Willits and Ukiah have drilled into what is assumed to be their lush aquifers, although neither the quantity nor the quality of the water trapped beneath their valley floors is precisely known.

But from Redwood Valley south through Ukiah, and on down to Hopland, most of the length of Mendocino County’s stretch of the Russian River has no more water to give. Neither does the summer time Eel upon which the summer time Russian depends. The well-documented exhaustion of the summer Eel did not prevent then-Sonoma County supervisor Mike Reilly from calling the water crisis a “regulatory drought.” Reilly wanted more water diverted from the summer Eel to make up profligate Sonoma County’s shortfalls.

Mendocino County’s supervisors make water policy but have no authority to enact it. There are half a dozen little water districts, each independent of the others, in the Ukiah Valley alone, although they are at last talking consolidation. And Sonoma County, despite having a water reserve twice the size of Lake Mendocino piled up behind the Warm Springs Dam, can send only a few drops of that water to downstream consumers for fear that it will drown fish in the 14 miles of Dry Creek used to transport Warm Springs water. Well, not drown the Dry Creek fish, more like blast fingerlings out of the summer stream bed if flows from Warm Springs aren’t kept to a relative trickle.

Dry Creek is home to coho salmon, an endangered species, and more endangered than ever. If more dry months’ water were released into Dry Creek, the feds say, the salmon would be one step closer to extinction because the baby coho would be destroyed by higher flows.

With all this water piled up behind the Warm Springs dam since 1983 when Lake Sonoma appeared behind it, the great irony is that all that water represents a hazard to baby fish.

Sonoma County is still talking about a 14 mile pipeline from Warm Springs to Sonoma County’s collection point in the Russian River near Forestville at Wohler Bridge, but the pipeline is millions of dollars and many years away. For now, the pipeline is that 14 miles of Dry Creek ambling out of the hills northwest of Healdsburg and on down west of the Russian River where it waters some thirty wineries and finally into the Russian River at Forestville.

The whole downstream summer show is dependent on the Eel diversion, and the miraculousness of it all becomes clear when one becomes aware that it’s all run out of an office on Santa Rosa Avenue downtown Santa Rosa, whose remote water technician can turn the water on or turn the water off for more than a million people from Ukiah to Santa Rosa. The water genie, though, performs his allocations according to a strict set of sales agreements determining who gets how much, when, per old contracts to which Mendocino County is not a party.

Draws on all Mendocino County’s water sources, even with little building under way from Brooktrails to Hopland, continue to suck up both the summer Eel and the summer Russian River. River front property owners, many of them connected grape growers, aren’t required to gage how much water they take, and water district information from those many little fiefdoms is either non-existent or anecdotal.

Mendocino County is in the long state line for water money, but Mendocino County, historically considered, is usually last in line.

THE SET OF THE SAIL

by Waly Smith

(Reprinted from the November 15, 1984 Mendocino Beacon.)

Few sailing ships or steamers plied their trade between San Francisco and Anchorage without occasionally dropping anchor off the mouth of Big River, taking on passengers or cargo to fill the hold when Noyo Harbor failed to fill it. Nearly all of them were photographed and identified at one time or another lying off the Mendocino Headlands, and the late Nannie Escola [local school teacher and historian] collected most of the photos.

Hence it came as quite a surprise the other day when Evelyn Escola [Nannie’s daughter-in-law] came upon a photo of a three-masted barkentine—obviously in Mendocino harbor—which Nannie had not identified. It took a powerful magnifying glass and the combined efforts of Evelyn, Dorothy Bear, and Beth Stebbins of the Kelley House to decipher the name “J.M. Griffith” on her bow. Then another surprise.

This ship couldn’t be found listed either in Nannie’s scrapbooks, shelved at the Kelley House, or in the books “Ships of the Redwood Coast,” published by Stanford University Press in 1945 and revised in 1970 by original author Jack McNairn and Jerry MacMullen.

Dorothy sought the aid of Richard Tooker of the San Francisco Maritime Museum. He reported that the “The Griffith” was built in Washington in 1882 and plied her trade between Puget Sound and San Diego. During the years just prior to the First World War, she loaded lumber frequently at Noyo Harbor for Hawaii or Australia. And just once she took on cargo at Mendocino. On that solitary occasion, [amateur local photographer] Perley Maxwell took the mysterious photo.

Not long after the receipt of Tooker’s reply, Dorothy was looking through Nannie Escola’s unfiled papers and came across a reference to “The Griffith” in a Marine Digest article by John Lyman of the Maritime Research Society of San Diego. “The Griffith,” wrote Lyman, weighed in at 606 tons, was built in Seabeck, Washington, and was based at first at Port Townsend. In those years during which she took on lumber at Mendocino and Noyo Harbor, she was owned by the Griffith Retriever Company with a sister ship named “The Retriever.”

[A barkentine, or schooner bark, had three or more masts, with the front mast square-rigged and the others fore-and-aft rigged. Because of the reduction of square sails, it required fewer crew members and was often used for carrying lumber. It was used primarily for coastal shipping because of its ability to go into the wind with the fore-aft sails, but it could catch long wind currents with the square sails.]

In 1916 “The Griffith” was sold for $15,000 to A.F. Thane, who 15 months later sold her for twice that amount to L.A. Scott of Mobile, Alabama. By 1920 she was under Portuguese registry, and within a few years, her name had vanished from the registers. Apparently she had been shipwrecked or retired from service.

We were fortunate that Maxwell snapped her picture on the only occasion she dropped anchor off Mendocino.

Barkentine J. M. Griffith moored near the mouth of Big River, 1912. (Gift of Emery Escola, Photographer: Perley Maxwell)

CATCH OF THE DAY, Thursday, October 17, 2024

JOEL ALVAREZ-LOPEZ, 28, Ukiah. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, suspended license, probation revocation, smuggling controlled substance into jail.

CHRISTOPHER ASHURST, 33, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

BENJAMIN BICKNELL, 35, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, disobeying court order.

MARIA CAVERO-FRANCISCO, 25, Ukiah. Domestic abuse.

RICKIE CURTIS, 51, Willits. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

WILLIAM JACKSON IV, 45, Ukiah. Taking vehicle without owner’s permission, stolen vehicle.

KENDALL JENSEN 38, Ukiah. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

BENJAMIN KEATOR, 43, Willits. County parole violation, failure to appear.

JESUS MURILLO, 44, Hayward/Ukiah. DUI.

ISHMAEL NASH, 26, Ukiah. Domestic battery, false imprisonment.

JACOB NEUER, 21, Willits. Vandalism.

KRISTO OUSEY, 40, Ukiah. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs, parole violation.

ERIK RAMIREZ, 35, Willits. Domestic battery, child cruelty-infliction of injury, vandalism, probation revocation.

WALTER VANSANT, 40, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

CHARLIE MUSSELWHITE (born in 1944) & BIG JOE WILLIAMS (1903-1982). Two giants in the world of great and deep Blues music.

Big Joe, born in Crawford, Mississippi, had a powerful and distinctive hard edged, wild ass, string snapping, declamatory delta blues style. He was the author of “Baby Please Don’t Go,” “I’m a Crawling Kingsnake,” “Peach Orchard Mama,” “Highway 49,” and other seminal blues songs, played on a series of customized 9-strings.

Charlie Musselwhite, born in Kosciusko, Mississippi in 1944, is from Choctaw Indian descent, and is still going strong today, touring the world as one of the mightiest harmonica wizard bandleaders of all time. He is also a wonderful guitarist and sings fantastic solo blues, which I love the best.

