Mendocino County Today: Saturday 2/8/2025

COLD WEATHER ADVISORY remains in effect until 9am this morning. An isloated rain band will likely bring very light precipitation around sunrise. Otherwise, cold and dry weather will persist until around Wednesday. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A cold 33F under clear skies this Saturday morning on the coast. Clear & cold is our forecast thru Monday then rain returns on Tuesday.

MADELINE MISSING

Sonoma County, we need your assistance.

Please help us find 14-year-old Madeline Shehu. Shehu has been missing since February 5, 2025, from the 6800 block of Cold Springs Road, Penngrove.

Shehu was last seen at about 3:15 pm. Deputies searched the area and were not able to locate her. She is described as approximately 5'2" tall, thin build, with long brown hair. She was last seen wearing a neon pink hoodie, black cut-off denim shorts, and black Vans shoes. If you see her, please call the Sheriff's Office at (707) 565-2121 or your local law enforcement agency. We appreciate your help in this matter.

Case No: 250205-016

Media Inquiries: (707) 565-3941

ED NOTES

AS THE LONGEST preliminary hearing in County history — 18 months and counting — takes a break because the judge and witness CEO Darcie Antle absolutely had to go on vacation, I stepped back through the obscuring mists of time to see if I had something in my archive about the judge, Ann Moorman, and the local justice system. Darned if I didn't find the following from 2010:

LOTS of local lawyers donated to Ann Moorman’s successful campaign for judge. These same local lawyers donated exactly nothing to Moorman's opponent, Caren Callahan. Just as corporations buy advantage from our state and national elected reps, lawyers buy favorable treatment from His and Her Elected Honor who, purely in theory, claim to be far above this sort of thing. Election cash to prospective judges is a form of corruption, of course, but who are you going to complain to about it? The courts?

DAYS PAST, our legal apparat was even more literally incestuous; they'd all go out to Lake Mendocino and get drunk together, often pairing up and disappearing into the bushes to, ahem, seal professional relationships. When the bar association's Lake Mendocino bacchanal got a little too public, and the cops were no longer willing to drive all the drunks home rather than arrest them, our justice establishment moved its annual festivities to a more secluded spot on the Eel River near Willits where, one year, the rectitude came all the way off the pillars.

I'VE NEVER HEARD of the Mendocino County Bar Association doing anything at all in the public interest, and I’m disinclined to their claim that they’re available to assist debtors. Like most Mendo people who pay attention to the legal “community,” I’ve always assumed the Mendo Bar Association’s only group function was its annual drunk at Emandal. (Their majesties used to get loaded out at Lake Mendocino, but when too many suckers, er, citizens, began noticing the less than magisterial hijinks of yer honors and yer honorable gentlemen, the show moved to the relative seclusion of Emandal east of Willits where the robes and the robbers could sleep over.

I UNDERSTAND these events are pretty sedate anymore, what with the participants being armed with photo phones and a professional predisposition to treachery. (The point, man! Will you please get to the point of this gratuitous assault on the fine men and women of the Mendocino County Bar Association!)

HERE WE GO. All this election cash used to be called influence peddling, cronyism, or good old fashioned moral turpitude, but now it’s a way of life, leaving us Courthouse outsiders with no recourse and completely outside in the cold, our red runny noses pushed wistfully to the glass.

