Mendocino County Today: Friday 12/6/2024

By AVA News Service on December 6, 2024

DRY WEATHER and seasonable temperatures are expected again today. Saturday a weak front is expected to bring some light rain mainly to Humboldt and Del Norte counties with counties farther south and east mainly just seeing clouds and few sprinkles. Dry weather is expected to return Sunday and continue through much of the week with the next chance for rain as early as Thursday. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): On the coast this Friday morning I have 40F under clear skies. A bit of a shaker yesterday eh' coastal fans? Maybe a sprinkle later Saturday otherwise more of the same until later next week when some rain might return.

CORRECTION: Yesterday we wrote that Josephina Duenas had been re-elected to the Ukiah City Council. That was incorrect. Heather Criss won with 24.2% of the vote and Doug Crane came in second with 22.64%. Ms. Duenas came in third in a race for two slots at 15.79%. We were reading the Election day numbers not the total vote count. Our apologies to anyone affected by the mistake. — ms

JUDY VALADAO: Venus Will Shine Like a Bright Christmas Star in Tonight's Sky. I didn't use a tripod so not a great photo, however I did beat the fog.

THURSDAY’S FERNDALE QUAKE

Tectonic Summary (from earthquake.usgs.gov)

The December 5, 2024, M 7.0 Offshore Cape Mendocino earthquake occurred approximately 100 km southwest of Ferndale, California, off the coast of northern California in the vicinity of the Mendocino Fracture Zone. This earthquake occurred in the vicinity of the Mendocino triple junction – the region where the Pacific, North America, and Juan de Fuca/Gorda plates meet. Focal mechanism solutions indicate that rupture occurred as a result of strike-slip faulting on a steeply dipping fault striking either east-southeast or north-northeast. The location, depth and faulting mechanism indicate that this event likely occurred on or near the Mendocino Fracture Zone, a fault zone that strike east-southeast and forms the boundary between the Pacific Plate to the south and the subducting Gorda Plate to the north.

Earthquakes are common in the region around the Mendocino triple junction. Oblique motion between the southern Juan de Fuca/Gorda plate and Pacific plate causes north-south compression within the Gorda plate and right-lateral translation along the boundary between the plates. The M 6.4 Ferndale earthquake occurred approximately 75 km to the east-northeast on December 20, 2022. A M 6.2 event occurred approximately 90 km east of the 2024 event, on December 20, 2021. In the past century, there have been at least 40 other earthquakes of M6 or larger, including five earthquakes M7 or larger, within 250 km of the December 5, 2024, earthquake. These prior earthquakes primarily occurred along the Mendocino transform fault, in the Cascadia subduction zone, or within the Juan de Fuca/Gorda plate.

SOME LOCAL IMPRESSIONS

Little River. Some cupboard doors sprung open. No damage.

I just got an emergency message from the county regarding the tsunami that indicated evacuation may be ordered in low lying coastal areas. They suggested leaving preemptively.

My son felt it in Berkeley. I got an alert on my cell about 15 seconds ahead of time. It told me to run outside or to a protected place.

The epicenter was up north.

My mother's house in The Woods in Little River. Steady gentle wiggle about 5 seconds, and the earthquake alarm went off in my phone. Tsunami alert. Get the map immediately says it was only a 2.3 near Cobb. California. --Marco McClean,

USGS has revised their report to a 7.0 nearer Ferndale than Petrolia.

Nice gentle rolling earthquake lasted maybe half a minute.

WOW! That was strong and long! Where are you?

Bernie Norvell (Fort Bragg): 30 seconds of heavy rock ‘n’ roll. The water is dropped in the harbor 8 inches in five minutes. Police and fire are clearing low level areas.

The quake has set off a swarm in the Cobb Mountain area, already many dozens around the geothermal region, most below 3.0. The One off Ferndale has had several aftershocks, as well, and small quakes below 2.5 are reported in Inverness, and Sebastapol. Folks gotta stop jumpin' on they beds!

Christie Olson Day (Mendocino): Whew, that was a biggie. Nothing fell off the shelves at the bookstore but we sure FELT it. Keeping an eye out for signs of tsunami now.

Boonville: About 10:45 there was a mild tremble. The blinds moved, I felt a small wobble.

Navarro: I was leaning against my truck, peering under the hood, trying to feel if all my spark plug wires were well seated. The truck began swaying and my first thought was “Who’s rocking the truck?” Turned out to be Poseidon.

No tsunami anywhere on the coast. However there are 10,000+ customers without power in Humboldt County.

Andy Caffrey, Eureka: We just got hit with the biggest earthquake of my life! The cats are hiding. I'm fine. It will take me all day to fix up everything. This is definitely the biggest earthquake I've experienced. And it seems like it was two 7.0+ quakes hitting simultaneously. And one of them was only about 20 miles away at a depth of 6 miles. Tsunami alert cancelled.

BBC is giving it headline coverage.

1971 Sylmar quake 6.7

1989 Loma Prieta 6.9

Today in Humboldt 7.3

TSUNAMI WARNING CANCELED AFTER POWERFUL EARTHQUAKE STRIKES NORTHERN CALIFORNIA

A powerful 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Northern California early Thursday morning, causing shaking as far south as the Bay Area and prompting a brief tsunami warning for coastal regions.

The quake, which hit at 10:44 a.m., was centered about 10 miles southwest of Scotia in Humboldt County.

The earthquake followed two smaller tremors the day before, which registered magnitudes of 4.2 and 4.4.

A tsunami warning was issued across Northern California, urging coastal residents to evacuate to higher ground. Emergency notifications sent to smartphones warned of possible “powerful waves and strong currents” impacting nearby coasts.

However, within an hour, the U.S. Geological Survey downgraded the warning, stating that no significant tsunami waves were expected.

Several minutes after the tsunami alert was lifted, a few people returned to Ocean Beach near Judah Street. Most were unaware the warning had been lifted and one couple was unaware it had even been issued. “You’re kidding,” said a man who did not want to give his name said. At 12:10, well after the warning was canceled, a San Francisco Fire Department pickup truck was still warning people “Get off the beach. When it hits you won’t be any help down here.”

Andre Sea, a 43 year old teacher, lives within a block of the beach and came to see the tsunami. “My house is right there,” he said, pointing. “So if it hits, I’m going to drown anyway.” Jamie Guajardo, a disabled veteran and South Lake Tahoe resident, was at an appointment at the Veterans Administration when he heard the alert. He headed to the beach. “To be honest, I wanted to be present if anyone needed help,” he said, holding a cane in his right hand. “I was in the Marine Corps for years and it’s what we do.”

A cargo ship stacked high with colorful containers could be seen heading to sea as rhe tsunami warning approached. But shortly after it was lifted, the ship reversed course and appear to be returning to the Golden Gate and the bay.

Pacific Gas & Electric's website said some customers near the coast and Humboldt Redwoods State Park had lost power. The quake's epicenter was off the coast near Eureka, the biggest city in Humboldt County.

There were no reports of injuries or major damage in Humboldt County before noon, according to Rex Bohn, a county supervisor. Bohn said the Providence hospitals in Fortuna and Eureka also did not report any major issues.

A series of aftershocks continued to shake Northern California following the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that struck earlier Thursday. The U.S. Geological Survey reported multiple tremors in quick succession, ranging in magnitude from 3.1 to 4.4. The first aftershock, a magnitude 3.1 quake, occurred just minutes after the initial tremor, with several others following closely behind. These aftershocks were centered near Petrolia, Ferndale and Scotia all within roughly 60 miles of the quake’s epicenter in Humboldt County. Experts have warned that aftershock activity could continue for several days, with the risk of further seismic events in the coming week.

The 300 people of unincorporated Petrolia, part of the “Lost Coast” region of high Northern California, took a stiff hit from the quake, knocking down trees and emptying shelves at one of the main stores in town.

“There are some trees that fell down in the street, and everything shook — stuff came off our shelves,” said Dolly Pawar, who works at the Ruth Store downtown. “But I think we’re OK here. This is a very remote area, not many people around. Not much here to fall down.”

BART resumes normal train service with systemwide major delays: The agency said service had resuming after previously holding trains outside the Transbay Tube.

The agency is going back to normal service after the tsunami warning was canceled. Previously, the F Market and 25 Treasure Island routes were temporary suspended. Some buses on the western side of San Francisco were requiring riders to get off early.

All evacuation orders in Berkeley have been lifted, police say, as the tsunami warning was canceled.

The agency said the F Market and 25 Treasure Island routes are temporarily suspended. It is also “switching back” all routes on the west side of San Francisco, which requires all riders to exit and the train or bus to go in the opposite direction. “Likely” affected lines include the 5, 7, 18, 31, 38, 38R, 48, and 58.

The ShakeAlert advance earthquake warning system was activated Thursday morning and sent alerts to cell phones as far north as Lincoln City, Ore. and as far south as Salinas, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

USGS officials said that how much advance notice people got depended on their distance from the earthquake but preliminary reports suggest those 20 to 30 miles from the epicenter got about a second of warming time.

“It performed as designed,” said Robert DeGroot, operations team lead for the USGS Shakealert system.

Both the San Francisco Bay Ferry and Golden Gate Ferry said they were operating normally prior to the tsunami warning being canceled. The S.F. Bay Ferry runs between San Francisco and the East Bay, while the Golden Gate Ferry connects the Ferry Building to Marin County.

Christine Goule, Director of the USGS Earthquake Science Center, confirmed there was a 7.0 magnitude earthquake that hit just offshore Petrolia California. A second earthquake that alerted residents near Cobb, California was “overestimated,” Goule said. “It was a much smaller event, and reassessed as a 2.5 (magnitude).”

“There were a flurry of much smaller aftershocks, that’s what we have so far, that’s what we know, and we’re monitoring the situation,” Goule said.

The aftershock risk is expected to continue for a week. With such quakes, the trend is “that the aftershocks will decrease in intensity, so how large they are and how often they happen,” Goule said.

The USGS predicts the risk of aftershocks in a forecast: https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/nc75095651/oaf/overview. “For the next week we can expect 6% chance or so of a magnitude 6.0 or larger. For (magnitude) 5 and above the probability is closer to 40%,” Goule explained.

The US Geological Survey said in a conference call that a tsunami warning is expected to be canceled at noon. No significant tsunami waves are expected from this event. The only tsunami wave detected was off Marina Cove, and it was just 10 cm in height. No other tsunami waves have been detected at any offshore buoy sites. This was a strike-slip fault, as opposed to a subduction fault, so it’s less likely to cause tsunamis.

The Bay Area Rapid Transit system is experiencing significant delays in all directions due to an earthquake. According to an official alert from BART, service to and from San Francisco through the Transbay Tube has been temporarily halted. “Please seek alternate means of transportation,” the agency said. The delay is affecting the entire system, and passengers are encouraged to monitor updates from BART for further information. Travelers should plan for possible extended delays.

“We are activating our Emergency Operations Center in response to the Tsunami Warning,” SF mayor London Breed tweeted. “Please move off the coast and at least one block inland. Public safety personnel are deploying to the coast to warn people to move inland.”

The city of Berkeley ordered the evacuation of a massive swath of the city following Thursday’s earthquake. At 11:30 a.m., city officials ordered people to evacuate all areas west of Seventh Street, including Interstate 80. “LEAVE NOW,” the alert said.

The Northern California coast has a long history with tsunamis, but some of the worst have been caused by earthquakes in Alaska. In 1964, a 9.2 magnitude earthquake near the Aleutian Islands caused a tsunami with surges 21 feet high that killed 12 people and caused major destruction in Crescent City, which is about 114 miles north of Ferndale in Del Norte County.

Ferndale is close to what’s called the triple junction of three tectonic plates, the North American Plate, the Pacific Plate and the Juan de Fuca Plate. They meet where the San Andreas Fault meets two other faults including the Cascadian Subduction Zone, a 700-mile fault that extends from Northern California to British Columbia.

In December 2022, a 6.4-magnitude earthquake with an epicenter off the coast of Ferndale rattled the area in the middle of the night and caused injuries but no tsunami.

(SF Chronicle)

THE DAY IN 1964 WHEN A TSUNAMI RAVAGED CRESCENT CITY

by Amy Graff

At 5:36 p.m. March 27, 1964, the largest earthquake ever recorded in North America, a 9.2-magnitude on the Richter scale, shook south-central Alaska, sending buildings toppling in Anchorage.

