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CLEAR AND COLD conditions overnight have dropped temperatures, with some valleys expected to reach freezing. Another frontal boundary is expected to produce gusty southerly winds and periods of moderate rainfall Wednesday morning. Rain showers are expected to persist through Friday. (NWS)
STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): My "we might see a sprinkle this morning" forecast yesterday morning yielded .31" of rainfall between 8am to 10am, it really came down. A much warmer than the forecast "Freeze Warning" 45F under clear skies this Tuesday morning on the coast. Clear skies until about noon tomorrow then more rain returns into Saturday morning. Next week is looking dry so far.
MOUNTAIN LION RESCUE ENDS BADLY
The public first heard about the rescue in a Facebook post from California Highway Patrol’s Ukiah office, describing how an officer discovered the battered mountain lion on State Route 20 near Willits. Working with the Mendocino Wildlife Association, “the feisty cat was caught and secured” before being sent to Sonoma Wildlife Rescue in Petaluma for treatment.
Doris Duncan, Executive Director of Sonoma Wildlife Rescue, reported that the young male suffered severe head trauma, likely from a vehicle strike, and passed away just 10 minutes after transport began.
CHP Officer Matt Holzhauer, who found the mountain lion, said he was “fighting to live,” prompting him to arrange for help from Fish and Game and Mendocino Wildlife rather than euthanizing it on the spot. Volunteers quickly assembled on the roadside to secure the cat, which Holzhauer said was “clearly in pain and stressed.”
Sadly, this young lion’s fate reflects a larger problem in California: a study from UC Davis found that between 2015 and 2022, one to two mountain lions were killed every week on California’s roads and highways. While the number of road deaths has dropped slightly, researchers are uncertain whether this is due to population decline or other factors.
(Matt LaFever, mendofever.com)
PRESCRIBED BURNS ABOVE HOPLAND THIS WEEK
The University of California Hopland Research and Extension Center (HREC) is working in partnership with CAL FIRE to implement a 10-year Vegetation Management Plan (VMP) of annual prescribed burns for fuel reduction, public safety, ecosystem health, research, and education.
To reduce wildfire fuel, CAL FIRE is planning to use “good fire” to burn two separate units at HREC the week of October 28th, pending favorable weather conditions that allow for a high level of smoke lift and winds that push the smoke into the Mayacamas Mountains.
The two units are each about 60 acres and are subdivided into smaller sections with internal control lines, allowing for a staged burn process. One of the units is primarily grassland and supports a long-term research project looking at the effects on rangeland of grazing with both sheep and cattle in the presence and absence of prescribed fire. The second unit is a mixture of oak savannah and grassland, the burning of which will reduce fire fuels around our headquarters and create a pyro-diverse landscape for various research projects on wildlife ecology and oak woodland management.
Staff at HREC and our UC Cooperative Extension Advisors have been communicating with the winegrowers in our region to time these burns after the vast majority, if not all, grapes in our area are harvested. We are taking all possible steps to greatly reduce any potential for inducing smoke taint in the grapes while still conducting burn at a time of year that is viable.
We have been contacting local growers and related organizations to ensure their crops are harvested before CAL FIRE burns. In addition, we will be working with CAL FIRE to review their spot weather forecast, which will give us the information needed to guide us in deciding whether to burn on the planned days. The complexity of coordinating enough CAL FIRE crews and equipment to keep the fire within the extensive network of control lines creates a challenge in changing plans at the last minute so we will be looking at the forecasts three days and one day prior to the burns. We may move the burn date if weather conditions are not within the prescription.
In addition, HREC staff will be making calls to neighbors to let them know about the planned burns and have invited both winegrowers and the Hopland Band of Pomo Indians to attend the burn and learn more about the process and planning involved.
We greatly appreciate and value both our winegrowing community and CAL FIRE for the work they do to create a vibrant local economy and ensure that we manage our landscape through the use of prescribed fire to reduce the risk of future catastrophic wildfires and the negative impacts they create.
JOHN M. MAYFIELD JR.
John M. Mayfield Jr., a devoted husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, accomplished businessman, and philanthropist, passed away at home in his sleep on October 13, 2024 at the age of 91. Born in Nowata, Oklahoma, and later, moving with his family to start a sawmill on Orr Springs Road in Ukiah, John attended a one room grade school there and later graduated from Ukiah High School. John’s journey spanned many roles—from entrepreneur and political leader to conservation advocate and mentor.
John’s career was marked by significant achievements across various industries and organizations, including manufacturing, consulting, and government service. After earning a BA in Business with a minor in Forestry from Humboldt State College in 1958, he embarked on a diverse career that included serving as Vice President and later President and owner of Microphor Inc., a manufacturing company specializing in water saving toilets and sewage treatment equipment for the railroad, commercial and marine industries worldwide. He successfully operated Microphor for about 30 years, guiding the company to international success. Later John was President of NTech Industries, Inc. a high tech company whose products included WeedSeeker sensors which are still in use today helping reduce chemical use in the agricultural industry.
John’s leadership extended beyond business. In 1960, at just 27, he became the youngest elected member of the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors, marking a significant early milestone in his public service career. This role led him to work with then Governor Ronald Reagan in the Department of Conservation in Sacramento, reflecting his lifelong commitment to reasonable regulation and community development.
A founding member of several local organizations, including the Employers Council of Mendocino County and Leadership Mendocino, John championed civic engagement and economic development. His philanthropic endeavors included the John and Sandra Mayfield Family Economic Development Fund and the Sandra Westman Mayfield Vocational Scholarship Fund, which embody his dedication to supporting future generations.
John received numerous honors, including recognition from the North Coast Builders Exchange for Superior Service and knighthood from the International Order of St. Hubertus. His approach to life was shaped by his father’s advice: “If you never try, you'll never know,” and he attributed his success to his open-mindedness and commitment to making a difference.
John enjoyed traveling the world to several countries with his wife, hunting and shooting in Potter Valley with his children and grandchildren, and giving sage advice to those who sought him out.
He is survived by his beloved wife, Sandy Mayfield; his children, Jim Mayfield, Ted Mayfield, and Susan Hewitt; siblings, Leah Ford, Marcia Root, Joe Mayfield and a legacy of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He is also remembered by countless extended family members, colleagues, friends, and mentees.
A private graveside service was held on October 17, with a public memorial planned for November 16th, 2024, 1:30-4:00 pm at Barra of Mendocino, 7051 N State St., Redwood Valley, CA. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to Hospice of Ukiah or The Community Foundation of Mendocino County, reflecting John’s lifelong dedication to service and community.
TWO POUNDS OF METH
On October 23, 2024, at approximately 11:33 A.M., a Fort Bragg police officer conducted a traffic stop in the 700 block of N Main St for the driver not wearing a seatbelt.
While the driver, later identified as Elmer Vichi, 65, of Fort Bragg, was being contacted, the officer noticed he was attempting to conceal something under his seat. When asked about what he was trying to hide, Vichi produced a small plastic bag which contained a shard of a crystalline substance the officer recognized as methamphetamine.
The officer demanded the suspected illegal substance and Vichi put it under his seat, then pulled out several empty bags. The officer told him that wasn’t the right bag and Vichi began dumping the suspected methamphetamine onto the floorboard of the vehicle. Vichi refused orders to exit the vehicle, and was removed. After a short struggle, he was taken into custody.
Vichi had further evidence of narcotics sales concealed on him when searched. While searching the vehicle, the officer located two one-gallon size plastic bags containing suspected methamphetamine. The total weight of the two large plastic bags and one small bag was two pounds. The officer also located over $2,000 in cash.
Vichi had four cellular phones in his possession. One phone received dozens of calls from different numbers throughout the evidence booking process.
Vichi was booked into Mendocino County Jail on the charges of Possession of a Controlled Substance for Sale (felony); Transportation of a Controlled Substance (felony); Possession of a Leaded Cane (felony); Possession of Narcotics Paraphernalia (misdemeanor); Conceal/Destroy Evidence (misdemeanor); and Resisting Arrest (misdemeanor).
Chief Neil Cervenka said, “This is an example of great police work. This began as a traffic stop for an infraction, but turned into the recovery of two pounds of dangerous narcotics which would’ve been on the streets of our community.”
The Fort Bragg Police Department can assist those with substance use disorders into treatment. Please call the Care Response Unit at (707)961-2800 and choose option 6.
Anyone with information on this incident is encouraged to contact Officer Beak of the Fort Bragg Police Department at (707)961-2800 ext 224.
This information is being released by Chief Neil Cervenka. All media inquiries should contact him at ncervenka@fortbragg.com.
AV SENIOR CENTER: We are still in need of contestants! Please send in your entry forms! Email Renée at avseniorcenter@pacific.net to get an entry from sent to you.
