Mendocino County Today: Sunday 10/20/2024

By AVA News Service on October 20, 2024

DRY WEATHER and above normal interior temperatures today. A shortwave trough will bring increasing moisture, with a chance for light to moderate rainfall tonight and Monday morning. Cooler temperatures can also be expected into early next week with and after the passing or a shortwave trough. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): Clear skies & 48F on the coast this Sunday morning. Scattered periods of patchy fog (maybe a shower tomorrow morning?) this week leading to a chance of rain on Thursday. Looks like we might see some passing high clouds today.

NO ON ALBION'S MEASURE S

Sydelle:

Hi neighbors,

"This is not an easy email for me to post, but the subject has been weighing heavily on me.

Measure S and why I’m voting no.

I have been an active supporter of the Albion Little River Fire Department.

Measure S is asking for an increase in our current property tax assessment - raising if from the current $75/parcel + $75/each dwelling on the parcel to $300/parcel + $300/each dwelling + an annual compounded assessment of 2% increase each year. This means that instead of paying $150/yr for the fire department, the tax would rise to $600/yr and get bigger every year as the 2% is cumulatively added on.

Our fire chief told us that he is paid at $90,000 year. The additional proposed increased is to fund 4 more paid firefighters + help in maintenance of equipment and further purchases.

We would then no longer have a volunteer fire department. We would have a mixture of paid and volunteers. This creates an uncomfortable imbalance - some paid, some not. I wonder about the impact of that when the department is asking for volunteers, but they wouldn’t be salaried.

I believe that the only other local fire department that has a paid chief is Ft. Bragg. Mendocino fire chief is not salaried.

I feel that there has been very little opportunity for a community discussion about this, before it was even put on the ballot.

There were two meetings locally about this, only within the last few weeks. I have attended one of the meetings, and it raised more questions for me than answers.

I think we need more time to consider what to do about supporting the fire department and that the current proposal feels to me to be premature and insufficiently explored by us.

Well, that’s my thinking and why I am in opposition to this ballot proposal.

Wendy Meyer:

Sydelle: I respect your right to vote your conscience. Please provide correct facts to other voters however.

The ALRFPD chief IS paid $90,000 per year. Compared to rural fire districts across the country, he is underpaid by about $30,000 per year. He receives no benefits - zero. The Fort Bragg chief is salaried because Fort Bragg is a city, and as such, is a paid city employee. however the pay for their chief is $146,305.00, and the chief there receives pretty good benefits. Other local fire district chiefs who are paid are Hopland whos chief receives $125,126 plus benefits, and South Coast Fire Chief who gets $83,692. Other districts that pay their chiefs include Anderson Valley, South Coast Fire, Redwood Coast Fire and Little Lake Fire. Mendocino will eventually need to pay a chief - it is just a matter of time, and even then, they are in a substantially better financial position than most other departments to do so.

There were two public meetings locally about this, but the board of directors had been discussing this since last year at their board meetings - all of which are open to the public and have an agenda item specifically for input from the public. Unfortunately. no one comes to those meetings, even though these meetings provide ample opportunity for participation in the district. Quite frankly, no one was paying attention until this situation became dire and was put on the ballot. As a matter of fact, before the measure was put on the ballot the district was required to publish it in the newspaper. No one paid attention there either.

The fact that no one was given opportunity to think about, explore, suggest or participate is poppycock. Pure and simple.

The fact of the matter is that if we do not, as a community, support the fire district it may not go away, but it also may not be able to respond quickly due to lack of staffing in the event that there is a wildfire, or medical emergency. We have no one in the district trained or experienced enough right now to take over the position of chief other than the current chief. In the future, those who are qualified will look to areas that pay more and provide benefits. People are not volunteering like they used to, and new OSHA requirements for physicals will eliminate a good portion of those who may want to volunteer, but don't meet the standard. Right now, with a paid chief, we are guaranteed that at least ONE person will respond to emergencies in our district, and many times, that is the case. We live in an age of global warming and out of control wildfires and I, for one, don't want to leave protection of my family and my home to the possibility that someone may or may not be available to respond.

I ask you Sydelle - would you show up to an emergency knowing that just to be able to respond you would need a minimum of 240 hours of training (every Thursday night for three hours), be woken up in the middle of the night to get in your car and drive to the scene of an emergency, and then have to pass an intense physical in order to do all this? For nothing. No compensation. Perhaps back in the days when we filled buckets with water and passed them along a line to put out a fire every now and then it was ok, but the investment of time required today is invasive to a volunteer who also works full time perhaps one or two jobs just to live here and then has to train three hours a week, and then respond to emergencies in the middle of the night. That's a lot to ask of anyone.

Then we need to think about how all of this relates to our decreasing ability to obtain or keep insurance, which is totally based on our ability to get water flowing and fight fires. That's another hole we can climb down.

And I'm sorry it isn't worth paying $50 a month for this help. That's it. That's what the average homeowner would pay. Or even better, $1.69 per day. That's less than a cup of coffee. To have a strong fire department.

I hope you will reconsider your position, but again, we all need to vote our conscience.

RIXANNE WEHREN:

Thanks for speaking out. I too, feel that this is a bit excessive and has not been discussed. Adding $600+ to my current property tax is about a 20% jump., while my social security got only a 2% jump. More info needed.

LOCAL EVENTS

RE-ELECT LINDY PETERS

To the People of Fort Bragg:

I am writing to endorse Lindy Peters for the City Council of Fort Bragg, California. Having had the honor of serving alongside Lindy as Vice Mayor, Mayor, and Council member, I can attest to his unwavering integrity, hard work, and ethical standards.

For over 20 years, Lindy has dedicated himself to serving the people of Fort Bragg. His commitment to our community is evident in the countless hours he has devoted to ensuring that the needs and concerns of residents are heard and addressed. Lindy believes in transparent governance and has consistently prioritized the welfare of our city and its inhabitants.

Currently, Lindy is facing undue attacks from Jacob Patterson and the owners of the Skunk Train amid ongoing litigation with the City. It is vital to recognize that Lindy’s actions are not personal but rather a necessary effort to ensure compliance with city, state, and federal laws and zoning regulations. He is standing firm to protect our community’s interests, and this is a testament to his character and dedication.

Lindy Peters embodies the qualities we seek in our leaders: integrity, perseverance, and a strong sense of ethics. He deserves our support as he continues to work diligently for the betterment of Fort Bragg. I wholeheartedly endorse his candidacy and encourage everyone to stand with him in this important election.

Sincerely,

Will Lee, Former Mayor and Former City Council Member

BOOKING PHOTOS &C

https://www.currypilot.com/news/motorcycle-fatality-on-hwy-101-smith-river/article_ac600880-85c6-11ef-bf58-5faf547d7bf9.html

This is my local corporate rag. Country Media, Inc. is not concerned with the new prohibition it looks like. Shakiyla might have a nice settlement in her future.

I laughed out loud this morning at Shunka meaning “white doofus.” And chuckled quietly at Cherney never missing a shot at some funding. That guy has irked me for 40 years. Thanks for that and everything else you are doing.

Gary Smith

REMEMBERING THE PALACE

“Tom Carter, a longtime North Coast contractor with experience in turning old buildings into new uses, said Wednesday he secured the title of the Palace Hotel, the historic downtown Ukiah landmark.”

Shawna Buschman:

I spent my younger years in the Palace. My Grandmother Olga was a cook there and lived in the Hotel with my Mom. I remember running in and out of the “BackDoor” to the store across the street. Man how I miss those simpler days & times. I make regular trips to the Palace just to feel a little bit of that era & family that I miss so much. Here’s my little piece I’ve kept at home

UKIAH SHELTER PET OF THE WEEK

Wait A Minute! That’s not a dog!

This week’s Pet of the Week is Goatee. We’re figuring he’s about 2 years old. We don’t have much more to tell you other than he’s a very handsome guy, because Goatee doesn’t go for walks and spurns tennis balls and stuffie toys.

To see all of our canine and feline guests, and the occasional goat, sheep, tortoise, visit: mendoanimalshelter.com

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

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

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

LOSING IT IN MY 80s

Used to be able
To hold two thoughts in my head
Both at the same time
Then the first one went
Chasing after the second
And now they’re both gone

— Jim Luther

ED NOTES

THE ANDERSON VALLEY is never more beautiful than it is at this time of the year, with enough bright yellow from the poplars now grown in just enough profusion to perfectly supplement the rest of the deciduous autumnals’ annual display, and all of this splendor placed against the gold of the hills to the east, the green of the evergreens to the west.

YOU ARE either on the bus or off the bus, as Ken Kesey dictated some years ago, and most of us know that Boonville is home to the legendary school bus driver, Shorty Adams, ret. Shorty had logged more than three million safe miles behind the wheel of the big yellow machine without ever having given a kid the heave-ho, and he transported the usual number of unruly children who’ve been fast-forwarded through the genetic process from simian to sixth-grader. Shorty maintained order partly through force of character — for a little guy he could also be quite formidable in a physical sense, and would get directly in your face regardless of how big you were or who your mommy and daddy happened to be, and because he’d been at it for so many years Shorty could remember driving your grandmother to school. You acted up and Shorty would remind you that your parents never acted this way, and what would they think if they saw you now? Shorty's been confined to sick bay for some time now, and all of us still see him driving that big bus up and down Highway 128.

THERE WAS ANOTHER Boonville bus driver, Bible Bill as he was called, who had a hard time with the kids, but Bible Bill didn’t blame them, or their parents, or television, or Hostess Ho-Ho’s. He blamed the devil. One day, with feral little ones merrily bouncing around his bus to the tunes of high decibel f-words, Bible Bill pulled off to the side of the road and called the bus barns for a replacement driver. “I can’t go on today,” he said. “I feel Satan’s presence is so strong something bad is going to happen unless I get off this bus.” And he did, and Satan spared his junior disciples, and Bible Bill had saved the kids from hell’s fire, although parents and the school authorities were more perplexed than grateful.

AS MAJOR Mark Scaramella, USAF ret, can and does often tell you, the County’s current budget mess goes much deeper than just authorized but unfilled positions and ballooning Teeter Plan debt. Sloppy budgeting is one of the main reasons that so little gets accomplished in Mendocino County. If you don’t budget for something with a deadline and a distinct work product for the budgeted funds, you never get much for your money. If your budget is just a list of departments and what it costs to staff them, maintain their computers and pay their office expenses, that’s all you get: staffing, computers and offices with no discernible output or product. “Work” in these ill-defined departments (particularly Public Health and Mental Health) typically include staffers gabbing on the phone and sitting for hours in blah-blah meetings. The County, of course, being essentially unmanaged for decades, avoids project or caseload budgeting because that would require actual cost estimates and might lead to annoying questions about why the projects aren’t done or why workload is becoming backlog or exactly what purpose does So and So serve?

ALMOST NO ONE from the general public attends the final budget hearings in late August. And why should we? The budget is so jargonized and gibberish-ridden that nobody (with the notable exception of Cowboy John Pinches) could understand it if they wanted to, much less comment intelligently on it.