The massive quake unleashed a tsunami that reached heights of 150 feet in the open ocean and spread across the Pacific, striking the coasts of southeast Alaska, British Columbia and United States.

Of the three states on the West Coast, California — and especially Crescent City near the Oregon border — was the hardest hit by four tidal waves waves that arrived just before midnight. A monster swell flooded the town, killing 12 people and causing an estimated $15 million in damage.

The tsunami also impacted the Bay Area. The San Francisco Chronicle reported March 29 that the tidal wave created havoc in harbors inside the Golden Gate.

"Damage at San Rafael's swank Loch Lomond Yacht Harbor, hardest hit, was estimated at more than $1 million," the story reads. "There the seismic wave rushed in like a flood-swollen torrent and ripped loose a pier with 30 boats attached to it."

The gallery above tells the story of the Alaska quake and the tsunami that hit California. It was the largest and most destructive tsunami to ever hit the United States in modern history.

(SFGate.com)

MARCO MCCLEAN:

Whenever an earthquake wakes me up, I wake up thrilled, and my first thought is hoping something big fell down. It's always a little disappointing when I look it up and it's just another one of the thousands of earthquakes that happen all the time and it rattled somebody's dishes or scared their cat.This time the little quake near Cobb, and the bigger quake near Ferndale? Petrolia? that we all were told about a few minutes later, puzzled me as to why there was a tsunami warning. But then they report an undersea volcano near Tonga, that explains that, and I think of the episode in the TV series Sanctuary, when the goddess Kali, who Will sees as a beautiful Indian woman, but who really is a gigantic telekinetic spider, raises up the sea floor and sends a wall of water against all of Southern India, because a rich ruthless cocky industrialist thought he would gain power over her by meditating and swallowing her tiny regular spider friend, and meanwhile the sleazy power-hungry lizard man who had wrested directorship away from Helen Magnus and was now in charge of the Sanctuary organization, sent British ships to bomb Kali with missiles.

Magnus got in the way with a helicopter but the lousy bastard fired the missiles anyway. Will, cleverly temporarily dead of poison, interceded with Kali and her friends, an African god of something and an Egyptian or Greek or American Indian god? in a white marble throne room in the afterlife. Will passed Kali's test of trust and loyalty, spoke up eloquently for mankind, the gods sent an anti-tsunami the other way to cancel the first one out and save millions of people, Will woke up, alive again, Magnus (Amanda Tapping) survived crashing into the sea and got control back over the Sanctiary Network. That's what I think of when there's a tsunami. That and videos of Japan and Southeast Asia, and black and white photographs of a funnel-bay town in Alaska. And I think of the flattened forest in Tunguska, in Siberia, from a piece of a comet striking in 1908. And the woman trapped outside of a time bubble millions of years in the future, in Vernor Vinge's book Marooned In Realtime, wandering the flattened forests of what then is California, because of a space rock and/or tsunami. And I think it's neat how all of these people are in all of these other old TV shows that I liked so much. Amanda Tapping was in Stargate, as was the actor who played the horrible lizard man, so in Stargate he was a wonderful doctor. The cocky industrialist was played by Callum Blue, who was sweet hapless Mason in Dead Like Me. Der Waffle House, where all the alive-again dead people in Dead Like Me meet to get their post-it note jobs was the set of the afterlife/ascension way station in Stargate. And so on. A web of memory vectors from thing to thing, including a whole planetary civilization saved from earthquakes, in Star Trek, because Data made friends with a little girl with long fingers, who asked the sky for help, on her HAM radio.A few weeks ago I saw an animated map of Earth, showing all the earthquakes greater than 5.0 since the 1840s. It looks like lines of boiling bubbles in sauce in a pan on the stove.When I was little my favorite place to go was the Griffith Observatory. And one of my favorite exhibits there was a big 3D relief map made of wood on motorized tracks, of the entire area around Los Angeles, criss-crossed with earthquake faults. You could walk around it and press red buttons and make the faults move. And there was a big meteorite with holes all over it that you could stick your arm in. A 6-foot-tall globe of the moon in an alcove, dramatically lit, like a shrine. Telescope on the roof. All of glorious L.A. lit up and laid out below.Mainly, though, it ends up with the memory of when Juanita and I had to move away from Casper in 1992. The Mendocino Commentary had just collapsed and I was starting up my paper Memo. Juanita and I had been together for only 6 years then. We were in a rented trailer up Little Lake Road, in bed in a foldout couch bed with a metal bar that dug into your back all the way through the mattress. An earthquake happened at exactly the right moment. An earthquake is always exactly the right moment, is what I'm saying.There are other scales of earthquake intensity besides the Richter scale. One of them, named after an Italian scientist, measures not in energy released but by how the quake affects people. I love it that the equivalent of 5 or 6 on the Richter scale, on that Italian scale is "Everyone runs out into the street."

SHIELDS REPORT

Hi Everybody,

I’m a little late in getting E-Observers out to everybody because late Thursday morning the Northcoast (Mendocino, Humboldt, and Del Norte Counties) was, as James Bond would say, shaken, not stirred, by a 7.0-magnitude quake.

Thursday afternoon, Gov. Newsom proclaimed a state of emergency in the three counties to support the emergency response to this earthquake. “Today’s emergency proclamation will allow more resources to go where they are needed for emergency response to this morning’s earthquake,” Newsom said in a prepared statement. “I am grateful for the robust system our state has in place that worked as intended today and kept people safe and informed.”

Newsom directed state agencies and departments to utilize and employ state personnel, equipment, and facilities for the performance of any and all activities consistent with the direction of the Office of Emergency Services and the State Emergency Plan. The proclamation additionally authorizes state agencies to enter into contracts to arrange for the procurement of materials, goods, and services necessary to quickly assist with the response to and recovery from the impacts of the earthquake.

This may be good news for the Laytonville Water District that I manage since when the e-quake struck, district employees (Steve Hencz and Jay Augustyniak) were repairing a section of the roof on a water treatment tank at our plant when the quake hit, causing most of the roof to collapse and fall into the tank. Fortunately, they had climbed out of the tank just prior to the quake occurring. Hopefully, we’ll qualify to receive some level of re-imbursement to replace the roof. The important thing though is neither Jay or Steve were injured or worse.

Also, California Attorney General Rob Bonta warned businesses that price gouging is illegal during a state of emergency.

As of late Thursday night, public safety agencies from Mendocino, Humboldt, and Del Norte Counties have yet to report any serious injuries to their residents. Initially, after the quake hit, the National Weather Service (NWS) issued a tsunami warning in the morning, with the quake centered about sixty miles off the coast of Cape Mendocino. Around noon Thursday, the tsunami warning was lifted.

The Eureka Times-Standard reports that Lori Dengler, professor emeritus of geology at Cal Poly Humboldt and a local earthquake expert, said there are likely to be plenty of aftershocks. “It is pretty clear this earthquake was on the Mendocino fault relatively far offshore, and we’re going to have aftershocks,” she said. She noted this quake was not a Cascadia earthquake that would produce a monster tsunami. There were close to two dozen aftershocks larger than 2.0 magnitude by early Thursday afternoon, according to NWS.

Voters Approve Water Rate Increase

Also on Thursday, Laytonville voters approved by an overwhelming margin (approximately 98.5%), a desperately-needed water rate increase.

It’s no secret that the Laytonville County Water District has been dealing with hard financial times for the past two years. Specifically, the main reason for the financial crisis is the fact that historically approximately one-third of the District’s revenues were derived from the sale of bulk water. However, those bulk water sales can no longer be considered a stable source of income.

For many years, the Water District has sold water to so-called “bulk haulers,” individuals, businesses and public sector agencies that transport water by tanker trucks to people who live outside of District boundaries for a variety of purposes: marijuana cultivation (the primary purpose), household, domestic, highway projects, construction projects, street cleaning, road dust suppression, firefighting, well drilling, filling swimming pools, summer camps, music and art festivals. The District is aware that most of the bulk water deliveries to folks who live outside of District boundaries are used for marijuana cultivation.

Historically, the revenues generated by bulk water sales have been used by the District to subsidize the water rates of our in-district residential and commercial customers. Those long-standing subsidies are the reason why there have only been two water rate increases in the past 21 years, with the last increase occurring 13 years ago. To the best our knowledge, there is no other water district in the state that has gone that long without increasing water rates.

Basically, those bulk water revenues were wiped out due to the failed Cannabis Ordinance enacted in Mendocino County. For the past two years, the District attempted to ride out the financial crisis caused by this catastrophe resulting from the failure of this county to enact a set of reasonable and workable marijuana cultivation regulations. In order to survive economically so that we can continue to operate and provide our community with water services, the District had no other viable options.

See you next week.
Hasta Luego,
Jim

GREENWOOD ARTS & CRAFTS FAIR

The Greenwood Community Church Foundation will hold its 24th annual Arts & Crafts Fair, this Saturday December 7th from 10am until 4pm at The Greenwood Community Center in downtown Elk.

Several new vendors as well as perennial favorites will be participating. Fresh wreaths, bath and body products, ceramics, jewelry, homemade Church Lady Candy and so much more.

Snack bar with yummy treats to keep up your strength while you shop.

Here is your opportunity to support local artisans and an historic church building all while providing unique gifts for everyone on your list. Keep your holiday dollars in our community this year!!!

For more info moclapperton@hotmail.com

AV GRANGE ANNUAL COMMUNITY HOLIDAY DINNER

We are all feeling grateful for living in this community and would love for us to all celebrate it together. Food serving starts at about 5:30, but it takes a lot of help to make this happen. Meat Carvers, servers, potato cookers and mashers. Someone brave enough to take on the Gravy making. Local turkey and local potatoes provided, but all other dishes are needed (more green salads this year please).

More Details on Facebook https://fb.me/e/923Qn42Fb

Call Captain Rainbow @ 707-472-9189 for questions.

CHAY PETERSON

There are still many openings for food or volunteer help this Sunday at the Community Holiday Dinner! Sign up link here: Come celebrate the season with friends & neighbors this Sunday, Dec 8th! Sign up for something on the Google doc or simply bring a salad, entree, appetizer, or dessert! Call Capt Rainbow for more info (707) 472-9189

MENDO NEWS

Good morning,

Just wanted to share a new Mendo News startup on You Tube, it is pretty interesting with their newscast on local government meetings which is A.I generated, it is a startup so they are just testing the waters with different events at this time.

https://www.youtube.com/@mendonewsdotcom

John Naulty, Fort Bragg

PUBLIC FOREST OR PROFIT CENTER

Editor,

The Jackson Demonstration State Forest (JDSF) has asked for public comment on a revised Forest Management Plan which will control forest activities for the next 10-years. A new plan is needed to correct past mistakes. For example: Look at the Noyo and Big River after a heavy rain. Sediments pouring off the JDSF as a muddy soup flow into the rivers from years of abusive timber harvesting and road building. Both rivers have been designated as “Sediment Impaired.” Coho salmon once plentiful in our area has now become an endangered species. The negative impacts of their activities since they first acquired the forest 75-years ago is not the pretty picture they make it out to be.

Timber projects often include older redwoods to increase the value for contractors to submit higher bids. This has little to do with resource management, it has to do with generating revenue. For example: At a public meeting with the Jackson Advisory Group, Manager Kevin Conway requested approval for the “Camp One” timber sale and one of his justifications was: “We’re running out of money.”

The JDSF often misrepresents their timber harvest projects on public land as resource management while the invisible white elephant in the room making every final decision is how much money they can make from selling our public resources. Private corporations make no pretension about their intentions when cutting down the redwood forest but the results are the same, and our downstream rivers bleeding out sediments are paying the price.

Richard Ettelson

Mendocino

ADVENTIST HEALTH’S VISION is to become a fully integrated care continuum, focusing on operational and clinical excellence, and sustainable growth. In order to reach this goal, we must make structural adjustments in our North Coast Service Area. Administrator Linda Givens (Adventist Health Howard Memorial) will retire in early 2025. Administrator Judy Leach (Adventist Health Mendocino Coast) will transition to a new role within Adventist Health. Administrator David Leighton (Adventist Health Ukiah Valley) will step down from his role in early 2025. Linda and David’s final date of employment will be determined later as they will stay to help ensure a smooth transition. Chuck Kassis, Interim Administrator at Adventist Health Clear Lake, will continue to lead Clear Lake.

