Mendocino County Today: Tuesday 11/19/2024

STRONG WINDS develop this afternoon and evening as an atmospheric river approaches. Steady, moderate rain with embedded heavy rainfall is forecast Wednesday into next weekend. Heavy snow is expected in NE Trinity late tonight and Wednesday. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A cloudy 40F on the coast this Tuesday morning. It now looks like the rain will start today sometime & there is no let up in the forecast on the incoming systems into the weekend. Wind forecasts are in the 20mph range until Thursday night when mid 30's mph are forecast. Rain forecast amounts are HUGE, we'll see what we actually get.

RE THAT TREE PLANTING in Fort Bragg scheduled for Wednesday 11/20. No surprise: POSTPONED.

WINTER STORM WARNING Issued for Fort Bragg Area

Residents Urged to Prepare for Heavy Rain, Strong Winds, and Potential Power Outages

The National Weather Service has issued a Winter Storm Warning for the Mendocino Coast, including the City of Fort Bragg, from Wednesday evening through Friday morning. The incoming storm system is expected to bring heavy rainfall, gusty winds, and hazardous conditions, with potential impacts on travel, infrastructure, and local utilities.

Storm Details:

Timing: Wednesday, November 20, through Friday, November 22.
Rainfall: 2–4 inches expected, with localized higher amounts in coastal and hilly areas.
Winds: Sustained winds of 25–35 mph, with gusts up to 50 mph.
Flooding: Increased risk of localized flooding, particularly in low-lying areas and near rivers and streams.

Precautionary Measures:

The City of Fort Bragg urges residents to take the following precautions: 

Prepare Emergency Kits: Ensure your home and vehicles are stocked with essential items, including flashlights, batteries, non-perishable food, water, and first aid supplies.
Be Storm-Ready: Clear gutters and drains to prevent water buildup, secure outdoor furniture, decorations, and trash bins to prevent wind-related damage, and monitor local weather updates for the latest storm information.
Stay Informed: Monitor local news and weather updates. Sign up for emergency alerts through the Mendocino County Emergency Notification System at https://mendoready.org
Avoid Travel if Possible: Road conditions may deteriorate quickly, especially in flood-prone areas. City

Preparations:

The City of Fort Bragg Public Works, Public Safety and Emergency Services teams are actively preparing for the storm, including clearing storm drains, inspecting critical infrastructure, and coordinating with local utility providers to respond to potential outages.

Resources for Residents:

Sandbags: Limited sandbags are available at the back of the CV Starr Center (300 S. Lincoln Street, Fort Bragg) for residents in flood-prone areas. Please bring your own shovel to fill bags.

Power Charging Stations: In the event of a power outage, the City Hall Lobby (416 N. Franklin Street) and the Fort Bragg Police Department Lobby (250 Cypress Street) will serve as charging stations for residents needing to charge phones, medical devices, and other critical electronic

Emergency Shelter: The City is working with local organizations to identify emergency shelter locations if needed. Details will be shared via the City’s website and social media.

For updates and additional information, visit the City of Fort Bragg’s website at http://www.city.fortbragg.com or follow us on social media.

Stay informed by monitoring weather updates and signing up for local alerts. Let’s work together to stay safe and storm-ready, Fort Bragg!

Current ensemble average estimate of accumulated rainfall for the next ~7 days from ECMWF model. There may be a sharp southern cutoff to significant rainfall somewhere near the San Francisco Bay Area, but much of the North Coast, Mendocino, and CA northern Mountains will see 5-15 inches of rain with this multi-day event and some locations potentially could see 20+ inches of rain.

ALFRED BOLTON

Alfred Quick Bolton, beloved figure of Greenwood Road (Elk) passed away at his home on October 5, 2024, surrounded by his loving wife and family. He was born May 28, 1937 in Washington D.C. to Alfred Herman Brauer and Dorthy Joan Bolton. Alfred grew up with his grandparents and mother on the O-K Bar in a pioneer ranching family in the foothills of the Ruby Mountains of Nevada. He was a recognized football star and graduate of Elko High School, class of 1955.

After high school he joined the US Army at age 19 and earned an esteemed position on the Army’s Olympic Shooting team. Alfred was honorably discharged and continued on to earn his BA and MA degrees from San Fransisco State College, in Language Arts and Creative Writing. He also attended Mexico City College, Long Beach City College and the University of California at Berkeley. Alfred was married and had two beautiful children, Jeff and Jennifer. He was named to the faculty of the Language Arts Dept, of California State Polytechnic College, Pomona.

After his short time as a college professor, he went into Federal law enforcement while living in San Fransisco for the postal inspector’s bureau. In 1968, Alfred left the city and was called to the rugged shoreline of the Mendocino Coast, where he “abandoned all expectations of others and himself.” His journey started deep in the redwoods with his truck, a wheelbarrow and primitive hand tools. He built a small cabin with large windows, down a steep hill in the woods in exchange for an acre of land. His hard work and his willingness to take risks, strengthened his enduring spirit despite the hardships. Alfred and Judith met and fell in love in Elk at the “old” Greenwood Pier cafe. It was love at first sight and together they embarked on their lifelong journey, with an understanding that there is perfect GOD-opportunity embedded in all moments of life.

Together, Alfred and Judith “homesteaded’ the land through a careful and respectful process of falling redwood trees, milling boards, hand digging a well, hammering each nail, using homemade bricks, haybales for couches and gathering any free material that was available. In addition, Alfred was continually planting native plants, ferns, huckleberries, blackberries and a productive “ancient” apple orchard. They went on to have six children with strength, humility and constantly experiencing a loving God.

Throughout the decades of pioneering the land, Alfred honed his craft and became a famed potter and folk artist. He made, bowls, plates, vases, jugs, (and with Judith) created impressive large ceramic murals for museums and art displays nationwide. Alfred later perfected his museum quality coffee mug in stoneware clay. He was consistently mixing different wood ash glazes as well as mixing his own clay the “cowboy way.” He built his pottery workshop/storefront which invited many world travelers and truth seekers to stop by anytime. They were always welcomed with Alfred’s authentic charm and wisdom, offering memorable life or spiritual advice to interested patrons “absolutely free.”

Alfred wrote, published and hand bound an Old West vignette style story book, as well as his ‘California County Pottery’ book. His pottery book has been added to the Smithsonian Library in Washington D.C. Alfred writes about his process of becoming a potter and acknowledging that “God lives within you, as you.” Alfred spent the last 12 years writing beautiful soul-seeking poetry as well as creating spiritual art in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona. He enjoyed building with heavy rock, steel, and wood with his devoted wife by his side. Alfred was a magnificent example of strength and action, never slowing down and his last effort was the monumental construction of the “Desert Mother.”

Alfred leaves behind his loving, life-long spiritual companion and wife, Judith Bolton. Alfred has eight children, Jeff Haggin (Rachael), Jennifer (Glen) Graffius, Aum (Erin) Bolton, Kiva (Anja), Tabi (Lisa), Athena Bolton, Helios (Mckenna) Bolton and Gabriella (Kristopher) Malnar. Alfred was blessed with 18 wonderful grandchildren; Theo, Tessa, Miles, Hannah, Keiran, Arden, Lane, Niyah, Shasta, Linnea, Alfred, Zavier, Liliana, Victoria, Weston, William, Makayla and Dakota. And 3 (soon to be 4) great-grandchildren. Alfred is survived by his step-brother, Peter Corta of Stevensville, Texas.

BOMB CYCLONE DRIVING ATMOSPHERIC RIVER TO CALIFORNIA

by Anthony Edwards

A rapidly intensifying low-pressure system over the Pacific Ocean is predicted to surpass the meteorological criteria for a “bomb cyclone” off the Washington coast Tuesday.

Unlike the bomb cyclone that made landfall over San Francisco in March 2023, this week’s storm will spin up hundreds of miles away from California. However, the storm will drive a major atmospheric river toward California beginning Tuesday evening.

November is a premier month for bomb cyclones in the Pacific Ocean, and this week will be no different.

Very cold air spilling out of the Gulf of Alaska will run into moist subtropical air over the Pacific Ocean on Monday night. The clash of air masses forces the moist air to rise, generating clouds and precipitation. This rising air causes a sharp drop in air pressure at the center of the system, the beginning of a powerful, counterclockwise-spinning storm.

Air pressure at the center of Tuesday’s storm is forecast to drop 44 millibars in 24 hours, well within the meteorological bomb cyclone criteria of a 18 millibar drop in 24 hours.

How a bomb cyclone works

Warm and cold air meet. Because air has different densities at different temperatures, a front or border forms between the air masses.

Warm and cold winds circle counterclockwise around the low-pressure area, creating cyclonic circulation. The warm air rises and revolves at increasing speed as pressure drops, creating heavier rains and wind.

The bomb cyclone is predicted to reach its peak strength Tuesday afternoon, dropping to a minimum central pressure of 940 millibars, similar to some weak hurricanes. Normal air pressure, or the force exerted by the weight of the atmosphere, is about 1,013 millibars.

A sharp pressure gradient along the West Coast storm will generate powerful winds that rush toward the center of the storm. High wind warnings are in effect from Seattle to Eureka for gusts up to 75 mph.

In the Cascade Mountains of Washington, the National Weather Service warns of a blizzard. A winter storm warning is in effect for Interstate 5 near Mount Shasta, with several feet of snow expected.

The weather service’s weather hazard maps lit up like a Christmas tree up and down the West Coast on Monday afternoon, with warnings of massive waves, damaging winds, blizzards and flooding.

Winds aren’t expected to be exceptionally strong in the Bay Area due to the distant nature of the bomb cyclone. But because the storm is predicted to spin in place for several days, a long-duration atmospheric river of moisture will be channeled toward Northern California, producing extreme rainfall totals.

Between 10 and 20 inches of rain could fall in the mountains of Northern California in Mendocino, Humboldt, Del Norte and Shasta counties. Heavy rain is predicted to extend down to the North Bay, where 6 to 10 inches could fall in Santa Rosa through Saturday.

San Francisco and Oakland are on a razor’s edge. Only 2 to 3 inches of rain is currently predicted south of the Golden Gate, but a slight southerly shift of the atmospheric river could result in much more.