SO, JUDGE MOORMAN'S contributors included the most expensive defense attorney in Sonoma County, Chris Andrian, who tossed in what he undoubtedly expects will reward him at least triple the $1,450 he sent Judge Ann; Mendo County Deputy County Counsel Terry Gross kicked in $125; John Ruprecht, part-time Fort Bragg City attorney and tree rustling facilitator, was good for $300; Coast defense attorney Mark Kalina $100; former judge James King of Willits $250; James Larson of Fort Bragg $100; Barry Vogel of Ukiah $100; G. Scott Gaustad of Ukiah $125; Tom Mason of Ukiah $100; Linda McNeil of Willits $200; Tim Morrison of Ukiah $100; Chris Neary of Willits $500; Assistant DA Liz Norman of Willits $100; Robert C. Petersen of Fort Bragg $100; David Rapport, Ukiah City Attorney $125; David Riemenschneider of Ukiah $100; Pano Stephens of Ukiah $200; Deputy DA Tim Stoen of Mendocino $100; Kitty Elliott of Redwood Valley $100; Legal Services of Northern California’s Lisa L. Hillegas of Ukiah $100; twice busted former dope impresario and neo-attorney Don, now ‘Donald’ Lipmanson of Ukiah $100; Myron Sawicki & Henwood Attys at Law of Ukiah $100; and wife beater Philip Vannucci of Ukiah $100, the guy who hired self-identified feminist Moorman to reduce his felony domestic battery of his wife to a misdemeanor. And Ukiah DEA Supervisor Bob ‘Nish’ Nishiyama was good for $250.

SO, FELLOW DUPES, we've got everyone from prominent libs like Barry Vogel and Don Lipmanson to the chief of the DEA's Mendo outpost, Agent Nishiyama, forking over to Judge Moorman. Nishiyama busts them, Lipmanson and Co. haul the hapless shlubs before the judge, and everyone gets paid. Shall the circle be unbroken! Is this the harmonic convergence the hippies are always going on about?

IN THE PAST, it was common for lawyers to join what they called the “$99 Club,” meaning that they donated $99 to all candidates for judge or DA so that they could 1. Cover their cringing, opportunistic asses no matter who won, and 2. Stay below the $100 reporting threshold so no one knew who they were donating to. In the race between Callahan and Moorman, however, many lawyers decided that there was no need to join the $99 Club, just give it all openly to Moorman who was heavily favored to win.

AND MOORMAN DID WIN, and here she is all these years later presiding — when she isn't on vacation — over a simple case, really, brought by her Courthouse buddy, District Attorney Eyster who, out of personal pique that a County Auditor dared challenge his parties at public expense, brought a conjured felony charge against Ms. Cubbison, easily persuading our five spine-free supervisors to fire her at the request of Eyster, our fearless top law enforcement officer. Eyster had her arrested and dragged her into court on a see-through bogus charge suggesting that the Auditor is a thief, or a thief-abettor. No due process for you, my dear. And certainly no presumption of innocence.

A LOT of really, really bad stuff goes down behind Mendo's Green Curtain that's routinely sanctioned by our Superior Court, stuff that would get called out any other place. In this case, the bad stuff is right out front.

PREDICTION: When the Love Boat finally sails through the Golden Gate, and the judge and the witness, County CEO Darcy “I'm Here To Serve” Antle, who also just had to take a winter holiday, disembark tanned and refreshed, Ms. Cubbison's and Ms. Kennedy's preliminary hearing will resume, at the end of which, assuming it does end some day, Judge Moorman will find that there's sufficient “evidence” to proceed to trial, and this ugly farce will stumble on. And on.

JEEZ, MR. EDITOR, isn't this diatribe a little too righteous? Just a little over the top, even for you? Yes, I'll stipulate to that, as they say in the halls of justice where the justice is confined to the halls and you can count on getting what you pay for, and I'll also stipulate to the obvious reality of outback justice where professional collegiality is inevitable, understandable, even necessary, but incest?

WHEN the DA brings a bogus felony case out of personal malice for his target, and the judge drags the prelim out over months and months and takes off for the goddam Bahamas or some equivalently ghastly venue without taking care of business (as the two defendants twist and twist in the winter winds, their right to a speedy trial ignored) we have every right to ask WTF?

SCORE

(My unpublished ICO letter. A different take on the recent city council meeting than Mr. Wasserman, whose letter defending Mr. Hansen and congratulating reporter Cuesta was published instead? Not enough space for differing views, I guess.)