TRY DECODING THIS, MENDO:

A brief PowerPoint presentation referencing the Proposed Budget and the sequence of events undertaken in this year’s budget development process. Contained within the presentation was a review of pertinent program accomplishments, including the following highlights: The budget development process; Recognition of the County budget team, Department Heads and staff; Programmatic Highlights in the functional areas of County government; The creation of the Health and Human Services Agency (HHSA), the General Services Agency (GSA), and the study of Criminal Justice facility master planning; Planning Team projects and accomplishments [sic]; Impacts of employee meet and confer processes, including increases in employee wages and benefits.”

IF YOU can find anything in that load of pure bullshit even remotely close to an “accomplishment” we’ll lend you our senior pass for a free day on SF Muni. We do note the clarity of the last phrase, however. When it comes to their own pay and perks there's never any confusion.

THE CHRONICLE recently featured a series of tired reminiscences about The Summer of Love from the same old Summer of Lovers — Wavy Gravy, Grace Slick, Country Joe and other A-List Hippies. The fairest assessment I've read of that dreary, foggy summer of race riots and prevalent bad urban vibes, comes from a fellow survivor named James Pendergast of Sonoma: “The Summer of Love per se may not have had much meaning, but many features of the counterculture had a great effect that is still powerful today: the organic food movement, the peace movement, sustainable agriculture, back-to-the-land, protecting the environment, ‘living lightly on the earth,’ ‘small is beautiful’ and more. On the other hand, I witnessed many transcendent examples of ignorance, naiveté, mindless hedonism, venality, and plain old American stupidity. And drugs ruined many promising things. As David Crosby said later, ‘We were wrong about drugs; we were right about everything else’.”

PROP 36: FALSE PROMISES

Dear Editor,

In his op ed piece of October 6, 2024 Adam Gaska explained his support for California ballot proposition 36 and his criticism of the Ukiah City Council for failing to endorse it. Since Mr. Gaska cited only one of the several reasons I offered at the meeting in support of my “No” vote, I would like to take this opportunity to more fully explain my position on Proposition 36.

I admire Mr. Gaska’s dedication to cleaning up homeless encampments and his sincere attempts to address this enormous problem. Unfortunately, in my view, he has been lured into believing the false promises touted by Proposition 36.

Dubbed the “Homeless, Drug Addiction, and Theft Reduction Act,” Proposition 36 is the wrong solution to all of these problems. It does nothing to alleviate homelessness and Mr. Gaska does not suggest that it does. Surely, here in Ukiah, we have a profound problem with retail theft, drug addiction and homelessness but 36 plays on the deep concerns and anger of well-intentioned voters without offering real solutions.

Prop 36 increases prison time for those who use drugs despite evidence that imprisonment for drug possession does not reduce drug use. Charging people with serious crimes that could result in imprisonment or jail is not going to lead to treatment. While it imposes mandated drug treatment in some cases, it will reduce funding and availability of such treatment. Moreover, eighteen California counties have no drug treatment programs.

Prop 36 includes no plan to increase services for drug addiction or getting those who need it most, i.e., the people on the street into treatment or wraparound services. Charging people with serious crimes that could result in imprisonment or jail will not lead to the treatment Prop 36 purports to mandate. And under the provisions of 36, someone who enters rehab and relapses as is common would be subject to incarceration for failing to complete a treatment program.

And what happens when the increased numbers of those incarcerated are released? It is well-documented that homelessness often follows release from jail or prison. In fact, according to a recent statewide study of homelessness, 19% of people experiencing homelessness or nearly 35,000 people on any given night enter homelessness from a prison or prolonged jail stay.

Prop 36 would return California to our worst days of ineffective mass incarceration while stripping approximately $100 million annually in funding for drug treatment, housing, re-entry services and school truancy prevention, the very things proven to prevent crime in the first place. The effect of 36 will be to cause more Californians to languish in jail or prison on low-level offenses while it will cost taxpayers an additional $5 billion a year on top of the $27 billion all ready devoted to jails, prisons and courts.

Moreover, in light of recent legislative reforms, the need for Prop 36 is questionable. The legislature passed and Governor Newsom recently signed comprehensive enhancements to criminal law for both retail theft and drug sales, particularly fentanyl for which there is now a three-year sentence enhancement for anyone selling more than a kilogram. District attorneys can add together thefts that are related, i.e., multiple thefts from the same store in the same week if they are less than $950 (the current ceiling for a misdemeanor charge) in value and charge them as a felony while police can arrest even if they do not witness a crime. Additionally, residential burglary, robbery and grand theft are all already felonies.

The misguided “solutions” offered by the proponents of Prop 36 will not address the frustrations of California residents regarding housing, substance abuse and retail theft. If passed, we will see more people cycling in and out of prisons and jails without a chance to get better. Prop 36 also fails to address the root causes of homelessness that are often due to the high costs of housing rather than solely because of addiction and substance abuse.

As a Ukiah City Council member, I refused to endorse Prop 36 because this measure exploits public anger and frustration without effectively addressing the issues it purports to resolve.

Susan Sher

Member, Ukiah City Council

SHERIFF KENDALL REPLIES:

RAISE THE BAR, STOP MAKING EXCUSES

Dear Editor-

I read the letter from Susan Sher, a member of Ukiah City Council.

This was titled “False Promises regarding proposition 36.” Prop 36 is basically a fix to Proposition 47. Prop 47 was clearly false promises and cleverly marketed by our legislators. Prop 47 in its most simplistic view was legislation aimed at draining our prison populations, however it was sold to the voters as a way to make us safer. Those two goals simply didn’t coincide with one another.

There are a couple of glaring omissions from this editorial, which sadly seem to be a sign of the times. Standard values that were once normal aren’t represented here. Values such as stealing anything from someone else are wrong. Also, I saw no mention of our victims of crime. Outside of the District Attorney and Law enforcement it doesn’t seem like anyone is thinking about our victims, no one is talking about our victims. In this editorial, no one is representing our victims. We see our leaders making excuses for some extremely bad behaviors and that is also an example of lowering the bar. When you argue for mistakes, you get to own them forever. It's time for the excuses to stop and accountability to begin.

When a person commits a crime, and that crime is investigated by a peace officer it begins a process of vindication and justice for the victims. The investigation is provided to the District Attorney who has the role of representing the victim and society, the defense represents the suspect. Throughout the prosecution, their work is overseen by our magistrates. Ultimately if found guilty, the duty of representing our victims and society is handed to our judges when they hand down a sentence. These judges are standing in for the victim because we need someone fair and impartial to represent the victims and society. It wouldn’t be fair if the victim was left to decide the punishment against someone who had victimized them. I see nowhere in this opinion any mention of justice for our victims.

I have written before about this strange new direction our state has gone. This is a case where the architects and engineers of the law (our legislators) are no longer speaking with the carpenters (Peace Officers and District Attorneys) who are tasked with enforcing the law. I see no mention of Council Member Sher speaking with leaders in law enforcement including our District Attorney, the Ukiah Chief of Police or myself. When confronted with issues that require one to be educated in, why not reach out to those who are educated in the field of study? That didn’t happen here and is another example of the architects not speaking with the carpenters.

The statements that Prop 36 would incarcerate drug dealers and users. There has been a push to move away from punishment for crimes as if a stay in jail is a horrific event, it isn’t. When I see addicts dying in the brush surrounded by trash and human feces, and compare it to the folks I see in our classrooms at the jail, learning, growing, and becoming more, even if it is just for the time they are incarcerated I absolutely see what is humane and what is not. The Mendocino County Jail isn’t “Shawshank State Pen”. Also, people have forgotten when someone is in custody they aren’t victimizing folks in neighborhoods.

Currently, a prison sentence in the State of California has become a lifetime achievement award for the most persistent criminal who has refused several levels of supervision and have continued forward on a life of crime.

Let’s face it, narcotics are killing people. Lots of folks are getting rich on the addictions of others and poison is being marketed, distributed, and paid for with the lives of our residents including our children. I don’t think any of us should be arguing for more of the same. It isn’t working and we can all see it. Our state legislators have stated time and time again the dealer didn’t know he was going to kill someone when he sold them drugs so they shouldn’t face incarceration. I’ve seen a lot of folks not intending to kill someone in an accident when they were drinking and driving, they still face the consequences.

Many parts of Prop 47 simply didn’t work and we can all see it. So why was Prop 36 being fought with such vigor in Sacramento? The real issue was a little deeper and darker than most folks realize. Prop 47 created a lot of savings by closing prisons, and these savings provided a lot of programs in which a lot of people began getting paychecks. I am all for these programs if they work, however they haven’t. In a recent CalMatters report, we see the state simply misplaced about one billion dollars which they couldn’t account for. This money had been funneled through grants to various groups to help solve homelessness. Obviously, this isn’t working and it’s not working to the point no one seems to know where a billion dollars went. So, when we ask about the price of Prop 36 who is asking about the funding spent on Prop 47 and the funding which had no effect and simply can’t be found? To the contrary statistics show homelessness and drug usage is up 53% since the passage of Prop 47. Who is asking about that? Recently Senator Ernst from Iowa brought forward reporting which shows our federal food stamp program is losing roughly 1 billion dollars a month to fraud and errors. No one is talking about that either.

There is a way to reduce prison populations, they would require work our legislators simply don’t have the backbone for. This work must begin with education, opportunities and accountability. Sadly, these are three things that California seems to be struggling with constantly. Draining prison populations in the correct fashion would have taken a long time and it would have placed the focus on these societal issues. People would have had to ask themselves how many failures in a system occurred prior to 911 ever being dialed. It was simply easier to blame the legal system. So, the easy way out was to simply decriminalize a whole lot of crime. That was lowering the bar, and we can see it didn’t work.

When we fall on hard times, the only solution is to raise the bar, not to lower it. If we ever want to see this change, it is time to raise the bar and stop making excuses for bad behaviors. Benjamin Franklin once said, “Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.” This makes me wonder if perhaps many leaders simply want us to wait until the entire nation is equally outraged and victimized before real changes can be made. We need to get back to basics, if you’re in a hole, perhaps you should stop digging.

Thank you

Sheriff Matt Kendall

LANSING STREET IN MENDOCINO, 1906

by Karen McGrath

A hand-colored promotional postcard created for the Fort Bragg Drug Store showing buildings along Lansing Street in Mendocino in 1906. The photograph from which this postcard was made was probably taken from the second floor of the Occidental Hotel, located at the southeast corner of the intersection of Lansing and Main Streets.

The building on the lower left side of the image (and which fronts Main Street) was originally William H. Kelley's store, built in 1871. At this time, it was occupied by Brown & Gray's General Merchandise. The sign above the door near the north end of the building reads, "Brown & Gray” and was probably the door to their office. In 1979, the 100+ year-old building was torn down and replaced with a similar structure.

Proceeding up the street north of the store building is the front gate and landscaped yard of Kelley's own house (not visible here).

Crossing Albion Street there is Switzer & Boyd's Livery Stables, originally Kelley's Fashion Stables, and built in 1872. It was torn down in 1923 and replaced with a Shell gas station and garage.

