Mendocino County Today: Wednesday 12/4/2024

By AVA News Service on December 4, 2024

COASTAL STRATUS AND FOG are increasing along the North Coast, but full sunshine above average daytime temperatures will prevail elsewhere. A weak, shortwave will move through the region Wednesday night and Thursday, possibly generating some light showers or drizzle. Chances for rainfall or drizzle increase again through the weekend with a quick passing front. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): 42F with clear skies today Wednesday on the coast. I see a hint of light rain later next week, we'll see.

LOCAL EVENTS

SHUFFLING OFF TO BUFFALO

by Lindy Peters

It all started when my niece sent me a wedding invitation. It seems I was headed for Rochester, New York in December. What I didn't know was that something else was also headed there. A record-setting Great Lakes-effect snow storm was going to come along for the ride. 40 inches of snow was about to arctic blast its way into my life. Believe me, you haven't lived until you thought you were about to die. But we'll get to that.

Here's how it came down. It turned out that the 49ers would also be in the area for a Sunday night match-up against the Buffalo Bills the day after the wedding. Perfect. We'll go to both!

But getting there was right out of a movie. You see, my son Lucas picked me up Thanksgiving Day at O'Hare airport in Chicago and off we went in his new Tesla. We headed east across Indiana and Ohio for a stop overnight in Maumee and an astonishingly good Thanksgiving repast at the local Cracker Barrel, complete with 2 kinds of pie. You haven't lived until you've had your Thanksgiving dinner at a Cracker Barrel.

From what I've seen so far of this very rural part of America. I am no longer surprised that Trump won so convincingly. Of course he did. Actually it's what you don't see. No purple haired ladies with nose rings. Very few minorities outside the big cities. Didn't see any men with wild haircuts and hoop earrings. This sure ain't Mendocino, Martha. Middle America. All right Steve Kornacky. I get it. Yep. Cruising across the Red States in a Tesla bound for Rochester the day after Thanksgiving. Black Friday they call it. And it almost was.

Unbeknownst to us, the biggest, baddest northeastern snow storm in years was churning off the Great Lakes right at us up highway 90. People get stuck in the snow, stranded in these conditions and freeze to death in their cars. And here we were in Erie, Pennsylvania slogging on. The highway closed but we kept going, following two ruts in the snow which by now was piling up fast. We took an off-ramp to head down highway 86 and get away from the Great Lakes. But two semis just three cars ahead of us got stuck in the snow side-by-side. Now everyone behind them on the off-ramp was stuck too. The snow intensified. Two hours we sat in this blizzard. Stuck. Not moving. One foot of snow. Now two feet. And I'm thinking this could be it. The Tesla was just charged and a nice 70° inside but I was uncomfortably worried.

Movement! The first semi gets cleared. There are still two ruts. There's only one way to go. We soldier on. Six hours and four snow-covered county roads later we finally arrive in Rochester at the hotel. The staff come out and look at the car in amazement. It looks as though it just traversed Siberia. The spoiler has magically produced two 1959 Cadillac raised fins of ice on either side and the whole vehicle looks like a futuristic white popsicle. We made it.

The wedding went off without a hitch the next day and on Sunday we were ready for some football. We dress for winter weather and head out to Buffalo for some Anchor Bar Buffalo Wings and 49er football. Yay team!

Ever been to Highland Park Stadium in December? Snow, snow and more snow. Followed by snow, snowfall, snow drifts, snow piles and snowballs, with most of those being hurled with surprising accuracy at 49er players on the bench. It's literally that close to the stands. We were at the 45 yardline line in Row 18 directly behind the Niners sideline. And we were here to see our team. Go Niners!

But what I saw out there in the snow last Sunday reminded me very much of a different 49er team that I had followed as a reporter in 1981. A team over 40 years ago that had a raucous rabid fanbase, a multi-talented winning quarterback just coming into his own and a City starving for its first Super Bowl Trophy. Only it wasn't the 49ers. It was the Buffalo Bills.

The injury-ravaged 49ers came into this game as the underdogs and looked more like undertakers once Christian McCaffrey went down with a serious knee injury. He was jolting for yardage early. Now he's headed for the locker room. Uh-oh. It's hard to remember when you lose 35-10 that you were once actually ahead in this game 3-0. That Niner lead lasted about as long as a 2 wheel-drive car with bald tires might last in the Bills parking lot that night. But then again that car might have had a better chance.

Bills fans never sit. They stand. The whole game. And they drink. Boy howdy. So they're not actually standing. They're swaying. Keeps 'em warm in a 25° snow blizzard. And if the Bills are winning? They remain friendly. That wasn't going to be a problem this night. No sir. And quarterback Josh Allen was going to make sure of that.

Allen is the real deal. This dude has a howitzer for an arm. And he's accurate. And if that doesn't make him hard to defend? Get this. He can run right over almost any NFL linebacker when he takes off. He's elusive too. But most of all he is the leader of a team on the cusp of greatness and has captured the heart of every Buffalo fan. You see as many #17 Buffalo Bills jerseys at the game as you used to see those old #16 49er jerseys at Candlestick in the glory days of the 80's. And he also has that intangible. The "it" factor. There is something I saw last Sunday that is hard to put into words. Let's just say he's captured this whole area like a movie star and I know why. I also know all about the Chiefs and Mahomes and Taylor Swift. I know I came all this way to watch my Niners. But I gotta' tell ya'll..just have a gut feeling that this year Josh Allen will take this Bills team all the way. Super Bowl bound. He's the man. He's the dude. He's for real. And that's no Buffalo.

FIRE IN UKIAH APARTMENT COMPLEX DISPLACES MANY FAMILIES

by Justine Frederiksen

Multiple families were still displaced Tuesday morning following a fire in a Ukiah apartment complex Monday afternoon, the Ukiah Valley Fire Authority reported.

“Any time you have a fire it is devastating, but it is especially heartbreaking when it happens during the holidays,” said UVFA Battalion Chief Eric Singleton, who responded to the structure fire at 2060 S. Dora St. around 4:35 p.m. Dec. 2.

When crews arrived, Singleton said they quickly moved to the apartments where the most smoke was showing, No. 6 and No. 7, and found the fire burning inside the walls between the two residences.

“We knocked the fire down quickly, though we did have to chase it quite a bit,” he said, explaining that since the fire was burning through the insulation, “we had to open everything up to put the fire completely out.”

All seven apartments in the first complex were evacuated, as well as a neighboring complex to the south, said Singleton, adding that residents of the second apartment complex were soon able to return to their homes.

However, given that the electricity and gas needed to be shut off in the first complex, which also suffered significant smoke damage, Singleton said “the building inspector does need to approve re-opening the structure.”

Singleton said there were no injuries reported during the blaze, and that firefighters were able to salvage many possessions from the two heavily damaged apartments, including at least one Christmas tree.

“We always try and save as much stuff as we can, and usually our main priorities are picking up cell phones, tablets and computers, because those are the things that have family pictures on them,” he said. “But this time, given the time of year, we did pull out a Christmas tree.”

As for the cause, Singleton said that was “still under investigation, but at this point it does not appear to have been malicious.”

Also responding to the fire were Cal Fire and Hopland Fire, as well as officers from the Ukiah Police Department and deputies from the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office, which Singleton extended much gratitude to for their assistance.

The UVFA also contacted the local chapter of the Red Cross, and let the residents know that organization provides services to people displaced by fires and other disasters.

Danilla Sands of the United Disaster Relief of Northern California said her organization “received five calls Monday” after the fire, and while she and the volunteers have just moved their headquarters out of their previous home on Airport Park Boulevard and are swamped setting up their new, much larger home base, they are still able to help fire survivors with very basic needs.

(ukiahdj.com)

BOONVILLE-ANDERSON VALLEY FFA

Ms. Swehla and Mr. Bautista are super proud of the 27 Anderson Valley FFA members who participated in the Opening Closing Ceremonies speaking contest tonight!

The middle school Discovery team placed 1st in their division!

In the Open Division Anderson Valley had three teams. There was some stiff competition. AV's A team placed 9th. AV's B team placed 4th. AV's C team tied for 1st with two other chapters. Ultimately, after a tiebreaker they placed 2nd!

AV's Chapter Officers tied for 3rd place and after a tiebreaker placed 4th.

In the Cooperative Marketing Test, Soleil placed 4th!

It was a great evening!

POTHOLES, TRAFFIC JAMS, AND THE UNUSED EMERGENCY SIRENS OF REDWOOD VALLEY — Highlights of the November MAC Meeting

by Monica Huettl

Redwood Valley residents packed the November 13 Municipal Advisory Council (MAC) meeting to tackle pressing issues—from pothole-riddled roads to emergency alert systems that could save lives. With input sought for the 2026 Regional Transportation Plan, progress on a long-awaited recreation center, and debates over cannabis permits and traffic safety, the evening was a lively snapshot of community action in motion. Here’s what you need to know.

The guest speakers were Alexis Pedrotti and James Sookne from the Mendocino Council of Governments, our county’s regional transportation planning agency. MCOG is in the process of updating its 2026 Regional Transportation and Active Transportation Plan. Public input on the plan, which is revised every four years, is vital to let MCOG know what the community needs. MCOG supports regional transportation, roads, bike lanes, public transportation, and tribal transportation.…

https://mendofever.com/2024/12/04/potholes-traffic-jams-and-the-unused-emergency-sirens-of-redwood-valley-highlights-of-the-november-mac-meeting/

ANITA BAKKER: Has anyone else looked at the Mendocino County Air Quality Management District (MCAQMD) Proposed Master Fee Schedule? It’s an item on the Board of Supervisors meeting. For instance under Schedule 18, an annual burn permit that is currently $19.00 is proposed to increase to $135.00. Anyone else see a problem with this?

SCOTT WARD: Why is it that the Air Quality Department director and the County Administrative Officer cannot use common sense when reviewing the proposed burn permit fee increase and come to the same conclusion that you all have in your comments that a 600% fee increase for a burn permit is counter productive and will lead to more unpermitted burning? These folks work for us. Why are we putting up with this nonsense?

