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GUSTY OFFSHORE WINDS continue over the higher terrain and ridges today through Monday. Otherwise, lighter winds are expected for coastal areas and most interior valleys today through Monday. Cold nights and mornings are expected to continue through early next week even as the airmass warms each day. Widespread rain with snow in mountains return on Friday, followed by a colder storm system with lowering snow levels next weekend. (NWS)
STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): Yesterday I had 40F at 4:30am, at 7:30am it was 36F, I wonder if we will get a similar drop again today? A cold 33F this Sunday morning with clear skies. More of the same until later Thursday when rain returns, the 10 day forecast is showing about 2" total over 4 days, we'll see.
SUPERVISOR MAUREEN MULHEREN (facebook):
This week I ran in to Parker a man from Lake County that is looking for his son Wes. He had a medical appointment and he shows Wes’s picture in case someone recognizes him, they thought he might be between Clara and Norton (different guy) so he was Downtown trying to see if anyone knew him. We talked a little bit about why Wes left and he wasn’t really sure except that he thinks it had something to do with a religion Wes had found online, he said they had a happy home life and money to care for him so that wasn’t the issue. There were a couple of other spots I checked that day wondering if Wes was one of three people I’ve been noticing lately (he wasn’t) I looked up his picture on a Lake County Facebook page.
I’ve been thinking about Parker Wes’s dad and Colleen his mom ever since. We have so many families (many more than talk about it publicly) that are missing their child. There are a variety of reasons that people are homeless, you can’t even begin to fit it into one group, everything from trauma to addiction to mental health to pride and poverty, or a desire to fill a void that we can’t exactly explain. And I’m sure many other reasons that even some people on the streets can’t articulate, but at home they have a family wishing they were back, that misses them on their birthday and on holidays and wants them home.
To best support the people that are unhoused we need to get them in to services, please direct people to use the resources at Building Bridges and Social Services to register with the HMIS (Homeless Management Information System). This is the best way to get people off of the streets and reintegrated and reunited with families. Also we should always be encouraging people to access food and shelter and not panhandle. If you aren’t sure where they can access these resources the COC [continuum of care] has maps of the County resources broken in to three sections.
Here is a link to the foldable print outs you can offer people that are hungry or seeking shelter: https://mendocinococ.org/community-resources
I hope they find Wes and he’s able to be reunited with his family and I will keep my eyes out to see if I recognize him on our streets.
AV EVENTS
The Anderson Valley Museum CLOSED UNTIL FEBRUARY
Sun 01 / 26 / 2025 at 1:00 PM
Where: The Anderson Valley Museum , 12340 Highway 128, Boonville , CA 95415
More Information (https://andersonvalley.helpfulvillage.com/events/4298)
Anderson Valley Adult School
Sun 01 / 26 / 2025 at 1:00 PM
Where: Anderson Valley Adult School, 12300 Anderson Valley Way, Boonville,
CA 95415
More Information (https://andersonvalley.helpfulvillage.com/events/4381)
Death Cafe
Sun 01 / 26 / 2025 at 2:30 PM
Where: TBA
More Information (https://andersonvalley.helpfulvillage.com/events/4375)
more: https://andersonvalley.helpfulvillage.com/events/index_list
UKIAH SHELTER PET OF THE WEEK
Rihanna came to the shelter from a hoarding situation; she was very thin and in bad shape overall. She had lived with several other dogs. Rihanna can be shy when she first meets new people, but warms up once she feels comfortable. When Rihanna was in our Meet and Greet room, we discovered she loves to play with toys! Rihanna walks on-leash and likes to be right next to her person. With some time and lots of love, we think Rihanna will bloom into a wonderful companion. This girl deserves what we wish for all of our guests: loving guardians, lots of TLC and exercise, a warm bed, and healthy meals. This beautiful girl is about 10 months old and as of the beginning of January, 45-ish pounds.
To see all of our canine and feline guests, and the occasional goat, sheep, tortoise, and for information about our services, programs, and events, visit: mendoanimalshelter.com
Join us the first Saturday every month for our Meet The Dogs Adoption Event at the shelter.
Please share our posts on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mendoanimalshelter/
For information about adoptions call 707-467-6453.
Making a difference for homeless pets in Mendocino County, one day at a time!
LOCAL FUR-LANTHROPY HUMANE SOCIETY’S PET FOOD BANKS HELP KEEP PETS IN HOMES
by Terry Sites
In 2022, Mendocino County animal shelters found themselves inundated with 25% more intakes than in prior years. The shelter was filled with lost animals and, sadly, a growing number of voluntarily surrendered pets. The goal of every animal shelter is to move toward a world where every animal has a chance to be placed in a home where they are safe, healthy, and loved. The best chance of providing this life is by keeping the pet in its original home, with the people who know and love it. Owners part with their animals for many reasons, but one that comes up often these days is the cost associated with feeding their pet. If pet owners’ budgets are stretched to breaking in this world of ever increasing food prices, what can be done?
People involved in animal welfare services have studied this problem, and one solution has been applied with some degree of success. The Humane Society of Sonoma County, under CEO Lindsey McCall, began looking at ways to keep pets in their homes back in 2017. They managed to set aside some money to fund a Community Initiative Coordinator by following their motto, “Committed to Kindness.”
Today, this position is managed as a partnership between two idealistic young men, Jorge Delgado and Celestino Jimenez. (Celestino was raised and educated in Mendocino County’s Anderson Valley.)
These men have been challenged to develop some practical and effective programs that will ultimately keep more pets in the homes of the owners who love them. They have named their program C.A.T. – Community Action Team.
The C.A.T. program focuses on food for animals. The team looked to pet food distributors, forming relationships with companies like PetCo, PetSmart, and Pet Food Express, as well as some smaller independent outlets like Cloverdog Pet Supply and Wash. When a bag of food is damaged through shipping or wear and tear, the outlet calls C.A.T., who then picks it up with their dedicated van. Once the food is collected, teams of volunteers pack and re-label it in three-gallon zip-lock freezer bags, at which point it is ready for distribution. Sometimes these businesses can also provide other items that pet owners need, like toys, beds, and grooming aids. Some of the food is given out directly from the Humane Societies, some travels to food banks to be passed out with the food for humans, and some goes to agencies that service the homeless population and their animals.
C.A.T. is a fledgling program with a hardworking skeleton staff of two, plus some volunteers. Though small, their fresh approach to keeping pets in their homes has been noted, and other shelters are trying to use similar programs to stem the tide of surrenders that are breaking hearts every day.
This past July, Celestino was asked to attend an animal welfare conference in Orlando, Florida, where he shared the blueprint for the C.A.T. program. People were particularly interested in how such a program can be sustained. It is an exciting time to be involved, as many of the ideas being tested will lead to happy outcomes—more animals staying in their homes with their owners.