DOGGEREL IN DEFENSE OF SWEET HONESTY

Kunstler told such gruesome lies

He made me gasp and stretch my eyes

So when his column went on hiatus

I should’ve known ‘twas a ruse to bait us.

Esteemed Editor called up the ablest of techs

To reinstate those sensational wrecks.

Caitlin only told the cold hard truth

And now she’s gagged and barred forsooth.

We saw no call for tech support,

No sort of notice, hint or report…

And so we must in time conclude

Twas with the censors our Chief was forced to collude.

— Bruce McEwen

ED NOTE: Sorry Kunstler distresses you, and Caitlin remains a go.

FIRST SALMON SWIMS ALL THE WAY TO OREGON AFTER HISTORIC CALIFORNIA DAM REMOVAL

by Kurtis Alexander

The massive dam-removal project on the Klamath River began living up to its lofty goal of improving fish passage this week when at least one salmon was observed swimming upriver past the sites of four former dams that had long blocked fish.

Wildlife officials said Thursday that a chinook salmon was spotted a day earlier at Spencer Creek in Oregon, suggesting that salmon have begun their much anticipated return to their historic waters above all of the demolished dams. Chinook salmon were also seen this week in a California creek above the site of the first of the former dams, where they’re believed to have started spawning in the newly opened-up habitat.

(SF Chronicle)

DUNKIN' DAO

We Need A Permanent Base In Washington, D.C.

Warmest spiritual greetings, Following a relaxed morning at the Adam's Place Shelter, journeyed to Union Station for a breakfast nosh at Dunkin' Donuts. Took the Metro to Chinatown to purchase Lottery tix. Am presently at the MLK public library on a guest computer. Feeling excellent as the cooler weather arrives. What we really need is to establish a housing base in Washington, D.C. It's that simple. Continue to identify with the Parabrahman, Dao, Divine Absolute, and not the body-mind complex. Thank you very much.

Craig Louis Stehr

JEFF BLANKFORT:

Biden and Blinken give Israel 30 days to finish off the Palestinians in Northern Gaza or is there any other way to read the headline and the story in Britain's Jewish Chronicle?

“US Says Israel arms transfers could halt if Gaza aid crisis not addressed in 30 days.”

BIG LIES & LITTLE TRUTHS

by Jim Shields

As an historian, history tells me that this presidential election about to go down on Nov. 5 is the worst offering of prospective White House occupants in history.

That’s three references to history in a very short sentence.

I should just keep it at that, as I have nothing positive or enlightening to say about this upcoming historical farce.

So vote your mind, vote your conscience, vote for one of the third-party gadflies, or sit this one out and don’t vote because making no decision is actually making a decision.

Speaking of history, do you know who said, “The difference between Republicans and Democrats is Democrats help people who need the help, and Republicans help people who don’t need the help.”

That would have been Harry S Truman, in my estimation a guy who did a pretty damned good job when he was president in the post-World II era.

Truman also said, “There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know.”

That’s a big problem nowadays because most people don’t know, or don’t care, or don’t understand history.

You see, without history, and learning and understanding history, we as a people have no common or shared memory of what came before us, and what decisions of the past have shaped or caused present circumstances, good and bad. Without history, it is difficult, if not impossible to make any sense of the political, economic and social issues of our times.

And we got a lot going on right now.

First of all, as I tell you after every election, remember, the voters are always right, no exceptions.

If you don’t believe in that principle, than you’re either an elitist, a Fat Cat insider, or a fool.

Voters, most of whom are common folk, working people, and the middle class, know exactly what they’re doing and why they’re doing it when they vote. Although both political parties perceive voter-citizens as ignorant rabble, easily manipulated by the media and huckster political consultants, nothing could be further from the truth. When people vote, they know what the deal is. They may not have Ivy League degrees or make seven-figure incomes, but they have more than enough smarts to figure out what’s the best decision to make on election day.

So just keep that thought in mind if things don’t go the way you want in November’s election.

If I were a Republican — I’m not, I’m a Democrat, but nothing like these bloodless dullards currently in charge — I would contribute loads of jack to the Dems. Just give them tons and tons of money to keep on their present course because they don’t want to give up the steering wheel even though they’re headed over the cliff.

The Democratic Party couldn’t be any more stupid if it took paid lessons in it, which apparently they did.

Instead of talking to people, Democratic elitists talk down to people. Instead of standing on a platform of solutions for real problems — such as the ongoing eradication of the middle-class, income insecurity, and Un-Free Trade — the Democratic brain trust has turned the election into a tit-for-tat liar’s dice game with Donald Trump. The only problem with that strategy is that the Dems didn’t and don’t offer any alternative to a pompous blowhard, who actually believes that people in this country dine on pets, and American soldiers killed in wars are “suckers” and “losers.”

This election, on both sides, is all about big lies and little truths.

As a Democrat I can say this: The Democratic party is more interested in protecting so-called Free Trade, ensuring One-Percenters remain One-Percenters, allowing Wall Street to regulate Wall Street, Hollywood glitz, and the Woke Gospel than it is in looking after the best interests of working people and the middle class.

The polling pros keep telling us this election is too close to call, which means no matter what the outcome, the rest of us are probably screwed.

If that’s the case, there’s probably a lesson to learn from history.

Most likely, it’s never give up and never lose your sense of humor.

(Jim Shields is the Mendocino County Observer’s editor and publisher, observer@pacific.net, the long-time district manager of the Laytonville County Water District, and is also chairman of the Laytonville Area Municipal Advisory Council. Listen to his radio program “This and That” every Saturday at 12 noon on KPFN 105.1 FM, also streamed live: http://www.kpfn.org.)

HAS CHIEFS’ DOMINANCE GOTTEN IN 49ERS’ HEADS? S.F. can send message Sunday.

by Ann Killion

Yeah, yeah, this is just Game 7 in the San Francisco 49ers’ regular season. In mid-October. Against an AFC opponent.

It is not a “must win.” It is not Super Bowl “LVIII.5.” It cannot exact true revenge.

But do not try to convince me that Sunday’s game against the Kansas City Chiefs isn’t enormous or hugely consequential. For the entire 49ers team. But most of all for Kyle Shanahan.

There is so much more to this game than the surface details. This is not just a football game, but an emotional, psychological hurdle to overcome, played out against a background of total one-sided ownage and devastating, life-changing losses.

Even Shanahan, as honest an NFL coach as there is, conceded to some PTSD earlier this week.

“Everyone understands that we’ve lost the two Super Bowls to them,” Shanahan said. “So I mean, that can give a little post-traumatic stress when you turn on the tape. I think that’s human nature. But you’ve got to make sure you don’t get caught up in that.”

Shanahan is 0-4 against Andy Reid’s Chiefs, more losses to one team and one head coach than any other in his coaching tenure. Going further back to pre-49ers, Reid handed Atlanta offensive coordinator Shanahan a one-point loss in 2016, one of just five losses the Falcons suffered on their road to the Super Bowl that season.

But it is the 49ers’ losses to the Chiefs that are monumental. Historic, excruciating and franchise-defining in the way the team’s losses to the Dallas Cowboys were in the past.

The first was in 2018, in Kansas City, when Jimmy Garoppolo tore his ACL, derailing an entire season. The second was the Super Bowl on Feb. 2, 2020, when the 49ers had a 10-point lead with 2:35 to play in the third quarter and couldn’t stop Patrick Mahomes. The third was an October blowout at Levi’s in 2023, when the 49ers came in with a 3-3 record, just like they will Sunday. That game, Christian McCaffrey’s first with the team, was so out of hand that rookie Brock Purdy took over from Garoppolo late in the fourth quarter and completed the first passes of his NFL career.

