MIKE SWEENEY IN NEW ZEALAND
1990 Car Bomber And Former Mendo Trash Czar
OPINIONS that San Francisco is the worst-managed city in the country are as predictable as summer fog, and inevitably cite Muni, about which people have been complaining for 50 years. I used to ride the Muni buses regularly, to and from all areas of the city, and I think Muni’s pretty good. The major lines are so frequent that waits are brief. You can get most places in a timely manner, assuming timely means allowing an extra fifteen minutes or so for traffic. Sure, there are surly drivers and, on every bus, at least one outpatient, but most of the outpatients behave themselves, and for every surley driver there are two jolly ones.
I DON’T CARE if an unhappy person is behind the wheel so long as he doesn’t suddenly decide to drive us all to Tucson or into the bay. And every Muni rider knows to get off the bus when a bunch of Our Nation’s Future get on at a school stop. But so long as the outpatient mutters his timestables or Building 7 delusions to himself, who could possibly be disturbed? Drunks are occasionally obstreperous but violence, given the thousands of people who ride, is rare.
I TYPICALLY RODE the One California. One morning, eastbound, the One was packed with Asians headed for the markets of Stockton Street. At Powell, the aisles of Number One were so jammed that when I stooped to pick up my umbrella I inadvertently butt-blocked two old ladies into two other old ladies, and all four muttered Cantonese curses at me, me, a senior citizen with an honorable discharge and probably the oldest person on the bus, standing with my elderly peers because many of the seated people, the usual insensate young, were plunked down in the senior seats fiddling with their inevitable gadgets. (Who are these blank-eyed beasts!) By the time the over-crowded, eastbound bus gets to Powell, the One California is only a block from becoming a nearly empty bus because almost everyone gets off at Stockton.
SO, there we were lurching down the hill and into each other like so many bowling pins when the driver who I, with my vast knowledge of the Far East pegged as a Filipino, stopped the bus in the middle of the street, stepped out from behind his safety bar and announced, “I’m not leaving until everyone moves back.” Nobody moved, of course, because nobody could move. The bus was that crowded. A tiny Filipina standing among a six pack of old ladies near me shouted, with great maternal authority, “Dribe de bus, driber. We almost dere!” And thirty seconds later we were.
ANOTHER AFTERNOON during the Obama reign, I strode west on Market Street for what I call my Up and Over — up Market, up 17th, down Stanyan, left turn through the gauntlet of dope dealers at Haight and Stanyan, on past Hippie Hill and a couple hundred young derelicts, past the tennis courts, north on 7th to Kaju where the counter girl was deep into her Korean-English Bible, an island of wholesomeness after a traverse of much of The City’s outdoors demographic, from clumps of open air criminals through serene neighborhoods of Whole Foods shoppers.
SETTING OUT from Bush and Kearney, I was soon on Market where, near Fourth and Market, I saw a large placard declaring, “Obama is a cracker.”
LAROUCHIES! I can spot them at a hundred yards. If you don’t know the Larouchites I’ll save you research time by telling you they’re a cult led by a one-time Trotskyite and convicted swindler named Lyndon Larouche who says the whole global show is a conspiracy, a conspiracy which includes the Queen of England as a drug dealer. The Larouchies are so far out even the Building 7 people think they’re whacked.
THAT DAY, two young Larouchies, one black the other white, manned the Larouche table with the inflammatory denunciation of Obama as a “cracker,” a pejorative which made zero sense, but these nuts were defending it.
THE TWO Larouchies were besieged by a half dozen angry black men and a stylish young black woman who was lifting her Nordstrom shopping bag up and down like she couldn’t quite decide whether or not to swing it at the Larouchies.
THE WHITE Larouchie was a bulge-eyed nutcase, a cartoon quality fanatic. The black Larouchie was an apologetic-looking kid who seemed to be having serious second thoughts about his political affiliations in the face of the deluge of insults he was taking from his fellow ethnics. If a pair of uniformed cops hadn’t been standing nearby, the two Larouchies would have been smacked around, I’m sure.