KAREN OTTOBONI:

For those of you who follow Mendocino County Public Broadcasting KZYX

You saw this post

“Operations Director Rich Culberson has also moved on from his role at KZYX. With the move to Ukiah, we look forward to new and exciting ways to increase our operational capacity and it will grow on a foundation built by Rich. We appreciate Rich’s leadership over the years at KZYX and wish him all the best.”

The facts are that after over 16 years of keeping KZYX & Z on the air through wind, rain & snow storms, fire emergencies and much more he was abruptly fired yesterday morning.

DOLLY BUTTERS:

Over the years, I'm hearing that Rich Culbertson engineered the works so the station was able to broadcast. How can we support a station that is not loyal to an employee and refuses to give an explanation when they fire someone so crucial to operations?

NOYO HARBOR REDEVELOPMENT PLANNING PROJECT

The Noyo Harbor District is excited to announce it has received funding from the California State Coastal Conservancy to embark on the Marina Redevelopment Planning Project. This funding represents a significant milestone in the Harbor District’s commitment to revitalizing the marina’s infrastructure to better serve the region’s commercial and recreational fishing industries, adapt to climate change, and support the community’s economic and cultural heritage.

The project’s primary objective is to develop detailed, engineered plans and secure necessary permits for the redevelopment of Noyo Harbor District’s marina. These plans will serve as a blueprint for future construction, ensuring a modern, resilient, and efficient marina layout that meets the needs of today’s fishing and boating industries.

For more than 72 years, Noyo Harbor has been a cornerstone of the local economy and culture, consistently ranking among the top 10 commercial ports in California for the value of its fish landings. It plays a critical role in providing healthy food sources, fostering careers, and supporting the community’s economic vitality. Noyo Harbor is also a cherished part of the area’s cultural heritage, making the preservation of its working waterfront a top regional priority, as outlined in the Harbor District’s Community Sustainability Plan.

Constructed in the 1970s, the marina infrastructure is now aging and in urgent need of modernization. The existing facilities include wooden docks, steel brackets, creosote treated pilings, and poly floats that are no longer suitable for current demands. The marina features nine docks with 256 slips, but its layout and deteriorating condition limit its usability and sustainability.

Through the redevelopment planning process, the Harbor District aims to replace outdated wooden docks with durable concrete docks and transition from creosote-treated pilings to environmentally friendly concrete pilings. These upgrades will enhance the marina’s resilience to the impacts of climate change while improving safety and functionality.

Moreover, the project will enable the Harbor District to reconfigure the marina’s layout to optimize space usage and meet the evolving requirements of the fishing and boating industries. A key feature of the planning process will be robust stakeholder and agency engagement, ensuring that the final design aligns with regulatory guidelines and the community’s vision.

“This funding is an important step forward in our mission to modernize Noyo Harbor’s marina and ensure it continues to thrive as an economic and cultural hub for generations to come,” said Anna Neuman, Harbormaster.

For updates on the Marina Redevelopment Planning Project and opportunities to provide input, visit https://noyoharbordistrict.org/connect/

LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS OF MENDOCINO COUNTY DECEMBER PROGRAM

The League of Women Voters of Mendocino County will hold its December meeting on Sunday, 12/15, from 2-5pm, at the Community Center of Mendocino.

The program will cover results of the November 5 election, and what those results may mean for the future. This will be a hybrid meeting; in person attendance is welcome (coffee and tea provided), and a Zoom link will be available from the League's website: https://my.lwv.org/california/mendocino-county. Look under the calendar tab.

The Community Center is located at 998 School St. in Mendocino.

For more information, call 707-937-4952.

ED NOTES

SAN FRANCISCO'S ruling junta has described itself as “progressive” for many years, although these “progressives” are all the way behind retro development policies that have littered the city's skyline with high rise apartments (and endless hotels) for the very rich, a demographic and an aesthetic never to be encouraged, let alone by anybody describing himself as a “progressive.” The Frisco progs also think the legalization of prostitution is a swell idea, that the Aarrghs have a constitutional right to live on the street, and concerts in Golden Gate Park are simply boffo. I often walked in the park, rode my bike in the park, praying that the park could survive the unending battering it takes. If the Aarrghs aren't shooting up in the bushes, they're defecating in them, in between times trying to sell me dope. Shoals of dealers cluster at the Stanyan Street entrance, and one wonders where the cops are when you have 30 dope heads concentrated within a hundred yards, and camps of Aarrghs aarrghing all day opposite hundreds of little kids playing soccer? A mannerly young Aarrgh actually jogged after me one day to ask, “Would you like to buy some bud, sir?” I come from The Land of Bud, young man, and anyhow I prefer my reality straight up, not that I ever turned down a shot of Maker's Mark or single malt, which I haven't yet tried out on my new throat but look forward to doing this holiday season.

REMEMBER AV TV? It went dark on February 17th, 2007. The several hundred paying locals who depended on the service relayed into The Valley by a tv translator placed high on a ridge southeast of Boonville, as of that date, had no television reception. Why? Almost everyone has gone to dish television or even television delivered via home computers. The old hilltop translator was antiquated, and was doubly antiquated when the new digital transmissions began that same month. The new digital technology would have required expensive upgrades of the old translator, and the service's remaining 40 or so paying customers simply didn't have the resources to buy and install it.

IN 1958, Valley residents eager for television, organized themselves as Anderson Valley TV. Fred Medinas of Boonville — one of The Valley's many unsung heroes — put in the next half-century maintaining the remote technology that beamed the great outside into Yorkville, Boonville, Philo, and even into some neighborhoods of deepest Navarro. Reception was limited to the primary San Francisco channels — 4,5,7, then channels 2 and 44. But as the technology evolved to include dish service capable of bringing the whole world into The Valley, locals who had been content with 4,5,7, 2 and 44 became fewer and fewer.

AS I DISTRIBUTED treats to droves of Marvelous Marin trick and treaters this Halloween, I couldn't help notice that the older children — 12-14 or so — pawed through the candy kettle for packets of pill-shaped diabetic delicacies that pop in your mouth and then sort of lie on your tongue fizzing. The random marauders preferred these things to Hershey chocolate bars and even to whole Rocky Road bars. But now I'm wondering if these kids weren't junior junkies searching for “strawberry quick,” which is not a kid's drink but a form of flavored methamphetamine being pedaled around the country as crank in pop rock form. “Drug dealers,” explained a message wafting into Boonville out of cyber-space, “mix meth with Kool-Aid in an attempt to make it look and taste better.” The evil ones package and sell this stuff like the legit candy it resembles. The candy I dispensed was straight outta Costco, I think, if that's at all reassuring. PS. The most creative costume I saw all night, homemade as all the really clever ones inevitably are, was a kid of about 8 done up as a pizza.

WORD OF MOUTH MAGAZINE

December Small Bites: Seeking Solace as 2024 Wraps Up

And now we’re here.

If the year is a piece of orchestra music, December is its crescendo, when the holidays deliver a triumphant outburst from the brass section and New Year’s Eve serves up a final, shimmering crash of the cymbals, reverberating into the future we are collectively stepping into.

Yet even as the music builds, I find myself seeking out stillness and silence. Maybe, like me, you feel a little chewed up and spat out by 2024. It brings to mind the Japanese saying, “Fall down 7 times, get up 8.” Though I’d like to add, “… but first, take a beat to catch your breath and staunch any bleeding.”

If your spirits could use some lifting, December has a number of fun events on the calendar that will do the trick. You can wrap your hands around a cup of something steaming and mosey down the aisle of a holiday fair, surrounded by handmade creations that are useful, beautiful, whimsical, and/or delicious. A number of events this month showcase that tasty rockstar of the forest floor — mushrooms! — while others serve up live music, sparkly lights, and excellent opportunities to snag a unique something to give to someone you love.

As 2024 winds down, I gravitate towards a handful of fundamental truths: good food nourishes more than the body, good friends are a genuine joy, and we are beyond lucky to be surrounded by the stunning landscapes of our county — the quiet forests, the oak-studded hills, the rolling vineyards, and the rugged, salt-scented coast. Regardless of the things that cause sadness or stress, these truths endure. Now bring on the cymbals!

See you out there ~

Torrey & the team

wordofmouthmendo.com

Great Trails. Close to Home. We are blessed to live in such a beautiful place. But without trails, we'd have no way to get out and enjoy. What would you do if we didn't have these trails? What can you do to help keep them? If you can't volunteer, please donate. If you can't donate, please volunteer! Of course, you can always do both!

FROM THE ARCHIVE, September 18, 2008

Full Moon Shines On The Boonville Fair

by Bruce Anderson

I like the Fair best that first day, that Friday early afternoon when the flowers are still fresh, before the crowds become so thick it's hard to find old friends among all the strangers, the old friends who remember when Fair time was fists first and the fights went on from sundown to sunup. As did the drinking, and Deputy Squires had to be reinforced by all the available deputies from all areas of Mendocino County.

Slim Pickens said Boonville was the roughest town he ever called a rodeo in, which was probably a reference to Boonville circa 1949-50 when the mills were going strong and recreational drinking and fighting was the primary weekend recreation. Fair time was still pretty rough through much of the 1970s, as Deputy Squires will tell you, but The Valley has been considerably blanded down since, its collective personality not nearly as vivid, but one must suppose, musn't one, that an ice cream cone is preferable to an empty Bud bottle to the side of the head?

At the bargain rate of two bucks for seniors, my first act, once past the seductively placed ATM machine just inside the gate, was to buy $5 of chances for a quilt sewn by The Yorkville Ladies Sewing Circle, just about the only raffle I've ever entered that I really wanted to win. I had a purely utilitarian quilt as a kid. My grandmother made it during The Great Depression out of whatever she had at hand which, for the quilt I grew up with, was discarded men's suits, old neckties and random pieces of cloth she would stitch together for warmth not beauty. But it was beautiful all the same as handmade things usually are, and I've been a quilt guy ever since.

Inside the Home Arts Building quilts become an art form, quilts of a whole other order, stunning things so colorful and so meticulously crafted, well, I'm sorry I didn't win one from Yorkville. Further in, I noted a blue ribbon on Ann Fashauer's apple cake and made a note to beg one from her when I see her at Trivial Pursuit.