And you know all about the fourth loss, coming just eight months ago in Las Vegas, one in which the 49ers again held a ten-point lead. A crushing, soul-breaking overtime loss that creates feelings of anguish throughout the 49ers building.

Sunday’s regular-season game against the undefeated Chiefs, who are coming off a bye, can’t make up for that loss. Can’t chase those Super Bowl demons. Shanahan knows that.

“This game has nothing to do with past games,” he said. “That was last year. We’re playing a really good AFC opponent. We’re .500 right now. We want to stay on top of our division and get a win… It really has no correlation, and you try to make sure that it doesn’t.”

But what a win would do is make everyone feel really good. A victory would be cathartic and would catapult the 49ers into the second half of their season. Handing Reid and Mahomes their first loss of the season would send a message around the league that, yes, the 49ers, despite the early season struggles, are still elite.

Both teams have been weakened by injuries. Both teams have red zone issues. Both teams are playing below their standard. The difference is that the Chiefs have held on to win close games, while the 49ers haven’t, giving away two division games and losing to another NFC opponent in Minnesota.

The key to beating the Chiefs is to get up early, and stay ahead. But the 49ers have done that before against the Chiefs and have still been unable to stop Mahomes.

Mahomes and Reid win close games. And that is something that is, generally speaking, harder for the 49ers. Honest Shanahan conceded as much the other night, after the victory in Seattle.

“We’ve gone on a stretch here the last two years where we won a lot of games in a row and a lot of the fourth quarters in some of those wins these last two years haven’t been that tight,” Shanahan said. “Guys have been able to relax a little bit on stuff. … I think we got a little spoiled in that way, of just human nature, of sometimes feeling too relaxed, and you can never feel too relaxed.”

There’s no doubt that Shanahan’s teams have performed best when they’ve had a huge lead and can cruise in the fourth quarter. Shanahan has a .667 winning percentage as a head coach, which would be higher if you tossed his early games with an awful team. But this week Associated Press writer Josh Dubow posted some damning statistics that lurk within Shanahan’s record.

Per Dubow, Shanahan’s winning percentage drops to .378 in games decided by seven points or fewer. Of the 124 coaches in NFL history who have coached 40-plus regular season games decided by seven points or fewer, Shanahan ranks 119th on the list.

Also from Dubow: Shanahan has lost 18 games when his team is leading by ten or more points. Six of those losses have come when his team is leading by ten or more points in the fourth quarter. Two of those sixth fourth-quarter collapses have come this season, against the Rams and the Cardinals.

And two of the 18 losses after holding a 10-point lead have come against the Chiefs in the biggest game in the NFL.

The Chiefs are coming to town. The sight of them is traumatic. Stressful.

And, no matter what week of the season it is, beating them would be very, very big.

A LONG TIME AGO I made up my mind that unless it was forced on me l'd never hit a guy with my fists outside the, ring. I don't say I never will, for some things call for it so loud you've got to answer, but it’s funny how far you can go and hold yourself in and keep your self-respect, once you've made up your mind. I've got my own ideals about that and believe me, they've had the acid test.

It's a fact that I've hever hit a man outside the ring, since I became champion, and I hope I never will. But it hasn't always been so easy. When old Doc Kearns and I first began to be invited around to swell people's houses, all dolled up in the soup-and-fish, we went out and bought the Book of Etiquette — what's wrong with this picture stuff? — and added it to our library, which was the Marquis of Queensberry Rules and a railroad guide and the World Almanac. We studied it, too. And some of the things that happened afterward were a scream for fair. One of these days I'll have to tell you all about it.

But there was nothing in that book about what should a champion heavyweight do when some shrimp or some hulk he could smash with one jab tries to pick a fight with him outside the ring. That's where you have to let your conscience be your guide, as the old song says. Would you believe it, that one man - on Broadway too, and not so very long ago — tried to slap my face? It would be almost the truth to say he did slap it. It's too long a story to tell you now, but I'll give you the whole inside dope on it later, if you want it. Anyway, I had my fist doubled and pulled back to smash him, and I had every right to smash him, and he was smaller than I was and I just couldn't do it. I handled it another way.

And then there was one night in Paris, in what they called an American bar. A rich guy from the Argentine had it in for me because of a girl — a cloak model that I'd never spoken to or seen alone in my life. But she had been sending me notes to the Claridge. I hadn't answered them, but he had caught up with her, and he was crazy. That's another long story. He wanted a fight and a duel afterward. He was a big guy, not too little for anybody to hit. But what was the use? I got him into a clinch, without hurting him at all — without tapping him once — and the waiters took him out, I won't say I'll never do it, but up to now I've never hit a man outside the ring since I became champion. I figure that it wouldn't be fair.

— Jack Dempsey

TRUMP’S SO RIGHT TO SAY HE’D BAN TRANS ATHLETES IN WOMEN’S SPORTS

by Piers Morgan

Sometimes, Donald Trump hits the common-sense nail smack-bang on the head.

After years of cowardly public officials pathetically tiptoeing around the increasingly farcical, and grotesquely unfair, issue of biologically male trans athletes competing in women’s sports, the former and quite possibly next president of the US spat out a potentially very consequential truth bomb.

“You just ban it,” he said during a Fox News town hall on Wednesday, to huge cheers from the audience. “The president bans it. You just don’t let it happen.”

No dithering, no equivocation, no pandering to the virtue-signaling woke brigade, no passing the buck to sports authorities.

Trump just said what he’d do if he wins back the White House, in his normal blunt manner.

And frankly, if I were an American woman wondering which way to vote on Nov. 5, amid a constant bombardment of Democratic claims that Trump wants to destroy women’s rights, that single moment in this presidential race might tip me his way.

Because it’s the only solution to what has become an existential crisis in women’s sports.

Trump spoke out after footage emerged of an already controversial San Jose State University trans volleyball player named Blaire Fleming spiking the ball so hard into a San Diego State junior female player that she was knocked over.

There’s a dispute over whether the ball hit her in the face or shoulder, or, as slow-motion replays seem to confirm, both.

But what there can be no dispute over is the ferocious power that Fleming unleashed, and the shocking impact it had.

Nor the fact that the crowd gasped loudly when it happened.

Nor that the commentators felt compelled to comment on the victim’s startled, pink-faced state afterward.

As Trump said: “I saw the slam, it was a slam. I never saw a ball hit so hard, hit the girl in the head … it’s a man playing in the (women’s) game.”

For once, he wasn’t being hyperbolic.

One of Fleming’s own teammates, Brooke Slusser, has filed a lawsuit, along with a group including swimmer and women’s rights activist Riley Gaines, in which she states that Fleming is a biological male who spikes the ball at 80 mph — “faster than she had ever seen a woman hit a volleyball.”

Slusser adds: “The girls were doing everything they could to dodge Fleming’s spikes but still could not fully protect themselves.”

How the hell is this madness happening?

Have we learned nothing from the dangerous farce of women’s boxing at the Paris Olympics, where one contestant quit after just 46 seconds in the ring against a fighter reportedly born with male XY chromosomes because she’d never been hit that hard and feared for her life?

Make no mistake, if this is allowed to continue, very soon a woman is going to die playing against trans athletes with vastly superior natural strength and power.

That’s why Trump is so right to say he’ll ban it.