JURY DELIVERS GUILTY VERDICT IN WILLITS HIT-AND-RUN CASE

A Mendocino County Superior Court jury returned from its deliberations Thursday morning to announce it had found the trial defendant guilty.

Defendant Clayton Joel Sternick, age 44, of Willits, was found guilty of misdemeanor driving a motor vehicle while unlawfully under the influence of a drug, driving on a suspended license, and hit-and-run driving.

After the jury was thanked and excused, the defendant admitted as true that he had also previously been convicted of misdemeanor driving on a suspended license in 2018 and 2021.

The law enforcement agencies that provided testimony during this week's retrial were the California Highway Patrol and the California Department of Justice Toxicology Laboratory.

The prosecutor who presented the People’s evidence at trial was Senior Deputy District Attorney Luke Oakley.

Mendocino County Superior Court Judge Keith Faulder presided over the three-day trial.

FAMILY TIES

"Sternick quarreled with his son, Jewel Evern Dyer, during the wee hours of 28 March 2016. At about 3:30 AM, the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office was called to the 35500 block of CA Highway 101 in Laytonville. Responding deputies found 58-year-old Sanford Sternick dead from blunt force injuries to his head. A witness implicated the 25 year old son in his father's murder; the blunt instrument wielded by him was his baseball bat. Investigation revealed that Clayton Sternick and Jewel Dyer were living at their father's place to care for him, as he was developing dementia. In-home Supportive Services was paying for this elder care. Additionally, the three men were preparing the ground for an illegal marijuana growing operation. Dyer and his father were quarreling about the work involved in installing an irrigation system. According to Dyer, his father menaced him with a machete. Dyer then purportedly defended himself with a baseball bat, though why he smashed his father's head both front and rear goes unexplained, as do the defensive wounds to dad's arms. During Dyer's preliminary examination, his brother Clayton Sternick said Dyer had come to Clayton's cabin about 3:30 AM and said, 'I've killed Pops, dude, the stress is over, we can relax now.' Dyer was overheard telling his public defender that the prelim was a waste of time. Dyer was bound over for trial."

— Bruce McEwen, 2016

SUDDEN SHIFT TO VERY WET conditions in NorCal with strong & very slow-moving atmospheric river poised to soak region in coming days; flooding likely in north

by Daniel Swain

It did turn out to be a much drier than average autumn across most of California and the Southwest after all (except the northernmost part of the state). Well, that has been true through mid-November, at least–though it’s going to change dramatically later this week. (Perhaps there’s a kernel in there about the wisdom of using canonical 3-month seasons to define meteorological seasons in California…but that’s a conversation for another day!)

Notably, the second most destructive wildfire of the year (from a structure loss perspective)–the 20,000 acre Mountain Fire in Ventura County, which destroyed around 250 structures–occurred during the major Santa Ana wind event discussed in the last blog post. The 2024 California fire season was ultimately quite a destructive one overall by historical standards, with four separate fires burning over 100 structures each and around 1,700 destroyed overall (a little over 1 million acres burned in total–well above the contemporary historical average). This very active fire season was facilitated by a one-two punch of extremely wet conditions during 2023 (and 2024 in some locations, especially central and southern CA coastal regions) yielding abundant vegetation growth, followed record-breaking heatwaves periodically during summer and autumn drying vegetation at lower elevations out to near or exceeding record levels during periods of elevated fire weather conditions.

It’s now looking like 2024 will feature yet another autumn-to-winter transition featuring a rather dramatic period of “hydroclimate whiplash”–a rapid swing from anomalously dry to anomalously wet conditions–across much of CA and other portions of the West. Is it true that California’s seasonal transitions, especially in autumn, are often characterized by rapid transitions? Sure! But in this case, I’m talking about swings from dry to wet that are especially large in magnitude, or suddenness, relative to the already elevated norms in this part of the world–and which are anticipated to become even sharper in a warming world.…

https://weatherwest.com/archives/43112

FIRST-ROUND NCS PLAYOFFS

Friday’s results:

Division 2

No. 1 Liberty 35, No. 8 Vintage 7

Division 4

No. 1 Ukiah 35, No. 8 Alameda 0

No. 2 American Canyon 7, No. 7 College Park 0

Division 5

No. 3 Sonoma Valley 49, No. 6 Hayward 12

No. 4 Maria Carrillo 28, No. 5 Tamalpais 20

Division 5

No. 5 Petaluma 39, No. 4 Montgomery 33

No. 6 Benicia 42, No. 3 Piner 38

8-person Division 2

No. 2 Elsie Allen 38, No. 3 Round Valley 14

Saturday’s results:

Open/Division 1

No. 5 Cardinal Newman 20, No. 4 Marin Catholic 7

Division 2

No. 3 Windsor 34, No. 6 Casa Grande 14

Division 6

No. 1 St. Vincent 57, No. 8 Arroyo 0

8-person D1

No. 2 Branson 68, No. 3 Roseland University Prep 14

UNITY CLUB NEWS: AV UNITY CLUB'S HOLIDAY BAZAAR

December 7th 2024. From 10 to 4. In the Fairgrounds Apple Hall, Boonville

Admission is Free

Come to the Annual Holiday Bazaar on Saturday the 7th of December, and you will find gifts, food and decor for all your Holiday gatherings. Make an offer on fabulous items at the Silent Auction. Wine tasting, Fine Arts, Household items, Jewelry, Crafts and Dinners are some of the items donated by our local artisans, merchants and vintners. We are having a Raffle for a beautiful Wreath decorated with money; created by students of A.V. High School's Ag. Institute.

As you enter, you will find the Unity Club's Baked Goods; with candies, preserves, Cowboy Crunch and an Apple Pie. You will also smell the delicious food at the Snack Shack, sponsored by the Parents and Staff of the Second grade class of A.V. Elementary School.

Walk around and be surrounded by gifts of jewelry, fine arts, needlework, soaps, decor and crafts. A fine assortment of cards, puzzles, ornaments, household items and Tools can be found at Grandma's Attic and Grandpa's Shed. The Ag. Institute will be selling Garlands, Wreaths and Centerpieces to brighten your home. Whatever you are looking for, you will find at the Holiday Bazaar.

Listen for the jingling bells announcing Santa Claus. Santa will be in Apple Hall from 11 to 1 for photos with children of all ages. No need to mail your Wish List to the North Pole, just tell Santa. Auntie Agnes and Abuela Rosa would each love a photo of your children with Santa. Children will truly enjoy the Craft Corner, located in the Dining Room, adjacent to Apple Hall. Crafts such as photo frames, ornaments and kid-made masterpieces will be brought to you by the Parent Teacher Alliance from the A.V. Elementary School.

Books are a great gift for all ages. The Lending Library, located in the Home Arts Bldg., will have Special Hours; from 10 to 4. A curated selection of gently loved books will be available for sale. Hardbound books for $1 and Paperbacks 2/$1 ($0.50).

There's no need to go over the hill or to the Mall, come to the Holiday Bazaar for hand-crafted gifts. Don't give away stale cookies from Amazon; buy grandma-made cinnamon rolls for the people you love. Don't take the kids for photos with a Mall Santa; come to Boonville for a hometown Santa you can trust. Are you working that Saturday? Ask Tia or Grandma to bring the kids for photos and crafts.

Come to the A.V. Unity Club's Annual Holiday Bazaar on December 7th from 10 to 4 at Apple Hall. Proceeds support Scholarships and other Community Projects sponsored by the Unity Club.

Miriam Martinez

HAMILTONIAN ANGEL SOUGHT

Editor,

Is there an Angel out there?

My name is Kira Brennan. I am a teacher at Anderson Valley High School. There is a student who has a dream and I am determined to find a way to realize her dream.

During the pandemic this young girl (at that time Elementary school) spent her days in a trailer, her home, doing Zoom school. What I witnessed as her neighbor was her love for the Musical ‘Hamilton.’

She memorized every word. She began to read voraciously. She sang the musical constantly. I told myself that one day I would take her to see the live Broadway Production when it came to San Francisco. It is here, and I learned too late in the game to get affordable tickets.

Can anyone out there help her get two tickets?

The cost of tickets start at $250 and goes up depending on seating. She wants to go with her mom. Though her mom does not speak English well, this High school student would like to share this experience with her. I will take them down and back in one day. I will accompany them to help make sure they get the help they need. I am hoping with all my heart that this young person will be able to have this opportunity.

I am putting this out to the universe right now.

Thank you,

Kira Brennan

kibrenn@yahoo.com

Philo

MIGUEL WILL WORK FOR SENIOR PROJECT 2024

Dear Anderson Valley Community,

My name is Miguel Marron. I live in Philo, Anderson Valley. I am looking for weekend jobs to raise money for my senior project. I will make a Pizza oven that I can use in the future, perhaps as a business. My mentors will be David Ballantine and Steve Rhoades. I need to raise $1,200 to purchase the materials for this project.

I am a strong worker and I make it a priority to show up on time, work hard, and be reliable. I have experience in landscaping, building fences, stacking firewood, moving, storage, cleaning gutters and ditches, and general outdoor work. I am available on weekends, during Thanksgiving break (Nov 23-Dec 2nd), and during Christmas break (Dec 21st-Jan 6th).

I would be so grateful if you would consider hiring me for any needs you may have. I have transportation and a lot of motivation to get this project underway.

I could make you a Pizza when my project is finished!

Thank you for your consideration.

I can be reached by text at (707)-295-4794.

You could also respond to Kira Brennan: kibrenn@yahoo.com

Miguel Marron

HOLIDAY DINNER AT THE GRANGE

The Anderson Valley Foodshed and AV Grange are hosting the Community Holiday Dinner on December 8, 2024 from 5-8pm at the Anderson Valley Grange #669 and all are welcome! This is an annual tradition and ‘it takes a village’ of elf helpers to feed our one of a kind community, so if you’d like to help set-up, cook a portion of the meal or appetizer, or be a part of the clean-up crew please click on the Google doc link below. Thanks and see y’all at the holiday dinner!

ED NOTES

I GUESS you’re getting old if you remember when “onshore flow” was called by its rightful name, which used to be fog, and what’s with weather people saying things like, “Onshore flow will bring morning clouds” when the referent clouds are the fog, and didn’t they learn back in grammar school that one clear word is better than two foggy ones?