Editor:

It seems that reporter Anthony Cuesta and I were at two very different Point Arena City Councils on January 28. I was in the physical location of the meeting, and Cuesta was, where? On line or on Zoom, I guess, because his headline about SCORE's rejection on the consent calendar was barely mentioned in passing during the 2 hour plus meeting.

Two items were actually important. First, Peggy Ducey's excellent powerpoint presentation thoroughly explaining how the city has come from $40K in the bank a year ago to $400+K today. How could that be overlooked? And secondly, a series of important public comments during the agenda item about enforcing current health and safety ordinances in the city.

Maybe your reporter was confused by the dysfunctional media process with three platforms running - in person, on Zoom, and simultaneous text/chat. It's like two sources talking at the same time. How crazy is that?

I realize that SCORE seems to be flypaper for media attention, but please balance your coverage with at least one foot in the real world.

Carol Wilder

Point Arena

JOB OPPORTUNITIES AT MENDOCINO MUSIC FESTIVAL

Join the merry band of music lovers at the Mendocino Music Festival office!

We're looking for kind and enthusiastic team players to join us for the 2025 Festival season. Office positions are available now; see dates, rates, hours, and apply: https://mendocinomusic.org/employment-opportunities/

Questions: jobs@mendocinomusic.org, (707) 937-2044

ILLEGAL POT BIZ TAKING MENDO DOWN WITH IT

Most of us can agree that as the cannabis cultivation economy has devolved in the last decade or so our community, our environment, and our land base have all been negatively affected. Many of us have participated in numerous discussions regarding the present situation and we all want some resolution and a positive outcome.

Findings:

1) Illegal, non-permitted cannabis cultivation sites are in plain view all over Round Valley and in the near hills. Permitted cannabis cultivation has any number of costs, requirements and inspections associated with the legal permitting process. Illegal, non-permitted grows do not have similar production expenses and are operating at an unfair advantage. Enforcement of the existing regulations are consistently exercised on the permitted grows, while the illegal grows are often disregarded by the authorities with jurisdiction.

2) There are many seemingly abandoned former grow sites all over the valley. These abandoned sites have fallen down fences, broken down vehicles, household garbage, old plastic hoop houses, derelict house trailers, and left over equipment from cultivation and processing.

Both of the above findings cannot be realistically denied and most of us would want to have these two related issues abated.

Proposal:

1) Determine if there are existing ordinances, policies and procedures at the county and/or state level which address the impacts of these findings and have in place an abatement program.

2) If yes, start initiating the procedure to require the land owner of record of a site not in compliance with these ordinances and policies to within a reasonable time frame cease and desist.

3) If existing ordinances, policies and procedures do not presently exist at the county and/or state level we must encourage/demand that the legal framework be established to allow for abatement of the illegal grows and derelict properties.

4) Put in place the method, the equipment, the personnel, the contractors, and the staff to begin a comprehensive program to physically remove all the debris from properties which are not in compliance with the ordinances intending to regulate cannabis cultivation and responsible property management.

5) Bill the property for the entire expense to abate the hazards and clean up the property

6) If within a reasonable time frame the county is not compensated begin the legal process to lien the title, with the intent to deprive the scofflaw owner any remaining rights to the property.

7) Put the property up for auction, with the lowest acceptable bid the cumulative and entire cost of cleanup.

Considerations:

This proposal will only begin to solve some of the related illegal cannabis cultivation problems on properties within the county/state jurisdiction. Tribal properties would not be affected.

—Lew Chichester, February 7, 2025

Covelo

OVERDRAFTING MENDOCINO

AVA,

This is part of the appeal to the coastal commission on this groundwater act and a great increase in the volume of the school districts water project. The full appeal is available Through county planning. Had several years where my shallow hand dug well has been compromised and buying water from private businesses. Thanks for your consideration and we’re just trying to get the situation out to the public

Rich Jung

Mendocino

Why Are Your Neighbors Appealing The Planning Commission Decision To Permit The Extraction Of 600,000 Gallons Of Groundwater From A Critically Over-Drafted Groundwater Basin?