Up the street, in a building with a stepped false front, was another Kelley structure built by him in 1886 as a dance hall and skating rink. In 1888 it became Tivoli Hall, a large amusement hall with a saloon and restaurant. At the time this picture was taken, the saloon was gone, and it was known as Temperance Hall. It would become Kellieowen Hall in 1950.

Next is the Masonic Lodge with its distinctive rooftop statuary, which was finished in 1872. The small building with a red roof beyond it was constructed in 1901 as a pool hall and saloon by Nels Peter Anderson.

Proceeding northward and across Little Lake Street, the structure with a sign reading "Blacksmith" was the location for Emil Seman's blacksmith and wheelwright business, in operation until about 1947.

At the top of the hill is the newly constructed Saint Anthony's Catholic Church and Monastery. It burned in 1930 and was replaced the next year with a smaller church building.

The three water towers that appear in this image are no longer present. The tower on the far left was located on Albion Street behind the Switzer and Boyd Livery. The tower with the windmill in the image's center was located on Calpella Street, and owned by Kelley, but was originally built by engineer Gebhard Hagenmeyer. The white tower to its right is J. D. Johnson's and was located between Calpella and Ukiah Streets, next to his undertaking and carpentry buildings.

In the background on the hill sits the first Mendocino High School, built in 1894. Its water tower can be seen peeking above its roof. It was replaced in 1949 by a new structure placed on the former site, which was lowered eight feet.

KRIS KRISTOFFERSON’S MENDO COAST RANCH:

https://www.wideopencountry.com/see-kris-kristoffersons-massive-550-acre-ranch-on-sale-for-17-2m/

CATCH OF THE DAY, Saturday, October 19, 2024

MICHAEL BLAHUT, 51, Ukiah. Controlled substance, parole violation.

STEVEN DAVIS, 30, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

VIVIAN FINLEY, 60, Lucerne/Ukiah. DUI.

MAXON JARECKI, 21, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

CODY MENDEZ, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

NICHOL OBRION, Lakeport/Ukiah. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, probation revocation.

JONATHAN PHILLIPS, 23, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, controlled substance.

DARTANYAN ROBINSON, 36, San Francisco/Ukiah. Loaded handgun-not registered owner, concealed weapon in vehicle with prior, probation revocation.

TOBIN STEISKAL, 45, Fortuna/Willits. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

ZONK QUERIES

To the Editor:

I’m curious to know, is there any correlation between cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome and the type of weed or way it’s consumed? I myself am a daily smoker, and am aware that my own personal experience is anecdotal and may not relate to everyone. However, I am very cautious not to smoke vapes or extracts often, and most days only smoke real flower that doesn’t contain a very high concentration of THC.

Since the market is now flooded with new ways to consume weed — extracts, edibles, a range of disposable vapes, etc. — could differing methods (especially ones where the THC concentration is quite high) be more likely to induce C.H.S. and other disorders?

Weed is not new, but all of these new products with high levels of THC are. I wish we had more information about these new cases of C.H.S. being linked, or not, to these new products. I get a lot of great benefits from my smoking and would hate to lose them if these worries around C.H.S. and psychosis inhibit future sales and legality.

Kelsey Rose

Brooklyn

SHANE MCCARTHY:

One of the most bizarre, recent things I've learned: you can dispel hiccups by simply saying “hiccups aren't real.”

Just repeat that until they stop

No really, try it next time.

My coworker confirmed it worked, and I just had the chance to try it out, and after a few "chants" and mind over mattering it - they stopped outright.

The "science" theory behind it: hiccups are a vistigial survival response. Some theorize it's leftover from when our lungs/diaphragms had to expel water for whatever reason.

Super strange, but I'm curious if other people confirm it works for them.

FIRST KLAMATH RIVER SALMON SINCE 1912 REPORTED IN OREGON AFTER DAM REMOVAL!

For the first time in 114 years, biologists from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) have observed a fall-run Chinook salmon returning to spawning in the Klamath Basin in Oregon.

by Dan Bacher

On October 16, the ODFW documented this bright, beautiful fish in a tributary to the Klamath River, Spencer Creek, above the former J.C. Boyle Dam.

This is the first anadromous fish — a fish that migrates up rivers to spawn — to return to the Klamath Basin in Oregon since 1912 when the first of four PacifiCorp hydroelectric dams was constructed, blocking migration to historic habitat, according to an announcement from the ODFW. Hopefully, we will see the return of coho salmon and steelhead to the upper watershed soon.

Make no mistake about it — the dam removal couldn’t have happened without the protests, rallies, direct action and other efforts by Tribal members, environmentalists and fishermen over the past 20 years, including trips to Scotland when a Scottish corporation owned the dams and to Omaha, Nebraska after Warren Buffett bought the PacifICorp dams.

I have reported on the battle to restore the Klamath River in an array of publications since the 1990s — and was the lone journalist or one of the few journalists at some press conferences and events by the Tribes, environmentalists and fishermen when the movement for removing the dams began over 20 years ago. The return of salmon to Oregon waters is very welcome news to me.

This salmon traveled over 230 miles from the Pacific Ocean to reach Spencer Creek only a few weeks after Klamath River dams were removed to ensure fish passage from California to Oregon.

Tribal and ODFW representatives commented on the significance of the salmon returning to spawn in the Klamath Basin.

“The return of our relatives the c’iyaal’s is overwhelming for our tribe,” said Roberta Frost, Klamath Tribes Secretary. “This is what our members worked for and believed in for so many decades.”

“I want to honor that work and thank them for their persistence in the face of what felt like an unmovable obstacle. The salmon are just like our tribal people, and they know where home is and returned as soon as they were able,” noted Frost.

“This is an exciting and historic development in the Klamath Basin that demonstrates the resiliency of salmon and steelhead,” said ODFW Director Debbie Colbert. “It also inspires us to continue restoration work in the upper basin. I want to thank everyone that has contributed to this effort over the last two decades.”

"c’iyaal’s are culture carriers,” said Natalie Ball, Klamath Tribes Council Woman. “I'm excited for their return home and for us to be in relation with them again.”

The ODFW noted that biologists have been surveying the Klamath River and tributaries since dam removal as part of the agency’s responsibility to monitor the repopulation of anadromous fish species to the basin in collaboration with the Klamath Tribes and other partners, according to ODFW.

Mark Hereford, ODFW’s Klamath Fisheries Reintroduction Project Leader, part of the survey team that identified the fall-run Chinook, said his team was “ecstatic” when they saw the first salmon arrive.

“We saw a large fish the day before rise to the surface in the Klamath River, but we only saw a dorsal fin,” reported Hereford. “I thought, was that a salmon or maybe it was a very large rainbow trout?” Once the team returned on Oct. 16 and 17, they were able to confirm that salmon were in the tributary.”

ODFW, CDFW, the Klamath Tribes and other partners have been working together on this historic restoration project to monitor Chinook salmon, coho salmon, steelhead, and Pacific lamprey once they are able to repopulate habitat above the dams.

Michael Belchik, Senior Scientist for the Yurok Tribe, also was elated about the return of salmon to a Klamath tributary in Oregon.

“There are at least 4 adult salmon and a redd (nest) in Spencer Creek in Oregon,” said Belchik. “This is over 260 miles from the ocean and at an altitude of over 4,000 ft. and only 10 miles from Klamath Falls. These salmon climbed many class 4 and 5 rapids above the dam sites, and ascended a waterfall in the Klamath River just below Spencer Creek. Wow.”

“I cannot believe how quickly they found their way to their ancestral homes! I figured they'd go above the dam sites relatively quickly, but I thought it would take a few years for them to make it all the way to the Upper Klamath Basin. Salmon amaze me over and over again,” he stated.

"The salmon remember,” said Yurok Vice Chairman Frankie Myers in the San Francisco Chronicle.

In a Facebook Post, Shane Anderson of Swiftwater Films also reported on the return of salmon to the Klamath Basin in the river above the former Iron Gate Dam.

“The first chinook salmon in over 60 years are officially spawning above the former Iron Gate dam on the Klamath, just two weeks after construction wrapped on dam removal,” said Anderson. “Two days ago, a pair was spotted above Iron Gate and today we saw 36. The fish are bright, strong and beautiful. What an incredible few days and a testament to the resilience of salmon.”

On Oct. 15, spawning fall-run Chinook salmon were observed in Jenny Creek, a Klamath River tributary 4.3 river miles upstream of the former Iron Gate Dam location, the southernmost barrier of four dams removed from the Klamath River, according to a press release from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

“Additionally, adult fall-run Chinook are starting to return to CDFW’s newly rebuilt Fall Creek Fish Hatchery on Fall Creek, a formerly inaccessible tributary about 7.5 miles upstream of the old Iron Gate Dam,” the CDFW noted. “In addition to returning fall-run Chinook, an adult Pacific lamprey was observed swimming through CDFW’s fish counting station in Jenny Creek on Oct. 1.”

The movement to remove the dams was spurred by a massive fish kill on the Klamath River in September 2002 when over 68,000 salmon died on the lower river on the Yurok Reservation, the result of a Bush administration decision to divert water to farmers in the Klamath Basin despite legal challenges by the Yurok and Hoopa Valley tribes, environmentalists and fishing groups.

"The fish kill is a lot worse than everybody thinks," said a shaken Walt Lara, then the Requa representative to the Yurok Tribal Council, in a phone interview with me on September 23, 2002. "It's a lot larger than anything I've seen reported on the T.V. news or in the newspapers. The whole chinook run will be impacted, probably by 85 to 95 percent. And the fish are dying as we speak. They're swimming around in circles. They bump up against your legs when you're standing in the water. These are beautiful, chrome-bright fish that are dying, not fish that are already spawned out."

While the Klamath Basin is seeing the return of salmon to the Upper Basin for the first time since 1912, the fish still face other hurdles, including water diversions, water quality issues, climate change and warming ocean conditions. All ocean recreational and commercial salmon fishing and all recreational salmon fishing in California rivers was closed this year and in 2023, due to low adult fall-run Chinook returns on the Sacramento and Klamath rivers. Tribal harvest has been restricted to fish for subsistence and ceremonial use over the past two years.

But the salmon are now returning to their historic habitat, resulting in celebration among those who worked so hard for dam removal.

“The salmon are exceeding everybody’s exceptions,” said Craig Tucker, Natural Resources Consultant with the Karuk Tribe. “Not only does dam removal work, but it works almost immediately. I’m on cloud nine.”

What about criticism from opponents of dam removal and some dam removal supporters regarding sediment loads, fish deaths, wildlife strandings and other problems in the river during the deconstruction of the dams?

Tucker responded, “What we’re talking about is a revolutionary approach to restoring rivers and a revolutionary approach to social justice — and it takes some people time to come around to that. Big restoration projects are messy and you have to learn as you go to some degree.”

“Clearly Klamath dam removal is causing short term negative impacts as predicted, but the long term benefits to water quality and native fisheries will last for generations,” he concluded.