REMEMBER WHEN “Hardball” moderator Chris Matthews asked Barack Obama: “I know you’re a pretty good b-ball player. … What’s it like being a black kid with a white mom? … When did you have your last cigarette? … I want to ask you what you’re gonna be like at 3 o’clock in the morning. … Was that the last time you cried?” Then Matthews pushed it a little too far: “At any time in this campaign did you have a chuckle that you just couldn’t get rid of, something weird that happened that was so crazy that you just went to bed laughing about it?” Without missing a beat Obama replied, “Oh I think that happens once a day! … You know? … But then I stopped watching cable news.”

A READER WRITES: “Your line recently about the way American boys grow up, '…frozen between ages 14 and 18 in a kind of infantilized state within a spectacularly decadent culture they're forbidden to participate in, hence the 45-year-old American teenager, unique in world history,' certainly resonated with me. I think it is at the heart of much of the drastic decline and collapse of our culture.

“I helped raise a lad from zero to six when I lived in Berkeley, a child of my overly busy somewhat crazy neighbor friends. I was the official third parent, and among many things I was responsible for taking him to and from pre-school every day where I also volunteered three mornings a week.

“And therein I witnessed the beginnings of that infantilization of which you speak (and which my spell check does not recognize as a word.) Much more noticeable with the boys 2-5 than with the girls, though they were experiencing the similar “you-are-and-will-always-be-the-god-of-the-universe” treatment that most of the boys were getting.

“My boy was a rough and tumble kid, we walked everywhere, he had chores, was not granted hegemony over all relevant adults, and he was so advanced in so many ways compared to most of his peers it was all I could do not to grab these pre-soccer moms and shake them and say, ‘Four is not one. Five is not two. Get a grip. Let the kid fall on his face a few times. Let him be!’”

UKIAH'S annual haiku festival has never come up with this winner by Sylvia Forges-Ryan of North Haven, Connecticut:

A soldier’s headstone —

between one date and another

so short a line

PAMPAS GRASS is largely regarded these days as a persistent weed, as stubbornly ineradicable as Scotch broom. It is particularly vexing to South Coast residents who’ve battled it for years. At one time, however, pampas grass was much in demand as a decorative, and may still be in a few retro households who find it for sale at a few Bay Area flower marts. But it certainly is no longer the cash crop it once was in California where walnut farmers, among other sons of the soil, often planted it between the trees of their orchards.

THE SEEMINGLY INERADICABLE, cabin-size plant’s foremost American proponent was not a son of the soil but one of its daughters, Harriet Strong. At the world’s Columbian expo of 1893 held in Chicago, according to California History, the formidable Strong, also well known for her innovative dam and reservoir designs, won top prize for her spectacular “Pampas Plume Palace,” which featured pampas grass on the exterior and interior details of a Moorish-style building.”

TIGHTLY woven pampas palms are apparently water repellent and an excellent insulator, perfectly suited to, say, Gualala if the South Coast can be persuaded that succumbing to it is better than fighting a plant that refuses to be defeated.

BACK IN MENDOCINO COUNTY FROM PA

Hi!

I'm the lady from PA that thought it was a great idea to drive over Fish Rock Rd to Gualala during an atmospheric river storm and called poor sheriff Matt Kendall for advice on how to get over the mountain. We went the smarter route this time. It's gorgeous here (for today) but regardless of the temperamental weather, we are so glad to be back!

Haley Holt

PART 4: SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS

A Fisherman’s Point of View for The Restoration of the Eel River Watershed Project

by Roy Branscomb

In addition to what I wrote in the last section, under the best of conditions that used to exist, the hatch rate was very low. There were so many salmon laying from 2,000-5,000 eggs that with a low hatch rate there were still thousands of eggs hatched out. It took thousands of all these young fish in all of the tributaries to survive all of the natural elements that are against them. It took thousands of these fish so a few could make it to finish the cycle. I don’t like being this long winded but a lot of people don’t understand how this all works. If you think this is depressing so do I. The steelhead on one hand, have it better than the salmon because they come up later in the year when we have a better chance of rain. On the other hand these young steelhead stay in the river during the summer months. They can survive some of the drier areas as long as the areas with water are sufficient to sustain them. The adult steelhead, after spawning, return to the ocean.

We know that our fish population is not doing well. As others do, I fear they could become extinct unless we do something more than we are currently doing to help them.

To further explain how the weather pattern has effected the salmon’s ability to spawn, one report I read stated that Tomki Creek east of Willits and a tributary to the Eel River was also, one of, if not the premier spawning stream. We went 9 years in the 80s and 90s without one salmon able to enter Tomki Creek because of low water. There was one year around that time that we got early rain. There were 2400 documented spawning salmon that year in Tomki alone.

This is just one documented example. This was and still is happening in all of our Eel River tributaries. This documented study on Tomki was 30 to 40 years ago, and was not a once in a lifetime occurrence. This is happening in most years in all of our tributaries as of this writing.

Our current efforts to help include stream restoration and studies, while I applaud these efforts and feel like they need to continue, the way I see it is that most work done on the streams is more beneficial to the juvenile fish than the adults. Work being done to help out erosion helps all aspects of the fishery. None of the work being done has any bearing on whether adult salmon can get into these tributaries to spawn. Our tributaries that are suitable need both adults and juveniles.

I feel the successful model used in 1897 should be explored. We now have a problem that is different from what they had then. Our weather and stream conditions are the new problem.

If we don’t have huge numbers of young fish the elements will prevent the cycle from continuing. Our streams and young fish need the help, but so do the adults. I believe this program should be tried on a trial basis on select waters. Studies should be a huge part of this to see if it is working.

In river restoration, it is true that you can’t step into the same stream twice because of constant change, and yet healthy streams and the plants and animals need fish to keep the river environment healthy. There is so much study and work having gone into restoration of the Eel River Watershed, and it is crucial to consider not only the newly hatched fish but to also consider the adults and the river flow adequate to let them live out their full cycle. If we are going to restore the river we need the fish to contribute to the health of the stream habitat and its environment.

CATCH OF THE DAY, Monday, November 18, 2024

EDURADO ACOSTA, 19, Fort Bragg. Probation revocation.

CRAIG FRASER, 62, Fort Bragg. Failure to appear.

ANDRES FUENTES-LUCERO, 30, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs, paraphernalia.

ALEX KADOSHNIKOV, 41, Sacramento/Ukiah. Failure to appear.

RANDY PIKE JR., 33, Manchester. County parole violation.

LAKE COUNTY MEASURE ASKING VOTERS IF KELSEYVILLE’S NAME SHOULD BE CHANGED IS LOSING BADLY — BUT WILL IT MATTER?

Despite a lopsided result in a non-binding referendum, a federal body could still change Kelseyville’s name to Konocti.

by Austin Murphy

What to make of this apparent Election Day landslide in Lake County? The winners have been muted in victory, while the losers don’t seem all that upset.

Measure U, a nonbinding advisory referendum, asked county residents whether they wanted to change the name of Kelseyville to Konocti.

As of Friday afternoon, with 70% of the vote still uncounted, according to the Lake County Registrar of Voters Office, those opposed to the name change were winning, 71.8% to 28.2%.

Invited to weigh in on their apparent victory, however, leaders of the no-name-change movement had little to say.

Mark Borghesani, CEO of Kelseyville Lumber, wasn’t exactly spiking the football in his emailed reply:

“At this time we are waiting for all results to be finalized before making any statements.”

Also declining an interview request was Rachel White, committee chair of Save Kelseyville, who shared, “I do not have anything to offer at this time.”

Many pro-Konocti folks, meanwhile, seemed neither surprised nor upset in defeat. Alan Fletcher of Lucerne dismissed the ballot measure as flawed and “meaningless,” a waste of the $50,000 it cost Lake County to put it on the ballot.

Dallas Cook, like Fletcher, is a member of Citizens For Healing (C4H), a group that’s been lobbying for the name change since 2020. She described Measure U as “a popularity contest” whose outcome might not have much bearing on how the issue is ultimately decided.

“We know the criteria by which they make the decisions, and everything is a green light,” she said. “And we feel like, eventually, the name will change.”

Feds To Have Final Say

By “they,” Cook was referring to members of the U.S. Board of Geographic Names, a federal body operating under the U.S. Secretary of the Interior. The board has the authority to change a name that’s been determined to be “derogatory or offensive.”

While it will surely take the results of Measure U into consideration, the board isn’t bound by them.

Nor is the Lake County Board of Supervisors, who decided to put the measure on the ballot in the first place.

Indeed, despite the lopsided margin in favor of keeping the Kelseyville name, there’s a good chance that, when the matter comes up in a meeting later this year, the board will vote to recommend that the BGN change it.

Kelseyville is named for Andrew Kelsey, who along with his brothers, enslaved, starved, raped and killed an untold number of Indigenous Pomos in the mid-1800s.

Konocti is the dormant volcano lording 3,500 feet over the western shore of Clear Lake. It was named by the East Lake Tribe of Elem.

In October of 2023, with the backing of elders from all seven tribes around Clear Lake, Kelseyville resident and C4H member Lorna Sue Sides applied to the Geographic Names board to have the town’s name changed to Konocti. In January 2024, the board agreed to take up the matter.

Local input “is an important part of the BGN’s deliberations,” according to a list of frequently asked questions published by the board, which specifically requested recommendations from the Lake County Board of Supervisors, “all federally recognized tribes” in the county, and the California Advisory Committee on Geographic Names.

That latter group has been tasked with conducting further research, then making a recommendation to the federal board, which has final say.

But the California committee, which convenes every four months, hasn’t yet met to decide how it will vote on the Kelseyville matter, and didn’t reply to an email asking when it intends to.

Deepening The Divide

Rather than directly pass along its recommendation, as requested by the federal board, the Lake County Board of Supervisors decided in a contentious “Special Meeting” on July 30 to put the issue on the November Lake County ballot in the form of Measure U.

That agenda item was sponsored by Supervisor Jessica Pyska, whose district includes Kelseyville, and who has repeatedly stated her intention to remain neutral on the issue.

“My constituency is very divided” over the issue, she said at that July meeting. “I won’t give a recommendation, because I have to represent all of the people of District 5.”

Opponents criticized it as an expensive tactic that would delay the federal decision while dividing the community further.