AV ATHLETICS TICKETS
Digital Ticketing Now Available for Panther Basketball and Spring Volleyball Seasons!
We’re excited to offer digital payment options for basketball games this winter and boys’ volleyball this spring.
Pricing:
- Online/Card: – General Admission: $6
– Student/Senior/Child: $4
- Cash at the Door: – General Admission: $5
– Student/Senior/Child: $3
Cash payments are still accepted at the venue. Season tickets for each sport are also available!
Get your tickets today and support our teams!
(gofan.co)
FORT BRAGG JURY FINDS OUT-OF-TOWN DRIVER GUILTY OF DUI
A Mendocino County Superior Court jury returned from its deliberations in Fort Bragg Friday afternoon to announce it had found the defendant guilty of alcohol-impaired driving.
Defendant Bruce Joseph Gallyot, age 46, of Rohnert Park, was convicted of misdemeanor driving a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol, and misdemeanor driving a motor vehicle with a blood alcohol .08 or greater.
The impaired driving occurred earlier this year on June 23rd in the Navarro River Redwood State Park at the Navarro Beach campground. A concerned eyewitness called 9-1-1 to report the crimes.
The law enforcement agencies that developed the evidence used against the defendant at trial was the Sonoma-Mendocino State Parks District and the California Department of Justice crime laboratory.
The prosecutor who presented the People’s evidence to the jury was Senior Deputy District Attorney Eloise Kelsey, the DA’s coastal Mendocino County prosecutor.
Mendocino County Superior Court Judge Clayton Brennan presided over the three-day trial.
(DA Presser)
ON LINE COMMENT RE: Courthouse Design:
My husband says it should be built with Roman design since they were known to be one of the first empires to have Organized judiciary systems.
I however love that Lee was so inspired by the Shivelight! I love that she conducts her architectural design upon inspiration from nature. People that have know insight to this must not know what it’s like to loose inspiration and then get it back vis versa. It’s a gift and I’m so happy to hear that our court house might come to life from a pure manifestation of someone that knows joy and the true meaning behind natures beauty.
MENDO PLANNERS TO CONSIDER AIRBNB for Glamping/Hipcamps for Inland Mendo
Discussion And Possible Direction To Staff Regarding Establishing A New Use Type Of Transient Habitation: Low Intensity Camping, Which Would Allow A Limited Number Of Short-Term Commercial Campsites On Properties Within The Inland Areas Of The County
The Mendocino County Planning Commission intends to discuss and provide possible direction to Planning and Building Services staff on establishing a new use type of Transient Habitation: Low Intensity Camping at their regular meeting on November 7, 2024 at 10 am or as soon thereafter as the item may be heard. This may include possible direction to staff to assist in crafting an ordinance for future consideration.
The new use type of Transient Habitation: Low Intensity Camping would allow for a limited number of short-term commercial campsites on properties within the Inland areas of the County.
The Mendocino County Planning Commission meeting will take place in the Board of Supervisors Chambers, at 501 Low Gap Road, Ukiah, California, and virtual attendance will be available via Zoom. Meetings are live streamed and available for viewing on the Mendocino County YouTube page, at https://www.youtube.com/MendocinoCountyVideo
MCHC WELCOMES BILINGUAL BEHAVIORAL HEALTH PROVIDER LILY PEREZ
MCHC Health Centers is happy to welcome Lily Perez, an associate clinical social worker, to its Behavioral Health team. Perez, who is bilingual in English and Spanish, sees patients in Ukiah, from Monday through Wednesday at Hillside Health Center, and on Thursdays and Fridays at Dora Street Health Center.
Before joining MCHC, Perez spent eight years working locally as a social worker case manager for elderly and disabled community members through the Mendocino Department of Social Services. In that role, Perez appreciated getting to know people in the community and becoming familiar with the challenges they face and the resources available to them. She will continue to draw upon that knowledge as a mental health provider, and is grateful to continue working with some of the same populations. “The difference is that now I get to be part of their healthcare team,” she says.
MCHC Behavioral Health Director Ben Anderson says, “The behavioral health team at MCHC is thrilled to welcome Lily Perez. She brings with her a wealth of experience working with families in our community. And as a bilingual therapist, she is able to help our community get services in their preferred language.”
Perez, who has always advocated for people to have better access to healthcare, became interested in pursuing a career as a mental health provider when she noticed the gaps in care that limited people’s access to the support they needed.
“In my previous position, I came to realize that there is only so much you can do if there aren’t enough resources available,” she says, explaining that although many people sought mental health care, there was a shortage of providers. “You can refer someone to a provider, but if there are no appointments, it’s frustrating.”
Returning to school to get her master's in social work was a way of continuing to contribute to her community. Having previously graduated with a bachelor’s in interdisciplinary health sciences from Queens University of Charlotte in North Carolina, she went on to earn a master’s in social work from the University of Montana.
Her continuing education illuminated the connection between physical, mental, and emotional health. She emphasizes that behavioral health impacts everything else. Its effects are evident in obvious ways as well as subtle ones, affecting multiple intertwined areas of our lives.
“How can you prioritize your diabetes care, for instance, if you’re worried that your daughter isn’t doing well in school?” she asks. This holistic understanding of health helps her provide comprehensive and supportive care for her clients, who range in age from young children to older adults.
Perez values getting to know each client personally, learning from what they share about their lives, health, and priorities. Gaining an understanding of her patients’ everyday circumstances is critical to providing support. “It’s important to think about which factors in their environment are impacting them,” she says. “That includes what is happening now as well as things that happened when they were a child, and even how the experiences of the generations before them are impacting them today.”
Perez says many of her clients have experienced trauma, which can manifest in unexpected ways — sometimes even in their experience traveling to a medical clinic or walking into an office to receive healthcare. “If they walk into the office and there’s no one there who speaks their language, that can be traumatic. If they’ve gone to a medical facility before and they were treated poorly, that can turn them off from seeking access to healthcare in the future,” she explains.
As a fluent Spanish speaker, Perez aims to create a welcoming and inclusive environment for all of her clients. “I’m really excited to work with the Spanish-speaking community,” she says. In her previous job with the County, almost all of her patients were Spanish-speaking, and she spoke and read in Spanish every day.
Connecting with her clients in their language is just one of the ways she tries to make patients feel at ease and comfortable. She also provides comfortable chairs, avoids harsh lighting, and uses a conversation style that makes people feel safe and supported.
“I want to make it clear that this space is for them,” Perez says. “I want to be a partner with my clients, partnering with them in whatever situation they are navigating. They are the experts in their own lives. The appointment is for them. I want to make sure that when they walk in, they know that this is their time.”
She looks forward to supporting her clients, and when her clients are children, supporting their parents, too. As a parent herself, she says she understands that parenting is hard work and can be triggering. “I am really excited about the idea of providing parent support, of working collaboratively with parents to support their kids’ mental health,” she said.
Outside of work, Perez enjoys spending time with her family and friends.
(MCHC Health Centers includes Hillside Health Center and Dora Street Health Center in Ukiah, Little Lake Health Center in Willits, and Lakeview Health Center in Lakeport. It is a community-based and patient-directed organization that provides comprehensive primary healthcare services as well as supportive services such as education and translation that promote access to healthcare.)
CLOUD NINE NOT CLOSING
Cloud Nine Art Gallery will not be closing after all. Join us for First Friday, November 1, from 5-7. Come see what's new, mingle with friends, enjoy a glass of bubbly and the guitar background music of Chris Cisper.
We're located at 320 N Franklin Street in Fort Bragg, Our new business hours are Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 12-5 and by appointment. Call 707 964-9483.
Margaret Paul (mpaul@mcn.org)
ALEXANDER STRING QUARTET THIS SUNDAY IN UKIAH
A Once-in-a-Lifetime Event!
At 2:00PM on Sunday, November 3, the world renowned Alexander String Quartet will take the stage at the Mendocino College Center Theatre for the grand opening of UCCA's 77th season. Here are the four things you must know about Sunday's concert: 1. It's going to be spectacular! 2. Daylight Savings Time ends on Saturday, November 2, so be sure to "fall behind" an hour to arrive on time! 3. This concert will be the last opportunity to purchase a season ticket at $120 for four superb performances. 4. Following the concert, there will be a catered reception for season members to mingle with the musicians. The invitation to join the reception is also extended to new subscribers who purchase their season membership at the concert.
Tickets for non-season subscribers are $35 in advance and $40 at the door. Advance tickets are available on the UCCA website and at Mendocino Book Company in Ukiah and Mazahar in Willits. As part of our on-going Educational Outreach Program, free tickets are available to youth 17 and under when accompanied by an adult, and to full-time (12 units) college students. Free tickets must be reserved in advance by calling 707-463-2738 with name, phone number and email address. For more information, please contact the UCCA at 707-463-2738 or email us at info@ukiahconcerts.org
HISTORIC PHOTO FROM E-BAY
In the distance, the bridge near Hopland (I think), when it had newly opened.
