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SOUTHERLY WINDS AND HEAVY RAINFALL will gradually diminish through the day with increased chance of convective showers this afternoon. A similar AR storm system will arrive late Sunday morning, followed quickly by a more impactful system Monday night into Tuesday. Increasing hydrologic impacts are expected by midweek. (NWS)
STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): Winter officially started at 1:21am this morning, 2 hours later we got a great thunderstorm with thunder & lightning & downpours. Off & on showers currently this morning at 5am, 51F with .29" of rainfall. It looks like today's rain will be mostly done by mid-morning with more coming tomorrow morning. Off & on rain all week long with the most rain forecast for Monday night & Christmas day looking mostly dry.
SOLSTICE GREETINGS
Tonight is the longest night of the year, the Winter Solstice, a holiday that has been celebrated for 30,000 years. The solstice marks the death and rebirth of the sun. People have recorded this from time immemorial in both physical monuments and the myths of their gods. Tomorrow the lights comes back as the days start to grow. Many blessings to all in the new year and a wish for peace and tranquillity in this changing world.
— Dick Whetstone
CHILD IN CRASH SAVED BY FIREFIGHTER
A Mendocino County firefighter was one of two people who helped revive a child with CPR Friday following a crash on Highway 101, the California Highway Patrol reported.
According to the CHP, a 47-year-old Garberville man was heading north on Hwy. 101 around 4:40 p.m. Dec. 13 in the heavy rain when, at Spy Rock Road north of Laytonville, the Toyota 4-Runner he was driving “began to hydroplane and ran off the roadway. The 4-Runner drove up the embankment and overturned, landing on its roof.”
The 4-Runner then “slid into the southbound lane,” directly into the path of a Toyota RAV4 being driven by a 56-year-old Philo man. The two vehicles collided, then “both went down the embankment into Rattlesnake Creek, (where they landed in the water) upside down and were nearly submerged as the creek continued to rise due to the heavy rainfall.”
Shortly after the crash, the CHP reports that “Barrett Thomas and Abram Hill (an off-duty volunteer firefighter with Leggett Valley Fire and Rescue and Piercy Volunteer Fire Department)” were both driving in separate vehicles “through the area when they noticed vehicle debris in the roadway,” and both men pulled over and checked down the embankment.
The CHP reports that Thomas pulled the driver of the RAV4 “and his son to safety out of the creek and noticed (the 4Runner) downstream. Hill then jumped from the creek bank onto the upside-down vehicle, just as two (of the driver’s) children emerged from the vehicle.”
As Hill helped the children to the creek bank, the driver emerged from the 4Runner “with his four-year-old child.” As Hill helped them up to the side of the highway, “Hill recognized the child was not breathing and did not have a pulse,” and the men began performing CPR on the child.
“Not long after starting CPR, the four-year-old’s pulse returned and shortly after, the (child) was breathing without assistance,” the CHP reports, adding that the child was “transported to Howard Memorial Medical Center and then to UC Davis Medical Center, and is expected to make a full recovery.”
As for the remaining occupants of both vehicles, the CHP describes them as receiving “minor injuries from the crash.”
Garberville CHP Office added that it is “extremely grateful for the quick actions of Abram Hill and Barrett Thomas, (who performed) CPR in the pouring rain, ultimately saving the life of a four-year-old child.”
(Ukiah Daily Journal)
HELP FIND BELLA
She escaped from Deer Meadows Rd in Boonville. Please report any sightings to Janette Lamperti or call the shelter at 707-467-6453 or Animal Control at 707-463-4427 ext 3
LOCAL NURSE CONVICTED OF FIREARM, SEX FELONIES
The former lead nurse at the Low Gap Adult Jail Facility was convicted by plea Friday of multiple felony offenses and one misdemeanor charge.
Defendant Blake Dylan Bradley Cox, age 28, originally from Indiana but now of Ukiah, stands convicted of eight sex-related felonies and one misdemeanor in one case, and two additional firearm felonies in a second case.
Through a dogged investigation by the Ukiah Police Department that initially involved an allegation of misdemeanor domestic battery, it was also discovered that the defendant was in possession of eleven illegal assault weapons and twenty-seven other firearms.
While that original case was winding its way through the courts, the UPD continued analyzing seized evidence, not the least being the defendant’s cellular telephone.
Law enforcement's forensic review of the contents of that cell phone revealed overwhelming evidence of sex-related crimes – involving both juvenile and adults -- that the defendant had initiated and perpetrated through an online scam known as catfishing.
Catfishing is when a person ("the catfish") uses false information and images to create a fake identity online with the intention to trick, harass, or scam another person. It is often found on social media or dating apps and websites, and is a common tactic used to form online relationships under false pretenses.
Catfishing, in the defendant's case, meant the defendant ("the catfish") used naked female images to create a fake female identity/persona (“Jessica”) to trick male victims online into believing they are in a real online friendship and a developing sexual romance with the mysterious Jessica.
The victims were eventually then lured by Jessica into meeting up with "one of her male friends” (defendant Cox) and filmed in the backseat of a vehicle participating in oral and other sex acts with "the friend" (defendant Cox). The pixs were supposedly forwarded to Jessica by "her friend" so she would know who to expect and be turned on in advance by her adventurous new online suitor.
If the victim fell for the scam, Jessica promised to share with the victim her parents' address after-the-fact so the victim could hook up with her while her parents were away. The lure was that the victim would be sexually rewarded by Jessica for "helping out her male friend." "She" promised that when they ultimately got together that she would participate in and fulfill any and all of the victim's sexual fantasies.
However, once Jessica's male “friend” (defendant Cox) had a successful "meeting" with Jessica's suitor, the defendant's online Jessica persona would disappear and the defendant would then ghost his victims.
In addition to catfish conversation threads, pictures and videos, the defendant’s cell phone also contained images of illegal child pornography, as well as videos from a hidden camera placed to film an unsuspecting under-aged relative in all stages of disrobement.
The law enforcement agencies that diligently worked the cases against defendant Cox are the Ukiah Police Department and the DA’s in-house Bureau of Investigations.
Special thanks are extended to the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office for assisting with specialized report review and charging recommendations. Special thanks are also extended to UPD Officers Pardini and Elledge for well-done investigations.
Special thanks also to the California Attorney General’s Office working on behalf of the California Board of Nursing.
The Board of Nursing, through their assigned Deputy AG, intervened in the criminal proceedings in May and successfully obtained a court order to withhold the defendant’s nursing license while the defendant’s Mendocino County criminal charges are pending.
The local prosecutor handling this case on behalf of the People of the State of California is District Attorney David Eyster.
Presiding Mendocino County Superior Court Judge Keith Faulder accepted the defendant’s no contest pleas Friday afternoon.
For further information on catfishing and what to do if you suspect you have been financially -- or otherwise -- targeted by “the catfish,” please read the CNN article found at: https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/29/tech/catfishing-explained-what-to-do-as-equals-intl-cmd/index.html
BREAKING NEWS IN THE HARBOR
A fishing boat hit the jetty on the way in and then tried to dock at the wharf, but sank and turned over. These are reports from the scene and photos as you see.
Someone was trying to say I couldn't take photos from public areas of the rescue. But there were two guys videoing this, one local man who has a very popular You Tube channel. It always legal to take photos from public roads. I have no idea why someone would not want photos. A private boat came out and did a quick rescue. Its likely to big to go up to the larger boat pullout and boat ramp, so they were doing it right by the Coast Guard Station. No injuries reported.
(Frank Hartzell)
NORTH COAST RESIDENTS ‘ABSOLUTELY HORRIFIED’ BY OFFICIAL’S INSULTS IN CITY COUNCIL MEETING
A Recent Meeting Of The Fort Bragg City Council Went Off The Rails
by Matt LaFever
A recall effort is gaining momentum in Mendocino County after a routine city council meeting earlier this month devolved into personal insults between council members.
On Dec. 9, the Fort Bragg City Council met to address several election-related items, including the selection of a new mayor and vice mayor. The discussion devolved when one council member accused a colleague who was vying for the vice mayorship of being unable to read or write unaided, dismissing her as “not a leader.”
The Dec. 9 meeting began with typical pleasantries: bidding farewell to outgoing council member and Mayor Bernie Norvell and welcoming newly elected council member Scott Hockett, alongside 22-year council veteran Lindy Peters, who was sworn in for another term.
Next on the agenda was the selection of the city’s new mayor and vice mayor. Before the process began, council member Tess Albin-Smith proposed a change to how these positions are assigned.
Currently, the Fort Bragg City Council chooses its mayor and vice mayor through public nomination and vote. Albin-Smith suggested switching to an annual rotational system, a method used in several California cities like Palm Springs and Ventura, where each council member would serve at least one year in each role. The rotation would prioritize seniority, with the longest-serving member becoming mayor and the second-longest-serving member taking the vice mayor position.
The proposed system, Albin-Smith said, “avoids the favoritism, the politicking behind the scenes.” She argued the rotation “gives fresh perspectives to mayor leadership, allowing for innovative ideas and approaches to be brought forth by each council member. We are all equal. We have fair distribution of power this way.”
It’s worth noting that by making seniority the determining factor in leadership roles, Albin-Smith suggested a system that would elevate her to either mayor or vice mayor, given her six-year tenure.
Council member Lindy Peters, who has served 22 non-consecutive years and is the most seasoned member of the municipal body, backed Albin-Smith’s proposal, saying, “I personally prefer the rotation to let everybody get a chance.”
In the end, Albin-Smith and Peters were the only two to back the proposal, which was defeated in a 3-2 vote. One of the dissenters, council member Marcia Rafanan, had said the rotation-based policy “sounds like everyone gets a trophy. Everyone doesn’t get a trophy.”
A ‘Discussion’ Goes Off The Rails
With the idea struck down, the City Council moved forward with its traditional process, calling for nominations and voting to select the mayor and vice mayor.