To see a underwater video of a fall-run Chinook Salmon on Oct. 16, 2024, in a tributary of the Klamath River after removal of the dams, go to: https://youtu.be/uqHou-eHwDg

NOT TO MENTION ALL THE JUICERS

Editor:

On Oct. 1, the front page read: “Legendary slugger Pete Rose dies.” The sports page used “Disgraced” in its headline. Rose did gamble. But baseball, like politics, chooses to either embrace or destroy those whom they target.

Rule 21, regarding gambling, was enacted in 1921 after the White Sox World Series scandal. Do you think players like Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth never bet on baseball? Cobb bragged about killing someone.

The Houston Astros blatantly cheated and got a slap on the wrist. Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn banned Willie Mays from baseball for being a greeter at a casino. The irony is that all sports are relentlessly involved in promoting gambling. The hypocrisy in baseball is astounding.

People aren’t perfect and neither is baseball. It took years to get reviews on close plays. Balls and strike calls are still obviously missed.

Tiger Woods is still embraced despite his tawdry past; Pete Rose is disgraced. Really?

Choose your words carefully. Rose will be in the Hall of Fame someday. Common sense often takes a long time. The Olympics took 70 years to give Jim Thorpe back the gold medals he so deserved.

Ozzie Osswald

Santa Rosa

RYAN ZETTLER:

Real classy with your “fuck Trump” signs in town and your kids or grandchildren sitting with them. Don’t wonder why I flipped you off.

MEMO OF THE AIR: Schrödinger's douchebag.

Here's the recording of last night's (Friday, 2024-10-18) 7.5-hour Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio show on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg (CA) and KNYO.org (and, for the first hour, also 89.3fm KAKX Mendocino): https://tinyurl.com/KNYO-MOTA-0614

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

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

"Overnight to Hawaii and beyond. Air travel of tomorrow, today. The Pan Am Clipper, pinnacle of comfort, speed, and safety in flight." You know how architects sometimes make a structure strange and beautiful because the materials and techniques finally exist to make it possible. Well, once we have light cheap airplane materials and powerful efficient electric motors and long-lasting batteries and practically free power, why not make airplanes like this again, that are a joy to look at and ride in and just fly around and live in them, and steal and smuggle things, like Serenity in /Firefly/, but real. (50 min.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tneNPSEy17U

Boys perform a heart transplant on a live rabbit (or cleverly pretend to), take top honors at 1958 Terre Haute Schulte High School science fair. Second prize was for Tesla-coil-powered atomic transmutation. Honorable mention was a pushbutton motorized map of all the earthquake faults in Southern California. Science fairs now? Lemon battery, 3D-printed virus, pea plants… What happened to us? https://www.weirduniverse.net/blog/comments/science_fair_heart_transplant

Art for Indigenous Resistance Day (second Monday in October). It's traditional on this day to shower, put on black slacks, best brogues, white shirt and a blood-red cardigan, and march down the center of the street singing Italian barbershop standards, but it's /polite and culturally apologetic/ to go alone to the Indian casino that is the central industry in your town anymore, like in /Back To The Future 2/, drink yourself shitfaced, lose the rent money, one zori and your car keys, and fall asleep on the curb in the parking lot. https://thisisnthappiness.com/post/664771265698152448/fuck-yo-statue-mark-bryan

And the mayor explains (with video). I show this because Fort Bragg, California, home of KNYO, is about to change its name away from slave-owning traitor to the Union, Confederate General Braxton Bragg. But it won't be Salami Town. It will be either The Palms, or Lindy Petersville. I'm thinking, Lindy Petersville because, ask anybody who they think of first when you say Mister Fort Bragg. It's Lindy Peters every time. https://theonion.com/mayor-explains-why-he-changed-city-named-after-slave-owning-founder-to-salami-town/

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

SAN FRANCISCO BAY BLUES

by Ron Jacobs

It wasn’t the sonorous saxophone melding into a lively piano solo that opens Miguel Zenón’s Golden City that began my most recent trip to San Francisco. Instead, it was the mechanical female voice of a recording on the BART train telling riders what the train’s next stop was. Although soothing, the voice on the train has nothing on that disc’s opening track, titled “Sacred Land.” Indeed, to combine the two in the same sentence is more of a device than a comparison. In fact, a better comparison might be the noise of the city that I was enveloped in when I exited the train up the stairs at the 16th and Mission station.

I used to live in the San Francisco Bay area. I wandered its many streets, camped illegally in some of its parks, rode its buses and subways, and enjoyed its culture. I also got harassed by its police, beaten and thrown in jail. I campaigned for its leftist politicians and opposed those who had sold their souls to the bankers and big business. I watched tall buildings go up and older ones get torn down. Its soundtrack was as varied as its people, and its people were as diverse as the flora in Golden Gate Park. We fought against homogenization and sameness and lived out our struggle daily. The joy of its music—from the psychedelia most popularly represented by bands like the Grateful Dead and Quicksilver Messenger Service to the funk of Sly and the Family Stone and the horns of Tower of Power—was celebrated in the streets, bars, parks and dance halls around the city. Despite the efforts of capital’s caretakers, the people’s history was everywhere: painted on the walls of schools and community centers, written up in local newspapers not beholden to the corporate state and even in the common conversation. Public life in the San Francisco Bay Area was a constant contest between the forces of liberation and control, people and profit. I left in 1985. Every time I visit, I can’t help but take note of that contest and who seems to be winning it.

The aforementioned recording Golden City is a rich, resonant and vibrant characterization of that contest and its history. Indeed, it is more than a representation; it is a poem and a prayer, a memorial and a prediction. A heartfelt desire for a future where a history of colonialism, exploitation and oppression is overcome. One hears the struggle of those who toiled in the sweatshops of US capitalism, making others wealthy while they struggled to maintain what can barely be considered an existence. The racism of the men who employed the immigrants—Asian, Latin American, and those from the US South—is an essential echo throughout the album. Some of the individual song titles reveal as much: “Acts of Exclusion” mourns laws forbidding Chinese from entering the United States, while “9066” reflects on the racist removal of those with Japanese heritage from their homes and into concentration camps during World War Two. “Displacement and Erasure” and “SRO” are reminders of a more recent history that saw neighborhoods transformed from communities of working-class families and individuals making a living and maintaining a life into ridiculously priced investments for the banking and tech industries whose main markers are profit and more profit. One wonders if their humanity is also measured in market gains or if they actually have none at all. Either response does not bode well.

Miguel Zenón is the band leader. His alto sax weaves in and out of his compositions, trading licks and harmonies with pianist Matt Mitchell, bassist Chris Tordini, drummer Dan Weiss, guitarist Miles Okazaki, and percussionist Daniel Diaz. The brass section, which is the backbone of this combo, features Diego Urcola on trumpet and valve trombone, Alan Ferber on trombone and Jacob Garchik on tuba and trombone. It’s rare that one band features so much trombone, but it’s what makes the sound here as sonorous and rich as it is. When listened to in the sequence laid down on the disc, the music reveals itself as a modern symphony, a musical homage to a city always in transition and in conversation with itself as to its identity and its future.

The purpose of my recent visit was to see friends and enjoy the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in the city’s Golden Gate Park. As I wandered between the various stages of the festival, I was reminded of the city’s conversation with itself. While Patti Smith and her band closed their Sunday afternoon set with her anthem, “People Have the Power,” I watched the crowd dance, keep an eye on their children, and look at their phones. Some were obviously financially well off, while others were barely getting by. Later on, I was buying beers for my friend and I from a fellow who had brought a couple cases over from the Haight specifically to make a few bucks, I watched as he and his friends greeted other street-savvy residents while Emmylou Harris and her band sang the Gram Parsons’ classic “Return of the Grievous Angel,” a song she recorded with him on their 1973 record of the same name. That weekend, I heard two versions of Jefferson Airplane’s 1967 hit song “White Rabbit”—a psychedelic version by the newgrass/bluegrass sensation Molly Tuttle and the Golden Highway and another equally psychedelic take by the rock band Moonalice. Ramblin’ Jack Elliott was joined by Steve Earle in a short set that included a couple tunes (Woody Guthrie’s “1913 Massacre” being one of them) and a few stories. Joan Baez joined Emmylou on the Steve Earle tune “God is God,” Bobby Rush sweated on stage while he tore it up with his style of the blues, challenging the crowd to keep up. These are just random flashes, not the weekend’s entirety.

When I got back to the airport a few days later, the television showed a hurricane named Milton hitting the coast of Florida. Meanwhile, the grit of the city was far away, hidden in the architecture of contemporary techno-totalitarianism that modern airports tend to be.

(Ron Jacobs is the author of several books, including Daydream Sunset: Sixties Counterculture in the Seventies published by CounterPunch Books. His latest book, titled Nowhere Land: Journeys Through a Broken Nation, is now available. He lives in Vermont. He can be reached at: ronj1955@gmail.com.)

THE DEMOCRAT CONVENTION

There were a number of prices to be paid for the euphoria of unanimity at the Democratic convention.

The big message of the convention was that, as New York senator Chuck Schumer put it, “We're here to talk about one thing: tomorrow.” But the biggest force shaping that future — the climate crisis — was barely mentioned until the final night, when it got a brief slot on the program. Harris name-checked it just once in her speech, when she touched on “the freedom to breathe clean air, and drink clean water, and live free from the pollution that fuels the climate crisis.”

Her charming running mate, Tim Walz, didn't mention it at all. Perhaps the subject does not adhere to the governing idea of the convention that there should be no market for darkness — or perhaps it raises too many awkward questions about the sustainability of some aspects of the American way of life.

Likewise, the convention went very big on veterans and the armed might of the US. Harris promised, “As commander in chief, I will ensure America always has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world.” The words “Iraq” and “Afghanistan” cropped up many times as Democrats who had served in those wars displayed their patriotic bona fides.

But there was not a single hint that the wars themselves were disasters or that there might be questions to be asked about the way America uses its lethal force. Or if any such questions were in the minds of delegates, they were drowned out in the chants of “USA! USA! USA!” that erupted with monotonous regularity.

It was clear that the Democrats had decided to take American nationalism back from Trump and use it to balance their bold celebration of diverse identities, the exceptional and infinitely powerful “unum” formed from the teeming “pluribus” of the multicultural population. No doubts were to intrude on that mission. The combination of joyous relief and determined unanimity may well power Harris and Walz all the way to victory in November. There is no mistaking the dynamism and the discipline of the convention or the way this rare combination created a controlled explosion of genuine enthusiasm, But refusing to be distracted from the single great goal of beating Trump has its dangers when many of the supposed distractions are in fact urgent realities.

The Democrats are hoping that the world beyond America will not intrude on their progress toward a genuinely historic victory. The world tends to have other ideas.

— Matthew Desmond

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

The only reason I can think of to endure a 30 minute interview with Kamala Harris, would be to glean some information that would make sense of the nonsense.

Bret Baier asked: "You told many interviewers that Joe Biden was on his game, that ran around circles on his staff. When did you first notice that President Biden's mental faculties appeared diminished?"

