Mendocino County Today: Monday 1/6/2025

Cloudy | Bounds Missing | Ice Rink | Local Eggs | Ed Notes | Noyo Theater | Folk Music | Cannot Abide | Dance Party | Against Genocide | Songbird Newsletter | Name Changers | Here's 2025 | Magic Show | Open Mic | Jimmy's Stairway | Coastal Waves | Dud | Yesterday's Catch | Tadich Grill | Great Widening | Hot Licks | Niners Lose | Hot Doggers | Voltaire Quotes | Beartender | Disruptive Behavior? | Live Forever | Media Dinner | Microwave Repair | Loosely Hung | Turtle/Hare | Snowing Lightly | Lead Stories | Suicide Questions | Religion/IRS | Genocidal Politics | Cheap Labor | Workingman's Blues

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STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A foggy & drizzly 51F this Monday morning on the coast with .04" collected. Cloudy today then clearer the rest of the week. Steve Paulson of KTVU said our next rain might be the 17th, we'll see?

INTERMITTENT LIGHT RAIN is expected early today in Del Norte and Humboldt counties. Dry weather and warmer temperatures are expected starting on Tuesday and lasting through much of the upcoming week. (NWS)

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MAGIC OF WINTER OR WHITE ALBATROSS

To the Editor:

“Ukiah on Ice” — at what price?

Once again the City has erected its holiday ice rink on School Street near Alex Thomas Plaza. But the “magic of winter” comes with costs and consequences.

One consequence is that the Saturday Farmers Market is being displaced and deprived of its shelter under the pavilion during inclement weather. As a result, the market was canceled one Saturday, leaving vendors without an outlet — and without income — for the produce they had prepared. When rains threaten, many vendors don’t show because of reduced customer traffic.

The Farmers’ Market is a year-long Saturday event that is a great asset to downtown business, drawing customers and visitors to School Street and Alex Thomas Plaza.

The City claims in its General Plan that it supports agriculture. However, the Market is being delegated to a side street not only for the ice rink but also for the Pumpkin Fest and Car Show.

Then there are the costs of running such an energy-intensive facility. It is doubtful that the City recovers the costs with entrance fees and sponsors.

Now that the season is winding down, it’s time to rethink this White Albatross.

Patrons should wonder whether skating on slushy artificial ice in our climate is really fun. Parents should also wonder what they are teaching their kids in this age of global warming.

The City — and its partner, the Greater Business and Tourism Alliance — need to reconsider whether the ice skating rink is a cost-effective endeavor to attract visitors to downtown during the holiday season — or whether there is not a cheaper way, such as closing off 2 blocks of School Street for ROLLER skating; it could be entry-free, guilt-free fun.

Bruni Kobbe

Ukiah

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JENNIFER BIRD: Eggs available at the egg box on Signal Ridge Rd. $6 a dozen

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ED NOTES

AFTER the story on Salvadore Aguilar appeared, Dr. Apfel of the Anderson Valley Health Center called to say that the late Aguilar, only 20 when he died, had not been seen at the Anderson Valley Health Center, let alone informed there that he had AIDS. Aguilar was found dead at the Greenwood Bridge. The Mendocino County Sheriff's Department soon determined that he'd shot himself at a pot garden on Fish Rock Road, distraught at the loss of a girlfriend and what he thought was a diagnosis of AIDS. His panicked fellow gardeners, tardily aware they were driving aimlessly with a dead man in their van, stopped at the Greenwood bridge, where they dragged Aguilar into the woods and left him. However and wherever he'd obtained what he thought was a diagnosis of AIDS, it wasn't at the Anderson Valley Health Center.

Previous reference: https://theava.com/archives/258516#10

LINGERING one afternoon in Ukiah, drinking in the inspiring vistas of State Street in great, greedy gulps, I learned that Mike Sweeney, of all people, had been named the Ukiah Rotary Club’s “Environmentalist of the Year.”

SWEENEY did indeed try to recycle his ex-wife, the late Judi Bari, via a pipe bomb placed in her vehicle, but Ukiah Rotary was hardly the first people fooled by the crafty little psychopath, and hardly likely to be aware of Sweeney's membership in a terrorist organization that murdered people and placed bombs all over the Bay Area in the late 1960s. 

BUT ROTARY'S special recognition for Sweeney was, however,  one more example of Mendocino County's unique mass amnesia,  where history starts all over again every day, and you are whatever you say you are, no questions asked. (Mystified by the occasional reference to Mendocino County's former chief garbage bureaucrat as a car bomber? Check the extensive coverage at the AVA's website (including Steve Talbot’s still relevant documentary and revealing follow-ups): https://theava.com/archives/1235

ANDERSON VALLEY has two Soda Creeks, one running behind the Navarro Store, the other at mile marker 3.5 on the Ukiah Road where, old timers will remember, a colony of smallish turtles also made their home at the foot of the boulder around which the Ukiah Road Soda Creek flows. Both our Soda Creeks produce a little carbonated water. The Soda Creek on the Ukiah Road used to feature a small pipe at the end of which was attached a tin cup for passersby who felt a little bit of bubbly was just the thing.

NOT FAR from the Ukiah Road Soda Creek there was said to be a haunted cabin that so unnerved its young occupants they summoned an exorcist to see if she could put an end to mysterious door rattlings and candles suddenly extinguished on windless days. Among the ghost's bag of tricks, fully on exhibit during the exorcist's most recent expunging visit was, a witness reports, a sudden weariness overcame the two young dudes occupying the cabin, one of whom reported, “My arms got so heavy I couldn't lift them.” The other exclaimed, “I suddenly felt so tired I couldn't move.” The exorcist advised the bedeviled young men to, well, uh, er, exhibit themselves to the ghost and it would flee! 

WHEN VIOLET RENICK attended a KZYX fundraising luau at the Boonville Fairgrounds, she commented that “It was very nice but I didn't see a single other old timer there.” Violet added, “What do you call them, hill muffins? There were lots of them, the men in shorts and expensive sandals and the women nicely dressed in summer dresses.” When one of the Muffs asked Violet how long she'd been in The Valley, Violet, a Pomo Indian, casually replied, “Oh, 14,000 years or so.” The only old timer who comes close to matching Violet's seniority is her brother Art Knight, who also has about 14,000 years local residency on the rest of us. I hope Violet, raised on Anderson Creek across the road from the Evergreen Cemetery, is still with us. But Art is gone, and the sky gods of whatever ethnicity never made two better people.

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A MOVIE THEATER CLINGS TO LIFE IN CALIFORNIA'S 'GATEWAY TO THE REDWOODS'

by Matt LaFever

Nestled in the heart of Mendocino County, the small town of Willits is known as the “Gateway to the Redwoods.” With a population of about 5,000, it’s a community that embraces rural charm — quiet storefronts, limited nightlife and an economy attempting to recover from the decline of the logging and cannabis industries. Here, time seems to move a little slower, preserving a piece of Northern California’s past.

On Commercial Street, the Noyo Theater stands as a testament to that past. This beloved art deco movie house has been providing cinematic escapes since it opened in 1940. Over nearly 85 years, it has survived an arson attack, the rise of multiplex theaters that wiped out many historic venues, and the ravaging effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Throughout it all, the theater has remained a cornerstone of Willits’ cultural life.

