Mendocino County Today: Saturday 12/7/2024

Forks Cafe | Mostly Cloudy | Sea Stacks | Seven Injured | Lisa Walters | Redwood Classic | Huge Mess | T & U | AV Ponds | Two-Inch Stack | Emergency Alerts | Lineman Schwarm | Shop Local | Planning Commission | Festive Fun | Crafts Fair | Birthday Friscia | Kitten Oz | Holiday Party | Nelson Brothers | Holiday Bazaar | P&F Bills | Yesterday's Catch | Judge Thomas | Wine Shorts | Tomales/Tam | PG&E Bills | Participle Ghost | Private Hydrants | Want Change | Marco Radio | O Tannenbum | Housing Mandatory | Very Wrong | Book Facts | Delay, Deny | Sinking | Real Villains | Soda Case | Says Everything | Citizen Welles | Execution Song | Hookers | Apologies Afroman | No Stocking | TV Rack | Lead Stories | Double Deadlock | Ms Zorro | Joe Pardons | Cockroaches | Gladiator Soundtrack | Pachyderm Pal

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MID to late morning a weak cold 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 on Saturday. Dry weather is expected to return Sunday and continue through at least Tuesday. Rain is possible late Wednesday with better chances late in the week. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A brisk 40F under clear skies this Saturday morning on the coast. More of the same until rain returns later next week.

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SEVEN HURT IN HOPLAND PILEUP, two suffer major injuries

by Matt LaFever

A three-vehicle collision on Highway 175 near Buckman Drive, east of Hopland, Friday evening left seven people injured, including two with major injuries, one of whom is a pediatric patient. The severity of the crash prompted authorities to declare a mass casualty incident.

A mass casualty incident is defined as an event where the number and severity of casualties overwhelm available emergency medical resources, such as personnel and equipment.

The crash was reported at 6:54 p.m. The incident commander confirmed a total of seven patients at the scene, triggering a large-scale response. Three ground ambulances and two air ambulances were requested to transport the injured.

Tow trucks were called to clear the wreckage, which involved a Toyota Highlander and two other vehicles. The crash caused significant damage and Highway 175 is completed blocked as a result.

(mendofever.com)

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LISA WALTERS

At her request, no services will be held for former Independent Coast Observer reporter Lisa Walters of Gualala, who died Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024, in Santa Rosa, after a long illness. She was 71.

Walters was born June 13, 1953, in San Francisco, a fourth-generation San Franciscan, to E.J. and Betty Walters. Growing up in Marin County, she graduated from Drake High School at age 16.

Her political life began at age 11, when she accompanied her mother to a civil rights march. In 1968, though too young to vote, she worked on Robert F. Kennedy's presidential campaign, and met the senator and his wife Ethel at a benefit just three days before his California primary victory and tragic death. She later became personal friends with Martin Luther King's eldest daughter, Yolanda King. After high school, she took a job with an attorney who defended people on felony marijuana charges, and in 1972 campaigned for an unsuccessful ballot measure to decriminalize marijuana.

In 1977, she and six other women opened a shelter for battered women in Marin County.

She moved to Gualala in 1982 after her mother built a home there. She met husband Rich Anderson, a CDF fire captain, at the Gualala Hotel bar. Rich and Lisa built a sports-theme house, which they called “The Church of Monday Night Football,” hosting a diverse group of residents every football night.

In 1984, she was the first woman to participate in a baseball fantasy camp in Arizona. Her appearance garnered nationwide media coverage on TV, radio and in newspapers including the Independent Coast Observer. She took to the field with Giants legends Willie Mays, Bobby Bonds, Monte Irvin, and her childhood and lifetime hero, Juan Marichal.

In 1985, she submitted several stories to the ICO, and was hired by then Editor and Publisher Joanna McLaughlin. As a reporter, Walters covered all news beats government, school boards, obituaries — but her first love was sports.

ICO photographer David Torres obtained credentials for himself and Walters to cover the Giants, A's, and 49ers, and she was also a stringer for Associated Press. She was in the World Series press box in 1989 at the moment the Loma Prieta earthquake hit, and spent the week of the quake's aftermath among the players, coaches and broadcasters.

After 14 years, Walters and Anderson divorced, and in 1996, Walters married Greg Girard, who was manager of the Gualala Community Services District. The couple enjoyed foreign travel for several years.

Walters retired from the ICO in 2017, and Greg Girard died of cancer on Feb. 18, 2020.

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ED NOTE: The always lively Ms. Walters was a frequent but, at her request, unidentified, contributor and source of information to the AVA. She was a veritable encyclopedia of south coast people and activities. With her death, an entire area has lost one of its most important citizens and keepers of the flame.

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THE 65th REDWOOD CLASSIC has been an amazing showcase of basketball from teams all across Northern California. Tomorrow is the last day of games, so please come out and support this tradition.

Below are the matchups and game times for Saturday finals.

AV will play in the consolation third place / 11th place overall game against Willits at 11am.

Please come out and support these amazing athletes and this amazing event!

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COLLEEN SCHENCK (Philo):

We greatly appreciate donations to the barn but only on Mondays and weekends of the sale. Someone left a ton of stuff this week.

We’re having a sale this weekend and can’t possibly sort or store all of it in one day. I don’t have volunteers (they already worked on Monday) to deal with this. Please respect our policy. This is a huge mess to clean up in one day!

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CITY OF FORT BRAGG ANNOUNCES THE PASSAGE OF MEASURES T AND U

The City of Fort Bragg is excited to announce the successful passage of Measures T and U in the November 5, 2024, Municipal Election. With 68% of voters approving Measure T and an overwhelming 81% supporting Measure U, these measures represent a major step forward in ensuring the sustainability and vitality of our community.

Measure T, the Essential Services Measure, establishes a locally controlled 3/8ths cent sales tax, with approximately three-quarters of the tax being paid by tourists and visitors. Measure U, the Tourist Impact Measure, increases the transient occupancy tax (TOT) by 2%, ensuring hotel and motel guests contribute their fair share toward maintaining the City’s infrastructure and services.

Both measures will generate funding to address key community priorities identified through public feedback, including:

• Funding housing programs to increase housing stock
• Maintaining essential fire and police protection
• Enhancing Emergency Preparedness efforts
• Supporting local businesses
• Keeping public spaces clean and welcoming

All funds from Measures T and U will remain 100% local to Fort Bragg. They will be subject to independent financial audits and public budget hearings to ensure transparency and accountability.

“We are truly grateful to our community for their overwhelming support of Measures T and U,” said City Manager Isaac Whippy. “This outcome reflects our shared commitment to Fort Bragg’s future. These funds will help us address the priorities that matter most to our residents while ensuring visitors contribute to the services that make Fort Bragg such a unique and wonderful place to live and visit. Together, we are ensuring that our city thrives for generations to come.”

In addition to the passage of Measures T and U, two City Council seats were filled by incumbent Lindy Peters and newly elected Scott Hockett. Fort Bragg’s new mayor will be appointed at the City Council meeting on December 9th at 6pm.

For more information about Measures T and U, please contact the City Manager’s Office at (707) 961 2825.

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BILL KIMBERLIN: The Anderson Valley ponds are looking good, at least from my place. “It is an ill storm that blows no good.” Apologies to John Heywood of 1546.

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TOM SMYTHE: I don’t know what they do at the Air Quality agency. It takes a month to get a permit. Not sure how many people work there but why does it take a month to get a simple burn permit? After two weeks I went in to see when I could get my permit. Grant you, it was a Friday mid-day and only one person manning the front desk. After querying when I would get my permit the person pointed to 2-inch stack of permits and said, “I have so many to do, not sure when you will get a permit.” Two more weeks and two phone calls later they finally emailed a permit. Cal Fire gets you a burn permit in three days. Cal Fire will issue permits even before the burn ban is lifted. Air Quality won’t. Complain to your supervisors about the waste of money the agency is when you can’t burn on a no-burn day anyway, you will get turned in. You can’t burn anything but vegetation created on the property. Those are the main criteria for burning required by Air Quality. AI could do that permit review in a split second.