I know it's me, but I don't see much photography that I like, and you can take Ansel Adams but leave me the Weegees, so I hustled through what seemed like miles of photos of dogs, children and seagulls without distinguishing the three species, and almost fell over Roy Laird's captivating found art sculpture of a giant insect made up of scrap metal the talented Laird had lying around his Navarro shop.

Not to be too negative or, the goddess forbid, inappropriate, but the art exhibit, especially the paintings, needs a fundamental upgrade. Mendocino County has quite a few talented artists, but few, if any, are on exhibit at the Fair, and the gifted Marvin Schenck a resident of Navarro just down the road.

Another Trivial Pursuit teammate, Barbara Scott, was in charge of the floral exhibits in June Hall, and the flowers never looked better, humbling to the writer whose dahlias seldom bloom and whose coreopsis never did show up this year.

In the Apple Hall, Rob and Barbara Goodell, reinforced by Willie Schmitt, presided over an array of this splendid and versatile fruit, which included varieties now mostly extinct in a valley where they were once the dominant export crop, and another reminder that the Anderson Valley has changed so often and so fast in the 150 years since the Indians succumbed to typhoid and mass murder it's at times downright disorienting.

I was holding this sanguine thought and a piece of incomparable apple pie prepared by Joanadel Hurst and crew, Joanadel carrying on the Fair time pie baking tradition of her mother, Joan, the late Grandma Pie, Ruby Hulburt, and the Methodist ladies, past and present, when the irrepressible Hayes Brennan, whose economic history of Anderson Valley should be required reading for all locals, walked by, only slightly diminished by the stroke that nearly finished him off, but upright, mobile and as pleasant as always.

Emerging sober from my office high atop the Farrer Building at dusk Saturday night, remembering the Fair weekend when I woke up with knots on my head and a major hangover unable to recall how I got from the Lodge to my bed, and no memory of who inflicted the knots, hoping I inflicted some too, I thought I saw a touring balloon come down less than a mile northeast of central Boonville. An aerial Fair visitor or a figment of my failing eyes and pedestrian imagination?

Merry families were still streaming into the night time Fairgrounds and the parking lots were full for the rodeo with Dean Titus and the Coyote Cowboys tuning up where only minutes before bull riders had been tossed like rag dolls from the backs of plunging beasts as big as Dick Sand's Senior Shuttle. I remembered the rodeo night when a local kid, Scott Anderson, got on a bull but never got out of the chute as the bull went wild right were he was, hurling Scott laterally in the pen so violently the boy's rescuers had a hard time getting a grip on him to save him. That was far back enough for the rodeo callers to tell wildly funny jokes about hippies, much less amusing jokes about ethnic targets of opportunity.

Sunday morning I was able to get my breakfast at Alicia's just before she and her irreplaceable restaurant were nearly overcome by waves of hungry Fair goers. A diner on the stool next to me remarked, “I always stop here when I'm over from Ukiah. I love this place. Best breakfast in Mendocino County. You come here often?” Yep, and if you'll take your thumbs off my tortillas I will resume enjoying it.

Joining Bob and Bebe Buckhorn for Sunday's parade on the stairs of the late, lamented High Pockety Ox, wondering if the original home of Boonville beer would forever remain an unoccupied, ghostly hulk, a man of some years asked me, “Are you Mike Shapiro? I haven't seen Mike for years. You look just like him. I thought I had Mike's cell phone number but I don't.” I said I wasn't Mike but I'd sell him the building if he had the cash, but the man walked off in a cloud of Magoo-like mutterings about “Mike” and “Where the heck is he?” as I watched Bob from Star Automotive carefully maneuver two mis-parked cars from obliques to laterals to make room for the parade.

Morgan Baynham was helping direct traffic. I heard him say to a passing motorist, “I know I'm standing in the road,” and down towards the high school an air horn blared and here came the American Legion color guard with the parade's grand marshall, Eva Holcomb, and just behind them the Fort Bragg High School Marching Band, about 50 strong, and quite good, too, as a nitpicker noted, “They're walking, not marching,” and you can't please everyone, can you?

The Anderson Valley High School football team, as yet unbloodied by actual grid iron combat, roared past with chest thumps and fierce roars. And there was Amanda Hiatt's little boy as at home on a big Palamino as most kids his age are on training wheels.

Then, in no particular order, a horseback harem girl, Dave Severn in the Anderson Valley Meat Wagon, an impressive contingent of maybe 30 Mexican horsemen who could have been Pancho Villa's body guard if Villa had had uniforms, a lady in pioneer regalia – bonnet and hoop skirts – riding a kind of bicycle.

There were pygmy horses and a woody station wagon containing, in the words of a Boonville man who shall go unnamed, “Old Bats For Obama.” Val Muchowski and Rachel Binah are not old bats, I replied indignantly. Bats don't drive.

Uncle Sam, aka Bruce Hering, passed by on a tractor and trailer with a bunch of children in it that said “Buy Local,” which caused me to wonder if the kids were (1) for sale and (2) organic. Another Uncle Sam, this one on stilts, was followed by a group of fetching young women, one of whom was even more impressively agile than Sam had been on his stilts as she gyrated to the arrhythmic drumming of trans-generational male hippies in some kind of motorized bathtub.

A Jeep festooned with American flags and containing, presumably, Americans, drove past. The Boonville Brewery's dramatically beautiful team of Belgian stallions or whatever they are – perfectly groomed, large black horses – moved sprightly down the road pulling a wagon full of moppets, and then John Voelker and Doug Mosel's restored harvester, another reminder that Anderson Valley once produced enough grain to supply itself with enough left over for export, and we once had a bank, a drug store and even a used car lot, and I'm fully prepared to buy local and never leave the place except maybe for an occasional Giant's game as we go rapidly back to the future. Voelker and Mosel, incidentally, brought in a grain crop this year just off Lambert Lane, and bless them both and the slow food movement that brought them here to the land of big, fast eaters.

The ever ebullient Sheriff Allman brought up the rear, often stopping to leap from his command vehicle to shake hands with a constituent. Riding with the Sheriff was a person in full clown costume, the juxtaposition prompting the inevitable, “Which one is the Sheriff?”

And that was it, a most amusing little parade for the last best little fair in America.

Brian Wood wondered, “No Bobby Beacon, no Eight Balls, no supervisors?” The renowned Beacon, Elk's first citizen, usually appears on horseback but was not present. Also among the missing was the Rossi Family's popular Eight Ball Band float. They're getting older, we're getting older. Maybe next year. The supervisors? They probably couldn't figure out a way to get the taxpayers to pay their per diem.

The Fair days had been warm but not too warm, the nights cool but not too cool, and the Anderson Valley, sun kissed and fog blessed was a happy place when the full moon rose up over Ukiah to chase the setting sun into the sea at Manchester. The 81st Fair had come and gone, and all was almost like it had always been in the Anderson Valley.

WHEN THE COMPANY BARN BURNED DOWN…

Mendocino lost one of its earliest structures in 1936, when the “Company Barn” succumbed to flames. The 70-year-old landmark, originally built as a skating rink, had served a variety of roles over the decades, reflecting the town’s evolving needs. Situated south of the intersection of Lansing and the now-defunct Old Coast Road, the barn was fully engulfed when the fire was discovered. The volunteer fire company responded, but when they arrived, there was nothing they could do except safeguard the adjoining properties.

Cows at the Company Barn on the bluff east of the Ford house in Mendocino. (Gift of Alice Earl Wilder)

The building’s origins trace back to a more festive era. In its early years, it was a vibrant center for social gatherings, featuring a smooth curved pine floor perfect for skating and dancing. On July 4, 1872, the rink was the heart of a grand Independence Day celebration, its interior adorned with American flags, floral decorations, and a towering eagle emblem. The rink’s transformation into a barn came as the town’s priorities shifted, housing work animals for the Mendocino Lumber Company, then becoming a bark mill in the 1920s, and later serving as a storage facility for local residents like Casimero Silvia and Joe Quaill.

At the time of the fire, Silvia had been using the building to store a small hay crop, which he had recently harvested, and Quaill had several tons of hay stored there. Silvia also lost plows, harnesses, and other farming equipment. Quaill had been keeping his large truck in the barn but had taken it to his shop that day to get ready for an early morning trip.

This wasn’t the first time the barn had been threatened by fire. In 1894, some boys went swimming on a nearby beach and started a fire. The flames got out of control but were put out before reaching the barn. In 1899, a home and shed on the property had been destroyed by a fire, but the barn once again was spared when several men stationed themselves on the barn’s roof and extinguished the sparks that fell there.

(kelleyhousemuseum.org)

ANOTHER OLD LOCAL CARD FROM E-BAY

Postmark is Philo, 1909. My guess regarding the location is the confluence of Anderson Creek and Rancheria Creek, near where Benjamin C. Van Zandt had Hazel Hill, a resort that ran in the late 19th and early 20th century.

(Marshall Newman)

CATCH OF THE DAY, Tuesday, December 3, 2024

LAURA ARCHER, 37, Redwood Valley. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs.

JOSE CAMPOS-GONZALES, 24, Covelo. Taking vehicle without owner’s consent, stolen vehicle, vandalism, DUI-alcohol&drugs, misdemeanor hit&run with property damage, no license.

MATTHEW FAUST, 50, Ukiah. Failure to appear. (Frequent flyer.)

EVERARDO GRANILLO, 32, Ukiah. Domestic battery, county parole violation.

MALINDA HARRELL, 62, Ukiah. Controlled substance, burglary, resisting.

TROY HOAGLIN, 39, Laytonville. DUI with blood-alcohol over 0.15%, controlled substance, paraphernalia, no license, evasion.

RYAN ROYDOWNEY, 35, Covelo. Controlled substance, disobeying court order, failure to appear.

THOMAS WILLIAMS JR., 61, Willits. Probation revocation.

TO LORCA

This first week of December 2024, I finally made the pilgrimage to Lorca's home, Huerta de San Vicente, in Granada, Spain.

It was at Huerta de San Vicente. where García Lorca wrote some of his most famous masterpieces, such as Blood Wedding (1932) and Yerma (1934).