Jorge has mentored Celestino since he came on board. Celestino’s original job was to implement the programs that Jorge was creating. They now consider themselves partners. Both of them speak passionately about the work they are doing and the plans they have for the future. It is very inspiring to witness their idealism and commitment, and it is refreshing, too. Together they are visualizing new approaches, while also serving as the “boots on the ground” for the implementation of these ideas. Indeed, they are constantly making more work for themselves, but they don’t seem to mind.
Jorge and Celestino spend some of their spare time pursuing grants and donations for the program. They recently applied to California for All Animals for funds specific to particular cities. With the aim of increased involvement in Mendocino County, they are hoping to hear in October about another grant specifically targeting our area.
In the meantime, they have had a small presence in Mendocino County through the Redwood Empire Food Bank at the Fort Bragg Food Bank. They also distribute pet food through the Redwood Gospel Mission in both Santa Rosa and Ukiah.
Finding themselves with a surplus of donations during the holidays, they were able to share the bounty with the Humane Society of Inland Mendocino County in Redwood Valley, under Administrative Director Jenny Hanzlik. They are open to the idea of linking up directly with other local food banks that are interested in a partnership.
One or two people who care can really make a difference. One animal lover picks up food in Hopland to deliver to a non-profit called La Familia Sana in Cloverdale. Others who want to help can organize food drives and fundraising drives, or even their own similar program inspired by this one.
Jorge and Celestino are excellent role models, and their example shows how creativity, ingenuity, and compassion can combine into rewarding work that can keep pets in their homes with the people who love them most.
If you are interested in volunteering for the existing program, email Jorge at jdelgado@humanesocietysoco.org or Celestino at cjimenez@humanesocietysoco.org.
(Terry Sites lives in Yorkville with 4 cats and 1 husband. She is a graduate of Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Clown College, and writes a regular column for the Anderson Valley Advertiser online edition. (This article first appeared in Word of Mouth magazine.))
COMMERCIAL/RESIDENTIAL Property For Sale: 14211 CA-Hwy 128 Boonville CA. $1,100,000. Approx. 3/4 acre situated in thriving downtown Boonville Ca. Located across from Mendocino County Fairgrounds! The Gateway to Anderson Valley Wine Country!
Building #1 Hosted a successful restaurant for 25 years and has also been a grocery store, currently occupied by the owners and is set up as a store-age. Easy access, ground level. This iconic building has original hardwood floors, rustic cedar & pine interior, old growth redwood shiplap and metal siding exterior, huge stage, bar, large covered patio, large walk-in refrigerator, many things to operate a restaurant or make it your own. bring your ideas!
Building # 2 is a 1Bed/1Bath house. It is currently rented and producing income $$$!
Building #3 is a 2B/2Ba that needs to be repaired and is not currently rented.
Building #4 is a 3-car garage and #5 is a two-car metal building
Great opportunity to make this your own live/work situation.
Flat usable land. Spacious parking area. Plenty of great water, lots of room for a huge garden and all your “food to table” opportunity’s, variety of trees; redwoods, persimmon, olive, mulberry, apple, apricot, plum, peach, nectarine, grapes, & prickly pears.
Call Tamara Baxman, 707-972-4706 for an appointment.
CAPTAIN RAINBOW: I'm getting excited for Burning Down the House's upcoming Feb 1 show at the Anderson Valley Grange. Check out these amazing decorations by Chay Peterson and Gail Meyer … I'm blown away! These two are hard a work creating an amazing vibe for our show. We hope to see you there.
BOONVILLE GRIEF RECOVERY SUPPORT GROUP
Dealing with grief is one of life’s most difficult challenges.
This support group offers:
Practical tools to help you learn and move through the stages of grief.
A safe, confidential place to share the overwhelming range of feelings brought on by the death of someone close to you.
The group is open to anyone who has lost a loved one.
Our first meeting will begin on Thursday, February 13th at Anderson Valley Health Center, 13500 Airport Road, Boonville. The meeting begins at 4:00 pm and ends at 5:30 pm. Registration is mandatory prior to joining the group.
For information and registration, please contact Group Facilitator, Susan Bridge-Mount, LMFT (707) 621-3114.
This is a free community service provided by Hospice of Ukiah. Providing Palliative care and Hospice in Ukiah, Anderson Valley, Redwood Valley, Potter Valley, Hopland, Talmage & Willits.
AV VARIETY SHOW, coming soon
Got animals acting out? How about children? Sign ‘em up to perform! The Anderson Valley Variety Show is looking for acts! Call Captain Rainbow (707) 895-3807 and check out this awesome new show flier created by Kathryn Vega Davis!
ED NOTES
GRINGO, origins of. A scholar named Ernesto Priego at University College, London, writes: “I am Mexican, and lived in Mexico for 29 years, but I never heard anyone use the term ‘gringo’ to refer to anyone other than US citizens. In the third volume of ‘Historia, tradiciones y legendas de calles de Mexico,’ Artemio de Valle-Arizpe writes that the word ‘gringo’ first appeared in Mexico after the incursion of General Winfield Scott in September 1847. De Valle-Arizpe describes an ‘unhappy’ and ‘abominable’ song that Scott's troops sang incessantly, and which began with the words ‘Green Grow…’ The Mexican historian tells how the locals, not knowing English, interpreted the song's first words as ‘gringo.’ I grew up seeing graffiti that read ‘Green Go Home’ next to a cartoon of Uncle Sam…” But Gustavo Arellano, who writes the widely circulated newspaper column called, “Ask A Mexican” says, “Mexicans don't call gringos gringos. Only gringos call gringos gringos. Mexicans call gringos ‘gabachos’.”
YEARS AGO I took a call from a subscriber who’d bought twenty acres on Chicken Ridge in Covelo. He said he was a Bay Area accountant who’d purchased the property sight-unseen at a foreclosure sale. The twenty acre parcel was cheap and he’d always wanted a place in the country. The accountant said it took him almost a year before he visited his acquisition, and when he finally got around to making the long trip north to Covelo he brought his wife and two small children along for what he envisioned as a weekend camp out, a young family together in the country far from the bright lights, where the kids could run around without fear of traffic and other urban hazards.
THE UNWITTING new owners of their own country estate, arrived about noon only to be greeted by the startling sound of nearby gun fire. The accountant said he walked up the hill to both introduce himself to his new neighbors and to politely ask that they cease fire, explaining that he feared he and his family might be hurt by a stray bullet.
THE ACCOUNTANT said he was met by a “wild-looking male individual” who promptly told the accountant “to get the bleepity blank off my property or I'll shoot you!” The accountant drove into Covelo and called 911.
THE LATE DEPUTY Bob Davis, a former Navy Seal familiar with ultra-vi, soon appeared, listened sympathetically to the accountant's unhappy story and said, “I wouldn't camp up there myself without a gun.” When the accountant called me he asked, “Where am I anyway? What kind of place is this?”