The appeal is submitted to the California Coastal Commission to prevent the Mendocino Unified School District from expanding its present water system five-fold, extracting 600,000 gallons of groundwater from County designated “Critical Groundwater Area” and within the State designated “Critically Overdrafted Basin” without adequate groundwater testing.

The best way to explain why ten protestants have appealed the school district’s project is to invoke the “tragedy of the commons.” The proposed 9-well well-field and two four-story tall holding tanks threaten to reenact what has happened so often in the past to free and open exploitation of common, communally held resources. In England, three or four hundred years ago when every village had a common grazing ground, the most powerful people – those with more cattle – over-grazed the commons and permanently ruined them for everyone else. The appeal is an attempt to prevent that from happening in Mendocino.

All well owners in this aquifer, all water users in this community, share in the very scarce groundwater.

Because we want that natural resource preserved, not ruined, everyone’s right of use must be tempered by reasonable sharing. For over a century, California common law has repeatedly established in court cases a reasonable way to protect groundwater. If you own land, you can use as much groundwater as you need to enjoy the fruits of that land, but unless there is extra water underground, you cannot use the extracted water off your property for other purposes. Water stays with the property in times of scarcity.

Think of what that means in Mendocino, where wells go dry regularly. Do we have extra, surplus water in the ground? We think it is the county’s duty to require the school district to show that there is extra water, but neither the county and nor the school district has done that in spite of the seven years spent on planning, project revisions, and permitting.

Following common law, both the state and the county have passed regulations and codes to protect our groundwater, especially on the coast, to guard against a tragedy of the commons. Normally, CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act), the Coastal Act, the Coastal Element of the county Plan, county development codes, and even Mendocino City Community Service District ordinances require any development which depends on groundwater to establish a test well and use the test well to demonstrate the sufficiency of water (that the planned project will not debase the area’s groundwater levels) and to produce a hydrological study showing the impacts of the project on the aquifer. Only after this “proof of water” process can the project be considered as a whole for permitting.

However, the County has, for a second time, approved the school district’s project without prior demonstration of surplus water in the ground. In addition, it has approved a well as a production well without any proof of water. The County has given up the whole idea of proof of water and with it protecting our common right to water.

As a result, the project threatens all neighborhood wells because the 9 wells are located on about 6 acres of land in the middle of a residential area where groundwater is so critical that lot sizes allow one residential well every 5 acres. It threatens all wells downstream, west of the K-8 school, because the well-field may intercept groundwater flowing to the wells in the village west of Highway 1. It threatens the designated environmentally sensitive habitat area wetlands which form the headwaters of Slaughterhouse Gulch and Creek since the wells are all inside the normal 100 feet buffer that supposedly protects the wetlands. And, because it impacts the Slaughterhouse watershed, it threatens the water source for Hills Ranch.

The project simply makes no sense. The school district says that it will draw water from the aquifer during drought to give to well owners whose wells have gone dry because that same aquifer has gone dry. We would like to see some evidence, even a reasonable argument, that this is not magical thinking.

Along with lack of adequate testing, the appeal states other serious concerns. The school district has not demonstrated a need for the number of wells or the size of the storage facilities; it violates the mandatory height limits for structures in a designated highly scenic area next to a historic hiking trail; it has not established criteria and costs for distributing drought relief water (to those from whom it has taken the water?); it has repeatedly violated public participation and notification laws; it relies on demonstrably false declarations and claims; it refuses to acknowledge cumulative impacts from its many related projects. As in many classic cases of water grabs, the project avoided the required process of public, open scrutiny provided in the California Brown Act.

Hence, the appellants asked the Coastal Commission to consider the substance of the Appeal and either to send the matter back to the County with a mandate to comply with the state Constitution as well as with local and state laws or to hear and to judge itself the school district’s application.