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LUCINDA WALKER: Emergency alerts

Hello community,

Just in case someone doesn’t know this, everyone everywhere should be signed up for both Everbridge and Nixle alerts. While there is the option to have only email alerts and not use your phone, that would be ridiculous. Unless you check your email every 20 seconds. If you sign up in both of these places, you will be covered for any type of emergency. Yesterday was a testament to how strong these systems are. Although I believe the tsunami warning overrode any alert because it came from the government just like an amber alert would. All you need to do is put either one of those names into Google and spend one or two minutes signing up on each site.

Be safe and take care of each other.

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LISA JOAKIMIDES: Someone asked about locally owned businesses in Point Arena that they can support, stay with and shop at for the holiday season and year ahead. Here is the list that I compiled for this post - Zen House, Arena Market & Cafe, Franny's Cup & Saucer, Roots Apothecary, PA Gas, Pelican Bread, Little Green Bean, Cove Coffee, My Mexican Restaurant, The Whale Bar & the PA Liquor Store, Coast Highway Art Collective, My Sisters Marketplace, Good Buy Clothes, Arena Theater, PA Pizza, Pier Place, Wharf Master's Inn, Far West Martial Arts, Gama, Lisa's Luscious Kitchen, PA Tileworks, B Bryan Preserve (& Gift Shop), the Coast Guard House, Rollerville Cafe, The Lighthouse Gift Shop & Keepers Cottages, S & B Market, Garcia River Casino & Restaurant, Manchester KOA & Gift store… that is all I can think of right now in PA. Sorry if I missed anyone….

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PLANS? HOW IMPERTINENT TO ASK. LOOK AROUND YOU!

Staff Report(s) & Agenda for Planning Commission Meeting 12-19-24

The Staff Report(s) and Agenda for the December 19, 2024, Planning Commission meeting is now available on the department website at: https://www.mendocinocounty.gov/departments/planning-building-services/boards-and-commissions/public-hearing-bodies/public-hearing-bodies#!

Please contact staff if there are any questions,

Thank you

James Feenan, feenanj@mendocinocounty.gov

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GREENWOOD ARTS & CRAFTS FAIR

The Greenwood Community Church Foundation will hold its 24th annual Arts & Crafts Fair on 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

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FORT BRAGG FOOD BANK:

Happy birthday to our fierce and fearless leader, our executive director, Amanda Friscia! She is exceptional and dedicated to our mission, staff, and community. Because of her knowledge, commitment, and passion, our organization has been successful in every endeavor she’s faced us with! Please join us in wishing her a happy birthday and a wonderful day, and many cheers for years to come! Thank you, Amanda! We love you!

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ODE TO OZ - THE STRAY KITTEN WHO GOT STUCK UP A TREE IN UKIAH

by Justine Frederiksen

One evening while walking our dogs in Riverside Park several years ago, my friend and I heard panicked meowing at the entrance.

Following the sound, I found a kitten stuck up a large oak tree. Since it was huddled on a branch too high for us to reach, we decided to finish our walk and hope the kitten would find its way down. But when we got back to the tree, it was still there, crying.

Ten-year-old me would have already climbed the tree, but nearly 50-year-old me knew climbing wasn’t an option. And as I stood there wondering how I could help the kitten, my farmer friend Doug said he had an idea — and came back carrying a large plastic garbage can from the bed of his truck.

That was cool.

Because Doug, though he was in his 70s, put the can upside down under the tree and climbed on top of it.

Even cooler? When the can still didn’t get him close enough to reach the kitten, Doug stood on it for at least another 10 minutes, cooing and calling until finally, when we were just about to give up, the kitten moved down the branch toward him so he could grab it.

And hand me the softest bundle of fur I have ever felt — fur that began purring immediately as I held it to my chest; fur that I never wanted to let go.

But while I learned later that the kitten had been stuck up the tree for at least two days, that night we decided the best thing to do was to let him go and see if he went home. So I put the kitten on the ground, he scurried off, and we left the park.

Yet I couldn’t stop thinking about the kitten I held. More importantly, I couldn’t imagine telling my husband that we pulled a kitten out of a tree, then just let him go. So, after stopping at the store, I went back to the park to see if the kitten was still there.

When I returned to the tree it was dark outside, so I got out my phone as a light and called to the kitten. Almost immediately he came running out of the darkness toward me, and I picked him up again. Only this time I tucked that soft, purring fur under my sweatshirt and took it home.

“Whaaaaa?” said my husband as he opened the door to a kitten in my hands, his face fighting off sympathy for the tiny creature. Because while I assured him the kitten was only staying the night, he knew that once it came through the doorway, we would fall in love.

And of course he was right. Because within an hour I had already given him a name.

But first I fed him, then gave him a bath after finding he was covered in fleas. Then while watching him slowly begin to strut around our house I began calling him Oz, because he reminded me of the werewolf character on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, another tiny-yet-tough guy.

Still, we tried to resist getting another animal. And once we were sure he didn’t already have a family, we decided it was best to take the kitten to the animal shelter so they could find him one.

But on the day I was supposed to take him to the shelter, I couldn’t. Because by then, Oz had begun playing with the dog. And watching that tiny orange cat play with our big black dog not only gave me joy, I knew that finally having a live-in playmate was giving the dog much joy as well.

So when my husband called me on his lunch break to ask if I had already taken the kitten to the shelter, I started to cry.

“No —

“Thank god,” he said. “I was calling to tell you not to!”

“OK,” I said, smiling.

He sighed. Then, because our wedding anniversary was that weekend, he said: “Well, happy anniversary!”

So, for our ninth anniversary, we gifted ourselves a fluffy mound of moxie. And since one of the traditional gifts for that year is willow wood, it seems appropriate that he was plucked from a tree.

Sad update: Oz died last month of heart failure, soon after we learned he had the same condition that took our sweet Sasquatch earlier this year. And when we had another fluffy boy cremated, this time the hospital saved us some of that super soft fur.

That was cool.

Because I couldn’t be with Oz at the end, and having a piece of him to hold afterward helped me say good-bye.

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WHEN THERE WERE RADICALS IN MENDOCINO COUNTY

by Bruce Anderson

The history of Mendocino County is told in fits and starts, in family memoirs, old timer interviews and in whispered references to long-ago scandals only hinted at by the newspapers of the time.

“The Nelson Brothers: Finish-American Radicals from the Mendocino Coast,” is by Allan Nelson, the son of one of those radicals. This wonderful memoir fleshes out a pivotal chapter of early local history in a scholarly, fully documented manner. The only other systematic attempt to make sense of early Mendocino County history is “Genocide and Vendetta” by Estle Beard and Lynwood Carranco, the appalling story of the murderous campaigns against the Indians, one of those campaigns state-funded, by the first white settlers in the Eel River watersheds. That book, which says it all in its title, was litigated into silence soon after it appeared in the middle 1950s when it was successfully alleged by the descendant of an old Indian killer that the authors had used his grandfather's diary as a source for their book without permission.

In '“The Nelson Brothers,” Allan Nelson draws a fascinating portrait of his father, Arvid, and his doomed uncle, Enoch, whose unusual trajectories — tragic in Enoch's case — are illuminated by Fort Bragg-based scholars Russell and Sylvia Bartley, who skillfully explain the complicated revolutionary politics that cost Enoch his life.