Rafanan, who was appointed to the council in 2021 to fill a vacancy and then won election to a full term in 2022, nominated Vice Mayor Jason Godeke as Fort Bragg’s new mayor. He swiftly secured unanimous support from the council.
For vice mayor, Godeke returned the favor, nominating Rafanan. Albin-Smith countered with a nomination for Peters but then interrupted the process, asking if the council could “have discussion” before proceeding with the vote.
Peters took the microphone to make his case, highlighting his extensive experience and track record. “In 2014, I received the most votes in the election. In 2018, I received the most votes in the election. In 2022, I received the most votes. In 2024, I received the most votes,” he stated, adding, “I have more institutional knowledge than any of the other council members.” Peters directly compared himself with Rafanan, saying, “This is not to take anything away from council member Rafanan. It’s just that I have more experience running meetings. I have more experience working with people. And I have the time. I don’t have any children. My son is grown. He lives in Chicago. He’s a grown man. I work part time, and I’m retired.”
Albin-Smith then proceeded to deliver a prepared statement about Rafanan that has become a lightning rod for public outrage. Her remarks began with a pointed list of the traits she believed a mayor or vice mayor should possess.
“Mayors and vice mayors do more than run the council meetings. They should be able to read, understand and write decisions unassisted,” Albin-Smith stated. “They need to speak on complex city issues and deal with the public, city staff, and other agencies and officials. They need to know what to do when hell breaks loose.”
Albin-Smith then directly criticized Rafanan, stating, “Sorry, I don’t think Marcia has these qualities.” While acknowledging the significance of diverse representation in leadership — Rafanan is a member of the Sherwood Valley Band of Pomo Indians — Albin-Smith’s comments quickly turned personal.
“I think it would be great to have a mayor that represents people of color if that mayor had such leadership skills and experience,” she said. “It would even be more amazing if Marcia was actually a spokesperson for the tribal community, but she doesn’t speak.”
Albin-Smith went on to criticize Rafanan’s lack of experience and implied Rafanan does not speak for herself.
“Marcia came to the council three years ago with zero experience on any board or nonprofit, and she’s had enough time to learn the job,” she continued. “She’s a very nice person. She’s very friendly. But she’s definitely not a leader, not comfortable with public speaking, and sadly, we know that she is swayed by certain people who tell her what to say, so she doesn’t have original comments.”
Albin-Smith concluded her statement with a sweeping dismissal of Rafanan’s qualifications.
“The job of mayor and vice mayor is too important to give to a person who has no leadership skills,” she said. “We need someone with a firm hand, quick decision-making ability, fortitude, and doesn’t need or allow others to tell them what to say. I don’t think Marcia is qualified.”
Passionate Defense
Immediately following Albin-Smith’s scathing remarks, Godeke, the newly chosen mayor, stepped in to defend Rafanan. Reflecting on two years of collaboration, he commended her leadership and engagement: “I’ve been very grateful for her input. … I’ve been impressed with her ability to engage in meetings and lead in meetings.”
Godeke also pushed back against Peters’ implication that Rafanan’s personal commitments — she has two school-age kids and two full-time jobs — are points against her candidacy. “The fact that she has kids or that she has work and has other commitments — I actually think that those are some of the things that make her an ideal candidate for vice mayor,” he said.
He closed by highlighting Rafanan’s role as a vital voice for the community. “She represents a large part of our community that hasn't necessarily been represented fulsomely. … We all listen to constituents,” Godeke stated, presenting Rafanan as a capable and relatable leader in the face of Albin-Smith’s harsh critique.
Rafanan herself stood firm, offering a passionate defense of her experience. “I got elected here two years ago … because I’m here representing the working class, the working poor class,” she said. “…I work two jobs. I have kids. Like most of Fort Bragg here, I know the struggle of how it is to live and work here in Fort Bragg.”
“I am not made of money,” she continued. “I know what it takes to live here. We need more jobs, not more walking trails.”
Rafanan also addressed Albin-Smith’s accusation that she is easily influenced head-on. “I do have to disagree with you: I have my own mind. I don’t let people speak for me,” she said. “Anybody that knows me will say that I will not be swayed.”
Overall, Rafanan made a powerful case for her candidacy as vice mayor: “We don’t need another polished politician. We need somebody that’s real — somebody that knows the struggle to live and work here.”
After Rafanan concluded her remarks, the council members cast their votes for vice mayor. Rafanan secured the position in a 4-1 decision, with Albin-Smith standing alone in dissent. Even Peters, the veteran council member who had championed his own qualifications moments earlier after being nominated by Albin-Smith, backed Rafanan.
‘Tess, You Should Be Ashamed Of Yourself’
With the vice mayorship decided, the clerk called for public comment for items not on the agenda.
Fort Bragg resident Jenny Shattuck spoke first: “A lot of us were absolutely horrified how rude Tess just was, putting down a fellow council member.”
Jacob Patterson, another resident of Fort Bragg, echoed Shattuck’s criticism, pointing to Albin-Smith’s past advocacy for civility. “I want to echo Jenny’s comments. …There was an anti-bullying policy that Tess was a big champion of. … Everything that you said in your comment, Tess, was a violation of that policy that you supported,” Patterson said, addressing Albin-Smith directly. He added, “It’s one thing to support Lindy, but it’s quite another to basically accuse Marcia of not being able to read and write. You should be ashamed of yourself, and I would not be surprised if there is a recall.”
Judy Martin, the executive director at Mendocino Coast Humane Society, was visibly upset by Albin-Smith’s comments, saying, “I’m actually blown away at the comment that you made about Marcia not being able to read or her inability to be a vice mayor. I’ve known Marcia since I was 10 years old. She’s caring, she’s strong, and the only way somebody is going to learn to be a leader is to get the chance — and not be belittled in front of the public and said that she can’t read or lead.”
Judy Valadao, a Fort Bragg resident, expressed her disbelief: “I have never heard anyone talk about another council member the way Tess Albin-Smith just did. It was completely uncalled for, and frankly, it’s not true. It may be how she feels, but that’s not how a lot of us feel. Tess, you should be ashamed of yourself.”
The only public commenter to defend Albin-Smith’s critique of Rafanan did so under the banner of free speech. “I’m a very, very strong advocate of free speech. Whether it’s framed in ignorance or knowledge, I believe a person has a right to speak their own opinion. … The cure for speech, whether approved or disapproved, is not less speech — it is more speech. This is a classical approach of American jurisprudence,” said Andrew Jordan, another resident. “I think that our city is better served by honest comments, that are not ad hominem attacks, and I don't consider Tess’ comments ad hominem attacks, but she was basically voicing her reservations and concerns, and it’s better that she and every single other council member be honest about how they feel in making decisions for this city, rather than shading or pulling punches, trying to be diplomatic when they can’t get their point across.”
The meeting ultimately ended two hours later, with Godeke installed as mayor and Rafanan as vice mayor.
Marcia! Marcia! Marcia!
On Monday, Dec. 16 a special City Council meeting was called for the City Council to authorize routine city business. However, all City Council meetings provide members of the public with an opportunity to speak on non-agenda items — and so the Albin-Smith fury continued.
Three women who participated in public comment wore shirts of support for Rafanan that read “Marcia! Marcia! Marcia! I Stand With Her,” a reference to the “Brady Bunch” character. Fort Bragg resident Verna Escola, who acknowledged she doesn’t “usually do these meetings very often,” delivered a searing critique of Albin-Smith’s comments. “I watched the City Council meeting in disbelief. I actually kept watching it over and over to make sure I was understanding the intent of Tess’ speech,” she said. “And after literally watching it 10 times, I was disgusted.”
Escola said “all of us here in Fort Bragg” felt Albin-Smith’s comments were “distasteful and completely unnecessary.” Then she addressed Albin-Smith directly. “I wonder why, Tess, did you feel it was OK to degrade and ridicule Marcia in a public forum? For you to say basically Marcia could not read or write English speaks volumes on the fact that you don’t really know her.”
Bernadette Rafanan, the council person’s older sister, also addressed Albin-Smith directly. “I don’t like what you said about my sister. That’s my family. That’s disgraceful, Tess. You knock down Native Americans by saying my sister can’t read or write. That is wrong of you.”
She added: “You need to resign. … Your racism and your hate need to go, Tess. That’s all I have to say to you.”
Shattuck, the resident who kicked off the discussion in the Dec. 9 meeting, returned to the podium with more pointed remarks. “I’m actually here to recognize Tess Albin-Smith for the unity she has brought to our community,” Shattuck began with biting sarcasm.
She continued, “There has always been division since the inception of Fort Bragg as a city. However, most every segment of our community stands together against such hateful, racist and sexist remarks that were made at the council meeting last week. We all believe this condescending and elitist behavior has no place in town hall, city hall or our community, especially from an elected council person. So thanks for putting such behavior front and center in your prewritten statement and comments last week.”
After nearly 15 minutes of biting criticism, Albin-Smith issued a public apology for her comments about Rafanan. She began by saying, “When you make a mistake, and I made a really big one, you have to own up to it. I own up to it. … I do want to apologize. I want to sincerely apologize for the comments I made about your qualifications to be vice mayor. I did not intend to hurt you or offend you, your supporters or the public.”
The councilwoman continued, “I was only trying to express my concerns to fell council about her comparatively limited experience compared to Lindy Peters, but that’s a mistake I made, a big mistake. I deeply regret making public comments that undermined Marcia’s character. I understand that I may have offended her … and her supporters.”
Albin-Smith celebrated how Rafanan represents a significant step forward for gender and racial representation in Fort Bragg’s government. She is the first woman in nearly two decades to serve as the city’s vice mayor or mayor, and she is the first woman of color in the role. “I’m actually proud of Marcia’s accomplishments,” Albin-Smith said. “…As someone passionate about improving the lives and status of women locally and globally — why I’m a Soroptimist — I want to see more women represented in non-traditional roles like police, fire and government.
“So it appears I’m a hypocrite. I apologize for that — my poorly worded concerns publicly disparaging Marcia’s qualifications for the job.”