Lorca was at the Huerta de San Vicente in the days immediately prior to his execution, before deciding to take refuge at his friend Luis Rosales's home, where he was arrested.

The García Lorca family had to leave Spain in 1941 because of the dictatorship of Francisco Franco and moved to the United States. However, they still owned the estate.

On 6 April 1985, Isabel García Lorca, the last surviving member of the Lorca family, gave the estate to the city of Granada in order to establish a museum dedicated to the poet. A performing arts center was inaugurated on 10 May 1995.

John Sakowicz

Ukiah/Huerta de San Vicente

Casa-Museo Federico García Lorca

Granada, Andalusia, Spain

3 de diciembre de 2024

TO LORCA

Beloved, top staring

at me

like a wonderstruck gypsy.

Caramba!

Know my love for you

is like

the little desert flower --.

the sea-lavenders

which teeter

on the edge of extinction

but flourish

in the high Almeria desert

(Desierto de Tabernas).

Beloved, I will stand

with you

tomorrow at our execution.

Tomorrow at our execution,

flushed and alive,

we will stand together.

The faces

of our firing squad

(and all would-be fascist bullies)

have already dissolved.

History

will not remember them.

Before the bullets strike us

the dawn of democracy

will engulf us

for a suspended moment.

Then we will be buried

together

in a mass grave.

But art outlives war.

Your poetry will be known.

The people

will read your books.

John Sakowicz

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

A good friend of mine just started selling black market like the old days. Turns out a lot of his old friends don’t grow anymore but still smoke the herb - and they are very happy to buy ounces that are Better, Fresher and Half The Price of any of our local dispensaries. It’s just a side gig of his but he says it is increasing weekly now about a pound a week. He buys killer black market flowers from old friends who still do grow. It’s funny how much of a shitshow the government has made of this corporate “legalization”. Same thing with dispensaries back east - Friends in NY and NJ are selling better weed than the dispensaries and at about half dispensary price. There was about a year when everybody wanted to check out those shiny new dispensaries but many of them are coming back to their old neighborhood dealers because….Better product at Better prices. They are not idiots. And everybody is laughing about these clowns with permits, clowns with licenses and the clown cops pretending to be doing something for “everybody to be safe”. LOL. It’s a farce, alright!

"THE SADDEST KIND OF LOVE is the love that is never realized, the love that exists only in dreams and quiet hopes. It is the love that lingers in stolen glances, in unspoken words, in the spaces between what is and what could be. And as time passes, that love becomes a bittersweet memory, a tender ache that never fully goes away, a reminder of what was lost before it even had a chance to be found."

— Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

SONOMA STATE REMEMBERS FORMER PROFESSOR WHO HELPED LEAD THE FREE SPEECH MOVEMENT IN 60s

Attendees at the Monday’s SSU event said they felt the theme of Mario Savio’s “bodies upon the gears” speech still rings true today.

by Adriana Gutierrez

People attend a commemoration of the 60th anniversary of Mario Savio’s speech “Bodies Upon the Gears”. Photo taken at the Mario Savio Speakers’ Corner on the Sonoma State University campus in Rohnert Park Monday, Dec. 2, 2024. (Beth Schlanker / The Press Democrat)

“While many people can be leaders, it takes an extraordinary person to show others how to lead.”

Those were the words spoken by Sonoma State University alumna Mette Adams. She used them to describe Mario Savio, a former SSU professor and leader of the Free Speech Movement in the 1960s.

The occasion was a celebration of Savio’s life and the anniversary of a famous speech he gave 60 years ago on Monday.

On Dec. 2, 1964, Savio stood before thousands of University of California Berkeley students who were two months into protests against the university’s ban on campus political activities.

He urged his classmates to not let the administration control their right to free speech.

The speech described a metaphor comparing the university administration and other systems of power to a machine that grinds up the average American and in this case, student, to make a product of their liking.

“There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part!” Savio said. “You've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels … upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop!”

The speech, titled “Put Your Bodies Upon the Gears and Upon the Wheels,” made Savio the figurehead of the Free Speech Movement at the age of 21.

Attendees at Monday’s SSU event said they felt the theme of Savio’s speech still rings true, especially amid attempts to restrict college protests across the U.S. over Israel’s Gaza invasion in October of last year.

But to Adams, who graduated from Sonoma State in 1998, Savio was a dedicated professor, mentor, friend and the “closest ally” to her and her classmates in the 1990s, when they protested against historic increases in campus fees across the California State University system.

At the time, Sonoma State’s fee hike was the most expensive proposal of all California universities.

Adams, her fellow students, and faculty like Savio worried about the burden the increases would put on students from low-income backgrounds.

Savio, who was an SSU professor of mathematics, philosophy and logic at the time, quickly backed a student group that formed in opposition to what they felt was manipulation from administrators.

“(Savio) empowered us,” Adams said. “He would step out of the light without us knowing that we were in the light all by ourselves.”

He would accept interviews with news organizations about the situation, only to send students on his behalf saying it was their fight, not his.

It turned into a nerve-wracking few months in the fall of 1996, as tensions rose. Two weeks before the vote and one day after a heated debate on the topic where Savio was a panelist, he collapsed from a heart attack.

“I went to see him with another student activist, Matthew Morgan,” Adams said. “Although (Savio) was unconscious we … told him we would continue the fee fight, thanked him for his unwavering friendship and looked forward to celebrating the victory with him.”

But three days after his heart attack, Savio fell into a coma and was removed from life support on Nov. 6, 1996. He was 53 years old.

Two weeks later, following a historic turnout of student voters throughout the CSU system, the fee increases were rejected.

“I couldn’t wait to call (Savio’s wife and son) with the great news that Sonoma State (students) has stopped a machine that had become so odious,” Adams said.

That fight for justice is ingrained in Adams’ memory.

Adams’ colleague Morgan, an SSU alum and now the superintendent of the Harmony Union School District in rural western Sonoma County, spoke at the event on Monday, just outside of the building where Savio taught for six years before his death.

He remembered a moment the two shared only a few feet from the podium, after the heated on-campus debate.

“(Savio) turned to me and he just started crying. Shuddering in sorrow, right there,” Morgan said, pointing toward the front of the building.

“I held him and we didn’t say much,” he continued. “We both just felt the emotionality of it. It’s hard to battle rhetoric … for someone like (Savio), his capacity for empathy was unbridled.”

He added that in that moment, he understood what Savio had gone through as the face of the Free Speech Movement. For years, he was targeted by those who opposed the mission of the movement as well as his advocacy.

He was arrested repeatedly in 1964, and in July of that year, he and two other civil-rights activists were attacked by two men in Jackson, Mississippi, during a trip there to help register Black Americans to vote.

Earlier that year, he was arrested while demonstrating against the San Francisco Hotel Association for excluding Black people from non-menial jobs.

And on the day of his famous speech 60 years ago, he was one of 800 protesters arrested by Oakland police.

Les Adler, the former dean of Extended Education at Sonoma State University and professor of history since 1970, was present at Savio’s Berkeley speech. He was a history student working on his doctorate.

“The university of a place where we came to learn and to go to classes and behave well. We were products of the 1950s Silent Generation — people coming out of the Cold War where any kind of dissent was seen as threatening,” Adler said.

But not Savio. He spoke loudly against systems of power, Adler said, with passion and eloquence.

His previous speeches were not as creative as “Bodies Upon the Gears,” he added. Something was different on that day 60 years ago.

“The metaphor of the machine … became the hallmark of what people carried away,” Adler said. “His critique of the university became something that all of us involved in these processes could not avoid thinking about.”

It stuck with Adler decades later. It was a shock, he said, when he found out that Savio was teaching remedial math at Sonoma State in 1992.

Adler found a way to get him teaching in his department, The Hutchins School of Liberal Studies.

Savio taught dynamic classes that examined the intersection of science and poetry, the meaning of time and other classes that were sought out by students each semester.

“He had an amazingly powerful mind (and) powerful ideas,” Adler said. “Our one question was: How would he do in a small group, in a seminar? We knew he could move thousands of people with his rhetoric but could he sit there with a small group and help them think, reason, talk to each other and listen? Turned out he could.”

(Report for America/Press Democrat)

MARGOLIASH IS BACK IN JAIL, This Time After Allegedly Assaulting A Pregnant Woman, Biting Her Husband, And Attempting A Kidnap. Why Is the Marin I-J Still Under-Reporting His Violent Priors?

Also: In September, Royce McLemore blew the whistle on the MHA hack, in which $950K was stolen. The Marin I-J then waited 74 days to report the breach. And: Ethnic Studies Under Attack In Marin

Eva Chrysanthe, Marin County Confidential

marincountyconfidential.substack.com

HOW CAN U.S. AND MEXICAN WORKERS BUILD CROSS-BORDER SOLIDARITY?

by Henry Salazar and David Bacon

Labornotes, December 02, 2024

Since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was passed in 1993, the economies of the U.S., Canada, and Mexico have become increasingly integrated. Workers in all three countries have suffered as corporations have used trade rules to maximize profits, push down wages and benefits, and manage the flow of people displaced by these rules. …

https://labornotes.org/blogs/2024/12/how-can-us-and-mexican-workers-build-cross-border-solidarity

“FOOTBALL IS TOUGH, MAN. Stuff happens. You’re either going to let it beat you down into oblivion and just give up, or you continue to go out there and swing and fight. We’re technically not out of the playoffs. So while it feels dark and gloomy and probably depressing, honestly, we can still win out. I have the faith we can do that. I really do.”

— George Kittle, Forty-Niners

21 NEW CALIFORNIA LAWS

by Sophia Bollag & Sara Libby

California lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom approved more than a thousand laws this year on topics ranging from environmental regulation to traffic rules.

Here’s a look at 21 laws that take effect next year that could affect the daily lives of Californians:

Crackdown on retail theft

Newsom and lawmakers approved 11 laws that aim to crack down on theft amid public outrage over robberies at retail stores. The following take effect Jan. 1:

Senate Bill 905 by state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, eliminates the requirement that victims prove their cars were locked to press burglary charges and also makes it easier to combine instances of stolen property possession into one crime.