MENDOCINO COUNTY IS A VERY large place with a very small police force relative to its area, which is vast. And home to a significant number of residents with zero respect for the law, or any other rules. Unless you live in one of Mendocino County's incorporated areas where law enforcement is only minutes away, you should probably have some means of defending yourself. As former Sheriff Allman himself once suggested during an appearance in Gualala. “I don't want to push guns on anyone who doesn't want one,” Allman said, “but I encourage concealed weapons as the Second Amendment gives you that right and you have every right in the world to protect yourself.”
THE SECOND AMENDMENT says you can keep a gun in your house if you're a member of “a well-regulated militia.” Which most gun owners, me included, are not — well-regulated, that is. The Second Amendment doesn't say anything about concealed weapons, which don't seem to me a particularly good idea for most citizens, especially those with infirmities, physical and mental, and there goes roughly half our population right there if you figure in the infirmities.
THE ONLY PART of the Constitution most gun people have read, the Second Amendment, was written by the rural aristocrats who'd just beaten back mad King George and feared a counter-attack on their new country, so new it didn't have (or want) a standing army, hence the idea of a musket by the door in case the redcoats came back. George, Tom, Ben and the boys could not have foreseen a seething population of 330 million locust-like consumers scared bleepless of each other and armed with automatic weapons and endless supplies of ammo. But a home defense unit isn't a bad idea these days as the chaos beyond one’s front door grows by the day.
UKIAH'S HIDDEN ROLE IN SOLVING AN ASTRONOMICAL MYSTERY
For nearly a century, a Ukiah observatory unraveled Earth's mysterious movements
by Matt LaFever
Over 300 years ago, Sir Isaac Newton observed an odd, inexplicable wobble in Earth’s rotation, sparking his curiosity. In 1891, American businessman-turned-astronomer Seth Carlo Chandler identified the phenomenon and dubbed it the “Chandler Wobble.”
Eight years later, the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey joined the International Polar Motion Service to launch the International Latitude Service, an experiment that enlisted dozens of astronomers worldwide to track and document the wobble. Six observatories, positioned at 39 degrees 8 minutes north latitude, were key to the effort: one in Italy, one in Turkmenistan, one in Japan, one in Maryland, one in Ohio, and one just north of San Francisco in Ukiah, the seat of Mendocino County.
The International Latitude Service ran for nearly a century, gathering data through long nights of stargazing and meticulous recordkeeping. Those who endured the solitude of the skies contributed, in their own way, to a primitive GPS system — one that would lay the groundwork for understanding Earth’s precise movements. The project shuttered in 1982, leaving Ukiah with a nondescript collection of three buildings tucked off Highway 101.
Today, those drawn to this curious piece of history can head into Ukiah and make a quick turn onto Observatory Avenue. The east-west residential street leads straight to Observatory Park, the site of the legendary international experiment, with both the street and park named in its honor. These days, children play and town elders walk dogs surrounded by 125-year-old buildings — structures once built for a purpose now lost to time.
One longtime Ukiah resident, 72-year-old Martin Bradley, told SFGATE that he’s heard these historic buildings compared to “chicken sheds” given their short, squat, cubical look. Yet their humble appearance belies the rich scientific legacy contained within.
Alyssa Boge, curator at Ukiah’s Grace Hudson Museum, took on the daunting task of organizing nearly a century’s worth of papers and artifacts from the observatory, all while managing her many responsibilities at the museum across town. In addition to sorting through the historical materials, she designed an interactive display to highlight the observatory’s rich history and its importance to the local community.
Through her research, Boge discovered that Ukiah, like the other five sites for the International Latitude Service, was chosen for its consistent dark skies and proximity to transportation hubs, including the Northwestern Pacific Railroad just a mile from the observatory.
On a recent cloudy morning, SFGATE joined Boge for a tour of the International Latitude Observatory, where she gave us an in-depth look at the four remaining historic buildings: the staff residence, a small office, the observatory and the “meridian” building about 50 yards away.
The staff residence now hosts Ukiah’s Community Transition Program, which helps students with disabilities ages 18-22 develop vital living and vocational skills as they transition to adulthood. Boge noted that many astronomers and their families once called the minimalist space home. In the basement is a floating pier — a concrete slab independent from the house’s foundation — that once supported a seismograph that delivered precise earthquake readings.
Boge said she interviewed one person who lived on the lab site who recalled his father bundling up in a winter coat, coffee in hand, to head into the cold night for stargazing. She also uncovered memos between the Ukiah scientists and their management requesting funding and pay raises and making other routine requests. Boge described the life of an observer as “rigid”: working graveyard shifts and following meticulous procedures to gather data night after night, year after year.
“I couldn’t do it,” she laughed.
At the observatory, Boge highlighted its unconventional design for stargazing. Unlike the typical dome top on most observatories, the gable roof slides open, manually pushed aside with a broom by observers night after night. Over the years, this repeated action wore two distinct imprints into the rafters. The building’s exterior has slatted panels similar to Venetian blinds, perforated with holes that allow airflow to optimize the Zenith telescope’s performance. The telescope itself rests on a concrete base that extends deep into the earth, ensuring maximum stability for precise measurements.
About 200 feet from the observatory’s entrance stands the so-called “Meridian Building,” though the name is misleading. It’s a white, crate-shaped structure about 4 feet tall with a peaked roof. Every night, observers used this unassuming landmark to calibrate their instruments.
In the observer’s office, Boge re-created a glimpse of the lab’s heyday, complete with a typewriter and rotary phone on the desk, along with the original telescope used on-site and a sidereal clock, a timekeeping tool astronomers relied on to track celestial objects in the night sky.
In the corner of the office, a modern Windows computer hums with activity. It’s a research station for Mendocino College professor Tim Beck. Beck uses the Ukiah Latitude Observatory to deploy video cameras to capture meteors streaking across the night sky. His ambitious goal is to design software that can triangulate their trajectories and orbits. Though the International Latitude Service was decommissioned long ago, Beck’s work ensures the spirit of discovery remains very much alive at the historic site.
Bradley, the longtime Ukiah resident, has been a supporter of the Ukiah International Latitude Observatory since he moved to the city in 1983, just after the observatory had closed. In 2000, when the city began exploring plans to turn the site into a park, Bradley sprang into action, founding the group Friends of the Observatory to advocate for restoring and preserving the historic building.
By 2014, the observatory was open to the public, thanks in part to a $54,000 grant from the California Land and Water Conservation Fund, matched by the city of Ukiah. This funding helped transform the site into a park worth visiting. But the Friends of the Observatory went further, seeking additional support from organizations like the Community Foundation of Mendocino County and even federal sources for restoration.