As he tells the stories of his father and uncle, Nelson also gives us a vivid picture of Fort Bragg in the early 20th century when immigrant radicals, dreaming of a just world, were plentiful enough in Fort Bragg to establish their own institutions, a thriving community of socialists and independent idealists, people who worked hard, most of them Finns but with a fortifying admixture of Italian immigrants in a town whose contemporary “radicals” are pale imitations of the originals.

Eagle's Hall, still standing at Alder and Corry, was erected by revolutionary Finns, and famous Finnish intellectuals made Fort Bragg a stop on their speaking itineraries. An early Rossi, we learn, was a communist and a great friend of Arvid's and Enoch's, and undoubtedly the first and only Fort Bragg Rossi hostile to capitalism as a form of social organization.

Eagle's Hall was then called Toveri Tupa or Comrades' Hall, and the Nelsons, some of whom, we learn, were born at Whitesboro and at Tunnel Hill east of Fort Bragg were active members.

There's a Whitesboro Grange on Navarro Ridge, but until about 1920 there was a thriving village of Whitesboro at Salmon Creek, just south of Albion, one of many disappeared settlements that once thrived in Mendocino County, along with little towns like Hop Flat near Navarro, Mina north of Covelo, and Whitesboro. The Finns called their village Kala or, in Finn, Fish, the Finns being great ones for getting right to the point. Their little town of Whitesboro was complete with a sawmill and a dog hole port and, at one time, an old country sauna Arvid Nelson built in his home for his mother.

The Nelsons arrived in America as the Poukkulas. If they hadn't simplified their name their descendants would have devoted part of each day responding to, “How do you spell that again?”

Arvid Nelson was a self-taught intellectual of the type once common in America when formal education was restricted to people who could pay for it. Immigrant Finns and Italians were lucky to get a few years of elementary education.

Arvid went on to become a well-known writer and illustrator for Finnish-language publications of the left-wing type. Enoch, a gifted engineer, also self-taught, joined the exodus of Fort Bragg Finns, inspired by the Russian Revolution, who returned to the motherland to devote themselves to building the new world. Enoch was eventually murdered in the Stalinist purges as “an enemy of the people,” but posthumously rehabilitated during the Kruschev era as a man who had been executed on the basis of zero evidence against him, one of millions to meet that sad fate.

The Bartleys' afterword carefully explains the complicated politics of the purges that claimed Enoch, whose earnest, American-nurtured idealism killed him in Russia, one of many West Coast Finns who'd gone home to make the revolution only to be eaten by it.

The Nelson family today, perhaps best known in the person of the late Don Nelson, a woodworker's union rep at the extinct Fort Bragg mill, still lived at the Nelson homestead at Tunnel Hill which, like Whitesboro, once embraced a whole neighborhood of Finns.

Dale “Crawdad” Nelson, a grand nephew of Arvid and Enoch Nelson, son of Don Nelson, and also a well-known writer who grew up in Fort Bragg, tells us that Tunnel Hill “is 1.9 miles out Sherwood-Oak from the main gate of the mill. It's called Tunnel Hill because the Pudding Creek-Noyo tunnel crosses under that point.

“I can say,” Nelson continues, “that Finns were instrumental in starting the commercial fishing industry out of Noyo, but I can't really say to what extent. I do know when those great uncles of mine were out of work in the Great Depression, they used a raft to fish for steelhead in the Noyo, near the tunnel, and salted the fish for sale in other markets. They were known for boat-building, for instance, the Cluny, a Eureka boat, was built by two Finn brothers who built a boat every winter during woods layoffs, and named it after the liquor they used for motivation during that particular job… The Maki family in Noyo is a prominent boat-building and fishing Finn family. Howard Maki always used to have a dragger under construction at the top of South Harbor Drive — I don't know if that's still going on, but they once built a steamboat for the City of Petaluma, and my sixth-grade class took a field trip to watch them christen the North Star around '69 or '70.”

The first Nelsons on the Northcoast grew up in an area dominated by the Union Lumber Company. To say that class warfare was intense understates the case. There were frequent strikes and even a shooting not far from Tunnel Hill, which apparently occurred when striking loggers, all of them immigrants influenced either by socialists or anarchists of the IWW, tried to return to their logging camp to retrieve their personal belongings only to be fired on.

Union Lumber shared the prevalent attitude of capital, circa 1910: “You shall employ no union man.” Socialists and the IWW were just as blunt: “Direct action will place the working class in possession of the economic power, the means of life, in control of the machinery of production and distribution, without regard to capitalist masters. There can be no harmony between employer and employee.”

These days, capital is as ruthless as ever but subtler at protecting its interests through front people like Congressman Jared Huffman, Biden-Harris, Mike McGuire and both political parties.

A particularly self-righteous Fort Bragg banker, we learn, a man who went way out of his way to make life difficult for Red Finns, turned out to be an embezzler, and in that scandal Fort Bragg hasn't changed much. The town's subsequent history is replete with bribed city councils, arsons for profit, crooks in high places, although reputable these days.

Much local history has been lost. This important book fills in some important blanks. It's a terrific story, well-told, and masterfully put into political context by the Bartleys. “The Nelson Brothers” is published by the Mendocino County Historical Society and the Mendocino County Museum in association with the Immigration History Research Center, University of Minnesota.

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TOM HINE: And now, a Peace & Freedom Update from the midwest bureau, where I held the position of Wood County representative, 1968 ’69.

Meetings at Bowling Green University were far less lively and dangerous than those described by Mr. Anderson, and my chances of being accosted, assaulted, arrested or molested by angry fellow members were zero. My duties, as they came to be understood, were the unpacking of occasional cartons of campaign materials and seeing that they were distributed to supporters. The products were pretty cool and I still have a few “Dick Gregory for President” dollar bills that were semi-faithful reproductions of the ones with George Washington. I left them as “tips” in restaurants and bars, and tried them in various vending machines and change machines with no luck. There were also P&F bumper stickers with “Dick Gregory/Benjamin Spock” heading the ticket and the stickers. Last were black lapel pins with yellow and red stripes that encouraged those close enough to read them that the Gregory-Spock ticket was promising peace, freedom and somewhere to go beside Humphrey, Nixon and Wallace. I still have a few of those dollars, and if I can find them I will make them available to AVA subscribers.

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Friday, December 6, 2024

GUILLERMO AGUILAR, Ukiah. Invasion of privacy with concealed camcorder.

JOHN ALVAREZ, 30, Willits. Domestic violence court order violation with priors, controlled substance for sale, cruelty to child-infliction of injury, criminal threats, under influence, paraphernalia.

KRISTO OUSEY, 40, Ukiah. Paraphernalia, parole violation, resisting. (Frequent flyer.)

DARRELL PIKE JR., 30, Hopland. County parole violation, damager to wireless communications device.

DANIEL ROCKEY, 33, Covelo. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

ROGER ROTH, 53, Healdsburg/Ukiah. Controlled substance for sale, suspended license.

ARNOLD WILLIAMS, 60, Lakeport/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, controlled substance, paraphernalia.

DANIEL YEOMANS, 53, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, resisting.

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JUDGE CHARLES THOMAS

Paul Modic asks:

What was the deal with Judge Thomas? Why did over 300 of his neighbors sign a petition to have him recalled in 1971? Was this the same crowd who signed the Anti-Hippie Petition of 1969? Ya gotta hand it to those rednecks, they practiced some civic responsibility with their petitions.

But really, what was the deal with the judge, and why did the hippies like him so much? Any surviving old hippies or locals have any Judge Thomas stories? And what's with the petition? What did he do to piss off the locals? (Probably just liked hippies for some reason?)