After Albin-Smith offered her apology, Rafanan offered brief remarks and thanked the community for the “love and support the city has shown the past week.”
Godeke, the new mayor, then took the microphone to back Rafanan once more, saying, “I’d like to just say how grateful I am to have you as a colleague.” He framed the debate overall as a positive, saying, “It’s healthy if we don’t agree on all the issues.” However, he said, the community expects the council to be “functional as a team. And that means we do have to be careful about how we speak to each other.”
In a statement to SFGate, Godeke praised Rafanan, describing her as “a model of professionalism” and emphasizing that “she’s shown exactly why she merits her new role.” He highlighted Rafanan’s commitment to “improving economic opportunities for our local citizens, especially those who are struggling to make ends meet,” and noted that she “represents a part of our community that hasn’t had much of a voice.”
Rafanan told SFGate in a text message, “I am so grateful for the support from my children, colleagues and community.” Addressing Albin-Smith’s comments, Rafanan remarked, “It’s unfortunate to see this poor behavior, especially at Council level,” adding, “There is already so much hate in the world, we don’t accept or need it in our community.”
When contacted by SFGate for a statement, Albin-Smith responded briefly, saying, “I support Marcia and my council 100%.”
Shattuck confirmed to SFGate after the Dec. 16 meeting that “a recall is being organized by local citizens” to remove Albin-Smith from office. She said, however, that she and other backers of a recall would welcome not having to go that route and “feel that Tess should do the right thing and resign, saving the community more division and harm.”
(SFGate)
FORT BRAGG ADVOCATE EDITORIAL:
In our opinion, last week’s City Council meeting was a low point for Fort Bragg. What should have been a straightforward discussion about leadership turned into an uncomfortable display of public criticism. Councilmember Tess Albin-Smith’s comments about Vice Mayor Marcia Rafanan felt personal and, frankly, out of line.
After her proposal to switch to a rotating mayorship was voted down, Albin-Smith questioned Rafanan’s qualifications, criticized her public speaking skills, and suggested others overly influenced her. That kind of public disparagement isn’t just disrespectful—it’s embarrassing for the entire city. Constructive criticism is fine, but there’s a time and place for it. A council meeting isn’t the place for personal attacks.
To her credit, Rafanan took the high road, focusing on her role as a working-class councilmember and the behind-the-scenes work she does to serve the community. She reminded us that we need leaders who truly understand the struggles of living and working here. That’s a message that resonates with many of us.
Here’s the thing: if a city employee behaved this way toward a coworker, there would likely be consequences. Why should councilmembers be held to a lower standard? Albin-Smith’s comments didn’t reflect the professionalism or respect we expect from our elected leaders.
Albin-Smith’s public apology during this week’s Special City Council meeting was a step in the right direction. Taking responsibility isn’t about losing face—it’s about demonstrating accountability and showing the community that our leaders can rise above personal conflicts when it matters most. Now, it’s time to move forward and focus on what truly matters: working together to address the challenges facing Fort Bragg and making it a better place for everyone. Let’s hope the council can do that.
CHRISTMAS ARRIVES EARLY FOR DEFENDANT
A Mendocino County Superior Court jury returned from its misdemeanor deliberations on Tuesday afternoon to announce it was deadlocked and would not be able to reach a unanimous verdict.
The former trial defendant, Gavin Benjiman Lewis, age 30, of Redwood Valley, had been charged with having committed a misdemeanor domestic battery in June 2024.
After declaring a mistrial (“hung jury”), the visiting retired judge mistakenly dismissed the charge instead of setting the case for a new trial within 30 days, as required by law.
Instead, the judge advised the prosecutor that the prosecutor should refile the charge and then have that refiled case set for a new trial.
The court's dismissal as entered into the record was a mistake and the refiling advisement was a gross misstatement of the law. A misdemeanor cannot be refiled a second time (unlike a felony) when once dismissed.
The law enforcement agencies that investigated the underlying circumstances and supported this week’s trial effort were the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office and the DA’s Bureau of Investigations.
The attorney who presented the People’s evidence to the jury was Deputy District Attorney Sarah Drlik.
LORNA ROSS (facebook):
Hi AV family! IHSS (In Home Supportive Services) has awarded our good friend Kevin Owens in house services. But you must be fingerprinted in Ukiah. It’s inside housework. $18 an hour. Also he can pay someone to cut firewood, $20 going rate. Pm me (facebook) if interested. No rip offs need apply!
I’m also looking for a place to live. So happy to be back! So happy! Thanks everyone.
LAUREN SINNOTT: Come to my Lighthouse talk! Tomorrow - Saturday - at 4pm at the Point Arena Lighthouse Fog Signal Building. Attendees are invited to a cozy gathering with wine, beer or tea at my house afterwards!
PLANNING ON HOLD
Dear Interested Parties,
The cancellation notice for the January 2, 2025, 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
ED NOTES
FOR PURE HYPOCRISY, it's hard to beat the mainstream media now claiming to be shocked that Biden hasn't been president for the past four years, shocked that the Democratic Party's shot callers, knowing Biden was ga-ga when they shoved him out there to take on the Orange Beast, knew Biden was ga-ga when they made him the candidate.
WHAT ought to be even more shocking is the historically unique fact that unelected people have been running the country for four years, nevermind that policy for both parties is on auto-pilot. This Biden situation might accurately be called a coup.
AMERICA no longer has a novelist with the gifts required to explain what has happened — a walking corpse won election over a half-demented guy who said on national television that Haitian immigrants were eating household pets. We're way, way beyond satire into a whole new sphere of unreality.
WHY even the lowly Boonville weekly repeatedly warned prior to Biden's nomination that he was out of it. Did anyone listen? Noooooo. Mendolib, frightened down to their decaf lattes of the orange beast, marched out in typical lemming-like righteousness to vote for the deceased.
NOT that the Democrats had a viable alternative to the dead man, and here we are with Musk as our national shot caller. To paraphrase T.S. Eliot: “Hurry along, please, it won't be long…”
LUIGI MANGIONI, hands down, is the all-time propagandist of the deed. The kid's assassination of a serial healthcare killer has freed up a deluge of hopefully transformative criticism of the Pay or Die health care system we've got going in this country. No more half-measures. No more phony ObamaCare. We've got to have MediCare For All, which, if we ever get it, will be because Mangioni broke the insurance-big pharma-corporate-owned Democrat logjam.
A NOTE on Mangioni's alleged Unabomber inspiration, the diff being that Mangioni used a gun because, as he has written, he didn't want to kill innocent people. The Unabomber didn't care who he killed besides his target. One of his first bombs was hidden in the baggage compartment of an airliner. Fortunately, it failed to explode. Kazinski's theory — that techno-civ would kill us all — is proving out, but he was no humanist. Mangioni's theory that identifiable individuals do great harm is also correct, but realistically it's an awfully long hit list.
MANGIONI'S KINDA REMINISCENT of Gavrilo Princip, the young Serbian (?) nationalist who singlehandedly kicked off World War One by assassinating Archduke Ferdinand, not that his noble act had desirable long-term consequences.
SPEAKING of Democrats, the scloratic leadership of the party — Pelosi, Schumer etc, are hiding their young, smart, attractive colleagues like AOC in favor of Adam Schiff, a guy only a suicidal political party would put up front.
THE 32ND ANNUAL PROFESSIONAL PIANIST CONCERTS
These wildly popular, legendary concerts are always full of surprises - And yes, there may be more instruments than just pianos on the stage! Spencer Brewer and Ukiah Community Concerts proudly present the 32st annual Professional Pianist Concerts, coming to the Mendocino College Center Theatre on Saturday, January 25 at 7:00 PM, and on Sunday, January 26 at 2:00 PM. The artists you've come to love plus exciting new talent will take the Ukiah stage by storm once again, bringing their signature flair, finesse, humor, irreverence, and the sheer joy of sharing their immense talent that has wowed audiences for over three decades.
Tickets: ukiahconcerts.org
THROUGH NATIVE EYES
by Sarah Nathe
Most California histories begin with the arrival of the Spanish missionaries in the late eighteenth century and skip to the Gold Rush of 1849. Here on the Mendocino Coast, we start with the wreck of the Frolic in 1850 and the arrival of the first sawmill at Big River in 1852. Absent from these stories are the perspectives and experiences of the people who lived on this land long before Euro-American settlers arrived. The current exhibit at the Kelley House Museum — “Northern Pomo: Mendocino’s First People” — seeks to correct that oversight by presenting a Pomo point of view on the past 172 years.
In conjunction with the exhibit, our bookstore is featuring “California Through Native Eyes: Reclaiming History,” by William J. Bauer, Jr, a historian and enrolled member of the Round Valley Indian Tribes. Although the history of Indigenous people in Northern California extends as far back as 8,000 BCE, Bauer focuses on what happened “after contact” with settlers in the mid-19th century: the colonizers drew maps, displaced the natives, and renamed and reshaped the land and everything that lived on it. Using oral histories collected from elders in Northern California tribes as part of a New Deal federal works project in 1935, Bauer examines what the Indigenous people made of those acts and their effects on them.
As part of the same Works Projects Administration initiative that produced “Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States” by interviewing formerly enslaved people, Indians on the Round Valley Reservation were asked to share tribal stories and individual recollections about life before and after the California Indian Wars. Northern Pomo, Lassik (from the Eel River and its tributaries) and Concow (originally from eastern Butte County) people participated. Bauer, who is a professor of history and program director for American Indian and Indigenous Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, reads the stories as revisions of the usual narrative of Indian defeat and disappearance.
Lucy Young, also known as T’tcetsa, lived on the Round Valley Indian Reservation with her third husband, Sam Young, a Wintu from Hayfork, in Trinity County. Born in the late 1840s, Young survived the traumas of California’s colonization. In 1861 and 1862 U.S. troops and volunteers wiped out her male relatives and marched her female relatives to Fort Seward, located along the Eel River northeast of modern-day Garberville. After she arrived at the fort, settlers abducted her and sold her into indentured servitude. She eventually married one of her employers, though probably not because she wanted to. She recalled, “We were very healthy till after the White people came in among us. But after about two years, between guns and sickness, our people began to die off by the hundreds. There was sickness all the time and it has been so ever since.”