When the pandemic subsided, the theater’s longtime owners realized it was time to step away. Selling the theater, however, proved to be a steep challenge — who would want to take on a struggling business housed in a nearly 100-year-old building requiring constant maintenance? Yet, amid the uncertainty, a new chapter began when husband-and-wife duo Jim Devine and Michelle Hutchins, inspired by their love for classic movie houses and a desire to preserve a piece of Willits’ history, took the leap and purchased the Noyo Theater.

Now, about six months into their ownership, Devine and Hutchins find themselves navigating the complexities of revitalizing a historic theater, all while grappling with financial losses. Nationwide, theatergoing is on the decline. Maybe in California’s redwood country, things will be different.

The Noyo Theater was among the many entertainment venues developed by Redwood Theatres, Inc., founded by George M. Mann, who capitalized on the booming interest in Hollywood cinema. Mann played a key role in bringing movie magic to remote areas across California, from San Diego to Klamath Falls, with modern theaters and performance spaces.

Construction on the Noyo Theater began in December 1939 with a $25,000 budget for the structure and another $25,000 for 650 seats. Designed by William Bernard David, it showcased the streamline moderne style, with rounded corners, sweeping lines and minimal ornamentation.

On May 3, 1940, over 1,000 people attended its grand opening. Moviegoers watched “The Dark Command,” directed by Raoul Walsh, who knew Willits well, as he owned a ranch northwest of town. A local newspaper hailed the theater as “one of the most lavish small-city entertainment houses in the north bay area.”

After 30 years of ownership, George Mann retired from his theater empire, leaving it to his son Richard, who went on to sell the theater in the early 1970s to Lory Pontone and Bob Loya, who would usher in one of the grittiest and darkest periods of the theater’s history.

In 1972, the American pornographic film “Deep Throat” challenged public views on art, sexuality and freedom of expression. Rated X for its explicit sexual content, the film tested obscenity laws across the United States, with some communities seizing copies from theaters to enforce censorship.

In April 1974, Pontone and Loya screened “Deep Throat” and other adult films in Willits, igniting tensions with the local police department. Officers were dispatched to the theater, confirmed the presence of explicit material and proceeded to confiscate the films. In early May 1974, the owners were charged with showing obscene material and booked in the local jail. The owners were publicly indignant, promising to fight police efforts, and quoted in a local newspaper as saying, “This isn’t going to stop us. We’re going to fight it all the way.”

On May 29, 1974, an unknown arsonist set fire to the Noyo Theater with a 5-gallon can of gasoline, severely damaging the stage, screen and projection booth. The crime went unsolved, and charges against Pontone and Loya were ultimately dropped, but their time running the theater had come to a close. After repairs, the Noyo reopened in November 1975, with the new owner assuring the local newspaper there would be “no pornography” at the movie house.

For the next two decades, the Noyo Theater had minimal drama. The independent ownership allowed some experimentation, such as bringing in live dancers during a screening of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” and sometimes hosting concerts and dances.

After closing in 1995 because of competition from multiplexes, the Noyo Theater was revived in 1996 with a full renovation that preserved its historic charm while adding modern upgrades and two additional screens. Reopened under Cinema West in 1997, the theater shifted to independent operators in 2012 who upgraded the theater to digital projection. 

In 2003, the theater premiered “Seabiscuit,” a film celebrating the legendary racehorse tied to Mendocino County, where Ridgewood Ranch — just 8 miles south of Willits — became his final resting place.

By 2022, one auditorium had been upgraded with 33 electric luxury loungers and beer and wine service.

James Devine and Michelle Hutchins took ownership of the historic Noyo Theater in July 2024, united by a vision to breathe new life into the cherished cinema. Devine is the cinephile of the duo, shaped by a childhood spent as an Air Force brat tagging along with his “movie guy” dad to theaters across the country. Later, he served as a cameraman in the Air Force, producing combat documentaries before pursuing a video production degree at Cal Poly Humboldt. 

Hutchins, meanwhile, brings her expertise as a career educator and Mendocino County superintendent of schools, leveraging a deep network of contacts and the leadership skills needed to generate buzz and build community support.

The couple, who lived in the town and frequently passed by the theater, heard the previous owner planned to sell. “Between the two of us, we saw the need, and we felt we could pull it off,” Devine said.

Once they dove into the venture, however, the challenges quickly piled up. Despite his extensive experience in video production, Devine told SFGATE, “Nothing [is] like running a theater.” From fixing popcorn machines to managing employees and navigating film distribution, he described the work as “relentless.”

“We were naive about buying a 1940s building,” Devine admitted. Repairs often require difficult permitting processes, while seeking historical designation could further complicate renovations. “So yeah, it’s a quagmire.”

The financial hurdles became evident early on. “The banks weren’t going to lend on a failing business in a failing part of the country,” Devine said, recalling their struggle to secure funding.

The rise of streaming has only added to the strain. “I think people are already paying for multiple subscriptions,” Devine noted. “On a Friday night, you think, ‘Do we spend $50 to go out to the movies, or do we watch Netflix, which we’ve already been paying for but haven’t used in two months?’”

Hutchins laid out the theater’s financial reality six months into the endeavor: “We paid $650,000 for the theater. Right now, we’re losing about $9,000 a month. The building’s old and expensive to heat and cool, plus California’s minimum wage is $16.50. What people don’t realize is 60% of ticket sales go directly to the studios. Hard to make money under that model.”

Devine has bold ideas for boosting revenue. In October 2024, they hosted a successful John Carpenter horror film festival and plan to organize more. Last fall, the theater proved its potential for live events by hosting a comedy show, further expanding its entertainment offerings. With its versatile space, the venue could become a hub for concerts, theater performances and community events.

Despite rising costs, the couple has kept ticket and concession prices at 2016 levels. “We’re working on where we can raise prices while still providing affordable entertainment for Willits,” Hutchins said.

The journey has been financially daunting, but the pair remain hopeful. “We’re fully optimistic we can turn the financial picture around,” Hutchins added. “All we need is for people to come see a movie!”

(sfgate.com)

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ASSIGNMENT: UKIAH - HOUSE OF BROKEN TOYS

by Tommy Wayne Kramer

I hurt my back last week. No, wait. That’s not right.

I meant to say “My back hurt me last week” and hasn’t stopped. I might need a tourniquet.

Backs go out and seem to enjoy it, as if they’re on vacation. I’ve never met a sore back eager to fix itself.

I’m so very done with the old remedies: voodoo, leeches, chiropractors and other primitive cures. These have proved of limited value, so I tried modern versions of the snake oil stuff: crystal gazing, tarot readings, visualization, meditation and chakra adjustments.

Aromatherapy surely has a role in 21st century medicine, but not for spines, vertebrae, sacroiliacs or actual pain. So I’ve gone back to the new primitive remedies: Aspirin, Aleve and Advil marinated in Bourbon, Beer and Brandy. My back still hurts when I’m conscious.

A sore back usually starts as a thin electric band of hot misery that runs along the belt line, east to west, no wider than an inch but of sufficient pain to provide weeks of feeling sorry for myself. My sympathy gambit is of limited value given I’ve an audience of one. She shall remain nameless.