BLOOD FROM A TURNIP
Memo of the Week
Small Claims Case # 24SC00153: Pryor vs. Anderson Valley Advertiser.
Filed by Casey Pryor, Hearst Road, Willits
Hearing Date: 11/18/2024, 1:30pm, Dept. C.
Prepared by Willits Paralegal Christina J. McCluskey, 10/17/2024.
Served by Certifled Mail, 10/24/2024
Number of precisely prepared typed pages for Service/Notice: 4.
Number of precisely prepared typed pages for Claim including instructions: 6
Number of precisely prepared typed pages of exhibits: 7
Basis of Claim: The newspaper offered subscriptions at a cost of $92 for 2 years. The newspaper comes out weekly. In February 2024, plaintiff renewed his subscription for 2 years by payment with a check for $92. Afterwards, in that same month, the paper announced it would not print any more newspapers, only offer an internet-based newspaper. Plaintiff does not have internet and wants a refund for the issues he paid for but will not [truncated…].
Calculation: 52 weeks in a year. 2 years = 104 newspapers. Divide $92 by 104 = $0.88 per issue. Plaintiff received his last issue on 5/01/24. He received 13 issues of the newespaper based on his February payment. 13 x $0.88 = $11.44. Deduct that from $92 ($92-$11.44) = $80.56 refund is due to Plaintiff
Exhibit Summary: Plaintiff's Exhibit 2, attached hereto and incorporated by reference are copies of the newspaper that demonstrate the subscription expiration date, which shows that he had paid for the additional two years service.
ED REPLY: Dude! We're still laughing, Thanks for the joke. Most welcome in these dark days.
REMEMBERING MAESTRO DAVE EVANS' HARVESTFEST 2007 AND A NIGHT TO REMEMBER IN THE ANDERSON VALLEY
by Bruce Anderson
HarvestFest 2007 at Navarro the late Fall night in 2007 was a huge success. The organizational abilities of Dave Evans, proprietor of the Navarro Store, and co-organizer, Megan Nelligan, in not only attracting big name entertainers to a most improbable rural venue — the bend in the redwoods called Navarro — they managed to do it on the edge of the rainy season without calling down the rain gods for daring. Not a cloud in the skies after a 75-degree late October day.
When I parked just after dark at Chris and Judy Isbell’s house a quarter mile from event headquarters at the Navarro Store, I could hear the music and smell the barbecue. The evening’s sudden chill had just begun to insinuate itself when two women clattered by in an old Mercedes, the lady in the passenger seat yelling at me from somewhere on the other side of Whisky River, “Don’t let the weed eat ya, big boy.” In fact, I had expected marijuana in all its manifestations, from Pebs Trippet, aka Granny Pot Seed, to caroming toddlers in tie-dye, but the crowd seemed comprised of equal parts juicers and Pepsi-Lite senior citizens.
HarvestFest was at least partly convened to celebrate the Mendocino Medical Marijuana Advisory Board (MMMAB) for its work in passing into local law Mendocino County’s very own decriminalization, the 25-plant plus two processed pounds measure, more dope than the most determined stoner could smoke in a year, so much dope per household that it took non-stoners a month to re-group to demand the ordinance either be repealed or modified to an equivalently unworkable twenty-five plants per parcel. Or simply remained illegal.
There was one local pending pot prosecution and maybe a couple more being being prepared in the DA's office while the Robinson Creek watershed seemed on the verge of vigilantism if the transient pot farmers who “have taken over our neighborhood” aren’t expelled. The reality was that in 2007 only the feds were seriously busting Mendo pot ops, and it had remained to be seen if any of those busts that summer would be prosecuted at the federal level.
The harvest having been reaped, and that harvest being valued in the urban markets at the now unheard of price of somewhere between $2500 and $3500 a pound tax-free because Mendo dope had an active stoner quotient great enough to keep a person stupid and silly for five hours per blunt in a country where millions of people feel it necessary to pass at least some of their waking hours stupid and silly. The jubilation that night that this magic weed could generate so much cash was so prevalent that harvestfests were breaking out all over Northern California. There had been two fests and a dance in Anderson Valley alone that year.
But the best one was at Navarro, and it was only partly devoted to a celebration of recent developments in cannabis regulation. Most people were there for the music and the barbecue.
The weed advocates said de facto local legalization meant a giant step forward for America because now Mendocino County could supply millions of sick people who otherwise must break the law to get their medicine. Breaking the pot laws never deterred anybody from pursuing their drug, and it certainly hadn’t stopped anybody from planting it in blatant corn field quantities all over Mendocino County, and who would go on planting marijuana everywhere so long as it brought so much cash money.
The issue remained debatable, of course, but I can honestly say from my direct experience of habitual pot smokers is that they range from a little bit wacky to highly dysfunctional and, in extreme cases, violently paranoid. I don’t know a single heavy smoker who, as they say, “has it together.” If an irrefutable study appears tomorrow that says there’s a direct link between heavy pot smoking and 5150, I’d say, “Yep. I know a bunch of ‘em. Bring the nets, though. They tend to fight.”
The med marijuana gang might want to occasionally concede the obvious — that hang nails and halitosis don’t usually get you a medical prescription. Most people with pot cards just wanted to get loaded, as do most human beings everywhere who look forward to an occasional state of altered consciousness, hence everything from booze to betel nut.
The crowd at Navarro was generally older than I expected, not that I knew what to expect. Guitar Shorty and John Lee Hooker Jr. in Navarro? At the drunk tree? At the Navarro Store where a little bell on the door would tinkle and old lady Zanoni used to come bustling out from her little apartment in the back to wait on you? The Navarro Store where one of the Lee brothers, just out of the state pen, held her up one afternoon with a gun but without a mask, and an unperturbed Old Lady Zanoni called up Deputy Squires and said, “Jimmy Lee just robbed me,” and back to the state pen went Jimmy Lee. He'd been out two whole weeks.
Navarro’s seen some sights. Back in the logging boom days from 1880 up through the 1940s the town was larger and livelier than can be imagined now. Then it slowed down. The mill closed. And the old hotels and restaurants burned, and people moved away, the drunk tree drunks got old and died, the hole-in-the-wall post office over the soda springs closed and Navarro went to sleep, and stayed asleep until Dave Evans bought the store, calling his enterprise The Navarro Redevelopment Corporation, and the town has been jumping ever since.
The music part of the 60s went right past me. I may be the only person my age in Northern California who didn’t attend at least one Bill Graham-produced concert. Pre-hippie, I did once see Miss Peggy Lee at the Masonic Auditorium because a friend had tickets and insisted I go with her. That same year at that same venue I paid my way in to hear James Baldwin speak, and I’m still glad I did because he was the best speaker I’d seen and heard at the stage of my life's odd trajectory. He said there would be fires next time and, sure enough, there were. And are. The Grateful Dead and the Jefferson Airplane are still just names to me, and all I know about blues comes from the music of Charlie Musselwhite, which I like very much but never would have known about if I hadn’t happened to meet him at a place even more improbable than a blues night at Navarro.
So I didn’t stay long at HarvestFest that night.
I wanted to get back to Boonville for the soccer play-off game, Boonville versus Branson.
For many years beginning back in the 19th century Branson was a private school for about 200 very wealthy girls. It’s still located in Ross, Marin County, a community which, for years, boasted the highest per capita income of any zip code in America. The famous chef, Julia Child, was a Branson grad. The school used to be called The Catherine Branson School for Girls. The girls were taught the basics of language and math and how to talk without beginning or ending their sentences with prepositions and without talking through their noses, and they certainly learned how to talk without all the affected, neurotic verbal fads inflicted on girls these days by television and fashion.
Of course affectations were different then, but maybe not as annoying. The Branson girls, except for Julia who always did talk like she was being strangled, went out and married rich boys from rich colleges they met at a debutante balls and went on to live the lives of interior desperation most people lived until the beatniks came along and liberated everyone except the Mormons.
Branson went co-ed around the time the beatniks deteriorated into hippies and the school went on to become a high school sports power, thus enraging sports fans throughout the Bay Area because Branson was soon trouncing all the big public schools in sports like basketball and soccer. Branson says it doesn’t recruit athletes, implying that rich kids had suddenly got real good at basketball. It’s possible, of course, because any high school basketball team that plays good defense can beat good teams that don’t play much defense. Before the advent of the shot clock Branson was beating big schools by scores of 20-14, which sent Bay Area sports fans into full rage mode.