Flaman McCloud, chair of the Big Valley Rancheria, implored the board not to shrink from its duty.

“Somebody back there was talking about, ‘It’s a democracy, let the people vote,’” said McCloud, pointing a thumb at the packed gallery behind him.

“The people voted to have you guys up there, to speak for your districts. That’s what you guys should do.”

Pyska’s maneuver took some of her fellow board members by surprise.

Before voting against it, Supervisors Michael Green and Bruno Sabatier said the supervisors were obligated to make the decision themselves, rather than pass it along to voters in the form of a nonbinding measure that would cost the county $50,000.

Pyska’s proposal carried the day, kicking off what turned out to be an asymmetrical battle to win public opinion.

Outspent And Unconcerned

According to its campaign disclosure statement, the Save Kelseyville Committee received $12,925 in 2024. Borghesani contributed $8,000, with White, a nurse practitioner, adding $2,765.

Citizens for Healing, which holds that the name change is a moral issue rather than a political one, neither collected nor spent money on the campaign.

Kelseyville’s namesake slaughtered Native Americans. Should the town still bear his name?

“We didn’t want to be a political action committee,” said Cook. “That’s not what we’re about.

“We’d already done our work,” she said, by placing their proposal “before the authority that needs to take care of it” — the federal board.

The argument in the Lake County voters pamphlet in favor of Measure U was written by McCloud of the Big Valley tribe, who noted that the Kelsey name “serves as a painful reminder of a time when our ancestors faced unimaginable hardships.”

A yes vote, he wrote, would “begin a healing process that unites our communities,” and help foster “an environment of love, forgiveness, and growth for both current and future generations.”

The pamphlet’s argument against Measure U had five cosigners: Borghesani, White, attorney Angela Carter Brown, Realtor Cassie Pivinska, and Dan Prather, who owns a logging business.

Brown and Pivinska did not respond to emailed requests for comment.

Changing the name of Kelseyville, they wrote, “would involve considerable administrative and financial burdens,” including “expenses for updating property titles, estate plans, business licenses, rental agreements, and other legal documents.”

Those claims are unproven and are exaggerated, according to Dallas Cook of C4H, who accused Save Kelseyville of “spreading a lot of incorrect information.”

“The complaining about the deeds and licenses and all this paperwork and how it’s going to be a big pain in the neck. No. None of that,” she said.

“We’ve been looking at all those questions for a long time, and what they’re talking about isn’t really valid.”

In its FAQ about the proposed Kelseyville name change, the federal board states that “No, there will not be any direct or immediate effects on mailing of physical addresses.”

Whether addressed to Kelseyville or Konocti, in other words, the mail will still go through.

Abundant Outreach

In their argument against Measure U, Borghesani and others stated that “The application to rename Kelseyville was submitted to the BGN without local input, another violation of the BGN's principles.”

“Bulls---,” replied Fletcher, who points to the 10 meetings C4H held around the lake, including one at Upper Lake on Aug. 14 attended by prominent members of the opposition.

“They heard the tribes say, ‘This is an open wound, this is the first time we’ve been invited to the table to talk about it.’”

Those meetings were often announced in the local paper “to let everybody know about them,” added Cook, “where it was going to be, and come on down and all that.”

No less important than the Measure U results will be the upcoming vote, held by the Board of Supervisors. What will its recommendation to the BGN be?

Pyska said in a brief email, “I anticipate this item will go before the Board after the election is certified and before the end of the year.”

In that July 30 special meeting, Green, Sabatier and fellow Supervisor Moke Simon seemed to indicate that, given an up-or-down vote, they would favor the name change.

Supervisor Eddie Crandell, vice chairman of the Robinson Rancheria of Pomo Indians, has played his cards closer to the vest.

While the proposal before the BGN may have the backing of the seven Lake County tribes, not every Indigenous person is on board with it or C4H, said Crandell in a recent interview.

“The citizens of Lake County, tribal and non-tribal, will be divided because of what they started on their own,” he said.

The county’s tribal population is more likely to feel backlash and resentment from a possible name change, Crandell believes.

“It’s like (C4H members) came over to our side, they fired the first shot, and now we’ve gotta fight the war.”

While leaving it unclear how he would vote, Crandell was part of the group of Lake County tribes that put forth a resolution in favor of the name change at last month’s convention of the National Congress of American Indians, representing roughly 150 tribes. The resolution was adopted.

‘We’ll Never Stop’

“Little fires start big fires,” mused Clayton Duncan, a Pomo elder living in Nice, at the north end of Clear Lake.

After successfully spearheading the movement to change Kelseyville High School’s mascot in 2006 — once the Indians, they are now the Knights — Duncan turned his attention the following year to changing the name of the city.

“I did some petitions, but I didn’t really know what I was doing,” recalled Duncan, who for the past quarter century, along with his brother Douglas, has held an annual Sunrise Ceremony of Forgiveness in Lake County. “I was just trying to do it on my own.”

Now, he said, “we’ve got all these tribes [around the lake], we’ve got these non-Native people who want to be a part of this, who want change. And we’ve got the NCAI backing us. Look how big this fire got!’”

While he knows the BGN’s ruling could make the Measure U results moot, they were still a kick in the teeth, he said.

“When we lost, all it showed me was how many people have no respect for us.

“I have little girls, and I don’t want them to be thought of like that. This is their home. This land is their land.”

He recalled a 2007 conversation with a county supervisor who asked Duncan why he wanted to open “an old can of worms” by trying to change the town’s name.

Duncan is the great-grandson of Lucy Moore, a survivor of the Bloody Island Massacre of 1850, when U.S. Cavalry troops and vigilantes killed as many as 200 Pomo at the northern end of Clear Lake.

“I said, ‘Well, my great-grandmother is not an old can of worms, and I’m telling you, as long as I’m living, I’m never going to stop trying. I’m gonna tell my grandchildren, keep on trying. We’ll never stop.”

Whether you're a fan of reading fiction, or not, I would think most people have heard of Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940). He wrote a book, The Great Gatsby.

During his early attempts at writing fiction, he received 122 rejection letters. Scribner's rejected his first novel (This Side of Paradise) three times before Max Perkins found it, and agreed to publish it.

At the time of his death … Margaret Marshall of The Nation magazine wrote this: "his was a fair-weather talent which was not adequate to the stormy age into which it happened, ironically, to emerge."

His last royalty cheque: $13.13.

In his lifetime, he made $8,397 from sale of The Great Gatsby. In 1940, the year he died, four copies sold. Today, the book brings in 500k/year, with over 25m copies now having been sold.

He died, knowing who he was as a writer … but thinking he had failed.

HOW COUNTING ATTENDEES AND NO-SHOWS AT A HISTORIC LAUNCH IN MARIN CITY UNCOVERED JEREMY PORTJE'S UNREPORTED SETTLEMENT

Reviewing both the attendees and “no-shows” at the historic November 7, 2024 launch of the Army Corps of Engineers project in Marin City led to further insight into Marin County’s AB 1185 “Sheriff Civilian Oversight Working Group” (SCOWG).

In later discussions about the no-shows, I learned that SCOWG principal Jeremy Portje's $21 million civil rights lawsuit against the City of Sausalito had been very quietly settled last summer. There has been apparently zero reporting on the settlement in local media, which had produced multiple articles about the initial 2021 incident and the subsequent lawsuit filed in 2022.

Why so much publicity about the incident and about the lawsuit, but no followup on the settlement — particularly when two conditions of the settlement are relevant to the larger community? And why no followup on the settlement given Portje's ongoing role in pushing through a weak civilian oversight package at the County level?

Late last week I requested comment from Portje's attorneys about the settlement and the initial case. Attorney Charles Dresow has agreed to respond soon, and I am waiting to hear word from him before I finish writing the article.…

https://marincountyconfidential.substack.com/p/how-counting-attendees-and-no-shows

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Like a roller coaster diving down from the top, the rather pleasant feeling of weightlessness and stomach floating is now morphing into the increasing g-force of slamming backwards into the seat, eyeballs pressed into sockets, face-ripping in the wind and white-knuckling of the crash bar as survival instinct kicks in. The screaming has just begun.

BLISSED OUT IN DC

Warmest spiritual greetings,

Sitting at the drop in center located behind Adam's Place Homeless Shelter in northeast Washington, D.C. on a public computer, was in line early this morning to do a laundry. Later, will go to the Basilica at Catholic University for the 12:10 p.m. Mass. Current practice is to attend church services seven days per week. Am now praying exclusively for the Washington, D.C. Peace Vigil and its participants. Due to the most recent American presidential election, the vigil (which has been across the street from the White House since June of 1981 with a Parks Dept. permit, and kept going 24/7 365 through four seasons) is once again under threat by the American political establishment, and in particular the anti-environmental administration about to be re-inaugurated; with global climate destabilization being the existential threat of these times.

A total moron could figure out that if the Parks Dept. permit were to be revoked by the re-inaugurated American president, then we would simply show up as usual without the hut structure we built with plumber's pipe, mylar, and duct tape, and continue the Washington, D.C. Peace Vigil anyway.

Yours for Self-realization,

Craig Louis Stehr

EVERYTHING BAD that happens under the Trump administration will have happened because the Democratic Party was too corrupt and evil to run a good campaign with a good platform and a good candidate.

— Caitlin Johnstone

TUESDAY'S LEAD STORIES, NYT

Lawyer Says His Client Testified That She Saw Gaetz Having Sex With Underage Girl

Trump Confirms Plans to Use the Military to Assist in Mass Deportations

Biden Asks Congress for Nearly $100 Billion in Disaster Aid

Dozens of Hong Kong Pro-Democracy Leaders Sentenced in Mass Trial

Coffee, Juice, Shawarma: Tiny Traces of Normal Life in a Ruined Gaza

Looters Strip Aid From About 100 Trucks in Gaza, U.N. Agency Says

Arthur Frommer, 95, Dies; His Guidebooks Opened Travel to the Masses

BEYOND CONSEQUENCE

by James Kunstler

“I don’t know why the Democrats lost. I don’t understand … Prices have come down, the economy is good. I don’t know why they voted against her, against the party.” — William Shatner (Captain Kirk)

If you boil down everything the woked-up, psychopathic Democratic Party did the past eight years as it drove the country into a ditch, it all amounted to a Great Pretending. Whatever the party said, they knew it was not so. Whatever they did, they pretended the other side was doing. They lied lavishly, knowingly, and incessantly and now they are pretending to soul-search in a great public display of pretend humility as they await the dreaded reckoning.