The worst 15 minutes of my day are mornings when I get dressed, or try. I don’t bend good no more, given my lower back’s refusal to cooperate with twisting or installing things on my feet. I’ve gone a week without socks.

And since I’m no longer a county employee I resent being sidelined for even a day if I don’t get paid sick time. The pain has recently moved from the belt line into a deep pocket of a thick, bruise-like wad that rents spacious quarters in the northwest neighborhood of my right buttock.

I’ve suffered far worse, but I was young then and able to tolerate bourbon by the bucketful. Some day I will take it by the teaspoon. Come that day I shall weep.

And in years past my injuries eventually grew tired of all my whining, and moved on to other victims, delivering headaches to students taking final exams, and fractured kneecaps to professional athletes.

I started feeling better a few days ago, although not yet to the point I could put socks on in the morning or get up from a chair without a fair amount of gasping and clutching at things to grab onto. But still, better.

The day I turned the corner was the same day Trophy launched a backward reverse half-cartwheel off our slippery back deck, then landed on it. The upshot was A) a night of soreness extremis for her right arm, B) a visit to the emergency room and C) a diagnosis, complete with X-rays and a cast-like splint, of a fractured radial bone in her right wrist.

It’s not as funny as it sounds, though would make a fine Hollywood comedy about a guy who can’t dress himself with a wife who can’t feed herself with a dog that can’t walk itself (cue laughter). And because of the holidays it’s too late to phone in orders for Oxycontin and morphine patches with my shady friends in Redwood Valley.

Plus, most of the bars will be closed.

Dinners have become minor comedy acts of their own. We are both inert 16 hours a day and don’t burn up enough calories a day earn a bowl of Cheerios for dinner, and there’s no milk anyway, and neither of us can drive to Raley’s.

So I organize a nice bowl of potato chips sprinkled with Fritos, and Trophy contents herself with a pint of Haagen Dazs ice cream. But with her shattered right hand she can’t manipulate a spoon, and she looks like a three year old trying to feed herself using her left. I don’t laugh (in her presence) at the irony of being free to eat her favorite meal but incapable of doing it.

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Headline Of The Year

Annnnnd, just it time for inclusion in the much coveted “Headline of the Year” competition, comes this Dec. 31, 2024 entry from the ever-ridiculous Eugene Robinson.

Robinson’s photo atop his UDJ column has him stroking his chin in a manner very much like Socrates once favored, and his grave, sermon-like words can be compared with those of Solomon, though not favorably.

Now, my favorite for headline of 2024:

“We cannot abide Trump’s wish for a compliant media”

Of course. That would require Robinson and the rest of Big News to apply their lips to Trump’s buttocks while simultaneously licking Obama’s boots. It can’t be done.

Eugene baby, it’s better you stick with the party that owns you.

(Tom Hine notes that graffiti continues to wash over Ukiah, and among the latest targets is the fancy “Great Rail Trail” sign on Clara Street. TWK wonders what it will require for the city to wake up and deal with it.)

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LOCALS SUE FEDERAL REPS OVER FUNDING GENOCIDE IN PALESTINE

Dear Editor and Readers;

I and 600 other North Coast citizens have filed a suit against our two congressmembers in a class action https://www.commondreams.org/news/us-israel-military-aid accusing them of arming the Israeli military in violation of “international and federal law that prohibits complicity in genocide.”

We’ve done this to convey our anger about the ongoing civilian carnage in Gaza https://www.commondreams.org/tag/gaza that we taxpayers have continued to fund in part because our House Representative Jared Huffman and US Senator Mike Thompson continue to vote for ever more guns, jets and bombs for Netanyahu’s extermination machine.

It was a crime for Hamas to murder 1,200 Israelis. What do we call it now that Israel has killed 46,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children? The UN, Amnesty International and even Pope Francis all call it genocide. Even Israeli historian Amos Goldberg, a Holocaust expert at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has also said that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

I can not stand it that my country and my tax money is supporting this crime. If you also oppose US funds massacring of Palestinian civilians, please tell Huffman and Thompson to oppose it, too.

Tom Wodetzki,

Albion

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SARAH SONGBIRD

Howdy friends and music lovers!

As the new year gets rolling, I am starting a new newsletter to keep you informed of all my musical adventures. Whether it’s shows with The Real Sarahs or What The Folk, solo shows, or fun collaborative projects and new music releases, this will be the best way for me to let you know what I’m up to. If you’d like to hear from me, please DM your email address and I will make sure to let you know all the latest and greatest.

Thanks for your support of my musical endeavors and I am excited to keep sharing my voice and songs and heart with you this year.

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FIRST AND TEN!

Change Our Name’s Monthly teach-in will be Wednesday, January 22, at 7 p.m. in the Community Room of the Fort Bragg Library at 499 E. Laurel Street in Fort Bragg.

Envisioned as a program to educate attendees about the issues involved in the name change and to hear neighbors’ ideas, the teach-in will last about one hour and will feature a speaker and a question and answer/discussion period.

Our Speaker will be Juan Dominguez a Point Arena Manchester Band of Pomo Indians Tribal Member, “dedicated,” in his words “to amplifying Native voices as indigenous people here on turtle island.”

He created and hosts Burn the Wagon a podcast series directed at amplifying the voices of people of color, offering platforms to tell their own stories, and talking about history in ways that are not talked about in history books. The podcast exists, he says, to verbally and metaphorically “burn the wagon” that is capitalism, patriarchy, and colonialism.

We shall hold an open Business meeting on Saturday, January 18, at 2 p.m., out-of-doors. That will be followed by a Board meeting at 3 p.m. For the location,  if you would like to attend the Business meeting, please email us at: changeournamefortbragg@gmail.com

https://www.changeournamefortbragg.com

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2334853713317266

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

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NOW HERE'S A GUY WHO PUTS ON A SHOW!

Feel the Magic!

Magician/mentalist Robert Goleman will be entertaining at all three seatings of the 48th Annual Mendocino Knights of Columbus Crab Feed, January 24-25.  His recent performance at the Senior Center was a sellout.  You don’t want to miss this opportunity.

Come enjoy the magic AND the crab!  For more details and to purchase tickets, please visit kcmendo.org.

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MENDOCINO POETRY SERIES

Dear Poets and lovers of poetry,

You are invited to attend the January 25th Mendocino Open Mic Poetry Series at the Mendocino Art Center. Time: 4-6 pm

The January featured readers are poets Karen Lewis and Amanda Cruise. There is a sign-up sheet available for poets reading in the open mic following the featured readers.

Format: Reading begins with featured readers in the first hour and is followed by an open mic. Open mic poets are asked to read one or two poems no longer than five minutes total.

Questions Contact: Devreaux Baker, dbaker@mcn.org, www.devreauxbaker.org

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COASTAL WAVES

by Ron Guenther (June 4, 1988)

The College of the Redwoods Todd’s Point campus is a consumer/taxpayer fraud bordering on the criminal, in my opinion. Of course we need better college facilities on the coast. But do we need them at this location?