And he has the support of a large majority of Americans.

In a Gallup poll in June, 69% of adults said they believed trans athletes should only be allowed to compete on sports teams that match their sex assigned at birth, up from 62% in 2021.

Yet despite the self-evident unfairness and inequality of this sickening assault on women’s rights, anyone who dares question is it branded transphobic.

Tom Temprano, a spokesperson for the laughably named Equality California, told ABC: “This is actually not about sports, it is not about these athletes, this is part of a coordinated nationwide right-wing attack on the LGBTQ+ community. It’s not leadership, it’s not what our elected officials should be doing, it’s peddling hate and it’s shameful and I think it’s also important to remember how harmful these attacks are for LGBTQ+ people.”

What a disingenuous load of claptrap.

It’s absolutely about sports, and the athletes.

And ironically, the really hateful and shameful part of this debate is the likes of Temprano trying to silence any dissent by categorizing it as an attack on the LGBTQ+ community.

Further, what Trump’s doing is showing proper leadership.

As are the female volleyball players who are joining forces to boycott this nonsense.

This week, the University of Nevada’s women’s team said they won’t play against San Jose next week if Fleming plays.

They will become the fifth women’s university team to do so, along with Boise State, Southern Utah, Utah State and Wyoming.

I completely support their courageous stand.

It’s long overdue that all female athletes simply sit down and refuse to compete against biological males.

That would stop this insanity dead in its tracks.

And for all their talk of being the party of women, where are the Democrats on this? In the tank for trans athletes, that’s where.

President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris both supported a recent rewrite of Title IX, the 1972 law that bans discrimination based on sex in educational programs, which added “gender identity” to the list of sex-based protections in federal law.

In other words, if you’re a biological male like Blaire Fleming and you say you’re a woman, you get to play sports against biological females and smash 80-mph balls into their heads.

It’s not transphobic to say this is disgusting.

It’s a fact.

(nypost.com)

CALIFORNIA BALLOT MEASURE PROMISES ‘MASS TREATMENT’ FOR DRUG CRIMES. CAN COUNTIES PROVIDE IT?

by Cayla Mihalovich

Californians are voting on Proposition 36, a 2024 ballot measure that would lengthen criminal sentences for certain drug and theft crimes. It also aims to steer certain people convicted of repeat drug crimes to treatment instead of prison, a pledge that behavioral health experts say is problematic because of a shortage of facilities.

Proposition 36, the tough-on-crime ballot measure that would increase punishment for certain drug and theft offenses, appears likely to pass with polls showing voter support by large margins.

Its momentum has behavioral health leaders across California trying to figure out how they’d actually implement a part of the measure that pledges “a new era of mass treatment for those who need it the most.”

As far as they can tell, California counties don’t have the resources to provide what Prop. 36 envisions: behavioral health treatment for people convicted for a third-time drug offense.

“We simply don’t have enough capacity right now to take on a whole new population of folks that are getting mandated into treatment,” said Dr. Ryan Quist, behavioral health director of Sacramento County.…

https://lostcoastoutpost.com/2024/oct/16/california-ballot-measure-promises-mass-treatment/

It being 35 years since the earthquake, The local news this morning showed footage of Candlestick shaking and the crumpled Cypress Freeway. Which reminded me…

A 7.1 Exaggeration

by Fred Gardner (1989)

Those who tend to apologize too much when they make a mistake have a lot to learn from the editors of the San Francisco Chronicle.

It was the Chronicle that gave the world its false impression of how many people were killed in the October 17, 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. In the hours after the quake, radio and then TV reporters described the three obvious disaster sites — the Bay Bridge, the Cypress section of the Nimitz Freeway and the Marina District — and the scene at Candlestick Park. The general impression created by these scattered vignettes was that a major tragedy had been miraculously averted. The earliest estimates of how many people had died on the collapsed freeway were in the neighborhood of 40.

Around 10 p.m. the broadcasters reported that the Chronicle was about to come out with a headline reading, “HUNDREDS DEAD IN HUGE QUAKE.” From that point on — such is the authority wielded by the Mediocrities of the Morning —”hundreds dead” became the accepted story. The national anchormen jetted out. (Dan Rather in combat fatigues.) The vice-president came. The president came. They all shook their heads and tried to look grim. And it was only after a week that Mayor Lionel Wilson of Oakland let it be known that the death toll on the Nimitz was much, much lower than had been reported.

The Chronicle responded to this turn of events by assigning William Carlsen to write a long, analytical piece entitled “How Estimates of Quake Dead Grew in the Media.” Not a word of self-criticism did it contain. “Police and rescue workers” were blamed for issuing false estimates. Singled out for responsibility was Alameda County Sheriff Charles Plummer, “whose office gave out the most-quoted first estimates after the quake, which was (sic) that 100 to 200 may have been killed.”

The truth is —as we all knew from the radio, and as Carlsen’s piece begrudgingly mentioned — the earliest estimate of how many had died on the Nimitz was 40. This accurate figure (the eventual toll was 41) was used in the Sacramento Bee’s morning-after story. It was the job of the Chronicle reporters to make their own estimate by first-hand observation; or to give their readers a sense of the range of estimates coming from the scene (from 40 to “100 to 200”), which would have conveyed the uncertainty of the situation. Instead they took the high end of Sheriff Plummer’s tentative estimate and made it definitive. Not even a qualifier — “Hundreds feared dead” — with an eye towards accuracy. They blew it big-time, a magnitude 7.1 exaggeration. Not as bad as “Dewey Beats Truman,” but pretty bad.

The Chronicle’s lead story on October 18, written by Randy Shilts and Susan Sward, asserted flatly: “A terrifying earthquake ripped through Northern California late yesterday afternoon, killing more than 200 people…” Nowhere in the article did they even mention that some observers on the scene had made much lower estimates than the one they chose to accept.

A reprint of the “historic” earthquake edition was inserted into the October 30 issue of the paper and the Chronicle brass used the occasion to congratulate themselves on a job well done. They then sent copies of the “historic” edition to college newspapers throughout the Bay Area — God forbid any young reporters should miss this fine example of the craft — with a cover letter from Executive Editor William German, and Managing Editor Matthew Wilson. The letter began: “There are two special reasons for sending you this very special edition of the San Francisco Chronicle…” And it concludes: “Around here this edition is now in heavy demand as a souvenir. Altogether a tribute to the talent, wit and energy of a dedicated staff of journalists.”

Sic and double-sic.

IMPOSSIBLE DREAM REALIZED: Media Falls Below Congress in Trust Survey

Gallup's annual confidence survey shows 68% of Americans will not relieve themselves on a journalist in flames

by Matt Taibbi

The just-released results from Gallup’s Trust in Media Survey leave no doubt that members of my profession are officially America’s lowest life form. Gallup asked:

In general, how much trust and confidence do you have in the mass media — such as newspapers, T.V. and radio — when it comes to reporting the news fully, accurately, and fairly — a great deal, a fair amount, not very much, or none at all?

A great deal 8
Fair amount 23
Not very much 33
None at all 36

The Great Deal/Fair Amount number of 31% roughly ties Gallup’s lowest-ever number, first recorded in 2016. The more shocking result is the combined Not much (33%) and None at all (36!) number of 69%. That is four points worse than the 65% figure posted by the usual standard-setter for mistrust: “The legislative branch, consisting of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.” It’s really not that close, as most distrust of Congress is of the softer, “Not very much” variety (46%), while the press laps elected counterparts by 17 points (36%-19%) in the far more hardcore None at all category.