California Indians understood themselves as a people of a place. Creators made the land, and the plants and animals on it, for a certain People and a unique People for a specific place. Polly Anderson, a 77-year old Concow woman from Round Valley recalled, “My people said that on the Feather River there were big flat rocks where they could stand right out over the river and catch fish. The creator made those rocks for them.” But between 1820 and 1935, settlers appropriated most of the native places and renamed them on the assumption that they had just “discovered” them. That, of course, made the places “theirs.” That history is still being righted today with government efforts to change derogatory names associated with Native Americans and to return some land, however minimal the acreage might be.
By 1935 many people in Indian Country had begun to agitate for changes to biased federal policies. In 1911 educated American Indians had formed the Society of American Indians, which lobbied for American Indian citizenship and improved reservation conditions. After the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act in 1924, Indian intellectuals continued the battle and their efforts culminated in the 1928 “Meriam Report,” authored by Henry Roe Cloud, a Yale-educated Winnebago from Nebraska, and anthropologist Lewis Meriam. The report found that wars, removal, and the policies of confinement (on reservations) and forced assimilation (in the infamous Indian boarding schools) had damaged Indigenous people and their lands.
Changes recommended in that report had not been made by 1935, and many of them have not yet been made, but some of the Native American voices captured in “California Through Native Eyes” sound hopeful; all of them sound unbowed.
If you are interested in reading the whole book, it can be purchased for $30 at the Kelley House Museum, which is open from Thursdays through Mondays, 11:00 am — 3:00 pm. Come by to take in the Pomo exhibit. Historic District walking tours leave from the museum on Albion Street regularly; the cost is $25. For a tour schedule, visit kelleyhousemuseum.org.
MENDOCINO COUNTY WAY BACK WHEN (Ron Parker)
ANSWERING REVISIONISM
Jim Armstrong: “A homicidal social worker named Sharon Amos also invited us to the People’s Temple. She would cut the throats of her three children, then slash her own jugular in Guyana where she functioned as Jones’ gatekeeper in the capital of Georgetown.”
Bruce Anderson has made this claim at least a dozen times in these pages and at least twice he has admitted and I paraphrase: “Armstrong is right, No one knows for sure what happened in Amos’ apartment in Georgetown.”
Going further this time, he slanders her by calling her “homicidal,” inferring that he knew this to be part of her psychological makeup ever since she tweaked him in earlier engagements.
When you think a journalist may be deliberately printing inaccurate information, you may take some of his other views with a grain of salt.
When you know he is doing so, you doubt them all.
Editor: As a matter of confirmed fact, Ms. Amos was a former social worker for Mendocino County and chief Jones lieutenant at Jones’ Georgetown office where she screened would be visitors to the Jonestown jungle compound. On the fatal day Amos murdered her own children by cutting their throats and then her own. Any book on the mass murder details Amos’s last day.
Armstrong: “Confirmed fact” is quite a claim. Are citations more than “any book” available?
Editor: You need more? Odd that you continually defend one of Jones’ primary enablers.
Armstrong: When I started at the then Welfare Department’s children’s service unit in 1970, Linda Amos and I had adjacent desks and shared a telephone for about two years.
Actually, she was an adult services social worker and I have never understood why she came calling on you on that fateful day you wrote about and have reprinted so many times.
Sharing such close quarters over such a long time left few aspects of either of our professional and personal lives very secret. We became friends as well as coworkers.
She was dedicated to her job, her children and to the Peoples Temple. Exhaustion was her standard state.
Of course, there were several other Temple members employed there in quite varied jobs.
A good friend of mine, one even better acquainted with several Temple members, and I were invited to Sunday services and attended most of one the famous all day mindboggling productions. Suffice it to say, it seems more like yesterday than fifty years ago.
To the point, Linda was an amazing, exceptional, flawed angel, with very strong beliefs commitments.
Calling her homicidal on the basis of recent “facts” based on old conflicting information is slanderous.
I am sorry that you find that defending her “odd.”
Editor: From ‘Raven: The Untold Story of the Rev. Jim Jones and His People’ by Tim Reiterman. Chapter 54, ‘Holocaust.’ Pages 544 - 545.
“…With characteristic determination, Sharon Amos crossed through the living room to the kitchen, where she searched the drawers for a large, sharp butcher knife. Clutching it to her bosom, she walked back through the living room and motioned for Christa and Stephanie to follow her. “Come here, Martin,” she added. The kids followed her to the white-tiled bathroom at the end of the long corridor. Just before she turned into the hallway, she motioned to Chuck Beikman, Becky's husband, to follow her. As the person in charge at Lamaha, Amos spoke with the authority of Jim Jones; Beikman obeyed her.
“As she led her three children into the shower, Amos was shaking and uncontrollably nervous. She turned to Beikman, saying she was going to kill the children before the police took them. She pulled Christa to her, and holding her by the face, she slit her throat. Christa fell screaming to the floor, her legs kicking up spasmodically. Beikman watched helplessly. He could not, or would not, interfere. Sharon then reached for Martin, who began to slink away from her, but she caught up with him, held him by his nose and mouth, and slit his throat, too. Beikman froze as she ordered him to kill Stephanie; he administered only a superficial cut and let her drop to the floor. Amos, meanwhile, turned to her daughter Liane and handed her the knife. “Here,” she cried, “you've got to do me,” and as Liane cut, Sharon urged, “Harder, harder.” She took Liane's hands, and with her own hands guiding them, managed to complete her own suicide, murmuring, “Thank you, Father,” as she collapsed to the floor. Liane then turned the knife on herself. With some difficulty she slashed her own throat, before she fell convulsing to the floor.
“People in the living room first heard Christa say, “Oh, Mama.” Then came the screams.
“Calvin Douglas, the forward on the basketball team, bolted from the card table and raced down the hall. When he threw open the bathroom door, Calvin found three bodies in a deep pool of blood. Amos's oldest daughter was still barely alive; her body twitched, the knife still in her hand. There was hope for little Stephanie, with a relatively minor cut on her neck. So Douglas snatched her up and whisked her to the living room, where someone attended to her. The whole slaughter had taken just a couple of minutes.”
R.D. BEACON
A recent observation, nobody can afford to eat in the town of elk, everything is overpriced, from the Romans, to most of the, no wonder people are bailing out, moving, it won't be long, it will see more subdivisions, or fancy houses, and more rich people, moving to town, and then we have the, one of the chefs, holding cooking classes, but how many of them really, have ever owned a restaurant, and had to deal with the trouble, OU Jamaat of employees, while trying to turn out, a decent meal, that everybody can afford, even going to fast food today, is expensive, you can get a pretty good meal, Diane anchor Bay, at the Thai kitchen, reasonable prices, or go to the Ledford house, but Albion good food a lot of it, at a reasonable price, but as the only two places, I know on the coast, you could go to the broiler steakhouse, and Redwood Valley, they also have reasonable prices, but that's the only place in the Valley, it is so sad, that our County, doesn't serve a lot of good food, and a reasonable price, although I went to, a place called bebop's, next to the old Ford dealer, a new Kia, it used to be a bank building, and they serve pretty good, food there, at a good price, but why is it, you can go to Sonoma County, and there were a lot of restaurants, looking for your business, it won't bankrupt to, when you go to dinner with the family, and the poor little town of elk, you can't stay in the town with the family and your dog, the villages turned into a Mecca, for some wealthy people, and some opinionated, anti-loggers and I everything that has to do, with making a good decent living, like the good old days, the newcomers don't want to dear, eating their flowers, and every time an animal of any kind, walks out on the road, they complain, I remember the days, that the yard for better kept, from the neighbors shape eating the grass, that we had in abundance, of wildlife in the neighborhood, before the dope growers showed up, and poison the environment, the little village, as many chances over the years, to do better than it was before, the city people, and their desire to control, a small community, chased all the business, away, at one time, back in the late 60s, they had a chance of having, a campground, on the beach, it would've brought in jobs, and money to the neighborhood, but the new people, made it so difficult for the landowner, he lost $1 million in the process, as part of the new facility he was going to build, state-of-the-art sewer system, and eventually the town could hook up to, but the newcomers didn't offer to buy the property, they just wanted access, while today they have access, but they don't have any loose animals running up and down the beach, and part people if they catch you with drugs on the property, you'll go to jail, so some of us are getting the last laugh, a wall of this, over the years, and had many friends bail out of California, as the relatives pass away, they can't wait to leave, but this is happened up and down the entire coastline, remembering the people in Mendocino, the work so hard to preserve their businesses, that are not even remembered today, the good work they did, as we get closer to being much like Carmel by the sea, the strange thing about it all, is after the city people destroy our neighborhood, many times they move out and leave town to, because of the monster they created, comes out of control, and a new batch of city dwellers, move in to take over, they not only kick some of the new generations to the curb, along with the old-timers, as I've noticed in southern Sonoma County, more houses along the coast, as little towns become big counts, like bodega Bay, building subdivisions that look at the harbor in the ocean, destroying valuable pastureland, in favor of moving more people into the neighborhood, and you used to be a will to go to places, like Nevada and my property cheap, but they are notice the great influx of people from California moving their or to Arizona, our broken governor, and his corrupt friends chasing everybody out, the only redeeming quality to her neighborhood, is the fact it rains a lot certain times of the year, a lot of wind, and the fact the lights make a lot for several days, may drive the city people back home to where they came from, I noticed the house in front of my property, except for sale again, for bosses third time, they find the property is not desirable, many of the new residents are been built, and up on the real estate market fairly soon after the storm, or violent wind event, just the power down for a few days, then we have the earthquakes a lot of them, more frequent, it's not it's a big ones going to hit, it's when, and will the tsunami, be more than 100 feet high, as I looked down at the ocean, my imagination thinks one day I'll look out there, and everything will be gone west of Highway 1, that the debris, of all my neighbors residence, will be out in the ocean, possibility, is there every day, so if you're going to build in the neighborhood, build up high, not low.