A worse site for the college campus could hardly have been chosen. The South Fort Bragg Tod’s Point area is already one of the most critically traffic congested areas on the northern California coastline. The problem is getting worse, and it’s insolvable. The two narrow bridges, a major coastal access highway. (Highway 20), feeding in right between them, and the increasing traffic mess created by the boat yard shopping center will inevitably stifle college growth. When we factor into this mess the estimated 1800 additional automobile trips per day projected for even a limited size college campus, we have all the ingredients for a coastal traffic and congestion nightmare of unparalleled proportions. All of this is to take place in a six-mile stretch of Highway 1 between the bridges containing other extensive commercial, residential and park development with no long-term relief of any kind insight. We will never have the major college campus on Todd’s point that is supposedly being planned there and which we have dearly paid for in premium coastal real estate prices for the benefit of land speculation.

The College of the Redwoods Todd’s Point campus was a cynical real estate speculation from the beginning and still is. Its real purpose is to accomplish just what is being accomplished as this is being written — sewer and water lines, extending onto Todd’s Point, taxpayer provided traffic signals and highway improvements, and all of this primarily for the benefit of local real estate dealers and condominium developers. Community colleges have a history of being frequently misused this way in a number of other places.

The ideal site for the Fort Bragg College of the Redwoods campus, a site which was mysteriously rejected early on in the site selection process, is the south Pudding Creek site — easy access, already available, sewer and water lines, plenty of room, willing seller, but no benefits for the local real estate speculator/developer establishment, assisting the south Fort Bragg expansionist crowd. The Todd’s Point campus site represents the sleaziest kind of profiteering against all reason and community need.

This column has been accused of recently of being “no growth.” Let me set the record straight. It is not “no growth.” In some cases it is “negative growth.” There’s been too much growth in this coastal area in the last few years already. The small-town quality of life here is being ruined by developers. The situation should be remedied by first turning down the infamous Boatyard Shopping Center, replacing the thousands of tons of rich topsoil that were stripped from the earth to make way for this monument to consumerism, greed, and southern Fort Bragg expansion, and growing vegetables on the site. In this way, a modest College of the Redwoods Todd’s Point campus might have a chance. I am reminded of the words of author Edward Abbey: “Unlimited growth is simply the metabolism of the cancer cell.”

(The late, great Ron Guenther died in Fort Bragg in 2010 at the age of 72.)

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Sunday, January 5, 2024

ABEL AGUADO, 40, Ukiah. Paraphernalia, unspecified offense.

MICHAEL ALPERS, 56, Ukiah. DUI.

ALEX CORTINAS, 40, Willits. Petty theft, disorderly conduct-loitering, paraphernalia, registration tampering, false ID, failure to appear, conspiracy, unspecified offense.

DAVID GALARZA-GONZALEZ, 63, Hopland. DUI.

SALVADOR HERNANDEZ-SOSA, 47, Ukiah. Marijuana cultivation.

MARJORIE JENSEN, 71, Ukiah. DUI.

MARSHA JOHNSON, 48, Ukiah. Domestic battery.

RICHARD JOHNSON, 56, Ukiah. DUI.

LOREN LINCOLN, 39, Covelo. DUI.

ARYLIS PETERS JR., 54, Covelo. Battery with serious injury, smuggling controlled substance into jail.

CYNTHIA PHILLIBER, 33, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, resisting, battery on peace officer, probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

LACEY POWELL, 32, Redwood Valley. Petty theft, disorderly conduct-loitering, conspiracy.

YADIRA RODRIGUEZ, 21, Redwood Valley. DUI.

ERNESTO TOSCANO, 33, Fort Bragg. Probation revocation.

MATTHEW WILLIAMS, 59, Ukiah. Felon-addict with firearm, ammo possession by prohibited person, failure to appear.

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THEN & NOW

Editor:

We should note the Great Pyramid at Giza was built in an estimated 20 years. The number of stones moved by hand is over 2.3 million, and they weighed on average more than a ton. The footprint is 13 acres, rising to over 480 feet. It’s still standing firm after 4,500 years. On Dec. 23, The Press Democrat noted, “After two decades of construction, widening of Highway 101 between Marin and Sonoma counties is set to substantially wrap in mid-2025” (“As Highway 101 widening nears end, focus shifts to transit”). The cost was $767 million. Thankfully in modern times we have all the heavy equipment we need to add a single lane, rivers of concrete and, more important, a bottomless pit of taxpayer money to match the ancients’ time frame.

I wonder if it will last 30 years.

Tim McFarlin

Santa Rosa

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FRED GARDNER: This is the back of an album by Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks, “Where's the Money?” produced in 1971 by Big Thumb Records.

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49ERS FLOP IN SEASON FINALE, ROUTED BY CARDINALS AS JAUAN JENNINGS EARNS EJECTION

by Eric Branch

There were special-teams miscues, a possibly serious injury to a starter and a meaningful quest that was spoiled by a failure to finish.

In other words, the San Francisco 49ers’ 47-24 loss to the Cardinals on Sunday was a fitting end to a 6-11 season no one saw coming.

The 49ers are the defending NFC champions, and in the previous two seasons had gone 11-1 in the NFC West en route to claiming division titles in the 2022 and 2023 seasons. Sunday’s defeat dropped them to 1-5 in the division this season after they secured a last-place finish a week earlier.

The 49ers’ bid for their first Super Bowl title since January 1995 was spoiled in part by late-game meltdowns in three of their first four division games, losses to the Rams (Week 2), Cardinals (Week 5) and Seahawks (Week 11) in which they blew fourth-quarter leads.

Those defeats were a reason one of the most compelling storylines entering Sunday’s no-stakes game was wide receiver Jauan Jennings and a bid for his first 1,000-yard season. Jennings needed 77 yards to reach the milestone, but came up 25 yards short because he didn’t finish the game due to a second-quarter ejection.

Jennings was disqualified after he got in scraps on back-to-back plays with Cardinals cornerbacks with about six minutes left before halftime Arizona’s Sean Murphy-Bunting was also ejected after the second scuffle. Both clashes resulted in offsetting penalties.

Quarterback Josh Dobbs, Jennings’ college teammate at Tennessee, was force-feeding Jennings before his disqualification. Jennings had 52 yards on seven receptions after he received 10 targets with seven-plus minutes left in the second quarter. Jennings has never had more than 12 targets in his 60-game career.

Meanwhile, the 49ers’ special teams continued a season-long theme with its latest forgettable performance, raising more questions about coordinator Brian Schneider’s job security. The 49ers allowed a successful fake punt in the first quarter and were flagged for holding on a kickoff return while kicker Jake Moody continued his travails since returning in early November from a three-game absence due to a high ankle sprain.

Moody went 1 of 2 on field-goal attempts, making a 51-yarder and pulling a 47-yard attempt wide left. The 2023 third-round pick entered Week 18 ranked 33rd out of 37 qualifying kickers in field-goal percentage (71.9%). He has made 11 of 20 kicks since his return in Week 10. During that nine-game stretch, Moody has made 5 of 13 kicks from 40-plus yards.

Rookie running back Isaac Guerendo was carted off with a knee/ankle injury after a 3-yard run on the game’s third offensive snap. Several offensive players quickly beckoned to the sideline for the training staff after Guerendo was tackled. Guerendo’s injury was among the latest in a season marred by attrition, with the two running backs ahead of Guerendo on the depth chart, Christian McCaffrey and Jordan Mason, combining to miss 18 games.