Assembly Bill 1779 by Assembly Member Jacqui Irwin, D-Thousand Oaks (Ventura County), lets district attorneys coordinate to prosecute retail theft crimes across multiple counties.

AB2943 by Assembly Member Rick Chavez Zbur, D-Los Angeles, would crack down on people who possess large quantities of stolen goods that aren’t for personal use and make it easier for police to arrest people for thefts the police didn’t witness. It will also make it easier for prosecutors to aggregate multiple thefts by the same person or people across different counties to reach the $950 threshold for felony theft charges.

AB3209 by Assembly Member Marc Berman, D-Menlo Park, lets retail stores seek restraining orders against people who steal, vandalize or assault an employee.

SB242 by then-state Sen. Dave Min, D-Irvine, increases punishments for people who start fires while stealing.

SB1416 by then-state Sen. Josh Newman, D-Fullerton, increases punishments for large-scale organized retail theft.

AB1960 by Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, D-Hollister, increases jail time for people who steal or destroy more than $50,000 worth of property.

Additionally, Senate Bill 1144 by then-state Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, aims to identify people selling stolen property by requiring more sellers to register their identities with online marketplaces. It’s scheduled to take effect July 1.

The increased punishments in the laws will come on top of the increased punishments for stealing that voters passed in November through Proposition 36. Currently, thefts under $950 are misdemeanors under California law. But starting Dec. 18, when Prop 36 takes effect, prosecutors will be able to charge someone with two prior theft convictions with a felony for subsequent offenses, regardless of the value of merchandise stolen. The measure will also increase jail time for organized retail theft.

Legislative leaders tried to insert clauses into the retail theft bills that would have made them inoperative if Prop 36 passed because they said they worried punishments for theft would become too harsh when layered on top of the longer jail sentences allowed for under Prop 36. But they backed down and abandoned that plan amid public outcry.

Legacy admissions

Starting next year, colleges that accept state funding will be banned from giving special consideration to applicants related to alumni or donors. The new law, AB1780 by then-Assembly Member Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, will take effect Sept. 1, 2025, meaning the first class of students affected will start college in fall 2026.

New parking fines for ‘daylighting’ violations

Police will begin fining drivers who park too close to crosswalks under California’s new “daylighting” law, AB413 by Assembly Member Alex Lee, D-San Jose. In an effort to make roads safer for pedestrians and cyclists, the law prohibits people from parking within 20 feet of marked and unmarked crosswalks in most circumstances. Though it has technically been in effect since the start of 2024, cities can start fining drivers Jan. 1.

Fines will vary by jurisdiction. In San Francisco, fines will start at $40 per violation.

Californians will be able to more easily cancel subscriptions under the state’s new click-to-cancel law, which takes effect July 1. AB2863 by Assembly Member Pilar Schiavo, D-Chatsworth, requires companies that offer automatically renewing and continuous subscriptions to let customers cancel their subscriptions through the same method they used to sign up.

Banking fees

AB2017 by Sen.-elect Tim Grayson, D-Concord, prohibits state-chartered banks from fining customers when they try to withdraw money but have insufficient funds in their account. It takes effect Jan. 1.

Mental health treatment plans

People with severe mental illness who commit violent crimes can be kept in state mental hospitals longer to allow the state to better plan for continued treatment after their release under a new law that takes effect Jan. 1.

Assembly Member Matt Haney, D-San Francisco, said he introduced AB2475 in response to a Chronicle column published last year that detailed the circumstances leading up to a Chinatown bakery stabbing. Haney said Mayor London Breed’s office and the San Francisco Department of Public Health sent him the column and asked him to introduce a bill to address the problems it revealed.

Medical debt on credit reports

SB1061 will, starting Jan. 1, prohibit credit bureaus from including medical debt on people’s credit reports. The law by Sen. Monique Limón, D-Santa Barbara, aims to avoid penalizing people for accessing necessary health care.

More details about who’s delivering your food

Food delivery services like Uber Eats and Doordash have become ubiquitous over the past several years. In some circumstances, like if a person lives in a gated complex or is purchasing alcohol, the customer must receive the order directly from the delivery person instead of having it left at their door. Now, customers will have access to a bit more info about the person coming to their home, in order to bolster safety. AB375 by Assembly Member Laurie Davies, R-Laguna Niguel, requires third-party food delivery platforms to provide the customer with the first name of their driver, as well as a photo of that person. It goes into effect on March 1, 2025.

Forced outing in schools

Over the past two years, at least a dozen school districts across California passed policies requiring educators to notify parents if students request to use different pronouns, a new name or otherwise identify as transgender. In response, the Legislature passed AB1955 by Assembly Member Chris Ward, D-San Diego, banning such policies. Though the law doesn’t go into effect until Jan. 1, the passage of the measure didn’t stop at least one district from moving forward with its policy.

New housing – and new crackdowns on cities that don’t build it.

San Francisco’s “doom loop” narrative has made its way to the California Capitol. AB2488 allows San Francisco to create a new downtown financing district. Ting, who wrote the bill, says it offers a two-part solution to the city’s woes by generating economic activity in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic that decimated the city’s workforce, and lessening the housing supply shortage. Newsom, however, vetoed a separate bill that would have sped up office-to-housing conversions.

• California has seen a boom in accessory dwelling unit construction over the past several years thanks to new state laws easing permitting and construction. Now, SB1211 by Skinner could ramp things up even further: The law increases the number of ADUs allowed on multifamily properties that can be approved quickly. • As the state has faced its crippling housing crisis, it has passed numerous laws cracking down on cities that don’t do their part to accommodate and build more homes. SB1037 by Wiener gives the attorney general power to impose penalties on local governments that violate certain state housing laws, including fees of up to $50,000 per month and the costs of prosecuting the case in court.

More benefits for California workers

• As climate change-fueled wildfires and extreme weather continue to worsen, lawmakers have sought to protect workers impacted by hazardous conditions. SB1105 by Sen. Steve Padilla, D-Chula Vista, allows agricultural workers to use paid sick days for preventive care, in the event that extreme heat, smoke or other natural hazards would make working outdoors dangerous. Newsom vetoed, however, a bill that would have allowed farmworkers to file worker’s compensation claims for heat-related illnesses suffered while working.

Thanks to AB2123 by Assembly Member Diane Papan, D-San Mateo, it will no longer be legal for employers to require employees to use up accrued vacation time before they can access their benefits under California’s Paid Family Leave program. The program allows workers to take paid time off in order to care for a sick family member or bond with a new child.

(SF Chronicle)

SF GIANTS' MIKE KRUKOW BLASTS MLB COMMISSIONER FOR 'ABSURD' PROPOSED RULE CHANGE

by Alex Simon

San Francisco Giants broadcaster Mike Krukow is completely against the “Golden At-Bat,” another radical rule change that MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred is considering bringing to the sport.

The idea behind the “Golden At-Bat” is like an enhanced pinch hitter: Once a game, a team is allowed to select any player to go up to the plate and take the next at-bat, no matter whose turn it is to hit. Manfred first brought the rule up on a podcast with Puck’s John Ourand in October, and the Athletic dropped a feature on the idea on Monday.

That led to an intense discussion on KNBR-AM/FM’s “Murph and Markus” morning show on Tuesday. When hosts Brian Murphy and Markus Boucher started Krukow’s guest spot with a reference to the topic, Krukow sounded unamused.

“We’re seriously not going to talk about the ‘Golden Bat,’ are we?” he said. He proceeded to call the idea “stupid with two o’s” and blasted Manfred for the changes he’s implementing in the sport.

“Five years from now, we’ll be playing slow-pitch softball. That’s where we’re heading,” Krukow said. “Baseball is such a beautiful game. Why are you messing with it?”

Krukow went on for a few minutes, railing against changes like the current hitting philosophies dominating the sport and the lack of different styles of play. He even offered other radical hypothetical changes (one of them being setting up entirely different offensive and defensive units, like football).

Not every former player agrees, at least. KNBR played a clip of former big leaguer Eric Byrnes calling the idea “f—king brilliant” on his “Daily Hustle” podcast (yes, a different one from the “Deuces Wild” podcast he does with former Giants star Will Clark). Krukow directly disagrees, though.

“I just think it’s absurd,” Krukow said.

THE HORSE MANURE PROBLEM OF 1894

The 15 to 30 pounds of manure produced daily by each beast multiplied by the 150,000+ horses in New York city resulted in more than three million pounds of horse manure per day that somehow needed to be disposed of. That’s not to mention the daily 40,000 gallons of horse urine.

In other words, cities reeked. As Morris says, the “stench was omnipresent.” Here are some fun bits from his article:

Urban streets were minefields that needed to be navigated with the greatest care. “Crossing sweepers” stood on street corners; for a fee they would clear a path through the mire for pedestrians. Wet weather turned the streets into swamps and rivers of muck, but dry weather brought little improvement; the manure turned to dust, which was then whipped up by the wind, choking pedestrians and coating buildings.

… even when it had been removed from the streets the manure piled up faster than it could be disposed of . . . early in the century farmers were happy to pay good money for the manure, by the end of the 1800s stable owners had to pay to have it carted off. As a result of this glut . . . vacant lots in cities across America became piled high with manure; in New York these sometimes rose to forty and even sixty feet.

We need to remind ourselves that horse manure is an ideal breeding ground for flies, which spread disease. Morris reports that deadly outbreaks of typhoid and “infant diarrheal diseases can be traced to spikes in the fly population.”

KAMALA'S CAMPAIGN COST

What happened to the $1 billion war chest that Kamala Harris managed to blow through in less than three months during her failed campaign for the White House? The answer seems to be that it was more or less stolen by her own party, starting with her campaign operatives and celebrity endorsers. Beyonce reportedly cost the Harris campaign $8 million, for which she couldn't be bothered to sing even one song. Oprah got $1 million. Al Sharpton got two payments of $250,000 to his personal charity in return for interviewing the Democratic presidential nominee on an MSNBC broadcast with zero viewers. Election night concerts featured Katy Perry, Lady GaGa, Jon Bon Jovi, and 2 Chainz to appear to cost an additional $20 million. Then there’s all the money collected in Harris’s name by outside PACs, starting with $700 million raised by the “secretive” Future Forward USA Action to “test ads” and the additional hundreds of millions that were raised to back the candidate's “ground game” — which lost seven out of seven critical swing states. It seems like Christmas came early for Democratic political operatives and endorsers this year, if not for the Party's candidates and voters.

