Becoming Sunny | Trail Fire | Supper Song | Shooting Range | Appliance Sale | Handley & Hanks | Football Showdown | Domestic Violence | Local Events | Dam-Free Rivers | Duo Recital | Chestnut Gathering | No Leftie | Ed Notes | Unsolved Crime | Big River House | Photo Show | Yesterday's Catch | Redwood Classic | Wine Shorts | Low Numbers | So Nice | Deportation Threat | Little Putter | CO₂ Powder | Jane Jacobs | Finding Kamala | Lead Stories | Lotta Dope | Murderous Logistics | Heretic | Prison Diary | Slippery Steps | Tell Mama | Ship Cats | Harsh Realities
TRANSITIONING from dry weather and mild daytime temperatures as the weekend approaches. Wetter and cooler weather is expected with periods of breezy winds into early next week as an upper low with a series of fronts moves through the area. (NWS)
STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): 44F under high clouds this Friday morning on the coast. Our forecast has brought a lot more showers in starting possibly tomorrow. Unsettled thru the week it seems? Nothing big, just showers.
JESUS CAUGHT ON CAMERA
On 10/21/2024, at approximately 11 am, Ukiah Police Department (UPD) Officers responded to a report of a fire near Talmage Road and Waugh Lane in Ukiah. An officer located the fire on The Great Redwood Trail near Doolin Creek. A witness stated he observed a male subject fleeing the area toward Cherry Street before the officer arrived on scene.
UPD Officers were able to view video footage of the incident from surveillance cameras in the area. Officers observed Jesus Delgado cause the brush to catch fire. Delgado fled the area when officers approached with their lights and sirens activated. Delgado's actions were intentional, reckless, and placed the safety of numerous individuals at risk if the fire was not extinguished by the Ukiah Valley Fire Authority (UVFA). This incident was also investigated by a UVFA Engineer Fire Investigator.
Delgado was later located near the 200 block of North Orchard Avenue. Delgado was placed under arrest without incident. Delgado had three lighters on his person. One of the lighters was a torch style lighter. Delgado was also found to be on Summary Probation out of Mendocino County for a previous violation of 594(B)(1) PC-Vandalism. Delgado was booked and lodged at the MCSO Jail for violations of 451(d)PC and 1203.2(a)PC.
The Ukiah Police Department would like to thank the Ukiah Valley Fire Authority for their assistance with this investigation.
SARAH SONGBIRD: Got the urge to sing? Need to put down the stresses of this time for a night? Feel like sitting by the fire and sharing songs with your community? Then please join us for two nights of sing-along songs at Rivers Bend this weekend. There will be soup offered both nights followed by song circles at the fire. It’s a cozy way to come together and speak the same language for a while. Please let Laurie know that you’ll be joining by emailing info@riversbendretreat.org.
PETITION TO CLOSE SHOOTING RANGE AT ROCK PIT ON COUNTY ROAD 408 ON THE COAST
Close and Clean up Little Lake Road (County Road 408) Shooting Area
Make JDSF Safe for all Users
Support Shooting Areas Well Away from Neighborhoods
Support 2nd Amendment Rights
We, residents of the Mendocino Coast, are adversely affected by the unmonitored and unregulated shooting range at the old gravel pit on County Road 408 in Jackson Demonstration State Forest. Due to firearm discharge, we residents petition JDSF, County of Mendocino, Mendocino County Sheriff Department, Mendocino County Public Health and Safety to rectify a situation that has become untenable because of noise and pollution created by this daily discharge of firearms. These activities disturb humans, pets, and livestock. The usage of this site for this shooting activity is in conflict with the high use of the area by hikers, bikers and equestrians. Because of the noise coming from shooting here, and the accumulation of waste materials at this site, we hereby ask Jackson Demonstration State Forest and Mendocino County to permanently close and clean up this location to all shooting activities.
LOUISE MARIANNA WRITES (Update from nurse Louise and her Appliance Sale):
Thank you to everyone who responded to my need for new housing and your well wishes, but I just couldn't afford those rents 1200 to 1500 square feet excluding. utilities. So I bought a single wide 2 bedroom mobile home (moho) in Fort Bragg in a 55 + unit park. It comes with appliances I don't want. So they are for sale. Here's what I’ve got: Whirlpool refrigerator. 28 by 30 by 62 made in 2019, color white, top freezer. Kenmore Propane Stove 30 by 25 by 36, color white. Washing machine, Maytag “Centennial,” white, with commercial technology. Kenmore Dryer, color white, huge drum. Call me at 707-937-4837 for more details. These are in Fort Bragg and available now.
Thanks,
Louise Marianna
FOOTBALL: LEAGUE RIVALS ST. VINCENT, UKIAH SET FOR SHOWDOWN IN GAME OF THE WEEK
“We’re going up against an excellent football team and one of the all-time great coaches in Northern California,” the Mustangs’ Trent Herzog notes.
by Kienan O'Doherty
It could be the game that decides a league title.
The Press Democrat’s Game of the Week heads to Mendocino County, where Ukiah (2-0, 5-2) host St. Vincent (2-0, 6-1) on Friday in a clash between two of the Redwood Empire Conference Bay division’s top squads.
“Our kids know what we need to do,” St. Vincent head coach Trent Herzog said. “We’re going up against an excellent football team and one of the all-time great coaches in Northern California. We’ll have our hands full, but we’re excited about the challenge, excited about playing a great football team and it should be a heck of a football game on Friday night.”
Last season, Ukiah bested St. Vincent 25-21 in Petaluma after trailing 21-0 at halftime, en route to the Wildcats’ first league title in years. Yet this year’s matchup provides a whole new element with both teams part of a new North Bay league realignment — and a revamped North Coast Section playoff model awaiting.
Yet the goal remains the same for both teams — win the league title.
The Wildcats have gotten better and better each week. After an opening-week loss to the REC-Adobe’s Rancho Cotate, Ukiah responded with wins over Dublin (37-7) and Chico (28-21) before falling in a 38-35 nail-biter to another Adobe team in San Marin. In their last three games, however, they’ve been on a tear, boasting a scoring differential of 128-55.
Reigning state champion St. Vincent, on the other hand, has had another successful start to the season, with the only blemish being a 44-22 loss at the hands of Truckee, the two-time defending Nevada state champion in Division 3A. Since then, the Mustangs have scored an average of 52 points per game, including a 50-0 shutout over REC-Bay foe Analy.
Both teams have the talent to put up points in bunches.
Ukiah has one of the top wide receivers in all of Northern California in Omauri Phillips-Porter, who is currently ranked 10th in the state in receiving yards with 979. In the seven games played, Phillips-Porter has gone over the 100-yard mark in five of them, including an 18-catch, 257-yard performance in the season opener with two touchdowns. He’s reached the end zone 14 times through the air and has a total of 16 on the season.
Phillips-Porter’s production has allowed junior quarterback Beau David, who’s in his second season under head coach Paul Cronin, to shine. David has been passing nearly a 63% clip for 1,650 yards and 20 touchdowns, with the yardage ranking third in the NCS. He’s passed for over 200 yards in five games and has hit the four-touchdown mark in three of those.