It’s impossible to overstate this embarrassment. There are necrophiliacs who wouldn’t touch a congressional corpse. You may not hesitate to sacrifice a congressman in a lifeboat, but you think twice about eating him, even starving. Record fines for misconduct, and more informational access to behaviors like legal insider trading mean the elected officials Twain called America’s only “distinctly native criminal class” are hated more than ever. Yet expectations for journalists are now lower than those for Congress. Asked about trust in a politician, “None at all” is what people say when they expect nothing to get done. With media, it’s what you say if you don’t even trust a reporter to tell the time. It’s an extraordinary indictment.

The new horrorshow figures are driven by a 16% drop among Democrats over the last two years. That’s important because press watchdogs for years blew off low survey results, saying they were artificially weighted because “being ‘anti-media’ is part of [Republicans’] political identity,” as FiveThirtyEight once put it. That was back when most corporate media companies were proudly in the doling-shit-out business. Now they’re eating it…

https://www.racket.news/p/impossible-dream-realized-media-falls

IN 1963, the famous photographer Richard Avedon took a picture of a man named William Casby. William Casby, born in 1857, was 106 years old at the time. In his hands, he was holding his great-great-granddaughter, Cherri Stamps-McCray.

The image amazes me because the elderly gentleman holding his descendant so tenderly, was born into slavery more than a century prior. Casby would eventually live until 1970, dying at the age of 113.

His great- and great-grandchildren are alive today, and many of them remember him.

It puts into perspective just how relatively recent slavery existed. Because as faraway and distant as it may feel now. Even in modern-day America, there are people who have active memories of talking to former slaves.

THE VITAL ROLE OF BOOKMOBILES IN 1950s RURAL VIRGINIA

In the 1950s, bookmobiles were a lifeline for rural communities in Virginia, bringing much-needed knowledge and entertainment to areas without easy access to libraries. These mobile libraries, often converted from buses or vans, were packed with shelves of books and staffed by enthusiastic librarians eager to share the joy of reading. As they traveled through small towns, farming communities, and remote areas, they provided a crucial link to the broader world of literature, information, and imagination.

A typical scene in rural Virginia during this era might feature a bookmobile arriving on a dusty road or in a small town square, greeted by a crowd of eager children and adults. Women in cotton dresses, men in work clothes, and barefoot kids would gather around, excited to browse the latest selection of books. For many, these visits were the highlight of the week, offering an escape through novels, an opportunity to learn from non-fiction, or simply a chance to bring new stories into their homes.

Bookmobiles were more than just a delivery service; they embodied a commitment to education, literacy, and community spirit at a time when many people lived far from established libraries. These mobile libraries played a pivotal role in fostering a love of reading and learning, helping to bridge the gap between isolated communities and the wider world.

The history of bookmobiles in Virginia dates back to the early 20th century, with county-wide services beginning in places like Fairfax County in 1940. These services were often supported by initiatives like the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which provided trucks and funding to keep the bookmobiles running. The dedication of librarians and the enthusiasm of the communities they served ensured that bookmobiles remained a cherished part of rural life for decades.

“DRINK because you are happy, but never because you are miserable. Never drink when you are wretched without it, or you will be like the gray-faced gin-drinker in the slum; but drink when you would be happy without it, and you will be like the laughing peasants of Italy. Never drink because you think you need it, for this is rational drinking, and the way to death and hell. But drink because you do not need it, for this is irrational drinking, and the ancient health of the world.”

– G.K. Chesterton, Heretics

FRIDAY'S LEAD STORIES, NYT

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WILL CONGRESS FORCE THIS CONTROVERSIAL ALCOHOL STUDY TO STOP?

by Esther Mobley

Members of Congress are calling for a suspension of a controversial committee that could recommend that Americans reduce their alcohol consumption.

For months, alcohol industry voices have expressed concerns that scientists on this committee — part of the review process for the upcoming revision of the U.S. Dietary Guidelines — have demonstrated biases against alcohol, which they say could render any recommendations they make untrustworthy.

Now, it appears that a sizable number of U.S. representatives agree. “There’s a strong feeling among my colleagues that this is a concern,” Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Napa, told the Chronicle. Last week, he co-wrote a letter to the heads of two federal agencies asking for the alcohol-review committee to be suspended. It was signed by 113 of his congressional colleagues.

“When these studies are undertaken, they need to be done in an open transparent process, and I don’t think you stack the deck,” Thompson said. But in this case, he wrote in the letter, the scientists on the committee in question “were not appropriately vetted for conflicts of interest.”

Thompson’s letter is a significant development in what has become the major issue looming over the beleaguered wine industry this year. The U.S. Dietary Guidelines is due for a review in 2025, an effort for which Congress appropriated $1.3 million. For this revision, federal agencies instituted an unprecedented extra step. In addition to the typical review by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, the Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services commissioned a study to look at alcohol consumption specifically. This second study falls under the purview of the Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Prevention of Underage Drinking (ICCPUD).

One of Congress’ concerns with this set-up is the redundancy of having two separate studies. “We’re paying twice for it,” said Thompson. Moreover, he said, the ICCPUD committee — unlike the standard process undertaken by the National Academies — is not accountable to Congress. “This duplicative study has been commissioned without any congressional input, without transparency, without any type of public knowledge or vetting of the board members,” he said.

All six scientists on the ICCPUD committee are experts in substance-use disorders, which has drawn criticism from wine industry advocates. They argue that any study of alcohol consumption should include input from cardiologists and other experts who can examine alcohol’s effects beyond just chronic use. Some members of the panel have also received funding from anti-alcohol groups.

Thompson characterized the ICCPUD panel as “secretive,” and it’s worth noting that even some anti-alcohol groups have objected to the lack of transparency around the committee’s formation and its work. The possibility of bias informing public policy, Thompson said, “should concern everybody, be it on alcohol consumption, egg consumption or sun consumption.”

The 2025 Dietary Guidelines update is drawing particular scrutiny because it is unfolding amid a shifting global sentiment toward drinking. Last year, the World Health Organization declared that there was “no safe level” of alcohol consumption. Although it appears unlikely that the American guidelines will go so far as to mirror that advisory exactly, there’s a widespread sense that the ICCPUD panel might find the current levels of consumption considered safe by the U.S. Dietary Guidelines — up to two drinks a day for men and one for women — excessive.

Of course, Thompson and some of his fellow representatives have their own reasons to push back against a process that could result in negative effects to the wine industry. His district includes the most famous wine region in the country, and his co-author on last week’s letter, Dan Newhouse, represents a major wine region in Washington state, the Yakima Valley.

Still, Thompson said that gathering 113 signatures on short notice, during a time when Congress’ attention was primarily directed toward avoiding a government shutdown, was “pretty spectacular.” Now, he waits for a response from Secretary of Agriculture Thomas J. Vilsack and Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra.

“We went through this in the 1990s, where there was a very aggressive effort by the anti-alcohol community,” Thompson said. “A lot of that was dampened because of scientific evidence that suggested that they were off base. So these things never go away.”

(SF Chronicle)

WHAT ABOUT DOUG?

When WILL an interviewer ask the question that would finally expose her fraudulent campaign?

by Maureen Callahan

I'm starting to believe there's a media conspiracy to get Kamala elected!

What about Doug?

Kamala Harris was challenged on several issues by Fox News's Bret Baier on Wednesday night, but her husband's very troubled history with women was not among them.

How was this not the first question?