“The federal funds came through NOAA, since the U.S. Geodetic Survey falls under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,” Bradley explained. This effort combined grassroots preservation with science, linking the observatory’s restoration to STEM programs in local schools.
“It was about preserving a piece of local history while keeping it alive as a community curiosity,” Bradley said.
Bradley’s efforts didn’t stop with local funding. He tracked down the telescope that had originally anchored the Ukiah Latitude Observatory at a warehouse in Virginia. “I found the original telescope and thought it would be great to bring it back to its original location,” he recalled. He helped coordinate the telescope’s transport across the 2,800 miles back to Ukiah in January 2015, and it has been there every since.
Neil Davis, Ukiah’s community services director, told SFGATE that the city is dedicated to making the historic site a community treasure.
“We want to preserve that and pass it on to our kids so that they can appreciate these things,” Davis said. “The educational benefit that comes with that history is great.”
He likened it to preserving family letters and mementos. “Why do you keep pictures of your grandparents? You keep them because they’re part of who you are. It’s the same for our city. This place is part of our city’s identity.”
(sfgate.com)
COMPTCHE BOOK CHAT
Editor,
Katy Tahja and I were talking while at the Comptche bookmobile about the lists of authors and books offered by readers (and his eminence) in the AVA. We both wondered if this was the Erudite Sweepstakes? Or penance? Lugubrious, virtuous, endlessly tedious. Do these people read for fun?
So here is my list. These are purely enjoyable — no teaching, no preaching, no tragedy, no moral, no deeper meaning, no lit degree to decipher. The only virtue here is the love of the story.
Fiction in no order of appreciation
George V. Higgins ‘The Diggers Game,’ ‘A Year Or So With Edgar,’ ‘The Mandeville Talent,’ ‘The Friends of Eddie Coyle.’ George V. is quite uneven so start with these. There are many more.
Elmore Leonard ‘Stick,’ ’52 Pickup,’ ‘Get Shorty,’ ‘Be Cool,’ ‘City Primeval-High Noon in Detroit’ and everything else. Even the early westerns like ‘3:10 To Yuma’ and ‘Hombre.’ Most of his novels get made into movies because he is so graphic.
Thomas McGuane ’92 in the Shade’ and many others, all less fun.
John LeCarre ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.’ ‘A Small Town in Germany,’ ‘The Honorable Schoolboy,’ ‘The Russia House’ and everything else. He gets heavier and more currently political, but I'd start at the beginning. For many authors the freshest and best stuff happens before Hollywood.
Martin Cruz Smith ‘Gorky Park,’ ‘Stalin's Ghost,’ ‘Red Square,’ ‘Havana Bay’ and all the other Arkady Renko honest Russian policeman series.
Robert B. Parker ‘Early Autumn,’ ‘Mortal Stakes.’ His huge output is best in the earliest books. He gets really formulaic.
Tony Hillerman ‘A Thief of Time,’ ‘The Dark Wind’ and if you like these there is a whole series to enjoy.
J.P. Donleavy, forget ‘The Ginger Man.’ These are much better: ‘The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B.’ ‘A Singular Man,’ so perfect, so lovely. There is much more but he is best approached by these.
Ken Kesey ‘Sometimes A Great Notion.’ Some say this is the great American novel. It's on the list.
Annie Proulx ‘The Shipping News.’
Science Fiction
John Wyndham ‘The Midwich Cuckoos,’ ‘Out of the Deep,’ ‘The Day of the Triffids.’ Mid-50s British horror and,
John Blackburn ‘The Scent of New Mown Hay’
Arthur C. Clark ‘Childhood’s End.’
William Gibson ‘Neuromancer,’ ‘Virtual Light,’ ‘Mona Lisa Overdrive,’ and all the others. Hold on to yer mind.
Non-Fiction in no order
John McPhee. Anything. He writes so well that (like Michael Lewis) you don't need to care about the topic to enjoy the ride. Just pick one up.
Michael Lewis ‘The Big Short,’ ‘Liar's Poker, and everything else.
Frank McCourt ‘Angela's Ashes.’ A master of the Irish ability to be tragic and hilarious in the same paragraph. And sometimes even in the same sentence.
Joan Didion ‘Slouching Toward Bethlehem,’ ‘Play It As It Lays,’ ‘The White Album,’ ‘Salvador,’ everything else. Kinda fact and kinda fiction. Kinda like…
Nora Ephron ‘I Feel Bad About My Neck,’ ‘Wallflower At the Orgy,’ ‘I Remember Nothing,’ ‘Heartburn’ and many rom/com movies: ‘Sleepless in Seattle,’ ‘When Harry Met Sally,’ etc.
Hunter Thompson ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.’
There are many more but these will get you started.
Michael Nolan
Comptche
MENDOCINO WAY BACK WHEN (Ron Parker): The Albertinum Ukiah Ca. 24 hour facility for boys and girls run by the Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose since 1903
CATCH OF THE DAY, Saturday, January 25, 2025
LINDA ALMOND, 66, Ukiah. Probation revocation.
PAUL CAID, 58, Napa. DUI-alcohol&drugs, suspended license, county parole violation.
MICHAEL HENNESSY, 63, Albion. Probation revocation.
JOSEPH HOAGLIN, 30, Ukiah. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, parole violation.
LEVI LEON, 37, Willits. Petty theft with priors, evidence tampering, probation revocation.
LAWRENCE MARSH, 50, Covelo. Assault with deadly weapon not a gun, elder abuse with great bodily harm or death.
JASON MILLER, 43, Redding/Willits. Petty theft with priors, paraphernalia.
KENNETH PETERSON, 38, Ukiah. Domestic battery, domestic violence court order violation.
JULIE RATLIFF, 57, Ukiah. Domestic battery, assault with deadly weapon not a gun, battery on peace officer, probation revocation.
ASHLEY SCHUCKER, 45, Albion. Narcotics for sale, parole violation.
ANTONIO THOMAS, 44, Ukiah. Probation violation.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN: AN AMERICAN LIFE
by Paul Modic
On my last trip to Mexico in 2023 I listened to the end of a good Alice Hoffman novel on CD hurtling down the Redwood Highway to Willits and when I got to Williams and I-5 I started the twenty CD Ben Franklin biography, by acclaimed biographer Walter Isaacson, and listened to it for four days all the way to Texas. It was very interesting to get beyond just the guy flying his kite in a storm with a string attached doing experiments with electricity, and discover all the details which made him the most famous person in the colonies and Europe, and maybe the world, during his lifetime.
Franklin was a printer, inventor, diplomat, community organizer of libraries, fire departments and a new nation, lover of the ladies, and a slave owner. (He had a couple slaves, knew that slavery was wrong, but just couldn’t bring himself to free his or take a public stand against it. Finally on one of his many trips overseas he took his last one with him to England, where the man wandered off and Franklin didn’t try to find him.)