“We’re excited to see the kids play another game that has some meaning to it, that’s always a fun thing,” Cronin said. “Those games are the ones that get you better, and when you play against good players you can evaluate what direction you need to go in order to maximize your ability as a team … St. Vincent is well-coached, has good kids and I think that’ll be a fun environment.”
The Mustangs are led offensively by the junior backfield duo of quarterback Gabe Casanovas and running back Mason Caturegli, two key cogs from their state title run last season. Except for a uncharacteristic outing against Analy — where he threw two interceptions — Casanovas has been as, if not more efficient in the pocket, throwing at a 77% clip for 1,320 yards and boasting a TD-INT ratio of 20-2.
One of his best games statistically came against Fortuna, where he threw for 329 yards and six touchdowns. He’ll be going up a Ukiah secondary that has eight interceptions so far.
Caturegli hasn’t missed a step in the ground game, rushing 52 times for 600 yards and eight touchdowns in six games played. He’s scored in every game he’s appeared in, including two-touchdown performances against both Fortuna and Analy. He’s also in great form, passing the 100-yard mark in each of the last two games.
With all the talent these two teams possess and pole position in the league title race at stake, expect lots of fireworks come Friday night.
(The Press Democrat)
LAST WEEK we reviewed the clearance rates of serious felony crimes as reported by Mendocino law enforcement to the State Department of Justice. Those stats showed that in most felony crime categories Mendo either arrested or otherwise closed such crimes at rates somewhat better than state averages: https://theava.com/archives/254284#4
The Department of Justice also collects domestic violence call data by County.
It appears that post covid the number of such calls has dropped significantly. From 2014 to 2021 Mendo mostly reported from 400 to over 500 calls a month. But in the last two years (2022-2023) such calls have dropped by more than half. There’s no obvious explanation. It could be that post-Covid people are less likely to get so angry (or so drunk/drugged/angry) than they were before and during covid. Most of the calls appear to involve a “personal weapon,” typically hands/fists or household items. The majority of these calls are misdemeanors, not felonies, so clearance rate statistics are not maintained by the Department of Justice. Typically Domestic violence is charged as a felony when there’s serious injury, a deadly weapon, or if the victim is underage.
We know of a case a few years ago when a young woman was charged with domestic violence after visiting her ex-husband at his house while he was in bed recovering from a woodsworking leg injury. The responding cop told us that the woman was still pissed off at her ex for sleeping around so she started to denounce him for his philandering while he was lying in bed with a cast on his leg. The woman then proceeded to boldly announce that she was pregnant the bed-ridden guy’s best friend’s child. The woodsworker-ex told the young woman to get out, at which point she picked up the guy’s bedpan and poured his own urine all over him. When he started to get up to grab her, the woman then went over to the wall and picked up the guy’s crutch and started beating his broken leg with it. That one was charged as a felony.
Another incident we heard about was when a woman went to a guy’s house to confront him about sleeping around. But when the guy opened the door, the complaining woman saw another woman standing behind the guy, the other woman being a (former) friend of hers. The complaining woman then decided that she was more pissed off at the other woman than the guy she intended to confront, so she lunged at the other woman. The guy tried to intervene and a scuffle ensued during which she pushed him onto a nearby couch. By that time the other woman had barricaded herself in the bathroom and was calling 911 on her cellphone. The confronting woman was charged with a misdemeanor.
(Mark Scaramella)
LOCAL EVENTS (this weekend)
FRIENDS OF THE EEL: Chinook Return to the Upper Reaches of the Klamath. What Klamath Dam Removal Means for the Eel
You've likely already heard the exciting news: the removal of four dams on the Klamath has been completed, freeing hundreds of miles of salmon habitat. On October 16, the first fall-run Chinook was spotted above the former J.C. Boyle Dam, making it the first to return to the Klamath Basin in Oregon in over 100 years.
The return of salmon to their native habitat is a massive environmental and cultural victory for the region, and we couldn't be happier for our partners in the Klamath watershed. Freeing the Klamath River has set an example that we are determined to carry forward. PG&E has promised the removal of the Potter Valley Project starting in 2028. Once it is complete, the Eel River will become the longest free-flowing river in the state of California. Learning from the restoration work being done on the Klamath now will be crucial for revitalizing the Eel watershed in our not-so-distant future.
(EelRiver.org)
FLUTIST RAYO FURUTA AND PIANIST MICHELLE CANN IN RECITAL
Opus Chamber Music Concert this Sunday at 3 PM, Preston Hall, Mendocino
Experience the electrifying synergy of flutist Ráyo Furuta and Grammy Award-winning pianist Michelle Cann as they celebrate 12 years of duo collaboration at Opus Concerts! Prepare to be enchanted by their dynamic performances, showcasing works by composers such as Florence Price, Valerie Coleman, Gabriela Lena Frank, and their unique arrangement of Rachmaninoff's Sonata for Cello and Piano. Join us for an unforgettable afternoon of musical brilliance and longtime friendship.
Tickets, full program and more information at Symphonyoftheredwoods.org
ANNUAL CHESTNUT GATHERING IN YORKVILLE
The 41st annual chestnut gathering at the Zeni Ranch will be Saturday November 2nd from 10 am to 4 pm.
Potluck dinner this year! Bring something to add to the table along with your own eating supplies.
Dogs on leashes ok, but you're responsible for your pet.
Chestnuts are $4.00 a pound if you pick, or $7.00 if already picked. No credit card service.
Call or text Jane Zeni 707-684-6892
Fresh raw chestnut honey, T-shirts and our popular nut sacks will be available, and other farm products.
FRED GARDNER:
Editor: I see your YA Title at Kezar and call…
In a carton marked “’80s” I found this sketch. Remco Hydraulics was then the biggest employer in Willits. I suggested that instead of a calendar they send out a small tape measure. When you introduced me to Judi B in Willits I asked her something about Remco and was surprised to learn that she didn't know a single person who worked there. I remember thinking, “This chick is no leftie.” PS. Hole cards: Frankie Albert and Otto Graham at Ebbets Field!
ED NOTES
OUTLAWRY didn’t start with drugs in Mendocino County. According to a Mendocino Beacon of early November 1933, at Bourn’s Landing not far south of Point Arena, “A gun battle between alleged rum runners and three federal prohibition agents two of whom were seriously wounded. The agents were reported to have come upon a group of five or six men, ostensibly engaged in unloading liquor from a boat anchored some distance off shore. As the three officers heard the splash of oars when the small dory was being brought to shore, one of them, Norman D. Austin, called out, “We are prohibition agents,” and was immediately answered by a volley of rifle fire. Austin was critically wounded, being shot in both arms, the left chest and side. Sam Byrd, also an agent, was knocked down by a bullet which cut through his scalp; William Goggins, the third agent, was uninjured by the fire. The rum runners then beached the dory that they were allegedly using to haul liquor for a boat to the shore, and rushing agent Byrd, captured him. He was carried in his own automobile to a lonely spot two miles from the shooting and freed after the ignition on his car had been locked and it had otherwise been made useless. Peace officers of both Mendocino and Sonoma counties were called out in an effort to capture the would-be murderers. No liquor was found.”