Boonville has its share of rich people, some of them very rich, but their children are raised and schooled elsewhere, making our little society here very definitely a two-tier affair. The rich were never much for public schools, or public anything. “We don’t want just any old body getting into the family vault,” the thinking goes, so they pretty much stick to each other when it comes to mating rituals. Anderson Valley’s per capita wealth is hard to estimate because some of our permanent residents have huge incomes while lots more barely keep a leaky roof over their heads. This two-tiered-ness, also known as the class system we are all are taught to at least pretend doesn’t exist, makes everyone want to beat the rich kid schools.
Which our Boonville proles nearly did Saturday night. Branson’s soccer camps, ski vacations and perfect teeth were lucky to escape, 2-1. Their first five, Coach Steve Sparks told me, were considered the best in California, but Boonville’s first five took the big boys back to school, and had them mostly on the defensive.
As the visitors from Marin struggled to overcome the smaller, quicker Boonville team under the Fairgrounds lights, a large crowd chanted in Spanish, “Beat those blue-eyed beasts all the way back down to San Rafael.” Or something like that. (I don’t speak Spanish.) The Branson boys did seem big, but then most young people seem to be bigger and wider these days, if not more, ah, more, uh, more engaging, shall we say. The young 'uns seem generally to lack presence, as my grandmother described the good manners that went mostly extinct among the young in 1967, and we’ll leave it at that, although we all know our battered country has undergone a steady dumbification over the past three decades as personified by our president at the time, certainly a man suited to the zeitgeist but unthinkable in any other.
The Branson boys were a head taller than our boys who weren’t in the least intimidated by the size difference and, it seemed to me, had the better of Branson most of the game, forcing the visitors into two overtimes and then into the high drama of deciding the match by each team’s five shots from a mere 12 yards out, meaning the goal keeper essentially has to guess which way the kicker is going to boot the ball and hope he’s quick enough to get there to block the ball. It’s impossible, like a bull fighter facing a bull head-on without a sword or even a cape.
Our goalie, Eddie Reynoso, laughed as he prepared to fend off Branson’s last kicks when a little kid, one of many hanging every which way from the railing like bats, asked him, “Eddie? Eddie? You want a drink of water first?”
Branson booted four balls into the net, we booted three, and Branson was the winner, and the big boys with perfect teeth ran out onto the field and threw themselves into a big celebratory pile, while the thousands of us Boonville people, a little sad, but a little exhilarated too from having come so far and so close to beating the best team in all of NorCal.
UNUSUAL VALLEY PHOTOGRAPH FROM E-BAY
The photograph above, "Handy Redwoods, Anderson Valley" (sic), is from a turn of the 20th century book featuring photographs by A.O. Carpenter.
CATCH OF THE DAY, Monday, October 28, 2024
CHRISTIAN ARCIGA, 39, Ukiah. Unsatisfactory evidence of identity.
MYQ ATTANASIO, 48, Fort Bragg. Elder abuse, battery with serious injury, disorderly conduct-alcohol.
JAMES DODD, 64, Ukiah. Vandalism.
SEAN FLINTON, 44, Fort Bragg. Failure to appear. (Frequent flyer.)
NATHAN MASSEY, 50, Talmage. Felon-addict with firearm, ammo possession by prohibited person.
BENJAMIN MILLER, 46, Laytonville. Disobeying court order, resisting.
MIGUEL MODEK, 31, Willits. DUI, reckless driving.
GARRETT MOORE-ZACHARY, 31, Willits. DUI, reckless driving.
GILDA REAL, 56, Fresno/Ukiah. DUI.
IRA REYES, 39, Covelo. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, parole violation, resisting.
FRANKLIN ROCKWELL, 26, Eureka/Ukiah. Probation revocation.
THOMAS STRICKLIN, 48, Willits. Failure to appear.
COAST CHATLINE
Del Potter:
The recent interview between Donald Trump and Joe Rogan highlighted several issues that reflect poorly on Trump's fitness for office. Throughout the discussion, Trump frequently veered wildly off-topic, revisiting debunked election conspiracy theories, and making laughable tangential comments that did not directly answer Rogan's questions. As the interview progressed, it became apparent that Rogan realized he was talking to an unstable unfit candidate. Many of Trump's responses were seen as non-sequiturs, often diverting to unrelated subjects, which seemed to underscore a pattern of cognitive lapses. His insistence on disproven claims also raised concerns about his ability to stay on point with factual, coherent arguments. As ususal, Trump's appearance focused more on personal grievances and grievances against institutions without providing any clear vision. These issues add to public concerns over his overall coherence, situational awareness, and cognitive agility, qualities considered vital for anyone aspiring to lead the country effectively.
Frank Hartzell:
Yes, cancel all Amazon if you have courage. We could literally save the world from global warming if we started a cancel amazon movement, which could spread to all the carbon gobblers that make stuff in China and ship worldwide at incalculable carbon cost/ (global warming discussions are so cowardly they don't consider this and pretend that shipping containers full of crap has no impact, throwing crap away and getting more shipped has no impact and making crap we dont need has no impact.) In fact, these are pretty much the cause of global climate change, at least the human part. Humans began causing this problem with the industrial revolution then made it 10000x worse with the maximum consumption of crap economy) Incidentally the Walmat-then Amazon economy coupled with chains destroyed the local economies around the world and made all rural areas deserts of hope which in turn became angry right wing anti immigrant revolutions and hilariously, also anti China, which the globalist economy, pushed primarily by the GOP but also the Democrats since WWII, has empowered as well as the END Of durable products at a time when tecnology made it possible to have things basically last forever they last three weeks.
FIRES SET IN DROP BOXES DESTROY HUNDREDS OF BALLOTS in Washington and damage 3 in Oregon
Incendiary devices have been set off at two ballot drop boxes — one in Portland, Oregon, and another in nearby Vancouver, Washington — in what one official called a “direct attack on democracy."
by Gene Johnson & Claire Rush
PORTLAND, Ore. — Incendiary devices were set off Monday at two ballot drop boxes — one in Portland and another in nearby Vancouver, Washington — destroying hundreds of ballots in what one official called a “direct attack on democracy” about a week before a heated Election Day.
The early morning fire at the drop box in Portland was extinguished quickly thanks to a suppression system inside the box as well as a nearby security guard, police said, and just three ballots were damaged there.
But within a few hours, another fire was discovered at a transit center drop box across the Columbia River in Vancouver. Vancouver is the biggest city in Washington’s 3rd Congressional District, the site of what is expected to be one of the closest U.S. House races in the country, between first-term Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Republican challenger Joe Kent.
The ballot box in Vancouver also had a fire suppression system inside, but that failed to prevent hundreds of ballots from burning, said Greg Kimsey, the longtime elected auditor in Clark County, Washington, which includes Vancouver. He urged voters who dropped their ballots in the transit center box after 11 a.m. Saturday to contact his office for a replacement ballot.
“Heartbreaking,” Kimsey said. “It’s a direct attack on democracy.”
The office will be increasing how frequently it collects ballots and changing collection times to the evening, Kimsey said, to keep the ballot boxes from remaining full of ballots overnight when similar crimes are considered more likely to occur.
Ballot drop boxes have faced increasing criticism from Republicans and have been the focus of baseless right-wing conspiracy theories in recent years, tied to former President Donald Trump's lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him. An Associated Press survey of state election officials across the U.S. found that there were no widespread issues with drop boxes in 2020, and none that could have affected the results.
Six states have banned ballot drop boxes since 2020: Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina and South Dakota, according to research by the Voting Rights Lab, which advocates for expanded voting access. Other states have restricted their use, including Ohio and Iowa, which now permits only one drop box per county, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
Washington and Oregon, which are both vote-by-mail states, have long used ballot drop boxes.
Authorities said at a news conference in Portland that enough material from the incendiary devices was recovered to show that the two fires Monday were connected — and that they were also connected to an Oct. 8 incident, when an incendiary device was placed at a different ballot drop box in Vancouver. No ballots were damaged in that incident.
Surveillance images captured a Volvo pulling up to a drop box in Portland, Oregon, just before security personnel nearby discovered a fire inside the box on Monday, Portland Police Bureau spokesman Mike Benner told a news conference. The incendiary devices were attached to the outside of the boxes.
The FBI was also investigating.
The fire suppression systems inside the ballot drop boxes in Washington and Oregon were designed to activate when the temperature inside reaches a certain point, coating ballots with a fire-suppressing powder.
The system appeared to have worked in the Portland drop box, and security staffers were nearby to help put out the fire. Multnomah County Elections Director Tim Scott said the county has contracted with private security officers to have “roving patrols” that drive around the county 24 hours a day and “put eyes” on all drop boxes.
He said one of the guards was at the county elections office, heard what sounded like a blast — likely the activation of the fire suppression system — and called police.
For unknown reasons, the system failed to prevent the destruction of hundreds of ballots in Vancouver.