A search has begun for two new roles:

Operations Executive for Adventist Health Clear Lake
Operations Executive covering Adventist Health Howard Memorial, Adventist Health Ukiah Valley, and Adventist Health Mendocino Coast

These two newly created roles will be responsible for ensuring our services operate in the best way possible to support the needs of our community members and patients.

Eric Stevens will also continue to serve as President of the Northern California Network, which includes the North Coast Service Area hospitals (Adventist Health Clear Lake, Adventist Health Howard Memorial, Adventist Health Ukiah Valley, Adventist Health Mendocino Coast, Adventist Health St. Helena, and Adventist Health Vallejo) plus Adventist Health Lodi Memorial, Adventist Health and Rideout, and Adventist Health Sonora.

FROM THE ARCHIVE: The Hitchhiker

by Bruce Anderson (December, 2008)

The hitchhiker was at the Boonville exit on 101. It was about noon. As I passed her she clasped her hands in mock prayer and shot me desperate eyeballs that pleaded with me to please, please give her a ride.

I stopped picking up hitchhikers a couple of years ago because I got tired of listening to them. Two hours with non-verbal leather and nose rings is more charity than I have to give anymore. I still haven't fully recovered from the hitchhiker at Albion, a mystic, who didn't shut up all the way to Fort Bragg. If I'd had to share space with him all the way to the city one of us would have been dead by Santa Rosa.

Another day, at this same spot where this girl was now miming desperation, I'd pulled up to offer a kid a ride. I told him he'd have to sit in the back of my pick-up. I was listening to a book-on-tape and I didn't want to interrupt it.

“It's cold back there,” he said.

It was July and at least 80. It wouldn't be cold until we got to the Golden Gate, and it would only be cold then for a few minutes through the fog bank until he was off-loaded in the big city to pile on the other leather and nose rings, whole platoons of them, them and their pitbulls and their styrofoam begging cups.

“I'll wait here,” he'd said.

So you've got this entitlement attitude, too.

But today's hitchhiker was much more animated, and she was grateful. And polite.

Of course she was a foreigner.

But gratitude and manners notwithstanding, I'd still have to suffer her company. There wasn't time for a pre-ride interview.

She had multi-colored hair, the requisite nose rings, leopard pants, a purplish blouse, hiking boots. I guessed she was about 30, but she could have been 13 for all I knew. If she was 30, as she appeared to be, the skateboard fastened to her backpack? Age plus costume plus skateboard meant the conversational possibilities were likely nil.

But she'd been animated enough to silently beg for a ride, and I didn't want to hear the next day that the body of a young woman had been found in Hopland with her throat cut, that I'd left this woman-child out there for the wolves.

I know a Boonville woman who, back in the flower child years, was nearly raped by a man clawing at her clothes with one hand, holding a gun on her with the other and somehow simultaneously driving slowly up Highway One until the Boonville woman knew it was either jump from a moving vehicle or die. She jumped, and disappeared into a heavy summer fog near Elk and never hitchhiked again.

No, I wouldn’t want to be the guy who didn’t stop for a young woman found dead in Hopland.

“Oh, tank you, tank you, tank you,” she said as she climbed in. “I am from Sweden,” she announced.

“I won't hold it against you,” I replied.

Her English was pretty good, but not good enough to pick up dumb jokes from some southbound old crank driving to San Francisco from South Ukiah on a beautiful drought day in the middle of November, trying to get to the city in time for an early afternoon beatnik reunion at Spec's in North Beach.

“I vatch Mickey Mouse television growing up,” she said, explaining her relative facility with American speech. She said that Sweden was the only European country with English-language television, that she'd learned American from Mickey himself. I thought she said her name was Ingrid, and I knew for sure I'd heard her right when she'd said she’d spent the night “on a mountain top in Laytonville. But the mountain lions didn't eat me. You can see I am here.”

Ingrid said her two Swede traveling companions had gone ahead to San Francisco “because I am still sleeping on the mountain in Laytonville.” Ordinarily, she assured me, she didn’t hitchhike alone, because “America is very dangerous, no?”

Yes, I said, America is very dangerous. All those Swedes we let in a hundred years ago wrecked us. It's been mayhem ever since.

“Yah?” she wondered. “Swedes are criminals in this country?”

The worst, I said.

Ingrid didn't argue with my sociology, but implicitly rejected my conversation by asking, “Do you mind if I sleep?”

Please sleep, I said.

We’d be sharing a confined space for two hours, and we'd already exhausted, I thought, the conversational possibilities. No way was I going to ask her about the skateboard. She was at least 30 and that topic could arrest both our developments.

That’s the problem with hitchhikers. You seldom run into one who’s wacky in interesting ways, and we were already closing in on Cloverdale before the traveler could nod off. There was the Bilbro place, then TJ Bird's house near where TJ's Pomo tribe planned a casino, and the long sound wall behind which lurks central Cloverdale.

Yumpin yimminie, Ingrid! I exclaimed, I have to stop for fuel.

“Vat you say to me?” Ingrid asked.

I explained that when I was a kid the Scandinavians in cowboy movies always said yumpin yimminy.

“Swedes do not say that,” Ingrid corrected me.

How about Ingemar Johannson, the Swede who knocked out Floyd Patterson with his toonderbolt back in 1955 or whenever it was? I asked her.

“Are you happy Obama your president?”

My Swedish entertainments had flown right past her. Ingrid was wisely sticking to the basics of conversational chit-chat.

Obama? I asked as if I barely recognized the name. Do you mean Barack Obama, the American president?

“Yah,” Ingrid said, “off course.”

I explained that my political expectations had flat-lined years ago, but I said I was “cautiously optimistic about Obama,” adding that I thought that however Obama turned out humankind was probably doomed.

“I tink so too,” Ingrid said.

We stopped at the Cloverdale Chevron. Ingrid asked me if I wanted anything, which is another way you can tell a foreigner. They’re inevitably well brought up. An American hitchhiker would say, “Dude, I’m a little short. You wouldn’t have an extra five, would you? I could use a Coke and something to eat.”

Ingrid decided not to sleep, unfortunately, but the ensuing 90 minutes between Cloverdale and San Francisco passed quickly in a blur of harmoniously mutual unintelligibility.

I dropped her off at the library on Page Street where Ingrid said she was going on the internet to hook up with her two countrymen. I warned Ingrid to stay away from Haight Street. Bad people a block away, I said.

“I loff Haight Street,” Ingrid said. “It is goot.”

ROUNDING THIRD, HEADING FOR HOME

by Tom Hine

I”m not sure you can say it’s a shock if you know it’s coming, but I had known for a while that Ken Anderson was taking his final lap, and it was still a shock to read his obit a on the front page of the Daily Journal back in 2009.

We had met more than 30 years earlier, and though we were never close we had a cheerful, amiable relationship. Our connection was the baseball diamond, a place on this earth that Ken owned and I merely visited. He was that good.

In the early 1970s I was on a fastpitch softball team in Cloverdale. We had some good players but there was lunchmeat at a few key positions. The league was tough and competitive. Following another loss and a few quarts of Coors to reduce the emotional pain, a group of us began ruminating on how to turn the season around. We had a big game set for Friday against the Cloverdale Druids, a top-tier powerhouse.

Bruce Anderson (yes, that Bruce Anderson) leaned forward and murmured a loud whisper at our manager, Dave Domenichelli. Bruce suggested Dave do a little ummm, creative reworking of the lineup, beginning with adding brother Ken to the team. Dave, our young (yet grizzled, grumpy and weary) manager perked up and smiled. Leered wolfishly, really. The fix was in.

Guys like these are called “ringers” and the team they join pretends innocently they're legit members of the lineup, when actually last week the guy might’ve been playing third base for the Detroit Tigers.

Enter Ken Anderson. He was tall, rangy and terribly handsome, with the poise and self-assurance of a guy who’d been playing third base for the Tigers last week. Dave put him at first base, thus allowing Dennis Davis to shift to second, and putting our weak, whiny and wealthy sponsor, Marc Goldberg, on the bench.

One small move and suddenly we were competitive and maybe even more, depending on what the new guy could bring to the park. And the first thing he brought was a sense of style to a bunch of guys who couldn’t spell it. We were hippies playing the grand game of baseball while wearing headbands, tie-dye shirts and Fu Manchu mustaches.

Ken arrived in a crisp white shirt with long sleeves and a button down collar. He wore red suspenders, a jaunty beret, smoked an expensive cigar and had the raffish charm of a guy who wasn't accustomed to having many worries in the world. And certainly none on a baseball diamond.

I can’t type this and pretend I remember all the details of that game. There are no box scores, no videos, no newspaper accounts. But I remember this more clearly than I remember what I had for lunch yesterday: Ken strolling to the batter’s box in the middle of the game, sweet cigar fumes trailing after him. He settled in for the first pitch.

And the umpire, a daffy old codger named, appropriately, “Blind Man” held up an arm and shouted “Time!” And Time was called, providing Blind Man the opportunity to instruct the Anderson rookie that cigar smoking was not allowed in the Cloverdale Men's Fastpitch League. Never mind that Blind Man drank beer between innings, and sometimes between pitches.

Ken gazed at Blind Man and, always the pro, agreeably set the smoldering cigar down — in the middle of home plate. He resumed his stance, awaited the right pitch and when he got it he drilled a ball-flattening drive into left center. It would have been a homerun for me; Ken was content to saunter into second base with a leisurely double. He may have been unclear on how important this game was, but probably not.

I was on deck when the next hitter, Mark Wiget, cracked a shot inside the right field line. Another double. It allowed Ken Anderson time to mosey around third and roll into home in no more of a rush than if he were going to work. He approached the plate, calmly retrieved his cigar, then stepped on home to record the run. He may have tipped his beret to Blind Man before heading back to the dugout. He was probably whistling.

Ken Anderson: Impossibly cool.

He was a ladies man and a man’s man. He attracted people as if he were a rock star instead of a schoolteacher. He was physically fit in an era before fitness was a religion and health clubs were churches. I never saw him sucking on a bottle of water, but we shared sips of whiskey more than a few times.

Ken was funny, easily amused and a bit remote. He was also something of a socialist, but I’ve forgiven friends for far more grievous sins. I’m saddened and yes, still shocked that he’s gone.

Let’s promise ourselves we’ll learn the lesson this time. Let’s appreciate our friends and family while they’re with us, not just mourn them when they’re gone.

ED NOTE: Ken said fastpitch looked like a basketball coming at him, it was that easy to hit, but not for anyone else. He was always a great fastball hitter in regular baseball. He held the homerun record at Cal Poly for a number of years and maybe still does before he signed with the old Milwaukee Braves. He was on his way up to the Bigs when his wife complained that he was away too much, so he quit baseball and then his marriage went away along with baseball. Lots of Mendo old timers will remember that Ken was also a basketball force in local men's leagues.

From Baseball-Reference.com:

Ken Anderson played two seasons in the Milwaukee Braves system.

Anderson was born in the United States Territory of Hawaii to Ruth and Kenneth George Anderson in December 1940. Shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the family moved to northern California. Anderson attended Tamalpais High School where he graduated in 1958. At the College of Marin, Ken was an All-Northern California basketball player. Anderson's success at Marin earned him a basketball scholarship at California State Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo where he also played baseball and graduated with degrees in English and physical education.

In 1963, Anderson was an outfielder for the Waycross Braves in the Single-A Georgia-Florida League. He got into 68 games during the season and batted .235 with seven doubles, a triple, and three home runs. In the field, he had a .977 fielding percentage.

Anderson played outfield and first base for the Greenville Braves of the Western Carolinas League in 1964. He saw action in 55 games hit .234 with four doubles and twelve runs batted in. He also stole five bases.

Following his playing days, Anderson taught in various California high schools for many years. He also got heavily involved in his community and once held the post of planning commissioner in Ukiah, California. His wife described him as "a voracious reader, attentive listener and resolute socialist."

Anderson died in 2009 from myelofibrosis. He was married twice - to Marilyn Kinsel in 1961 and to Diane Zucker in 1988. He had two sons and a daughter with Marilyn and was a step-father to Diane's son and daughter. At the time of his death, Anderson had eight grandchildren.