REVISITING THE SANTA ROSA HITCHHIKER MURDERS
A string of murders during the early 1970s remains one of Sonoma County’s most notorious unsolved crimes.
by Maci Martell
One of Sonoma County’s most infamous unsolved crimes, involving seven murdered young women and girls during the early 1970s, has long stumped investigators and amateur sleuths alike.
Earlier this year, Wondery’s the Morbid Podcast released an episode on the Santa Rosa hitchhiker murders, calling the killings one of “California’s most perplexing cold cases in the state’s history.”
In each of the related, unsolved murder cases, the victims — ages 12 to 23 — were last seen hitchhiking. All the victims were found nude, most down embankments in rural areas of Santa Rosa. One of the victims has yet to be found.
The murders began with the disappearance of Herbert Slater Junior High students Maureen Sterling, 12, and Yvonne Weber, 13. The girls were missing since Feb. 4, 1972, last seen getting into a car in front of the Redwood Empire Ice Arena (also known as Snoopy’s Home Ice).
Sterling and Weber’s bodies weren’t found until almost two years later, on Dec. 26, 1973, down an embankment on the west side of Franz Valley Road, a few miles from the intersection with Porter Creek Road in east Santa Rosa. Their causes of death were unknown.
Before Sterling and Weber were found, five other young women had been reported missing.
Kim Allen, 19, disappeared March 4, 1972, last seen hitchhiking from San Rafael to Santa Rosa. Her body was found the next day down an embankment on Enterprise Road. She had been raped and slowly strangled to death, and marks on her body indicated she had been tied by the ankles and wrists before she died, according to a March 25, 1973, article in The Press Democrat. Additionally, an “oily substance found on her right side was identified as being similar to the oil used in a machine shop in cutting metal.”
Jeannette Kamahele went missing on April 25, 1972, last seen hitchhiking at a Highway 101 on-ramp in Cotati while on her way to Santa Rosa Junior College. The March 25, 1973, article states she was seen around 9:30 a.m. “getting into a 1950-52 faded brown Chevrolet pickup, with a homemade camper slightly higher than the cab, wooden sides and a flat shake roof.” Kamahele has never been found.
Cook Junior High School student Lori Kursa, 13, went missing on Nov. 20, 1972, reportedly having run away from home. Her body was found on Dec. 14, 1972, down a steep embankment on the west side of Calistoga Road in Santa Rosa. A Dec. 17, 1972, Press Democrat article noted she had a dislocated vertebra near her neck that could have contributed to her death.
Shasta County native Carolyn Davis, 14, went missing on July 15, 1973, last seen hitchhiking on Highway 101 in Garberville. Her body was found July 31, 1973, near the spot where Weber and Sterling were found five months later. Davis reportedly died of strychnine poisoning.
Theresa Dianne Walsh, 23, went missing Dec. 22, 1973, last seen hitchhiking north on Highway 101 toward Garberville to spend Christmas with her family and 2-year-old son. Her body was found Dec. 28, 1973, submerged under a log in Mark West Creek. Her cause of death appeared to be strangulation.
An unidentified victim was found July 2, 1979, about 100 yards from the location where Kursa was found on Calistoga Road.
There have been a number of theories as to who the Santa Rosa hitchhiker murderer is, including Ted Bundy and the Zodiac Killer. Investigative journalists explored the murders in the eight-part documentary series “Hunted.” In 2022, investigators were looking into whether convicted rapist and killer Jack Bokin committed the murders. Bokin died Dec. 4, 2021.
In February, HBO Max released a docu-series, “The Truth About Jim,” that examined Santa Rosa resident Jim Mordecai’s string of crimes, attempting (ultimately, in vain) to prove he was the killer.
Anyone with information about the cases, call the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office’s cold cases line at 707-565-2727 or email sheriff-coldcase@sonoma-county.org.
BIG RIVER HOUSE
Excerpted and annotated from “Mendocino’s Hotels & Saloons,” by Dorothy Bear and Beth Stebbins, Mendocino Historical Review, June, 1980.
Big River House was a hotel at the west end of Main Street, just west of the present Zacha Building [Now the Healing Arts Building]. [The three-story hotel sat on the northeast corner of Main and Woodward Streets. Mendocino Jams and Jellies and Mendocino Sandpiper occupy the space today.] It may have been built by William H. Norton in 1871; his daughter Mollie said she was born there in 1872. When Mr. Norton bought a larger and better piece of property at the corner of Lansing and Main streets in 1874, he advertised the Big River House for sale.
Records show that John Pacheco and Anton Jassen purchased it in 1877 but did not keep it long. By September of 1877, J. F. Lazarus, a native of the Azores, was the owner and he added a bar and a barber shop. [In the December 1, 1878 Beacon Lazarus advertised “The Table will be supplied with all the delicacies of the season and no pains will be spared to give satisfaction. The bar will contain the choicest wines, liquors and cigars.” A month later, in January, the Beacon announced “Our friend, Joseph Lazarus of the Big River House, will please accept our thanks for a bunch of fine Havana cigars. Joe has plenty of them left for his customers.”]
It was Lazarus who suffered when the hotel burned on Monday, April 29, 1878, according to the Beacon: "Between 3 and 4 o'clock the usual quiet of our town was disturbed by the cry of fire in the Big River House. Before many were at the scene the flames had reached too much headway to be extinguished. All the lodgers were in bed when the alarm was given and had barely time to escape through the doors, some of them being compelled to jump from the second and third story windows, while others who retained their presence of mind lowered themselves to the ground with the bed sheets. Several who threw themselves out of the windows sustained severe bruises…. Joseph Lazarus is the heaviest loser, as the only thing saved were four sacks of flour…. The occupants of the Big River House lost all that was in their rooms.”
The loss to Mr. Lazarus was $7500 and he had only $1400 insurance. Fire has always been the most feared catastrophe in Mendocino. The redwood buildings burn fast and furiously. [Fortunately, everyone survived that fire. Its origin remained a mystery. Some people thought that the hotel caught fire on the second floor over the kitchen, while others believed it started downstairs in the back of the building.]
[After the fire, Lazarus did some logging in Big River woods, but in 1883 he bought another hotel, the Mansion House, on the southwest corner of Lansing and Little Lake Streets. He sold his interest to his brother Frank in 1885 and opened a saloon on west Main Street. In 1900, Lazarus went north to Alaska for the gold rush there. This time he got lucky and actually found a substantial amount of the ore somewhere near Nome. He lived in Alaska until 1907, when he returned to the lower 48 and settled in Shelton, Washington, where he died in 1925.]
(kelleyhousemuseum.org)
CATCH OF THE DAY: Thursday, October 24, 2024
MICHAEL ALPERS, 56, Ukiah. DUI, no license, leaving scene of accident with property damage.
TRAVIS BONSON, 44, Ukiah. Parole violation.
SCOTT HAYWARD, 65, Redwood Valley. Disorderly conduct-loitering.