— County Highway Newspaper

WEDNESDAY'S LEAD STORIES, NYT

U.S. Zoos Gave a Fortune to Protect Pandas. That’s Not How China Spent It

South Korea’s President Faces Impeachment Motion

For Families of Transgender Children, Tennessee’s Ban Forces Hard Choices

California Democrat Flips Seat in the Last House Race to Be Called

Trump’s Pick to Lead D.E.A. Withdraws, Citing ‘Gravity’ of Job

Trump Team Signs Agreement to Allow F.B.I. Background Checks for Nominees

SOUTH KOREA’S PRESIDENT BACKS DOWN FROM MARTIAL LAW

President Yoon Suk Yeol has been locked in a bitter fight with the opposition, which controls Parliament.

by Choe Sang-Hun, Jin Yu Young, John Yoon and Ephrat Livni

President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea declared martial law on Tuesday night, accusing the opposition of “trying to overthrow the free democracy.” But about five hours later, he said he would lift the declaration, bowing to pressure after the National Assembly unanimously passed a resolution demanding that it end.

“I will lift martial law as soon as we have a quorum in the cabinet. It’s early in the morning, so we don’t have a quorum yet,” Mr. Yoon said in an address. He called on the legislature to “immediately stop the outrageous behavior that is paralyzing the functioning of the country with impeachments, legislative manipulation and budget manipulation.”

It was the first martial law declaration in more than four decades in South Korea, which saw the end of a military dictatorship in the late 1980s. Mr. Yoon, who was elected president in 2022, has been in a near-constant political standoff with the opposition, which controls Parliament, and his government has faced plunging public approval ratings.

In his speech declaring martial law late Tuesday, Mr. Yoon said he was making the move to “defend the free Republic of Korea from the threats of North Korean communist forces and to eradicate the shameless pro-North Korean anti-state forces that are plundering the freedom and happiness of our people and to protect the free constitutional order. Through this emergency martial law, I will rebuild and defend the free Republic of Korea, which is falling into ruin.”

What does the martial law declaration mean?

The country’s constitution states that the president may proclaim martial law when “required to cope with a military necessity or to maintain the public safety and order by mobilization of the military forces in time of war, armed conflict or similar national emergency.”

Army Gen. Park An-Su, who was appointed martial law commander by Mr. Yoon, banned “all political activities,” including political party activities and citizens’ rallies. “All news media and publications are under the control of martial law command,” General Park said.

His edict also banned labor activities and spreading “fake news.” Those who violate the decree can be arrested without a court warrant, it said. According to South Korean news agency Yonhap, the martial law command says all media and publishers are to be under its control, and orders all medical staff including trainee doctors, many of whom have been on strike, to return to work in 48 hours. Those who violate the martial law can be arrested without a warrant.

Who is Yoon Suk Yeol?

Mr. Yoon, a former prosecutor, won an extremely close presidential election in 2022, bringing the country’s conservatives back to power with calls for a more confrontational stance against North Korea and a stronger alliance with the United States. He replaced President Moon Jae-in, a progressive leader who served a single five-year term, and by law could not run again.

When he was sworn in to office in May of that year, Mr. Yoon vowed to stand for values including freedom and liberal democracy.

Soon after he was elected, however, Mr. Yoon began turning to lawsuits, state regulators and criminal investigations to clamp down on speech that he called disinformation, efforts that were largely aimed at news organizations. Police and prosecutors repeatedly raided the homes and newsrooms of journalists whom his office has accused of spreading “fake news.”

In April, Mr. Yoon’s People Power Party suffered a stinging defeat in parliamentary elections, giving the opposition a huge majority. He became the first South Korean president in decades to contend with an opposition-controlled Parliament for his entire time in office.

How did South Korea’s political parties react?

Han Dong-hoon, the leader of Mr. Yoon’s own People Power Party, said the declaration of martial law is “wrong” and that he will “block it,” South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported.

Lee Jae-myung, the South Korean opposition leader, recorded a video in a car on his way to the National Assembly, asking citizens to congregate there. “There is no reason to declare martial law. We cannot let the military rule this country,” he said. “President Yoon Suk Yeol has betrayed the people. President Yoon’s illegal declaration of emergency martial law is null and void. From this moment on, Mr. Yoon is no longer the president of South Korea.”

Lee Jae-jung, a South Korean lawmaker who is a member of the Democratic Party, wrote on Facebook that she was making her way to the National Assembly. “We will stop this at all costs,” she said.

Broadcasts by state news media showed soldiers and police officers pushing against citizens trying to enter the National Assembly building as protesters shouted, “End martial law! End martial law!”

How could martial law be lifted?

Under South Korean law, martial law can be lifted with a majority vote in the parliament, where the opposition Democratic Party holds a majority. When “the National Assembly requests the lifting of martial law, the President shall, without delay, do so and announce it,” the law states.

Live footage from the National Assembly showed that some lawmakers seemed to be holding an emergency meeting held by Woo Won-shik, the speaker of the National Assembly.

Mr. Woo later said President Yoon’s declaration of martial law had become “null and void” after the assembly adopted a resolution demanding its lifting.

(NY Times)

INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT: MOST WANTED

by Alex de Waal

Seventeen years ago, Luis Moreno Ocampo, the first person to hold the post of prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, decided to push international criminal law to a new boundary. He would make a head of state into a fugitive from justice. His target was the president of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, for crimes in Darfur.

The current ICC prosecutor, Karim Khan, has thrown down another gauntlet. The court’s judges have responded positively to his application for arrest warrants against Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and former defense minister Yoav Gallant. They also issued a warrant for Muhammad Deif, one of the three Hamas leaders Khan had named, whose death is yet to be confirmed.

The al-Bashir case settled most legal questions about whether heads of state or government enjoy immunity for international crimes. They don’t. Israeli challenges to the court’s jurisdiction over the Netanyahu case didn’t convince the judges, who overruled them before authorizing the warrants. The UK government under Keir Starmer dropped its predecessor’s procedural challenge to the ICC. Khan’s case breaks new legal ground only insofar as it’s the first time that an international court is charging individuals with the war crime of starvation. The controversy is political.

The ICC was established at the high noon of liberal internationalism. Following ad hoc international tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, delegates of 160 countries met in Rome in 1998 to negotiate a treaty for a permanent international criminal court that would try individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide (the crime of aggression was added subsequently). When a sufficient number of states had ratified the statute four years later, the ICC was established. Ocampo, a lawyer from Argentina, was elected prosecutor. It is separate from the International Court of Justice, an arm of the UN established in 1945 to adjudicate disputes between states, where South Africa is pursuing a separate case against Israel, accusing it of genocide.

In 2005 the UN Security Council gave the ICC jurisdiction over Darfur. Speaking to the Security Council in December 2007, Ocampo regretted that the Sudanese government was not co-operating with his investigations or handing over the two suspects he had earlier accused of war crimes. He would, he said, open a new investigation into “who had the greatest responsibility for ongoing attacks against civilians.” The signal was clear, its repercussions anything but.

In due course, Ocampo held a press conference and announced he was seeking an arrest warrant against al-Bashir. In the refugee camps of Darfur, people celebrated, as did human rights activists around the world. The court issued the arrest warrant. For the rest of his life, al-Bashir would be a wanted man.

He took the news more calmly than many had feared. High-level UN and African Union officials worried that he might block aid operations, renege on the peace deal he had signed with southern Sudanese forces or expel UN peacekeepers. He didn’t. He rallied his supporters, proclaiming an international conspiracy against Sudan, against Arabs and against Muslims. In his typically earthy manner he said the ICC should drink the indictment – referring to the practice of local medicine men who would settle a grievance by writing verses on a board used by Quranic students, washing it down and handing the diluted ink to the petitioner to drink.

The UN and Western nations forbade their officials from meeting al-Bashir. The head of the UN mission in Sudan insisted that he could not do his job without meeting the president, so UN legal counsel compromised, instructing him that he must do so only for essential business, and that if he were photographed with al-Bashir he should not be smiling. The Obama administration was split. Some officials championed the indictment. Others believed that the putative US bargain with Sudan – lifting sanctions in return for peace in southern Sudan and protecting civilians in Darfur – needed a relationship of trust. If no American diplomat could meet al-Bashir, that path was much trickier.

UN and African Union officials examined options for blunting the impact of the arrest warrant. None were feasible. Article 16 of the Rome Statute permits the UN Security Council to suspend ICC action for twelve months – not enough to assuage Sudan’s fears. International law grants certain immunities to heads of state and government, but this was ruled not to extend to ICC arrest warrants, even for states – such as Sudan – that had not ratified the Rome Statute. According to Article 53, the ICC prosecutor should not pursue a case if ‘a prosecution is not in the interests of justice’, but that stipulation is narrowly defined, discretionary and wouldn’t include possible threats to peace and democracy. The principle of complementarity – that the ICC should pursue a case only when domestic courts are unwilling or incapable of doing so – clearly applied.

Every one of the 124 member states of the ICC is obliged to arrest al-Bashir. When he made an official visit to South Africa in 2015, legal groups sought a high court injunction that the government should arrest him – and the Sudanese president abandoned his official engagements and scuttled back to the airport. Even flying through the airspace of an ICC member state was dangerous, and when al-Bashir visited China – not a signatory to the Rome Statute – in 2011 his plane charted a zigzag course.

The AU set up a panel, chaired by the former South African president Thabo Mbeki, to recommend solutions for Darfur. (I was an adviser to the panel.) Mbeki spent 40 days in town-hall meetings with Darfuris and other Sudanese. Angrily confronted by people asking why the AU wasn’t arresting al-Bashir, Mbeki posed a series of challenges in return. What, he asked, was their ultimate goal? Was it peace, reconciliation, democracy and justice? Or was it to see al-Bashir behind bars? Given that the ICC would try at most a dozen Sudanese offenders, how should the many other perpetrators be treated? And what else might justice entail: restitution, compensation, apologies? These were not rhetorical questions – Mbeki wanted answers, in the form of a roadmap to what he called a “global political agreement.” Once that was clear, the panel implied, the Sudanese people could decide how to call their president to account.