The Summer Of 62

Bonus for Anderson: Braves Sign Marin Star

Ken Anderson, former baseball and basketball star at Tamalpais High and College of Marin, has signed a bonus contract with the Milwaukee Braves of the National League, it was learned yesterday. He signed his contract on June 9, for a $2,000 bonus and maximum salary of $500 per month. He was immediately assigned to the Waycross, Georgia team of the Class A Georgia-Florida League. Numerous scouts were bidding for the Marin star athlete. He started off his professional campaign in fine fashion, hitting a double his first time at bat. After an all-night plane trip from San Francisco to Georgia, he arrived in time to catch two hours sleep before reporting to the stadium. He was given a uniform and told to start in left field. And start he did, following his double with a pair of line drive singles to give him three hits in his first four at bats. He drove in one run, scored two himself and added a stolen based to his professional debut. After his first week in action he had collected nine hits in 20 at bats for a tremendous .450 battering average. The 21 year old Anderson played both basketball and baseball at Tam High and played the two sports for two years at College of Marin. He graduated from Tam in 1958. He was chosen as the Most Valuable Player on the College of Marin championship cage team of 1959 and was seleted as All-Golden valley Conference that same year. He led Cal Riemcke’s team in scoring during that big season.

He was granted a basketball scholarship to Cal Poly after his days at College of Marin and played both basketball and baseball at the San Luis Obispo campus for three years. He hit above the .400 mark the first baseball season at Cal Poly and followed it with an even .300 mark the second year. This past season he finished his college playing days with a .360 average. He was signed after his graduation from Cal Poly. During the past four summers Anderson had been playing outfield and first base for the Tiburon Pelicans semi-pro baseball team. During his prep and college days, Anderson, who stands 6-4 and weighs 185, lived in Corte Madera. Now he and his attractive wife Marilyn and their ten-month old son Wayne live with Marilyn’s parents at 327 D Street, San Rafael. The new professional ballplayer plans to go back to college in September to study for a secondary credential in education.

(Marin Independent Journal, June 1962)

WHAT TANGLED WEBS WE WEAVE!

Excerpted and annotated from “Mendocino’s Hotels & Saloons,” by Dorothy Bear and Beth Stebbins, Mendocino Historical Review, June, 1980.

Joseph Silva Neto was born in 1844 on Sao Jorge Island, the Azores. He came to California when he was 20 years old, first working in the lumber mills of Humboldt county. In 1875 he married Maria S. Armas, who was also from the Azores Islands.

Joseph’s brother George had a hotel in Mendocino and, when he needed a hotel clerk in 1878, he sent for Joseph. Not long after, however, George closed the hotel and moved to Stockton. Maybe because he “showed a reluctance to pay his bills,” according to the “West Coast Star” of 1875. Joseph got a job at the lumber company and soon became the planer boss. He kept this job until his health failed. Remembering his experience in his brother’s hotel, Joseph decided to open a hotel of his own.

The Neto Hotel was completed in 1884 on west Main, east of Woodward Street, on the same property the Big River House had occupied before it burned down in 1878. Joseph and Maria ran the hotel and served at the bar just inside the front door. The photo indicates that the business was well patronized. [It was the hub of social activity for the Portuguese population until Crown Hall was constructed in 1902. During the winter, many woodsmen made this hotel their home, enjoying the hospitality of the Netos.]

Neto Hotel, 1884 – 1890. (Gift of Emery Escola)

When Joseph died July 14, 1912, his obituary read, “Besides a faithful and most devoted wife, he leaves a son, Dr. J. R. Neto, a dentist in Oakland, and two step-sons, J. L. Armas of San Francisco and R. R. Armas of Mendocino. In the passing of J.S. Neto to the Great Beyond, the community has lost a most respected and upright citizen. He was known among his friends as Honest Silva. His word was as good as his bond.”

John J. Vieira, a 31 year-old friend of the Netos, married Maria Armas Neto on October 4th, 1913. Four years later, when she was 69 and no longer able to work, Maria Armas Neto Vieira sent to the Azores for her niece, Mary Armas. Sometime after Mary arrived, she and John Vieira became “more than friends” and before Maria’s death on December 17, 1929, a son (John “Jackie” Vieira) was born to Mary. Mary and John married soon after Maria died. The situation was only discussed sotto voce in Mendocino, but it has lived in people’s memories long enough to appear in the files of Mendocino Historic Research.

[In 1946, John Vieira had the upper story torn off the hotel and the bar fronting on Main Street removed; replacing it with a sunporch. The Beacon reported, “What was once the Neto Hotel, but is now owned by Mr. and Mrs. John Vierra [sic], is being made into a cozy cottage under the supervision of Herman Fayal. This will allow more yard space. When finished it will make a very attractive home in that section of the town.”]

After John Vieira died in 1951, Mary Armas married Joseph Vieira, John’s brother. The Neto hotel was remodeled again in the 1960s, when the upper deck was restored. [Today, the Neto Hotel building is the home of Mendocino Sandpiper.]

The Kelley House Museum is open from Thursdays through Mondays, 11:00 am — 3:00 pm. Historic District walking tours leave from the museum on Albion Street regularly; the cost is $25. For a tour schedule, visit kelleyhousemuseum.org.

Billy Lou at Round Valley in Mendocino County, California - Konkow/Yuki - 1907

CATCH OF THE DAY, Thursday, December 5, 2024

MICHAEL BARNES, 53, Willits. Pollution of state waters.

TONA HARDEN, 42, Ukiah. Trespassing.

SETH HERMO, 25, Redwood Valley. DUI-alcohol&drugs.

STEVEN LUNA JR., 44, Ukiah. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, parole violation.

HANNAH SCOTT, 25, Lucerne/Ukiah. Probation revocation.

THOMAS THORSON, Nice/Ukiah. Probation revocation, resisting.

LYDELL WILLIAMS, 35, Ukiah. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

Relative planet sizes represented as fruit and veg.

RESIST TRUMP'S DEPORTATION PLANS

Editor:

As plans to implement Donald Trump’s proposal to forcibly deport millions of immigrants begin to take shape, we should be clear-eyed about what this means for us.

As a point of national reference, we know that from 1929 to the 1950s, authorities forcibly repatriated more than 2 million people of Mexican ancestry. With Trump vowing to deport many more than that today, it is safe to say that here in Sonoma County — where we have an estimated 25,000-38,000 undocumented immigrants — the impacts will be severe.

For starters, our state and county lawmakers could well be pitted against their federal counterparts. We also know from past experience that mass deportation will result in considerable economic upheaval, not least labor shortages and increases in food prices, affecting us all. Trump’s claim that only criminals will be deported fails the history test. Mass deportations have always swept up far more than the targeted populations. For instance, more than a million of those repatriated in the 20th century were born in the U.S.

For these and many other reasons, state and county leaders deserve our support and encouragement as they contemplate how best to resist Trump’s plans.

David Bolt

Sebastopol

THEY CALLED HER MISS MORGAN

Miss Morgan was only five feet tall, slender, plainly dressed, and frail in appearance. People said she had an almost Quaker look. She spoke softly, but "when she gave orders, it was with the authority of a Marine drill sergeant."

Miss Morgan was Julia Morgan, an architect. She graduated from the University of Berkeley in 1894 with a degree in Civil Engineering. She waited two years to be admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris because of her gender, eventually becoming the first woman to graduate there. She was also the first woman registered as an architect in California.

In 1904, Julia opened her own architectural firm, where she shared profits with her associates. Her career lasted 42 years, during which she designed approximately 790 buildings, including the famous Hearst Castle.

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

So what you're saying is that under the US capitalist system, unless we exploit immigrants to do the backbreaking work no US citizen wants to do, we can't afford to feed ourselves. Let that sink in.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

Warmest spiritual greetings,

As winter arrives in the district, the Washington, D.C. Peace Vigil and I have wished each other well. My 16th time being here in a supportive capacity has gone well; the prayer request to the Divine Absolute is in. Hydrating beverages and food have been delivered through the Autumn season. Therefore, I am free to move on. Accepting all offers…basic housing is required. 😀

Not identified with the body. Not identified with the mind. The Immortal Self we all are. Jivan Muktas only! What else is there to say, in the confusion and chaos which defines this civilization? Otherwise, I am biding time at a homeless shelter/drop-in center in the northeast section of the district.

Question: What would you do in this world if you knew that you could not fail?

Craig Louis Stehr, craiglouisstehr@gmail.com

ICE IS LOOKING FOR A NEW DETENTION CENTER IN BLUE CALIFORNIA. THE STATE PROBABLY CAN’T STOP IT

by Wendy Fry

Federal immigration authorities are looking for a potential new detention center in Northern California, an effort that alarms advocates and some Democratic state lawmakers as President-elect Donald Trump gears up to unleash his mass deportation plan.

In August, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issued a request for information to identify additional detention bed space in the state as other federal agencies intensified border enforcement. The effort began in the wake of the Biden administration’s sweeping asylum ban, implemented in June, for migrants caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border outside designated entry points. Under the ban, border agents can deport such migrants within hours or days without considering their asylum claims.

Advocates say an expansion of detention space would give Trump a runway to carry out more mass deportations in California. Immigrants in counties with more detention space are more likely to be arrested and detained, according to research by advocacy groups.

Unlike in Texas, where state officials are offering up land to the Trump administration to facilitate mass deportations, California tried to ban new federal immigrant detention centers from opening during the first Trump administration. The court blocked that, ruling that the state was unconstitutionally overstepping on federal immigration enforcement.California Attorney General Rob Bonta told CalMatters that the state may be powerless to stop the possibility of a new facility.

ICE’s Expansion Plans

Federal documents show ICE issued the request for information on Aug. 14. Such requests can pave the way for federal contracts, in this case to obtain “available detention facilities for single adult populations (male and female)” in Arizona, New Mexico, Washington, Oregon, and California. Its request says the facilities should each have from 850 to 950 detention beds and “may be publicly or privately owned and publicly or privately operated.”One of the facilities should be within a two-hour drive of the San Francisco field office, the documents state. The request also seeks facilities near field offices in Phoenix, El Paso, and Seattle.

“ICE has identified a need for immigration detention services within the Western U.S. area of responsibility,” ICE spokesman Richard Beam wrote in an email to CalMatters. “The proposed services are part of ICE’s effort to continually review its detention requirements and explore options that will afford ICE the operational flexibility needed to house the full range of detainees in the agency’s custody.”

Currently, ICE detains roughly 38,000 people every day in about 120 immigration jails across the country. In California, that number is just under 3,000 detainees each day, held in six facilities, according to the most recently available immigration data maintained by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.That’s the third-largest population of detained immigrants in the country.

While ICE, the federal agency responsible for immigration enforcement, owns and operates a very small number of facilities nationwide, it mostly contracts with private prison operators such as CoreCivic, GEO Group, and Management and Training Corp. Their detention facilities house 80% of ICE’s detainees. Stock for CoreCivic and GEO Group soared upon Trump’s win last month.

In California, private, for-profit prison companies run all six ICE detention facilities – the Golden State Annex and Mesa Verde detention facilities in Kern County; the Adelanto Detention Facility and Desert View Annex, both in San Bernardino County; the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego County; and the Imperial Regional Detention Facility in Imperial County.

Across all six, the federal government has the capacity to detain up to 7,188 people statewide.

State Sen. María Elena Durazo, a Democrat from Los Angeles, said she was concerned about the potential economic impacts of ICE having an increased capacity for detention and, therefore, deportations.

“The expansion of detention in California concerns everyone in our state. Expanding detention correlates with increased ICE raids and family separation, all of which has devastating social and economic impacts for California,” she said. “In addition, these facilities are run by private for-profit companies that consistently place their bottom-line profit above the health and safety of those who work in or are detained in these facilities.”

Advocates argue that detention expansions lead to human rights abuses and undermine community safety.

“An expansion of ICE detention operations within the Bay Area and Northern California is going to be part of a reign of terror on our communities the Trump administration is threatening,” said Bree Bernwanger, a senior staff attorney on the Immigrants’ Rights team at the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California. “We already know from existing facilities within California that ICE does not and cannot maintain safe and or healthy standards of confinement for people inside.”

The ACLU is suing to learn more about the federal agency’s expanded detention plans.

Bernwanger was referring to issues like complaints of sexually abusive patdowns. Also, in 2023, ICE allegedly retaliated against hunger strikers by storming into their cells, violently dragging them, threatening them with forced feedings, and then providing food that was not appropriate for breaking a 21-day fast, prompting a medical condition in at least one inmate, according to a claim filed by the inmate, who was represented by two advocacy groups.