In its closing statement, the appellants wrote:

Groundwater availability is crucial if not paramount to the balance which the Coastal Act tries to maintain between preservation and development. Lack of water has stymied development and population growth, but it has also protected the area’s open spaces and large parcels as well as the forests and streams that characterize the area’s landscape. More groundwater dependent development will result in a harmful imbalance. Thus, serious and competent scrutiny of all water projects is necessary for preserving the life we know and enjoy.

This is especially true today under the threat of global warming, uncertain and altered climatic conditions, and the pressure of migration to the Coast. Ill conceived water projects are, possibly, the single greatest threat to the Coastal balance. The violation of the requirement for proof of water may seem like a small matter, but its consequences can substantially impact both humans (the overlying water rights holders of the whole Mendocino community) and the natural environment (the wetlands and the scenic beauties)--as well as ultimately injuring the tourist industry upon which so much of our local economy depends.

Decisions about water projects affect not just local lives but the public at large. We appeal to the Coastal Commission to ensure that the public will of Californians, expressed in the referendum that created the Coastal Act, is not thwarted by misconstruction of the law, misinformation, or nonfeasance and inadequate discussion.

For a full list of allegations, please read the appeal itself. You can request a copy of the appeal (Appeal of UM_2024-0008) from the staff of the North Coast office of the California Coastal Commission: NorthCoast@coastal.ca.gov.

Claudia Boudreau. Mary Falkenrath, Marc Laventurier, Rich Jung, Maggie O’Rourke, Norman de Vall, Monica Steinisch, Todd Walton, Max Yeh, Appellants.

BOOKMOBILE COMMUNITY MEETINGS

Library Seeks Public Input for New Bookmobile

Mendocino County has over 3500 square miles of land, much of it traveled by Mendocino County Library’s Bookmobile. The typical lifespan of a bookmobile is approximately 12 years, and the Library’s seasoned branch-on-wheels has already celebrated its 12th birthday. Due to the wear and tear of serving our rural county – it covers over 300 miles each week – the Library’s Bookmobile needs to be replaced in the next year.

To ensure the new bookmobile best meets the needs of its users, the Library is conducting a survey and hosting public meetings to gather feedback from the community. The final decision on the features and options for the new Bookmobile will be based on public input, utility, safety, and budget considerations.

Below is a sample of the questions for patrons to consider:

How important is a place to sit on the bookmobile to you?

Would you like the bookmobile to have a browsable seed library?

Would you like to have a computer station onboard the bookmobile?

Surveys are available on the Bookmobile and online at www.surveymonkey.com/r/book_mobile. Meetings will take place at the Willits Branch Library on Friday, March 7 from 1:00 – 2:00 p.m., and at the Coast Community Branch library on Friday, March 14 from 1:00 – 2:00 p.m. If you are not able to attend the meetings in person, there will be an online option available.

Mendocino County Library looks forward to your participation in this important community event! For more information or for the online meeting link, please visit www.mendolibrary.org or contact Librarian Nayo Sicard at 707-234-2861 or sicardn@mendocinocounty.gov.

SOCIAL SECURITY & CUTS

Editor,

I had need to call Social Security recently for something that couldn't be handled online. The recording said the wait time would be over two hours, and offered to call back when my place in line was reached, noting that it could be late at night(!). FIVE hours later, they called back, by which time I'd reached our local Ukiah office and had the problem solved.

This morning I read that cuts are in the offing at Social Security which should make it even more efficient.

My unsolicited advice is that if you have ANY business with the federal government, do it now, or prepare to pretend you're living in the old USSR.

(Side story: An elementary-school friend of mine got a job working at a Jewish resettlement nonprofit in Manhattan. A major problem for them was office space, because the people in line for services wouldn't leave -- they didn't believe it when told to come back next week for the keys to your apartment (or similar).)

Jean Arnold

Fort Bragg

REMEMBER THESE? (Does former Sheriff Allman remember them?)