Case in point: the interview on PBS between Aspen Institute chief Walter Isaacson and Harvard civics philosophy prof Michael Sandel, “to make sense of Donald Trump’s Presidency.” Listen to them prattle about “the dignity of work,” “credentialist condescension,” and “income disparities.” You know it was way worse than that: censorship, witch hunts, the gestapo FBI, a stupid money-pit war, medical fascism, the wide-open border, race-and gender hustles, state-sponsored riots, lawfare programmatically destroying lives, careers, reputations, and misuse of the news media (including PBS) to lie about all of it. These two pusillanimous pricks, pretending to be genteel, are the poster boys for a diseased polity.

And behind the scenes now, in the C-suites of the big agencies, the faculty lounges of Higher Ed, the Zoom meet-ups of so many crypto-government NGOs, and especially in the Big Media board-rooms, the cries of anxiety and desperation signal a momentous end of something: the punking of America by a gang of vicious, criminal snobs. The aggregate insult alone deserves a world-class beat-down. They know it, and they know they are going to get it, and it will be satisfying to watch them rat each other out as judgment nears.

But even as all that plays out, and justice returns to the scene, Mr. Trump and Company face the enormous task of getting our nation’s house in order. The balance sheet is a catastrophe, we are functionally bankrupt, and “Joe Biden” has been busy destroying the value of our money in the futile attempt to work around all that. All the economic statistics rolled out to benefit Ms. Harris in the election are false. Something is underway that is too big to stop and it will express itself as ruinous inflation and economic depression in some wicked combo of the two. It will surely lead to epic rearrangements in everyday life. I will suggest a few examples.

The people of this land have been deprived of purpose and meaning in an economy organized among giant enterprises and vast distances from wherever you live. To call ourselves “consumers” degrades us. We are citizens who have duties, responsibilities, and obligations to each other. We are economic actors who can make choices and take risks, not passive units to be exploited. The people need an economic role in their locality: employer of neighbors, producer of useful goods and services, all the way down to faithful servants of something and someone.

Monopolies and chain stores killed American towns and all the complex relations in them that furnished purpose, meaning, and livelihoods for the people in a rich ecosystem of production and services. Now it’s the monopolies and chain stores turn to decline and die off — and they will in the course of things, but it would be foolish to try to prop them up. Let them go and let the people rebuild their networks of making-and-doing locally. It’s already happening.

The giant shopping malls that came along in the 1970s have already died, and there was no official campaign to rescue them, nor any official funeral. It just happened quietly in the background. The malls were a pure product of the combo of Boomer household formation and Happy Motoring. That’s ending now. What replaced the malls, strangely, is the new model of Garage Sale Nation. That will continue to evolve and elaborate itself, and integrate into what happens next — which will not be the A-I robot nirvana of endless leisure, but rather an era of tribulation. You can see it coming on all around you. So many things don’t work anymore. Medicine. School. The task of reorganizing them is monumental. It will generate plenty of friction and hardship.

The people also need a social role in their community: head of household, mother, mentor, public servant, caretaker, local hero. You need a place in this world to enact those roles, a location in it, at the proper scale, and it must be a place that is worthy of your affection. Too many places in the USA do not meet these requirements. They are ugly, sprawling, chaotic, and grotesque. The suburban template for development is a long-running fiasco, the anti-community, and MAGA’s psychological investment in it is, sadly, a mistake — though it is consistent with the psychology of previous investment (sunk costs).

We’ve got to fix all that and it’s another monumental task. I would argue against the idea that we should just forget about the wrecked existing towns and cities and build all-new ones out in the hard-pan somewhere. First of all, our cities and towns exist where they are because they occupy important geographical sites: rivers, harbors, a rail nexus. Secondly, the capital (money) will not be there to build these proposed sci-fi utopias in the middle of nowhere. We’ve already squandered it on color revolutions, grift, and four-star hotel rooms for Venezuelan gangs. So, forget about that. Just realize that what we’re left with — Detroit, Bangor, Memphis, Spokane, and thousands of small towns — is what we’ve got to work with, and wrap your head around making them better places.

If the Democratic Party had not gone completely insane for a decade, its many eggheads like Walter Isaacson and Michael Sandel would have been working on these major socio-economic transformations instead of punking us with drag queens, pointless wars, and Marxian punishments. I don’t know whether Mr. Trump and Company can tackle the transformations that this new pulse of history is calling for. The Elon-and-Vivek DOGE initiative is at least a good start in rescaling the way we govern ourselves. But it’s going to take a lot more than that to meet what circumstances require of us.

MARCO RUBIO will be joining a long list of psychopaths as the next US secretary of state. A few of Trump’s cabinet picks might have a hard time getting past the Senate, but not Rubio. He’s the exact type of blood-guzzling swamp leech those creatures on Capitol Hill adore.

Psychopathy is almost a job requirement for secretary of state, because the title entails a responsibility for helping to roll out the violence and tyranny which serves as the glue that holds the US empire together. As secretary of state you are responsible for whipping up international consensus for brutal economic sanctions regimes, drumming up support for heightened aggressions against the official enemies of Washington, and making up excuses for the criminal abuses of the US and its allies.

This is funny in a dark sort of way because the secretary of state is supposed to be in charge of US diplomacy, which in theory should mean making peace and resolving conflicts without violence. The US Department of State was supposed to be the peacemaking counterbalance to the US Department of War (renamed the Department of Defense in 1947 because “Department of War” was a little too honest), but because the US runs a globe-spanning empire that is held together by endless violence it has little use for peacekeeping, so the State Department mostly gets used to help inflict more violence and abuse. In theory it was supposed to be the Peace Department, but in practice the US just got two War Departments.

Rubio will be a suitable addition to the list of sadistic manipulators who have served in that role before him, joining the likes of Antony Blinken, Mike Pompeo, Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright and Henry Kissinger as the next soulless manipulator to lead the US State Department in pressing the imperial boot into the throat of the global south.

— Caitlin Johnstone

TIME TO REDEFINE "FRINGE"

Critics of the rumored nomination of Dr. Jay Bhattacharya as director of the National Institutes of Health need to check the election returns

by Matt Taibbi

The Washington Post couldn’t get through an article about Stanford’s Dr. Jay Bhattacharya without using the F-word. The sub-headline from Saturday read, “The Stanford physician was excoriated by NIH’s director in 2020 for his “fringe” ideas on Covid. Four years later, he’s poised for power in Trump’s Washington.”

It couldn’t leave out the C-word, either:

[Bhattacharya’s] stances — and alliances — have also alienated him from many public health professionals, including on Bhattacharya’s own college campus…We need to have an honest conversation about how a handful of prominent contrarian academics backed by corporate interests continue to tank evidence-backed policy, including COVID-19 protections,” Mallory Harris, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Maryland who received her PhD in biology from Stanford this year, wrote last month…

If Donald Trump creates the position, I volunteer to be Secretary of Feeding People to Komodo Dragons. The first round of tossings into the lizard-pit will involve “experts” who still use grossly snobbish terms like “fringe” and “contrarian” to describe beliefs held by most of the population…

https://www.racket.news/p/its-time-to-redefine-fringe

THE DEMOCRATIC SENATE MUST HOLD THESE PUBLIC HEARINGS BEFORE JANUARY 3, 2025

by Ralph Nader

Biden’s executive agencies, like the EPA and the NLRB, are racing to complete important work before the Trumpster gang of Der Führer Donald takes office on January 20. What is the Democratic majority in the Senate racing to do, other than getting some two dozen federal judgeships confirmed? True they can’t get any legislation passed in Congress, but that doesn’t stop the Senate Democrats from throwing down gauntlets to the incoming Trumpeteers with compelling Committee hearings on popular legislation and by pushing bills that highlight Republican opposition to agendas people care about.

For example, they can push to pass a $15 minimum wage benefitting twenty-five million workers and set up the GOP to oppose that long-overdue measure on behalf of its corporate paymasters. The election is over. Majority leader Chuck Schumer doesn’t have to worry about losing some corporate campaign cash for standing up, as he should have years ago, for beleaguered workers unable to pay their family’s bills.

Schumer’s Democrats also could push a bill to restore taxes on the very undertaxed corporations and super-wealthy to the level they were at in the prosperous 1960s and again induce the Republicans to show their plutocratic colors. The list could go on, but no one ever accused the Democrats of knowing how to push the GOP into a corner.

The Democrats could also activate their committees to each hold a full day of public hearings in mid-December on major redirections and reforms that the GOP opposes.

Such hearings, with powerful witnesses, will get the attention of the Congressional reporters and let the vanquished Party of the Donkey go out with a bang (or a Bray) instead of a whimper. The hearings could provide yardsticks foreshadowing and measuring Trump’s wrecking ball promises for the first one hundred days under the new GOP-controlled Congress. It would also reassure a bit the Democratic Party’s jilted, angry progressive wing led by Senator Bernie Sanders – who has the highest polls of any federally elected official and was just re-elected from staid Vermont in a landslide. Moreover, it would signal that there is some fight left in the Party, readying for 2025.

Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, could have a full day’s hearing on what must be done about the corporate crime wave, the corporate welfare binge, and the problems with the federal judiciary under corporate influence that his colleague Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) has worked intensively to expose.

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, could hold hearings opening up the entire corporate tax racket and the need for stronger laws and budgets for the understaffed IRS.

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, could highlight how many lives and how much money full Medicare for All will save for America and document the neglected weak labor and pension protection laws.

Senator Thomas Carper (D-DE), Chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, could hold hearings on how renewable energy, together with public works, can produce a safer, more efficient economy and a significant number of new jobs paid for by restoring taxes on large companies and the wealthy classes.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Chair of the Senate Budget Committee, is well poised to illuminate serious public budget priorities and why more tax revenue is not going back in the form of improved conditions where the people live, work, and raise their families, instead of pouring tax dollars into a gigantic wasteful, unaudited military Empire that consumes over half of the entire federal government’s operating expenditures.

Outgoing Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Chair of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, could highlight two of his favorite proposals – public banking and a return of postal banking – for the unbanked populace. Both poll very high. He could also present some stronger fundamental banking legislation to protect savers, depositors, and borrowers.