We've heard Kamala's canned answers on everything else ad nauseam. But when it comes to a multi-sourced claim that in May 2012, Doug Emhoff hit his then-girlfriend in the face so hard that she spun around — in full view of a valet line outside an A-list gala in France — Harris apparently has nothing to answer for.

Democrats are the party of “believe all women,” of “protect all women,” and abortion rights especially.

The obvious question is: Does Kamala, the prosecutor who boasts she was motivated by the sexual abuse suffered by her teenage best friend, believe this woman?

Does she believe the nanny, who Doug Emhoff allegedly impregnated during his first marriage?

After all, Doug has admitted the affair but hasn't denied the pregnancy.

Nor has he denied reports that he paid the nanny $80,000 to go away and made her sign an NDA. He has not denied reports that the LAPD was called to the nanny's house, at the time she was allegedly pregnant, for a level-three emergency — meaning a life-threatening situation.

Baier's Wednesday interview was commendable on several fronts, not least his willingness to push back on Harris's filibustering and her blather, meant to paper over gaps in her knowledge and eat up valuable time — time that Baier says was cut short by the vice president and her team, who arrived to an already brief interview well after its start time.

As Harris sat in a defensive posture, legs crossed and wrists wrapped over knees, Baier asked this great question, posited by no other journalist thus far:

“You told many interviewers that Joe Biden was on his game, that [he] ran circles around his staff. When did you first notice that President Biden's mental faculties appeared diminished?”

Now that's cooking with gas.

Harris paused. Her brow furrowed. Her eyes searched for an answer that did not include the phrases “opportunity economy,” “aspirations, dreams, and goals,” “work ethic,” “lift people up, not beat people down.”

Her operating system buffered for a good few seconds. Then she told a blatant lie.

“Joe Biden,” she said, “I have watched from the Oval Office” — up came the hands, forming brackets that move up and down as if to indicate heavy, profound thoughts — “and the Situation Room” — her tandem head nod comes in now — “and he has the judgement and the experiment, the experience, to do exactly what he has done in making very important decisions on behalf of the American people.”

That must be why every Democratic Party elder, including Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama, all but physically forced him to withdraw from running for a second term.

Kamala also pulled a stealth deflection, repeatedly asking Baier a version of, “Are you going to let me finish?”

The subtext was clear: Are you, a male journalist, really going to cut off — dismiss, disregard, disrespect — a woman? Potentially the first female president of the United States?

Which reminds me of this classic Kamala-ism, delivered to Baier in full-throated outrage against Trump as “the president of the United States, in the United States of America!”

There is nothing remotely sexist about an interviewer telling a subject that their answers are repetitious, banal or cliché. Or that their limited time will be best spent eliciting specifics and deepening the conversation, not spinning verbal wheels till the clock runs out.

To that point: As Baier tried to wrap up, Kamala — who clearly thought she was on fire — kept pushing back and talking, talking, talking, until Baier had to tell her that her own team (four of them, he later said), were frantically demanding a halt to this disaster.

Among the many qualities Kamala lacks, self-awareness is right up there.

Indeed, she and Doug have made women's rights a centerpiece of her presidential campaign, despite the obvious chance these dark allegations from his past would emerge.

Here was Doug to MSNBC's fangirl Jen Psaki on September 29, weeks after the nanny affair story broke:

“When we lift up women, we lift up families, we lift up the economy,” he shamelessly said. “And when I was in the business world, it lifted up the organizations that I was in.”

Tell that to the women who worked at Emhoff's law firm, who have since come forward to claim a culture of misogyny and poor treatment.

As several former employees told the Daily Mail, Emhoff allegedly punished women who didn't flirt with him, hosted men's-only drinks nights in the office, and preferred to have young and attractive female associates to accompany him in limos to big events.

What a guy.

In the aftermath of these disturbing claims, Kamala and Doug doubled down on social media. On Sunday, Kamala posted a lovey-dovey message on Instagram.

“Happy birthday, my Dougie,” she wrote. “You are the best, and I love you to pieces.”

That same day, Doug posted photos of himself with his daughter, Ella — you know, the one whose nanny he slept with — when she was a baby, writing:

“Through this campaign I've found myself thinking a lot about the role we as dads have to play in fighting for a future that empowers our daughters.”

That's Doug Emhoff: Ultimate girl dad, right? And if you don't believe it, see his recent photo with Julia Roberts in a Harris-Walz cap.

This brazenness, this use of women to valorize Doug and Kamala, gets to the real problem with her candidacy: She's inauthentic, hypocritical, and avoids any issue that might cause her to be — God forbid — uncomfortable.

Depressingly, the mainstream media obliges, all too happily.

The one person who has pretended to venture into this ungodly realm is MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, who last week asked a generic, flowery question that discredited these women's disturbing claims.

Oh — and of course, both Doug and Scarborough blamed Trump for spreading scurrilous “tabloid stories” about Doug's “personal life.”

To be clear: These are not stories about Doug's personal life. These are stories about the women he allegedly mistreated.

“We don't have time to focus on it,” Emhoff said. “It's all a distraction.”

Inconvenient women are a “distraction”? Got it.

Shame on Scarborough. Shame on all the media lackeys carrying Kamala and Doug's water. If this were a Republican candidate, the New York Times and co. would be digging through this guy's history like archeologists.

Kamala's next big interview is rumored to be with Joe Rogan. If she has any real guts, if she wants to show her true mettle, she'll next sit down with a right-leaning or centrist female journalist — Megyn Kelly or her increasingly rare ilk — and take all the questions about Doug, the nanny, the ex-girlfriend, and his alleged workplace culture of misogyny.

In the very likely event that Kamala will do no such thing, the responsibility falls to whoever gets the next interview.

The only question is: Will they be brave enough?

*Falstaff at the table with a wine jug and pewter cup* (1910) by Eduard von Grützner

HARRIS PRAISES KILLING OF SINWAR AND EARNS ELECTION DEFEAT

October 17, 2024

Remarks from the White House by Vice President Harris on the Death of Yahya Sinwar:

Today, Israel confirmed that Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, is dead and justice has been served, and the United States, Israel, and the entire world are better off as a result.

Sinwar was responsible for the killing of thousands of innocent people, including the victims of October 7 and hostages killed in Gaza. He had American blood on his hands.

Today, I can only hope that the families of the victims of Hamas feel a sense and measure of relief.

Sinwar was the mastermind of October 7, the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust — a terrorist attack that killed 1,200 innocent people and included horrific sexual violence and more than 250 hostages taken into Gaza, including 7 Americans, living and deceased, who remain in captivity; a terrorist attack that triggered a devastating war in Gaza — a war that has led to unconscionable suffering of many innocent Palestinians and greater instability throughout the Middle East.

In the past year, American special operations and intelligence personnel have worked closely with their Israeli counterparts to locate and track Sinwar and other Hamas leaders, and I commend their work.

And I will say to any terrorist who kills Americans, threatens the American people, or threatens our troops or our interests, know this: We will always bring you to justice.

Israel has a right to defend itself, and the threat Hamas poses to Israel must be eliminated.

Today, there is clear progress toward that goal. Hamas is decimated, and its leadership is eliminated.

This moment gives us an opportunity to finally end the war in Gaza, and it must end such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom, and self-determination. And it is time for the day after to begin without Hamas in power.

We will not give up on these goals, and I will always work to create a future of peace, dignity, and security for all.