… and Kamala Harris replied: "Joe Biden, I have watched from the Oval Office to the Situation Room, and he has the judgment and the experience to do exactly what he has done in making very important decisions on behalf of the American people …"

ABRAHAM LINCOLN SAID that a country divided cannot stand, and here in the United States, it is extremely polarized. Just look at the Democratic Convention. I mean, they threw out Trump's name 289 times. It was more of a hate fest. It's not like “Vote for me. I'm going to do this. I'll run this better.” It's 'Vote for me because he's evil.”

— Martin Armstrong

Walter Kirn: When I watch it now, it’s pretty simple. She wouldn’t answer the questions and she wouldn’t let him ask the next one after she refused to answer. And she treated the questions as interruptions of her answers.

Matt Taibbi: Right.

Walter Kirn: So how do you have an interview under those conditions? Does he just sit back and let her talk? Does he not ask follow-ups? I mean, in a certain way, an interview does belong to the interviewer, even in debates, even when they get contentious, somebody might go over time, but they don’t talk over the question. And even in debates.

Matt Taibbi: Ultimately the function of a debate is to try to appeal to the audience. And what’s so interesting in this modern media landscape is that you’re never quite sure who the audience is. It’s different. It might be the interviewer has a different audience than the interviewee because… And I get that sense quite frequently with these exchanges. Now with Trump’s interviews, almost a hundred percent of his responses really only have meaning for his followers because what the viewers get from the conventional channels is usually some version of the interview that makes him look as dumb as possible and then is contextualized and wrapped in tons of commentary.

So although I think he does try to reach the other audience, I don’t know. I guess I’m trying to figure out exactly what the point of this whole thing was because she’s clearly not making an effort to either win him over or his audience over. And if that’s the case, we’re back at the same question.

Walter Kirn: I’ve already seen claims he was sexist and racist in his approach to her. I guess that’s par for the course these days if anything is less than completely friendly. But I also think, as I said, she wanted to throw a prosecutorial side even though there wasn’t really grounds for prosecution. The guy was just trying to ask questions.

She wanted to keep up the campaign theme, I guess in a place where they don’t usually get it. Fox News that Donald Trump is unstable. I mean, she went hard on that at some point. He’s crazy. He’s unstable.

Matt Taibbi: Yeah. This is the new mantra, even from three days ago when he was fascist to his core. They moved to instability times, did this huge piece about that, which is interesting, I think, because… I don’t know. I don’t know how you talk about that. There was actually an exchange in the interview where he asked when did you first notice that Joe Biden was unstable? And then she switched immediately to Trump’s instability. So what’s the point of that? I’m not really sure.

Walter Kirn: See, here’s my overall feeling about it. Okay? She may have been trying to make people incensed on her behalf at Unfair Treatment. I don’t know that she was appealing to the Fox viewer, which is people who watched Fox rather than independence. I think she was trying to erase this kind of cotton candy few days of being on all these popular entertainment shows. I’m just calling it as I see it. The more Kamala appears on TV the less idea I have of who she is. I just don’t know. And it’s one thing to have a politician who is supposedly smooth and maybe conceals their true self or conceals their true feeling. There’s often a feeling with Obama that his eloquence, some would say glibness and smoothness are a bit of an act, but you still have a sense of a person underneath it that you can identify.

A guy who likes music and basketball and reads books, and maybe likes to think of himself as an intellectual figure and so on. I can’t picture Kamala off camera at all. I don’t know. I don’t know what she does. I don’t know what books she reads. I don’t know what interests she has. I don’t know what she knows, basically. I mean, I remember when she said an answer to a question about having never been to the border, that she’d never been to Europe either. And it astonished me. I thought, how do you get this far in politics at the highest level without ever having been to Europe? Not only is she a cipher-

Matt Taibbi: Had she never been to Europe at all, or she just hadn’t been to Europe since she was vice president?

Walter Kirn: I mean, it was unclear to me. The most charitable explanation is that she just hadn’t been a while in office. But in any case, sincerely without any partisan element at all, I don’t know who she is. I don’t know what she believes. I don’t know what she likes. I don’t know what she thinks underneath the mask. I don’t even know that she is thinking underneath the mask. I’m not saying she isn’t, but I don’t see any way into guessing what it might be. I find her the most inscrutable candidate of my lifetime.

Matt Taibbi: And that is really interesting because I think that’s what Baier was trying to get to with this whole… I mean, that’s why you asked the question about the gender reassignment surgeries in prison because undeniably there’s video where she’s talking enthusiastically about that subject and seeming very proud of it. And she seems to want to be thought of as very progressive in that moment. That was five years ago. And I remember this watching her on the campaign trail. She had that persona a lot.

But now you wonder, “Okay, was that what she was really thinking or was that what she thought she needed to do to win that particular election?” You don’t really know. And the sense I get with her during this campaign is that she moves into these stages of perfect belief. Wherever I am now is what I… It’s what I always believe, or this is the real me as opposed to five years ago. And I think she’s actually genuine in that moment, which is a strange characteristic I think.

ACHIEVING THE AMERICAN DREAM HAS NEVER BEEN MORE EXPENSIVE; THE HEFTY PRICE TAG INCREASED BY $1M IN JUST A YEAR

by George Worrell

It costs an arm and a leg to live in the land of the free.

The price of the American Dream now stands at $4.4 million — a mind-boggling $1 million more than what it cost just a year ago and $1 million more than what most individuals earn in a lifetime, according to Investopedia.

The staggering sum is the estimated total cost for typical milestones — a wedding, raising two kids and paying for college, and buying cars and a house. It cost $3.4 million in 2023, the investment site estimated.

The cost of the American Dream in 2024 is $1 million more than what most envisioned.

A family buying eight new cars over about 45 years will spend $811,440 — which is $500,000 more and over 200% over 2023’s estimate of $271,330 for a family buying 10 used cars over 62 years.

The cost of purchasing and financing a home is now around $130,000 and 17% more than last year’s estimate.

Taking care of two pets — a cat and a dog — would now run the average American $36,626.

The cost of purchasing and financing a home is up to $929,955, around $130,000 and 17% more than last year’s $715,968 estimate, the outlet found.

The cost of raising two children over the span 18 years jumped to $832,172 — 44% higher than $576,896 in 2023. This factors in sending both kids to four-year universities.

The staggering sum is the estimated total cost for typical American milestones.

Taking care of a cat and a dog would run the average American $36,626; a funeral, $8,453; and a lifetime of annual vacations, $179,109, according to the 2024 report.

Critics were quick to blame the Biden-Harris administration for the depressing news.

Raising two children and sending them both to four-year universities costs nearly $930,000, according to the report.

“Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are single-handedly responsible for destroying the American Dream, and yet they expect us to believe the economy is going great, even though everyone we know is working longer and harder just so they can afford to get by,” said Rep. Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ).

City Councilman Joe Borelli (R-Staten Island) agreed: “This is just another statistic that lends itself to the notion that the Biden-Harris inflation crisis is hitting Americans where it hurts. . . . and how purchasing power has diminished, whether it be for everyday commodities or for long term savings.”

The biggest financial hurdle Americans now face is being able to sock away enough for retirement – 20 years of which would run an eye-popping $1.6 million, Investopedia estimated.

And the news is even worse for New Yorkers, who have a higher cost of living than most Americans.

The median listed home price in Manhattan is $1.5 million, according to Realtor.com – 61% higher than the national average.

The average bill for a Big Apple wedding was $63,000 last year, according to the matrimony planning website The Knot, almost $20,000 over Investopedia’s national estimate.

(Daily Mail)

SUN KING PLAYLISTS

by David Yearsley

“To faint was a fault past hope of pardon,” wrote the Duke of Saint-Simon in his Memoirs of Louis XIV, an insider’s account of battlefield debacles, antechamber intrigues and bedroom assignations during the reign of the Sun King. Yet the Duke recounts several fainting spells at court, including that of Madame de Montespan, the sovereign’s most beloved mistress.

One afternoon at Versailles in 1669, the Duke of Lauzun hid himself under Montespan’s bed before one of her regularly scheduled afternoon trysts with Louis in her grand apartments. The sexual maneuverings were followed by political ones. Both were heard by the surreptitious intruder. After Louis had “dressed himself again” and departed, the peeping Duke confronted Montespan with her backstabbing lies against him.

Soon after this encounter, Montespan hastened to the rehearsal of a ballet that both she and the King, famed for his dancing, were to appear in. She was so overwrought from the confrontation with the eavesdropper that when she arrived at the ballroom and saw Louis, she fainted. “The King, in great fright, came to her,” writes Saint-Simon, and “it was not without much trouble that she was restored to herself.” Those whom Louis loved could be allowed to faint.

And so it was on Monday, not in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles for a royal ballet, but in the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center in Oaks, Pennsylvania for a Trump Town Hall.

The heat inside what Trump repeatedly called a “really big room,” was stifling, but it was the presence of the MAGA Monarch that must have contributed greatly to not one, but two loyal subjects swooning after just thirty minutes of obsequious questions.

Summoning doctors to the aid of the stricken, Trump showed rare traces of understanding and thoughtfulness. Had he displayed these characteristics during the pandemic, he would have ensured his re-election in 2020 and not now be mired in the current campaign, one seemingly more protracted than the aged Louis’s adventures in the War of the Spanish Succession. Yet even after Trump’s almost touching show of something that might possibly have been sympathy, he couldn’t help himself from taunting the crowd: “Anyone else want to faint?” Or have a bite of brioche, he might have added à la Marie Antoinette.

The commentariat made great sport of what followed in the second half of the Town Hall, (im)moderated with acid elegance by that Great Lady from the outer reaches of the MAGA realm, Kristi Noem, Governor of South Dakota. The ambient heat was intensified by the hot-air responses to the petitions that were immediately resolved by fiat in advance of the irksome election: his Royal Trumpness would cut energy bills in half in the first week of his next reign, end the war in Ukraine even before his coronation on January 20th.

After the second victim fell, Trump decreed that the remainder of the evening’s entertainment be turned into a public airing of his favorite music. The ensuing listening party and one-man dance show was promptly derided by critics as unhinged geriatric self-indulgence.

This was not a humiliating spectacle but an apotheosis, an updated reenactment of the divine-right doings of the Sun King. Trump is no longer merely post- and pre-presidential. On Monday evening he became definitively regal.

In spite of various updates in tastes, postures, and choreography, the parallels between the Trumpian present and the French royal past are too obvious to ignore, whether the ruler in question is clad in ermine robes or Brioni suits.

Louis didn’t start wearing a wig until his hair began thinning in his mid-thirties. Also full-bottomed, Trump has his own style of big hair. Even if less abundant than the Sun King’s, Trump’s is no less carefully artificed, no less eye-catchingly opulent.

Mar-a-Lago is the Sunshine-State Sun King’s Versailles not just in its geographical remove from court life in Washington, DC and New York City, but in the seaside palace’s “Louis XIV” décor—its gold-framed portraits of the reigning monarch, its baroque furnishings, its vast receiving and banqueting halls, and ballroom where courtiers gather. The golf course is the royal garden.