These chairmen are quite supportive of such redirections for our country. They can give the people compelling alternatives to the GOP that the dominant, war-supporting, genocidal corporate Democrats should have placed front and center during the election. Raising authentic domestic expectations supported by a large majority of the voting public is a good way to go out and start the recovery with the people for 2026.

Will they conduct these hearings and turn the hearing records into a great Compact for Americans? Or will they prefer another day of vacation to stay home and lick their wounds? Even a burdened Donkey wouldn’t do that!

(Call your Senators at 202-224-3121 switchboard to hold these hearings).

TRUMP IS PROFOUNDLY EVIL, but he is a very conventional kind of profoundly evil, of the same variety as Biden, Obama and Bush before him.

The big lie about Trump is that he is a special deviation from the norm, and both sides believe this lie. Everything about the actual policies of his first term reveal that he is a very ordinary Republican president, who is evil in more or less the same ways as all the other evil Republican presidents. He didn’t do anything that wasn’t already being done by those before him and won’t continue to be done by those after him. But both Democrats and Republicans see him as a drastic departure from status quo US politics, differing only in whether they perceive this as a good thing or a bad thing.

This happens because US presidents cannot significantly differ from one another in actual policy and decision making. If they were the sort to disrupt the status quo too much, they never would have been allowed to ascend to the presidency. There is simply too much power riding on the US empire for any significant change in its operations to be tolerated by the actual power structure which really runs things. So because presidents and viable presidential candidates cannot significantly differ from each other in terms of policy, they instead differ from each other in terms of narrative and emotion.

That’s what we’re seeing in all the vitriol and passion and frenetic punditry about Trump on both sides of the US partisan divide. A bunch of empty narrative fluff pouring a lot of emotional energy into either supporting or opposing a very ordinary evil in a very ordinary Republican president.

If they didn’t do that, the entire US political landscape would just be Democrats and Republicans agreeing with one another about 99 percent of the evils of the US empire and half-heartedly disagreeing about the remaining one percent. And that would give the whole game away. It would kill the illusion that Americans live in a real democracy where their votes actually mean something and they actually have some meaningful degree of control over what their government does. If this understanding took root, it would only be a matter of time until America’s heavily-armed population began thinking thoughts of revolution.

So we’re left watching these ridiculous histrionics over what amounts to the ordinary everyday pendulum swings between ordinary everyday Democrat governance and ordinary everyday Republican governance, with one side remaining in control about half the time and both sides working together to push the status quo further and further into oligarchy, militarism and tyranny.

The whole US political spectacle is all emotion and no substance. A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

— Caitlin Johnstone

Alfred Lennon (1912–1976), also known as Freddie Lennon, was an English seaman and singer who was best known as the father of musician John Lennon.

THE FORT LAWTON FRAME-UP

by Fred Gardner

Fort Lawton doesn't exist anymore – not as an Army base and not in historic memory, unless you come across “On American Soil” by Jack Hamann (University of Washington Press, 2007). In 1944, 43 Black soldiers were court-martialed there –40 charged with rioting and three with first-degree murder. It was the biggest court martial of World War II. The lead prosecutor was an ambitious lawyer from Texas, Lt Col Leon Jaworski, who in 1964 investigated the assassination of JFK for the Warren Commission and in 1974 became the special prosecutor of Richard Nixon in the Watergate scandal.

The Army ceded Fort Lawton –almost 700 acres on Puget Sound– to Seattle in 1965 and the city made it into Discovery Park. When Native Americans invoked an 1865 treaty promising “the reversion of surplus military land to their original landowners,” Seattle ceded 20 acres to the United Indians of All Tribes.

In 1986, an unusual headstone at the Fort Lawton cemetery piqued the interest of Jack Hamann, a law school grad who had become a reporter for KING TV in Seattle. It bore the (misspelled) name Gugliemo Olivotto and the date 14 Agosto 1944. His research began by checking back issues of the local papers. “One Dead in Lawton Riot” declared the Seattle Post-Intelligencer headline for August 16, 1944, over a story he summarizes thus: “An Italian prisoner of war had been lynched at Fort Lawton, and the prime suspects were members of a 'mob' of African-American soldiers.” To his surprise, Hamann then had to “look long and hard to find anyone who had ever heard about this incredible event,” which was “conspicuously absent from history books and even from the collective memories of lawyers, soldiers, and journalists.”

Back in 1944, when the Army was hurriedly shifting personnel and equipment to the Pacific, Fort Lawton had become a major embarkation point. About 10,000 soldiers were housed there that summer, including a 200-man “Italian Service Unit” made up of POWs who had been interviewed by US Military Intelligence and deemed apolitical. Mussolini had been killed and the US State Department, anticipating the Cold War, was courting the new government. ISU members lived in barracks, did jobs unrelated to combat, and wore the same olive drab fatigues as GIs, with a white shoulder patch that said “Italy.” (Signifiantly, Hamann notes, some ardent fascists avoided prison by bluffing their way through MI screenings and getting assigned to ISUs.)

The “Italian Area” at Fort Lawton was adjacent to the “Negro Area.” More than a million African-Americans served in the Army during World War II. Units were segregated and Black soldiers were disproportionately assigned supportive roles. “When roughly 10% of the soldiers were Black,” Hamann notes, “34% of quartermaster units and 42% of engineering units were Black. In the Transportation Corps… port companies, were almost 80% Black.” (After ranks were depleted by the Battle of the Bulge in the winter of 1944-45, commanders were ordered to accept Black volunteers. ”General Dwight Eisenhower resisted the order,” the US Army website now acknowledges, “but formed black volunteer platoons that could be attached to combat units.”)

Three “Negro port companies” had been assembled at Fort Lawton in August '44 –Invisible Men trained to load troops, food, supplies, ordinance, and equipment onto trucks, ships, and planes. Their work called for skill and coordination, Hamman reminds us. “A hatch tender signals a winch operator as slings of cargo are loaded…” The inherent dangers had been demonstrated only a month earlier when an explosion of two ships at the Navy munitions depot in Port Chicago, California, killed 320 sailors, two-thirds of them Black, and seriously wounded 300. The 50 survivors who refused to resume handling munitions were then convicted of mutiny. The Port Chicago sailors were Invisible Men until Robert Allen's fine book about their court martial came out in 1990.

“Discovery Park Graves,” Hamann's hour-long documentary about the forgotten “riot” and the ensuing court-martial at Fort Lawton, was well received when it aired in 1987. His career flourished and he won numerous awards. But over the years he came to have serious misgivings about his original take on the Fort Lawton case, and he decided to investigate further. ”On American Soil” was his take two. After it was published, Hamann explained to archivist David S. Ferriero:

“The documentary had primarily accepted Jaworski’s theory that black soldiers in the segregated 1944 US Army had grown to resent that white commanders treated them little better than the Italian prisoners housed right across the street. Jaworski had convinced the court that simmering resentment boiled over the night of August 14, 1944, fueling a riot and Olivotto’s lynching. Years after the documentary first aired, friends and colleagues often expressed discomfort about its unanswered questions and incongruous assertions. In particular, it was the only case in American history where black men stood trial accused of a mob lynching; didn’t that raise a red flag or two?… In 2001, with many more years of reporting experience under our belts, my wife, Leslie, and I realized that the documentary had relied primarily on secondary sources –1944 news articles and such–rather than on primary sources. Determined to learn more, we set out on a journey which eventually led us to the National Archives in College Park, Maryland.”

The Hamanns had hoped to find the court-martial file in a matter of hours. But it would be weeks before Leslie came across something “far more intriguing and powerful” in the 'Miscellaneous' section of the Archives’ World War II collection –a recently-declassified report by Brigadier General Elliot D. Cooke, who had investigated the tragic episode for the army Inspector General. From Cooke's report Hamann learned “that the U.S. Army knew –in advance of the trial– that its detectives had thoroughly botched the investigation of Olivotto’s murder, and that the defendants had been fingered by highly-suspect informants.”

”Leon Jaworski himself had a copy of that investigation,” according to Hamann, “yet fought successfully to keep it out of the hands of the defendants’ Army-appointed lawyers.” Jaworski aspired to prosecute war criminals in Europe after the Allied victory, and he needed to win convictions at Fort Lawton to get that assignment. The court martial of US soldiers alleged to have attacked Italian POWs and killed one of them was being watched closely in Washington, DC. Italian-American organizations had expressed outrage, editorials demanding punishment were forwarded to the White House, and Secretary of War Henry Stimson had promised that “proper disciplinary action will be taken.”

Gen. Cooke's investigation and report helped Hamann construct a coherent account of the assault on ISU members at Fort Lawton. (“Riot” is an inaccurate description of the event.) August 14 had been a payday, and two of the “Negro port companies” –the 650th and 651st– were due to ship out for a combat zone the next day. That night members of the third company had thrown them a big going-away party. Around 11 pm, three ISU members returning from a night on the town in Seattle walked past some Black soldiers socializing in front of their barracks. Willie Montgomery, a small 39-year-old corporal from NYC who was very drunk, said something derogatory. According to Giuseppe Belle, Montgomery was cursing and came at him with a knife, so Belle, hit him with a left hook that knocked him out. The Italians raced to their barracks while Montgomery's friends attended to him on the ground. Luther Larkin, a soldier who had some training as a medic, testified that Montgomery was out cold and that he administered artificial respiration as onlookers gathered.

Two MPs patrolling in a jeep soon came by. Although Montgomery had revived, the MP in charge, Clyde Lomax, insisted on driving him to the hospital. There were two hospitals on the base, but Lomax drove to the one furthest away. He would stay away for half an hour, although he knew that serious trouble was brewing between the Blacks and the Italians.

According to testimony at the court martial, Montgomery's friends had gone into the barracks yelling, “They got one of us, let's go get them” and words to that effect. Groups of Black soldiers headed for the ISU barracks, picking up rocks and fence posts to use in their assault. Twenty-four Italians, three black soldiers and three whites who'd been in the ISU orderly room were injured, some seriously. It was not reported that any Italians were missing. The next morning, as dawn was breaking, Pvt Lomax, driving his jeep on the beach, came upon Olivotto's limp body hanging from a rope strung between two steel cables on an obstacle course used by trainees.