JAMES MCGARY, 45, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-loitering, paraphernalia.
GEORGE MENDOZA, 52, Ukiah. Contempt of court, evasion, resisting.
JOSEPH PARKS, 58, Willits. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.
SOYRIA RAMOS, 26, Ukiah. Probation revocation.
ANGEL RUANO-ESCARENO, 23, Fort Bragg. Hit&run by runaway vehicle with property damage, fighting in public, assault on peace officer.
JESSE SMALLEY, 36, Ukiah. Failure to appear.
ELMER VICHI, 65, Fort Bragg. Controlled substance for sale, leaded cane or similar, evidence tampering, resisting.
ESTHER MOBLEY:
We’ve all heard about the California Forever project in Solano County, which appears to be stalled for now. Now, Silicon Valley tech moguls are attempting to create their version of a utopian city in a different corner of the North Bay — this time in Wine Country. The Chronicle’s Rachel Swan and Julie Johnson explain the idea behind this proposal, called “Esmeralda.”
Hong Kong has one of the world’s highest taxes on alcohol — until recently, a tax rate of 100% for most spirits, reports Eir Nolsoe in the Telegraph. Now, in an attempt to revive struggling restaurants and bars, Hong Kong’s chief executive is slashing those taxes to just 10%, applying only to portions of the purchase that exceed about $25.
For those following the ongoing debate over the U.S. Dietary Guidelines update, here’s a podcast interview by Felicity Carter, a writer who has been covering the issue aggressively, with lightning-rod alcohol researcher Dr. Tim Stockwell.
(SF Chronicle)
FALL CHINOOK SALMON RETURNS TO DATE ARE SHOCKINGLY LOW ON UPPER SACRAMENTO RIVER
by Dan Bacher
After discussing the return of the first Klamath River salmon to Oregon last week for the first time in 114 years just a few weeks after the completion of the river’s dam removal project, we are faced with this week with news of shockingly low numbers of fall-run Chinook salmon returning to spawn to date at the Coleman National Fish Hatchery.
Coleman is located on the upper stretch of the Sacramento River on Battle Creek, a tributary of the Sacramento River below Redding.
The hatchery, after opening its gates to spawning salmon on the first Saturday of October, has taken only 1.68 million eggs as of October 19, 2024. This is only a small fraction of the typical 20 million eggs harvested during the spawning season, according to Scott Artis of the Golden State Salmon Association (GSSA), who described the hatchery as a “salmon ghost town” in a statement.…
A TRUMP PROMISE COULD BE ‘CATASTROPHIC’ TO CALIFORNIA’S WINE INDUSTRY
by Jess Lander & Molly Burke
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Anabel Garcia, a Sonoma County farmworker who has worked in vineyards for over 15 years, said her husband, also a farmworker, was battling cancer. But because he was considered “essential,” he continued to show up to work every day in the vineyards. He couldn’t afford not to.
Now, Garcia, who moved to California from the Mexican state of Michoacan in 2002, fears that she — alongside many of her fellow undocumented farmworkers — could soon face another life-altering event: deportation.
Immigrants “are already suffering a lot of discrimination as is,” said Garcia. “And all those immigrants who were essential workers during the pandemic, (Trump) is saying he wants to deport them.”
If elected in November, former President Donald Trump said he plans to implement a mass deportation of the country’s more than 11 million undocumented immigrants. At an Atlanta rally earlier this month, Trump said that “immediately upon taking the oath of office,” he will “launch the largest deportation program in American history.”
Since the Republican National Convention in July, in which convention-goers held signs and chanted demands of “Mass deportation now!” Trump’s running mate, J.D. Vance, has repeatedly suggested immigrants are the root cause of the nation’s housing crisis, and continued to spread falsehoods about immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, even after officials there debunked the claims. Vance has said deportation would bring relief to communities “overrun” with immigrants.
The Chronicle spoke with lawmakers, farmworker experts and wine growers about the plausibility of Trump’s plan and its potential impacts on the wine labor force. While some experts believe implementing such a plan is unrealistic, there’s widespread consensus that mass deportation would be devastating to California’s wine, food and hospitality industries.
Deportation is a hallmark position of Trump’s reelection campaign and Project 2025, a blueprint published by conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation. (Trump has repeatedly denied having read the document or aligning himself with its authors, but many of his policies — immigration and deportation included — overlap with those in the nearly 1,000-page transitional plan. At least 140 people who worked in the Trump administration helped create the plan, a CNN review found.)
While the exact number of undocumented farmworkers in California is unknown, lawmakers said Trump’s plan could exacerbate an existing labor shortage. Rep. Jimmy Panetta, D-Santa Cruz, and the Center for Farmworker Families each estimated undocumented immigrants make up approximately 75% of the state’s agriculture workforce, and a 2015-2019 U.S. Department of Labor survey found that 49% of California farmworkers were authorized to work in the country.
“Farm ranchers in my district already have trouble filling the jobs they have available,” said Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Napa. “We have a tremendous gap between the number of workers we have and the number of job openings. Something like this is just going to cause heartache.”
Mass deportation could be most devastating in fine wine regions like Napa Valley and Sonoma County, where producers are more resistant to mechanization and rely on hand labor. “It would be unrecoverable,” said Doug Boeschen, owner of Boeschen Vineyards, a small Napa Valley winery. “There’s no way Napa Valley could survive that kind of deportation.”
While machine harvesting is more efficient than hand-picking, premium producers believe hand labor leads to higher-quality wines. As a result, these regions pay the highest wages and seek skilled workers, often employing the same crews year after year. And these skilled workers have been hard to come by: Many of Napa Valley’s longtime crews are nearing retirement, and a lack of affordable housing is pushing many of them to move outside of Wine Country.
“The vintners (in Napa Valley) won’t do it,” said famed grape grower Andy Beckstoffer, who farms 3,600 acres. He uses mechanical harvesters in his Lake and Mendocino County vineyards, but said in Napa Valley, there’s a stigma attached to it.
The effects of a potential mass deportation would vary throughout California’s wine regions. In the Central Valley — which produces more than half of California’s wine grapes — most growers have already mechanized production and are extensively utilizing the country’s H-2A program, a temporary agriculture worker visa established to help fill the need for seasonal labor. Steve McIntyre, owner of vineyard management company Monterey Pacific, estimated that 40% of the agriculture workforce in Monterey County is part of the H-2A program. Further south, he said it makes up as much as 70% of the workforce. “We can gear up very quickly with H-2A,” McIntyre said.
But he conceded that even in areas that use H-2A, Trump’s plan would still be “catastrophic,” impacting not only farmworkers, but also undocumented workers in restaurants, hospitality and construction. Those jobs are often in more appealing industries than field work, Beckstoffer said, and could pull farmworkers from the vineyard. The H-2A program also drives up labor costs for farmers: The federal government sets the pay rate of H-2A workers, which is higher than each state’s minimum wage and has increased yearly for the last 20 years.