MCOG TO RTP FOR MBLOB'S STD’S

MCOG Is Updating Regional Transportation & Active Transportation Plan

The Mendocino Council of Governments (MCOG) is updating the Mendocino County Regional Transportation Plan and Active Transportation Plan (RTP/ATP) and would like to hear from members of the community about transportation needs, deficiencies, and mobility barriers/challenges.

The RTP/ATP is a long-range planning document covering a 20-year time span, which includes short- and long-range transportation projects across all modes of transportation, including motorized, non-motorized, and public transit. It promotes a safe and efficient transportation system, and establishes regional goals that support mobility, economic, and health aims of the region.

Please visit MCOG’s website to access the interactive mapping tool to identify transportation needs or suggest improvements.

https://www.mendocinocog.org/2026-regional-transportation-active-transportation-plan

For more information, call the MCOG office at 707-234-3434 or consult the agency's website at www.mendocinocog.org.

FIRST FRIDAYS ARE BACK at Pacific Textile Arts! 4-6pm. New group forming.

Gallery open til 7 this month.

Join us for the Friday Night Stitching Society, a cozy open studio held first Fridays from 4:00 - 6:00 pm. Whether you're diving into your latest project or excited to try out some new stitching techniques, this is the perfect place to stitch, chat, and get inspired! This space is all about creativity, community, and having fun with the process.

Enjoy the opening night of our latest gallery exhibit between 4-7pm. Refreshments will be served.

THIRD ANNUAL ESSAY CONTEST & FIRST EVER VIDEO CONTEST for High School Students

Change Our Name, a 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit registered in the state of California is sponsoring their Third Annual Essay Contest and First Ever Video Contest for Fort Bragg High School and Noyo High School students.

Each of the two distinct contests offers a $2,000 First Prize and $1,000 Second Prize and both ask students to respond to the prompt: Resolved- “The Name of Fort Bragg Should be Changed” or “The Name of Fort Bragg Should Not be Changed.”

Submissions for the contests will be received February 1 through 5 p.m. March 31. They will be judged in April and prizes awarded in May.

While the Board of Change Our Name supports changing the name of Fort Bragg, a name which currently memorializes a genocidal fort and a Confederate General and slave master, they have enlisted three judges for each contest who are respected in their fields (either writers or video critics) and who are unaffiliated with Change Our Name.

The intent of the contest is to get students thinking about and researching their local name and its history. Submissions will be graded on criteria of creativity, research, and genre skills and not on the argument they choose to pursue.

Complete contest rules can be found at: https://www.changeournamefortbragg.com/hs-contest

and a list of some important research tools can be found at: https://www.changeournamefortbragg.com/books

These contests are solely projects of Change Our Name Fort Bragg, and are neither sponsored by nor affiliated with the Fort Bragg Unified School District nor with Fort Bragg High School or Noyo High School .

Questions should be directed to Change Our Name at: changeournamefortbragg@gmail.com

Presentation of Juan Dominguez at Change Our Name Teach-in January 22, 2025 [edited]

Moderator: Juan Dominguez, is from the Manchester Point Arena Reservation, and he's dedicated to amplifying voices of indigenous people here on Turtle Island. He hosts a podcast that I think you might find very interesting. It's called Burn the Wagon.

Juan Dominguez: Thank you everyone for creating this space, because creating safe space for us to have discussions and also to disagree and go home and still be in the same community is very important. And I know that this topic is kind of a hard topic for some people, but also living with what happened to people in this area lives in me today. And that's not easy to live with.

So I see the traumas that that Fort Bragg has caused for my community. Just because I'm from Point Arena doesn't mean I wasn't affected by that, I am. But first, I wanna start with a prayer I usually start my podcast with.

I just wanna send love to anybody out there suffering from domestic violence issues. I wanna send love to anybody out there suffering from mental health issues. I wanna send love to our unhoused community. I wanna send love to all of you for showing up today because it's not easy to show up.