ED NOTE: I'll bet a bunch of hostages will now be murdered in retaliation for the latest killing. What's to celebrate in any of this? A facebook friend told me the other day that if Trump's elected it will be my fault for voting for Jill Stein. I suppose I could go over to the party of Dick Cheney, Benjamin Netanyahu and genocide, but I'll risk Trump who, not so incidentally, is so obviously all bark and no bite he isn't even much of a boogeyman.

VOTE DEMOCRAT: THEY’LL DO IT JOYOUSLY!

WITH SINWAR DEAD, WE MUST END THE WAR IN GAZA

by Matthew Duss

The death of Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader who was believed to be the mastermind of the Oct. 7 attack, provides a new opening for the United States to meaningfully push for a cease-fire and hostage release in Gaza and for the de-escalation of violence across the Middle East.

While Mr. Sinwar was far from alone in resisting an agreement — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has repeatedly and openly undermined cease-fire efforts for months — his death can and must create new momentum to end this catastrophic and steadily widening war.

Born in the Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza in 1962, Mr. Sinwar turned to militant activism in the early 1980s, and was imprisoned at least three times by Israel in that decade. He was sentenced to multiple life terms for the murder of two Israeli soldiers and four Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel, and released from prison in 2011 as part of the prisoner swap for the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

Mr. Sinwar became Hamas’s leader in Gaza in 2017 and, with the Oct. 7 attacks, clearly hoped to set off a wider war against Israel. In the months that followed, while he was known to support an agreement for a permanent end to the war, he steadfastly refused the imposition of any new Israeli conditions.

A majority of Hamas’s senior leadership now resides outside of Gaza, mostly in Doha, Qatar, making it potentially easier to strike a deal. But for such a deal to be durable, it would need to really end the war, not simply start a new chapter of an Israeli military presence in Gaza.

If Mr. Sinwar truly was the obstacle to a cease-fire agreement that U.S. officials — including President Biden — have claimed, that obstacle is now gone. The United States and its partners have a window to halt the downward spiral to regional conflagration. The Biden administration must press the Netanyahu government and remaining Hamas officials to end the war in Gaza, return hostages to their families, surge humanitarian aid into the territory and urgently take other steps to ensure that Gazans have adequate shelter, supplies and security as winter approaches.

All of that will require fresh diplomatic pressure on both sides, including a willingness for the Biden administration to withhold offensive arms to Israel if it does not cooperate. The United States should simultaneously renew its abandoned push for an immediate cease-fire in Lebanon that allows civilians to safely return to their homes on both sides of the border. In furtherance of those aims, the Biden administration should also urge Israel to refrain from potentially escalatory strikes on Iran.

Hawkish voices are raising arguments now in both Jerusalem and Washington that Israel should press its advantage by further broadening the war. But U.S. and Israeli leaders and policymakers should have the strategic wisdom to resist the temptation for such overreach. (Indeed, statements from Vice President Kamala Harris and other administration officials have indicated that they see this as a moment to de-escalate.)

As President Biden said nearly five months ago when he announced his cease-fire proposal, Israel has already achieved its major security objective of ensuring that Hamas is no longer capable of carrying out another Oct. 7-type attack. Unfortunately, after months of intense diplomatic effort, that deal withered in part because of Mr. Biden’s confounding refusal to impose any costs on Mr. Netanyahu despite acknowledging that the Israeli leader was possibly prolonging the war for his own domestic political purposes. Even more troubling has been the Biden administration’s tacit support for the Israeli incursion into Lebanon, apparently driven by the false assumption that military violence will reshuffle the regional security deck in a way that is advantageous to Israel and other American allies.

History shows that this is folly. The only certain destination on that path is more death, destruction and chaos.

There’s no question that Israel’s decapitation of Hezbollah’s leadership in Lebanon in recent weeks was an impressive tactical feat — though, as in Gaza, with enormous destruction, death and displacement of civilians. Mr. Netanyahu seems to believe he can administer a decisive blow against the Middle East’s so-called Axis of Resistance and its central node in Tehran. But no one has ever doubted Israel’s tactical capabilities; its problem has always been turning those victories into strategic wins.

On the other hand, while Iran’s leadership has been dealt a series of serious and humiliating defeats, it has a record of turning short-term setbacks into strategic regional gains. Historically, Iran has been able to exploit the blundering overreach and hubris of its enemies, and has had the mystifyingly great fortune of adversaries who continually make such blunders. Israel in Lebanon in the early 1980s, the United States in Iraq in the 2000s, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in Yemen in the 2010s: All of these costly interventions provided opportunities for Iran to build new partnerships and significantly increase its strategic depth.

The destruction, pain and hatred unleashed by Oct. 7 and the Gaza war will take a generation to heal, probably more. Ending this war that has left tens of thousands dead and hundreds of thousands more displaced, wounded, sick, orphaned or starving is both a moral and strategic necessity.

It is imperative to seize this moment and move off the current path toward larger conflict that could imperil millions more to one that seeks to face and resolve the underlying and intertwined conflicts in the region. Only the United States has the power, the relationships and influence to steer us toward that path. Amid the chaos and destruction in the region, President Biden must use it.

(Matthew Duss is the executive vice president of the Center for International Policy. He was a foreign policy adviser to Senator Bernie Sanders.)

Richard Diebenkorn - Sleeping Woman, 1961

HARVEST MOON

Come a little bit closer
Hear what I have to say
Just like children sleepin'
We could dream this night away

But there's a full moon risin'
Let's go dancin' in the light
We know where the music's playin'
Let's go out and feel the night

Because I'm still in love with you
I want to see you dance again
Because I'm still in love with you
On this harvest moon

When we were strangers
I watched you from afar
When we were lovers
I loved you with all my heart

But now it's gettin' late
And the moon is climbin' high
I want to celebrate
See it shinin' in your eyes

Because I'm still in love with you
I want to see you dance again
Because I'm still in love with you
On this harvest moon

— Neil Young

Contemplating Alberto Giacometti's sculptures at the Venice Biennale, 1962 (Alexander Artemiev)

18 Comments

Jacob October 18, 2024

RE: FORT BRAGG TAX MEASURES ON NOVEMBER BALLOT

Although this article is technically accurate, I think it is a little misleading. First, 60% of the sales tax will be paid by locals not tourists. The “majority” of the two proposed tax increases will be paid by tourists only because they will pay 100% of the TOT. People vote on these separately and I know many voters who voted yes on the TOT but no on the sales tax. Second, both tax increases are general taxes that the city council can use to pay for anything they want, not just the expenses listed as examples in the article. For example, it mentions creating a secure funding stream for affordable housing. That isn’t actually true. It would create a secure funding stream for the City of Fort Bragg for any expense but there is no guarantee any money will go toward affordable housing initiatives. That said, the City’s financial situation suggests a need for additional tax revenue or significant cuts may be necessary in a few years. In my opinion, the question voters need to ask themselves is if the City’s need/desire for additional tax revenue is greater than the need of local taxpayers to keep their money to pay for their own essential expenses like rent, food, and gas. The TOT increase is a much easier answer since it is only paid by tourists staying in local lodging and they clearly benefit from our local services and infrastructure while they are here and don’t pay into the tax base all the ways locals do.

Reply
- Jacob October 19, 2024
  
  After speaking with City Manager Isaac Whippy about the two tax measures, he assures me that the City is already developing the affordable housing programs that this money will help fund even if the money isn’t legally restricted the same way a special tax would be. In fact, many of these initiatives were discussed at the last City council meeting on October 15, 2024, which you can watch at https://www.city.fortbragg.com/government/city-council/council-meeting-live-stream. I trust Isaac in a way that I can’t say was merited for his predecessors so I believe that he is dedicated to trying to address our housing crisis as well as economic development. And, as I said before, the City of Fort Bragg really does need additional revenue not just to fund community priorities like affordable housing but to help pay for our existing programs and services and to help address unfunded pension liabilities that are projected to increase in a few years. If I have to choose between a modest tax increase for the City versus the County, the City will win every time.
  