Gluesenkamp Perez said in a statement that she is requesting an overnight law enforcement presence posted at all ballot drop boxes in Clark County through Election Day.
“Southwest Washington cannot risk a single vote being lost to arson and political violence,” her statement said.
In a video posted on the social platform X, Kent also condemned the “cowardly act of terrorism.” He said he trusted law enforcement to find out who was responsible, urged voters to make sure their ballots are counted and said he continues to have faith in the ballot drop box system in Washington.
“No one should be intimidated,” Kent said.
Voters were encouraged to check their ballot status online at www.votewa.gov to track its return status. If a returned ballot is not marked as “received,” voters can print a replacement ballot or visit their local elections department for a replacement, the Secretary of State’s office said.
John Burnside, 68, said he and his wife dropped off their ballots at the Vancouver box Sunday afternoon and learned about the fire the next morning on the news. He checked the status of their ballots, did not see that they had been received by elections officials, and requested new ones.
They now plan to either mail their ballots or deliver them in person, he said.
“I’m certainly in favor of in-person voting simply because you know your ballot goes through right then,” he said. “It may be extra work but it does add a level of security.”
Officials in Portland were able to identify the three voters whose ballots were damaged and planned to contact them and provide replacement ballots. The Multnomah County sheriff's office said it would be increasing uniformed and plainclothes patrols around the drop boxes.
Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs said the state would not tolerate threats or acts of violence meant to derail voting.
“I strongly denounce any acts of terror that aim to disrupt lawful and fair elections in Washington state,” he said.
In Phoenix last week, officials said roughly five ballots were destroyed and others damaged when a fire was set in a drop box at a U.S. Postal Service station there.
(Associated Press)
LEAD STORIES, TUESDAY'S NYT
How Russia, China and Iran Are Interfering in the Presidential Election
Investigators Identify ‘Suspect Vehicle’ in Ballot Drop Box Fires in the Pacific Northwest
Harris Aides Quietly Grow More Bullish on Defeating Trump
An Ethical Minefield Awaits a Possible Second Trump Presidency
For the First Time in 87-Year History, Volkswagen May Close Factories
If You Think You Can Hold a Grudge, Consider the Crow
TRUMP AT THE GARDEN: A CLOSING CARNIVAL OF GRIEVANCES, MISOGYNY AND RACISM
The inflammatory rally was a capstone for an increasingly aggrieved campaign for Donald Trump, whose rhetoric has grown darker and more menacing.
by Shane Goldmacher, Maggie Haberman & Michael Gold
Donald J. Trump’s closing rally at Madison Square Garden on the second to last Sunday before the election was a release of rage at a political and legal system that impeached, indicted and convicted him, a vivid and at times racist display of the dark energy animating the MAGA movement.
A comic kicked off the rally by dismissing Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage,” then mocked Hispanics as failing to use birth control, Jews as cheap and Palestinians as rock-throwers, and called out a Black man in the audience with a reference to watermelon.
Another speaker likened Vice President Kamala Harris to a prostitute with “pimp handlers.” A third called her “the Antichrist.” And the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson mocked Ms. Harris — the daughter of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father — with a made-up ethnicity, saying she was vying to become “the first Samoan-Malaysian, low IQ former California prosecutor ever to be elected president.”
By the time the former president himself took the stage, an event billed as delivering the closing message of his campaign, with nine days left in a tossup race, had instead become a carnival of grievances, misogyny and racism.
If the parade of speakers felt at times like a Republican National Convention reunion — Senator JD Vance of Ohio, Mr. Carlson, Vivek Ramaswamy, Alina Habba, Lee Greenwood, the Trump family all appeared — they seemed to have returned for a bonus fifth night that was more inflammatory than the original in July.
The rally served as a capstone to an escalating series of remarks from Mr. Trump, who has repeatedly said in recent days that one of the gravest threats that America faces is “the enemy within.” Democrats have cranked up warnings of Mr. Trump’s descent into authoritarianism as John F. Kelly, the former Marine general who was his longest-serving chief of staff, warned that Mr. Trump met the definition of a fascist.
“When I say ‘the enemy from within,’ the other side goes crazy,” Mr. Trump said on Sunday, mocking his critics.
Since early in his campaign, he has broadly promised an era of “retribution” if he wins. But after a relative lull earlier this year, he has grown more specific of late, including promising prosecutions against a variety of people if they’re deemed to have “cheated” in the election and to fire the special counsel, Jack Smith, who brought two federal indictments against him, and even suggesting throwing him out of the country entirely.
On Sunday, Mr. Trump described the date of his potential election as a “liberation day” from what he described as an occupation by invading migrants.
Melania Trump, Mr. Trump’s wife, introduced her husband at the rally. Ms. Trump has not been a regular presence during this year’s campaign.Credit…Kenny Holston/The New York Times
Ms. Harris’s campaign seized on the spectacle, and some Republicans, including from Florida and Puerto Rico, denounced the comic’s comments about the island. Several influential Puerto Rican superstars, Bad Bunny, Jennifer Lopez, Luis Fonsi and Ricky Martin, lent their voice for Ms. Harris on Sunday.
But Mr. Trump has paid little political price over time for his own inflammatory remarks in the past — he has disparaged cities with large Black populations such as Detroit and Milwaukee this year — let alone those of his surrogates and supporters.
The marathon of speeches — Mr. Trump took the stage two hours after scheduled — was often infused with more self-indulgence than political strategy. Mr. Trump plainly enjoyed playing the Garden, which bills itself as “the world’s most famous arena.”
“Kamala, you’re fired!” Mr. Trump said, returning to the line that he first made famous as host of “The Apprentice.”
But he went so long that the crowd had begun to thin noticeably before he had finished his 78-minute speech.
The event was a spectacle that captured the unusual and sometimes ugly range of the MAGA movement that has taken over the Republican Party from the inside over the last nine years.
Hulk Hogan flexed his muscles and ripped off his clothes, just as he did at the convention. Donald Trump Jr. called his father a “badass.” The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, who has poured $118 million of his fortune to aid Mr. Trump so far, entered to a video of his rocket booster landing, pumping his fists in the air. He promptly predicted the federal budget could be slashed by one-third even as Mr. Trump rolled out deficit-expanding tax breaks.
Stephen Miller, a senior Trump adviser who influenced Mr. Trump’s anti-immigrant crackdown, used nativist language as he argued that only Mr. Trump would stand up and say “America is for Americans and Americans only.”
The big surprise was a rare public speech by Melania Trump, who introduced her husband and exited the stage with him after he had finished, as the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.” blared.
The arrival of thousands of red hats at the symbolic arena at the center of a blue city in a blue state was celebrated by Trump supporters who relished the chance to collectively thumb their noses at the New York and national elite.
“Selling out the Garden means the MAGA movement has now arrived,” Jack Posobiec, the right-wing activist with a big following on social media, said in an interview. “It’s Madison Square Garden, it’s the center of everything, and to have this place filled with MAGA hats and Trump supporters really goes to show you it’s not just the surprise win of 2016 — it’s a nationwide movement.”
It was lost on no one that Mr. Trump was just miles from where he was convicted of 34 felony counts earlier this year and still awaiting sentencing, and a short jaunt to Trump Tower, where he opened his first presidential campaign in 2015.
Mr. Trump opened his speech by asking the crowd a timeworn political line: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”Credit…Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times
The singular nature of Mr. Trump’s candidacy was emblazoned in slogan form on the scoreboard above as he began to speak: “Trump will fix it.”
Mr. Trump opened by asking the crowd a timeworn political line: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” It is at the core of Mr. Trump’s campaign against Ms. Harris ever since she replaced President Biden, a switch he remains sore about. Despite being delivered in a city that four years ago was the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic and still deep in shutdowns and closed businesses, and swimming in a high death toll, that line landed well.
Mr. Trump’s vows of mass deportation and inveighing against undocumented immigrants had an audience in New York City, too, where thousands of migrants who crossed the southern border without authorization have been given sanctuary and some residents have complained about the use of city services to help them.
So many of the day’s warm-up speeches were spent portraying the former president as he wants to be seen. Several speakers talked about him surviving a July assassination attempt not in spiritual terms but in muscular ones, describing his toughness at “dodging” the bullet. Many also falsely claimed he “built” the skyline in a city in which he was always seen as a B-list developer with a small portfolio of buildings that he acquired long after they were constructed.
“The king of New York is back to reclaim the city that he built,” his son, Donald Trump Jr., declared anyway.
The elder Mr. Trump, who normally speaks only glowingly about his late father, Fred, from whom he inherited millions of dollars and the spine of his real-estate company, delivered a surprising line about his parents as he reflected on how they would be receiving word of his legal travails.
“I know my mother’s in heaven, I’m not 100 percent sure about my father, but it’s close,” Mr. Trump said, to laughter in the arena.
It was all a surreal scene.