As with mechanization, some high-end producers are hesitant to utilize the H-2A program, and not just because it’s expensive and bureaucratically complex. “Premium wine production has a lot of attention to fairly technical things,” said Ed Kissam, who has led several studies on farmworker life for organizations like the Department of Labor. “An unskilled H-2A worker won’t do as good of a job as a worker who’s been doing that sort of work for five to 10 years.”
Still, the wine industry — which is facing an unprecedented downturn — may not need to panic about Trump’s threat. After all, this isn’t the first time he’s promised extreme immigration action. In 2016, Trump’s vow to deport 2 million to 3 million undocumented immigrants did not come to fruition. Some of his attempts to implement bans on asylum claims during the pandemic and on immigration from certain Muslim-majority countries were scaled back by the courts. Given Trump’s track record, McIntyre said he thinks the latest plan is “just bluster and bluff.” Thompson agreed, calling it “a logistical nightmare” and “extremely expensive.”
“I think it’s really important that people know that this isn’t a serious proposal,” Thompson said. “How do you round up 10 million people? Maybe he’ll fly them on Trump Airlines.”
Yet Panetta and Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, said Trump’s ability to carry out his plans will largely depend on the makeup of Congress. If Republicans control Congress, “it’s going to be very hard to stop all this,” Huffman said.
The specifics of Trump’s plan are unclear. Vance claimed the number of deported immigrants under their administration would reach 20 million, nearly double Pew Research Center’s estimates of how many undocumented immigrants are in the country. At a Univision Town Hall with Latino voters earlier this month, Jorge Velázquez, a 64-year-old farmworker from Santa Maria (Santa Barbara County), asked Trump who would replace deported farmworkers in the workforce. The former president didn’t have an answer.
The effects of a potential mass deportation would vary throughout California’s wine regions. Some regions, like the Central Valley, have already mechanized production and are extensively utilizing the country’s H-2A program, a temporary agriculture worker visa established to help fill the need for seasonal labor.
But Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, believes voters should take the former president’s claims seriously. “I learned over the years to take Trump at his word,” she said. “When he says he needs to do something, he generally intends to do it.”
It’s an open secret that some of Trump’s biggest supporters are the very people who employ America’s farmworkers. Lofgren said she recently spoke with a California farmer and Trump supporter who did not believe the former president would initiate his deportation plans. McIntyre, who identifies as an independent, called the farming community “highly conservative” and feels that many farmers will vote for Trump, despite his anti-immigration agenda.
“My brethren out there have a really hard choice to make,” McIntyre said. “Face the loss of their workforce or the other conservative values they covet?”
California Federation of Labor Unions President Lorena Gonzalez, who heads the organization of more than 2.3 million Californians, said she doesn’t believe that Trump’s immigration plan will target farmworkers specifically, and that he will protect the interests of his supporters. “Often the government and the farmers themselves have looked away from (farmworkers’) status,” Gonzalez said. “The Republicans always talk about stronger immigration reform, but in reality, they know that all their buddies that give campaign contributions are hiring people who are not here legally.”
Yet even if Trump’s plan ultimately gets blocked, Kissam said, a Trump presidency would “trigger immediate repercussions” to the agriculture labor force. “The thing to track is the threat, even before the implementation of any such plans happen,” he said. “As anti-immigrant rhetoric escalates, immigrants and their social networks tend to become less and less engaged.”
McIntyre recalled the pervasive fear that Trump’s first term ignited within the farmworker community. “The Spanish-language stations were broadcasting instructions like, ‘You don’t have to open your door unless they show a warrant,’” he said. “The first six months of the administration, people were not going to the Laundromat.”
In 1986, when the Immigration Reform and Control Act granted amnesty to undocumented immigrants, Beckstoffer said, many farmworkers stopped showing up to work and went into hiding “because they were afraid,” despite the program’s good intentions. “Just the prospect of (deportation) could be unsettling for the industry,” he said. “The fear in this community would be great.”
For Garcia, a Trump presidency means grappling with the possibility that she’d have to leave her American-born children, whom she and her husband are putting through college. “My life is here. I work here, pay taxes here and struggle to get food on the table every day,” she said.
“Having a president who makes fun of Latinos and immigrants is an added difficulty.”
GAME-CHANGER’: UC BERKELEY CHEMISTS DEVELOP POWDER TO SUCK CARBON DIOXIDE FROM THE AIR
by Julie Johnson
Carbon-drinking trees are so far the greatest warriors against the worst-case scenarios of a warming planet. But there simply aren’t enough of them.
A team of UC Berkeley chemists have developed a potential solution in the form of yellow crystalline powder, a half-pound of which can absorb as much carbon dioxide annually as a tree.
Deployed at scale, the material could significantly reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere in a way no other technology can, said Omar Yaghi, professor of chemistry and UC Berkeley and lead author of a paper announcing their discovery, which was published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
“This is a game-changer,” Yaghi said.
Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that has proliferated in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution. Greenhouse gases trap heat in the atmosphere, driving up global temperatures and upping climate volatility with more heat waves, storms, drought and wildfires.
Capturing carbon from the air is a complex and still developing area of science. Oil refineries employ technology to capture carbon dioxide for reuse in drilling, but it only collects carbon that is highly concentrated. No large-scale options exist to suck carbon out of the ambient air.
At Yaghi’s Berkeley lab, students and colleagues set out to find a porous substance that could absorb CO2. After much trial and error, they synthesized a material called a crystalline covalent organic framework or, more simply, referred to as COF-999.
Their creation was put to the test on the Berkeley campus over 20 days in January. Student scientists measured ambient concentrations of carbon dioxide and charted how the COF-999 powder absorbed it all.
Yaghi said his lab’s innovation “is the best material to date for direct carbon capture from open air.”
The powder is made from relatively common and inexpensive materials that can be transformed back into their original form, purified and reused, according to Yaghi. That means they require little energy to manufacture and don’t generate much waste.
Yaghi said the next step will be to “fine-tune” processes to manufacture multi-ton quantities of the powder so it can be widely used. He estimated it could be scaled up and commercialized within one to two years.
(SF Chronicle)
JANE JACOBS, in her 1960s essay ‘Cyclist,’ foresaw the rise of car culture and its harmful effects on urban environments.
Jacobs, a critic of car dependency, warned of the sociopathic tendencies it fosters. Despite this, she remained a dedicated cyclist and advocate for sustainable city planning. Her seminal book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, emphasized the need for diverse, dense, and mixed-use urban spaces. Jacobs’s economic theories recognized the bicycle’s role in innovation. Her legacy in urban activism and cycling advocacy continues to influence city planning and sustainable transportation.
ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
I don't think the Democrats had anything else in their quiver. They weren't counting on Joe's dementia taking an upturn so fast (divine intervention?), and they didn't have any other viable candidate that they felt could win against Trump, so they went with the tried and true of color and gender. Hence, we have Harris.
LEAD STORIES, FRIDAY'S NYT
Trump Says He’ll Fire Jack Smith, Special Counsel Who Indicted Him, if He Wins Again
The Group at the Center of Trump’s Planning for a Second Term Is One You Haven’t Heard of
Harris and Trump Deadlocked to the End, Final Times/Siena National Poll Finds
Biden to Apologize for Indian Boarding Schools Where Hundreds of Children Died
District Attorney Will Ask Court to Resentence Menendez Brothers
Judge, Ohtani and a Dream World Series Matchup: Could This Be MLB’s Magic and Bird?