He was a prolific writer and publisher of many pseudonymous pamphlets and magazines, the most famous being “Poor Richard’s Almanac.” (Even when it was pretty obvious that Franklin was the author he still kept up the anonymous pretense.)
Franklin was married but was gone so much on diplomatic missions to Europe, also he just like hanging out there, that his wife felt neglected. He befriended comely young lasses and often had years and decades-long platonic penpal-type friendships or relationships with them.
Questions about how the Electoral College was invented? Franklin was right in the middle of it and this fascinating book gets in depth about that and many other aspects of his life and times.
For hours of entertainment this book is highly recommended and available at the library. (Yup, it’s all about the Benjamins…)
MEMO OF THE AIR: This is the Biff's casino timeline.
"No! Marty! Having information about the future can be extremely dangerous. Even if your intentions are good, it can backfire drastically!"
Marco here. Here's the recording of last night's (Friday, 2025-01-24) eight-hour-long Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio show on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg (CA) and KNYO.org (and, for the first three hours of the show, also 89.3fm KAKX Mendocino): https://tinyurl.com/KNYO-MOTA-0628
Coming shows can feature your story or dream or poem or essay or kvetch or announcement. Just email it to me. Or send me a link to your writing project and I'll take it from there and read it on the air.
I've been doing my show on a montage of various radio stations every Friday night since February of 1997, when I stopped publishing /Memo/ on real newsprint. The project involves several hours every day of concentrated prep and then a couple of all-nighters, one to get ready and one to go. If you appreciate the show and want to help me out personally, you can trust me not to spend your money on drink, drugs, cigarets, or candy. https://paypal.me/MarcoMcClean
Besides all that, at https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com you'll find a fresh batch of dozens of links to not-necessarily radio-useful but worthwhile items I set aside for you while gathering the show together, such as:
Natural electrical fluctuations in mushrooms control solenoid-mounted mallets. Or rather, conductivity changes resulting from being wiggled propagate chaotically. Let's not go ascribing musical consciousness to fungi, you kids. https://theawesomer.com/mushrooms-play-music/760923/
Rerun: Ida the Wayward Sturgeon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh2FUekb5w8
Jean Harlow and Margo Lane didn't get along. Once, at a Hollywood party, Jean Harlow walked up to Margo Lane and said, "Well. If it isn't Mar-gut Lane." Margo Lane said, "No, dear, the T is silent, as in Harlow." https://www.vintag.es/2025/01/jean-harlow.html
Palindromes of 1873. "Desserts I desire not, so long no lost one rise distressed." "Now stop, Major General, are Negro jam pots won?" https://www.futilitycloset.com/2025/01/24/turnabout-16/
And Ani DiFranco – Hello Birmingham. (via ThinkInTheMorning) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2C7m435Q56A
Marco McClean, memo@mcn.org, https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com
SONOMA STATE LOSING ITS ATHLETICS PROGRAM
by Ann Killion
Facing a $23.9 million budget deficit, Sonoma State announced this week that it will eliminate its athletic department.
Not a team or two. Not some staffing.
The entire athletic department.
Is this the beginning of a trend in college athletics?
The sweeping changes that are remaking the college sports world leave no room for the little guys like Sonoma State. As with seemingly everything else in our society, the only things valued are those that fuel profits. The concentration of wealth and opportunity is in fewer and fewer hands and that includes in the world of college athletics.
Division I schools are in an arms race, athletes are in competition for NIL money, academic standards for athletics are no longer important, lawsuits are roiling the landscape and there seems to be no room for and no value to small collegiate programs.
“Given the rapid developments, the anti-trust litigation, the skewed distribution of money, it’s left smaller schools just gasping for breath,” said Michael LeRoy, a professor at the University of Illinois School of Labor and Employee Relations and College of Law. LeRoy likens the current NCAA situation to a collegiate version of the Titanic.
“There aren’t enough lifeboats for the passengers,” LeRoy said. “And with the incoming administration and its hostility toward higher education, that’s just another layer of uncertainty and funding concern. These forces that are pulling the NCAA apart will only intensify.”
But Roger Noll, a Stanford emeritus professor of economics, said the issues reconfiguring Division I athletics have little impact on a small-scale program like Sonoma State, which has only 243 athletes on its teams. He views the issue at Sonoma State as part of the overall financial crisis in state schools stemming from declining enrollment.
“This case is part of a much bigger problem, which is the simultaneous phenomenon we’re witnessing: the decline in the birth rate causing the decline in the American-born population going to college; an attack on immigrants, which is causing a decline in foreign student visas, and a general dislike of higher education because of its elitism,” Noll said. “These three things are all going on simultaneously, and they’re going to cause a lot of harm to higher education over the course of the next five years … If something radical doesn’t happen they’re going to close some campuses.”
And, in the process, more sports programs will be on the chopping block.
Sonoma State faces a strangling budget deficit, prompting the extreme cuts, which include eliminating six academic departments and laying off more than 60 employees, including tenured professors. It is not the only state academic institution facing hard choices. Among others, San Francisco State also faces a severe budget shortfall. Could its athletic department — which supports 12 sports — also be at risk?
The concept of collegiate sports as a bastion of pure amateurism has always been a romanticized version of reality. College athletics has long been a big, profitable business and until recently, was built largely on an exploited labor force. Now that many athletes are getting paid the veneer of amateurism has been ripped off; Division I programs have become quasi-professional leagues.
But small Division II and Division III programs, ones like Sonoma State, have still largely fulfilled the promise of amateur college sports. They provide a space for young athletes who aren’t quite good enough to be recruited by Division I schools but still have a passion to play. Over the years, I’ve known several kids who were thrilled to have found a spot to keep playing at Sonoma State.
“D-II schools really epitomize amateur athletics in a way that D-I schools typically don’t,” LeRoy said. “The athletic talent is high quality, but there are only so many D-I spots. So another implication of this is what the downstream effects are for parents and kids who are involved in youth sports.”
Sports programs without a successful football team or top basketball programs that bring in revenue are left behind. Sonoma State, which produced Hall of Fame football player Larry Allen, dropped its football program in 1996. San Francisco State dropped its program two years before that. Both were too costly to continue.
Division II schools are the most vulnerable, because they award scholarships, but generally don’t produce much revenue, making their balance sheet untenable. Some try to position themselves to move up to Division I, but that generally takes a lot of investment — which is harder to come by in this climate.
The societal forces that are changing higher education and the pressures changing collegiate sports mean that what happened at Sonoma State this week could become a more common phenomenon.
Schools are having to make a choice between being an academic institution or an athletic institution,” LeRoy said. “It’s becoming more of a zero sum game and, I’m sad to observe, that appears to be what has occurred at Sonoma State.”