Charles Thomas responds:

He was my father. He had been a merchant marine and saw stoners on the ships. They never created any problems like the drunks did. He could not see putting some young person in Federal prison, with real criminals, because they were busted for a little weed. So the locals tried to get him removed from office because he was too lenient. It didn’t occur to them hippies could vote. He won by a landslide and was later elected to the superior court.

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ESTER MOBLEY

Florida recently overturned a longstanding law that prohibited the sale of wine bottles that are one gallon or larger. In Slate, Scott Nover looks at the curious history of that ban and the special significance of large-format bottles, all the way up to the 15-liter Nebuchadnezzar.

A historic Bay Area winery has been sold from a large conglomerate to smaller interests. This week, the Wine Group announced the sale of 141-year-old Concannon Vineyard in Livermore to two other Livermore businesses, Lemmons Family Vineyards and Darcie Kent Winery. Jeanita Lyman has details in Pleasanton Weekly.

Farmworker communities continue to worry about President-elect Donald Trump’s mass deportation threats. In North Bay Business Journal, Susan Wood reports on how Bay Area groups are trying to prepare for the possibility of Trump’s plan. 

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PG&E ELECTRICITY BILLS ARE RISING FAR FASTER THAN OTHER UTILITY TITANS: OFFICIAL REPORT

CEO of PG&E had previously predicted customer costs would recede

PG&E monthly electric bills are rising far faster than those levied on customers of its two California utility cousins, a new official report shows — although PG&E claims it’s on a path to rein in costs.

For roughly a decade, customers of PG&E, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric have all been burdened with electricity bill increases that are rising far faster than the inflation rate, according to the report from the Public Advocates Office at the state Public Utilities Commission.

“Residential average rates have significantly increased,” the consumer advocacy group’s Dec. 5 report stated.

The report also determined that the increase in electricity rates is far more pronounced for PG&E customers when compared with the bill burdens for ratepayers served by Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric.

Despite the current forbidding trends for customers of PG&E and other California utilities, some hopeful projections are appearing on the horizon, in the view of PG&E spokesperson Lynsey Paulo.

Electricity bills do not increase continuously, Paulo asserted. Bills might flatten or even decrease if costs diminish for programs such as mitigation of wildfire hazards.

“There are rate increases, but there are also rate decreases when program costs are removed from rates,” Paulo said.

Monthly electricity bills, however, have trended decidedly higher for PG&E customers.

Here is how increases in electricity bill rates compare for California’s three major utility companies over multiple time frames, as outlined in the state advocacy group’s report.

— During roughly three years from January 2021 to October 2024: PG&E, up 56%; Southern California Edison, up 48%; and San Diego Gas & Electric, up 21%.

— During approximately 10 years from January 2014 to October 2024: PG&E was up 118% — more than double. Southern California Edison was up 86% and San Diego Gas & Electric was up 83%.

Over the 10 years in the survey period detailed in the report, the inflation rate as measured by the consumer price index increased by 34%, the state consumer advocacy group reported.

PG&E officials point out that the company’s current average electricity rates for residential customers are below those charged by the San Diego utility, although they are greater than the Los Angeles-area utility.

Electricity rate costs as of October 2024 were an average of 38 cents a kilowatt-hour for PG&E, 32.5 cents for Southern California Edison and 38.5 cents a kilowatt-hour for San Diego Gas & Electric, according to the public advocacy office’s report.

Wildfire mitigation costs, investments in electricity transmission and delivery systems, and rooftop solar incentives were listed as the primary drivers of the fast-rising electricity costs for California’s three major investor-owned utilities.

Oakland-based PG&E insists that its residential customers can expect decreases in monthly electric bills in the coming years.

In April 2024, in response to questions from this news organization after an Earth Day event in Richmond, PG&E Chief Executive Officer Patricia Poppe sketched out her vision for a time when PG&E customers would pay less in their monthly electricity and gas bills.

“We see a future where customers’ bills can start to come down,” Poppe said in the interview. Poppe added, “We are working very hard to modernize our methods for customers and make (monthly bills) more affordable.”

Some changes are already in place, according to Poppe.

“We have implemented a lean operating system to shave costs out of our system and improve the customer experience,” Poppe said.

If these assurances were to morph into reality, that would be a welcome counterpoint to the ominous trends PG&E customers have faced.

In 2023, PG&E’s monthly bills for residential customers soared 22.3%, while the Bay Area inflation rate rose 2.6%.

Paulo pointed to one component in the report by the public consumer advocates that suggested an upcoming early 2025 jump in residential electricity rates for PG&E customers would be followed by a decline in rates by late 2025 and going into 2026.

In October, PG&E residential customers were paying somewhere around 38 cents a kilowatt-hour, although this rate was expected to reach 39.6 cents a kilowatt hour in early 2025, the Public Advocates Office reported. By sometime around January 2026, PG&E customers can expect to pay 35.2 cents a kilowatt-hour.

All of these current costs and projected expenses for electricity, however, are well above what PG&E customers were paying as recently as early 2022. At that time, PG&E customers were paying just a bit more than 30 cents a kilowatt hour.

Put another way, if PG&E electricity rates for residential customers decrease to the projected level of 35.2 cents a kilowatt hour, that would still be approximately 17% higher than what PG&E customers were paying around the start of 2022.

“Rates have increased substantially since 2014, surpassing inflation,” the Public Advocates Office stated in its report.

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SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA'S HOT NEW LUXURY HOME AMENITY IS A PRIVATE FIRE HYDRANT

On-site hydrants are yet another way wealthy residents combat fires with their wallets

by Paula Meija

The inland enclave of Ramona, wedged into the foothills of the Laguna Mountains, is a tranquil slice of San Diego County. The unincorporated rural community has a small-town feeling to it, with a charming main street enveloped by craggy mountains. As in other picturesque areas within Southern California, the luxury homes around Ramona boast a host of perks for those who can afford it.

One home listing in the region, for instance, features a chef’s kitchen and opens up to a sprawling veranda overlooking the wildflower-dotted expanse. The property even offers a guest-house-slash-ADU for visitors. Because this is in sunny, often-dry Southern California, the home, with an asking price over $1.5 million, is also equipped with solar panels and a 10,000-gallon water tank.

But there’s another coveted amenity that may catch the attention of discerning buyers: The property features not one but two on-site fire hydrants (one for the main house, and one for the smaller guest house).

The Ramona home is hardly an outlier. Private fire hydrants have become a marketing boon for luxury homes currently on sale. As one real estate developer told the Wall Street Journal, a hydrant is a hot “selling point” for prospective buyers because having one “mitigates fear.”

An especially popular feature within oft-drought-stricken Southern California, these hydrants illustrate yet another way that the state’s wealthiest residents are combatting wildfire risk with their wallets. As the world is becoming hotter and drier, the likes of Kim Kardashian are shelling out for controversial private firefighting services when wildfires rip through their well-heeled but fire-prone neighborhoods, such as Hidden Hills (a gated community right by Calabasas) and glitzy areas like Malibu. It’s not uncommon to see more extensive sprinkler systems installed throughout luxury properties these days, either.

Proponents of private fire hydrants argue that the move can help mitigate fire damage, especially in a state that’s seen bigger and more frequent wildfires over the last several decades; in September alone, three massive wildfires blazed through Southern California and caused critical damage. But critics counter that the private hydrants are yet another example of how climate change exposes stark socioeconomic disparities, considering that the wealthiest Americans have statistically contributed significantly to pollution rates yet are best equipped to handle a future where water, and other life-saving resources, might be limited. (And, of course, the same insurance companies that have been denying homeowners’ claims in fire-prone areas are apparently more likely to consider insuring homes that have private hydrants on-site.)