The exchange of sycophantic petitions and grandiose proclamations of modern-day town hall events mimic the audiences held by the Sun King. Resemblances are greater still to the carefully orchestrated intimacy of the royal rituals of waking and retiring. For the Grande Levée Louis’s personal attendants helped him wash, shave, and dress before the entire court assembled beyond the gilded balustrade that marked off the monarch’s sacred space of his bedchamber.

Trump’s one-time Mar-a-Lago butler, Anthony Senecal, the man who notoriously called for the assassination of Barack Obama, would greet him every morning at the arched entrance to his Mar-a-Lago quarters with a stack of newspapers. If, when Trump reappeared hours later, he wore a white golf hat, his courtiers understood that he was in good mood. A red hat meant grumpy Trumpy.

Like so many of his routines, Louis’s daily rising required musical accompaniment—a soundtrack. The king didn’t have to ask his entourage to cue up his top tunes. Always at the ready, much of the royal repertoire had been composed and curated by another bigwig, Jean-Baptiste Lully, most remembered in music history for dying from gangrene after slamming his foot with the staff he used to beat time in front of his orchestra. Many are those who have wished a similar fate on Trump should he bash his shin with a sand wedge.

After a long day at court, Louis was lavished with music again as he went to bed.

The echoes of Versailles can be heard in the proud tendresse of Trump’s musical airings, outsourced to Spotify rather than delivered, as at Louis’s court, by live musicians in full-bottomed wigs. Both instrumental music and vocal works were lofted to entertain and praise the Sun King, and so too for Trump. True, Lully’s Trios pour le coucher du Roi were quiet and calming, though not without moments of animated resolve.

By contrast Monday evening, Trump kept shouting for the opening number, an instrumental version of Schubert’s “Ave Maria,” to be louder. Just one hearing of this over-roasted chestnut was not enough for Trump. After Schubert’s arpeggios descended to their final repose, Trump ordered a vocal performance of the same song. After some backstage scurrying by his playlisters, Trump smiled beatifically as Pavarotti began bel canto-ing through the hymn to the Virgin.

Governor Noem tried to steer things back to the Qs & As, but to no avail. By then Trump was lost in reverie, bewitched by his playlist, conducting in the air as if alone in his throne room. He was a sovereign transported, his eyes narrowing as if to focus on distant sonic visions conjured by blatantly monarchic misappropriations such as Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” sung by Rufus Wainwright, as well as by rabid republican fare like Oliver Anthony’s “Rich Men North of Richmond.”

There is ample precedent for Trump’s musical cullings and covetings. Louis XIV never asked for permission to hear the compositions that he decreed should be instant classics; many remained in public circulation until the Revolution.

When he was a teenager, Louis appeared in the Royal Ballet of the Night as Apollo. After that great success as a dancer, the young ruler chose the sun as his symbol—or as Trump might put it, his logo. Louis’s costume as the Sung God was crowned by a halo of orange rays—the autocratic antecedent of the radiant coif of Trump’s late years. To his buffet of court music, Trump danced in his own inimitable style, feet glued to the stage, body swaying like one of his heavily leveraged skyscrapers on a windy day.

Come evening, Louis might have retired to the sounds of a mournful sarabande. When the sun went down, the Sun King favored elegant dances marked by their elegiac, poise—each day a life, each night a rehearsal for death.

Trump denies not just election results, but the final, irrevocable loss that comes with mortality itself. On Monday in Oaks, PA he withdrew for the night to the sound of the Village People’s “YMCA.” By then he’d set down his microphone, that combo orb-and-scepter of the Town Hall potentate. As the diverse men—cop, cowboy, soldier, construction worker, Black Indian Chief—of Trump’s youthful disco exploits sang “pick yourself off the ground” in unwitting reference to the evening’s early fainters, Trump clenched his fists in front him and started to boogie his way. Unlike elegant Louis, dancing for Donald was a struggle, a fight, and he wanted to win.

ELECTORAL COLLEGE HISTORY

How did we get the Electoral College?

The Founding Fathers established the Electoral College in the Constitution, in part, as a compromise between the election of the President by a vote in Congress and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens. However, the term “electoral college” does not appear in the Constitution. Article II of the Constitution and the 12th Amendment refer to “electors,” but not to the “electoral college.”

Since the Electoral College process is part of the original design of the U.S. Constitution it would be necessary to pass a Constitutional amendment to change this system.

The ratification of the 12th Amendment, the expansion of voting rights, and the States’ use of the popular vote to determine who will be appointed as electors have each substantially changed the process.

Many different proposals to alter the Presidential election process have been offered over the years, such as direct nation-wide election by the eligible voters, but none has been passed by Congress and sent to the States for ratification as a Constitutional amendment. Under the most common method for amending the Constitution, an amendment must be proposed by a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress and ratified by three-fourths of the States.

What proposals have been made to change the Electoral College process?

Reference sources indicate that over the past 200 years more than 700 proposals have been introduced in Congress to reform or eliminate the Electoral College. There have been more proposals for Constitutional amendments on changing the Electoral College than on any other subject. The American Bar Association has criticized the Electoral College as “archaic” and “ambiguous” and its polling showed 69 percent of lawyers favored abolishing it in 1987. But surveys of political scientists have supported continuation of the Electoral College. Public opinion polls have shown Americans favored abolishing it by majorities of 58 percent in 1967; 81 percent in 1968; and 75 percent in 1981.

Opinions on the viability of the Electoral College system may be affected by attitudes toward third parties. Third parties have not fared well in the Electoral College system. For example, third party candidates with regional appeal, such as Governor Thurmond in 1948 and Governor Wallace in 1968, won blocs of electoral votes in the South, but neither come close to seriously challenging the major party winner, although they may have affected the overall outcome of the election.

The last third party, or splinter party, candidate to make a strong showing was Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 (Progressive, also known as the Bull Moose Party). He finished a distant second in Electoral and popular votes (taking 88 of the 266 electoral votes needed to win at the time). Although Ross Perot won 19 percent of the popular vote nationwide in 1992, he did not win any electoral votes since he was not particularly strong in any one state. In 2016, Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party candidate, qualified for the ballot in all 50 States and the District of Columbia but also failed to win any electoral votes.

Any candidate who wins a majority or plurality of the popular vote nationwide has a good chance of winning in the Electoral College, but there are no guarantees (see the results of 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016 elections).

https://www.archives.gov/electoral-college/history

LEAD STORIES, SUNDAY'S NYT

Door-Knocks, Texts, and Ads, Ads, Ads: Life on the Swing-State Battlefield

Four of Trump’s Most Meandering Remarks This Week

At a Pennsylvania Rally, Trump Descends to New Levels of Vulgarity

In Michigan, Trade Policies and the Water Crisis Loom Large for Voters

IT’S APPARENT that nothing Israel does, including killing American grandmothers, college students, and aid workers, will trigger the US government, whether it’s under the control of Biden, Harris, or Trump, to intervene to stop them or even pull the plug on the arms shipments that make this genocidal war possible. This week, Biden, while his secretaries of State and Defense publicly wagged their fingers on Netanyahu for continuing to starve Palestinians, ordered US troops to Israel to operate the THAAD missile defense system he had just gifted them. Shortly after they arrived, Netanyahu took a gloating selfie with the fresh-faced US troops who had now officially placed their boots on the ground in Israel’s ever-widening war.

— Jeffrey St. Clair

SIX WISHES FROM JOSEPH BRODSKY:

"Consider what you are about to hear simply as advice from the tip of several icebergs, so to speak, and not the Sinai Mountain. Ignore them if you wish, question them if necessary, forget them if you must: there’s nothing mandatory here. If some of them help you now or in the future, I’ll be glad. If not, I won’t hold it against you.

Focus on the precision of your language.

Try to expand your vocabulary and treat it the way you manage your bank account. Pay it close attention and aim to increase your dividends.

The goal is not to enhance your eloquence in the bedroom or boost your professional success, nor to turn you into a social intellectual. The aim is to give you the ability to express yourself as fully and precisely as possible. In short, the goal is your balance. Because the accumulation of unsaid or poorly expressed thoughts can lead to neurosis.

To avoid this, you don’t need to become a bookworm. Simply get a dictionary and read it every day, and occasionally pick up a poetry book as well. After all, books cost far less than a single visit to a psychiatrist.

Be kind to your parents.

If this sounds too much like "Honor your father and mother," I apologize. I just mean: try not to rebel against them, as they are likely to pass away before you, and you can at least spare yourself this source of guilt, if not grief.

If you feel the need to rebel with all the "I’m-not-taking-a-penny-from-you" declarations, rebel against those who are less easily hurt. Parents are too close a target (as are siblings, spouses, or partners). The distance is such that you can't miss.

Don’t rely on politicians.

Not so much because they are unintelligent or dishonest, though that’s often the case, but because the scale of their work is too vast, even for the best among them. They can slightly reduce social evil, but never eradicate it. No matter how significant an improvement may seem, ethically speaking, it will always be negligible, as there will always be at least one person who doesn’t benefit from it.

The world is imperfect. There never has been, nor will there be, a golden age. In light of this—or rather, in its shadow—you should rely on your own homemade solutions, that is, govern the world on your own. But even within the confines of your own small world, be prepared to taste both gratitude and disappointment in equal measure.

Try to be humble.

There are already too many of us, and soon there will be far more. The scramble for a place under the sun inevitably happens at someone else’s expense. Just because you have to step on someone’s toes doesn’t mean you should stand on their shoulders. So if you wish to become rich or famous, or both, I wish you well, but don’t give yourself over to it entirely.

Always remember, there’s always someone next to you—a neighbor. You are not required to love them, but try not to trouble them too much or cause them harm. At the very least, try to remember from how far away—from the stars, the depths of the universe, perhaps from its opposite end—the request not to do this came, along with the idea to love your neighbor as yourself. Apparently, the stars know more about gravity and loneliness than you do, for they are the eyes of longing.

Avoid assuming the status of a victim.

No matter how unpleasant your circumstances, try not to blame external forces—history, the state, your boss, race, parents, the moon phase, childhood, potty training delays—the list is long and dull. The moment you blame something, you undermine your own resolve to change anything and expand the vacuum of irresponsibility, which demons and demagogues love to fill, for a paralyzed will is no joy for angels.

In general, try to respect life not just for its joys but also for its difficulties. They are part of the game, and their redeeming feature is that they aren’t a deception. Whenever you are in despair or on the verge of it, whenever you face difficulties or challenges, remember: this is life speaking to you in the only language it knows.

Learn to forgive.

The world we’ve entered doesn’t have a great reputation. It’s not a cozy place, as you’ll soon discover, and I doubt it will get much nicer by the time you leave it.

However, it is the only world available. There is no alternative, and if there were, there’s no guarantee it would be any better than this one. So try to pay little attention to those who try to make your life miserable. There will be plenty of them, both in official capacities and self-appointed ones.

What your enemies do takes on significance based on how you respond to it. So pass through or past them as if they were yellow lights, not red ones. This way, you’ll spare your brain cells from unnecessary agitation. You might even save these idiots from themselves, for the prospect of being forgotten is shorter than the prospect of being forgiven. Change the channel: you can’t stop the broadcast, but you can at least lower its ratings."