Dobbs made his first start of the season with Brock Purdy sidelined (elbow), and completed 29 of 43 passes for 326 yards with two touchdowns. However, he also had three turnovers — two interceptions and a fumble — that led to 14 points for Arizona.

The 49ers committed a season-high 13 penalties and lost the turnover margin 3-0, as their defense finished the season with just one takeaway in the final seven games. The 49ers had the NFL’s second-worst turnover margin in their final nine games, trailing only the Browns (-15) over that stretch, according to the Associated Press.   

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49ers GAME GRADES: LOSS IN ARIZONA A FITTING FINISH TO A FAILED SEASON

by Michael Lerseth

A terrible season came to an ugly end Sunday as the injury-riddled San Francisco 49ers were bludgeoned 47-24 by the Arizona Cardinals to finish a 6-11 season and last-place finish in the NFC West.

Offense: D

Backup QB Josh Dobbs had his moments but played like, well, a backup QB. In his audition for a suitor next season, Dobbs completed 29 of 43 passes for a career-high 326 yards and two TDs. But on consecutive fourth-quarter possessions he lost a fumble and threw an interception (one of two) to all but seal the outcome. RB Patrick Taylor, thrust into the spotlight when rookie Isaac Guerendo was injured on the Niners’ third snap, rushed for 109 yards on 17 carries — surpassing in one game what he had compiled in the season’s first 16 games (74 yards). WR Jauan Jennings fell 25 yards of his first 1,000-yard season when he couldn’t control his temper and was ejected after scuffles on back-to-back first-half plays. 

Defense: F

Injuries or not, allowing Arizona a season-high 47 points is nothing short of embarrassing. Kyler Murray picked apart a reserves-filled secondary to complete 25 of 35 passes for 242 yards and four touchdowns with no sacks or interceptions. The assault wasn’t limited to the air, though, as the Cardinals rushed for 151 yards (averaging 5.6 yards on 27 carries) and two TDs — and did so without 1,000-yard starter James Conner. 

Special Teams: F

On the bright side, Jake Moody won’t miss any more field goals this season. After making his first one — a 51-yarder on the Niners’ first possession — he pulled a 47-yarder to the left on their next drive. He ends his second season having missed nine of his last 20 FG tries. The Cardinals pulled off a fake punt in the first half, gaining 22 yards on a 4th-and-4 to keep alive a drive that led to a field goal.

Coaching: D

Kyle Shanahan started Sunday’s game with more backups than a valet and in the first half alone saw Guerendo and defensive backs Malik Mustapha and Talanoa Hufanga go down with injuries. Second- and third-stringers or not, the 49ers lost discipline across the board, from Jennings’ day-ending antics in the first half to the team committing a season-high 13 penalties (while Arizona was flagged once). 

Overall: F

At least it can’t be called a gut-wrenching loss, only a fitting end to a hard-to-watch season. From the Super Bowl to a last-place finish in less than 12 months is startling. GM John Lynch has his work cut out for him in the offseason as he deals with an aging roster, several enormous financial hurdles, and the realization that the Super Bowl window enjoyed by the franchise for a half-decade may well be closed.

(SF Chronicle)

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QUOTING VOLTAIRE

by Randy Rowland

We were eating in a restaurant. Nearby, a woman wore a shirt that featured a word, scrawled grafitti-style across the front: Voltaire. Other than recognizing the name, I really couldn’t remember anything about Voltaire. Luckily, Joyce did. She reminded me that his most famous work was Candide.  Back when she was a teacher at an alternative high school in Seattle, teaching mainly students of color who had dropped out of regular programs, she introduced them to Candide and a bit of Voltaire. So with her encouragement, we spent our time, while waiting for our meal to be served, reading Voltaire quotes together. Sitting in that restaurant, I was struck by how contemporary Voltaire sounded.

Wikipedia says Voltaire (1694-1778) was a “French Enlightenment writer, philosopher, satirist, and historian. Famous for his wit and his criticism of Christianity (especially of the Roman Catholic Church) and of slavery, Voltaire was an advocate of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and separation of church and state.” He fought for civil rights (such as the right to a fair trial and freedom of religion) and he defended and popularized Issac Newton and his gravitational theories.

With this in mind, here’s a few quotes:

It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.

-Voltaire

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.

-Voltaire

Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.

-Voltaire

I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: ‘O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.’ And God granted it.

-Voltaire

Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.

-Voltaire

In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another.

-Voltaire

Prejudices are what fools use for reason.

-Voltaire

Let us read and let us dance - two amusements that will never do any harm to the world.

-Voltaire

and finally, to put this all in perspective,

A witty saying proves nothing.

-Voltaire

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BETSY CAWN

“Disruptive Behavior?”

Lake County’s Board of Supervisors has for several years (most prominently starting in 2021) taken the “initiative” to sponsor “management” programs and used its quasi-judicial powers to create Joint Powers Authorities (with minimal responsibility for BoS “oversight”), several multi-agency Task Forces, ad hoc Advisory Committees, and Municipal Advisory Councils.

Lake’s Administration was transformed largely by our former CAO, who had been the Director of Social Services during a multi-decade buildup of her department — on the same trajectory as Mendocino’s “Health Services” empire, the one that finally folded in Mendocino — and attempted to merge three similar departments (Behavioral Health, Public Health, and Social Services) but thankfully was “promoted upstairs” after a two-year fiasco as the County’s post-Valley Fire Long Term Recovery director.

Our former’s DSS director’s forte being budget and staff control, she quickly moved to consolidate management departments under her umbrella starting with Human Resources, but ran afoul of the Registrar of Voters (who eventually prevailed in keeping that office independent). She then sought to absorb the three fiscal agencies — Auditor-Controller, Assessor-Recorder, and Treasurer-Tax Collector, who successfully resisted the CAO’s demands.

Just before ending her County career (having lost a discrimination lawsuit against the government and her self) she did succeed at taking over Community Development with the help and backing of new Supervisor Jessica Pyska in 2021.

Pyska’s liberal use of ad hoc workgroups, taskforces, and subcommittees enabled pairs of Supervisors (in compliance with the Brown Act) to meet with the influential and empowered leaders in various “external” forums to generate popular support for her ambitious priorities.

The great disaster decade of 2015 to 2025 launched the new economic approach to rebuilding enterprise and residential assets, which then took a severe hit during the pandemic (and its political battles for control and direction, with two Supervisors refusing to support our Public Health Officer’s “orders” — you remember him, surely, Dr. Gary Pace).

On the cusp of adaptive technology’s meeting alternatives (“remote” workplace operations and multi-platform real-time, interactive “virtual” events), one thing the Board needed to do was endure the harangues of public commenters who opposed any public health measures such as masking, vaccinations, and social distancing; schools were especially taxed to find ways for all students (some of whom did not have and could not afford computers) to “stay in school” and “cope” with social isolation. Parents who could not afford to stay at home to supervise their student children were stressed further by the need to earn a living and the necessity of ensuring their kids “attended” streamed classes.

Early editions of virtual meeting software (Granicus had been in use already for many years) were vulnerable to disruptions that broke into BoS meetings, sometimes hideously, but the platform inventers quickly upgraded the systems to control who is and who is not allowed to “enter the room.”