In a practical sense, firefighters have debated whether the private hydrants are actually more useful than traditional hydrants, though. The private hydrants, much like their public counterparts, require routine upkeep and annual maintenance so that they will actually work when they’re supposed to, and proper training on how to use them should a fire break out.

Installing a private hydrant may be legal, but it isn’t cheap: The hydrant itself can run around $20,000, notes the Journal. There’s also the matter of finding a water source, which can also cost tens of thousands of dollars more, not including the cost of permitting and obtaining other necessary materials.

All told, installing a single private hydrant can easily cost many thousands of dollars — making it a prohibitively expensive amenity that’s only available to a select few. Then again, with home sales breaking records along the state’s eroding, occasionally unstable coastline, it seems that for some folks money is no object when it comes to getting exactly what you want. As for the rest of us who can’t afford to shell out for an on-site hydrant … well, it’s never too late to make sure your wildfire go-bag is up to snuff.

(SFGate.com)

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MEMO OF THE AIR: Good Night Radio show all night tonight on KNYO and KAKX!

Soft deadline to email your writing for tonight's (Friday night's) MOTA show is 6pm or so. Or send it whenever it's done, after that, and I'll read it on the radio next week.

Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio is every Friday, 9pm to 5am PST on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg and KNYO.org. The first three hours of the show, meaning till midnight, are simulcast on KAKX 89.3fm Mendocino. It used to be just the first hour, but now it's three, starting last week, thanks to Marshall Brown. And if /you/ know of, and maybe have an in with, a radio station anywhere in the world that might be open to running all or any part of MOTA live on a regular basis, put me in touch. Give me the opportunity to either put it over the top or blow the interview spectacularly. Either way works for me.

Plus you can always go to https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com and hear last week's MOTA show. By Saturday night I'll put up the recording of tonight's show. Also there you'll find an assortment of cultural-educational amusements to occupy you until showtime, or any time, such as:

The film One Million Years B.C. dubbed in Hindi. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-SGY-h73TE

The gold watch monologue from Pulp Fiction. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWp6hZ-5ndc

And Alexander Hamilton in Korean. https://laughingsquid.com/korean-alexander-hamilton/

Marco McClean, memo@mcn.org, https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com

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MOMENT TO MOMENT

Here Now! Drop In Center at Adam's Place Homeless Shelter in Washington, D.C.

Warmest spiritual greetings,

This very moment, I am sitting at a guest computer at the drop in center located behind the Adam's Place Homeless Shelter in northeast Washington, D.C. The day was spent going to Whole Foods for the cold salad bar and a date cardamom latte. Then, off to the MLK public library to check emails. With nothing else to do, got on the Metro and returned, using two buses, to the homeless shelter. Not identifying with the body. Not identifying with the mind. That which is prior to consciousness utilizes the body-mind complex! You are welcome to make contact, since I am available. Housing is mandatory. Meanwhile, mind absorbed in the Absolute…no place to go. Let's do it!!!

Craig Louis Stehr, craiglouisstehr@gmail.com

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WRONG, BUT…

Editor:

The execution-style murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson was wrong, but how many older Americans have died because United Healthcare delayed or denied claims for medically necessary care? United Healthcare uses AI to deny claims by older patients. That is also wrong. Very wrong! The Trump Administration needs to investigate United Heathcare and other Medicare-Advantage plans. Those plans are predatory, and their advertising is deceptive.

John Sakowicz

Ukiah

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ROAMING CHARGES: DELAY AND DENY

Jeffrey St. Clair

It appears that the killer of Brian Thompson left his manifesto etched on the spent casings of the bullets used to gun down the CEO of UnitedHealthcare outside the Midtown Hilton just down the block from Rockefeller Center: “Delay” and “Deny.” Those two chill words might also serve as the unofficial motto of the $500 billion health industry giant, whose investors Thompson was preparing to address.

Thompson, a 20-year veteran of the Minneapolis-based conglomerate, became CEO of UnitedHealthcare in 2021. In his three years at the helm, Thompson oversaw the rise of the corporation’s profits from $12 billion the year before he took over to more than $16 billion in 2023. He was lavishly rewarded for his services, pocketing more than $10.2 million in total compensation. The only cloud on the horizon was a pending Justice Department investigation of the company’s monopolistic practices. Indeed, some of the investors awaiting Thompson’s address at the Hilton may not have been so adoring of his sparkling corporate achievements. In May, Thompson was sued by a firefighters’ pension fund in March for insider trading. The suit charges that the CEO sold $15 million in company stock while failing to disclose the federal investigation into the company, which only became public after a Wall Street Journal article appeared on February 27, 2024, five months after Thompson became aware of the probe.

How those profits were generated is another story. Brian Thompson wasn’t a healthcare professional turned corporate titan. He was an accountant who’d learned the tricks of his trade at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Among the profit-enhancing schemes Thompson brought to UnitedHealth Care was a new method of cashing in on the privatization of Medicare by habitually denying claims to seniors who’d bought into the Medicare Advantage scam.

To pick just one example of this ruthless strategy, under Thompson’s tenure, UnitedHealth increased its denial rate of claims for post-acute care made by seniors who had suffered debilitating falls or strokes from 10.7 percent the year before he took over to more than 22.7 only a year later, when this shameful practice came under the scrutiny of a Senate committee. The same investigation found that UnitedHealthcare increased its denial rate for skilled nursing facilities by nine times from 2019 to 2022.

While Thompson was an executive at the company, UnitedHealthcare used an AI system to automate the denial of medical services. The program had a 90% error rate, resulting in thousands of people being denied medically necessary and fully covered treatments.

The Senate Committee report briefly made headlines, but it didn’t do much lasting damage to UnitedHealthcare or change its mode of profiteering through the systematic denial of claims. Instead, it left families suffocating under mounds of medical debt or bankrupted by bills they thought they’d bought insurance to cover. That’s mainly because one of UnitedHealthcare’s most significant corporate acquisitions has been the US Congress. Since 1990, UnitedHealth has made $34.4 million in political donations and invested more than $100,260,000 in lobbying since 1998.

It’s a depraved business model and you can understand how someone might have snapped and gone looking for revenge. Thompson’s wife, Paulette, said that the CEO had received threats: “There had been some threats. Basically, I don’t know, a lack of coverage? I just know that he said there were some people that had been threatening him.” So that leaves about 20 million suspects…

• If you followed the Harris campaign, you’d have no idea how pissed off most Americans are about the health insurance industry. Thanks, Obama, for devising a plan that drove everyone into their mendacious arms…!
• In November, Pro Publica reported that UnitedHealthcare “through its subsidiary Optum, is focused on reducing “overutilization” of services for patients covered through its privately contracted Medicaid plans that are overseen by states…these plans cover some of the nation’s poorest and most vulnerable patients.”
• Pro Publica found that UnitedHealthcare rewarded workers with bonuses based partly on their ability to convince providers to reduce the level of care or by referring therapists to peer review. According to reporter Annie Waldman, “former employees told us how they steamrolled providers to boost cost savings for the company. savings for the company. One said he felt like “a cog in the wheel of insurance greed.”
• In 2021, the federal government found UnitedHealthcare, the nation’s largest health insurer, was deploying dozens of algorithms to flag people who they decided were getting too much therapy, prompting scrutiny of the records and termination of care.
• Keith McHenry at Food Not Bombs: “I will be getting another flood of calls today from Americans without food who were told by United Healthcare that I can deliver food to their homes. For the past year and a half, I get from 10 to 20 calls a day, and their stories are so sad, and all I can do is tell them to try 211.”
• Anthem/Blue Cross Blue Shield in Connecticut, New York, and Missouri says it will no longer pay for anesthesia for the entire length of some surgeries. If the procedure lasts more than a certain time, anesthesia will not be covered for the duration. US health insurance companies are on their way toward adopting the Gaza Model. If amputations and other surgeries can be done without anesthesia, why pay for them?
• The day after the killing of Brian Thompson, Anthem announced it was backing off (for now) on its plan to cut anesthesiology coverage, in Connecticut at least.
• A new study by economist Jessica Min argues that non-college US employment has declined by over 1,000,000 positions since 2000 because average employer healthcare premiums have doubled, making middle-income workers not worth hiring.
• There’s never been a more succinct definition of capitalism. Neither Adam Smith nor Karl Marx could have put it so vividly.
• Life expectancy:

Japan: 84 years

Australia: 83.2 years

Sweden: 83.1 years

Singapore: 82.9 years

UK: 82.06 years

Denmark: 81.3 years

Canada: 81.3 years

Cuba: 78.16 years

US: 77.43 years

• If only we’d “defunded” health care the way we “defunded“ the police…

(CounterPunch.org)

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THE REAL VILLAINS

by Caitlin Johnstone

The CEO of health insurance giant UnitedHealthcare was gunned down by a masked assailant on Wednesday, much to the delight of Americans who’ve been suffering under their nation’s abusive healthcare system and the sociopathic profiteers who make their fortunes exploiting them through it.

UnitedHealthcare has an unusually high rate of claim denials, even compared to its fellow predatory health insurance companies, and as CEO of the company Brian Thompson was personally raking in $10.2 million a year.

The casings on the bullets used to murder Thompson reportedly had the words “deny,” “defend,” and “depose” written on them, an apparent reference to the “delay, deny, defend” tactics notoriously used by health insurance companies to avoid payouts.

According to Thompson’s wife he had been receiving threats from people because of his company’s actions, telling NBC News that the threats were from people who were angry about “Basically, I don’t know, a lack of coverage?”

That’s an actual quote, by the way. The way she phrased it as a question says so much about how psychologically compartmentalized she had been from her husband’s predatory behavior. Like the wife of a mob boss who doesn’t think too hard about where all the money and gifts are coming from.

The conversations this story has sparked are very interesting. I’ve seen a lot of posts online highlighting the fact that the murder victim in this case was himself a murderer, and a much more prolific one than any serial killer or mass shooter who’s ever lived. The only difference was that his style of murder was protected by the law.

This really nails home the point that the legal system is not intended to protect ordinary citizens from the worst people in our society, it’s there to protect the very worst in our society from ordinary citizens. You can see this just by watching the frenetic police manhunt that’s underway for Brian Thompson’s killer while Thompson himself was walking around a free man, and an obscenely wealthy one at that, despite his having made his wealth via profits reaped from corporate policies designed to deprive sick and injured people of healthcare as frequently as possible.

None of the world’s worst people are in prison. Our society is fed a steady diet of movies and shows depicting heroic protagonists fighting villains who abuse and murder people in illegal ways, when in real life the actual villains of our society murder people in ways that are completely legal. None of their abuses are against the law.…

https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2024/12/06/the-real-villains/

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IT SAYS EVERYTHING THAT ASSASSINATION OF THE HEALTH INSURANCE CEO HAS ELICITED CHEERS. IF YOU'RE NOT A MEMBER OF THE ONE PER CENT, YOU'RE SCREWED

by Maureen Callahan

It says everything when the brutal and apparently targeted assassination of a health insurance chief executive elicits cheers from sections of the American public.

No one even knew who UnitedHealthcare boss Brian Thompson was before he was shot outside the Hilton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan on Wednesday morning.

Not that people seem to care now. No, many of my fellow Americans are more obsessed with the so-called “hot assassin.” How young he is; how expertly he cleared his jammed gun to fire off multiple rounds in quick succession; his cinematic escape into Central Park on an e-bike after dumping a burner phone at the crime scene.

He has become a folk hero, something straight out of The Day Of The Jackal. He is being celebrated on social media. Yes, it's a veritable cesspool, but the collective adulation of this killer – however deplorable – is delivering a bracing message.

For far too many Americans the rapacious healthcare industry had it coming. No matter that Thompson, 50, was a father of two sons and leaves a wife who, despite their reported estrangement, lauded him as “an incredibly loving, generous, talented man who truly lived life to the fullest.”

What so much US news coverage has focused on instead is Thompson's salary (more than $10 million), his alleged role in insider trading and a 2021 plan to refuse payment for accident and emergency visits deemed “non-critical.”

UnitedHealthcare made $282 billion last year. Meanwhile, many of its paying clients – average Americans scraping by – were routinely denied hospital visits, left facing sky-high bills or refused vital medicines. That this was a factor in the killing seems increasingly likely.

The gunman left clues: Live ammo and shell casings with one word written on each – “deny,” “depose,” “defend.”

Those words echo a popular 2010 book titled ‘Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don't Pay Claims And What You Can Do About It.’

Thompson was killed in the week another US insurer – one regarded as offering gold-standard coverage – announced it would no longer pay for certain “anaesthesia care” if surgery went beyond an arbitrary time limit.

This is the double-edged sword of America's privatized healthcare industry. At its best, it's unbeatable. No country in the world can compare. If you're independently wealthy, famous or have a well-paying job with good employment benefits, you'll be in the best possible hands for the least personal cost. You can see consultants the same day – in swanky clinics more akin to hotel suites.

But if you're not a member of the one per cent, you're liable to be screwed. You'll be caught in the maw of a heartless system that will determine what kind of tests you're eligible for, where you'll be treated and by whom, directed by faceless bureaucrats you'll never meet and can never contact.

The system is designed to keep patients, no matter how dire their diagnoses, powerless to fight back or advocate for themselves.

Nearly six years ago, one of my best friends gave birth to twins by planned caesarean at Lenox Hill Hospital – one of New York City's finest, where Beyoncé chose to give birth in 2012.

My friend suffered severe complications after the birth. But her treatment was lax and cavalier until a nurse recognized her as the author of a best-selling medical memoir.

Moments later, she was rushed up to the “Beyoncé floor” to be swiftly tended to while patients strolled around in expensive pajamas, sipped fresh orange juice and ate gourmet meals in capacious private rooms.

The entire experience left her outraged and, yes, feeling powerless.

It's this callous bifurcation of America's rich and poor in matters of life and death that evokes such revulsion.

It's why Robert F. Kennedy Jr., despite his crackpot theories, is embraced by so many to lead America's healthcare policies. People are fed up. They want a disrupter like RFK Jr. to take on Big Pharma, which they believe wants to make and keep Americans sick for profit.

It's no accident that after Thompson was killed, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, the insurer that proposed limiting anaesthesia coverage, reversed its decision.

The American healthcare industry has a lot to answer for, and it seems the death not of their clients, but one of their own, is the only thing that has them listening.

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MEET THE FOLK SINGER BEHIND A VIRAL SONG ABOUT THE KILLING OF BRIAN THOMPSON

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/brian-thompson-ceo-killing-reaction-b2660294.html

“If you ain't coughing cash, then go cough in your basement.”

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ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Advice columnist Abigail Van Buren once received a letter from a Mr. Hooker, a relative of General Joseph Hooker of Civil War fame. “I don’t know how my family name became a synonym for prostitute, whore, or harlot, but I find it very offensive,” he said. The writer went on to say that his son contemplated a name change because his fiancee “doesn’t want to be a ‘Hooker,’ and she says if she has daughters she doesn’t want them to be ‘Hookers,’ either.” The origin of Hooker, as a surname, has nothing to do with “the world’s oldest profession.”