(This text is a compilation of excerpts from the poet's famous speech delivered in December 1988 to the graduates of the University of Michigan.)

DID MY MOTHER PLAY BRIDGE? Bake pies in the kitchen, and perhaps drink too much of the cooking sherry? On the contrary, she was a flapper very much like her coeval, Talullah Bankhead. (Faulkner went to his grave believing that coeval meant evil at the same time as.) In appearance she was a composite of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. She never baked a pie, but she did drink, in the course of a lifetime, the equivalent of the Chesapeake Bay.

— Gore Vidal

“TO LOVE SOMEONE long-term is to attend a thousand funerals of the people they used to be. The people they’re too exhausted to be any longer. The people they don’t recognise inside themselves anymore. The people they grew out of, the people they never ended up growing into. We so badly want the people we love to get their spark back when it burns out; to become speedily found when they are lost.

But it is not our job to hold anyone accountable to the people they used to be. It is our job to travel with them between each version and to honour what emerges along the way. Sometimes it will be an even more luminescent flame. Sometimes it will be a flicker that disappears and temporarily floods the room with a perfect and necessary darkness.”

— Heidi Priebe

REBECCA KETCHER NEUGIN was the last survivor of the Cherokees’ removal to Indian Territory. Pictured here with a small child in an undated photo, Neugin was a child herself in 1838 when she made the difficult walk from Georgia with her family.

Image courtesy of the Cherokee National Archives

Her daughter, Kate Rackleff, shared in a 1937 interview for the Indian-Pioneer Papers: “Mother did not have the opportunity to attend school and always signed her name by mark; she helped with the family’s spinning and weaving, made her own dresses and helped to dry and preserve the fruits and berries for winter use.”

Neugin died in 1932.

38 Comments

Barbara Ortega October 20, 2024

That stupid Fort Bragg Forever sign looks ridiculous and tacky. I don’t live in the city limits and thus won’t ever get to vote on this, nor do I really care. But the people on both sides look increasingly unhinged. Seems like Fort Bragg is going through some stuff.

Reply
- Jacob October 20, 2024
  
  I agree that sigh is tacky. it was also erected without permits and is larger than temporary signs are allowed to be in Fort Bragg. This sign was discussed at Monday’s City Council meeting and the Code Enforcement Officer said he wasn’t going to enforce the codes for this sign.
  
  Reply
  - anne barnard October 21, 2024
    
    I agree. What happened?
    
    Reply
Stephen Dunlap October 20, 2024

the “catch of the day” just isn’t the same without the pictures

Reply
- Marco McClean October 20, 2024
  
  I just noticed something: since they took the pictures away, there’s a much lower percentage of Mexican-sounding names in Catch of the Day, and more Anglo names. Can that have something to do with the decision?
  
  Reply
  - Marco McClean October 20, 2024
    
    Also, re: vaping. It reminds me of how the aliens from Planet 10 used 9-volt batteries pressed against their tongue to get high, in /Buckaroo Banzai/.
    
    And re: sports gambling. I just read about ESPN’s onscreen odds ticker that steadily updates during games; they prominently partnered with sportsbook-keepers and gambling consortia years and years ago. And the commercials are mostly for alcohol products and gambling, with a few cars and phones mixed in. Nobody’s pretending it wasn’t all about drugs and gambling all along. And CTE.
    
    Reply
Bruce Anderson October 20, 2024

A memorable exhibit at SF MOMA was a collection of late 19th century booking photos from San Quentin, including a couple of Mendo bad boys. We all miss the booking photos, and whoever took them was a natural born artist given that he or she had the artist’s gift, as did the Quentin photographer all those years ago.

Reply
- Bob Abeles October 20, 2024
  
  There’s a charming scene in Terry Zwigoff’s documentary film Crumb where Robert and his son Jesse hone their drawing skills by reproducing 19th century photos of female inmates at the Surrey County Lunatic Asylum.
  
  At least I find it charming.
  
  Reply
Marshall Newman October 20, 2024

Nice picture at – if I am not mistaken – the Indian Creek bridge.

Reply
Mark Donegan October 20, 2024

Thank you Sheriff, that was a well worded response to a very important issue. Same to Adam Gaska, my appreciation for all you are doing.
I also just recently found out that the Behavioral Health Advisory Board(BHAB), upon which I sit is supposed to be reporting and advising both to the director AND BOS. To my knowledge that has not been done in recent times though I have made some light, unsure attempts. I just took a two-day course offered by the state on the duties of the BHAB and its members with over a dozen other counties represented, mostly chairs. I’m talking about this once again because at this month’s BHAB meeting the very important issue of membership process, by-laws, and the chair itself are on the agenda. We have been adrift this whole year but with full membership we will have a chance to fulfill our duties. Though those duties do include looking at contracts and the RFP process, our main duties are to outreach to the public, providers, BOS and director. I’ve been doing this for a minute, and I apologize for any appearance of lack of support from myself towards the director and BOS representative. We have now had many words, and I have complete Faith in them both to do the right things for the community. I have said from the beginning of my public speaking we must work as a team despite our personal deference’s. I have learned here in the AVA not to attack people personally. I have regretted it every time. But that does not mean there is no Hope, or Forgiveness. We must move past slights, injuries, and traumas. I myself am engaged in many which has sidetracked me often from my board duties. I must say pain as well. What I learned from State is that’s ok as long as the member shows up at the meetings. But, State highly encourages more outgoing type of members. Last BOS session three seats were filled with one more open and four applications for it to my knowledge. They must be taken in order they were filed. So, we’ll see, I’ll give it my best shot this week. As always, any suggestions or issues, call me at (707) 510-6605 during working hours.
I am the vet rep, but I work with whatever falls on my plate. If I can’t help, I will try my best to give a good referral.

Reply
- Eric Sunswheat October 20, 2024
  
  RE: Thank you Sheriff, that was a well worded response to a very important issue. Same to Adam Gaska.
  
  —>. Recent research that I brought forward and commented on perhaps half a year ago, which was at first scoffed at, while the study article link was first unread by a frequent AVA blogger, is brought to mind.
  
  There is a sea change, in that mentally afflicted are adversely impacted by noise.
  
  Yet no known effort was made for a work change order for the new Mental Health wing of the County Jail now under construction.
  
  Instead we have a Sheriff, seemingly titling at windmills on state politics, and not being responsible for business with what is under his purview. In my opinion.
  
  Reply
  - Mark Donegan October 20, 2024
    
    I encourage you to attend Measure B meetings from which the money was taken to finish that buildout. The Sheriff usually attends. My next goal is to get him together with BHAB and Ukiah City Council. I agree on the noise issue though I must say I’ve never had occasion to visit the jail, yet. It also is on my list, but as a visitor…
    Someone must ask everyone to stop the personal attacks and come up with better ideas. I haven’t seen that happen anywhere yet. But I do demand it in the future. Come join the party Tuesday and Wednesday!
    
    Reply
    - Eric Sunswheat October 20, 2024
      
      Thanks for the advice, rather avoid jello land. If advice isn’t paid for dearly, generally ignored time after time. Howling at the wind, been there.
      
      Reply
      - Mark Donegan October 21, 2024
        
        My advice is not free! They bought me off with cold cuts.
        You’re almost right about howling in the wind, why many quit.
        I create my own gusts against those winds.
        I’m sure it will all make me quit someday, but that day is not today.
        
        Reply
        
        Eric Sunswheat October 21, 2024
        
        My fingers will only plug so many leaks at once in the trenches of Constitutional justice and evolving knowledge, while maintaining a modicum of personal vitality.
        Be confidant that surrender is not an option.
        
        Reply
  - Matt Kendall October 21, 2024
    
    seemingly titling at windmills? and not being responsible for business which is under my purview?
    Not certain what you think my job is, however a portion of it is to ensure Mendocino County including victims of crime from Mendocino County, are heard from at the state level.
    Lots of folks in California are simply ignoring the problems and pretending like things are working hoping to look like good people. That’s not what we need now.
    
    Reply
Chuck Dunbar October 20, 2024

Jim Luther—

I’m closing in on 80 and am right there with you—those wispy, ephemeral thoughts… Sometimes they come back, mostly just gone. Yet we go on, a bit wiser at least, than when we were young.

Thank you for your occasional poem, haiku.

Reply
- James Luther October 20, 2024
  
  Thank you very much, Mr. Dunbar. Glad you’re enjoying your almost-80s. There’s a lot to like. Best, Jim Luther
  
  Reply
James Luther October 20, 2024

Yo! Lookin’ at us?
Try to see past these con stares.
Look into our eyes.

No, don’t look away.
Don’t give up on us just yet.
Look into our eyes.

“Drinking?” Well sure, Boss.
Prob’ly worse. What’d you expect?
‘Course we’ve been drinking.

Can’t you ask instead,
Is anything still in there?
Anything that counts?

If you think you can
Then help us try to find it.
Look into our eyes.

“Listening to Mug Shots” by Jim Luther

Reply
Harvey Reading October 20, 2024

FIRST KLAMATH RIVER SALMON SINCE 1912 REPORTED IN OREGON AFTER DAM REMOVAL!

Great! Now eradicate the other notions, like the underground Peripheral Canal currently being peddled, for increasing water diversions to benefit welfare farmers and overpopulated urban areas. That damned diversion, in one form or another, has been peddled forever. It’s nothing but death for fish.

What the human species needs to do is get its population in balance with the carrying capacity of its habitat. Or, it could do the best thing it has ever done, and go extinct!

Reply
Harvey Reading October 20, 2024

“Taking care of two pets — a cat and a dog — would now run the average American $36,626”

Don’t tell Diamond! He’ll be wanting me to buy him jewelry and fine China.

This guy is ‘way off base. Wonder who generated the figures…

Reply
- Chuck Dunbar October 20, 2024
  
  Those figures are out of this world, for sure, Harvey. I am afraid, though, that your dog Diamond may consider his name as an entry into that rich world. Maybe he’d like being pampered and spoiled. Curious, how he came to be named so?
  
  Reply
  - Harvey Reading October 20, 2024
    
    All my five dogs have been named Black Diamond. This one is the fifth.
    
    I got the first one in December ’74, a Sonoma dog, and in the naming, my mom finally suggested Black Diamond since he had a few white hairs on his chest (a trait that is frowned upon these days but was common then). He died at the hand of my then wife in ’78. I won’t go into my suspicions regarding his death, but my suspicion has always been that it was NOT accidental, because she was jealous of him. Her dog was a shepherd mix, and it irked her that Diamond learned so quickly. He responded to hand signals by the time he was two.
    
    Eleven years passed before I got settled in my own place in the Sacramento area (Fair Oaks), and, in 88, I got another Lab, who lived with me for 11 years in Sacramento and El Dorado counties. I then (1999) got my third dog, who moved here with me in 2002. He was an easy going, trustworthy, gentle fellow. After he died, in 2011, I got my fourth dog.
    