In August, the civil liberties organization released a 34-page report detailing 485 grievances filed by detainees across six immigration detention facilities in California between 2023 and June 2024. Those grievances included allegations of hazardous facilities, inhumane treatment, medical neglect, and retaliation.

ICE declined to comment on the report.

California Failed To Ban For-Profit Federal Detention Centers

In December 2019, California passed a law that would have banned private immigration detention centers. It was part of a wave of resistance by California Democrats to the first Trump administration. It also prohibited the state from using for-profit prisons for any inmates starting in 2028. The for-profit facilities “contribute to over-incarceration” and “do not reflect our values,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement when signing the bill.

Days before the law was set to go into effect, ICE signed new contracts for its facilities in California. The federal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals later overturned the state’s ban on private prisons.

Bonta, who wrote the unsuccessful ban as an Oakland assemblymember, told CalMatters in November that the state might not be able to stop ICE from opening another detention facility outside of San Francisco.

“It’s a matter of federal jurisdiction,” Bonta said. “It’s federal. I disagree, but my office’s disagreement was considered, and the court determined that it was a federal issue.”

Yantiss family in 1898, probably taken in the courtyard of the American Colony building, Jerusalem.

PARDON ME, BUT THIS IS BULLSHIT

Joe Biden or whoever is running the White House can absolve anyone they please, but Anthony Fauci needs to stand tall before the man. The world is owed answers

by Matt Taibbi

They’re laughing at us now. From Politico:

White House officials… are carefully weighing the extraordinary step of handing out blanket pardons to those who’ve committed no crimes… [worried] it could suggest impropriety, only fueling Trump’s criticisms, and because those offered preemptive pardons may reject them… mentioned by Biden’s aides for a pardon is Anthony Fauci, the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who became a lightning rod for criticism from the right during the Covid-19 pandemic.

If Anthony Fauci gets a “blanket” pardon, he’ll wrap himself and sleep in it. Plan B was living under an assumed name in Argentina, dressed in the Anthony Hopkins vacation suit from Silence of the Lambs. Throughout the pandemic the NIAID head showed he was willing to do anything, from shuttering schools to lying to Congress to making private campaign stops at intelligence agencies to urge investigators off his path, to keep the ick of scandal off his person. He won’t reject squat.

The Politico piece by Jonathan Martin might be the first of the era that needs to be read entirely between the lines. White House officials are “carefully weighing” preemptive pardons really means White House officials already decided, but are publicly floating the idea. Pardons for “those who’ve committed no crimes” means those who’ve committed crimes. “Could suggest impropriety” is would admit impropriety. Criticism from “the right” is criticism from all. It goes on…

https://www.racket.news/p/pardon-me-but-this-is-bullshit

NOAM CHOMSKY AT 96: A MASSIVE INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL FORCE

by Robert F. Barsky

Noam Chomsky, one of the world’s most famous and respected intellectuals, will be 96 years old on Dec. 7, 2024. For more than half a century, multitudes of people have read his works in a variety of languages, and many people have relied on his commentaries and interviews for insights about intellectual debates and current events.

Chomsky suffered a stroke in June 2023 that has severely limited his movement, impaired his speech and impeded his ability to travel. His birthday provides an occasion to consider the tremendous corpus of works that he created over the years and to reflect on the many ways that his texts and recordings still critically engage with contemporary discussions all across disciplines and realms.

Chomsky’s vast body of work includes scientific research focused on language, human nature and the mind, and political writings about U.S. imperialism, Israel and Palestine, Central America, the Vietnam War, coercive institutions, the media and the many ways in which people’s needs are subjugated in the interest of profit and control.

As a scholar of humanities and law, I’ve engaged with Chomsky’s work from an array of perspectives and authored a biography called “Noam Chomsky: A Life of Dissent” and a book on Chomsky’s influence called “The Chomsky Effect: A Radical Works Beyond the Ivory Tower.” One important theme in his broad corpus is his lifelong fascination with human creativity, which helps explain his vociferous attacks on those who seek to keep the rabble in line.

Early days

Avram Noam Chomsky was born on Dec. 7, 1928, in Philadelphia. He and his younger brother, David Chomsky, were raised in a lively household by Elsie Simonofsky and William (Zev) Chomsky, progressive educators who were deeply immersed in wide-ranging Jewish and Zionist cultural activities.

Chomsky often dates his own interest in teaching and learning to his close readings of Hebrew works with his parents and to the lively educational experiences he enjoyed at the Oak Lane County Day School, an experimental school that subscribed to John Dewey’s approach to immersive learning and promoted individual creativity over competition with other students.

A precocious learner, Chomsky at 12 years old read the proofs for his father’s book about a 13th-century Hebrew grammarian named David Kimhi. It was an auspicious beginning to a life immersed in philology, philosophy and the study of language and the mind. From very early on, he sought to understand innate human propensities for freedom, dignity and creativity, which inspired his interest in fostering those properties of human nature.

While Chomsky’s parents were what he called normal Roosevelt Democrats, he was drawn to more radical approaches to society and to the promotion of noncoercive social structures. At age 10, he read about the Spanish Civil War, which inspired him to write an editorial about the fall of Barcelona for his school’s newspaper. This was an early harbinger of his public intellectual work and his vociferous challenges to systems of oppression and illegitimate authority.

As a young man, Chomsky joined a socialist wing of the Zionist youth movement that opposed a Jewish state, and from his readings and discussions he came to favor Arab-Jewish class cooperation in a socialist Palestine. His deep knowledge of Palestine and Israel, bolstered by his ability to read and speak Arabic and Hebrew, helped inform his many vehement critiques of Israeli state power.

Chomsky on John Dewey’s approach to education: how to produce free, creative, independent human beings.

Radical pedagogy

After an early education focused on self-discovery and free-ranging exploration, Chomsky was introduced in high school to rote learning, competition with other students and a mainstream system of values. In reaction, he began to make regular trips to New York City, where he explored bookstores. He also made regular visits with a relative who ran a newsstand on 72nd Street that served as a lively intellectual center for emigrés interested in more radical approaches to society.

In 1944, Chomsky completed high school and enrolled in the University of Pennsylvania. Although he has expressed some dismay about the structures of conformity and status quo thinking he encountered there, he did find inspiration in courses with philosopher C. West Churchman, linguist Giorgio Levi Della Vida and, moreover, linguist Zellig Harris. Chomsky knew members of the Harris family because Zellig Harris’ father hosted Jewish services in the Harris home that the Chomsky family occasionally attended.

Chomsky’s father’s approach to the study of language bore similarities to Zellig Harris’ work in Semitics, the study of Arabic, Hebrew and other Semitic languages. Harris invited Noam to read the proofs of his “Methods in Structural Linguistics.” This highly anticipated book was rooted in the idea that the function and the meaning of linguistic elements are determined by their their relationship to other components that make up sentences. After working hard to understand Harris’ linguistics paradigm, Chomsky eventually abandoned it, but he remained fascinated by Harris’ political views and by the unstructured, lively and creative debates that he promoted.

Chomsky met Carol Doris Schatz at the Hebrew School where her mother taught and Chomsky’s father was principal. Years later, when they were both students at the University of Pennsylvania, they started dating. They were married in 1949, and four years later they decided to move to an Israeli kibbutz, or communal agricultural settlement. They had expected to find a culture of creative free thinking there. Instead, they were deeply disappointed to find what Chomsky described as ideological conformity to Stalinist ideology. They returned to the U.S. after only six weeks.

The young couple settled in Boston and started a family. Noam pursued graduate work, while Carol paused her own studies to raise the children. She later returned to research on language acquisition, which she eventually taught and researched at MIT and Harvard. Carol Chomsky died in 2008. Noam remarried in 2014, to the Brazilian translator Valeria Wasserman Chomsky.

Chomskian revolution

When Chomsky was a student, most academic psychologists described human language as a system of habits, skills or dispositions to act that are acquired through extensive training, induction, generalization and association. By this account, language grows incrementally with experience, reinforced by a system of rewards and punishments.

This framework was at the heart of a structuralist paradigm, which analyzed the form and meaning of texts as different parts of the same thing. Any language, from this standpoint, restricts how phonemes and morphemes – the smallest units of sound and meaning in language – and other constituents are assembled and distributed. By this view, humans have the capacity to learn language in ways akin to how they acquire other kinds of knowledge.

Chomsky’s Ph.D. work, the resulting 1957 book “Syntactic Structures” and his New York Review of Books review of B.F. Skinner’s “Verbal Behaviour” challenged this paradigm and heralded the Chomskian linguistics revolution.

Chomsky’s theory of universal grammar in the history of how philosophers have viewed the human mind and language acquisition.

Chomsky’s starting point was that humans are endowed with universal grammar, which is activated by exposure to natural language. Children gain proficiency in a language by building on innate knowledge. This means that the capacity for language quite literally grows in the mind in a manner akin to how organs develop in the body.

Chomsky’s interest in innate human abilities draws in part from a range of philosophical treatises penned in the 17th and 18th centuries and associated with the Port Royal system of logic and Enlightenment philosophy, which emphasized science, individual liberty and the rule of law. He developed these ideas in a book called “Cartesian Linguistics,” which outlined his intellectual debt to the writings of, among others, Descartes, Kant, Rousseau and Wilhelm von Humboldt.

By the early 1960s, Chomsky’s work had gained him recognition in linguistics, philosophy and psychology. His own research, and that conducted by the growing number of linguists who adopted his approach, led to significant advances in the study of syntax, generative grammar, language and the mind, semantics, form and the interpretation of language.

His political engagement was documented in what I believe is a remarkable collection of interviews and books about U.S. imperialism, the Cold War, the Middle East, Central America and Southeast Asia, including “Problems of Knowledge and Freedom” and “For Reasons of State.” Puzzled by Americans’ spirit of resigned consensus, he began to collaborate with Edward S. Herman on books including “Counter-Revolutionary Violence,” “The Political Economy of Human Rights” and “Manufacturing Consent,” which was turned into a popular film by the same name.

Common thread

The common thread connecting Chomsky’s many intellectual projects are four “problems” that were the focus of much of his life’s work. One is Plato’s problem, which considers why it is that humans, whose contact with the world is brief and limited, can come to know so much. The second is Orwell’s complementary problem, which asks how is it that human beings know so little given the amount of information to which they have access. The third is Descartes’ problem, which pertains to the human capacity to freely express thoughts in constantly novel ways over an infinite range by means that are appropriate to circumstances but not caused by them. Finally, there’s Humboldt’s problem, which focuses on what constitutes language.

These problems are connected in different ways to how people learn, what impedes human development, and to speculations about the initial state of the language faculty, which he outlined in a range of texts, including “Knowledge of Language: Its Nature, Origin, and Use,” “Language and Problems of Knowledge: The Managua Lectures,” “The Minimalist Program” and “Why Only Us? Language and Evolution,” with Robert C. Berwick.

Chomsky’s legacy

Remarkably tenacious and active, Chomsky continued to publish and to speak out on contemporary issues into his mid-90s. His ideas evolved but were rooted in a series of deeply seated ideas about the nature of the human mind. He is one of the most cited intellectuals in history, and he was voted the leading living public intellectual in The 2005 Global Intellectuals Poll. Millions of people have watched his debates and discussions with William F. Buckley, Angela Davis, Alan Dershowitz, Michel Foucault, Howard Gardner, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Perle, Jean Piaget, Briahna Joy Gray and even Ali G.

As the figure widely viewed as the founder of cognitive sciences, Chomsky has been critical of the hype surrounding big data, artificial intelligence and ChatGPT.

As a voice for the downtrodden and the oppressed, he has spoken from the perspective of human rights, intellectual self-defense and the popular struggle through independent thinking against structures of power and subjugation.

Chomsky’s extraordinary achievements resonate far and wide – and are likely to continue to do so into the future.

(Robert F. Barsky is Professor of Humanities and Professor of Law at Vanderbilt University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. CounterPunch.org.)

THREE STEPS TO FIXING THE FBI: INTERVIEW WITH WHISTLEBLOWER COLEEN ROWLEY

Depoliticization, decentralization, and transparency are all achievable goals

by Matt Taibbi

On August 13, 2001, 33-year-old French citizen Zacarias Moussaoui paid $6,800 in $100 bills to train on a 747 simulator at the Pan-Am International Flight Academy in Eagan, Minnesota. A retired Northwest Airlines pilot named Clarence “Clancy” Prevost thought Moussaoui’s behavior was odd for someone with no pilot’s license and told his bosses as much. When they said Moussaoui had paid and they didn’t care, Prevost said, “We’ll care when there's a hijacking and the lawsuits come in.”