Sudan ended up achieving none of those things. Al-Bashir’s paranoia was an ingredient in the recipe for calamity, and the arrest warrant only made it worse. Any chance that he would step aside in a forthcoming election was dashed. He didn’t trust any of his lieutenants to guarantee him a secure retirement, fearing that a successor might cut a deal with Washington or Brussels and deliver him to The Hague. His only safe place seemed to be the presidential palace. After he was deposed in 2019, the new civilian government did not want to antagonise still powerful generals and compromised by trying him for corruption in a domestic court. His last confirmed sighting was in a Sudanese army hospital.

Before ending his term, Ocampo also issued arrest warrants for Libya’s Muammar al-Gaddafi and his son Saif. After a civil war in Ivory Coast, the incoming president, Alassane Ouattara, handed over his defeated predecessor, Laurent Gbagbo, to the court. Gbagbo was later acquitted. An arrest warrant for the former Congolese vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba was unsealed when the unsuspecting Bemba landed in Brussels, and Belgian police transported him to The Hague. He was sentenced to eighteen years in prison for murder, rape and pillaging committed by his troops, but the verdict was reversed on appeal after he had spent a decade in prison.

In Kenya, after a disputed election in 2007, between 800 and 1500 people died in political violence. As part of an agreement mediated by the former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, the abuses were referred to the ICC and Ocampo named six men, including Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto, the deputies of the two opposing candidates. The two accused leaders set aside their political differences for the next general election and stood on a joint ticket, each guaranteeing the other’s impunity – exactly the kind of political bargain that the ICC was intended to pre-empt. Witnesses disappeared or recanted. After winning the presidential election in 2013, Kenyatta flew to The Hague to attend a hearing, where charges against him were withdrawn because the judges considered there was no chance of obtaining a conviction. Ruto followed, and the charges against him were dismissed too. The other four accused also got off. Ruto succeeded Kenyatta as president in 2022.

Ocampo’s successor as prosecutor, the Gambian lawyer Fatou Bensouda, was in office when all these cases collapsed. That wasn’t her fault. Her predecessor had done the easy part, producing just enough evidence to meet the relatively low bar for issuing an arrest warrant, not the proof needed to secure a conviction. A hard-working, consensus-building African woman who didn’t let ego impair judgment was what the court needed after Ocampo’s tenure. During her nine years as prosecutor, Bensouda patiently restaffed her office, repaired the strained relations between the ICC and African governments, and issued eighteen public arrest warrants – none for heads of state.

Elected prosecutor in February 2021, Khan combines Bensouda’s rigor with an unexpected reprise of Ocampo’s ambition. His demand for an arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin was bold, the naming of Myanmar’s acting president, Min Aung Hlaing, was foreseeable, and the leaders of Sudan’s warring parties have reason to fear they will be next. But it’s the Netanyahu case that will determine Khan’s legacy, and the future of the court.

When Ocampo indicted al-Bashir, it was a test of law and politics. The law is now mostly settled in the ICC’s favor – those decisions were welcomed by Western governments at the time. The fundamental political controversy, over the limits of sovereignty, weren’t resolved. Rather, because Ocampo’s targets had been Africans with bad reputations and Bensouda had lowered the court’s sights, the question of sovereign impunity was set aside as an academic question. Not any more.

Palestinians and pro-Palestinian groups welcomed the arrest warrants. None of them expects Netanyahu and Gallant to face trial: the moral point is what matters. Israel has long been beyond the reach of international law, and the question of whether peace, democracy or reconciliation might be jeopardized by a judicial process doesn’t arise, because they are not in prospect.

Many Israelis have rallied to Netanyahu, at least for now. American politicians have lined up to condemn the court and threaten sanctions against prosecutors, judges and states that co-operate with the ICC. For them, Palestinians’ human rights vanish in the dust of Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorists. The Washington Post ran an editorial that accused the court of hypocrisy for not seeking to arrest Bashar al-Assad – seemingly oblivious to the elementary fact that the ICC has no jurisdiction in Syria – and characterized Israel as a democracy committed to human rights.

Human rights organizations concur that the charges are warranted and that Israel has failed the complementarity test by not investigating its leaders. For them, the overriding issue is the contest between universal human rights and sovereign entitlement. On this question, al-Bashir, Putin, Netanyahu, Biden and Trump have common cause, and the rest of the world has to decide whether to stand with or against the ICC.

A HOLIDAY MESSAGE: Thanksgiving Day 2024

by Richard Falk

Global Justice in the 21st Century / TRANSCEND Media Service

The Thanksgiving Day holiday was first observed by colonists in New England and Canada as random days of “thanksgivings,” in the form of prayers for blessings of safe journeys, military victories, or abundant harvests. Americans later more self-consciously modeled their holiday celebration after a 1621 harvest feast shared between the Wampanoag and some English colonists seeking refuge from persecution in their British homeland, becoming known as the “Pilgrims.”

In most North American homes, families now celebrate mainly the blessings of being together without any acknowledgement or even awareness of the historical legends surrounding the transformation of religious rituals to the national holiday known by all as Thanksgiving Day. It has become a way of giving thanks for the blessings of life without attention to the dark foundations of these breakaway British colonies, including genocidal tactics employed to clear coveted land of native peoples as well as the importation of slaves from Africa to make the land productive while cruelly abusing these workers of cotton fields and farmlands forcibly removed from their distant homelands by the most predatory crimes of early capitalism. For progressives as with some other naively celebrated holidays, most notably, Columbus Day, these celebratory occasions have increasingly become times to take note of past moral failures societal and state criminality.

This year Thanksgiving Day assumes an especially problematic character, not because of the past but because of the present. For me it is better observed in the spirit of A Day Of Remembrance And Remorse. Such a dark perspective is adopted to produce creative tensions between the enjoyment of a turkey meal with the onset of deliberately induced mass starvation in the Gaza Strip among the Palestinian survivors of the Israeli onslaught of recent months, including interference with the delivery of food by international aid and relief workers. As well this year”s critical remarking of thanksgiving serves as a grim reminder of the instrumental role of the US Government in the escalation of nuclear risks and rejection of diplomacy in the Ukraine War. The United States, together with several NATO allies, is willing for delusional purposes to sacrifice Ukrainian lives and well-being while increasing prospects of a major war, so that it might humiliate Russia with a battlefield defeat.

By remembrance and remorse this year, we can re-endow a popular holiday with the sobriety of a hard look at our national ethos of Western global hegemony is being experienced by the disillusioned and frightened peoples of the world. Hopefully, Thanksgiving Day 2025 can be celebrated in moderate, yet mindful, good faith as the blessings of precious life for all.

(Prof. Richard Falk is a member of the TRANSCEND Network, Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University, Chair of Global Law, Faculty of Law, at Queen Mary University London, Research Associate the Orfalea Center of Global Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Fellow of the Tellus Institute. He directed the project on Global Climate Change, Human Security, and Democracy at UCSB and formerly served as director the North American group in the World Order Models Project. Between 2008 and 2014, Falk served as UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Occupied Palestine. His book, (Re)Imagining Humane Global Governance (2014), proposes a value-oriented assessment of world order and future trends. His most recent books are Power Shift (2016); Revisiting the Vietnam War (2017); On Nuclear Weapons: Denuclearization, Demilitarization and Disarmament (2019); and On Public Imagination: A Political & Ethical Imperative, ed. with Victor Faessel & Michael Curtin (2019). He is the author or coauthor of other books, including Religion and Humane Global Governance (2001), Explorations at the Edge of Time (1993), Revolutionaries and Functionaries (1988), The Promise of World Order (1988), Indefensible Weapons (with Robert Jay Lifton, 1983), A Study of Future Worlds (1975), and This Endangered Planet (1972). His memoir, Public Intellectual: The Life of a Citizen Pilgrim was published in March 2021 and received an award from Global Policy Institute at Loyala Marymount University as “the best book of 2021.” He has been nominated frequently for the Nobel Peace Prize since 2009.)

RAVENS

I don't know what the ravens are saying this
morning of green tenderness and
rain but, my, what a collection of
squallings and cracklings and whistles, made
with the ruffling of throat feathers and the
stretching of wings, nor is it any single speech
one to the rest, but clearly, an octet, since
they are eight coal-black birds with
dark-brown eyes. I have been in this world just
long enough to learn (not always easily) to love
my neighbors and to allow them every
possibility. Maybe the ravens are talking
for some ultimate vicious but useful purpose, or
maybe it's only directions to the next mountain, or maybe
it's simple, silly joy. "hello, ravens," I say, under
their dark tree and, as if courtesy were of
great importance, they turn, they clack and spill their
delicious glottals, of no consequence but
friendly and without the least judgment, down and
over me.

— Mary Oliver

‘The Hand of the Thief,’ 1864. Giuseppe De Nigris (Italian, 1832 – 1903). Oil on canvas 160 x 106 cm.

20 Comments

George Hollister December 4, 2024

I got my burn permit on line from CalFire. No fee. Watching a video on fire safety is part of the process, and a good idea. There is a requirement to only burn on county designated burn days.

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- Jeff Fox December 4, 2024
  
  I get mine from CalFire also. I think the catch is that those permits are only good in CalFire responsibility areas. If you are outside those areas then you end up having to get it from the local jurisdiction or the county. I know that Fort Bragg Fire department was issuing free permits for addresses within their district, but I’m not sure they are doing that anymore.
  
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Call It As I See It December 4, 2024

Voting matters!
I just watched the Chicago mayor, Brandon Johnson, under attack by voters. To be fair, this guy did not hide he was a progressive. They still voted him in. Shockingly, he told his constituents, Chicago is thriving and he doesn’t see the problem. That’s called denial!