(SF Chronicle)
THE EVOLVING STRATEGY FOR DEFENDING IMMIGRANT WORKERS
by David Bacon
SAN FRANCISCO, CA - SEIU janitors from San Francisco and Los Angeles demonstrated in support of AB 450, the Immigrant Worker Protection Act, a law that protects workers during immigration raids and enforcement actions.
The current fight within the Republican Party makes it very clear, once again, that ensuring a labor supply to corporations is Trump's primary obligation. I say once again because this is a repeat of what happened in 2017, when he met with corporate growers to assure them that his immigration enforcement wouldn't deprive them of workers in the field. In fact, that is just what happened, with the expansion of the H-2A guestworker visa program, and no mass firings of farmworkers at critical times because of their undocumented status. …
https://rosalux.nyc/the-evolving-strategy-for-defending-immigrant-workers
AMERICA’S OLIGARCHS
Editor:
Wikipedia defines oligarchy as a form of government in which power rests with a small number of people. Or business groups meeting the following criteria: they are the largest private owners in the country; they possess sufficient political power to influence their own interests; and the owners control multiple businesses, coordinating activities across sectors.
From these definitions it is not hard to see that Elon Musk could likely be seen as the U.S.’s top-dog oligarch, but not the only one. A closer look at Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees and many corporate CEOs who have been currying favor with Trump reveals a list of oligarchs who seek to mold our laws and regulations to their advantage.
The only way we have to claw back our democratic power is to elect representatives who have the good of the people uppermost in their minds, rather than their own profit margins.
Pam Tennant
Sebastopol
FAST TIMES AT WEST WING HIGH
by Maureen Dowd
When I drove around Silicon Valley in 2017, talking to tech gods for a magazine piece, trying to figure out if A.I. would be friend or foe, Washington barely seemed to be on their radar.
As far as they were concerned, they were the nation’s capital. In D.C., pols merely passed laws. In Silicon Valley, techies were creating a new species, trying to conjure a nonhuman sentient mind. Forget Henry Adams; this was Mary Shelley stuff. Some tech titans were buoyant about the future. Some were wary. Elon Musk warned we might be “summoning the demon.”
Silicon Valley was run by a bunch of boys with toys. Brilliant, quirky young engineers trying to get more toys than the others, better rockets or self-driving cars or robots. They were developing a monopoly on Americans’ attention, learning how to ratchet up the algorithms to create division, distrust and envy, siloing people and spreading angst — all under the innocent guise of connecting us and making our lives better.
Within their own elite circle, the tech billionaires were volatile — sometimes friendly, sometimes feuding, sometimes, in the case of Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, threatening cage matches, sometimes, in the case of Musk, selling off his houses and sleeping on friends’ couches. They were the richest, most potent men in the world, with a visceral high school vibe. They were the bitchiest, weirdest mathletes in history.
Eventually, the digerati gazed east and discovered a fascinating new toy they could fight over: the American president. Suddenly, Democratic Silicon Valley is Trump country. The moment crystallized when Zuckerberg — fed up with Democrats’ sermonizing about his company’s failure to shut down misinformation in 2016 — bought a yacht, put on a gold necklace and got a streetwear makeover, declared that Donald Trump’s response to the assassination attempt was “one of the most bad-ass things I’ve ever seen in my life,” and ended fact-checking at Meta.
Wow, the tech moguls thought: This could be cool, to not only control all communications and manipulate all emotions in the country, but to reprogram the government’s regulatory engine so it runs like we want it to! Just give some puny millions to Trump’s campaign and inauguration, throw some flattery at the unquenchable maw of Trump’s ego, and you were suddenly at his elbow onstage in the Capitol when he swept back into power.
Trump is a 78-year-old Luddite who has a beautiful young woman nicknamed the “human printer” following him around with a petite printer in her backpack. She cranks out positive stories to show him and takes dictation for his social media posts. He still prefers a Sharpie to a keyboard.
Yet suddenly he’s the savior of TikTok teens and crypto bros. King Donald’s court is filled with the lords of the cloud, courtiers who are bringing their chaos and drama to a Trump orbit brimming with chaos and drama. At the inauguration, the tech tycoons outranked most of the political class in the seating placement — sitting on par with former presidents.
It’s a remarkable spectacle watching an entirely new power center flock to Washington, fight for Trump’s attention, jockey to prove their loyalty, post groveling encomiums to Trump, throw money at him, clamor for eight-figure mansions around town.
As the OpenAI chief Sam Altman gushed on X this past week: “watching @potus more carefully recently has really changed my perspective on him,” adding, “i’m not going to agree with him on everything, but i think he will be incredible for the country in many ways.”
Trump, who always wanted elites to love him, relishes the crème de la tech lining up to kiss his ring. If they see him as a new toy to compete over, he sees them the same way.
The returning president wasted no time putting the cat among the pigeons when he held a news conference Tuesday announcing a joint venture among OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle called “Stargate” to generate about $100 billion in computing infrastructure for A.I., with a goal to invest $500 billion by the end of Trump’s term.
Trump, savoring his new image as a champion of Silicon Valley in its bid to beat out China on A.I., showcased Altman at the White House, even though he knows Altman and Musk — who co-founded OpenAI — are in a legal feud. Elon has accused his former pal, Sam, of deserting their original mission when he changed its nonprofit status to for-profit; Altman allies think Musk is just jealous that the young, ragtag crew working in a makeshift office blasted off a few years after he left, ultimately creating ChatGPT.
Musk went bananas (or more bananas) on X, declaring that the troika did not have the money for such an initiative. Altman fired back, saying Musk was wrong, and Musk escalated the brawl by posting old Altman tweets criticizing Trump.
It was an eye-popping crack in the Donald/Elon bromance, which is being watched closely now that Trump has given Musk the power to roam the West Wing, where he is working out of an office on the second floor, and take a hatchet to government.
Furious Trump aides told Politico that the mercurial Musk got over his skis, discrediting a project Trump had just called “tremendous” and “monumental.”
Did Trump think flirting with Musk’s nemesis was a good way to put Elon in his place and remind people that there’s only one star of the Trump show?
Asked by reporters about Musk undermining him, Trump was nonchalant. He knows from digital insults.
The president dismissed it as a personality clash, noting that Musk “hates one of the people,” allowing, “I have certain hatreds of people, too.”
The colliding egos of Silicon Valley have joined the colliding egos on the Potomac, but the president is not perturbed. Mixing it up, stirring conflict for its own sake, this is just how Donald Trump has fun.
(NY Times)
REVIVED EFFORT TO PUT CALIFORNIA SECESSION ON THE BALLOT GETS OK TO COLLECT SIGNATURES
by Maliya Ellis
A California secessionist has revived a campaign to put secession on the ballot, after the state gave him the green light to begin collecting signatures Thursday.