Gen. Cooke's assistant, Lt. Col. Curtis L. Williams, arrived at the end of August and learned that hardly any evidence had been collected or statements taken from witnesses. None of the attackers had been identified by the MPs who arrived on the scene and ordered them back to their barracks. Even the rope from which Olivotto had been found hanging had disappeared. No photographs of his limp body had been taken. No footprints or vehicle tracks had been preserved. Trainees had been allowed to run the obstacle course the day after Olivotto was cut down.

Jaworski's “Egregious Error”

Brigadier General Cooke's job had been to investigate the officers who had failed to prevent the fatal melee on August 14. (He was in charge of the Army's Overseas Inspection Division. which had jurisdiction because most soldiers at Fort Lawton were en route to the Pacific.) Prosecution of the attackers was handled by lawyers from the Judge Advocate General's Corps. Lt Col Leon Jaworski got the assignment, Hamann writes, because he was “a rising star in the JAG Corps,” and the War Department was counting on convictions to placate Italy's post-Mussolini government.

All 400 men from the 650th and 651st port companies had been held in a stockade for four days after the attack on the Italian Service Unit. On August 19 they were moved to a small Army facility in Seattle where “they were ordered to march past in single file” as ISU members studied their faces. Thus a preliminary list of suspects was developed.

“While most Italians drew a complete blank” during the perp walk, Hamann recounts, “and a few others said they recognized one or two each,” a 36-year-old sergeant named Agosto Todde “had somehow been able to pick out nine men who he said had unquestionably been in the Italian area, most armed with clubs, several doing violence. While the memories of other Italians seem to fade, Todde's only grew sharper. Weeks after the attack, he confidently identified three additional men, then two more, then another two… whom he swore had been in or around the fighting.”

“This very helpful witness had been identified by Army intelligence as 'a prisoner to be watched,'“ Hamann writes. “ISU screeners accepted him because, although 'sly and probably still pro-Nazi,' he was 'willing to work.'

Giuseppe Belle was “an even more problematic witness. Identified as 'stridently pro-fascist and/or pro Nazi' by US Army intelligence agents (who infiltrated the POW intake centers), Belle had evaded imprisonment and wound up in the ISU at Fort Lawton.

On August 23, 340 members of the Negro port companies had been shipped out to New Guinea, where they were urgently needed. ”General MacArthur had recently secured dozens of ports south of the Philippines, at a cost of thousands of lives. Fresh port companies were absolutely necessary if MacArthur was to maintain his supply chain leading to his momentous return to Manila.”

After Jaworski arrived at Fort Lawton, he arranged the return of 25 men from New Guinea. He had been given Cooke's report, but it was light on names because none of the white MPs who cleared out the attackers from the Italian Service Unit barracks could or would identify them.) He jump-started the prosecution by offering immunity to five Black soldiers named as participants in the attack by Todde and Belle. Pvt Jesse Sims named 20 who had taken part, including Sgt Robert Gresham, who named 11, and so it went until Jaworski felt he could charge 42 men with rioting. None of the witnesses said they had seen or knew anything about the murder.

Guglielmo Olivotto was 33. He had fought and been captured in North Africa. He was the most devout Catholic in the ISU, and was known to have an inordinate fear of Blacks. Several Italians testified that he had jumped out a window when the barracks was attacked. Evidently he had not run straight down to the beach where his body was found hanging at dawn the next day; the intervening terrain was full of brambles and his skin was unscratched. Hamann suggests that Olivotto had gotten a ride in a jeep.

Why did Jaworski charge three men for a murder to which there were no witnesses? The reader (c'est moi) infers that convictions for rioting, a misdemeanor, might not have mollified the Italian government, which would have disappointed the Top Brass and Diplomats in DC… And so three Invisible Men alleged to have led the attack that caused Olivotto to flee –Luther Larkin, Arthur Hurks and William Jones– were charged with first-degree murder.

Larkin gets special attention in “On American Soil.” Growing up in West Helena, Arkansas, he was an amateur naturalist. In the army he trained to be a medic, then was assigned to a port company because the quota for Negro medics had been filled. On the night of August 14 he was with Roy Daymond, William Jones (who had been jilted by his girl at the going-away party) and the very drunk Willie Montgomery on Lawton Road, when the Italian trio strolled by. Montgomery cursed them and got knocked out cold. Larkin knelt down and gave him artificial respiration as a circle of onlookers grew and Jones denounced the Italians.

Larkin recalled the scene when he testified: ”You could hear whispers in the crowd, the fellows was talking like, 'we'll teach them not to come up here and jump on our men.' Sergeant Gresham… asked me how bad was he hurt, and I said 'Oh, he'll be all right. And he said –he stated these words: 'I should blow the Company out.'“

The defendants' lawyers, Major William Beeks and Captain Howard Noyd, wanted to emphasize that Gresham had been an instigator, not Larkin. Beeks asked, “What were his words again?” Larkin reiterated, “He said in these words, 'I should blow the Company out.' And I said, 'You ain't lying.' Just like that… And he blew the whistle. He blew the whistle there and he walked to 719 [the company barracks].”

Beeks and Noyd had only 10 days to prepare their 43 case(s). They were denied access to Cooke's report, which had been classified, Hamann writes, “ostensibly to protect 'war secrets,' although the real secret was the incompetent conduct of Colonel Branson, Major Orem, and their subordinates, including the Fort's white MPs.”

Sitting in judgment of the Invisible Men were nine White officers. The “law member,” who ran the proceedings, was Lt Col Gerald O'Connor, who had been a lawyer in civilian life. Whenever Jaworski and Beeks disputed a point, O'Connor ruled in favor of the prosecutor. Most significantly, he granted Jaworski's objection to testimony about the August 12 and 13 clashes at the PX between Italians and white soldiers.

“Jaworski knew from General Cooke's report that the Saturday and Sunday skirmishes at the PX could spell trouble for his prosecution,” Hamann explains, “especially since the omnipresent Pvt Lomax had popped up there, too… Beeks did not realize that the white soldier who had started the PX fight was Tex Stratton, or that the MP who had responded was the omnipresent Lomax. He certainly did not know that General Cooke had insisted that Pvt Lomax be court martialed for mysteriously disappearing during the time Olivotto was murdered… Although Jaworski knew that Stratton had twice threatened the Italians and that Stratton and Clyde Lomax had talked about it afterwards, he did not feel compelled to share that fact with the court or with Beeks.”

Potential witnesses were under intense pressure to name names. Sammy Snow had been held in solitary confinement for five days until he padded his accusations. An interrogator had thrown a rope onto Cpl Willie Prevost's lap –presumably the one from which Olivotto was hung–and told him, “You'll know more about the case when you're hanging by the neck from this rope.” Prevost added three names to his confession.

After 22 days the defense began. A company cook named Herman Redley confirmed the alibis of Sgt Ernest Graham and Pfc Sylvester Campbell. ”On cross-examination Jaworski pulled out a thick report and began to quote from sworn statements Redley had made during General Cooke's investigation. Until that moment, Beeks had always been told that copies of Cooke's report were top secret and not available to either attorney.” Beeks demanded access to the report. Jaworski refused, claiming falsely that as prosecutor he had sole right to use it. Beeks asked the court to grant him access. Jaworski told O'Connor that only the Secretary of War had the authority to grant access to the whole report. In the end Beeks accepted Jaworski's offer to show him material from the report relating to his clients.

Jaworski might not have called Lomax to the stand if the Fort Lawton investigators led by Major William Orem hadn't lost the rope from which Olivotto was found hanging. “Jaworski knew that General Cooke had demanded that Lomax be court-martialed. He knew that none of the other MPs could account for Lomax's whereabouts much of the night. He knew that Lomax was prone to use racist language. But most important, he knew that Beeks had no idea how much baggage Lomax carried.”

Jaworski simply showed Lomax a rope and he confirmed that it was “that type of rope” from which he found Olivotto hanging. “The daily newspapers made no mention of the astonishing fact that the real rope was missing,” Hamann points out.

“Reports about the Fort Lawton trial were delivered weekly to the White House. The State Department continued to raise concerns that Italy's new government might react poorly if Olivotto's death went unpunished. At the same time, the Federal Bureau of investigation warned White House officials that the trial might be exploited by Communists or their sympathizers… By December 1944, the FBI's weekly intelligence reports included the names of alleged Communists attending the Fort Lawton trial. In particular a Negro columnist for the Northwest Herald was singled out for observing that 'When the enemy can get better treatment than the citizens of the country who captures him, something is bound to happen. Court-martial the authorities who allowed this to happen.'“

Pfc Pancho Jones had been a union organizer before the war and a member of the National CIO Committee to Abolish Racial Discrimination. As a member of the 651st port company he had been rounded up and held behind barbed wire August 15-19. Upon his release he wrote to reassure a friend. Hamman quotes from his letter:

“The riot, contrary to what the authorities have released to the press, started four days before the Monday night incident. It started with white troops who had just returned from the Pacific theater. These guys beat up Italians for three days in the PX. They tried to get the colored troops to help them. It wasn't until Monday night after one of the Italians hit a soldier from our sister company that our boys became involved. Unfortunately for us the army has only involved the Negro troops in this case. As usual, we are the 'fall guys.'

“There are many more factors in this case but I am sure they will not come out until after the war. The issues involved go deeper than those presented in the press. The white troops here were much more concerned by the presence of the Italians than we were. Certainly we resented the breaks they were getting, but there was nothing we could do about it. This was nothing new to us. To be charged with the whole thing however makes all of us rather sick.”

If the defense lawyers had seen the Cooke report, writes Hamann (virtually solving the whodunit for us), they might have realized that “Private Clyde Lomax had the means, the motive, and the opportunity to commit the crime. Lomax, who was openly racist, was present that virtually every key moment, from the Internet at the PX to the aftermath of the fight between Willie Montgomery and Giuseppe Belle to the vicious beatings inside Baracks 708 to the 'discovery' of Olivotto's body the next morning. He had lied or been evasive about his whereabouts and was soon to be court martialed for leaving his post at the precise time that Olivotto disappeared. Perhaps he had come across Olivotto during the riot and offered him a ride in his jeep. That might explain why Olivotto's body had no bruises and no scratches. Lomax had previously delayed reporting the brewing trouble between the blacks and Italians, perhaps enjoying the possibility the two groups he disliked would bring each other misery. If Lomax lynched Olivotto, he may have done it in the hope that black soldiers would get the blame.”