MARKET STREET isn’t the kind of venue where you want to get into arguments with passersby. Or street nuts. Or Larouchites. But I helped myself to a leaflet and, adopting what I thought was the calming therapeutic tone I’d learned as a long time resident of Mendocino County, I announced that I thought calling the president a cracker wasn’t the way to “enhance dialogue.”
THE BLACK Larouchie, nonplussed, stared back at me. The white nut called me a double fascist. “You are a fascist,” he said, “an obvious fascist.” That had been his response to all his critics. But it isn’t right to call the president a cracker, I insisted.
TWO black guys encouraged my line of flab-think. “That’s right,” they said, as I added that Obama was certainly not a cracker, of all things. At which point a round black guy, pointing happily at me, shouted triumphantly at the Larouchies, “See mothafuggas! Even this cracker say you wrong.” I walked on, vindicated.
“SUPERIOR COURT JUDGE Ann Moorman said at the end of Wednesday’s court session that pre-paid traveling plans involving county CEO Darcie Antle, a prime prosecution witness, and those of her own forced the lengthy delay.” (Geniella)
Since when do private vacation plans cancel scheduled court hearings? “See ya,” sing the judge and the CEO. “We gotta catch a plane.” This foul matter has got to be the longest preliminary hearing in County history, and isn’t the first time Judge Moorman has colluded with DA Eyster to obstruct justice. Remember the Kevin Murray case where major felonies were busted down to misdemeanors and probation?
WHEN IS A TRAIN not a train? When it gets partially built, then put on hold and funding runs out. SMART is supposed to go from Larkspur to Cloverdale. There's no reason it couldn't go to Willits, maybe even Dos Rios. The tracks are in place, and 80 years ago, when America still knew how to do things, two trains ran every day from Sausalito to Eureka. Each way. The train people are now saying 2030, at the earliest, a train may chug into the Cloverdale station, Cloverdale being a well-known transportation hub and all. Federal money necessary to complete the project is in doubt, as is the entire viability of the capitalist system — SMART on a national scale, you might say. One of the key funding components for a revived rail line up and down the Northcoast is a quarter cent sales tax projected to generate $845 million of the $1.2 billion needed. But sales taxes have tanked along with the economy, and more and more people are buying online trying to avoid sales taxes altogether. The railroad, SMART or DUMB, is unlikely in our life times.
JOE TORRE, the famous baseball guy, founded and largely funds the Safe at Home Foundation. I remember Torre telling a rapt Frisco crowd of some 400 people who'd assembled to raise money for groups devoted to bringing attention to domestic violence why he'd begun Safe at Home. “My dad abused my mom. He wasn't a drinker. … He never physically hurt us. But there was a lot of whispering going on in my house. I felt I was doing something wrong.” Torre remembered one particularly terrifying incident. “My mother was standing behind my sister who had a knife in her hand to protect my mother. He was heading for the drawer. My dad was a policeman. He had a gun in the house.” Torre managed to defuse that situation and his older brother persuaded his father to leave the house. Torre's foundation creates safe rooms in schools for children from families like his. “Baseball's been my life,” Torre said. “My mom, Margaret, lived her life for us kids. … If she were with us today, she wouldn't allow me to do what we are doing today,” that is speak out about an issue sadly too common here in Mendocino County and everywhere else. “My two sisters were horrified that I was going public, but they realized how necessary it was.”
THERE IS MUCH CONFUSION in the world. Last week I received this e-mail from a certain Mr. Taylor: “We really loved your book. Just wanted you to know that your writing and subject matter is so very inspiring and worthy of praise.” The book referred to is called “Tantra for Gay Men” by Bruce Anderson. Well! This Bruce Anderson had to look up tantra to understand the reference in any context, let alone that of the gay male. Sorry, Mr. T, the tantric Bruce Anderson isn't the Boonville Bruce Anderson.