The company went to the FBI and on August 16, in what should have been one of the biggest arrests in the history of federal law enforcement, Moussaoui was picked up on an immigration violation. Agents on the case wanted permission to search Moussaoui’s belongings, with one asking superiors as many as 70 times for help in obtaining a warrant. The situation grew more urgent when the French Intelligence Service sent information that Moussaoui was connected to Islamic radicals with ties both to Osama bin Laden and the Chechen warlord Khattab, and that even within this crowd, Moussaoui was nicknamed “the dangerous one.”

Coleen Rowley, the Chief Division Counsel for the Minneapolis Field Office, absorbed agents’ concerns quickly and was aggressive in asking superiors to seek a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to investigate further. One of the goals was a look at Moussaoui’s computer, as agents believed he’d signaled he had “something to hide” in there. But unlike the former Northwest pilot Prevost, whose superiors trusted his judgment and escalated his concerns, Rowley and the Minneapolis field office were denied by senior lawyers at FBI Headquarters. The Bureau was sitting on the means to stop 9/11 when the planes hit the towers.

This story is actually worse than described, as Rowley made clear in what became a famous letter she wrote to then-Director Robert Mueller the following May. “Even after the attacks had begun,” she wrote, “the [Supervisory Special Agent] in question was still attempting to block the search of Moussaoui's computer, characterizing the World Trade Center attacks as a mere coincidence with Misseapolis’ prior suspicions about Moussaoui.”

While the Bureau blamed 9/11 on a lack of investigatory authority, the actions of the Minnesota office showed otherwise. Rowley’s decision to confront Mueller with a laundry list of unnecessary bureaucratic failures made her perhaps the FBI’s most famous whistleblower. Her letter excoriated the Bureau’s Washington officeholders for failing to appreciate agents in the field, and for implicitly immunizing themselves against culpability.

“It’s true we all make mistakes and I’m not suggesting that HQ personnel in question ought to be burned at the stake, but, we all need to be held accountable for serious mistakes,” she wrote, adding: “I’m relatively certain that if it appeared that a lowly field office agent had committed such errors of judgment, the FBI’s [Office of Professional Responsibility] would have been notified to investigate and the agent would have, at the least, been quickly reassigned.”

The relentless and uncompromising style of Rowley’s letter made it a model for whistleblower complaints. As the administration of George W. Bush hurtled toward war in Iraq, Rowley was made a cultural and media icon, occupying the center spot on Time magazine’s “Persons of the Year” cover in January, 2003.

For these reasons and more I was pleased to see after running articles earlier this week about the FBI and the reported choice of Kash Patel as Director that Coleen commented under the second one. I’d reached out to her previously after four whistleblowers came forward about questionable post-J6 investigations, and with the choice of Patel and rumors of a major housecleaning of the Bureau’s Washington office, similar issues seemed in play. “A large majority of FBI agents always held Headquarters in contempt, knowing that it only attracted the losers, brown-nosing careerist political hacks who wanted to climb the ladder to go thru the ‘revolving door’ at age 50 to make their corporate millions,” she wrote. “The best, most competent agents typically refused to sacrifice their integrity and their families to climb the ladder in that Washington, DC cesspool.”

Part of my personal frustration with the FBI story is that the audiences that cared about its Bush-era offenses have largely turned a blind eye to its issues since Donald Trump’s rise to power, even though many problems are similar. Coleen, who manages the tough trick of maintaining the respect of both liberal and conservative audiences, is the perfect person to help bridge that gap. I reached out to her earlier this week and we talked about Patel, the long-term challenges facing the Bureau, and possible fixes.

MT: Kash Patel made public comments about closing the Washington headquarters and turning it into a “museum of the deep state.” He added he’d then “take the 7,000 employees that work in that building and send them across America to chase down criminals.” Does that make any sense?

Coleen Rowley: I hate to go to bat for Kash Patel because I’ve been disappointed by all of these people in Washington. It’s such a cesspool. I really don’t think anybody can keep their head above it. So I hate to really laud him, but I do think he is completely correct on three or four things, and they’re major things. And he’s getting smeared for the thing that he’s most correct about. FBI headquarters: the FBI itself wants to take that down.

MT: How?

Coleen Rowley: Agents hate the J. Edgar Hoover building on Philadelphia Avenue. They’ve been talking about moving forever, all the agents. It was considered a matter of pride to not stoop to go to headquarters. This goes way back. Everyone knew that the ones who were going to headquarters were the ones trying to climb the ladder. They didn’t care about cases. They would always do what’s politically correct. And so they were all made fun of. In fact, Jules Bonavolonta wrote a book about how bad headquarters was.

MT: Is it The Good Guys?

Coleen Rowley: That sounds right. Everyone in the FBI knew that the people in that building were corrupted, because they’d decided to sacrifice themselves to go to headquarters in order to become somebody, by managing. And then especially in later years, the real incentive was to go through that revolving door to make a lot of money. And that’s the Strzoks and McCabes, and all those people.

MT: You’ve talked in the past about a dichotomy between agents in the field and the politically-minded managers at headquarters. Why is that divide harmful?

Coleen Rowley: Because the real work is done in the field. Headquarters was just there to help you do your work. Well, the 9/11 story is a perfect example. I wrote another op-ed in the Los Angeles Times called WikiLeaks and 9/11: What If? It was about this whole idea that’s very counterintuitive to what people are brainwashed to think, but sharing information is the key. The 9/11 Commission even said that if they had just shared information between agencies and then with the public, 9/11 would not have happened.

MT: They said there was a “failure to connect the dots,” I think.

Coleen Rowley: I was asked this when I testified to the Senate Judiciary about siloing and how the information, when it goes up the pipeline, gets convoluted and bottlenecked at headquarters because they want to keep power for themselves there. They really don’t want to let the field and the agents do the job. They want to have so-called oversight. I mean, that’s the good term for it, oversight, but it’s worse than that. They just want to keep the power there.

MT: You wrote that one of the things you liked was the possibility that Patel might decentralize the Bureau. What might that entail?

Coleen Rowley: They could delegate down FISA, and I’m not the first person to have this idea. Legal scholars say one of the best ideas to avoid this bottlenecking of information that occurs at headquarters is for the FISA judges not to have to travel to one particular SCIF [Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility] in Washington. Keep the judges actually out in the field.

MT: I didn’t realize that.

Coleen Rowley: Yeah. They have SCIFs all over the country. So it’s not a problem. And it could be easily delegated down. Why does every request have to go through headquarters and the DOJ, except for control reasons? In all other matters, like criminal Title IIIs, you go straight to a judge. Some judges, they’re going to have differing opinions on things. And maybe a judge, every once in a while, would say no to a Title III.

MT: But that happens anyway, doesn’t it?

Coleen Rowley: Yeah. Very seldom with FISA, but yes. With a FISA application, they’re usually a hundred pages long and there’s tons of probable cause, and every Title III I ever read was beyond reasonable doubt by the time a judge saw it, to be honest. But this travesty that occurred with FISA is because it’s all bottlenecked up there for control in Washington DC, and with a handful of people who don’t want to share this information. I mean, I’ve got so many stories. They won’t even share the Moussaoui story with other offices even after 9/11.

MT: What?

Coleen Rowley: Yeah, because they’re trying to cover it up… It’s a long story but the desire for control at headquarters is a huge thing.

MT: The last time we talked, you might’ve mentioned the suggestion of having more of the Bureau’s top officials gain experience in the field. Wouldn’t that give them more grounding in what’s actually going on in the world? It seems like that’s a problem.

Coleen Rowley: These supervisors at headquarters learn bad habits. You try to “punch your ticket.” That’s the terminology. You try to go there for your year and a half. You hate it, but you do it. You have to bend over and please the bosses to get through that year and a half in order to “punch your ticket” and climb the ladder. The risk aversion is incredible. As a whole, the most competent and best investigators, and this goes to Kash Patel, he gets kudos for actually having investigated something. He was a public defender for seven years, so he has seen things from the other side of an investigation. Meanwhile, by contrast, Comey came out of Lockheed, and I forget where Wray came from [eds. note: Wray worked at King and Spaulding, earning $14 million advising clients like Chevron, Wells Fargo, and Johnson & Johnson], but they came out with millions in their pockets. What is their background? Did they ever actually investigate? Did they ever actually even work in criminal justice? No. So they are political creatures. Not case-makers. Kash at least has some experience.

MT: Seemed like he did a good job with the Nunes memo…

Coleen Rowley: Yes. Whoever did the investigation - I doubt it was solely him - but yeah, they did a great job on that because controlling the press and everything. It’s sad though that it hasn’t reached a lot of the public after all this time. I think it’s important because between the call for transparency… The funny thing is Patel will be all for the whistleblowers of the FBI that you called me about before, the ones that were chagrined about all the stuff they had to do after January 6th. But now he’s going to be against anybody being a whistleblower if he abuses power? It’s always that way. But that call for transparency is key. That’s a test. Then the debunking of Russiagate, and how the FBI got so politicized. And then thirdly, the decentralization of the FBI, so that you take that power out of Washington, DC, where it’s so close to corruption and revolving doors.

MT: There’s one more thing that I wanted to ask about, because you mentioned it in a piece you sent to the New York Times about Comey before he was named Director. You talked about the tactic of trying to “incapacitate” suspects who can’t be prosecuted. This goes along with that issue of “disruption” or “discrediting.” Does the Bureau need to get back to making cases as opposed to these extrajudicial techniques? Can Patel do that?

Coleen Rowley: All that goes back to COINTELPRO.

MT: Right.

Coleen Rowley: One of the things I would hope for, which I haven’t seen it mentioned anywhere, is that he could do something to reduce the entrapment-type cases that just burgeoned with Mueller. Talk about hypocrisy. He went to the ACLU and gave a speech about civil liberties. The whole ACLU stands up and applauds him, all while he is starting those entrapment cases. I was still in the FBI. I retired a year later, took my pension and left. I was like, oh, this is so wrong. They hired these con artist informants to infiltrate Muslim groups. There are books written about this now. [On a recent radio show] I said it’s possible that yes, maybe some of these tactics actually did prevent some nut from going further. You can’t say that isn’t true. On the other hand, the numbers here of cases that were based on the FBI telling vulnerable people, “Look, we can get you a bomb. We can get you this.” And then all of a sudden, when the guy looks like he’s going to press the button on it, that’s when they have the take-down. It’s such a formula and you’re not accomplishing anything if you’re creating crime. We have so much crime in this country now. If I was Kash Patel, that’s what I would be saying. When they asked me those questions, I’d say, “We’ve got so much crime. It’s all over the country. Why can’t we have more agents out in the field working cases and trying to reduce the violence and the crime and the drug dealing, et cetera?” I think that would be a real winner politically for him to say.

MT: It sounds like you think it’s possible for him to fix some things. But we shouldn’t set ourselves up for disappointment.

Coleen Rowley: I’ve just gotten so cynical. I don’t put hope in anything or anybody anymore. Obama… even going way back, I don’t put hope out with anybody… But if he gets support on some of these things, the call for transparency, depoliticization and decentralization, there’s a chance.

MT: Let’s hope. Thank you!

THE STORY OF JACK JOHNSON, STANLEY KETCHEL AND THE PANTOMIME THAT WENT WRONG

by Carlos Acevedo

After it was all over, after heavyweight champion Jack Johnson had left Stanley Ketchel horizontal, seemingly lifeless, on the canvas, a few teeth newly dislodged; after the referee had tolled the count of ‘ten’ under the big sky of Colma, California; after the crowd, disappointed, streamed out of the Mission Street Arena, the two combatants rendezvoused at a gambling hall to shoot craps. It was only fitting. In the ring, Johnson, over 200 pounds, and Ketchel, the reigning middleweight king, were comically mismatched; outside of it, they were kindred spirits, two reckless sporting men with unbridled desires: for action, for women, for liquor, for cars.