Fiscal management being the top priority for these elected and appointed officials, “spending” of staff time on serving the needs of individual Supervisors — carefully orchestrated as “administration” services with the primary objective of getting funding for their “initiatives,” most of which was handed off to non-profit contractors — is governed by one of the many new Board “Policies & Procedures.”

Using the County’s purchasing rules, department heads were given signature authority through various resolutions defining the threshold under which BoS review/approval could be obviated by setting top dollar amounts for each, just as is being proposed on your upcoming BoS agenda.

I don’t remember when our Board, years ago, started the 3-minute public comment limit (probably “suggested” by the 2015 Valley Fire Recovery director, whose second attempt to become CAO succeeded after her predecessor had to “leave the county” — in fact, he left the state entirely — due to major pre-disaster errors). [That scandal garnered no local press attention, and the resulting loss of $12.5M in General Fund reserves was barely mentioned in the 2016-2017 annual budget hearing.]

Our current CAO, a professionally recognized practitioner of public administration arts, raised the bar quietly but effectively with many offerings to the Board for “leadership” training, participation in government lobbying institutions (CSAC, RCRC, NACO), and updating of our Board’s “Policies & Procedures” Manual.

During the December 10, 2024, hearing for Board action on whether or not to support the name change in/for the town of Kelseyville, former Supervisor Brown took the Board to task for their 3-minute rule, saying that the Board’s rule discouraged public input that used to enable members of the public to ask questions of the Board, and then respond to their answers. Convenient for the Board, hamstringing for citizens whose three minute utterances are then dismissed by the Board’s “non-response” rule — unless, as sometimes happens, a Supervisor wants to, and has the “last word” with or without “consent” from the other Board members.

A considerable gap exists between the public and their elected officials (who choose, without restriction, those “constituents” they meet with during their unofficial hours; no record is kept of those contacts or matters discussed) who are “assisted” in their efforts to address governance issues by an Administration-filtered “Citizen Complaint” process. Individual “complaints” are typically routed to department heads who reply cordially but seldom provide answers to their concerns.

But over time, thanks to on line services, county-wide crises, and ever increasing “stakeholder” “engagement,” a broader dialogue is forming among local activists and independent citizens involved in challenging our County’s cannabis legalization rules, Planning Commission conflicts, and General Plan update processes.

From every encounter I’ve witnessed over the last couple of years, our Administration and Department Heads have used the Board of Supervisors agendas to great effect, although there are numerous minor infractions of the Brown Act that surpass even the attention of an agenda hawk like me (terrible explanations of grant and contract items). Anyone can request that a consent agenda item be pulled for discussion but everyone knows that if it’s on the consent agenda it’s a virtual done deal.

Individual Supervisors are pretty meticulous about having Board and Admin approval of their requests for “staff support,” but they have deflected so many issues through their assignments to standing or ad hoc committees over the years that the public is hard pressed to keep up. The further cementing of policy positions at state-level agency “stakeholder”forums (i.e., elected officials “representing” the County’s interests) and in private conversations with higher officials (both elected and appointed) bolster the Supervisors’ confidence in their individual autonomy for working with hand-picked supporters of their chosen domains. Pyska’s is clearly the long-term recovery of our economic and organizational authority (as though Lake County ever got out of the permanent shadow of “severely economically-disadvantaged” designation from US HUD in the late 1960s’ implementation of Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty” and Ladybird Johnson’s “Highway Beautification” programs).

Exhibiting their authorities over incoming Supervisors, our Board demanded an amendment of their “Policies & Procedures” to prevent their use of “Supervisor-elect@lakecountyca.gov” in their post-election contacts where, through “error” or ignorance, they might exceed the authorities granted by state law, and create unforseeable “liabilities” that threaten the organizational status quo.

Junior members of the Board will face a steep learning curve (less so for newly retired Lakeport Police Chief) as the Supervisors take up dozens of unfinished matters from 2024 — postponed from last December meetings and carried over from multi-year projects.

The usual rigamarole of “housekeeping items” and shuffling of the deck chairs under the breezily “elected” positions of Chair, Vice-Chair, and ex officio Boards, Commissions, and Committees will suck up next Tuesday’s love fest while the Administration begins the cannonade of Q3 activities — annual review of budget unit obligations by every department head, and (separately) the Board’s annual legislative priorities hearing. Quickly followed by “mid-year” budget review, adjustment of position allocations, and dedication of the Board’s discretionary funds, punctuated by self-congratulatory proclamations and “recognition” ceremonies.

While the hopeful newly elected Supervisors get to carom around in the novitiate freedom of their first year, a new election cycle begins for District Supervisors Crandell and Sabatier and the public tries to get a word in edgewise.

Thanks as always to the perspicacity and perseverance of our beloved Editor, Mr. Scaramella, for never flinching or losing track of Mendocino’s bigshots and their oddly inept “management” of your CEO.

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BIG OIL SPONSORS DINNERS AND AWARDS RECEPTIONS FOR JOURNALISTS

by Dan Bacher

One of the biggest and most censored stories of the past few years is the increasingly cozy relationship between the oil industry and journalists and journalist organizations in California.

In 2023 and 2024, the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA), the largest and most powerful corporate lobbying group in California and the West, sponsored several dinners and awards receptions for journalists. This article will review those efforts by the oil industry to curry favor with journalists, as well as examples of collaboration between Big Media and Big Oil in previous years.

In one of the clearest examples of the collaboration between Big Oil and the media, the Western States Petroleum Association, the largest and most powerful oil industry lobbying group in California and the West, sponsored a “media dinner” on February 28, 2023, in Sacramento as part of #BizFedSactoDays

The flyer for the event stated, “Journalists who play an outsize role in shaping narratives about state politics and holding lawmakers accountable will join business leaders to pull back the curtain on how they select and tell stories about California policies, policy and power.”

Featured speakers at the program included Colleen Nelson of the Sacramento Bee, Laurel Rosenhall of the Los Angeles Times, Kaitlyn Schallhorn of the Orange County Register and Dan Walters of Cal Matters.

In a tweet, Catherine Reheis-Boyd, President of the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) and former Chair of the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative Blue Ribbon Task Force to create “marine protected areas” in Southern California, gushed:

“One of our favorite times of year is #BizFedSactoDays- when @BizFed helps amplify the presence and power of business in California. And we're honored to host the Media Dinner and featured media speakers! @DanCALmatters @LaurelRosenhall@ColleenMNelson @K_Schallhorn”

The Western States Petroleum Association sponsored the media dinner again this year on June 3, 2024 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the WSPA headquarters in Sacramento.…

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/1/5/2295249/-Update-Big-Oil-sponsors-dinners-and-awards-receptions-for-journalists

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THE HARD REALITY AMERICAN EXPATS QUICKLY LEARN

by Paul Theroux

Does this annoying American rant sound familiar?

“Call this a govment! Why, just look at it and see what it’s like. … They call that govment! A man can’t get his rights in a govment like this. Sometimes I’ve a mighty notion to just leave the country. … Says I, for two cents I’d leave the blamed country and never come a-near it agin. … I says, I’ll never vote agin. Them’s the very words I said; they all heard me; and the country may rot for all me — I’ll never vote agin as long as I live.”