SITTING JUDGES are always telling us that they cannot comment on judicial matters which might come before them as an excuse for their silence on even the most basic issues. But how can they justify not commenting or trying to defend the new courthouse which will clearly disrupt ongoing court proceedings, besides being ugly and grossly overpriced. Before he died, Judge David Nelson at least rolled out with his arguable reasons to justify the new courthosue. But not one other local judge has even tried to explain to the public how this wasteful monstrosity is good for Mendocino County. (Mark Scaramella)
JIM GIBBONS REMEMBERS: “The Big March you attended in San Francisco back in ‘68 after Martin Luther King’s murder caused me to flash back to 1967 in Milwaukee when comedian Dick Gregory was in town to march with Father James Groppi for Civil Rights. I had this beatnik friend named John Bentley who talked me into going to check it out and we turned out to be the only white guys besides Groppi, and talk about “race baiters shouting insults from the sidewalk.’ We marched to the South Side, a predominantly Polish neighborhood, which was all white and seemingly all pissed, especially at a couple of white guys hanging with the ‘niggers.’ Even the blacks seemed surprised at how hateful the whites were toward other whites, and needless to say, this naive 23-year-old was shocked and scared and never marched for no cause ever again.”
A DAY IN THE LIFE of an ancient beatnik. It started early ayem on the Lyon Street Stairs with me and my Feinstein and Blum story — Diane and Richard, both of them gone now. It’s not much of a story, and probably one shared by at least some of the other mortifiers-of-flesh who trudge aerobically up and down the Stairs past Feinstein’s and Blum’s fortified front door at ruling class ground zero, Pacific Heights.
I’M SURPRISED us grubby public is allowed so close to Feinstein’s five floors of deceptively secure, bourgeosie splendor. But there were two security cameras on the roof and undoubtedly a man with a gun inside somewhere. The Stairs pass so close I could see through one of the heavily screened windows a back-lit portrait of the Senator herself.
ONE MORNING I saw Blum, a nondescript, lumpy gent in a business suit moving slowly up the stairs with a phalanx of young people. It wouldn’t be exaggerating to describe his phalanx as “doting.”
BLUM looked at me like I should recognize him. “How ya doin’ today?,” I said when we were briefly side by side on the Stairs, me headed down, him up. I felt I had to say something in the face of what I took as Blum’s expectation, if that’s what it was. How easy it would have been to Mangioni the guy.
I KEPT on going, of course, having nothing more to say of a civil nature to an even more major enemy of the people than his wife.
I USED TO HIT the Lyon Street Stairs a couple of times a week, as did several professional athletes and their trainers. One of the jocks, a huge blonde blur of a kid with those world class fast-twitch muscles the gifted ballplayers are born with, moved past me one morning at an improbably fast pace, nudging me aside with, “On your left, gramps.” Other than a couple of unwitnessed stumbles, “Gramps” is the only insult I’ve suffered at that particular venue.
A LITTLE FARTHER up the hill there was often a young, plump, Mediterranean-looking woman togged out in mountain-climbing lycra. She walked backwards up the stairs in tiny slo-motion steps. I wanted to ask her to define the benefits of her workout. “Excuse me, miss, In your own words, what possible life-extending value is there in creeping backwards up and down thirty feet of sidewalk?”
THE ODDER people’s behavior, the more defensive they are about it, and you’ve got to watch it in that neighborhood — when someone in Upper Pacific Heights calls the cops they arrive instantly and from all directions.
THAT NIGHT, me and the missus went to see ACT’s production of the Caucasian Chalk Circle. In my early twenties, I used to see a lot of live theater. Then I and everyone else of ordinary means got priced out.
THESE TICKETS were a gift, a gift that kept on giving with about ten plays a year. I’d never seen a Brecht play. I’d read this one and looked forward to seeing it presented. I’d also read that the director was “ferociously inventive.” In the daily deluge of pure bullshit that fuels our fading country and ricochets around my head like a bb in a box car, “ferociously inventive” should have put me on red alert, but it wasn’t until I got to “gleefully irreverent and bracingly modern,” followed by “brand new translation” that I knew we were in for a rough two hours of theater.