MENDOCINO COUNTY WAY BACK WHEN
Loco #23 hit a cow one mile South of Hopland. View of wrecker at work. Temporary trestle completed and wrecked cars being moved. Worst wreck up to that date no one was hurt 10-11-1911
— Ron Parker
CATCH OF THE DAY, Friday, December 20, 2024
EDWIN BOGDAN, 25, Willits. Disorderly conduct-loitering, resisting.
JOE GARCIA, 52, Ukiah. Suspended license.
DANIEL HEATH, 43, Ukiah. Vandalism, controlled substance, paraphernalia.
STEPHANIE LYLE, 40, Ukiah. Petty theft.
ILIJAH NELSON, 37, Ukiah. Burglary, stolen property, controlled substance, paraphernalia, parole violation.
BRETT NORGARD, 34, Ukiah. Concealed dirk-dagger, paraphernalia, probation violation.
JESUS RODRIGUEZ-GRANADOS, 29, Redwood Valley. DUI.
ELAINA UNDERHILL, 59, Fort Bragg. Felon-addict with firearm, short barreled rifle, ammo possession by prohibited person, controlled substance, paraphernalia, unspecified offense.
KATELYN WALKER, 30, Willits. Controlled substance while armed with loaded firearm.
CHRISTINE WHITEHEAD, 33, Ukiah. Trespassing-refusing to leave.
BRANDON WHITMAN, 24, Fort Bragg. Domestic violence court order violation, probation revocation.
NOT THE ONLY CASE
Editor,
Regarding “Someone is buying up a historic coastal city. Is it the next California Forever?” (Soleil Ho, SFChronicle.com, Dec. 14): While buying most of a town may raise eyebrows, it’s private equity’s growing grip on the housing market undermines affordability.
Institutional investors accounted for 28% of single-family home purchases nationwide in 2022, up from 19% in 2021, according to the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. In lower-cost housing markets, Redfin found that investors targeted 26% of the most affordable homes, effectively shrinking opportunities for first-time buyers.
In California, this trend is reshaping communities. Private equity firms often convert purchased homes into high-rent properties, prioritizing profit over affordability. This drives up home prices and rental costs while pricing out local families. In 2023, the average rent increase nationally of 7.95% was more than double the general inflation rate of 3.4%.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development highlights the disproportionate impact of investor activity in high-demand regions like California. This is happening largely because the wealthiest Americans have so much money, they have difficulty finding places to invest it.
We can’t solve the housing crisis by building alone. Addressing systemic issues like unchecked investor activity is critical to keeping housing a public good, not just a financial asset.
Michael Moore
Walnut Creek
CALIFORNIA PUBLIC UTILITY COMMISSION VOTES TO KEEP ALISO CANYON GAS STORAGE FACILITY OPEN
by Dan Bacher
On Dec. 19, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) voted to approve a decision that could keep the controversial Aliso Canyon gas storage facility in Los Angeles County open indefinitely, despite the promises of two California Governor’s to shut the facility down.
The SoCalGas-operated underground facility, located in the Santa Susana Mountains near the community of Porter Ranch, was the site of the largest methane blowout in U.S history in October 2015. It is at risk from earthquakes due to nearby faults.
In a statement, the CPUC said the decision creates “a transparent pathway” to reassess the need for Southern California Gas Company’s (SoCalGas) Aliso Canyon Natural Gas Storage Facility “while maintaining reliability and reasonable rates as demand for natural gas declines.”…
THE HEAVY BEAR WHO GOES WITH ME
"the withness of the body"
The heavy bear who goes with me,
A manifold honey to smear his face,
Clumsy and lumbering here and there,
The central ton of every place,
The hungry beating brutish one
In love with candy, anger, and sleep,
Crazy factotum, dishevelling all,
Climbs the building, kicks the football,
Boxes his brother in the hate-ridden city.
Breathing at my side, that heavy animal,
That heavy bear who sleeps with me,
Howls in his sleep for a world of sugar,
A sweetness intimate as the water's clasp,
Howls in his sleep because the tight-rope
Trembles and shows the darkness beneath.
—The strutting show-off is terrified,
Dressed in his dress-suit, bulging his pants,
Trembles to think that his quivering meat
Must finally wince to nothing at all.
That inescapable animal walks with me,
Has followed me since the black womb held,
Moves where I move, distorting my gesture,
A caricature, a swollen shadow,
A stupid clown of the spirit's motive,
Perplexes and affronts with his own darkness,
The secret life of belly and bone,
Opaque, too near, my private, yet unknown,
Stretches to embrace the very dear
With whom I would walk without him near,
Touches her grossly, although a word
Would bare my heart and make me clear,
Stumbles, flounders, and strives to be fed
Dragging me with him in his mouthing care,
Amid the hundred million of his kind,
the scrimmage of appetite everywhere.
— Delmore Schwartz, birthday was 11 days ago
PG&E POWER BILLS WILL RISE AFTER UTILITY SECURES APPROVAL FOR 6TH RATE HIKE IN 2024
PG&E customers face higher bills following state approval Thursday night for money to operate California’s only nuclear plant.
by George Avalos
PG&E customers face higher bills following state approval Thursday night for money to operate California’s only nuclear plant — after a meeting punctuated by angry audience comments and heckling.
The Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, an aging facility perched on a scenic stretch of the San Luis Obispo County coastline, had been slated to be phased out in 2025 and 2026
California officials, however, alarmed by the grim prospect that energy shortages might cripple the state’s economy without Diablo Canyon, embarked on a quest captained by Gov. Gavin Newsom to keep the nuclear power complex open beyond its planned decommissioning date.
Diablo Canyon is staying open to keep providing a reliable flow of electricity in California as it navigates towards what state government political leaders hope is a green and clean energy future.
Yet achieving that goal obliges PG&E customers to face the forbidding prospect of paying yet another round of rising monthly utility bills, following the decision by the state Public Utilities Commission.
Monthly PG&E bills are slated to rise by an average of more than $3 a month for the typical PG&E residential customer, the power company estimated Thursday.
The issue of steadily climbing PG&E monthly bills is so contentious that the state PUC — in a rare departure from form — failed to unanimously approve the item. The powerful state panel voted 4-1 to approve PG&E’s ability to recover its recent, current and near-future costs of continuing to operate the vast power plant.
PUC Commissioner Darcie Houck voted against the item to grant PG&E the increased revenue. She thought the matter was complex enough to avoid rushing to give a final approval to the matter, especially considering the soaring monthly bills being paid by PG&E customers.
“We are in an unprecedented affordability crisis in California,” Houck said during a discussion session on the item. “I am trying to understand what we are actually approving.” She suggested a postponement but the PUC approved the item despite her concerns.
Oakland-based PG&E believes Diablo Canyon is poised to play an essential role in smoothing California’s path to an energy future that depends much more on electricity and clean energy rather than natural gas and fossil fuels.
“PG&E is meeting the state’s call to extend Diablo Canyon generation operations for the benefit of electric reliability,” said PG&E spokesperson Suzanne Hosn. “Continuing to operate Diablo Canyon is the most cost-effective way available now to help maintain the reliability of California’s electricity grid.”
The two nuclear reactors at the power plant provide massive amounts of electricity for California.
“Diablo Canyon produces enough safe, reliable, and affordable clean electricity 24/7 to meet the energy needs of more than 3 million Californians,” Hosn said.
Long-term, based on an array of factors, some of which are estimates, PG&E customers could experience a benefit of $3.5 billion over an extended period of time from 2024 through 2030, according to Hosn.
For now, however, PG&E residential customers will pay an additional $3.20 a month, or a 1.5% increase, starting just days from now, on Jan. 1, 2025.
The prospect of higher bills infuriated numerous people who provided public comments for the PUC meeting in San Francisco on Thursday, a session that ran for hours due to several complex and controversial items on the agenda.
Many speakers directed their ire at PG&E, Gov. Newsom, the state Legislature, and the PUC, which is supposed to be PG&E’s official watchdog and supervisor.
“PG&E, PUC, and Gavin Newsom, take notice, the people are rising up,” said Kelly Buster, president of Stop PG&E, an advocacy group. “It’s time we take back our power.”
Several customers told the PUC they have simply decided to shiver in what has become a chilly winter in many parts of northern and central California rather than run their heaters to warm up their residences.
“I can’t afford PG&E,” said Lindsey Billings, a customer of the utility. “I have to put three blankets on the bed to stay warm. But we are organizing and getting bigger and bigger. We are coming for you guys.”
Small business people joined the chorus of disdain aimed at PG&E, the PUC and Gov. Newsom.
“My PG&E bill equals more than all of my other expenses combined,” said Terry Frazier, who owns a small business. “You are puppets,” Frazier told the PUC, “who are being controlled by the corporations.”
Before the meeting, PUC commissioner and president Alice Reynolds expressed her hope that people could find joy during the holidays. Several speakers mocked those holiday wishes during the hours-long meeting.
“I hope you have the worst Christmas ever,” one speaker shouted at the PUC.
Alex Formuzis, a spokesperson for the Environmental Working Group, and a harsh critic of both the PUC and PG&E, noted that PG&E has received approval from the state regulators for several increases in monthly bills.
The Diablo Canyon decision marked the fifth rate increase in 2024 for PG&E, the group stated.
“The relentless rate hikes requested by PG&E and approved by the CPUC are crippling California’s working families,” Formuzis said. “Despite years of promises to address its financial mismanagement, PG&E, with the complicity of its captive regulators, continues to pass the costs onto its customers.”