THE MURDEROUS LOGISTICS OF ISRAEL’S ETHNIC CLEANSING CAMPAIGN IN NORTHERN GAZA
Eyewitnesses say the IDF is starving residents, targeting hospitals, bombing shelters, and murdering civilians in the streets
by Sharif Abdel Kouddous & Abubaker Abed
As part of Israel’s concentrated ethnic cleansing campaign in northern Gaza, it has severely disrupted phone and internet access—meaning that one of the only ways information about the latest brutal assault can reach the world is through the courageous reporting of Palestinian journalists who have remained in the area. The same is true across the Gaza Strip, where a relentless aerial and ground continues without pause.
On Wednesday, the Israeli military accused six Al Jazeera journalists of being “terrorists,” claiming they are members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Israel also published purported evidence that supposedly supported their claims. One Israeli military spokesman even posted videos of himself singling out out Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif and accusing him of being a member of the military wing of Hamas.
These direct threats against journalists appear to be laying the groundwork for Israel to assassinate them. The IDF has already killed upwards of 170 journalists in Gaza over the past year, an unprecedented number in modern history.
One of the targeted journalists, Hossam Shabat, today called on people to speak out using the hashtag #ProtectTheJournalists: “I plead everyone to share the reality about Journalists in order to spread awareness about the real plans of the Israeli occupation to target journalists in order to impose a media blackout. Spread the hashtag and talk about us!”
In our report below, we delve into the mechanics of the Israeli campaign in north Gaza, drawing on first-hand accounts—including from some of the targeted journalists—and the latest casualty figures.
On Monday, Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif posted a photograph from northern Gaza capturing the Israeli military’s brutal depopulation campaign. In the photo, hundreds of Palestinian men, women, and children crowd together on a bombed-out street, carrying their few belongings in plastic bags. They all face the same direction, as if moving in procession, holding their ID cards up in the air to an Israeli soldier just out of view. The caption reads: “Ethnic Cleansing in Jabaliya 2024.”
For the past 19 days, the Israeli military has waged a concentrated campaign of extermination and ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza, according to medical staff and eyewitnesses who have been speaking to Drop Site News. The IDF has besieged the area with troops, blocked roads, and constructed earthen barriers, while cutting off access to food, water, fuel, and medical supplies. From the air, it has targeted homes, shelters, schools and hospitals with relentless airstrikes. Quadcopters are shooting civilians in the streets. Amid shelling and demolitions on the ground, soldiers have rounded up residents, arresting hundreds and forcing tens of thousands to march south. “This is the first time since the beginning of the war that the occupation army has besieged an area and then begun a campaign of bombing, killing and starvation in such a complete way,” Mahmoud Basal, the spokesperson for the Civil Defense in Gaza, told the Palestinian press agency Safa.
In one of the deadliest incidents, at least 87 people were killed or have been reported missing following an airstrike on a residential block in Beit Lahia on Saturday. More than 40 people were injured in the strike, including infants, some of whom were taken to Kamal Adwan hospital. Video shared by the ministry of health shows several children barely clinging to life in the hospital’s intensive care unit, including footage of a months-old baby lying dead next to another severely wounded child covered in gauze and hooked up to tubes receiving treatment.
On Monday, at least 10 people were killed and 30 injured in the shelling of an UNRWA school sheltering displaced Palestinians in the Jabaliya camp after the Israeli military ordered them to evacuate. In Beit Lahia on Tuesday, 15 people were killed in an Israeli drone strike, followed by a tank shelling on a school that had become a shelter for the displaced, killing seven.
The Israeli military on Wednesday released aerial footage showing crowds streaming out a bombed out landscape and extolling the "tens of thousands" of citizens that have been forced to flee Jabaliya. Al Jazeera also posted footage from Israel’s national broadcaster showing IDF trucks carrying dozens of blindfolded Palestinian men reportedly from Jabaliya.
So far, the assault has claimed the lives of over 770 people, a number certain to go up with countless more casualties lying in the streets and under the rubble in areas Israeli troops have barred emergency crews from accessing. “Israeli forces are executing people in the streets, in shelters, everywhere,” Ismail Al-Thwabta, the spokesperson for the Information Ministry in Gaza, told Drop Site News. Over 1,000 others have been injured and more than 200 civilians have been “kidnapped,” according to the Government Media Office in Gaza, with dozens more missing.
The focus of the military campaign is the northernmost governorate in the Gaza Strip, an area known as North Gaza. The stretch, where some 200,000 Palestinians still remain, includes the cities of Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun, and Jabaliya, along with Jabaliya refugee camp, the largest refugee camp in the Gaza Strip.
The UN Human Rights Office issued a statement on Sunday voicing its concern that Israeli forces in North Gaza are interfering with humanitarian aid and facilitating the forced expulsion of Palestinians. “The Israeli military has taken measures that make life in north Gaza impossible for Palestinians while repeatedly ordering the displacement of the entire governorate,” the office said. Thousands of homes, shelters and other structures have also been destroyed “causing massive and unprecedented destruction,” the Government Media Office in Gaza said in a statement.
Images and video shared by journalists on the ground show large groups of civilians on the street being rounded up, with Israeli tanks positioned next to them. On Monday, Al Jazeera correspondent Hossam Shabat posted on X that Israeli forces that day had attacked a school in the Jabaliya refugee camp, forcing people out. “Then they lined them up and shot anyone who dared to move. Any male over the age of 16 is being detained, tortured, and investigated,” he wrote. “Many people who are being lined up are sick individuals, such as amputees, cancer patients, and young kids who are being asked to stand in line for hours. The situation is catastrophic.”
As Israeli operations in the north have intensified, its planes are dropping flyers over the area and deploying drones fitted with loudspeakers ordering people, warning people that the area will be detonated while they are inside their homes if they do not evacuate immediately. Israeli troops have also bombed and burned down shelters for the displaced.
Amid the carnage, those who have been forced out describe a hellish journey south, made to walk for many kilometers past Israeli tanks and troops.
Fadi Redwan, a 22-year-old resident of Jabaliya refugee camp, was forced to leave his family on October 8 and head to Kamal Adwan hospital for a blood transfusion to treat his thalassemia, a blood disorder that affects hemoglobin levels. “On my way, the streets were a picture of horror and trauma: decomposing bodies gnawed by dogs, children’s skulls here and there, scattered skeletons amid the rubble of homes. I couldn’t do anything as snipers and quadcopters were shooting everyone,” Redwan told Drop Site News. Not long after he reached the hospital,Israeli soldiers encircled and stormed the facility. “They checked my ID, my medical report, and my phone,” Redwan said. “They only gave back my ID and medical report and ordered me and five others like me with thalassemia to head to the south.”