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APOLOGIES TO AFROMAN

I didn't know, I swear!

by Matt Taibbi

In the newest America This Week, Walter Kirn and I watched a clip of “PoliticsGirl” host Leigh McGowan insisting when Hunter Biden’s crimes were less serious than Donald Trump’s because he merely “failed to file and pay taxes when he was a drug addict.” Without thinking I immediately demanded to know why no one had yet spoofed the great Afroman hit using lyrics like, “I wasn’t gonna evade tax/But I got high…”

I’ve been flooded with messages this morning insisting an apology is in order, because Afroman himself wrote and performed Hunter Got High. Walter will like this lyric: “Ukraine wasn’t part of the plan, till Hunter got high/China wasn’t that big of a fan, till Hunter got high…” As usual with this man, it’s on the money. Apologies to the inimitable Afroman.…

https://www.racket.news/p/apologies-to-afroman

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NO STOCKING FOR THE LOVE CHILD

Fresh off pardon-gate, the White House mantel is looking a little bare this year. There used to be stockings hung for each Biden grandchild with such cruel care.

You see, only legitimate grandkiddies were represented in Christmases past, with Hunter's bastardess – sired via stripper – denied a festive sock.

Sure, her mom worked at a jiggle joint, but she's got just as much Biden blood coursing through her as the rest of the brood and deserved a little public love (if not a future Burisma board seat).

Now she'll never get the chance.

— Kennedy

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LEAD STORIES, SATURDAY'S NYT

In Fight for Syria, a Battle for Domination of the Entire Middle East

Syria’s Government Battles Multiple Rebel Uprisings

How to Understand Syria’s Rapidly Changing Civil War

These Maps Show How the Situation Has Changed in Syria

South Korea’s President Survives Impeachment Bid

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DANIEL PENNY TRIAL JUDGE AGREES TO DROP TOP MANSLAUGHTER COUNT AFTER JURY DEADLOCKS TWICE

by Kyle Schnitzer & Ben Kochman

A Manhattan judge on Friday agreed to drop the top charge against former Marine Daniel Penny in the subway chokehold death of Jordan Neely.

“We move to dismiss the top count of manslaughter in the second degree,” Assistant District Attorney Dafna Yoran told the court around 3:30 p.m.

The judge signed off on the request — which came after jurors twice said Friday they couldn’t come to a verdict on the manslaughter rap.

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NOT A JOKE

by James Kunstler

“Stare into the sun and begin to glimpse the size of what you're up against.” — Mike Benz

The Hunter Biden super-sized blanket pardon went over so well around the country that “Joe Biden” — or the shadowy league of not-quite-geniuses who run the twilight White House operation — floated the idea of issuing preemptive pardons for a few of the most spectacularly dishonest characters in US political life: Dr. Fauci, Senator-elect Adam Schiff, and Liz Cheney. Does “JB” plan on legally adopting them so he can claim he was moved to act out of a father’s love?

Like every official act ever associated with the name “Joe Biden” the preemptive pardon idea has that reality-optional feel. None of the three has been convicted of a crime to be pardoned for, or even been hauled-in for questioning by federal law enforcement agents on a probable cause writ. But a pardon would necessarily paint them as criminals, ipso facto. Would they accept a pardon, with what it implies, or run shrieking from it as from an apple polished with novichok?

The proffer of a pardon itself must amount to a declaration of probable cause, igniting the very legal process it seeks to dispose of. An inquiry would have to be launched to discover what laws these three desperadoes might have broken, followed perhaps by a grand jury to evaluate the evidence, and so on. “Joe Biden” himself might have to answer some basic questions, such as: at what time prior to issuing the pardon did he begin to suspect some laws had been broken? And, since the president’s chief duty is to enforce the law, was “JB” negligent and culpable himself for misprision of felonies?

You know, of course, that the Supreme Court decided last summer in Trump v. United States (Docket No: 23-939) that a president is immune from prosecution for official acts. But the misprision of felonies is neither a presidential duty nor anything describable as an official act. Rather it would be grounds for impeachment, being a “high crime.” Now, luckily for Joe Biden, his term-in-office is so close to its conclusion that impeachment must be considered off-the-table as a practical matter. He might be subject to prosecution, though, after the clock strikes noon on one-six-twenty-five.

I doubt he will be present at Mr. Trump’s inauguration, so the US marshals will have to root him out of Delaware (or wherever) and haul him into the federal lockup in DC at exactly the moment Mr. Trump pardons the J-6 prisoners. Will they get to see “Joe Biden” coming into the joint on their way out? There would be a certain poetic symmetry in that, and hard to not admire the workings of Providence after all its foot-dragging. You might well ask: how many days, or months, will “Joe Biden” have to endure in solitary detention before the paperwork is in order for a proper arraignment? Considering how the process was applied to those J-6 culprits, a year would seem sufficient.

Pardon me for saying: I fear that “Joe Biden” might have started something that isn’t going to end well for “Joe Biden” and many others. The little goldfish bowl of the White House is surrounded by the vast, pulsating DC blob and its million-footed ranks of officials deserving of pardons. You know the floated names Fauci, Schiff, and Cheney were only representative samples, denoting a certain managerial class of blobists that runs to the thousands of federal employees at least. What about Garland, Monaco, and Gupta at DOJ, and their paladin prosecutor Jack Smith, and his many deputies? Or Comey, Wray, Abate, Sallet, McCabe, Rosenstein, Strzok, Page, Pientka, Priestap, McCord, Horowitz out of the FBI? Or Mueller, Weissmann, Dreeben, Van Grack, Rhee, and Quarles from that spin-off Special Counsel venture? Or Boasberg, Chutkan, and Sullivan in the DC judiciary? Or, Collins, Wallensky, Cohen and their many deputies in Covid-land? Surely, they all deserve pardons now, and their crimes can be sorted out later.

There would appear to be no precedent for a chief executive pardoning the entire federal government, or we would have heard of it by now. At the conclusion of the Civil War, Abe Lincoln issued a conditional pardon to Southerners — they had to take an oath of allegiance to the Union — but it did not include military officers and high-ranking Confederate officials. The blob of our time is a different breed of porpoise.

Actually, it’s more like a systemic fungal infection of the body politic, requiring deep fumigation and exposure to sunlight. The proposed D.O.G.E advisory under Messrs Musk and Ramaswamy might answer as a “good enough” therapeutic approach, wholesale dismissal of entire agencies and departments, actually flushing away the malign parasites en masse, pardons not required.

What I await in the sunsetting “Joe Biden” presidency is whether he will go ahead and pardon the other members of the Biden family beyond just “first son” Hunter: brothers Jim and Frank and the wives and various offspring who received cash “gifts” from officials in foreign lands laundered into their personal bank accounts amounting to millions of dollars. None of them enjoy the much talked-about presidential immunity out of mere familial proximity to their illustrious relation, number “46” in the lengthening line of commanders-in-chief.

Perhaps that’s what is spurring the league of not-quite-geniuses behind the Big Guy to try to start World War Three this Christmas Season — to distract the public from the inevitable Biden family blanket pardon. At this point, I don’t care if they are ever prosecuted for all that grift. Let the Big Guy and his adjacent family fishes slip through the net. Let that certain someone who authored The Art of the Deal work his magic on the situation so that we don’t become an ashtray from sea to shining sea before the Christmas trees are swagged and lighted.

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CONCERT IN THE COLOSSEUM: GRAPPLING WITH THE SOUNDTRACK OF GLADIATOR II

by David Yearsley

Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II boasts plenty of convincing weaponry and legions of CGI effects that recreate the carnage of the Colosseum and the architecture, if not the vibrant color, of Ancient Rome.