(Bay Area News Group)
LA’S METRO WATER DISTRICT CENSURES BOARD MEMBER FOR RACIST REMARK
by Dan Bacher
…“The MWD Board of Directors voted to censure board member John Morris after an independent Equal Employment Opportunity investigation into an anonymous complaint found he used the derogatory term ‘camel jockey’ to refer to an Arab American staff member, Adel Hagekhalil, during a board event in December 2023,” according to CAIR-LA.…
DAIRY QUEEN
The first McDonald’s restaurant was opened in 1948 in San Bernardino California. Today we tend to think of McDonald’s as the pioneer fast food franchised restaurant. But by the time that first McDonald’s opened, there were already over 100 Dairy Queens.
In 1938 in Moline, Illinois, John Fremont McCullough and his son Alex developed a way to make soft-serve ice cream.
They convinced a friend to offer the product at his ice cream store in Kankakee, Illinois, and it was an immediate smash hit with his customers. Realizing they had a great business opportunity but needing a better way to dispense the ice cream, the McCulloughs soon discovered a freezer invented by Harry Oltz of Hammond, Indiana that dispensed a steady flow of ice cream. The rest, of course, is history.
The McCulloughs opened the first “Dairy Queen” (taking its name from the term the elder McCullough used for “cow”), in Joliet, Illinois on June 22, 1940. By 1947 they had over 100 franchised locations and just three years later they had over a thousand. Today there are more than 6,000 Dairy Queen locations, in 27 countries.
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. Or maybe tonight, if I look at my phone on a break.
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, thanks to Marshall Brown.
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:
"You need to be an experienced man. A man that know how to change a flat tire. That take chances. What I mean by this: say Sam's in driving itself in different places, doing for him instead of tryna worrying about doing stuff for somebody else, do more for you that make sense to a woman, why you trying to prove to this woman too much love when you need to show love for yourself. Simple shit. And another thing… If you don't know how to pluff up a pillow, you violated me anyway." I don't entirely follow her reasoning, but I think she's pretty and I like the sound of her voice. Except she doesn't have to shout; we're right here. That goes for everybody in any form of broadcasting: Youtube, teevee, radio. The microphone is the listener, that close. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v--CC3IQdE4
How to do the Letkiss dance. Letkiss again, like we did last summer. Letkiss again, like we did last year. https://www.vintag.es/2024/12/lets-dance-letkiss.html
The tradition of churches with a bowling alley in the basement. They used to be everywhere. Now they're almost all gone, the alleys dark, filled up with storage. Fort Bragg's bowling alley, that served the best hamburgers I ever had in my life, went out of business and was bought up by a church and closed for good; that's almost the same thing. I don't know if the church people kept the lanes and pin-setting machines and they still bowl in there or not. One day I'll be in town and not have to be anywhere on time and I'll knock on the door and see if I can find out. It never occurs to me when I'm there. I should write it on a Post-It note and stick it to the dashboard. I'll let you know. https://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2024/12/bowling-alleys-in-church-basements.html
Marco McClean, memo@mcn.org, https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com
FANS ALL SAY THE SAME CYNICAL THING AFTER BROCK PURDY GIFTS TOYOTA TRUCKS TO HIS OFFENSIVE LINE FOR CHRISTMAS
by Oliver Salt
The San Francisco 49ers have released a clip of Brock Purdy treating his offensive linemen to Toyota trucks for Christmas - but cynical fans are convinced he didn't buy them himself.
Purdy, who helped the Niners reach the Super Bowl in his first full season as starting quarterback last year, surprised the O-line with some expensive new wheels despite their struggles in 2024.
The 24-year-old can first be seen walking into a meeting room and giving his teammates the news, before inviting them outside to find their white trucks waiting with red Christmas bows on the bonnets.
The likes of Jaylon Moore and Aaron Banks are left stunned, with the former saying: 'My mind is blown. This is probably the greatest gift I ever got in my life.'
However, users on X were quick to point out that Purdy's salary in San Francisco is massively outweighed by the team's five starting offensive linemen.
According to Spotrac, the quarterback is earning $934,252 in the 2024 season - while the starting O-line are raking in a staggering $37,651,852, which works out as around $7.5m each.
A number of fans have therefore concluded that Purdy did not purchase the trucks himself, instead claiming they were gifted to him through an endorsement deal.
“These were 100% endorsements gifts (most likely leases too.) from a Toyota dealer,” said one user.
Another posted: “It was a gift from Toyota… Period.. Call it what it is.”
“Pretty sure that those weren’t purchased by QB1,” concluded a third.
A fourth joked: “Amount paid for those cars by Brock Purdy: $0.”
While one said: “That’s how you know Brock is the dude (Even if they were free from Toyota)”
Purdy has enjoyed a partnership with Toyota which dates back to before the 2023 season, with the 49ers star appearing in a number of commercials for the car manufacturers.
San Francisco has struggled so far this season after making it to the Super Bowl last year, where they were beaten in dramatic fashion by the Kansas City Chiefs.
Yet despite going 6-8, largely due to a host of injuries to key players, The Athletic is reporting that Purdy is in line for a new $60m-a-year contract after the Niners decided he is their franchise quarterback.
(DailyMail.uk)
HUFFMAN SUED
To the Editor:
I'm sure most constituents in Jared Huffman's and Mike Thompson's districts have heard about our class action lawsuit, but in case not: https://www.commondreams.org/news/us-israel-military-aid
Here on my show, "Heroes and Patriots Radio" on KMUD, we tried scheduling a debate between Huffman and Norman Solomon -- the last credible candidate to challenge Huffman in a primary. We wanted Solomon to take on Huffman in his unconditional support of Israel, but Huffman chickened out.
Apparently, Huffman and Thompson don't seem "to get" that Israel's war crimes and crimes against humanity are funded by the U.S.
Israel's genocide campaign against the Palestinian people is shocking in its scope and severity -- 40,000-50,000 civilians killed. Most are women and children. Huffman and Thompson are complicit in genocide. They should be criminally charged with aiding and abetting.
I am proud to have signed on to the class action lawsuit.
John Sakowicz
Ukiah
THE MENACE OF RFK JR
Editor:
I am appalled by Robert Kennedy Jr.’s threat to the administration of the polio vaccine. I am 79. I not only remember the 1952 polio epidemic but was personally involved. I apparently had the early stage but no paralysis. My brother Terry got the full disease. I can still picture our mother telling the neighbors about the diagnosis.
Eventually an operation was performed on Terry. Bone was fused into his spine. It made his back stiff, but he was able to walk and eventually live a normal life. After the operation, he wore a cast stretching from his neck to his hips. It was summer. My mother’s former boss bought an air conditioner so he wouldn’t suffer unduly. Terry, now 82, has scoliosis but keeps going.
Another even more tragic instance of polio happened to my sister-in-law’s sister Lois, who caught polio at about age 15. She was paralyzed from the neck down for the rest of her life (lived into her 70s.). The polio vaccine came out soon after the epidemic. It was a miracle. It saved so many lives and rid the country of this plague. Those of us who remember what it was like before the vaccines must stand up and be counted and keep Kennedy from being confirmed.
Antoinette J. Kuhry
Sonoma
THE MEANING OF HISTORY
by John Arteaga
I don’t know how old I was when my dear late mom told me about her understanding of the whole meaning and purpose of history; that the story of evolution and progress of humans is the story of the distribution of power from the very few at the top who, through most of human history, have always held the lion’s share, down to the rest of us.
I was just a kid at the time, and I’m sure that her phrasing was much more eloquent and succinct than that, but the crux of it lives with me more than a half-century later. It is truly the principle that defines human civilization, or what aspires to merit the term ‘civilization’.
This idea of the redistribution of power from the King or other potentate ruling over the ‘common people’ is built into our language; the term ‘progressive’ , as in progress, is defined by the idea of this redistribution of power and authority, just as the term ‘regressive’ is defined as its opposite.
My beloved mom, who observed the British dictum of, “stay calm and carry on” all through the years of the WWII blitzkrieg in London, was a proud and independent young lady then, a feminist before there was such a term in English language. She met my G.I. dad there during the war. Older than most of his fellow soldiers, he had closed a successful shirt making business in New York and volunteered to help us beat back the scourge of fascism, a movement which embodied the term ‘regressive’; demanding that its followers submit joyfully to the superior wisdom of Hitler and his high command; the many giving up their power to the ‘great leader’ at the top.
What a heartbreaking thing it is today to see the glorious victory over that mass transnational hysteria, which gave the whole world the chance to start anew, tossed aside by an apparent majority of the American voters (or at least those who were permitted to vote), in what I can only understand as an angry reaction to the dire straits that both parties have put the common American working man or woman in ever since the advent of ‘free trade’.
Remember Ross Perot, way back when they were first proposing NAFTA and the other free trade agreements? He spoke of the ‘giant sucking sound’ that we would all hear as all the American jobs would be whisked off to other countries. Well of course it happened, just as one might have expected if one took the time to look into the details of the agreements. There were even tax incentives for closing US plants and moving them to Mexico or China!
So, the perfectly predictable results of that fateful move were several; first, and most importantly for politicians hoping to get rich contributions from those with all the money, was a massive increase in the profitability of many companies, as they close US factories and move production to other countries where the workers are often much less well paid. Another totally foreseeable result has been the flooding of US stores with Chinese or other imported goods, often sold at prices well below what they would be with domestic production. Who doesn’t like the Walmart ‘rollback’ pricing!?
Many of those who made the likely national catastrophic misjudgment of voting for Orange Jesus because he said that he would tame inflation and bring back yesteryear’s prices are likely going to be very disappointed; his idiotic notion of, “Tariffs!, The most beautiful word in the English language” will do nothing but cause massive inflation for the consumer, as well as prompting the targeted countries to go tit for tat. China has many options for retaliation; besides causing price increases in American manufacturing goods (just about everything manufactured here depends on parts imported from China, etc.), China also has made a point of cornering the worldwide market on certain rare-earth minerals that are essential for the manufacture of all kinds high-tech devices. They could also cause havoc in the enormous agricultural export markets if they respond with tariffs against our grains etc. During the last disastrous Trump administration, retaliatory tariffs from China (maintained since then), have just about killed what was once a thriving trade of California wine to China.