Beeks had held Jaworski in the highest esteem –he'd even accepted the prosecutor's rationale for not sharing Gen Cooke's report– but he was appalled when Jaworski waxed eloquent in calling for the death penalty. ”The court could plainly see, said Jaworski, that the assault was not random. It was inspired. directed, and organized by three soldiers, men who now have the responsibility for the destruction that followed. 'What a picture of brutality! What a picture of savagery!'“

Beeks was also appalled, he said in his closing argument, that men were being charged with rioting on the basis of only one witness's unconfirmed testimony. The court was swayed and 13 men were acquitted.

The initial sentences on the rioting charge ranged from 10 years hard labor in prison to six months in the Fort Lawton stockade. (Not to mention loss of rank, forfeiture of pay, and dishonorable discharges.) The nine-man court had to be unanimous on the murder charge, and they weren't. Jones got 15 years and Hurks 12 for their alleged roles in leading the so-called riot. The murder charge against Larkin was reduced to manslaughter and the would-be medic was sentenced to 25 years.

The automatic appeal of the verdicts and sentences for the Army's Board of Review was handled by an officer from the Seattle Port of Embarkation, Dolph Barnett. Very troubled by the theory behind Jaworski's murder charge, but keenly aware that the Brass in Washington wanted maximum punishment, he recommended reducing Hurks's sentence to 10 years and Larkin's to 15.

When World War II ended, more than 33,000 soldiers were incarcerated for wartime offenses. “President Truman, under pressure to show mercy and to relieve the crowding in military stockades, established a special clemency board in the War Department.” Many of the Fort Lawton frame-up victims filed petitions (with the help of Thurgood Marshall)… On July 8, 1946, the clemency board reduced to three the sentences of all 17 Fort Lawton defendants with terms longer than five years… Then Truman announced “blanket 'Chrismas clemencies'“ for all imprisoned personnel with less than three years left on their sentences.

On June 1, 1947, Luther Larkin was pardoned. “His discharge papers took note of his exceptionally good behavior in prison… He returned to Arkansas and opened a fancy restaurant, complete with white linens… On December 9, 1948, Larkin felt a sharp pain in his abdomen that wouldn't go away. He went up the hill to the segregated hospital above his parents house but was sent home that same day. The next morning at eight, he died on his mother's kitchen table… His appendix had burst.”

No summary can do justice to this book. The storytelling grabs you like John Grisham and the reporting is thorough as Robert Caro (whose wife, like Hamann's, is an essential partner in research). Soon after “On American Soil” was published in 2007, Congressmen Jim McDermott (D-Seattle) and Duncan Hunter (R-San Diego) urged the Army to re-examine the case.

“And the Army board of review,” Hamann would explain to an interviewer, “issued a resounding, really, unprecedented verdict… that the entire case needed to be tossed out. They said that Leon Jaworski had committed an egregious error –that was their words– in withholding this report that had been prepared. And they said that all of these defendants had been denied fundamental fairness and declared that they should not only have their convictions tossed out, but they should be paid what was due to them.” The few defendants still alive, alas, were in their eighties.

Leon Jaworski had died in 1982. He had written four books, “all of them reminiscing about his personal life and legal career,” according to Hamann. “The books are full of anecdotes about Jaworski's many legal victories, particularly in high profile cases. He mentions the Fort Lawton trial only in passing, and even then, mistakenly reports that Olivotto was found hanging from 'a barracks rafter.'“

Jaworski was known to friends and family as “The Colonel” (the rank he achieved in '45). Robert Draper, a New York Times reporter who admires The Colonel describes his prosecution of the Fort Lawton Invisible Men as “a blemish on an otherwise honorable career.” I wonder… Did the potent ambition that motivated his “egregious error” in Seattle just fade away in civilian life? Did Jaworski's determination to please the Top Brass diminish as his career advanced? Is that how ambition works?

In 1960 he represented Lyndon Johnson in the case that allowed Johnson to run for both the Senate and the vice presidency. After Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Jaworski helped rubber stamp the Warren Commission's finding that Lee Harvey Oswald had done the deed solo. LBJ then appointed him to the President's Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, and the Permanent International Court of Arbitration.

As Richard Nixon's role in the Watergate burglary was coming to light, Jaworski was named Special Prosecutor by Robert Bork, Nixon's Acting Attorney General. The legal action that secured Jaworski's reputation for great integrity –demanding that Nixon relinquish his unedited White House tapes– can also be seen as the act of a man shrewd enough to know that by November, 1973, the Top Brass wanted Nixon out.

14 Comments

George Hollister November 19, 2024

Three items to add to Roy Branscomb’s piece: For many years, up until 1977, rain came earlier and salmon were in the North Coast rivers spawning often by Thanks Giving. Not so now.

The second factor to consider was the large flow of nutrients, from spawning and then dying salmon, that contributed to the freshwater food chain. This nutrient inflow is now greatly reduced. What this flow does is essentially take nutrients from the ocean and puts them in freshwater streams, potentially making for a more robust freshwater fishery.

A third factor is before marine mammals were protected they were routinely shot when seen by fisherman in river estuaries. Salmon used to entered estuaries to hold up safely, except for fisherman, waiting for the first high water that allowed them to enter the rivers to spawn. Now salmon stay off shore waiting to spawn, likely because of the presence of seals and sea lions in the estuaries. It’s a noticeable change, and demonstrates the ability of salmon to adopt.

- Kirk Vodopals November 19, 2024
  
  Sounds like Mr. Branscomb’s informative, but long winded argument in favor of the “model used in 1897” is simply a push for recreating the vast network of hatcheries operated by rugged men of the wild, squeezing fish with their bare hands in an attempt to “make these streams great again.”
  I wish it were that simple. It’s not. It never will be again. It’s a bummer, but there’s an inverse relationship between humans and “wild” animals, particularly those that breed by tossing out eggs and sperm into the gravels that many folks use to dump their trash in or suck out water to flush toilets.
  
  - Eli Maddock November 19, 2024
    
    You’re probably right, Kirk. However I do wonder if harm is done by hatching more man made fish. I recognize the smaller gene pool problem absolutely. But seems like there could be a man made solution to this. And if it’s a choice between a possibility of salmonoids survival or salmonoid extinction I just can’t see what doing nothing immediately would accomplish.
    
Koepf November 19, 2024

You want more salmon? Hatcheries are the only way to go on the northern rivers of this state.

- Kirk Vodopals November 19, 2024
  
  Nope
  
Cotdbigun November 19, 2024

EVERYTHING great and awesome that happens under the Trump administration will have happened because the Democratic Party was too corrupt and evil to run a good campaign and government. The overall sense of unity and healing nationwide is overwhelming. It brightens my days when I see athletes across the board celebrate with the TDS ( Trump DANCE Syndrome)!
What a delightful change and have a nice day.

- Chuck Dunbar November 19, 2024
  
  And then there’s this amazing news: “President Trump is nominating high caliber and extremely qualified candidate to serve in his administration.” Steven Cheung at a news conference yesterday, responding to questions about Mr. Hegseth, possibly the least qualified defense secretary candidate ever. Cheung now qualifies as a candidate for the week’s “Liar, liar, pants on fire” award.
  
Lynne Sawyer November 19, 2024

There’ll be two dates on your tombstone
and all your friends will read’em,
but all that’s gonna matter
is that little dash between’em. -Kevin Welch

Jim Armstrong November 19, 2024

The AVA MCT is sometimes like the box of chocolates and sometimes like Cracker Jacks.
I will read Fred Gardner’s epic later. It’s too early for it right now, but it looks interesting.

I think “evil” is used a dozen times or more today, describing just about anything you want.

I wonder why you didn’t attribute the Kelseyville piece to the SRPD. Is that allowed?
In any case, you should have mentioned the wonderful front page headline error.

Kirk Vodopals November 19, 2024

This paper deviates from its local valley sports highlights to justifiably shine a light on successful sports programs (football) in the Ukiah valley. But I would like to inform you that the Mendocino girls soccer team placed first in their league this year, beating Fort Bragg TWICE, and narrowly losing the section championship to a very rough team from St Bernard’s (Eureka private school). Many thanks to Coach Matthew Starkweather and assistant Anna Halligan for their dedication this year.

Ted Stephens November 19, 2024

For the life of me I tried to figure out the reason for the jesus figure with the MAGA hat, gun and knife trying to get into the church to go after the minorities. It doesn’t make any sense and doesn’t have any semblance of truth that would help make it funny. Seems the only purpose is to insult and show prejudice toward Christians. I am comfortable with free speech and expression, appreciate I do not need to agree with the speech, but don’t understand the purpose with this one. If the only purpose is to stick it in the eye of those that believe, I will pray for them.

- Chuck Wilcher November 20, 2024
  
  Christians need to get together and come to an agreement on which version of Jesus they think represents the narrative best.
  
  Is it the Jesus in Revelations or Matthew 25?
  
- Norm Thurston November 20, 2024
  
  I think it is supposed to be a characterization of the Republican Party, and the incoming Trump administration.
  
Eric Sunswheat November 20, 2024

RE: For the life of me I tried to figure out the reason for the jesus figure with the MAGA hat, gun and knife trying to get into the church to go after the minorities.
—> July 24, 2024
Colonialism Created the Modern Native American Diet… Frybread, sometimes called “die bread” or a “weapon of health destruction,” has multiple origin stories, and they all involve oppression and perseverance…
Modern frybread is still made from simple ingredients: flour, baking powder, salt, and sometimes sugar, fried in shortening, lard, or oil.
“Frybread is emblematic of the long trails from home and freedom to confinement and rations. It’s the connecting dot between healthy children and obesity, hypertension, diabetes, dialysis, blindness, amputations and slow death.”
Reflecting on stereotypes that dehumanized Indigenous people to justify colonization, such as the worn-out trope of Indians drinking “firewater,” Harjo asserts that frybread love is another way to portray them as “simple-minded people who salute the little grease bread and get misty-eyed about it.”
https://lithub.com/weapons-of-health-destruction-how-colonialism-created-the-modern-native-american-diet/

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