At one point, the painter Scott LoBaido received a huge cheer when he flipped a middle finger to the crowd before grabbing a paintbrush to paint an American flag as “America the Beautiful” boomed. The grand finale was revealing an image of Mr. Trump hugging the Empire State Building.
Later, the television host Phil McGraw, known as Dr. Phil, lectured the crowd on why Mr. Trump did not fit the definition of “a bully” because a bully requires “an imbalance of power,” seeming to ignore the fact that Mr. Trump has enormous power as a billionaire and former president.
During the speech by Mr. Trump’s running mate, Mr. Vance, the entire arena spontaneously burst into chants of “Tampon Tim” to disparage Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, Ms. Harris’s running mate.
“You all can say that,” Mr. Vance smiled. “I probably shouldn’t say that.”
It was a rare moment of restraint at the microphone.
David Rem, a childhood friend of Mr. Trump, called Ms. Harris “the devil.” Grant Cardone, a businessman, declared that the sitting vice president had “pimp handlers.” Sid Rosenberg denounced Hillary Clinton as a “sick son of a bitch” for linking the Trump rally and a pro-Nazi event at the arena of the same name decades ago.
Mr. Rosenberg called the entire Democratic Party “a bunch of degenerates, lowlives, Jew-haters and lowlives. Every one of them.”
When the comedian Tony Hinchcliffe made his remark about Puerto Rico, there were groans from many in the audience.
On the same afternoon, Ms. Harris was in Philadelphia, courting Pennsylvania’s significant Latino population and stopping by Freddy & Tony’s, a Puerto Rican restaurant.
“Timing is everything,” David Plouffe, a top Harris adviser, wrote on X, posting clips of the two side-by-side.
In his White House bid, Mr. Trump has banked on winning uncommon shares of Black and Latino voters, in part by leaning into culture wars that split the Democratic Party.
In his speech, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. invoked his uncle, former Senator Ted Kennedy, for creating Title IX for women’s sports. He used that heritage to defend his own current opposition to transgender women participating in sports.
Mr. Carlson marveled aloud from the stage at following the party-switching Mr. Kennedy. “It’s a realignment,” he declared. “It’s unbelievable.”
Twenty years ago, in the same arena, Rudolph W. Giuliani delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Republican National Convention, three years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attack prompted then-President George W. Bush to caution the nation against hate.
On Sunday, Mr. Giuliani leaned into overbroad stereotyping against the Palestinian people, who he said “are taught to kill us at two years old.”
“I don’t take a risk with people that are taught to kill Americans at 2,” he said. “I’m on the side of Israel.”
Mr. Giuliani praised Mr. Trump for coming to the city where he once served as Republican mayor.
“This is where a Republican is not supposed to come,” Mr. Giuliani said. “Which is why Donald Trump came here.”
THIS IS NOT A DRILL. FASCISM IS ON THE BALLOT
Rather than being for personal absolution, voting is a tool in the political toolbox—if the goal is to avert the worst and improve the chances for constructing a future worthy of humanity.
by Norman Solomon
The conclusion that Donald Trump is a fascist has gone mainstream, gaining wide publicity and affirmation in recent weeks. Such understanding is a problem for Trump and his boosters. At the same time, potentially pivotal in this close election, a small proportion of people who consider themselves to be progressive still assert that any differences between Trump and Kamala Harris are not significant enough to vote for Harris in swing states.
Opposition to fascism has long been a guiding light in movements against racism and for social justice.
Speaking to a conference of the African National Congress in 1951, Nelson Mandela warned that “South African capitalism has developed [into] monopolism and is now reaching the final stage of monopoly capitalism gone mad, namely, fascism.”
Before Fred Hampton was murdered by local police officers colluding with the FBI in 1969, the visionary young Illinois Black Panther Party leader said: “Nothing is more important than stopping fascism, because fascism will stop us all.”
Do we want to be organizing against a fascistic militaristic President Trump, with no realistic hope of changing policies . . . or against a neoliberal militaristic President Harris, with the possibility of changing policies?
But now, for some who lay claim to being on the left, stopping fascism is not a priority. Disconnected from the magnitude of this fateful moment, the danger of a fascist president leading a fanatical movement becomes an abstraction.
One cogent critic of capitalism ended a column in mid-October this way: “Pick your poison. Destruction by corporate power or destruction by oligarchy. The end result is the same. That is what the two ruling parties offer in November. Nothing else.”
The difference between a woman’s right to an abortion vs. abortion being illegal is nothing?
“The end result is the same”—so it shouldn’t matter to us whether Trump becomes president after campaigning with a continuous barrage against immigrants, calling them “vermin,” “stone-cold killers,” and “animals,” while warning against the “bad genes” of immigrants who aren’t white, and raising bigoted alarms about immigration of “blood thirty criminals” who “prey upon innocent American citizens” and will “cut your throat”?
If “the end result is the same,” a mish-mash of ideology and fatalism can ignore the foreseeable results of a Republican Party gaining control of the federal government with a 2024 platform that pledges to “carry out the largest deportation operation in American history.” Or getting a second Trump term after the first one allowed him to put three right-wing extremists on the Supreme Court.
Will the end result be the same if Trump fulfills his apparent threat to deploy the U.S. military against his political opponents, whom he describes as “radical left lunatics” and “the enemy from within”?
Capacities to protect civil liberties matter. So do savage Republican cuts in programs for minimal health care, nutrition and other vital aspects of a frayed social safety net. But those cuts are less likely to matter to the polemicists who will not experience the institutionalized cruelties firsthand.
Rather than being for personal absolution, voting is a tool in the political toolbox—if the goal is to avert the worst and improve the chances for constructing a future worthy of humanity.
Trump has pledged to be even more directly complicit in Israel’s mass murder of Palestinian people in Gaza than President Biden has been. No wonder, as the Washington Postreports, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “has shown a clear preference for Trump in this election.” During a call this month, Trump told Netanyahu: “Do what you have to do.”
Palestinians, Muslim leaders and other activists in the swing state of Arizona issued an open letter days ago that makes a case for defeating Trump. “We know that many in our communities are resistant to vote for Kamala Harris because of the Biden administration’s complicity in the genocide,” the letter says. “We understand this sentiment. Many of us have felt that way ourselves, even until very recently. Some of us have lost many family members in Gaza and Lebanon. We respect those who feel they simply can’t vote for a member of the administration that sent the bombs that may have killed their loved ones.”
The letter goes on:
As we consider the full situation carefully, however, we conclude that voting for Kamala Harris is the best option for the Palestinian cause and all of our communities. We know that some will strongly disagree. We only ask that you consider our case with an open mind and heart, respecting that we are doing what we believe is right in an awful situation where only flawed choices are available.
In our view, it is crystal clear that allowing the fascist Donald Trump to become President again would be the worst possible outcome for the Palestinian people. A Trump win would be an extreme danger to Muslims in our country, all immigrants, and the American pro-Palestine movement. It would be an existential threat to our democracy and our whole planet.
Exercising conscience in the most humane sense isn’t about feeling personal virtue. It’s about concern for impacts on the well-being of other people. It’s about collective solidarity.
The consequences of declining to help stop fascism are not confined to the individual voter. In the process, vast numbers of people can pay the price for individuals’ self-focused concept of conscience.
Last week, an insightful Common Dreams column—entitled “7 Strategic Axioms for the Anxious Progressive Voter”—offered a forward-looking way to put this presidential election in a future context: “Vote for the candidate you want to organize against!”
Do we want to be organizing against a fascistic militaristic President Trump, with no realistic hope of changing policies . . . or against a neoliberal militaristic President Harris, with the possibility of changing policies?
For progressives, the answer should be clear.
(Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His latest book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine https://thenewpress.com/books/war-made-invisible, was published in paperback this fall with a new afterword about the Gaza war.)
SPEAKING OF ABORTION
by James Kunstler
What were they thinking after they shoved “Joe Biden” into the abyss, like an old refrigerator over the edge of the landfill, and afterward settled — instantly it appears, with no process at all — on Kamala Harris to lead the party to victory in the fall election? I will tell you: they were not thinking at all. The collective mind of the Democrat elite was a vast vacuum devoid of thought, mass, or light, like a corner of deepest space, lacking even a particle of cosmic debris to evoke the existence of existence.
Such mindlessness was the consummate expression of a party that for eight years worked every angle of political mental illness toward the loss of its mind, driven by whatever dark energy seeks escape from truth, life, and God — whatever is opposite of creation and being. What you are witnessing is a colossal act of being un-born. The party put out a call to the universe and the universe ordered… an abortion of the Democratic Party! You are reminded again: be careful of what you wish for.