Marcus Ruiz Evans, who is based in Fresno and heads the organization Cal Exit Now, is the proponent of the proposed initiative. If Evans can collect 546,651 signatures of registered voters by July 22, California’s November 2028 ballot will include the question: “Should California leave the United States and become a free and independent country?”
Putting the question on the ballot would be the first step in an unlikely and arduous process to secession. Even if Californians voted for the potential measure, it would only trigger the state to create a 20-member commission to produce a report on “the ability of California to govern itself as an independent nation,” according to an analysis prepared for the Attorney General’s Office. There is no provision for secession under the U.S. Constitution, so the drastic move would require a constitutional amendment, which two-thirds of Congress would need to approve and three-fourths of the states would need to ratify.
(SF Chronicle)
LEAD STORIES, SUNDAY'S NYT
Israel Blocks Gazans From North, Accusing Hamas of Cease-Fire Breach
Trump Says He Wants Jordan and Egypt to Take in Palestinians From Gaza
Violence Reported as Deadline Passes for Israeli Troop Withdrawal in Lebanon
‘People Will Be Shocked’: Trump Tests the Boundaries of the Presidency
Here’s How Trump Shifted U.S. Policy in His First Week
Vance to Appear on ‘Face the Nation’ as Trump’s Cabinet Takes Shape
South Korea’s Impeached Leader Is Indicted on Insurrection Charges
TRUMP REVEALS PLAN FOR THE ETHNIC CLEANSING OF GAZA
President Trump has said he wants to “clean out” Gaza and relocate its population to US client states Egypt and Jordan, which would of course be a textbook case of ethnic cleansing.
by Caitlin Johnstone
Well that didn’t take long. President Trump has said he wants to “clean out” Gaza and relocate its population to US client states Egypt and Jordan, which would of course be a textbook case of ethnic cleansing. It would also align perfectly with longstanding Israeli agendas to remove Palestinians from their homeland so that their territory can be seized and settled by Jews.
Speaking with the press on board Air Force One on Saturday, Trump said he talked to Jordan’s King Abdullah II about taking in large numbers of Palestinians from Gaza, and said he plans to speak with Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi about doing the same.
“I’d like Egypt to take people and I’d like Jordan to take people,” Trump told reporters, saying the Gaza Strip is “a real mess” and “literally a demolition site”.
“You’re talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing,” Trump said.
The president said that this new arrangement could be either temporary or long-term, but one would have to be extremely naive to believe that either Israel or Washington plan on emptying out Gaza of its inconvenient population, rebuilding it, and then bringing them all back to shiny new homes. Israel has a very extensive history of grabbing land from Palestinians and then refusing to give it back, which is why there are so-called “refugee camps” for displaced Palestinians that are as old as the state of Israel itself.
“Just five days into his second term as president, Trump left no doubt about what his intentions are for Gaza,” Joe Lauria wrote for Consortium News on Trump’s comments, adding, “He tried to present what he was saying as humanitarian concern, but only the most ill-informed person about Gaza would not see that he is talking about committing the crime of forcibly relocating a population.”
Trump supporters will no doubt defend his stated plans as a compassionate effort to rescue Palestinians from unfortunate circumstances, because Trump supporters are chowder-brained bootlickers who would defend literally anything their president did. But make no mistake: this is the advancement of an agenda to end the existence of the Palestinian people in their historic homeland, and would fulfill the darkest desires of the most depraved political factions in Israel.
Mere days after the Hamas attack on October 7 2023, Israel’s Intelligence Ministry produced a document proposing the removal of Gaza’s population to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. At around the same time, an Israeli think tank called the Misgav Institute for National Security & Zionist Strategy published a paper arguing that “There is at the moment a unique and rare opportunity to evacuate the whole Gaza Strip in coordination with the Egyptian government.”
Since that time both the Israeli government and the Israeli media have gotten much less shy about saying that ethnic cleansing is the plan for Gaza. A few weeks ago multiple far-right Knesset members wrote a letter to Israeli defense minister Israel Katz demanding the “complete cleansing” of northern Gaza using siege warfare and attacks on civilians to drive the population out of the area. In November of last year, former Israeli defense minister Moshe Yaalon stated unequivocally that Israel was indeed in the process of ethnically cleansing Gaza. In October, the Israeli outlet Haaretz published an editorial titled “If It Looks Like Ethnic Cleansing, It Probably Is”.
One narrative Israel and its apologists like to push is that this forced mass displacement would be “voluntary migration”, which is ridiculous nonsense. Obviously if you make a place completely uninhabitable and refuse to rush massive amounts of aid to them so that they can live, you are forcing them to relocate as surely as if you’d forced them at gunpoint. Giving people the choice to relocate or starve is not giving them a choice at all.
Israel’s plan for Gaza once its ethnic cleansing agenda is complete is of course to begin building Jewish settlements there. Last year Israeli forces sparked a minor controversy by sneaking extremist settlement movement leader Daniella Weiss into northern Gaza so that she could scout the land for future use. Back in April a Knesset member named Limor Son Har-Melech stated on Israeli television that there are secret plans within the Israeli government to settle Gaza after military operations are complete. This past November numerous Israeli officials attended an event brazenly titled “Preparing to Resettle Gaza,” just in case you needed it spelled out even more clearly where all this appears to be headed.
Trump’s comments help illuminate what he meant when he gushed about all the wonderful things that could be done with Gaza when speaking to the press the other day.
“Gaza’s interesting, it’s a phenomenal location,” he said on Monday. “On the sea, the best weather. Everything’s good. Some beautiful things can be done with it. It’s very interesting. Some fantastic things can be done with it.”
It remains to be seen if Jordan and Egypt can be bribed or coerced into participating in the empire’s ethnic cleansing plans for Gaza, but either way the last word I would use to describe those plans is “fantastic”.
(caitlinjohnstone.com.au)
THE GULF AND THE SILENCE
Prayer vs Electricity
by Paul Kingsnorth
Today was to be the day when my new series, The Sunday Pilgrimage, began. But the Earth had other ideas. On Friday, Storm Eowyn, apparently named after a character from Lord of the Rings, roared like an army of uruk-hai across Ireland. It brought down hundreds of trees, tore off a lot of roofs, and left 700,000 of us without electricity. Here in rural Galway the lights were out in the townlands for days. Many still are. Galway City lost its water supply. We lost all the things that happen when you press buttons without thinking about it.
Silence came.
We have a box of candles, matches, batteries and hurricane lamps stored for just this kind of occasion. Big bottles of water too, because our well runs on electricity. So do our solar panels, which switch off when the grid does. The stove that heats our front room is connected to a back boiler, so we can't allow that to get too hot either when the grid is down. We've been talking about getting ourselves a generator for years, but we never get round to it.
So much for self-sufficiency.