The whole Trump movement seems to be a nostalgia-based delusion that we are still the colossus of the world that we were after World War II. Not so anymore; more and more the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) have surpassed the Western ‘G7’ countries that have long dominated in terms of total GDP, and the more irrationally we behave in the world the more we cement their alliance to avoid the sometimes capricious moves of the US, such as seizing the enormous assets of this country or that, which they thought were safely invested in New York financial products,
based on our own arbitrary standards, not the UN’s. It should have more authority worldwide, except for being constantly undermined by US disregard. We are one of only a very few countries to not sign on to the International Criminal Court of the UN, so we can blithely blow off its judgment that Netanyahu should be arrested and taken to the Hague for genocide and war crimes. We need a new UN without the US and Israel, if it’s ever to have any kind of real authority.
It seems like our nation’s foreign policy, whether it is led by an R or a D, seldom changes significantly; Biden deserves credit for about the best economic performance, post pandemic, of any first world country, but he has carried on the time-honored, ongoing national disgrace that characterizes our slavish obeisance to Israel, no matter how horrifying its genocide against the Palestinians becomes.
While we squander our Nation’s wealth on 2 billion dollar B-2 bombers that don’t work and the bottomless pork barrel of lethality for Israel and Ukraine, including, I just learned, the inherently war criminal landmines for Ukraine. These things should be strictly prohibited worldwide! They kill for generations after the conflict!
Contrast this with Pres. Xi going to Peru the other day to open this unbelievably huge container ship port that they built. It will improve the lives of everyone and South America. Sounds to me like a lot better use of a nation’s wealth.
For this and other columns, go to https://inarationalworld2.blogspot.com/2024/12/progress.html
John Arteaga is a Ukiah resident.
"We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and in spite of True Romance magazines—we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely—at least, not all the time—but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don't see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness. "
— Hunter S. Thompson
ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
What I believe needs to be a priority in the new government is an investigation of members of the Biden administration for their willfully and actively concealing the incapacity of Biden, so unelected and unaccountable people could UNCONSTITUTIONALLY run the government on their own.
That has all the hallmarks of a treasonous and coup-like adventure, and they should not be able to just sail off into the sunset after having pulled off such a criminal travesty and fraud upon the American people and the world.
Heads should roll.
DARK EYES
Oh, the gentlemen are talking and the midnight moon is on the riverside
They're drinking up and walking and it is time for me to slide
I live in another world where life and death are memorized
Where the earth is strung with lover's pearls and all I see are dark eyes.
A cock is crowing far away and another soldier's deep in prayer
Some mother's child has gone astray, she can't find him anywhere
But I hear another rum beating for the dead that rise
Whom nature's beast fear as they come and all I see are dark eyes.
They tell me to be discreet for all intended purposes
They tell me revenge is sweet, I'm sure it is
But I feel nothing for their game, where beauty goes unrecognized
All I feel is heat and flame, and all I see are dark eyes.
Oh, the French girl, she's in paradise and a drunken man is at the wheel
Hunger pays a heavy prize to the falling god of speed and steel
Oh, time is short and the days are sweet and passion rules the arrow that flies
A million faces at my feet but all I see are dark eyes.
— Bob Dylan (1985)
YET ANOTHER CHRISTMAS CAROL
by James Kunstler
“The nation appears to be having a kind of moment involving a gross, naked emperor and a bunch of people noticing this isn’t a nudist-friendly zone.” — Jeff Childers
Hitler was dead, to begin with. As dead as ein Türnagel. At least no one had heard him squawk since the Russkies cracked bottles of Dunkelbrau at the Brandenburg Gate, April, 1945. Nobody ever called Joe Biden “Hitler,” but around his gloomy place-of-business, known as the “White House, they sometimes called him “Joe Biden,” with a titter and a smirk, as they called “a lid” on his bewildered day and stuffed him into the nearest broom closet.
“Joe Biden” was a mere babe in pram when old Adolf bid farewell to his smoldering Reich. But, eight decades later, after being jammed into the Oval Office by his chauffeur, one Barack Obama, the grasping, scraping, flinty, clutching, covetous old bird, sometimes known as “the Big Guy,” from whom no match had ever struck the fire of an original idea, or a good idea, or even a sound, workable idea, shuffled to his bed-chamber in the lonely compartment known as the White House “residence” on Christmas eve.
“Humbug!” he maundered to himself as he struggled aboard the cold presidential bed, absent lately of the doctor who once claimed to be his wedded wife. “Humbug,” was the new flavor that Ben and Jerry had concocted just for the holiday, a “green” ice-cream featuring pureed mealworms and cocoa bean husks for a satisfyingly punitive crunch. Was Dr. Jill dead, too, now, old “JB” wondered, like his old pals Senator Byrd, and feisty Strom Thurmond and other members of “the firm?” (Or was she in the arms of that scoundrel, Emhoff?)
“Humbug,” he mumbled as he fell off into a cruel, blank slumber. He awakened — he knew not how many minutes longer — to a snorting noise, as of pigs rooting in a forest, followed by a thin, sonorous wailing that might have been the revenant of some once-mighty bombast in the Nuremburg Zeppelinfeld. And then resolved out of a mist the very figure of Hitler, his once-smart, gray Führeruniform tattered and threadbare, and the whole of his body wreathed in rotting sausages, the reek of which might have driven a rank of the stoutest, blondest SS leutnants to their knees in abject surrender.
“What do you want of me?” Scrooge cried, but this ghost of Hitler only wailed again and beckoned with gnarled finger. Suddenly, “Joe Biden” seemed to be flying out in the night air across a great swamp, and then north over the Beltway, to Scranton, Pennsylvania. The scene: a slagheap behind the Lackawanna Iron and Steel Company, 1949. “JB” is a boy again — oh, to be a boy, with loose joints and a clear mind! — playing with his chums, Bob McGee and Sonny Donahoe. They are reenacting the last days of World War Two. “I’ll be Ike,” says Bob, always a leader whom “Joe” liked to please. “Sonny, you be Omar Bradley. And “Joey,” you can be Hitler.”
“Joey” loved playing Hitler: a few minutes of fulminating histrionics! Then, his hand mimicking a Walther P-38 with the muzzle pointed behind the ear, and the plosive pow! And then, writhing upon the heap of cinders acting out the Führer’s last moments.
“You were so good at it!” the ghost wailed. “What happened to you?”
“I wish I knew. Everything’s a blur now. But tell me, spirit: was I a good you?”
“One of the best!” the ghost of Hitler moaned and dissolved into vapor.
“Joe Biden” wakes again in his bedchamber. It is flooded with bright light and trappings of the holiday: a tree festooned with what appear to be gleaming glass ornaments shaped like dildoes. And before it, enrobed in scarlet and muskrat fur, the cheerful figure of Senator-elect Adam Schiff, grinning from ear to ear, with a wreath of holly about his lightbulb-shaped head. The light is blinding.
“What are you doing here?” the president asks. “And remind me what your name is, if it’s not too much to ask.
“I am the ghost of Christmas Present,” Mr. Schiff intones, as though dispensing yet another rumor of Russian collusion. “Come, take my hand.”
“That would be gay,” the president cries, shrinking from him. “Not a joke!”
“Is there a gayer holiday than the Yuletide?” the ghost asks with a belly laugh. “Come!”
Scrooge can’t help but obey. He is out in the night air again, flying across the Potomac, but only over to the cluster of hotels known as Crystal City on the south bank, hard by the DC airport, and then clean through a window on the tenth floor of the Marriott Hotel there. The room is filled mostly with men, powerful political figures of distinction known to cable news audiences from sea to shining sea. Liquor bottles lie strewn everywhere and a small pile of white powder is heaped on the coffee table surrounded by short straws. Everyone present is in various kinds of costume and stages of undress. There, on the sofa, is Rep. Swalwell, wearing what looks like a diaper, in the arms of the ambassador from China; there, Senator McConnell, in an outfit much like little checked frock that Judy Garland wore in The Wizard of Oz, being spanked by Rep. Jerrold Nadler, trussed up in the many straps of a leather harness over his blobish torso; there, bundled together in a wing-chair, Rep. Nancy Pelosi and former Rep. Liz Cheney, writhing in the fleshy transports of amour; and squatting on the credenza before the flat-screen TV is White House Monkeypox “Czar,” Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, naked but for the Schirmmütze officer’s cap worn at a jaunty angle upon his shaven head, seeming to direct the goings-on.
“You must pardon them all,” the ghost of Christmas Present declares.
“Pardon them. . . ?
“Yes,” the ghost commands shrilly. “Pardon them all, all, I say, preemptively!”
“But. . . but. . . but. . . my legacy!” Cries the president.
“That IS your legacy!” the ghost retorts with a maniacal guffaw.
“Joe Biden” wails pathetically as the scene dissolves in a rank vapor of whisky and sweat.
He finds himself laying not upon his bed but on 16th Street between H and K Streets NW, in the nation’s capital. He reclines uneasily on the Black Lives Matter banner painted on the asphalt a few years back, now a bit faded under the onslaught of radial tires. But at this hour, nothing moves there and the windows of the lobbyists offices above are all dark.
“Where am I?” the president inquires of no one in particular. “This doesn’t feel like the beach.”
He feels something on his shoulder, turns his head, and sees, with a start of panic, a boney, skeletal hand with a few shreds of flesh still clinging to it. Looming above it, a figure in a cloak, with a hood. Two eyes burn like red LEDs from the sockets of a skull within.
“W-w-w-who are you?” the president cries.
“It’s me. . . George!” the figure says in a deep bass voice.
“George. . . ? George H. W. Bush?”
“No!”
“George plain Double-U.”
“No!”
“George, uh, you know. The thing. . . father of the country. . .whatsisname. . . ? Not a joke!”
“Not him, either, sucker. It’s me: George Floyd! I am the ghost of Christmas Future! Come with me!”