BRECHT was a communist. The play is about class warfare. It doesn’t need “irreverent,” and it doesn’t need a “brand new translation.” The production, as it turned out, was so scattered that if I didn’t know the story I’d have been completely lost. And it was boring, insulting even, with the “ferociously inventive” Mr. Doyle apparently telling the actors to go ahead and ad lib whenever they felt like improving on Brecht, the result being a lot of gratuitous vulgarity the playwright wouldn’t have tolerated. So it was a bummer, a waste of talented actors.
THE OLD BOY two seats from me kept being nudged awake by his wife. When she’d sat down she’d looked at me and said, “You look like Colonel Schweppes.” The liberties strangers take these days! Colonel Schweppes! I’m a lot closer to looking like Gabby Hayes, but I guess Schweppes was an upgrade.
I TOOK a closer look at this impertinent neighbor. She was swathed in layers of Magnin silks and, truth to tell, she looked like a madam of a high end brothel, but as a gentleman I couldn’t possibly say so. Of course you’ve got to be a million years old even to remember the ads with Colonel Schweppes, but there we were in the old Geary Theater teeming with elderly Marxists waiting to hear the master lash us guilt ridden winners of class combat.
OUT on the night time downtown Frisco streets beyond the comforts of the Geary, it’s more and more like medieval London, with beggars, street acts, cripples, and crazy people, and all of it more and more and faster and faster. But I was still shocked at seeing ten copies of R. Crumb’s illustrated Book of Genesis prominently displayed in the Marist’s book shop at Old St. Mary’s Church, California and Grant.
WE HAD DINNER at Max’s across the street from Brecht. I went for the chicken pot pie assuming it would appear in recognizable form like those little Swanson pot pies us television tray people used to eat when the ball game was on, but here it was the size of a literal basketball. I ate what I could and hauled the rest of it up to Boonville to show it to some gourmand guys. “Fifteen bucks, boys, and I’m still eating on it three days later!”
THE NEXT DAY I read Robert Hurwitt’s review of Caucasian Chalk Circle in the Chron: “But a degree of confusion seems to be built into John Doyle’s approach to Brecht’s parable about contested motherhood….” YES, BOB there certainly was narrative confusion, and I’ll bet Mr. Doyle laughed all the way home to England about putting another one over on US.
EARLIER IN THE DAY, after the Stairs workout, I’d embarked on my favorite bad weather adventure, the $13 Muni Day Pass, six hours on different bus lines from the Bay to Candlestick. And most points between. After several hours on Muni, the grandest tour possible of the world’s greatest city at the price, I was sitting in Washington Square thinking about Marilyn and Joe DiMaggio getting married at the nearby Peter and Paul’s Church where my old friend Warren Hinckle’s memorial service had been so crowded I couldn’t get in.
IT WAS LATE in the afternoon, but never too late for an Italian apple turnover from Mara’s genuine Italian bakery. As I ate I congratulated myself for having seized the day, confident I’d also seize the night inside the Caucasian Chalk Circle.
OUR RULING CLASSES everywhere have no rational analysis or explanation for the immediate future. A small group has more concentrated power over the human future than ever before in human history, & they have no vision, no strategy, no plan. The climate crisis, migration crisis and pandemic have shown us the truth about how supposedly democratic states react to globally threatening events: they pull up the drawbridge.
— Mike Davis
A READER WRITES: “Now wait a second, Bruce, 'several hours' on the Muni, that sordid cluster of compound miseries? I well recall your amusing excoriation of that organism. You remain, mysteriously, one of the few folks I've ever heard complain about the blunt insult to the brain delivered by the pre-recorded, infantilizing hectoring that pours forth incessantly from Muni speakers. Eerily, no one I've ever mentioned it to seems to mind. I reckon that in many cases there's just no internal voice, no pensiveness, to be discombobulated by such inane distractions.”
AMERICANS have become a nation of Zen masters, instinctively blotting out all unpleasantness, all information that contradicts their perceptions of the grim realities surrounding them. And given that the realities are increasingly unpleasant and omni-present, well, yes, I think I will have another drink.