    Diamond4, my first Wyoming dog, was the stubbornest one up to that point. He died last fall, at the age of 12 years, 4 days. This current guy, Diamond 5 is about twelve times as stubborn as his immediate predecessor. In fact, I have never witnessed such a Lab. I tell people that he is 12 times stubborner than his predecessor (as he has twelve more generations of Wyoming breeding), and they appear to breed them for traits more aggressive than what I have come to expect from Labs. Every time I think he is getting better, he sets me straight, but I believe he is slowly coming around. Time will tell. All but the first lacked the white spot on the chest, a mark that was common when I was a kid in good ol’ Calaveras County. C’est la effen vie!
    
    Reply
    - chuck dunbar October 21, 2024
      
      Thank you, Harvey, for the dog stories, all of them named Black Diamond, an interesting saga of dog buddies. What a strange tale about #1 and your wife. And the last two, very stubborn fellows, for sure. That must be an ongoing challenge, guess they think they’re the boss and you are staff! You are really a dog lover and I’m sure you’ve had lots of dog love in return. Good for you, good to have such pals in our world. Take care, Harvey.
      
      Reply
Harvey Reading October 20, 2024

ELECTORAL COLLEGE HISTORY

Time write another constitution, to be approved by a simple majority of the popular vote nationwide. Same rule for amendments, which currently can be blocked by a minority of one quarter plus one. The old one is biased too much toward the wealthy ruling class. Oh, and leave out the electoral college nonsense, which gives the wealthy scum too much of an advantage. And, apportion the senate by giving each state’s two senators votes in proportion to the relative proportion population of their state to total population. Currently, that would give Wyoming’s senators one vote between them, half for each of them. California, with eighty times the cowboys’ population, would get 40 votes each.

Let’s give democracy a try. Minority rule doesn’t work, except to the advantage of the wealthy scum.

Reply
- Jurgen Stoll October 20, 2024
  
  No way. Quit trying to get rid of minority rule! Those hard working rich people like Musk, Theil, Arkley, the Mercers, etc. didn’t spend all those hard earned dollars bribing politicians and the supremes for nothing. Did you forget it’s just a game and whoever dies with the most toys is the winner? The unwashed masses pay the taxes and that’s it. They might get a little trickle down once in a while, but just enough to help em’ get into more debt. Money in politics and voter suppression will make America great again. Sheesh!
  
  Reply
Jacob October 20, 2024

RE WILL LEE AND LINDY PETERS

Will, you have no credibility on this one considering your tenure was also an embarrassment. I mean, who preps for council meetings by doing shots and drinks at the Tip Top right before meetings? No one serious about making Fort Bragg a better place, that’s for sure. Your campaign was successful because it was based on giving out free drinks and everyone likes those. In any case, I am not sure where you get this “undue attacks” part. All of my criticism about Lindy is valid and fact-based. Let’s leave the voting to people who actually live here and not those who ran for re-election only to resign almost immediately when they moved out of town for employment after Adventist Health was no longer a place for you to work.

Reply
- Bruce Anderson October 20, 2024
  
  As a fan of Will drunk or sober, I think his liquid preparation for public meetings makes sense, assuming Jacob’s latest rip of Lindy, and now Will, is true.
  
  Reply
- Will Lee October 20, 2024
  
  Dear Editor,
  
  I feel compelled to respond to Jacob’s letter with the clarity and honesty it deserves. As a former dedicated member of the Fort Bragg City Council for five years, I have witnessed firsthand the impact of persistent negativity and harassment on our community. My home, my family, and my heart remain in Fort Bragg. I continue to follow current events and politics, and I notice you haven’t changed one bit.
  
  Jacob, your attempts to rewrite history are not only misguided but also reflect a deep-seated misunderstanding of what it means to serve the public. Your behavior, particularly your seven years of harassing City Hall staff—especially women—has not gone unnoticed. It’s disheartening to see how your actions have chased away talented individuals, including two City Managers, who were committed to bettering our city.
  
  Let’s not forget that your issues with alcohol and mental instability are mere footnotes compared to the larger issue at hand: your toxic influence within our community. The fact that so many residents have expressed their disdain for what you represent speaks volumes.
  
  As for your spotty employment history, I’ve been gainfully employed since the age of 14, contributing positively to our community while you’ve chosen a path of bitterness and conflict. Perhaps it’s time for you to reflect on your actions and consider how they align with the values that the good people of Fort Bragg hold dear.
  
  Have a nice day, dear.
  
  Will Lee
  
  Reply
  - Jacob October 20, 2024
    
    Will, your letter is full is misrepresentations and I think you know that, particularly the defamatory accusation that I target women. I have never done that and there is zero evidence I have, just ask all the male former employees who don’t work there any longer after receiving the same level of scrutiny that I directed at some of their female colleagues who were also underperforming or dishonest. The only exception is probably your friend who earned my animosity through her own egregious and illegal actions directed at me and others. She got more focus than others because I was not going to accept someone like her continuing to work at the City. I don’t have a spotty employment history, I am retired after working for large firms in Los Angeles for many years. You have a penchant for making up allegations to suit your narrative and not actually verifying anything. I “chased away” four city managers not two, you leave off the two male CMs. Does that not fit your narrative either. I am glad I did, particularly the most recent one who was obsessive, unstable, and actively dishonest in many of her engagements with community stakeholder groups. Of course, the councilmembers had also had enough of her so I can’t claim all the credit. Isaac is still trying to clean up a bunch of her messes…
    
    Reply
    - Bruce Anderson October 20, 2024
      
      Sounding kinda desperate, huh Jacob? You did in fact harass city of FB workers for several years. They shoulda got a restraining order out on you, and your unsubstantiated slurs aimed at your critics is a big time give away that with you it’s all personal, nothing to do with issues. IMO, Fort Bragg is a virtual Swiss watch of civic functioning.
      
      Reply
      - Jacob October 20, 2024
        
        I am perfectly fine with my civic engagement (aka harassment according to you) resulting in numerous people no longer working at the City of FB. That was part of the intent, to purge unqualified underperformers. If you think FB is a Swiss watch, you must not be paying attention. They can’t even keep the defective sewer plant from stinking up the town despite the availability with natural odor neutralizers that aren’t expensive and used by many other jurisdictions. Then we have playground projects that were publicized as making it accessible to leave out the required accessible surfaces. It is easy to make generalizations when you aren’t paying attention closely. Those are only two examples of many more.
        
        Reply
        
        Bruce Anderson October 20, 2024
        
        To Jacob: Rather than run for office yourself, you self-deputize to decide personnel and city policy? Nothing personal, dude, but I think you’re in Captain Queeg territory.
        
        Reply
      - Chris Hart October 20, 2024
        
        A Swiss watch of civic functioning? What a joke. Bruce, you need to get out more. Just look at finances, lawsuits, turnover, failed projects, and request for tax increases.
        
        Reply
  - Laura Bianchi October 22, 2024
    
    Will Lee:
    
    Thank you very much for endorsing Lindy Peters! Your endorsement means so much since you were a leader in our community for so long and continue to be highly respected in Fort. Bragg.
    
    I have only seen you act with the highest of integrity. It was an honor to work for City of Fort. Bragg under your leadership. You worked tirelessly in several volunteer positions to build our community up and were willing to stand up for our community to those who made it a full-time job to tear the community apart.
    
    You continue to care about our community and our future, as shown by your endorsement. Thank you again for supporting Lindy Peters, thereby supporting our community!
    
    Reply
Pat Kittle October 20, 2024

(Regarding Mr. Natural’s advice…
“Be what you is and not what you ain’t… “)

John Prine received similar advice:

“Dear Abby”:

[Verse 1]
Dear Abby, dear Abby, my feet are too long
My hair’s falling out and my rights are all wrong
My friends they all tell me that I’ve no friends at all
Won’t you write me a letter? Won’t you give me a call?
Signed, Bewildered

[Chorus]
Bewildered, Bewildered, you have no complaint
You are what you are and you ain’t what you ain’t
So listen up, buster, and listen up good
Stop wishing for bad luck and knocking on wood

[Verse 2]
Dear Abby, dear Abby, my fountain pen leaks
My wife hollers at me and my kids are all freaks
Every side I get up on is the wrong side of bed
If it weren’t so expensive, I’d wish I were dead
Signed, Unhappy

[Chorus]
Unhappy, Unhappy, you have no complaint
You are what you are and you ain’t what you ain’t
So listen up, buster, and listen up good
Stop wishing for bad luck and knocking on wood

[Verse 3]
Dear Abby, dear Abby, huh
Dear Abby, dear Abby
Dear Abby, dear Abby, you won’t believe this
But my stomach makes noises whenever I kiss
My girlfriend tells me it’s all in my head
But my stomach tells me to write you instead
Signed, Noise-maker

[Chorus]
Noise-maker, Noise-maker, you have no complaint
You are what you are and you ain’t what you ain’t
So listen up, buster, and listen up good
Stop wishing for bad luck and knocking on wood

[Verse 4]
Dear Abby, dear Abby, well I never thought
That me and my girlfriend would ever get caught
We were sitting in the back seat just shooting the breeze
With her hair up in curlers and her pants to her knees
Signed, Just Married

[Chorus]
Just Married, Just Married, you have no complaint
You are what you are and you ain’t what you ain’t
So listen up, buster, and listen up good
Stop wishing for bad luck and knocking on wood
Signed, Dear Abby

— [ https://yandex.com/video/preview/201096315743218967 ]

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Will Lee October 21, 2024

In response to Jacob’s letter, I find it necessary to address the serious issues he continues to sidestep. Jacob’s relentless harassment of City Hall workers, particularly women, is not merely a figment of imagination; it is a painful reality that many have endured. Let us remember our dear departed City Clerk, June Lemos, who served our community with grace and dedication. Her memory should remind us of the importance of respect and integrity in public service.

Jacob, your hundreds of public records requests have effectively brought City Hall to a grinding halt. Is this really the legacy you wish to leave? Your actions seem less about transparency and more about harassment, stalking, and demeaning hardworking individuals who are simply trying to do their jobs. You should be ashamed of these tactics.

As for your assertions regarding targeting women, it’s crucial to recognize that your pattern of behavior speaks volumes. Accusing me of making defamatory statements does not erase the impact of your actions. While you claim to hold all employees to the same scrutiny, the reality is that your relentless focus on certain individuals undermines the morale of the entire office.

Regarding your employment history, it is clear that you have a penchant for distorting facts to fit your narrative. The truth remains that your behavior has contributed to a toxic atmosphere that has chased away not just two, but four City Managers. While you may feel justified in your actions, it’s evident that the community and its leaders have had enough of the chaos you’ve wrought.

Let’s not forget that the well-being of our City Hall staff and the integrity of our community are far more important than personal vendettas. It’s time to reflect on your actions and their repercussions, rather than hide behind a facade of righteousness.
Will Lee

Reply
David October 21, 2024

The “Tired Chronicle” is an oxymoron, “Bruce”!
…My Hubby- who came to the City in 1962- days the REAL magical event of San Fran 67 was the Human Be-In that preceding winter…

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Mendocino County Today: Sunday 10/20/2024

How did we get the Electoral College?

What proposals have been made to change the Electoral College process?

38 Comments

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