Even more amusing sport is to be had watching the parade of ahistorical fantasies pass by: from the digital sharks and mega-rhinos made to participate in the deathly games, to newspapers (paper hadn’t yet been invented) read by a toga-clad patrician in a Senate Starbucks. The face-lifts of the actors who re-upped for the sequel a quarter century on involve plastic-surgical techniques way beyond the skill-set of a Galen. The famed Roman doctor lived during the historical time of both movies, and even served as personal physician to Commodus (the evil Emperor played by Joaquin Phoenix in the first film) and accompanied Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris) to the German frontier, which is where Gladiator began. Galen didn’t appear in the first film and doesn’t in the sequel, though a kindly medic undertakes some necessary stitching of the battered hero, Lucius (Paul Mescal), in Gladiator II. These wrinkle-and-sag-proofed countenances are modern in aspect, yet they do remind us of the vanity of the Roman ruling class.

Hollywood has long taught us how to suspend belief, just as in Imperial America, realism is not the point.

Nothing is more fantastical yet also crucial to cinematic success in the globalized movie market than the soundtrack. The verisimilitude of the chariot and trireme is far more important to filmmakers than the sound and sight of the Ancient Roman tuba, cornu, and hydraulis, the musical instruments that accompany gladiatorial combat in so many of the depictions that survive from Antiquity.

In his PR-spot for the soundtrack of Gladiator II, Director Scott asserts that “music is a language” that “gives the film that added dynamic, as and when you need it.” Both the Romans and Barbarians speak English in this movie. The language of the music is equally anachronistic: Romantic—not Roman—symphonisms with select updates. As befits a would-be epic, the sonic scenery is grandiloquent, sentimental, manipulative, and excessive, the music toggling between the slily subliminal and sledgehammer obvious.

Heavyweight Hollywood composer Hans Zimmer scored the first Gladiator in 2000 and duly received one of his many Oscar nominations. In that soundtrack, Zimmer proved his mastery at marshaling soft-focus Wagnerian motives to conjure the requisite plot and personality points. The doomed hero of that picture (Russell Crowe’s Maximus) is at pains to remind the legionnaires under his command and, later, his fellow gladiators that “what we do in life echoes in eternity.” And so, Zimmer’s score does lots of echoing—ringing and reverb being the default signifiers of portent and promise.

Over his many decades in the movie business, Zimmer has proved himself an assiduous scorer of sequels. But he did not re-enlist for Ridley Scott’s latest sword-and-sandal campaign, claiming with supreme self-assurance that he had already, Zeus-like, “done that that world” and, in his not-so-humble estimation, “done it well.” Rome was not built in a day, but the original soundtrack didn’t take too much longer than that, maybe a few months. Gladiator was just one of four blockbusters that Zimmer scored that year. Even a less-than-discerning listener can’t help but notice that the main theme of that “world” is hardly distinguishable from that created for Pirates of the Caribbean, which came out a few years later. Zimmer’s swashbuckling symphonisms continue to prove lucratively fungible, from the sands of the Colosseum to the beaches of the Bahamas and beyond.

But rather than risk his reputation and fail to measure up to the musical glories of the first Gladiator, Zimmer handed the baton—or perhaps papyrus scroll— over to his protégé, Harry Gregson-Williams. In Gladiator II, we see the occasional image of Maximus flashed in from the first film, and Gregson-Williams also takes that hero’s theme and deftly transforms and reclads it as the motive for his successor, Lucius.

Gregson-Williams’s score for Gladiator II spreads to one hundred minutes—more than two-thirds of the movie’s two-and-a-half-hour running time. At his disposal are a chorus and orchestra phalanxes, each a hundred strong. From these massed forces, the composer draws misty anticipations before clangorous battles, selfless strivings, hymns to Republican ideals, woozy dreams of the Elysian fields, dark schemings, and scratchy subterfuges. Gregson-Williams is a canny musical strategist, executing his battle plan with a marketable mix of the expected and the ingenious.

Even with the many New Age lessons learned from his mentor, Hans Zimmer, Gregson-Williams’s work is fundamentally as Romantic as so many of the scores in Hollywood’s catalog from a century soundtracks. His symphonic gestures have been carefully calibrated to make the viewer identify with the hero, despise the villain(s), feel the stirrings of love, the creeping dread of oncoming danger, and the noble demands of destiny. In the first Gladiator of 2000, Zimmer used serpentine melodic figures heard on a wooden flute to conjure the mystique of Iberia (Maximus was a Spaniard and assumed that sobriquet after being enslaved as a gladiator) and visions of the afterlife.

Like Zimmer, Gregson-Williams loves winding, exoticized cantillations, as when the Roman fleet arrives to conquer the African kingdom of Numidia at the outset of Gladiator. But the composer is also intent to add antique flavors to his symphonic palette. He discovered Spanish instrument-maker and performer Abraham Cupeiro and his Roman horn (cornu) and Greek flute (aulos). These instruments, described as “weird and wonderful” by Gregson-Williams, give texture and punch to the orchestral score, notwithstanding unconvincing claims that these sonic elements also add a layer of period authenticity. As if to acknowledge these musical adventurers and experiments, Scott even offers us a glimpse of some Roman street musicians doing some period piping as we follow our hero on the way to the amphitheater.

What is never heard in either Gladiator is the real instrument of the Colosseum: the organ. Scott fills the Colosseum with water for a thrilling naval clash, but his historical advisers didn’t add the vital water-organ—the authentic sound of the so-called games.

This mighty noisemaker and musical marvel had been invented in the 3rd century B.C.E. by the Alexandrian engineer Ctesibius. He devised a system in which a cistern filled with water was used to equalize the pressure of the wind supplied to the pipes by pumping two cylinders. This strong and steady wind pressure helped produce high decibels from the hydraulis (water-organ). Most of the forty or so surviving images from Antiquity place the instrument alongside gladiatorial combat. In the Satyricon by Petronius, the confidant of Nero, a slave seen carving meat at a party, is likened to “a gladiator in a chariot fighting to the accompaniment of a water-organ.”

The evil emperor from the first Gladiator film, Commodus, was known to be an organist, but none was more obsessed with the instrument than Nero, as Harry Morgan details in a recent article in the Classical Quarterly. One account describes how the Emperor, having hastened back to Rome to deal with a major slave revolt, “suddenly summoned the foremost senators and equestrians as a matter of urgency, as if to make some communication to them regarding the present situation, and then said to them (I quote his exact words): ‘I have discovered a way by which the water-organ will produce louder and more tuneful music.’”

Unlike horn or trumpet players, the hydraulis would not crack or waver. The near-miraculous machine could always outlast human breath, so long as slaves were pumping the cylinders and an adept organist, like Nero, operated the pipes. A multi-instrumentalist on aulos, lyre, and organ, Nero fancied himself not just a fabulous performer but a technical innovator, eager to make the hydraulis more impressive to the plebes in the circus and the amphitheater. Nero piped not just because of his artistic mania but for political purposes.

The water-organ was loved by the masses and obsessed over by more than one power-hungry Roman emperor. With what for Hollywood would be a mere modicum of license, Gladiator II could have let loose the crazed and musically adept emperor Caracalla (played by Joseph Quinn) to vamp on a fabulous reconstruction of the hydraulis as men slaughtered each other on the sand below in a scene to rival, indeed surpass, Disney’s 20,000 Leagues under the Sea with James Mason as a Captain Nemo playing not a water-organ, but an underwater-organ.

Mozart called the organ the Queen of Instruments; now, it’s thought of as the King. If the aged Scott or some future Hollywood Centurion mounts a third Gladiator, let that film help the organ regain, at long last, its throne as Emperor of Instruments.

(David Yearsley is a long-time contributor to CounterPunch and the Anderson Valley Advertiser. His latest recording is Handel’s Organ Banquet. He can be reached at dgyearsley@gmail.com.)

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