AND THIS ERUDITE comment re Muni: “Service cuts and fare hikes aside, why is it that so often a Muni bus ride feels like a river cruise on the Styx with Chiron at the helm? An abusive oarsman takes swipes at the beleaguered and meek more often than the vile and grotesque. Passengers come to blows over seats. Impudent litter and graffiti are banal scenery…. ”
MYSELF, I revel in the pure wackiness of the generic Muni experience, from the occasional gratuitously rude driver to the guaranteed minimum of one crazy person per bus. The recorded messages are simply part of the lunatic package you sign on for when you pay your fare.
PRE-SURGERY when I was still wholly intact, I was on the 28, I think it is, that runs from Daly City to Fort Mason along Park Presidio, with lots of people getting on and off at the Golden Gate Bridge. I was headed for the Friends of the Library used book store at Fort Mason, one of many Frisco treasures available to those of us not on expense accounts.
A GUY started talking to me as we hurtled through the Presidio to the bridge. He got off to a bad start. “No offense if you're a believer, but what's with people who think we're visited by extraterrestrials?”
EITHER WAY the question, especially from a stranger, was mildly insulting. I wasn't wearing a propeller beanie or a Beam Me Up badge or any other tangible mental health indicator. Did I look like a guy who subscribed to UFO newsletters?
I SAID I wasn't conspiratorially oriented, that so far as I could tell we were not only alone in the universe but the rest of the cosmos was also keeping its distance. Beyond my new friend, I could see a man reading The New York Review of Books. I couldn't remember a more highbrow Muni excursion. My new friend, however, wasn't a nut, just lonely, just wanted to talk, I guess.
AS WE zipped past the Palace of Fine Arts he asked, “Did you know that Robert Oppenheimer's brother started the Exploratorium?” I said I did know tha,t but only because I'd just read a story about Oppenheimer's brother in The New York Review, the same issue of the Review our fellow traveler was immersed in.
I INFORMED my new friend that during the commie hysteria of the 1950s before he'd landed in the national sanctuary of San Francisco, Oppenheimer's brother had taught high school physics in Montana or somewhere comparable in the vast American outback where his students said he was by far the best teacher they'd ever had. Their excellent teacher had been driven into rural exile by the McCarthy-ite hysteria.
MY NEW MUNI FRIEND looked disappointed. He thought he was going to tell me something, but I'd told him something, piling on, as it were. I regretted my Tourettes-like one upmanship. My new friend said he was going to a crafts show in one of the hangars at Fort Mason. “This is the good stuff they exhibit here,” he said, “not a bunch of junk.” He brandished a flier illustrated by a flashy gewgaw that could have been anything from a bejeweled pajama top to rastafarian macrame. “See what I mean?” he said.
I DIDN'T, but on the Muni you've got to be very careful with new acquaintances. A seemingly normal person can go all the way off at the slightest contradiction. I've seen it happen when a smiley-faced guy had said to his seatmate, “Nice day, isn't it?” only to be met with a snarled, “Fuck you, too,” from the normal-looking guy he'd sat down next to. It's generally prudent not to initiate a human interface on the bus.
“SEE YOU ON THE MUNI,” I promised my new friend as we pulled up at the end of the line at Fort Mason from where I planned to trudge over the hill to Aquatic Park, and on into the splendors of the human panorama at Pier 39, the absolute best show in all of the Bay Area. “Probably won't see me again,” my new friend said. “I never ride the bus. My wife has the car today. Nice chatting with you, though.”