With Apache helicopters overhead, Redwan and several others also seeking care were forced to leave the hospital. “The streets were filled with corpses and piles of rubble and it was difficult to walk straight. Anyone looking left or right was shot dead,” he said. “There were many decomposing bodies and the smell was utterly horrific.” After a 10-hour trek, he reached the Netzarim corridor, a securitized stretch of land established by the Israeli military with bases and checkpoints that divides northern and southern Gaza, where soldiers eventually allowed him to pass through.
Sixteen hours after Redwan was forced out of the hospital, he finally reached Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, where more than a million displaced Palestinians are crowded into tents on every street with little sanitation or infrastructure, taking refuge with a friend in a tent. “My family was extremely worried about me. When I finally called them, they broke down in tears as they thought I had been killed. I am now a patient and have nothing with me. I was trembling with cold yesterday as I only have this T-shirt,” Redwan said. “It was the first time I had seen Israeli soldiers—it was the shock of a lifetime. I am now without my family. I dream of having the most basic things, such as clothes to get warm and some food to eat. I don’t know how I’ll endure this, but I hope it’ll end and I’ll be back with my family. I am severely traumatized.”
Key to Israel’s campaign in the north has been the targeting of hospitals has been a key part of Israel’s campaign in the north, Al-Thwabta told Drop Site News. Following repeated attacks, the three partially functioning hospitals in the area—Kamal Adwan, Indonesian, and al-Awda—are almost out of service. Over 350 patients are trapped inside the three hospitals, including pregnant women and people who recently underwent surgery, according to Médecins Sans Frontières.
“Israeli attacks hit Kamal Adwan Hospital today, which remains under Israel’s constant bombings and with no medical aid or supplies,” Al-Thwabta said. “We’ve been calling out the world to allow safe corridors to provide the north with the basic necessities. However, there’s been no response. Even our request to provide healthcare professionals with food was rejected.”
Dr. Hussam Abu Safia, Director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, said the hospital has run out of blood and a number of wounded have died as a result of the severe lack of resources. “We are now implementing a priority treatment system. This is the reality,” he said. Dr. Eid Sabah, the Director of Nursing at Kamal Adwan Hospital said in an audio message shared with Drop Site that Israeli forces have shelled and closed all roads and streets leading to the hospital, preventing ambulances from reaching the facility, effectively isolating it.
At the Indonesian hospital, “the occupation bombs the generators, cutting off electricity, causing patients to die after being disconnected from oxygen devices,” Dr. Munir Al-Borsh, director-general of the ministry of health, said in a statement. “Doctors and medical staff dig graves to bury the martyrs inside the hospital, which is besieged by tanks, as they are unable to leave.”
And at the Al-Awda Hospital, Israeli forces “have completely surrounded the hospital, and we cannot leave or approach the windows,” Dr. Mohammed Salha, the acting director of the hospital, said in a message. “We only eat one meal a day, which is half a loaf of bread or a small plate of rice. Two days ago, occupation forces fired artillery shells at the hospital, destroying two floors of patients' accommodation and water tanks.”
With Israel continuing to enforce a near-total blockade the humanitarian crisis is becoming catastrophic. On Monday, Israeli forces killed six men in the Jabaliya refugee camp attempting to get drinking water, Al Jazeera reported. Also on Monday, the UN said Israel had, for the fourth consecutive day, denied an urgent request it had made to allow access to the Jabaliya refugee camp to rescue people trapped under the rubble. Israel also denied a separate request by the UN to deliver food, water, and fuel. Farhan Haq, the UN’s deputy spokesman, said Israel also denied 28 UN requests to deliver humanitarian aid to Jabaliya, Beit Hanoun, and Beit Lahiya between October 6 and 20. Several other requests, he added, “faced impediments.”
On Tuesday, the Israeli military said in a statement that over 230 trucks carrying aid have entered northern Gaza since last week, despite multiple reports from journalists on the ground and humanitarian organizations pushing back on that claim, including the World Health Organization. The group said on Wednesday that when teams were granted access to Kamal Adwan Hospital to evacuate critical patients, their request to bring food, fuel, blood, and medicine was denied.
In a letter addressed to senior Israeli officials dated October 13, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Israel must take steps in the next month to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza or face potential restrictions on military aid. Yet at the same time, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby stressed in a press briefing that the letter was intended not as a threat, but as a way to “reiterate the sense of urgency we feel and the seriousness with which we feel it, about the need for an increase, a dramatic increase in humanitarian assistance.”
Phillippe Lazzarini, the Commissioner-General of UNRWA, posted an urgent message on X on Tuesday:
Nearly three weeks of non-stop bombardments from the Israeli Forces as the death toll increases.
Our staff report they cannot find food, water or medical care.
The smell of death is everywhere as bodies are left lying on the roads or under the rubble. Missions to clear the bodies or provide humanitarian assistance are denied.
In northern Gaza, people are just waiting to die.
They feel deserted, hopeless and alone. They live from one hour to the next, fearing death at every second.
(Abubaker Abed is an accidental war correspondent from Deir al-Balah in Gaza. He was thrown into an active warzone to report on the genocide. He's a football journalist and commentator. DropSiteNews.com)
PRISON DIARY
by Victor Navalny
January 17, 2022
Exactly one year ago today I came home, to Russia.
I didn’t manage to take a single step on the soil of my country as a free man: I was arrested even before border control.
The hero of one of my favorite books, “Resurrection,” by Leo Tolstoy, says, “Yes, the only suitable place for an honest man in Russia at the present time is prison.”
It sounds fine, but it was wrong then, and it’s even more wrong now.
There are a lot of honest people in Russia—tens of millions. There are far more than is commonly believed.
The authorities, however, who were repugnant then and are even more so now, are afraid not of honest people but of those who are not afraid of them. Or let me be more precise: those who may be afraid but overcome their fear.
There are a lot of them, too. We meet them all the time, in all sorts of places, from rallies to the media, people who remain independent. Indeed, even here, on Instagram. I recently read that the Ministry of the Interior was firing staff who had “liked” my posts. So in Russia, in 2022, even a “like” can take courage.
In every period, the essence of politics has been that a tin-pot tsar who wants to arrogate to himself the right to personal, unaccountable power needs to intimidate the honest people who are not afraid of him. And they, in turn, need to convince everyone around them that they should not be afraid, that there are, by an order of magnitude, more honest people than the mean little tsar’s security guards. Why live your whole life in fear, even being robbed in the process, if everything can be arranged differently and more justly?
The pendulum swings endlessly. Or the tug-of-war. Today you are brave. Tomorrow they seem to have scared you a bit. And the day after tomorrow they have scared you so much that you despair and become brave again.
I have no idea when my journey into space will end, if ever, but on Friday I was informed that another criminal case is being brought against me and going to court. And there is yet another coming up, in which I am supposedly an extremist and a terrorist. So I’m one of those cosmonauts who don’t count the days until the end of their term. What is there to count? People have been kept in prison for as long as twenty-seven years.
But I find myself in this company of cosmonauts precisely because I tried my utmost to tug my end of the rope. I pulled over to this side those among the honest people who would not be or could no longer bear to be afraid.
That is what I did. I don’t for a second regret it. And I will continue to do it.