When they met for the heavyweight title on October 16, 1909, boxing remained outlawed throughout most of the United States, and its amoral ethos was closer to the unruly spirit of medicine shows and carny mid-ways. And the Johnson-Ketchel battle might have been better suited for a stage than a ring. From the beginning, this matchup, which was a prelude to the Jack Johnson-Jim Jeffries extravaganza the following year, was as counterfeit as a goldbrick. But it ended legitimately, violently, when Ketchel either agreed to an authentic finish for the sake of verisimilitude or when Ketchel betrayed Johnson halfway through their swindle.…

https://boxingnewsonline.net/the-story-of-jack-johnson-stanley-ketchel-and-the-pantomime-that-went-wrong/

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TORRENT OF HATE FOR HEALTH INSURANCE INDUSTRY FOLLOWS C.E.O.’S KILLING

The shooting death of a UnitedHealthcare executive in Manhattan has unleashed Americans’ frustrations with an industry that often denies coverage and reimbursement for medical claims.

by Dionne Searcey & Madison Malone Kircher

The fatal shooting on Wednesday of a top UnitedHealthcare executive, Brian Thompson, on a Manhattan sidewalk has unleashed a torrent of morbid glee from patients and others who say they have had negative experiences with health insurance companies at some of the hardest times of their lives.

It is unclear what motivated the incident or whether it was tied to Mr. Thompson’s work in the insurance industry. The police have yet to identify the shooter who is still on the loose.

But that did not stop social media commenters from leaping to conclusions and from showing a blatant lack of sympathy over the death of a man who was a husband and father of two children.

“Thoughts and deductibles to the family,” read one comment underneath a video of the shooting posted online by CNN. “Unfortunately my condolences are out-of-network.”

On TikTok, one user wrote, “I’m an ER nurse and the things I’ve seen dying patients get denied for by insurance makes me physically sick. I just can’t feel sympathy for him because of all of those patients and their families.”

The dark commentary after the death of Mr. Thompson, a 50-year-old insurance executive from Maple Grove, Minn., highlighted the anger and frustration over the state of health care in America, where those with private insurance often find themselves in Kafka-esque tangles while seeking reimbursement for medical treatment and are often denied.

Messages that law enforcement officials say were found on bullet casings at the scene of the shooting in front of a Midtown hotel — “delay” and “deny” — are two words familiar to many Americans who have interacted with insurance companies for almost anything other than routine doctor visits.

Mr. Thompson was chief executive of his company’s insurance division, which reported $281 billion in revenue last year, providing coverage to millions of Americans through the health plans it sold to individuals, employers and people under government programs like Medicare. The division employs roughly 140,000 people.

Mr. Thompson received a $10.2 million compensation package last year, a combination of $1 million in base pay and cash and stock grants. He was shot to death as he was walking toward the annual investor day for UnitedHealth Group, UnitedHealthcare’s parent company.

Stephan Meier, the chair of the management division at Columbia Business School, said the attack could send shock waves through the broader health insurance industry.

About seven chief executives of publicly traded companies die each year, he said, but almost always from health complications or accidents. A targeted attack could have much larger implications.

“The insurance industry is not the most loved, to put it mildly,” Mr. Meier said. “If you’re a C-suite executive of another insurance company, I would be thinking, What’s this mean for me? Am I next?”

A longtime employee of UnitedHealthcare said that workers at the company had been aware for years that members were unhappy. Mr. Thompson was one of the few executives who wanted to do something about it, said the employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the company does not allow workers to speak publicly without permission.

In speeches to employees, Mr. Thompson spoke about the need to change the state of health care coverage in the country and the culture of the company, topics other executives avoided, the employee said.

Already, there is heightened concern among some public-facing health care companies, said Eric Sean Clay, the president of the International Association for Healthcare Security and Safety. The trade group includes members that offer security to some of the largest health care companies in North America.

“The C.E.O.s are quite often the most visible face of an organization,” he said. “Sometimes people hate on that individual, and wish to do them harm.”

But few health care companies provide security for their executives, he said, in part to avoid bad optics, or because it may seem unnecessary.

In the hours after the shooting early Wednesday morning, social media exploded with anger toward the insurance industry and Mr. Thompson.

“I pay $1,300 a month for health insurance with an $8,000 deductible. ($23,000 yearly) When I finally reached that deductible, they denied my claims. He was making a million dollars a month,” read one comment on TikTok.

Another commenter wrote, “This needs to be the new norm. EAT THE RICH.”

“The ambulance ride to the hospital probably won’t be covered,” wrote a commenter on a TikTok video in which another user featured an audio clip from the Netflix show “Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story.” In it, the queen makes a dramatic show of faux sorrow over a death.

The shooting prompted a wrenching outpouring of patients and family members who also posted horror stories of insurance claim reimbursement stagnation and denials.

One woman expressed frustration with trying to get a special bed for her disabled son covered by UnitedHealthcare. Another user described struggling with bills and coverage after giving birth.

“It is so stressful,” the user said in a video. “I was sick over this.”

(NY Times)

KYLE KULINSKI on the United Healthcare President Murder

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYBrYxgTbH8

UNITEDHEALTHCARE CEO'S ASSASSINATION TRIGGERS OUTPOURING OF HATE DIRECTED AT HEALTH INSURANCE INDUSTRY

by James Reynolds

The assassination of UnitedHealthcare executive Brian Thompson has triggered tasteless celebrations and bad taste support for the gunman who killed him.

Mr Thompson was shot outside the Hilton Hotel in Manhattan on Wednesday morning by a masked assassin, who remains on the run and whose motive has not been disclosed.

As news of the cold-blooded killing spread, thousands declared they were happy at news of the horrific killing of the 50 year-old father of two and even cooed over the murderer's apparent good looks.

The moderators of the r/medicine forum had to close a Reddit thread after news of Mr Thompson's death collected more than 500 replies, often critical of UnitedHealthcare. The top comment, from a nurse, was a lengthy parody of a template response denying pay-out for the victim.

'We understand that you were actively “bleeding out,” but this does not exempt you from exploring lower-cost care pathways,' the post said.

UnitedHealthcare, the biggest health insurer by market share in America, was rocked by protests over the alleged systematic denial of pay-outs to patients earlier this year.

Authorities found three live bullets and three spent casings at the scene, which they said had the words 'depose', 'deny' and 'defend' scrawled on them.

This drew comparison to the similarly titled 2010 book 'Delay, Deny, Defend' - a scathing criticism of 'why insurance companies don't pay out and what you can do about it' - and sparked wide speculation online.

The internet was sent into frenzy by the reports of the shooting on the streets of Manhattan early on Wednesday morning.

On TikTok, one user wrote: 'I’m an ER nurse and the things I’ve seen dying patients get denied for by insurance makes me physically sick. I just can’t feel sympathy for him because of all of those patients and their families.'

Another user wrote on Twitter/X: 'I saw the news of this literally while on the phone with UHC about them denying my prior authorization for medication. Wild stuff'

Analysis by ValuePenguin concluded UnitedHealthcare denies 32 per cent of claims, against the industry average for large health insurance companies of 16 per cent.

The assassination and frenzied criticism of UnitedHealthcare sparked wider debate about the state of the industry.

User Eric Gallion wrote: 'We are taxed almost 40% and none of it covers our healthcare. We should all be demanding universal healthcare not fighting it.'

User Trampas added: 'For profit insurance is a profiteering parasitic industry by definition.'

Pointed criticism of UnitedHealthcare took a macabre turn as users showed their apathy towards the news.

Instagram user Justin Rob wrote: 'I'm sorry, prior authorization is required for thoughts and prayers'.

Another wrote: 'Was his trip to the ER really emergent? According to his own company, my husband's heart attack wasn't an [actual] emergency and we were out 3k (full deductible)'.

A sick tribute appeared outside the hotel where Mr Thompson was gunned down soon after the news circulated.

A balloon with a sign taped to it reading 'CEO DOWN' over the image of a smiling star and party poppers was found outside the Hilton Hotel.

The same image on the balloon was also shared on former Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz's BlueSky account.

'People have very justified hatred toward insurance company CEOs because these executives are responsible for an unfathomable amount of death and suffering,' she wrote in a separate post.

'As someone against death and suffering, I think it’s good to call out this broken system and the [people] in power who enable it.'

Mr Thompson was the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare's insurance division, reporting $281bn in revenue last year and providing healthcare to millions of Americans.

Last year alone, Mr Thompson received a $10.2mn compensation package, including $1mn in base pay, cash and stock grants.

Other users shared their thoughts as NYPD shared photos of a hooded 'person of interest' believed to be connected to the shooting.

'genxistentialcrisis' said in a popular post on TikTok: 'The "adjuster" is fine, like I barely like dudes and that guy is gorgeous... It was like are you right out of Assassin's Creed right now?'

'Just riding away on a bicycle: eco-conscious. Worried about that carbon footprint right there. Truly a man of the people, really.'

The video continued for some 65 seconds.

Posts on Twitter/X saw the NYPD-shared first images of the suspect crudely photoshopped onto covers of TIME Magazine, and calls to pardon him.

A congressman has condemned internet trolls currently gloating over the assassination of Thompson.

'Seems like leftists opposed to killing terrorists in the Middle East support killing CEOs in Midtown Manhattan,' wrote Representative Dean Phillips.

Phillips, a Democrat who represents Thompson's home district in Minnesota, spoke as online ghouls rejoiced in the cold-blooded execution of the healthcare chief.

Among them were one poster who wrote on X: 'Brian Thompson ran a company based off exploiting people during the most vulnerable times in their life.

'I'm not sad he's dead.'

Another shared a gif of a pastor praising Jesus, writing: 'CEOs of predatory corporations getting popped, turn this up. Peace out, Brian Thompson.'

Mr Thompson is understood to have been in New York for a conference when he was shot.

His schedule was widely known, and witnesses have said the suspected gunman even knew which door Thompson was going to emerge from before opening fire.

The medical giant was set to announce bumper revenue and profits, with Thompson, a married father, wearing a shirt and tie as he was gunned down.

UnitedHealthcare had been subject to rife criticism over as a large health insurer.

Mr Thompson's grieving widow, with whom he has two sons, claimed that her husband had received threats before he was shot.

'There had been some threats,' Paulette Thompson, 51, told NBC News as she broke her silence in her first comments since her husband was killed.

A protest earlier this year led to the arrests of 11 people outside the United Healthcare headquarters in Minnetonka, Minnesota.

Mr Thompson was also being investigated by the Department of Justice for antitrust violations and was accused of insider trading.

The department launched a probe into whether the private company was unfairly restricting competitors and running a monopoly.

A year ago, Mr Thompson received backlash on LinkedIn when he posted that UnitedHealthcare was working 'every day to find ways to make healthcare more affordable'.

A fellow business executive commented: 'Brian Thompson, this seems like a laudable mission, but UnitedHealthcare Group is failing my mother by not providing her the basic care to get better and back to her life.

'You continue to delay any decision making and authorizations which is compromising her health even more -- and if she doesn't get back to her baseline, UnitedHealth Group is partially responsible.'

Another user, working in clinical trials, wrote: 'This message is an example of hypocrisy at its finest. You are denying claims for people who need it.'

A sales manager at a third company wrote: 'The only thing this company is good for is screwing their customers.'

Police are still searching for the killer, who escaped on an electric bike after shooting Mr Thompson, who later died in hospital.

They have tracked him back to the HI New York City Hostel in Manhattan's Upper West Side, and are investigating casings, live rounds and a cellphone found near the scene.

Police on Thursday released two images of a 'person of interest' believed to be connected to the shooting.

NYPD officials have offered a $10,000 reward for information that could lead to the shooter's capture.

Mr Thompson is survived by his wife and their two children who live in the family's $1.5 million home in Maple Grove, Minnesota.

(dailymail.co.uk)

Robert Louis Stevenson and his wife Fanny, Nan Tok and Natakanti, Butaritari Island, Kiribati, c 1890.

34 Comments

Kimberlin December 6, 2024

“ICE IS LOOKING FOR A NEW DETENTION CENTER” And yet you all still maintain that Biden is a villain and that there is no difference between Trump and Harris. Well, get ready for some pain.

Reply
- Harvey Reading December 6, 2024
  
  Biden is the brain-dead former senator from Citibank. Trump is a brainless mutant, born to wealth (otherwise he would have met his end in a New York City gutter in the 70s) and very stupid. Both represent the degree to which this pitiful country has fallen over the last 60 or so years. The woman you mentioned fits right in with them.
  
  Reply
  - Kimberlin December 7, 2024
    
    Same goes for you…”When I read your comments I wonder how well read are you? What do you actually know about American history”
    
    For instance, have you read any of Thomas Jefferson’s letters to Alexander Hamilton? One famous one list’s his fears about the county’s future.
    