FRISCO'S public transportation is unfailingly exciting, but Mendocino County's MTA has its moments, as in this wonderful account by Bruce McEwen:
“I was sitting in the back of the westbound MTA the other afternoon with some friends of mine, old acquaintances from my homeless days. As we lounged on our packs and coats, a bottle went round in a brown paper bag, and who should get on just before the bus pulled out? Captain Fathom, fresh off a stay at the Low Gap Hilton. Fathom took a seat up front by the driver and was fastening his seat belt when the boys in the back of the bus began to yell, 'Captain! Captain Fathom! Back here. Sit back here.' The Captain didn’t need to be persuaded, and here he came swinging down the aisle, that big smile he always wears seeming to take up most of his face. 'I hear you got your ankle bracelet off, Captain,' someone said. The Captain replied he was indeed no longer being electronically monitored by the forces of law and order. We all cheered. 'Way to go, Cap!' The Captain’s eyes were clear, his speech lucid. One of MTA's bon vivants offered The Captain a go at the bottle in the bag. Fully aware of his recent difficulties with the demon rum, I tried to shove the bag away from the Captain, only to find myself shoved out of the way. I was surprised when The Captain himself said, 'Naw, I’m allergic to the stuff. It makes me break out in handcuffs.' The Captain laughed that big laugh of his, and the bus lumbered on over the hill towards Boonville. The Captain said he would soon be headed for Florida where his father lay on his deathbed. 'I want him to see the last grandson of Benito Mussolini before he goes,' Fathom explained, not that any of us understood how an Albion pot farmer could be the grandson of the Italian dictator who wound up hanging upside down from a telephone pole in 1945, five years or so after Fathom was born. The Captain had gifts for all us. He gave me a book, a British tourist some travel advice, the rest some revolutionary slogans. He said he’d be back in March, and the talk turned to the best way to get to Florida in these uncertain times. But I got off in Boonville before Fathom’s travel plans had been fully worked out.”
TV'S CHUCKLE BUDDIES were yukking it up the other afternoon over the finding that atrazine-based herbicides turns boy frogs into girl frogs. The real news ought to be that frogs of whatever gender have largely disappeared from everywhere. Remember when the first rains brought them out by the millions in Mendocino County and you had to watch where you walked to avoid crushing them? Today, right here in the Anderson Valley, the only frogs to be found are deep in the hills far, far from the herbicide-drench of the industrial wine industry.
MY LATE COMRADE, Alexander Cockburn, noting my reference to myself as a geezer in another media venue, wrote: “I note intermittent but regular iteration — like some sinister theme in Wagner — on seniordom in your pieces, mottled hands shaking slightly on the cane, roguish twinkle as you tell the 200 pound Safeway girl that you don't need to be helped to your car. I say enough! I like to stop in at Max's 540 Club on Clement in San Francisco for a beer or two. One day I made the mistake of visiting the place after dark when the clientele is very young and very loud, an impenetrable din of “So, like I said to this dude, 'Dude, like bleeping back all the bleeping way off.” That time, I tried to talk with the only other wheeze in the place, but we had to give it up. Between the music which, of course, is solidly arrhythmic DudeTunes screamed rather than sung, and the dudes and dudettes dude-ing and adverbing each other at top decibel, it was actually painful. So, ever after, I stop in the afternoon to sit in the sun with a beer, watching the passing parade, toting up my liver spots.”
MENDOCINO COUNTY'S County Code for Marijuana Regulation is very, very long. How long?
THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS is 278 words, the Bill of Rights 725, the Declaration of Independence 1,337, Martin Luther King's “I Have a Dream” speech comes in at 1780 words, the US Constitution is 4450 words, the Magna Carta 4800, the Communist Manifesto 17,170 words.
MENDOCINO COUNTY'S Marijuana Cultivation Ordinance? (Chapters 20.242 and 20.243): Tens of thousands of words. (And that doesn’t count the state regs…)
AN IRISH DAUGHTER had not been home for over five years. Upon her return, her Father cursed her heavily: “Where have ye been all this time, child? Why did ye not write to us, not even a line? Why didn’t’ ye call? Can ye not understand what ye put yer old Mother through?” The girl, crying, replied, “[Sniff, sniff] Dad… I became a prostitute…” “Ye what!?” he thundered. “Outta here, ye shameless harlot! Sinner! You' re a disgrace to this Catholic family!'” “OK, Dad, as ye wish. I just came back to give mum this luxurious fur coat, title deed to a ten bedroom mansion, plus a $5 million savings certificate. For me little brother, this gold Rolex. And for ye Daddy, the sparkling new Mercedes limited-edition convertible that's parked outside, plus a membership to the country club… [takes a breath] … and an invitation for ye all to spend New Year’s Eve on board my new yacht in the Riviera.” “Now what was it ye said ye had become?” says Dad. Girl, crying again: “[Sniff, sniff]… a prostitute, Daddy! [Sniff, sniff].” “Oh! Be Jesus! Ye scared me half to death, girl! I thought ye said a Protestant. Come here and give yer old Dad a hug.”