Having spent my first year in prison, I want to tell everyone exactly the same thing I shouted to those who gathered outside the court when the guards were taking me off to the police truck: Don’t be afraid of anything. This is our country and it’s the only one we have.
The only thing we should fear is that we will surrender our homeland to be plundered by a gang of liars, thieves, and hypocrites. That we will surrender without a fight, voluntarily, our own future and the future of our children.
Huge thanks to all of you for your support. I can feel it.
I’d just like to add: This year has gone by incredibly quickly. It seems only yesterday I was boarding the plane to Moscow, and now I’ve already completed a year in prison. It’s true what they say in science books: time on earth and in space passes at different speeds.
I love you all. Hugs to everyone.
TELL MY MAMA I DID MY BEST
If I don't come out of here,
With the riches I promised,
With my bank account full,
And a house for my mother,
School fees for my siblings,
Tell my Mama I build a home.
If I don't make it back home,
Tell her I survived the den of sins,
I never joined the robbers of Nairoberry,
That I avoided the Sodom and Gomorrah of Koinange streets,
Tell her how I stopped drinking,
Tell my Mama I went to church every Sunday.
If I don't make it to the bus stop,
Tell her how I struggled to make end meets,
That the degree only got me a gateman job,
Tell her the bills I paid,
And the mouths I fed,
Tell my Mama I paid all her debts.
If the bus don't make it home,
Give my greetings to Mama,
Tell her I love her so much,
Take my family to Mama,
Give her this gold I kept,
Tell my Mama I did my best.
Humphrey Euginix Omondi
SHIP’S CATS: A HISTORY
Perched atop the deck of a ship in the year 1910, a sailor shares a moment of companionship with the ship's cat and its tiny kitten. This timeless scene captures the enduring bond between seafarers and their feline companions, a testament to the shared journeys and mutual reliance that defined life aboard the ship.
Throughout maritime history, ship's cats have been valued members of crews, providing both practical assistance and emotional support to sailors during their voyages. Beyond their role as cherished companions, these feline sailors played a crucial role in maintaining the ship's integrity and protecting its cargo.
The history of ship's cats dates back to ancient times, with records indicating their presence on Egyptian vessels as early as 3,000 BCE. These cats were brought aboard ships primarily to control the rodent population, which posed a significant threat to food supplies, ropes, and woodwork. As ships traveled farther and crossed different regions, cats became essential crew members on voyages.
With their keen hunting instincts, ship's cats helped control the rodent population aboard, safeguarding vital supplies and equipment from damage. Rats and mice were notorious for gnawing through ropes and wooden planks, leading to potential structural damage and risking the ship's safety. By keeping these pests in check, ship's cats played an indispensable role in maintaining the ship's seaworthiness.
The presence of ship's cats also brought a sense of comfort and camaraderie to sailors far from home, offering a brief respite from the rigors of life at sea. The long months or even years away from loved ones and the monotony of daily routines could be mentally and emotionally taxing. Cats, with their playful antics and affectionate nature, provided a much-needed distraction and emotional relief for the sailors.
Cats aboard ships also held symbolic significance. They were often considered lucky mascots, believed to bring good fortune and favorable winds. Sailors were known to treat their feline companions with great respect and care, ensuring they were well-fed and looked after. In return, the cats offered loyalty and companionship, forming an unspoken bond with the crew.
Historical records and anecdotes abound with stories of famous ship's cats. One such example is Simon, the ship's cat on the HMS Amethyst during the Chinese Civil War. Simon was awarded the Dickin Medal, the animal equivalent of the Victoria Cross, for his bravery in protecting the ship's food stores from an infestation of rats during a 101-day siege.
Another notable ship's cat was Trim, who sailed with Captain Matthew Flinders during his explorations of Australia in the early 19th century. Trim became an essential part of the crew, and Flinders documented Trim's adventures and loyalty in his writings, highlighting the cat's significance to the expedition.
In this scene from 1910, we glimpse the enduring bond between a sailor and his feline companions, reflecting a tradition that spanned centuries. The sailor, finding solace in the presence of the cat and its kitten, exemplifies the deep connection and mutual reliance that defined life aboard the ship.
As the ship's cat and its tiny kitten explore the deck, they symbolize the continuity of this ancient maritime tradition. Their presence aboard the ship is a reminder of the practical roles these cats played in ensuring the ship's safety and the emotional support they provided to the sailors who braved the open seas.
Today, while modern ships may no longer rely on cats for pest control, the legacy of ship's cats lives on. Their stories continue to be celebrated, reflecting the timeless bond between humans and animals, forged through shared journeys and mutual reliance on the ever-changing seas.
Grim “cartoons” toward the end of MCT–two gallows scenes and an old man who’s lost hope–a bleak start for the day. But there’s some hope in the “Ship’s Cats” tale in between–read it to our energizer bunny cat, she was entranced and now’s ready to go to sea!
There is a minor movement afoot to write in “Gaza” for president. I see no good reason not to if you are a California, Oregon or Washington voter. Harris is a lock for those states.
Oregon actually seems pretty close, last time I checked a month ago: 5 or 6 points difference
If they didn’t leave Kennedy on it would be a true swing state. Voter fraud again
Again? Please point us to the proof of previous voter fraud.
I see that for July. Oct. 16 poll shows Harris +12 in Oregon
Another incident we heard about was when a woman went to a guy’s house to confront him about sleeping around.
REVISITING THE SANTA ROSA HITCHHIKER MURDERS
Have no memory of this whatever. Weird.
Aint true love grand!
FALL CHINOOK SALMON RETURNS TO DATE ARE SHOCKINGLY LOW ON UPPER SACRAMENTO RIVER
Not shocking at all. Just what would be expected when too much water is diverted (stolen) to benefit farmers and overpopulated urban areas.
“My brethren out there have a really hard choice to make,” McIntyre said. “Face the loss of their workforce or the other conservative values they covet?”
Conservatives have NO values, just a lot of greed and self-entitlement.
Many citizens may be coming to a realization that in many cases law enforcement entities, and the judicial system altogether, may be untrustworthy overall. Why? I was just now watching federal border agents nod in agreement to Trump’s crazed misrepresentation of the scale of crime by migrants, undocumented immigrants, and approved asylum seekers like the Haitian refugees. And, then there’s the matter of not only the Border Police union endorsing Trump, but also the Fraternal Order of Police doing so. Despite the fact he is now not only a convicted felon, but also facing serious charges not yet tried. Including for charges he incited a riot that resulted in the injuries and death of Capitol Hill police officers.
Trump has been a vocal advocate of allowing police to engage in abusive tactics. And promising to have their back if there’s a blowback to such tactics. He has also said he would even use troops to go after “enemies within”, which includes 2 he specifically mentioned, Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi.
It’s hard to say if, as Harris rightly ponders, he will have no guardrails if again in power. Even if he loses, it’s clear that a large portion of our population and law enforcement personnel are in synch with the disturbed and pathological Trumpian psychology.
So, all this remains a factor working to degrade what has ideally been thought of as the American Way even if Trump loses.
Where is THE SISTERS?