The problem is progressive’s have taken over the Democratic Party. So much so, Democrats can’t be trusted. Say what you want about Trump, his policies have propelled him to the Presidency. Joe Biden has affirmed the distrust. Anthony Faucii a Democrat, is the poster child for why trust is on the table. This man should be prosecuted. We now are finding the harm he has done. He did this to cover up his role and keep the Biden agenda rolling along in funneling money giveaways.

I think we all can agree, we want a safe America that is prosperous and allows people to decide on how they want to live their life. I don’t need politicians or Hollywood elites preaching to me.

Our only say is through ballot box.
I’m sure all my fans at the AVA will come on this thread to attack, bring it on, I got broad shoulders.

By the way, Bruce. I’am calm, thanks for your concern.

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- Harvey Reading December 4, 2024
  
  Voting for pure crap, which is all the “two” parties have offered, for ALL elected positions since the early 70s, is simply a slow, painful suicide. It is conditioned insanity. So, keep on voting for what they throw your way and reap your just reward for your obedient effort…
  
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- gary smith December 5, 2024
  
  Progressive’s what? The apostrophe has meaning and it’s not, “Here comes an S.”
  
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Norm Thurston December 4, 2024

I agree with Krukow. Most of the new rules in major league baseball over the past several years have made the game less strategic and more predictable (boring). I will go a step further and suggest that the most atrocious rule of all is the designated hitter, which has existed in the American League for 50+ years. The dynamics of deciding whether to let your pitcher hit in a critical situation, or replace him with a pitch hitter and thereby replacing him on the mound in the next inning can turn the whole game around. There are a couple of rules that should be kept, namely the one preventing runners from mowing down a defender who is not blocking the base path, and the one putting the pitcher on a timer between pitches. The one thing I would miss if the recent rules were reversed though is sitting in the stands at the beginning of the 10th inning and having the person next to me ask “How did that runner get on second base?”.

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- Call It As I See It December 4, 2024
  
  The DH definitely takes the decision making out of the hands of the manager. Plus if you had a pitcher who could handle the bat, what an advantage.
  
  The Posey Rule, MLB changed the rules on taking out a fielder that the baserunner is entitled to. This occurred when Posey was taken out and suffered a broken ankle. All this rule has done has created more controversy.
  
  I do like the pitch clock, games are moving along at a faster pace. Don’t mind the extra inning rule either, I think it saves wear and tear on pitcher’s arms and has removed the 14 inning or more games.
  
  The biggest worry is MLB is seriously thinking about automated strike zone. Baseball is done if this happens, you can’t argue with a machine or kick dirt on it. I guess you can. I’m for human element which umpires provide and the Pete Rose style of play. RIP Pete, you should be in the Hall of Fame.
  
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  - Norm Thurston December 4, 2024
    
    Long extra inning games add to the dynamics and suspense of the game. The Giants used to reward fans who stuck-out an extra inning night game at Candlestick with the Crois de Candlestick pin. I will always remember staying up late to see the Giants beat the Nationals in the 18th inning of a playoff game, back in 2014. I know the new rule does not apply to playoffs, but you get my drift. The only controversy around the Posey Rule is whether the umpire made the right call for a given play. And that my friend is baseball.
    
    Reply
    - Call It As I See It December 4, 2024
      
      The only good thing about Posey Rule, they can use video replay to see if catcher or fielder blocked the base. Still love the days of Pete Rose trying to jar the ball out of the catcher’s possession.
      
      Reply
Craig Stehr December 4, 2024

Please know that I have finished my intended contribution to the Washington, D.C. Peace Vigil, consisting of putting in the prayer request (attending Catholic Mass every day at the Basilica) and providing food and hydrating beverages to the vigilers. I am prepared to move on to my next highest good. Feel free to make contact, as we continue enjoying being an intervening variable on the planet earth.
Craig Louis Stehr
Adam’s Place Homeless Shelter
2210 Adams Place NE #1
Washington, D.C. 20018
Telephone: (202) 832-8317
Email: craiglouisstehr@gmail.com
November 4, 2024 Anno Domini

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- Chuck Dunbar December 4, 2024
  
  Hello Craig in D.C.,
  
  I see you’re looking for the next spiritual adventure and for more stable housing. I found myself wondering about your long experience working for Catholic Charity Services, if memory serves me. And I thought of all the smallish towns around our country , so many of which have Catholic churches with ministries to help their communities. The housing shortage is all over the country, but I wonder if you could find a small town with such a church that you could connect with for spiritual support, and maybe help in finding a more permanent place (prior to journeying off to Heaven) to land, where you could meet folks and serve some spiritual purpose and find affordable quarters. Your long service to the church would serve as a very fine introduction and reference. There must be a list on-line of Catholic churches all over, with contact info. A mass mailing by you, or some other means of reaching-out, might land you some promising news!!!
  
  Good fortune, Craig.
  Chuck
  
  Reply
  - Craig Stehr December 4, 2024
    
    It’s all mysterious! Otherwise, my non-resume includes 23 years with Berkeley Catholic Worker, 3 times with the Los Angeles CW, 3 times with the NYC CW, and 5 times at the Olive Branch CW house in Washington, D.C. Plus everything else. Nota bene: The Divine Absolute is in charge now and forever. Have Enlightenment~Will Travel ;-))
    
    Reply
- Craig Stehr December 4, 2024
  
  s/b “December 4th” Time flies when you are having fun!
  
  Reply
Matt Kendall December 4, 2024

I used to dislike ravens. They would dig into the feed sacks in the barn and spread trash from cans.

It wasn’t until I was on a fishing trip with my father that he explained the brilliance of these birds. And his belief I was simply upset because they were a little more clever than what I was accustom to. Pop accused me of jealousy over being outsmarted by these birds. I began paying attention to them and gained a new appreciation for the raven.

During my teenage years, there was an older logger in Covelo named Bob Pope. Bob told us boys of logging in Alaska and Washington in the 1960s. Bob said he worked with an old Indian fella that held the position of whistle punk on a yarding crew. The whistle punk was usually a kid with limited skills or an elder with limited physical abilities.

Bob said this old native explained the significance of the crow when carved on a totem. Bob also said the old fella would occasionally miss a signal and when called on the mistake, his excuse was he was “talking to the ravens”. Bob clarified with us his beliefs that the excuse of visiting with the ravens was likely code for taking a nip off of a brown bottle located in the man’s lunchbox.

I still don’t like crows. They kill small chicks and chickens, they eat the eggs. This aversion to crows causes me to make every attempt to keep them from violating my airspace around the place. I have no problem with crows or coyotes trying to make a living like everyone else, as long as they steer clear of my chickens.

Funny how a little enlightenment from our elders can change our views on our current situations. I now see ravens through different lenses and when they raise hell I catch myself laughing in the same fashion I would laugh when a quick witted friend got one over on me.

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- George Hollister December 4, 2024
  
  Ravens are smart, smarter than I know. I used to shoot them, and appreciated how well they evaded anyone with a gun. If they had been shot at while in the air, they would fly erratically if a gun was pointed at them, or a stick. They would know when someone was hunting, and when they weren’t. I also noticed when working in the woods, that they knew when lunch time was, and showed up for potential leftovers. They know people too. They know me now, and know when I have some meat scraps for them. I am now one of the good guys. For the last couple of years, a raven pair has left their kids for me to daycare while they are off getting food. The kids are interesting to watch. The dog chases them if they are in the vegetable garden. They learn, don’t go there.
  
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- Call It As I See It December 4, 2024
  
  Don’t leave food on your golf cart seat to take a swing, by the time you strike your ball they’re flying off with lunch. It’s like they follow you around waiting for that moment of weakness.
  
  Reply
  - George Hollister December 4, 2024
    
    I learned early on they knew a brown paper bag means food. Put your lunch in a sealable container. They haven’t figured that out, at least for now.
    
    Reply
Frank Hartzell December 4, 2024

Ravens are about as smart as us and unfortunately share some of our ethics. They killed my baby chicks for years. Our beloved Japanese Bantam rooster, Mr. Tamachiki hated them and chased them and worst of all would fly up near them and scream at them till they left. One day we came home and found his body torn to shreds, but not eaten, black feather all around both his and LOTS of raven feathers. He didn’t give up without a fight and there were many of them. Funny he left a rooster sonny boy behind, who he had bred with one of my meat chicken. JR was 4x the size of dad and continued the mission. He was too big for the ravens to kill but he still could fly up and do the same thing to them. Man they make awful noise but they hate it when some other bird does it. Once my dog Reynard killed one while it was invading the coop and forever afterwards. They would scream and scream what sounded like Beelzebub! At him. And this happened all the way down past Mendocino. Couldn’t have been the same ravens as ours in Cleone. Do they talk among themselves. At some point, they stopped killing my chicks, as if we had reached a compromise so I stopped going after them.

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- Matt Kendall December 4, 2024
  
  Sounds like a cease fire was in order I hope the truce holds!
  
  Reply
Jim Armstrong December 4, 2024

A long time ago, with no good excuse, I tried to kill crows (at least one). If I went out with a shotgun, they would perch in the trees a couple of hundred feet away and laugh at me, but never fly near. If I went out with a rifle, they would flush from the trees and fly around over head and laugh at me. Never got one.

I never liked the DH, but am getting used to it. Didn’t like the shift and don’t miss it. Pitch clock is working well, I think; adjusting gloves with no purpose added months to a season. Extra innings are important to baseball, ghost runners are good for TV, hence owners.
The new “golden hitter” rule is some fools’ total misunderstanding of pinch hitters and runners.
Football fans don’t like the Posey rule.

AVTV was one of at least four “translators” around the county, including Potter Valley, Laytonville and the granddaddy, Ukiah TIA (one of the largest such in the country).
All of them shared for management and technology an eccentric electronic genius named Jim Dietz.
I spent many hours with him up at Potter Valley site doing various maintenance chores and listening to his view of the world.
It wasn’t until his death that I learned that was a radioman on bombers flying over Europe in WWII. He never mentioned that or the fact that he had been shot down over the English Channel and bobbed around on his life raft for so many days before his rescue that the tradition of dividing up his belongings was over with when he got back to base.

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Mendocino County Today: Wednesday 12/4/2024

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