And so do things stand one week before the election. You have not seen such a vivid demonstration of slowly-and-then-all-at-once since the implosion of Lehman Brothers as the collapse of the Democratic Party this fateful October. Poor Kamala is just collateral damage at this point. She goes out before some manufactured audience and seven-minutes onstage delivering a door-dash order of precooked blather is all she can stand before being overwhelmed by the emptiness and futility of her task… and then she flees back to the waiting limousine (and the chardonnay bottle).
Meanwhile, her allies — that is, the Democratic Party’s allies — play their own roles in this political abortion. The LA Times and the WashPo declined their usual proforma endorsements, two kisses of death. Those actions last week provoked nervous breakdowns in both newsrooms, cries of anguish, resignations, professional suicides. The news media find themselves in a peculiar position, having gone along for years with the gathering mental illness of the Democratic Party, like incompetent parents in a large dysfunctional family, offering unconditional support for their kids’ intolerable and unacceptable behavior.
They are flying to pieces now on the CNN chat panels. James Carville, the party’s shriveled Gollum, has gone to IV infusions of Jim Beam, seems like. Jake Tapper gets Sunday schooled by JD Vance and turns into a mewling cat-lady right before your eyes. Anderson Cooper goes all waxy and mute. Joy Reid surrenders to echolalia as her MSNBC fans are subjected to the guest list of P. Diddy’s “freak-offs,” ranting about Hitler. Lawrence O’Donnell is looking more and more like Vincent Price in Return of the Fly. Reality-optional hardly suffices to describe cable news these days.
You’ve got to ask: can they just let it be? Can they just let go of their insane Jacobin rebellion now and let it fade into history? Then, kick back, recuperate, get their minds right, put their house and family in order, and move on as a legit political faction in a functioning republic? Or, do they burn the asylum down?
The signals are troubling. They are chattering about Mr. Trump “using the military” against them in the months to come — as if the Abrams tanks were going to roll up to DNC headquarters and blast away. By now, you know that such thoughts expressed by Democratic pols and news pals are always projections of their own wishes. The New York Times published just such a classic paranoid projection exercise last week “…telling Americans that if he [Trump] wins, he plans to bend, if not break, our democracy.”
Surely it is too late, with early voting well underway, to stop any ballot harvesting and other election shenanigans as engineered by master fraudster Marc Elias. In fact, frauds are already being discovered (e.g., Lancaster County, PA.) Not a good look. It is exactly what a conspiracy (to commit election fraud) means in law, and the actual people who cooked the ballots and transported them are going to rat-out those who instructed them to do it. Wait for that, and wait for it to pop up elsewhere around the country. This time, watchers are watching, much more carefully.
Of course, you know there will be long delays, perhaps a week or more, before definitive election results will get posted. The country’s in a bad way, really frightened of what these desperate Democrats with their mitts still on the levers of power might do. Judge Merchan is scheduled to deliver his bit of mischief November 26 in the New York “Stormy Daniels hush money” case. You can bet that the Supreme Court will squash him like a sow-bug five minutes later and vacate his stupid case.
Reasonable observers (Rickards, Armstrong) are whispering about martial law and blood in the streets following the election. Yet Mr. Trump’s MAGA legions, appear supernaturally confident now, fortified with a sense of mission. They’re righteously pissed-off about all the hoaxes, the lawfare, the swarming illegal migrants, their squandered tax dollars, and much more. But they are ready to go to work, eager to put their shoulders to the wheel to fix whatever they can and, as they do, the death of the Democratic Party is one abortion they will not shed any tears over.
Another reminder of who we are as Americans and the mysterious workings of Providence: Father Mapple’s sermon — Orson Welles in the John Huston movie version of Melville’s Moby Dick.…
BERNIE SANDERS : “I disagree with Kamala’s position on the war in Gaza. How can I vote for her?” Here is my answer: https://youtu.be/Vf5MThSniiY
WHEN BERNIE WENT BACK TO THE LAND
While free love, weed, and tie-dye might not have been his bag, even the young Bernard Sanders of Brooklyn, NY, tried a life of living off the land. It didn't work out.
While Bernie Sanders is rarely seen as having much to do with the hippie counterculture, he, too, went “back to the land” in the 1960s — a few years before the Boomers, no less.
In 1964, inspired by youthful treks from the big city to the green outdoors as well as by a formative visit to an Israeli kibbutz, Brooklyn native Bernard Sanders and his college girlfriend Deborah Messing purchased 85 acres in the most rural part of Vermont's Northeast Kingdom for $2,500. There they turned an old sugarhouse on Shady Rill Road into a cabin with running water but no electricity.
“I don't think Bernie was particularly into growing vegetables,” a friend of his put it. The couple soon left Vermont to travel around Europe. But a little over a year later, they split up, and Bernie sold his share of the plot to his ex and her new husband.
Sanders's time living off the land ended much as it did for the rest of the flower power generation: with romantic discord, economic (and agrarian) failure, and a hasty exit to more populated regions, just years earlier than the rest.
(Town & Country Magazine)
ON THE WAY TO THE BETTING COUNTER
by Jonathan Lethem
To start, I'll put aside Palestine.
In 2013, among a group of friends in an online forum, contemplating the souring hopes of the late Obama years and wondering what might come after — that is to say, with Trump/Sanders populism still-beyond credible prediction — Lucy Sante wrote to us:
“On wealth and its distribution, however, which is the issue that matters to me more than all others combined, we are currently in the 33rd year of the Reagan administration. I don't see a change of administration coming anytime soon.”
That remark's clarity has haunted me. Reviling Trump is a way of life. I catch myself dreaming his comeuppance like I notice my sexual fantasizing. I'm not alone: there are channels not only in my brain but on your television dedicated to Trump hate porn. To watch them is to take the bait. Christopher Sorrentino once connected Trump to Bakhtin's concept of “the Carnival”: he “serves the purpose of those who, in medieval Carnivals, pretended to be the local noble, or the local Bishop; the hero as coward, the statesman as belligerent.” Picturing this man again staffing up the machine of state and legislating material pain on human beings is a nightmare, of course.
It has become common to understand the current Republican Party as the full optimization of Nixon's “southern strategy.” In this story, Nixon's dog whistles, then Reagan's, were preparing us for rougher handling, for the discarding of all “compassionate” disguises, and for the degradation of our discourse into open hate speech and paranoid myths. This is also a story of how neoliberal centrism set up the theater of outrage that it then marketed to itself, ever since Obama backlash turned out to be a growth stock. Trump Says the Quiet Part Out Loud. HE SAYS THE QUIET PART OUT LOUD! Incant it loudly and regularly enough and you won't have to hear yourself think.
Yet what if Nixon's real triumph wasn't the production of Trump's presidency? What if instead it was the seeming permanent necessity of a neoliberal technocratic bulwark against the dispossessed, vengeful, and, yes, in many cases undeniably racist hordes — an Overton window that slides in only one direction? By this logic we find ourselves in a world where Kamala Harris is endorsed by none other than Dick Cheney, the personal conveyor of Nixon's global dream into the 21st century. (Or, as my Instagram feed grimly joked, “the ghost of Henry Kissinger endorses Kamala Harris,”) When asked to explain the title of ‘Naked Lunch,’ William S. Burroughs said, “A frozen moment when everyone sees what is on the end of every fork.”
Perhaps the question should be: What would it sound like if the Democratic Elite said the quiet part out loud? A portion might sound rather Trumpian: “We're the only thing between you and those who scare you shitless.” Elsewhere, it might locate its own distinctive grievances: “I can't believe we handed over and privatized so much for so long and you still call us Commies.” Or: “How dare Silicon Valley play footsie with Trump when we made them (and they made us) so ungodly wealthy?”
Listen. Obama's cosmopolitan “relatability” made me feel much better about myself and my record collection, despite my total reservations about so many of his actual policies: the refusal to confront, let alone jail, Wall Street; the smooth continuity with and expansion of Bush's secret security powers; the drone wars; the persecution of whistleblowers, et al. I have, in weaker moments, enjoyed a Kamala Harris arched eyebrow or Tim Walz dad meme. (Old Biden was, by contrast, a drag, man.) But truly, how you or I feel when gazing on the current steward of the status quo isn't the point here. Yes: Trump needs defeating. And: everything must change. Can you hold the two ideas in mind at once?
And, still, none of this is to have spoken of Palestine.
How can it be so painful simply to say what I think? Perhaps because it is so painful to switch, as I must each day in order to teach and write, in order to reply to flattering invitations in e-mails, from the facts breaking across the screen of my awareness. Which news did you switch from, in order to commence your work, this particular morning? (Any recent morning will suffice in this example.) The truth shears through in shrieks and howls; we turn down the volume in order to conduct our daily lives. That is, to do as other human beings alive today will never be allowed. Were I to speak of Palestine and our collective complicity in the slaughter there, it should probably not be in something called an “election symposium,” since, with all due respect, to do so feels a bit like stepping over dead bodies to get to the betting counter at Aqueduct.