    Another, A key concern of James Madison and Alexander Hamilton… “was that demagogues would incite mobs and factions to defy the rule of law, overturn free and fair elections and undermine American democracy. “The only path to a subversion of the republican system of the Country is, by flattering the prejudices of the people, and exciting their jealousies and apprehensions, to throw affairs into confusion, and bring on civil commotion,” Alexander Hamilton wrote in 1790. “When a man unprincipled in private life, desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper…is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity,” Hamilton warned, “he may ‘ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.”
    
    This is exactly what we have now with Trump, “unprincipled in private life, desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper…”
    And you see no difference between Trump and Biden Harris. Get ready for your pain.
    
    Reply
- Call It As I See It December 6, 2024
  
  California should have some prisons available after Newscum released a whole array of criminals on us. Remember Covid, which he used an Emergency Order to become a dictator. Funny, I thought Trump was the dictator?
  
  Reply
- Do Not Comment December 6, 2024
  
  You’re a good guy, Bill, but you still think what’s written in the NYT is real and that they have some kind of moral standing. They don’t.
  
  I wrote a long reply, but then I realized it wouldn’t get past moderation. Suffice to say…
  
  As the child looked up and saw that drone that was about to bomb their family, do you think they thought to themselves “Gosh, I’m so glad my family is going to be killed by someone with a superior American domestic policy! What an honor!” …?
  
  American exceptionalism is global terrorism.
  
  Reply
  - Kimberlin December 7, 2024
    
    When I read your comments I wonder how well read are you? What do you actually know about American history”
    
    For instance, have you read any of Thomas Jefferson’s letters to Alexander Hamilton? One famous one list’s his fears about the county’s future.
    
    Another, A key concern of James Madison and Alexander Hamilton… “was that demagogues would incite mobs and factions to defy the rule of law, overturn free and fair elections and undermine American democracy. “The only path to a subversion of the republican system of the Country is, by flattering the prejudices of the people, and exciting their jealousies and apprehensions, to throw affairs into confusion, and bring on civil commotion,” Alexander Hamilton wrote in 1790. “When a man unprincipled in private life, desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper…is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity,” Hamilton warned, “he may ‘ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.”
    
    This is exactly what we have now with Trump, “unprincipled in private life, desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper…
    
    Reply
Me December 6, 2024

Hearing complaints about the evacuations that occurred yesterday after the big quake is infuriating. If authorities did nothing to keep the population safe and something bad did happen, there would be hell to pay. So you just cannot win. If nothing else, this was a great drill for all. Inconvenient, maybe, but when is a disaster ever convenient?

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- pca67 December 6, 2024
  
  Fact: people will bitch about anything and everything.
  
  Reply
Chuck Dunbar December 6, 2024

TRUMP’S CHAOS

The Gaetz and Hegseth fiascos regarding these critically important nominations: These two nominations of demonstrably unfit men, were not properly vetted— due diligence was not performed. Though it’s clear Trump and his staff should have had some idea of their unfitness without any additional information.

This is just a glimmer of what will follow, as an also unfit man, though elected by America’s citizens, attempts to govern in helter-skelter fashion. We deserve better—did not get it— and down the road of chaos we go.

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- Call It As I See It December 6, 2024
  
  Wow, just four years ago your hero Biden nominated Pete Buttigieg, no transportation experience. And what a great job he has done.
  Rachel Levine and Sam Britton, where was the due diligence there. Let alone all of Biden’s nominees who have failed miserably.
  Inflation, crime, open borders, world in chaos, high interest rates. You guy’s are ridiculous and just plain stupid by suggesting Trump’s unfit.
  Wake up Chuck, you just had an unfit man in office that you pretended he was great. All along you saw what I saw, a dementia ridden man but you couldn’t admit it because of the liberal brainwashing you have allowed to happen to you.
  
  Four years buddy, do yourself a favor and just go check in to the institution now!
  
  Reply
  - Jurgen Stoll December 6, 2024
    
    You’re the one that needs to check in to the asylum troll. Keep living in your fascist fever dream and pretending 1.4% is a mandate.
    
    Reply
    - Call It As I See It December 6, 2024
      
      Maybe you and Chuck can get a deal at the mental institution, maybe pay full price for one and get the second half off!
      Hopefully you won’t have to fly, Buttigieg’s DEI pilots might get you there safely., at least they’ll be able to tell you “We’re going down.” in three different languages. Then you got to hope that your baggage won’t get lifted by Sam Britton, oh wait, he is a dude who only steals women’s suitcases. You should be safe if you’re not a cross dresser.
      
      Reply
      - Jurgen Stoll December 6, 2024
        
        Hey great news! Trump has an opening for a court jester. It involves a little boot licking, no actually a lot of boot licking, but you’ve shown you qualify. It’s a gender neutral position so you can pick whatever bathroom suits you. If that doesn’t work out for you Sect. of Defense will be open soon. Might wanna add a rape or two to your resume though.
        
        Reply
        
        Call It As I See It December 6, 2024
        
        That’s one terrific comeback, but what is bathroom suit. Does that mean I have to change clothes when using the bathroom or did you mean suite?
        
        Reply
        
        Jurgen Stoll December 6, 2024
        
        About as good a comeback as yours. Sorry to have to end this, and I know you can go on forever, but I’m tired of feeding the troll, so have fun with somebody else.
        
        Reply
      - David Svehla December 6, 2024
        
        Hearing “We’re going down” in Ebonics would do little, if anything, to ease the pain of a final air flight!
        
        Reply
  - Chuck Dunbar December 6, 2024
    
    Brainwashed
    
    If Heaven were an institution,
    Think I’d check in now—
    Instead of praising Trump
    And kneeling down to bow.
    
    Reply
    - Chuck Dunbar December 6, 2024
      
      Dang, Jurgen, good work in your responses above. I think indeed we are fated to meet–Whether in Heaven, a mental institution, or landing in a jail cell or re-education camp ordered by Trump. Wherever it is, we can raise some hell together, have some lefty fun and make the world a better place!
      
      Reply
  - Chuck Dunbar December 6, 2024
    
    “Call It”–Perhaps you speak French or at least respect the French people: “In the madness of Trump’s nominations, there is expressed the near total contempt for human respect, customs and the law,” Gérard Araud, who was the French Ambassador to the U.S. during Trump’s first term, said…”
    
    Reply
    - Call It As I See It December 6, 2024
      
      That’s great, hopefully Trump fired him. And for your to know, i speak very little french probably because I got a D in high school. The teacher was French, biggest jerk ever! So down deep, I probably don’t respect the French since he was my example.
      Could you film you and Jurgen raising some hell, I bet you two liberal boys really can bring the ol’house down.
      
      Reply
Betsy Cawn December 6, 2024

Maybe ICE can take over the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, California, being permanently closed by the Bureau of Prisons: Associated Press December 5 2024 —

The US government is closing a [“rape club”] women’s prison and other facilities after years of abuse and decay: https://apnews.com/article/federal-prisons-closing-ap-investigation-abuse-decay-c02c96b6f6a3c5535cc3e3025d5d2585.

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- BRICK IN THE WALL December 6, 2024
  
  Or how ’bout the new courthouse in ukiah?
  
  Reply
  - Call It As I See It December 6, 2024
    
    That’s taken by the homeless. Maybe they can share!
    
    Reply
Craig Stehr December 6, 2024

Enjoying reading the online AVA at the MLK public library in Washington, D.C. this very moment. No appointments. No disappointments. Not identified with the body. Not identified with the mind. Immortal Self I am. That is all. Craig Louis Stehr (craiglouisstehr@gmail.com)

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Betsy Cawn December 6, 2024

About Adventist Health’s “vision”:

Adventist Health Clear Lake’s Interim Administrator Chuck Kassis and the top executive at Sutter’s Lakeside Hospital have concocted a new form of private-public partnership with the County of Lake — despite serious citizen concerns about the financial obligation borne by the public — called a “Hospital Improvement District.” As a “business” district, its formation does not require any input from the Local Agency Formation District, only an agreement between the Board of Supervisors and the two fiscal sponsors.

The hospitals would use the District’s authority to apply for Medical funds that are currently allocated to a different population sector for reimbursement (agricultural labor force), so the idea that there is money out there that is “unused” is incorrect.

Nonetheless, both hospital administrations propose putting up their own revenues (already achieved through Medical/Medicare billing) to “leverage” “unclaimed” fed/state revenues that will enable them to add “improved patient services” at no additional cost to the patients.

What those services will be is vaguely alluded to in an incomplete proposed “Management Plan” given the nod by the Lake County Board of Supervisors a few weeks ago. But one of the primary purposes the hospital executives mention is completion of seismic upgrades to facilities — a state licensing requirement already.

The County’s Economic Development staff engineered the construction of the legal agreements with the County and both hospital administrations, but denies any active role in the conduct of District business. Neither the ED director nor County Counsel would respond to public questions about the validation of revenue and expenditure activities and specific projects the District would execute without public input or oversight. “Strictly business” — but none of yours.

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McEwen Bruce December 6, 2024

My goodness the outpouring of venomous glee over the CEO shooting can be as infectious as a yawn during a tedious lecture on a warm afternoon… I struggle with an impulse to dance a jig and hoot and howl gratuitous jeers at all the fools who thought mandatory health insurance was more just than single payer, but that’s not nice. I struggle to say I hope they catch the shooter, but what then? He would be indigent necessarily as a suspect in such a crime and therefore qualify for a public defender. But still, how could you pick a jury? Everyone who had had trouble with their insurance coverage would have to be thanked and excused. So that would leave only the one percenters and those blokes are too important to answer to a jury summons. Oh my. Whatever can be done… especially if this kind of thing catches on, like school shootings….!

JHK used to encourage this kind of thing for the health care system until he joined up with Trump’s lot. Not so much now.

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- Call It As I See It December 6, 2024
  
  Don’t worry, New York jury. Plus Alvin Bragg is charging the victim for something. He has got to please George Soros.
  
  Reply
  - Bruce Anderson December 6, 2024
    
    George Soros. What would NewsMax do without him? Do you ever get the feeling your opinions are cliches, tiresome in the extreme? Of course not, but the halt and the lame have been known to see some light, not that it’s likely to occur in your case, Mr. Calling It As the American idiocracy sees it.
    
    Reply
    - Call It As I See It December 6, 2024
      
      I could give you the same advice. Except we’ve had to listen or read your thoughts for 40-50 years. Speaking of tiresome. Maybe I’m a little stubborn on seeing the light thing because I read your Ed Notes. Maybe I’m the Bruce Anderson of the conservatives. But the rag you’ve built only appeals to Libtards! You guys get your panties in an uproar when different views invade this trash. Yes I used your favorite word, deal with it!
      
      Reply
      - Chuck Dunbar December 6, 2024
        
        A warning to you, sir:
        
        This behavior is not allowed. If you attack our Editor, as above, there will be a price to pay. Attack any others of us– fair game. Not so with our Editor. Lay off-desist-take it easy-go play ping pong, take a whiz or fail a quiz. We know who you are and where you live. Play fair.
        
        Reply
        
        Call It As I See It December 6, 2024
        
        Is that a threat? We know who you are, where you live. I guess the webmaster allows threats now. Hey Chuck, ever heard of free speech?
        Look everyone Mt. Social Worker threatens people when he doesn’t like their speech. The Liberal way. Be careful Chuckie, a man protects his home and family. What are you going to do, slap me, lay in my driveway and scream. I’m on the edge of my seat!
        
        Reply
        
        Chuck Dunbar December 7, 2024
        
        Get a grip, please. I was serious only in the sense that you are out of bounds, the “threats” were of a mocking nature, and you are too damned dense to realize it. Your posts grow increasingly shrill and this one was not ok.
        
        Reply
peter boudoures December 6, 2024

Oroville shooters statement:

Suspect’s
Motivation
Countermeasure involving child executions has now been imposed at the Seventh Day Adventist school in California, United States by The International Alliance.\, Lieutenant Glenn Litton of the Alliance carried out countermeasure in necessitated response to Americas involvement with Genocide and Oppression of Palestinians along with attacks towards Yemen.

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Marco McClean December 6, 2024

Disheveled? Disshelved, rather, by the picture.

Also, about the new ICE center. Give them the monastery. Or give them the Palace Hotel and let them fix it up nice.

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Mendocino County Today: Friday 12/6/2024

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