  Reply
chuck dunbar October 18, 2024

“DOGGEREL IN DEFENSE OF SWEET HONESTY”

“Sorry Kunstler distresses you,” writes our Editor today, responding to a witty complaint from our old friend and poet Bruce McEwen.

Can’t resist a little note:

A sincere apology by Editor Bruce? 
Or merely a sop to let you know—
It simply ain’t no use!

Hope all is well and good with you, Bruce. Good to see you’re still at it.

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BRICK IN THE WALL October 18, 2024

Wow, what an edition for Today…Bruce’s rendition over the Eel/Russian River/Potter Valley finally explains the whole enchilada. Thank you for such enlightenment! And Shields is on a Real Roll. Then add McEwen’ s poem and then Piers Morgan who i would respond “why is women’s sports a presidential sticking point when there are some other pressing issues at hand?”…realizing it is important to stand for sexual identification freedoms, but for the Orange one to feel he made a winning point seems an oxymoron in concept. Remember the Alamo, but don’t forget about January 6th.

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- Jacob October 18, 2024
  
  Shields’s thoughtful and thorough writing consistently is my favorite part of MCT.
  
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Bob Abeles October 18, 2024

Mr. McEwen’s doggerel offering is spot on. At least I think so.

Regarding Kunstler, I don’t mind reading opposing viewpoints. I do mind when the AVA promotes the ravings of a lunatic whose point of view has its roots in some peculiar psychosis. Kunstler clearly requires an intervention. I hope for his sake he hasn’t driven away those around him and that they get him the help he so badly needs.

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- Jacob October 18, 2024
  
  I actually like several of Kunstler’s novels, although I have always had a penchant for apocalyptic stories. Perhaps he has hard time distinguishing from his fication and what is actually going on in the world.
  
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- Bruce Anderson October 18, 2024
  
  Er, Bob. I don’t “promote” Mr. K, I post him as the best, and funniest writer on the other side, and as a welcome break from the catechism, if you get my drift.
  
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  - Bob Abeles October 18, 2024
    
    Bruce, I’d give you a pass if Kunstler presented a side that actually exists in the real world. It doesn’t.
    
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    - David October 18, 2024
      
      One of the great things about Kunstler is that he speaks from MY side of the world, the REAL side where we’re among many many millions like us.
      
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Jim Armstrong October 18, 2024

Bruce:
I usually like to make necessary corrections to your articles about the Russian and Eel Rivers.
I can’t even count the mistakes you make in today’s fantasy, let alone list them.

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Bruce Anderson October 18, 2024

Heck, Jimbo, give it a try. I always defer to your superior knowledge as a guy who benefits from The Diversion.

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- Jim Armstrong October 18, 2024
  
  Why not?
  
  I don’t just “benefit from The Diversion,” I need it like the air I breathe.
  
  Snow Mountain is 30 miles east. The tunnel was dug through the “Hill”. I’ll bet that (including whatever it is in Pomo), it has been that for 20,000 years.
  
  The Eel at Potter Valley is not the South Fork.
  
  A great deal of solid material (future sediment) is carried each year into Lake Mendocino from Potter Valley, the source of almost all LM water.
  When that water slows down at the north end of the lake, it begins to lose that burden. One of two things one can see at that end of the lake is the muddy plume contrasted with the much clearer water to the south. The sediment has covered the bottom there.
  The other, one not so plain, is that the features of the farm land once there (fence lines, stumps, foundations, etc.) are still fairly easy to see, far from “silted up.”
  
  There’s three, got lots more.
  
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  - Bruce Anderson October 18, 2024
    
    Thanks, Jim. You’re the first learning experience I’ve had this afternoon.
    
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    - Jim Armstrong October 18, 2024
      
      Part Two; see Bruce’s piece above to compare.
      
      The first dam is Cape Horn Dam, it forms Van Arsdale Reservoir. The second dam is Scott Dam, it holds back Lake Pillsbury. It was built to provide year-round flow, not to overcome siltation,
      
      Lake Mendocino is held back by Coyote Dam, not only the first but the only dam on the Russian River.
      
      “5 acre feet falls, on average, on one acre of Mendocino County ground.” I guess that is a way to say 5 feet (60 inches) falls on each acre. At Honeydew, maybe, county wide is more like three to four.
      
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Harvey Reading October 18, 2024

TRUMP’S SO RIGHT TO SAY HE’D BAN TRANS ATHLETES IN WOMEN’S SPORTS

Sports are stupid exercises to begin with. They are nothing more than combat play. Humans love war and competition. Fortunately the idiots are well on their way to self-extinction.

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- Marco McClean October 18, 2024
  
  Harvey, that was the first thing I thought, too. School sports don’t make good citizens, they’re much more likely to generate team-playing bullies. The /dis/organized way kids used to play, making up the rules as we went along, and spending whole days of summer or weekends and whole afternoons on school days in amorphous groups of all ages with zero adult supervision arguably were no more dangerous and a lot more fun. Though, my stepbrother Mark liked to play something called rugby in his late teens. Almost every rugby game involved a trip to the emergency room for someone. At one game in the city park I realized that the brute steady-state red-eyed muddy violence was more boring to watch than ballpark or even teevee sportsball games. I mean, let’s get somebody to buy us some cigarets and go down to the river and smoke them, and swim, and browse in the vast cool dim cluttered catacombs of the army surplus store. Just get an idea, pick anything at random and ride your bike there and do that.
  
  Speaking of which: I’m wrapping up getting my radio show ready for tonight. Looking through the material I see that there’s more I liked from the AVA than usual this week. And the archive.org library is still down right now because of wankers, so I’ll probably have to put off continuing Lord of Light by Roger Zelazy for another week, and replace that with something surprising. Memo of the Air starts at 9pm every Friday on KNYO, 107.7fm in or near Fort Bragg, knyo.org there and everywhere else, and goes till 5am. (The first hour is on KAKX Mendocino, too. That’s 89.3fm near Mendo.)
  
  And tonight, earlier than that, from 7pm to 8, KNYO will be broadcasting open mic night. KNYO, 325 N. Franklin. Go there with your instrument and/or act and participate in real community radio. I wish I could go, but I’m 100 miles away, doing my show by remote. Also, I’ve got back in contact with Alex Bosworth, whose life has been a comic nightmare rollercoaster of health issues and substance abuse issues and lately also legal issues and homelessness and jail. He might call near the beginning of my show. We’ll see.
  
  Marco McClean, memo@mcn.org, https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com
  
  Reply
Craig Stehr October 18, 2024

Have provided beverages and food at the Washington, D.C. Peace Vigil. Am presently on a public guest computer at the MLK library. Will go to the Adam’s Place Homeless Shelter for the night. Nothing else in view here. Awaiting everything. Weather is pleasant and changing. If you wish to know anything else, toss the yarrow stalks and consult the Yi Jing.
Craig Louis Stehr
Adam’s Place Homeless Shelter
2210 Adams Place NE #1
Washington, D.C. 20018
Telephone: (202) 832-8317
Email: craiglouisstehr@gmail.com
October 18, 2024 Anno Domini

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Mendocino County Today: Friday 10/18/2024

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