APPROACHING the rear of the Ferry Building one day after visiting Greg, I could hear the first notes of Rhapsody In Blue played by someone on a clarinet that were so clear, so perfect, so mesmerizing I almost stopped walking towards the music out of fear it would stop. But there he was, the artist, a courtly old black man and his horn, and on he played, the most memorable rendition of that music I've heard. I wasn't the only passerby aware that we were listening to something special, and when the old guy wrapped it up a dozen or so of us rushed up to press folding money on him.
BILL BENNETT was just about the last person I can think of who truly used public position to protect and even advance the public interest. A World War Two B-17 pilot of many combat missions, Bennett became a lawyer who was causing the malefactors of great wealth much trouble long before Ralph Nader appeared. Bennett was best known for his work on the State Board of Equalization where he sat for 25 years without, you could say, ever becoming sedentary. He always refused corporate contributions and publicly criticized colleagues who took them. Your PG&E bill would probably be twice as high as it is now without Bill Bennett. The giants are dead, and all we're left with is, well, look around at election time.
FRIENDS OF THE EEL RIVER (FOER.org) has worked assiduously for many years to end diversions at Potter Valley. Never has happened and probably won't ever happen. The prob here, of course, is that the perversion of the Eel River at Potter Valley is a thousand yard tunnel not much larger in dimension than today's king size fat man that has too many downstream beneficiaries of the powerful type. The diversion tunnel was hand dug by Chinese labor and Jim Armstrong shortly after the dawn of the 20th century to run turbines for the purpose of electrifying Ukiah. From that modest beginning the water-short downstream population has multiplied and slurbed out in all directions, and the diverted water has become crucial to the maintenance of that slurbanization. And crucial to the wine industry, which owns our elected officials. There's no way to stop the diversion, which amounts to the destruction of much of the Eel, short of, short of, well, short of The Anderson Solution which, not to put too fine a felonious point on it, would be to mount a modest load of dynamite onto a smallish raft, float the load into the tunnel from the Eel River end of the diversion, and detonate it. No tunnel, no diversion. For a while anyway. For historical symmetry I would of course insist that the explosive be made in China. In fact, the explosion itself might be coordinated with Chinese New Year as a mid-winter boost to Mendocino County's sagging tourist economy.
A HUMBOLDT commenter wrote the best prospectus for pot tourism: “I was having a moment of visualizaion — ferris wheels with big pot leafs in the middle, boat trips down the rivers with a barker pointing out grows, and growers coming out and shooting at them. Re-enactment of raids with helicopters dropping in on grows. The tourists could choose to either be on the side of law enforcement or the growers and take part in the action. I think you get the picture!”
LAWYERS running for DA always bring up conviction rates as if they mean something. They don't. Most of them plead out and don’t go to trial. What's complicated about prosecuting the shlebs you see in the dock? How many master criminals have passed through the Mendocino County Courthouse lately? As the late Norm Vroman often said, “We only catch the dumb ones.”
I DOUBT DA EYSTER will be adding his transparently personal vendetta against Ms. Cubbison to his statistics.
WILL the farcical prelim ever get done? The longest preliminary hearing in the history of Mendocino County, and perhaps the longest prelim in judicial history anywhere, ever? It had to be continued, you see, because a witness, CEO Darcie Antle, and the judge, had to go on vacation. They'd pre-paid passage on their Love Boats, you see, and the poor things are so poorly paid they couldn't possibly sustain the loss.
SOME OF US will recall that Eyster first filed a complaint with the Sheriff's Department that Cubbison and payroll clerk Kennedy appeared to have committed a crime, specifically $68,000 diverted to themselves. The Sheriff's Department investigated, finding no evidence in support of Eyster's allegation which, of course, stemmed from his personal pique that Cubbison had challenged his attempt to charge an annual holiday debauch at the Broiler Steak House as a “staff training.”