ACTUALLY EXISTING LDS
Editor,
As a socialist and devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), I read a recent article entitled “Socialists in the Kingdom of God" by Gus Breslauer with great interest.
The article was very astute in its assessment of the LDS Church's early history and in observing that its egalitarianism rivaled anything accomplished through political ideology during that era or since. Sadly, however, like so many historians and observers, Mr. Breslauer draws the conclusion that the conservatism of leaders such as Ezra Taft Benson signifies a shift in the Church’s doctrines away from the spiritual foundations of the pioneer era and toward the enshrining of private property and capitalism.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
The Church may be rich, but no one is being enriched by the Church, and few other institutions in the world do as much good or lift as many people out of poverty as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
As a socialist, I wouldn't be a member if it were otherwise.
Esteban Martorell
Los Angeles
LISTEN TO THIS. Very important I think. You haven’t heard the word environment in seven months. You know why? It doesn’t play. It doesn’t play. We want clean air. We want crystal clear water, beautiful water, and we want an unbelievable country and we want an economy that’s better than it’s ever been before. The environment is playing. They don’t mention it anymore.
— Donald Trump, Las Vegas, September 13, 2024
FATHER MAPPLE'S SERMON
“Shipmates, God has laid but one hand upon you; both his hands press upon me. I have read ye by what murky light may be mine the lesson that Jonah teaches to all sinners; and therefore to ye, and still more to me, for I am a greater sinner than ye. And now how gladly would I come down from this mast-head and sit on the hatches there where you sit, and listen as you listen, while some one of you reads me that other and more awful lesson which Jonah teaches to me, as a pilot of the living God. How being an anointed pilot-prophet, or speaker of true things and bidden by the Lord to sound those unwelcome truths in the ears of a wicked Nineveh, Jonah, appalled at the hostility he should raise, fled from his mission, and sought to escape his duty and his God by taking ship at Joppa. But God is everywhere; Tarshish he never reached. As we have seen, God came upon him in the whale, and swallowed him down to living gulfs of doom, and with swift slantings tore him along ‘into the midst of the seas,’ where the eddying depths sucked him ten thousand fathoms down, and ‘the weeds were wrapped about his head,’ and all the watery world of woe bowled over him. Yet even then beyond the reach of any plummet- ‘out of the belly of hell’- when the whale grounded upon the ocean’s utmost bones, even then, God heard the engulphed, repenting prophet when he cried. Then God spake unto the fish; and from the shuddering cold and blackness of the sea, the whale came breeching up towards the warm and pleasant sun, and all the delights of air and earth; and ‘vomited out Jonah upon the dry land;’ when the word of the Lord came a second time; and Jonah, bruised and beaten- his ears, like two sea-shells, still multitudinously murmuring of the ocean- Jonah did the Almighty’s bidding. And what was that, shipmates? To preach the Truth to the face of Falsehood! That was it!
“This, shipmates, this is that other lesson; and woe to that pilot of the living God who slights it. Woe to him whom this world charms from Gospel duty! Woe to him who seeks to pour oil upon the waters when God has brewed them into a gale! Woe to him who seeks to please rather than to appal! Woe to him whose good name is more to him than goodness! Woe to him who, in this world, courts not dishonor! Woe to him who would not be true, even though to be false were salvation! Yea, woe to him who as the great Pilot Paul has it, while preaching to others is himself a castaway!
ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
This is my twelfth "most important election of my lifetime" (since becoming voting age) and when I reflect back, it hasn't mattered which flavor the presidential candidate was, pretty much all of them were accused of being either Hitler or the Antichrist and they were all going to destroy the world (in the opinion of the opposition). Somehow, regardless of what happens, we always survive until the next "most important election of our lifetime".
COME IN
As I came to the edge of the woods,
Thrush music — hark!
Now if it was dusk outside,
Inside it was dark.
Too dark in the woods for a bird
By sleight of wing
To better its perch for the night,
Though it still could sing.
The last of the light of the sun
That had died in the west
Still lived for one song more
In a thrush's breast.
Far in the pillared dark
Thrush music went —
Almost like a call to come in
To the dark and lament.
But no, I was out for stars;
I would not come in.
I meant not even if asked;
And I hadn't been.
(Robert Frost, One Or Two / A Witness Tree; 1942. )
I am not certain, but that A.O. Carpenter photograph of Hendy Grove (as we used to call it) – shot circa 1880 – may be the first one of it first ever taken.
Watched the Netflix series on the Zodiac killer and was convinced that the main suspect was the Zodiac. They placed him near the scene of several of the murders, he taught cypher creation as a school teacher , later they found one of the murder weapons in the trunk of his car, no murders during the time he was in Atascadero prison/mental hospital for unrelated reasons. If my memory is correct didn’t the esteemed editor know the cab driver who was a Zodiac victim?
I watched it too, and agree. I read Graysmith’s book back in the late 80’s, and saw the movie when it came out. This latest contribution presents strong, if not overwhelming, circumstantial evidence of Allen’s guilt.
Yes, I did know Paul Stine, the murdered cab driver, but only to say hello to. We both worked 4-midnight. I was much less esteemed in those days.
The Zodiac Killer was the Black Dahlia Killer, a brilliant but pervy Surgeon living in a Frank Lloyd Wright House in Hollywood… Until he Moved to San Francisco..He went all Around the USA on trains- like everyone else those days. He committed murders as he went, with the Same M.O. He dismembered a boy one night and put him in a Chicago sewer, scarily close to my uncles boyhood apt. in the Edgewater nabe. The Killers Son became an LAPD homicide Dick….
I still don’t understand what the value is of posting the “Catch of the Day” without photographs.
It’s a continuation of our Know Your Neighbor program, Craig.
Hiya Lovely AVA’ers………………….
Ahhhhh interesting comment about the Latter-Day Saints…………..The church is not rich it is Mega Rich making it a corporation not a gift of Spirit. I grew up Lutheran I found the Mormon Doctrine quite strange; I went to that church for over a year as my son became an active member even baptized. The Mormon church was part of the catalyst for change during my son’s long battle with Mental Illness. When not one service would or could help us, the reason it worked was not the doctrine it was the constant attention and support which the Mental Health System does not provide, that hand holding I talk about all the time, and the fact that you cannot use substances at all. Eventually my son became more stable with his illness and realized the hypocrisy within the church and stopped going. Not sure how they lift people out of poverty, plenty of poor folks go to that church besides you must tithe 25% of your income even if you are poor. It is a Hierarchy where women are not held in equal regard.
mm 💕
To the Editor:
R.I.P. John Mayfield.
I remember back when there was a Denny’s restaurant in Ukiah, John would “hold court” in the back of the restaurant. He and his entourage would sit all the way in the back and talk county politics over their Value Slam Breakfasts.
John knew me from my public comment during Board of Supervisor meetings. Occasionally, I would join the group at Denny’s. And I would just listen. I would just shut up listen to John and I would learn from the master himself. I would take mental notes.
Sadly, everything John said about County CEO Carmel Angelo and her power grab was true. Everything John said about the expansion of the Executive Office and their obscenely bloated payroll was true. Everything John said about Carmel Angelo’s Stalin=like purges and wrongful terminations of department heads was true. Everything John said about the mismanagement and deliberate obfuscation of county finances was true. Everything John said about the county’s screwball budget process was true. Everything John said about the county’s over-reliance on a cannabis economy and lack of real economic development was true. Everything John said about the county’s ballooning unfunded pension liability and the “two sets of books” bookkeeping in the Teeter Plan was true.
John Mayfield saw it all. He was grumpy and guff, but county politics would put anyone in a bad mood.
John Sakowicz
Ukiah
Political climate in the United States of America
Taylor Swift is my heroe. I am profoundly impessed by how someone so young is able to articulate something so difficult.
Taylor is describing the new normal, acceptable behavior in the United States.
Please substitute ‘men’ for everybody — women do it, too, substitute it with ‘Minorities’.
How much are victims supposed to put up with?
Video: Taylor Swift calls out ‘gaslighting’ when women ‘defend themselves’ | Daily Mail Online
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/taylorswift/video-3105061/Video-Taylor-Swift-calls-gaslighting-women-defend-themselves.html
All I can say about Trump’s Madison Square Garden speech is that it was better in the original German.
The fascists of yesteryear had discipline! BTW, there were a lot of groans from the crowd at that moron’s “joke.” As a child of the fifties I haven’t quite made the psychic leap from pols like Eisenhower, Truman et al to Orange Man and Laughing Sal, both of whom would have been simply unthinkable before America lost its way.
The denigration of others is cheap comedy, and not funny.
Name calling also is not cool.
“Laughing Sal”
Done in fine Orange Man style, Bruce.