If you happened to guess Ellen DeGeneres, you’d be wrong. It is Pap Finn — who, for his obnoxious nativism, would probably be a Donald Trump supporter today — jawing to Huck in our national masterpiece “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” voicing a complaint that you’ve perhaps heard since the recent presidential election results were announced. Some people have acted on the threat, finding refuge in various countries overseas. This, oddly, at a time when millions of people are contriving ways to come to America.

What seems a contradiction is resolved in my core belief that expatriation, like old-fashioned laborious travel, is flight and pursuit in equal measure. It is both the desire to leave home and the passion to find something new, to pick up stakes and discover who you are in a different landscape and culture.

Pap’s rant was the inner voice I channeled more than 50 years ago when I began writing my novel “The Mosquito Coast” in the 1970s — years of long lines at gas stations, the Arab oil embargo, punitive interest rates, sagging morale and Japanese takeovers of high-profile American companies. My main character, Allie Fox, ranted like Pap about America’s decline and, suiting the action to the word, departed for Honduras with his wife and four children, in the hope of prospering in someone else’s country. But, of course, he remained his stubborn American self and went much too far, and his expatriation ended badly.

I told a similar tale in my novel “The Lower River,” some 30 years later and in many short stories; the theme has been much on my mind. I spent 27 years, between 1963 and 1990, as an expatriate (six years in Africa, three in Singapore, 18 in Britain). I was not joyriding; I was first inspired by President John F. Kennedy’s inauguration speech, one of the wisest and most eloquent ever delivered — sentiments unspoken today — “Let both sides unite to heed in all corners of the earth the command of Isaiah to undo the heavy burdens and let the oppressed go free.”

But under my cloak of idealism, I was procrastinating about my future, and I felt I’d find answers by being alone and far away. I became a teacher in Africa and found myself transformed — so enlivened by the experience, I kept traveling and working abroad, until I quit teaching in 1971 and, with three novels published, moved with my small family to Britain, devoting myself wholly to writing. I don’t think I changed anyone’s life much as a teacher, but I know that expatriation was the making of me: liberated me, humbled me, revealed to me who I was and what I wanted my life to be, as a writer. I often thought of Rudyard Kipling’s lines, “God bless the just Republics / That give a man a home.”

Anyone with money can live abroad. It’s sort of an extended holiday. The true test of an expatriate is holding down a job, learning a language, paying taxes, passing a local driving test, negotiating the culture, truckling to unbudgeable authority and now and then enduring the gibes of co-workers. I was conspicuous in Africa as a muzungu and as an ang-mo-kui (red-haired devil) in Singapore, and very often an English person would begin a sentence, “Well, you Yanks …”

There is also an existential, parasitical, rootless quality to being an expatriate, which can be dizzying: You are both somebody and nobody, often merely a spectator. I always felt in my bones that wherever I went, I was an alien. That I could not presume or expect much hospitality, that I had nothing to offer except a willingness to listen, that wherever I was, I had no business there and had to justify my intrusion by writing about what I heard. Most travel, and a lot of expatriate life, can be filed under the heading “Trespassing.”

My travels have taken me to many of the places where Americans have sought refuge in spite of local conditions. Portugal with its parking problems, Costa Rica with its venomous snakes, Italy and France tangled in red tape, cartel-beleaguered Mexico, overcrowded Bali and many others, which, of course, also have their salubrious compensations — food, flunkies and sunshine. The Republic of Malta attracts many seeking fine weather and island life, retirees and expats, among them a disillusioned Ryan Murdock, whose excellent recent book “A Sunny Place for Shady People” depicts Malta as corrupt and violent, the food revolting, the islanders xenophobic and a risky place for any Maltese to criticize the government.

As a writer, I naturally think of other writers who (for material, for refuge) chose to live abroad. Mark Twain was happy in Germany. Henry James migrated to England and never looked back. James Baldwin thrived as an expat in Turkey and lived in France. Edith Wharton also lived in France. Josephine Baker, who was a writer as well as a force of nature, was the ultimate expat, though “exile” is nearer the mark. O. Henry (William Sydney Porter), fleeing the law, escaped to Honduras. Paul Bowles retreated to Morocco, but when I was writing “The Pillars of Hercules,” I saw him, age 83, crouched on a mat in his chilly apartment in Tangiers, and I thought: I don’t want to end up like this. My friend John Irving is a contented Torontonian; my fellow traveler the Iowan Bill Bryson is presently a country squire in Britain.

Traveling through England for his book “English Hours,” James made a wise observation about Americans: “We seem loosely hung together at home as compared with the English, every man of whom is a tight fit in his place.”

This “tight fit” extends beyond England to many of the world’s expat havens, where traditional cultures confound foreigners with the strictures of their religions, the finicky nuances of manners, their sinister yet legal punishments, their inexplicable pieties, their sneering absurdities of class, their rigidities of caste.

Yes, we have them in the United States, too, in a modified form, but their severity in other countries provokes their poorer citizens to flock to America, for its more “loosely hung” society. I also think the “tight fit” is one of the reasons that many exasperated expats, weary of the bubble they’re forced into, eventually return, clearer-sighted about the world and home.

(Paul Theroux, the author of “The Mosquito Coast” and the short story collection “The Vanishing Point,” lives in Haleiwa, Hawaii.)

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UKIAH BECKONS

Warmest spiritual greetings,

Awoke early at the homeless shelter in Washington, D.C. and began chanting OM. Following morning ablutions, took two bus rides to Whole Foods on H Street for a superb breakfast, and then moved on to the MLK public library. It’s snowing lightly here and much cooler. I’ve no idea what is next, except that I am in the “belly of the beast”. Perfectly situated, ready for spiritually sourced direct action, not identified with the body nor the mind. Contact me anytime.

Craig Louis Stehr (craiglouisstehr@gmail.com)

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LEAD STORIES, MONDAY'S NYT

Golden Globes Highlights: ‘The Brutalist’ and ‘Emilia Pérez’ Win Top Film Awards

Congress to Certify Trump’s Election, With Memories of Riot Looming Large

Potent Storm Blasts Parts of U.S. With Sleet, Snow and Freezing Rain

Judge Upholds Trump’s Conviction but Signals No Jail Time

Congestion Pricing’s True Test Comes During First Rush Hour

Biden Bans New Oil and Gas Drilling Along Most U.S. Coasts

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ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

What is there that is convincing these shooters to act. Did ISIS turn on a switch in Houston? A couple of questions.

What would  cause a Muslim convert to go on a suicide mission to kill as many people as he could? What was in his life to crack his “normal ness” and make him a killer? I would definitely wonder about his dialogues prior to the election and who he voted for, if he did. Same with the Las Vegas guy, a definite suicide. This guy seems to be an idiot, getting a bunch of weird incendiaries together to make a half assed explosion. It is not lost on me that he used a cybertruck full of New Years fireworks to damage the Trump Tower. An active hard core military type? If you are going to go out, go out with a flash bang.

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GENOCIDAL PRESIDENT, GENOCIDAL POLITICS

by Norman Solomon

When news broke over the weekend that President Biden just approved an $8 billion deal for shipping weapons to Israel, a nameless official vowed that “we will continue to provide the capabilities necessary for Israel's defense.” Following the reports last month from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch concluding that Israeli actions in Gaza are genocide, Biden’s decision was a new low for his presidency.