SO EYSTER sicced his own staff of sleuths on his non-case, and darned if Eyster’s boys didn't find that the boss was correct! The Sheriff’s Department had missed what was right in front of their uncomprehending pusses! The two ladies had indeed engaged in, like, uh, ah, whatever it was and, you're right, boss, they should be charged.
AND HERE WE ARE more than 15 months later, with Eyster having again dipped into the public purse to hire a prosecutor in lieu of himself at $400 an hour and, as Mike Geniella totes up the cost of this never ending farce, it is clear that the public is months away from getting a final bill.
ON-LINE COMMENTS OF THE WEEK
[1] I received the latest newsletter from a local, small family farming operation and was surprised to read they had serious problems finding dependable American workers and ended up hiring two foreign workers (one from Africa and another from India) through an international NGO. Think about that - they could not find TWO dependable Americans for farm labor - and they’re not out in the middle of nowhere, plenty of possible candidates within walking distance. This is not going to improve. Deporting all the people willing to do hard work will not suddenly create a class of hardworking Americans; they’ve never had to do anything hard and now they’re too busy playing games, as intended.
[2] I just spent a couple weeks in Mexico and I loved it. The people there have much less than we do but they are also happier and seemingly more satisfied. My favorite day was resting on the beach and watching Mexican fishermen clean their catch of the day. Didn't detect any misery in those guys. Lots of jokes, singing, laughter and banter with their buddies. I was envious of them and dreading the return to "murica" and the rat race. If I had the cojones, I'd pull an Andy Durfrain from the Shawshank Redemption and high tail it out of here to Mexico for a simpler life.
[3] It’s so comforting that in the wake of the worst US air disaster in decades, while bodies are still being pulled from the water and families suffer, and with the investigations into causes of the crash barely begun, our chief executive is seizing this opportunity to try to console and unite a nation sunk in grief by blaming everything on DEI.
Great work, Consoler-in-Chief.
[4] What I saw in the Senate was people who are absolutely cynical, absolutely controllable, absolutely without principle, putting on performances, as you say for the camera, and maybe to raise money, at the expense of somebody — Kennedy — who for whatever reason had devoted his life to exploring these issues, not to make money that I can see. Certainly no more than anybody makes in this circle of the elite.
[5] It’s hard to discuss the tariffs sensibly since they made no sense to begin with. Trump demanded Canada stop fentanyl from crossing the border and that Mexico stop all the migrants. Both countries had been making increased efforts at what clearly has to be a bilateral effort but that wasn’t good enough.
Truthfully, it seems like this is solely to cause more chaos in order to justify more draconian domestic policies. Just this morning the orange shitweasel posted again that Canada should be the 51st state and it would make things so much better for Canadians. And he insulted the Mexican president by claiming the entire government is in the hands of the drug cartels. Both of which are astoundingly stupid.
What’s baffling is the lack of any kind of coherent messaging from Democrats. It’s like they are just sitting back and letting him burn the house down for a “I told you so” moment.
6] Since we do not have any viable opposition to the Trump-Musk alliance, I suppose we have rule by 2 people plus all the muscle they've hired. While I love seeing DEI, the trans agenda, CRT, and open immigration get the axe, I also am concerned about what seems to be shaping up as a technocracy, or techno-feudalism, as many of us have been warning about for years.
The Dem party was never a good party, although perhaps the 2 party system somewhat balanced each other out. But not since the 1960s in any effective manner that I can detect. It just got more and more “uniparty.”
So… the future ought to be interesting.
[7] The thing the Democrats will do now is create chaos at the grass roots level. Protest by blocking highways, mask up and vandalize, show up at government officials' homes, interfere with ICE operations, destroy property, set fires and lawyer up. The Dems' insane shenanigans will move to the streets. It's imperative they get their asses kicked. Also look for more election interference and fraud at the state and local level.
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