I read a novel recently: This Is Happiness by Niall Williams. It's set in rural County Clare during the 1950s, during the electrification of the country. It's beautifully written and funny and moving. It seems to have no agenda and yet it shows well enough the mixed emotions that the coming of the electric wires brought to the countryside here. What was gained (easy to measure), what was lost (hard or impossible to measure) - but also what was illuminated. Not just previously-hidden bald spots and wrinkles and layers of dust that a darkened cottage would never reveal even in high summer, but a world that, once the switches came, could never come back again.
An older, stiller, subtler world.
I won't say it came back again for the 48 hours that we were wire-free in our house. But something came. Some other rhythm. I sat by the fire with a whisky and did nothing at all. We read books instead of websites. Teenagers had no choice but to emerge from their bedrooms. We're a low-tech household compared to most, but let's not fool ourselves - we live in the miasma created by the grid. We are the grid.
Without it, everything changes...
https://paulkingsnorth.substack.com/p/the-gulf-and-the-silence
I COULDN'T GET MYSELF to read the want ads. The thought of sitting in front of a man behind a desk and telling him that I wanted a job, that I was qualified for a job, was too much for me. Frankly, I was horrified by life, at what a man had to do simply in order to eat, sleep, and keep himself clothed. So I stayed in bed and drank. When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn't have you by the throat.
— Charles Bukowski
ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
The danger, as I see it, with AI comes in the fact that it creates things that are not real. There is no reality in AI. Here's an example. Do a Google image search for "lingerie" and see what you get. You no longer get pictures of REAL women in provocative garments. What now populates the search are AI images of unrealistic, too perfectly beautiful women with freakishly young faces, massive breasts, round hips and PERFECT skin. Not a zit, pimple, scar, stretch mark, mole, fold, dimple, nothing. Absolute perfection! Reality is being replaced with fantasy on our computer screens. Nobody is going to be happy with reality because reality can never produce what AI generates.
Just more evidence to me, personally, that we should cut the cord with technology. There comes a point where technology is no longer a tool to help us but becomes a detriment to society and ultimately destroys us.
ANIMALS
Have you forgotten what we were like then
when we were still first rate
and the day came fat with an apple in its mouth
it's no use worrying about Time
but we did have a few tricks up our sleeves
and turned some sharp corners
the whole pasture looked like our meal
we didn't need speedometers
we could manage cocktails out of ice and water
I wouldn't want to be faster
or greener than now if you were with me O you
were the best of all my days
— Frank O’Hara (1971)
There is uncertainty regarding where the word gringo comes from. It was used in Peru to describe all people of European decent whose first language was non-Spanish. The Peruvian kids had a jingle they would taunt us non-Peruvians with that referred to us as Gringos. I heard that jingle often. Usually a group of Peruvian kids would get together and chant this jingle to us. In English the end of the jingle said, “put your sock away until Sunday.” I assume those kids knew what this meant, I didn’t, and still don’t. It might have something to do with keeping money in a sock until a donation is made at church. The jingle was my introduction to racial prejudice.
You must have led a very sheltered life. As a kid, I was aware of racial prejudice very soon after I was old enough to be aware…which was before I entered kindergarten, and right here in the “land o’ the free”. No “foreigners” involved.
I was 4 or 5, and I did have a sheltered life, all the while being protected by my mother from the ever present threats to my health and safety. Life was cheap.
Yeah, right. And the people were so poor that they didn’t even know they were poor… Heard it all before, a few years back. Didn’t buy it then; don’t now.
Also, Mexicans call gringos gringos all the time. Gabacho is used but less often than gringo.
I doubt the name has anything to do with the song often credited. It went “Green grow the lilacs…”. Doesn’t sound much like gringo to me, and it’s used throughout Latin America, not just Mexico. Can troops really have sung that song so much and so far and wide?
AVA Booklists.
Why are all the suggested books about humans,?
Get over yourselves.
There quite a few other lifeforms. I find their stories quite refreshing compared to what humans do to each other.
Invertebrate zoology is a good place to start learning about the real meaning of life.
I would love to read a book written by an animal. Can you suggest one?
Huckleberry Finn, or any other book written by a human… We are all animals.
That’s a good one, Harvey, the truth of the matter.
The Lives of the Monster Dogs.
The Coming of the Goonga.
Archy and Mehitabel.
You’re right, there aren’t that many. I’ll think of some more while I’m at work today and come back later. By the way, goonga was the alien animals’ word for their food-and-defense-materials chattel. I thought of that because of the mention of gringo above. Search YouTube for a live performance of the song Prejudice by Tim Minchin to grasp the spectrum of hurt that a word can cause.
Thanks. I’ll check them out.
The best are the Chet and Bernie detective novels by Spencer Quinn, narrated from the first-person (rather, first-dog) pov by Chet, a dog.
FAST TIMES AT WEST WING HIGH
by Maureen Dowd
They were the richest, most potent men in the world, with a visceral high school vibe. They were the bitchiest, weirdest mathletes in history.
Maureen if you get off the internet (Oh sorry that is your only outlet) you would have a lot more enjoyment of your life, bye for now I have to go cut some wood up because it it cold as heck here cheers!!!!!!!!!!
I know Charles Bukowski had excellent powers of observation, and that many folks favor his writing. Maybe I’m obtuse, but I find his writing and way of life self-indulgent rationalizations of non-stop drinking and the resultant deep depression. A poor man absolutely stuck in the mud of alcohol and greatly self-pitying, in the meanwhile sniping at those who live fuller lives, if not perfect, with some kind of purpose and meaning. Certainly a poor soul who can’t see his own mistakes and move on to better things. There–got that off my mind. Sorry if I am offending those who like his work.
Haven’t read him in a while but always liked Buk…
Those ” drunk in the gutter” of life descriptions are entertaining to me,
maybe makes me glad I’m not floundering there also…
I thought it was better not to follow lifeforms with life histories in the next sentence.
Within the same paragraph stories was good enough.
Green
A border patrol officer stops an immigrant on his way in to the U.S. and asks him: “If you can make a whole sentence using the words green, pink, and yellow, I’ll let you in with no delay.” The immigrant pauses to think for a few minutes, then replies:
“The phone goes green-green, I pink it up, and I say yellow?”
The Albertinium, later called Trinity School, closed in 2009. Among its alumnae was a boy named Brian Warner. Warner later took the stage name Marylin Manson and became an icon for a certain youth segment, despite his alleged abuse of women. A Trinity night employee told me that Manson would get bored and call Trinity late at night from the road, just for something to do.
Also renowned historian, Kevin Starr.
No mention of that history re Marilyn Manson here, and a call of bunk from someone I know who grew up in Ukiah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_Manson
I just know what the dude told me. Manson called from the Sportatorium in Miami Beach while waiting for his set. Talked for about 15 minutes, asking about old staff who had been there when he was there. Details of the account lent credence to the story. I have no reason to question it