It’s logical to focus on Biden as an individual. His choices to keep sending huge quantities of weaponry to Israel have been pivotal and calamitous. But the presidential genocide and the active acquiescence of the vast majority of Congress are matched by the dominant media and overall politics of the United States.

Forty days after the Gaza war began, Anne Boyer announced her resignation as poetry editor of the New York Times Magazine. More than a year later, her statement illuminates why the moral credibility of so many liberal institutions has collapsed in the wake of Gaza’s destruction.

While Boyer denounced “the Israeli state’s U.S.-backed war against the people of Gaza,” she emphatically chose to disassociate herself from the nation’s leading liberal news organization: “I can’t write about poetry amidst the ‘reasonable’ tones of those who aim to acclimatize us to this unreasonable suffering. No more ghoulish euphemisms. No more verbally sanitized hellscapes. No more warmongering lies.”

The acclimatizing process soon became routine. It was most crucially abetted by President Biden and his loyalists, who were especially motivated to pretend that he wasn’t really doing what he was really doing.

For mainline journalists, the process required the willing suspension of belief in a consistent standard of language and humanity. When Boyer acutely grasped the dire significance of its Gaza coverage, she withdrew from “the newspaper of record.”

Content analysis of the war’s first six weeks found that coverage by the New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times had a steeply dehumanizing slant toward Palestinians. The three papers “disproportionately emphasized Israeli deaths in the conflict” and “used emotive language to describe the killings of Israelis, but not Palestinians,” a study by The Intercept showed. “The term ‘slaughter’ was used by editors and reporters to describe the killing of Israelis versus Palestinians 60 to 1, and ‘massacre’ was used to describe the killing of Israelis versus Palestinians 125 to 2. ‘Horrific’ was used to describe the killing of Israelis versus Palestinians 36 to 4.”

After a year of the Gaza war, Arab-American historian Rashid Khalidi said: “My objection to organs of opinion like the New York Times is that they see absolutely everything from an Israeli perspective. ‘How does it affect Israel, how do the Israelis see it?’ Israel is at the center of their worldview, and that’s true of our elites generally, all over the West. The Israelis have very shrewdly, by preventing direct reportage from Gaza, further enabled that Israelocentric perspective.”

Khalidi summed up: “The mainstream media is as blind as it ever was, as willing to shill for any monstrous Israeli lie, to act as stenographers for power, repeating what is said in Washington.”

The conformist media climate smoothed the way for Biden and his prominent rationalizers to slide off the hook and shape the narrative, disguising complicity as evenhanded policy. Meanwhile, mighty boosts of Israel’s weapons and ammunition were coming from the United States. Nearly half of the Palestinians they killed were children.

For those children and their families, the road to hell was paved with good doublethink. So, for instance, while the Gaza horrors went on, no journalist would confront Biden with what he’d said at the time of the widely decried school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, when the president had quickly gone on live television. “There are parents who will never see their child again,” he said, adding: “To lose a child is like having a piece of your soul ripped away. . . . It’s a feeling shared by the siblings, and the grandparents, and their family members, and the community that’s left behind.” And he asked plaintively, “Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen?”

The massacre in Uvalde killed 19 children. The daily massacre in Gaza has taken the lives of that many Palestinian kids in a matter of hours.

While Biden refused to acknowledge the ethnic cleansing and mass murder that he kept making possible, Democrats in his orbit cooperated with silence or other types of evasion. A longstanding maneuver amounts to checking the box for a requisite platitude by affirming support for a “two-state solution.”

Dominating Capitol Hill, an unspoken precept has held that Palestinian people are expendable as a practical political matter. Party leaders like Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Hakeem Jeffries did virtually nothing to indicate otherwise. Nor did they exert themselves to defend incumbent House Democrats Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush, defeated in summer primaries with an unprecedented deluge of multimillion-dollar ad campaigns funded by AIPAC and Republican donors.

The overall media environment was a bit more varied but no less lethal for Palestinian civilians. During its first several months, the Gaza war received huge quantities of mainstream media coverage, which thinned over time; the effects were largely to normalize the continual slaughter. Some exceptional reporting existed about the suffering, but the journalism gradually took on a media ambience akin to background noise, while credulously hyping Biden’s weak ceasefire efforts as determined quests.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came in for increasing amounts of criticism. But the prevalent U.S. media coverage and political rhetoric -- unwilling to expose the Israeli mission to destroy Palestinians en masse -- rarely went beyond portraying Israel’s leaders as insufficiently concerned with protecting Palestinian civilians.

Instead of candor about horrific truths, the usual tales of U.S. media and politics have offered euphemisms and evasions.

When she resigned as the New York Times Magazine poetry editor in mid-November 2023, Anne Boyer condemned what she called “an ongoing war against the people of Palestine, people who have resisted through decades of occupation, forced dislocation, deprivation, surveillance, siege, imprisonment, and torture.” Another poet, William Stafford, wrote decades ago:

I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty

to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

(normansolomon.com)

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WORKINGMAN'S BLUES #2

by Bob Dylan

There's an evenin' haze settlin' over town
Starlight by the edge of the creek
The buyin' power of the proletariat's gone down
Money's gettin' shallow and weak
Well, the place I love best is a sweet memory
It's a new path that we trod
They say low wages are a reality
If we want to compete abroad

My cruel weapons have been put on the shelf
Come sit down on my knee
You are dearer to me than myself
As you yourself can see
While I'm listening to the steel rails hum
Got both eyes tight shut
Just sitting here trying to keep the hunger from
Creeping it's way into my gut

Chorus:
Meet me at the bottom, don't lag behind
Bring me my boots and shoes
You can hang back or fight your best on the frontline
Sing a little bit of these workingman's blues

Well, I'm sailin' on back, ready for the long haul
Tossed by the winds and the seas
I'll drag 'em all down to hell and I'll stand 'em at the wall
I'll sell 'em to their enemies
I'm tryin' to feed my soul with thought
Gonna sleep off the rest of the day
Sometimes no one wants what we got
Sometimes you can't give it away

Now the place is ringed with countless foes
Some of them may be deaf and dumb
No man, no woman knows
The hour that sorrow will come
In the dark I hear the night birds call
I can feel a lover's breath
I sleep in the kitchen with my feet in the hall
Sleep is like a temporary death

(chorus)

Well, they burned my barn, and they stole my horse
I can't save a dime
I got to be careful, I don't want to be forced
Into a life of continual crime
I can see for myself that the sun is sinking
How I wish you were here to see
Tell me now, am I wrong in thinking
That you have forgotten me?

Now they worry and they hurry and they fuss and they fret
They waste your nights and days
Them I will forget
But you I'll remember always
Old memories of you to me have clung
You've wounded me with your words
Gonna have to straighten out your tongue
It's all true, everything you've heard

(chorus)

In you, my friend, I find no blame
Wanna look in my eyes, please do
No one can ever claim
That I took up arms against you
All across the peaceful sacred fields
They will lay you low
They'll break your horns and slash you with steel
I say it so it must be so

Now I'm down on my luck and I'm black and blue
Gonna give you another chance
I'm all alone and I'm expecting you
To lead me off in a cheerful dance
I got a brand new suit and a brand new wife
I can live on rice and beans
Some people never worked a day in their life
Don't know what work even means

(chorus)