“Joe Biden” can’t help himself. He is transport magically to the Congressional dining room on a winter afternoon. Senators are milling about with cocktails in hand, some of them recognizably very old colleagues from the jolly days when he was chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, before he got promoted by whatsisname, and all the trouble started, the rumors and lies about his family, something about one of his sons, the dead one, or maybe the live one, he can’t quite remember. . . Ukraine. . . Russia — it’s always Russia, isn’t it. . . those Russkie bastards! Wait, the senators are speaking! About himself, “Joe Biden” realizes.
“Hark, yo ass,” the ghost of Christmas future says. “To the voices of posterity!”
“What a grifter!” Dick Durbin remarks to Tammy Duckworth.
“Worse President in the history of the country,” Susan Collins says.
“Made Millard Fillmore look like a rocket scientist!” Chuck Schumer observes, “and they didn’t even have rockets then.”
“Good thing they finally prosecuted his whole dang family,” adds Tommy Tuberville.
“I hear Dr. Jill is ping-pong champ at Hazelton Federal Correctional,” says Lindsey Graham.
“Yeah, good thing SCOTUS tossed those preemptory pardons,” Rand Paul observes.
“But Hunter’s still on the loose!”
“Well, at least the Big Guy’s gone now,” mutters John Fetterman.
“I’m gone?” the president whimpers.
“’Fraid so,” the Ghost says.
The ghost dissolves. “Joe Biden” finds himself on the steps of the family mausoleum in Brandywine Cemetery, Delaware. The limestone crypt is covered in spray-paint graffiti, terrible imprecations and objurgations too vulgar to report in a genteel blog. “Joe Biden” lies there weeping on the cold, stone in a heap. Then, suddenly, the scene dissolves and he wakes up!
He’s back in the bedroom at the White House. Sunlight streams through the windows. And aide knocks and comes in the room.
“What day is it? Where am I?” the president asks.
“It’s January 20th, sir. I’m afraid you’ll have to get cracking. Up and at ‘em. Someone else is moving in here today.”
“What? What’s going on?”
“He won the election.”
“How the hell did that happen? I had it all set-up.”
“Well, sir, you didn’t end up running.”
“I didn’t.”
“Sorry. No.”
“Not a joke?”
“Not a joke, sir. Oh, by the way. Someone is here to see you.”
“Who’s that?”
“Name of Kash Patel. Has some documents he’d like you to review.”
“Never heard of him. Go ahead, send’im in. Jake told me to sign anything they put in front of me. And tell the media I’m calling a lid after that. I’m calling a lid on the whole damn thing. And tell them downstairs I could use some ice cream up here. Gawd, that’s a bright light out there. Is it moving closer? What. . .? I can’t hear you! The light! The light, I tell you! Not a joke! Hey, there’s something wrong with that light…! It’s closing in…! Wait…! No…! Arrrrggggghhhhh. . . !
Merry Christmas to all!
ELON MUSK weighed in on the German election, saying only the AfD party, a group with neo-Nazi ties, “can save” the country.
It was not the first intervention by Musk on behalf of once-fringe anti-immigrant parties in Europe.
(New York Times)
LEAD STORIES SATURDAY'S NYT
Congress Approves Spending Extension, Ending Shutdown Crisis
Trump Wanted Shutdown to Happen on President Biden’s Watch, Not His
Congress Approves Full Social Security Benefits for Public Sector Retirees
The 38 Republicans Who Refused Trump’s Demands
For Syria’s Economy, the Way Forward Starts With Sanctions Relief
In Search of Loved Ones, Syrian Women Face Horror of Assad’s Regime
HELL & HIGH WATER: THE YEAR IN CLIMATE CHAOS
by Jeffrey St. Clair
2024 will be the warmest year on record, the year warming topped 1.5 degrees Celsius. It’s the year the US set new oil and gas production records, surpassing Saudi Arabia and Russia. It’s a year that saw the US re-elect a climate denier who vows to double US oil production over these record levels, assuming that’s even possible.…
https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/12/20/hell-and-high-water-the-year-in-climate-chaos
NORTH COAST RESIDENTS ‘ABSOLUTELY HORRIFIED’ BY OFFICIAL’S INSULTS IN CITY COUNCIL MEETING
…as the country swirls in the toilet bowl, awaiting its final plunge–good effen riddance!
The fury over Tess Albin-Smith’s egregious remarks is not letting up based on everything I’ve read and many conversations around town. Her apology was not really an apology and she is distracting Fort Bragg from all the important initiatives that we should be focusing on rather than how terribly one of our councilmembers acted.
ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
Anyone too dumb to have figured out that Biden was brain-dead from the start is too dumb to vote.
Yeah, but they were just smart enough to vote…and in 2020 it worked, then again…maybe sometime soon we’ll know for sure what really happened in 2020.
Happy Christmas,
Laz
Trump lost the election in 2020. It’s common knowledge.
I asked around the District of Columbia, and particularly at the homeless shelter where I’ve been since the first week of September, if anybody was celebrating the Winter Solstice. Nobody had the slightest idea what I was talking about. Guess I’ll just get out my green jade mala and chant a few rounds to Bhu Devi: https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Bhudevi
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1499397000372742/?hoisted_section_header_type=recently_seen&multi_permalinks=3731418260503927
City Council
-with all due respect to Marcia, this is my personal experience, with Tess
I am a ‘Person of Color’ (I hate the term) who has known Tess for at least fifteen years in her capacity as Public Servant for the City of Fort Bragg. I do not know Tess outside her public service role.
Tess has NEVER, EVER, NOT answered my calls —and there have been many.
Tess has NEVER, EVER NOT responded timely, cheerfully, kindly, generously, compassionately, friendly, and correctly.
FACT
THESE ARE PSYCHOLOGICALLY TRYING TIMES, FOR ALL.
I have not been able to find anything in the NY Times that discusses the Biden administration hiding his acute “disability”. or his being brain-dead as Bruce Anderson alleges. Any links to verify that? I see mentioned that he tired easily in Angola and the Amazon but that he was keeping up an active schedule and moving ahead with projects.
The “debate” with Trump?
I take it you don’t watch TV…
https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&sca_esv=35e4d6bf0b55a64b&channel=mac_bm&q=biden%27s+mental+health&tbm=nws&source=univ&tbo=u&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjGoc-virqKAxUICjQIHRJ8A3IQt8YBKAF6BAgQEAQ&biw=1091&bih=1236&dpr=2
Dealers choice Madam…
Laz
CNN stammered and stuttered over some “rumors” that there were at least “two stories in major US newspapers” but the CNN newshounds had been unable to find any evidence the rumors were true, despite due diligence, as they claimed. and I think (that is, I hope and pray) it will fall out that prosecutors will charge all the staff at CNN with aiding and abetting the treasonous hoax perpetrated by the White House staff in the name of war profits and genocide…. So sure, Tiabbi and his wordy pal will very justly provide a parody of the travesty of denial—if SNL doesn’t beat him to it on tonight’s show.. . Stay tuned…
You are right I don’t watch the news on TV. I do read newspapers (several) and never saw anything about an “explosive report” etc. etc. Thanks for the link, but the “report” doesn’t say anything new. Just that Biden cut his days short, quitting at 4:00 and that he limited his press conferences. None of it mentions a terrible hoax or crime. In fact, some of it was blatantly agist, mentioning his speech impediment, a life-long problem that may worsen with age, and his “tripping” on things, which could be neuropathy, hardly a mental problem. Funny, nobody ever criticized Roosevelt (FDR) for his being disabled, probably because it was considered poor form to attack someone for a disability that did not impair his ability as President.
Not intending to be argumentative, but Roosevelt’s was a physical disability, Biden’s was and is mental, which was obvious from the beginning of his disastrous tenure.
Not to labor the point, but much has been said about the speech impediment and the old man’s shuffle, but very little that can prove any loss of mental facility. This is just taking the facts from the reports even the “explosive” one. The debate could be used as “evidence” if it were not for the stutter and a voice problem, which he still has.
by Children’s Health Defense Team
December 18, 2024
An attorney advising Robert F. Kennedy Jr. criticized The New York Times and other media outlets for publishing a claim that the Trump ally wants to eradicate approval for the polio vaccine. Attorney Aaron Siri joined Fox News on Tuesday to clarify his statements.
“It’s totally false to say that the petition sought to revoke the polio vaccine, as if the petition intended to make it so that Americans couldn’t get the polio vaccine,” Siri said. “It was for only one of six licensed polio vaccines.” Siri noted that he filed a petition on behalf of a separate client, not Kennedy, and it was specifically for a “new polio vaccine” licensed in 1990.
Siri went on to defend Kennedy, who has made several anti-vaccine comments in the past. “He doesn’t want to get rid of any vaccines. Mr. Kennedy has made very clear, he just wants to make sure that there’s transparency and that there’s proper science,” Siri said.
Sheez
Answering Revisionism
“Armstrong is right, No one knows for sure what happened in Amos’ apartment in Georgetown.”
You printed that several times early on. Why did you change your mind?
It would also be interesting to the few who are following this to read the clever assessment of Linda’s older daughter you used to make.
Didn’t think so.
You’re right, Jim. Linda wasn’t a psychopath who murdered her children then herself. How could I and so many millions of others been so terribly wrong.
Bruce Anderson, has stated in several editions of the AVA: “Liane Harris, Sharon Amos’s oldest child was ____ and ___.” Fill in the blanks, please.
As for the other, the only witnesses that we know about were as likely to be perpetrators as by-standers.
You have been defaming her for decades now. As long as you do so, I will defend her.
This time you described her for the first time that I remember as “a homicidal social worker.”
Better: “After 48 years, accusations of triple filicide have still not been irrefutably proven.”
That’s right, and Jonestown never happened and she wasn’t in Georgetown.
Although Bruce Anderson is very unlikely to have ever met Liane Harris, he has felt free to often refer to her as “overweight and under-brained.”