Sometimes it's hard to get out of bed. So I wanna send love to you for that. I wanna send love to all of our relatives down south who are suffering from the LA fires. I wanna send love to anybody that's suffering from this new change of power. There's gonna be a lot of shifts, but I think with community that we've created and the community that we wanna create, I think we can handle it.

We can continue to go forward with what we're doing. And, I wanna send love to our precious mother earth. We come to you from Pomo territory. And lastly, I wanna send love to any of our relatives out in Sudan, the Congo, and Palestine that are suffering from the genocide that my people also suffered from. So I wanna start off with letting you guys know what Burn the Wagon means: we want to burn the wagons that are symbols for patriarchy, capitalism, and colonialism.

Having these conversations is verbally burning those things, those wagons, to the ground. I don't wanna incite any actual violence. I want us to start with our work because we have been silenced for a really long time. For many, many years. I think this Fort Bragg flyer about the early days of Fort Bragg says that natives were here for 10,000 years before Fort Bragg was even formed, before even anybody ever came here. And on top of that, Fort Bragg lasted for just seven years.

So think about that. 10,000 years compared to seven years. We had to have that history erased and the tribes in this area were taken away. I don't know if you guys know this history, but the the tribes who were in this area were taken to Round Valley. And I don't know if you guys ever drove yo Round Valley. It's a pretty far drive.

And this is before roads. This is before cars. This is when they actually had wagons. And my people were trying to burn them down, literally.

And sometimes people get mad at that Burn the Wagon logo and say, don't you think you're gonna be offending somebody? Or some white people come up to me and say, “I don't like that logo because my ancestors would have been in that wagon.” Their feelings are hurt at the moment. And like I said earlier, your feelings are hurting. Right? But my feelings in my soul, my DNA, everything inside me hurts from what happened to me from those wagons.

So it's difficult, and these things that I'm telling you might be difficult to hear, and it might be uncomfortable. But also, for me learning these things and unlearning a lot of things from colonization has been very uncomfortable. I've had to get in a lot of uncomfortable situations. I've been taught a lot of toxic masculine things that I wanna get rid of in my life. And coming to have the conversations about those things has been very uncomfortable, and sometimes don't wanna do it.

And I got up today because I work with youth teaching social emotional learning, and it was a rough day. It was really hard. The kids really will bring you back. And being in those spaces where they're very innocent, they don't know anything. I mean, they know things, but, you know, they're pure.

And in my tribe when we're really wanting prayers we bring in the children and let them dance and let them do their things because they haven't been pressured with all these societal things that they need to do or body issues or feminine issues or masculine issues or whatever it may be. They're not having to deal with that yet. They're very pure in their thoughts and their prayers, and they just live and they're innocent. So to be working with these youth, it's very important for me and to be teaching the social emotional learning [for more information on Social Emotional Learning see: https://www.cfchildren.org/what-is-social-emotional-learning/] is another thing that's very important because think about it: my generation wasn't taught emotions.

I know a lot of my friends from when I was young went to prison. A lot of my friends are even dead, are heavy into drug addiction. And I think if we were more in touch with our emotions in a moment when we're feeling overwhelmed by whatever we're going through, I think we would be able to kinda tap in and say (we call it a meta moment, taking a meta moment, a moment within a moment, you know), and then saying, what would my best self do? Really, what would my best self do in this moment of anger, of whatever it may be. So, yeah, I think, being in these spaces is beautiful. And I'm kinda on the way up, and I was just kinda just like, where am I gonna go with it?

But I think I'm just kinda feeling it out and kind of feeling where you guys are taking me. Because I think energy is big, and there's a lot of good energy in this room. I can feel it. You know, I think I hope that everyone came with good intent to learn and to walk away with new knowledge. And if even one of you guys asked me questions and I don't know it, I wanna do my best to go out and learn what that was that you asked me.

And I wanna be able to come to Phil and say, hey,”here’s that question that that person asked me. If they left you their email, could you send it to him or have a conversation? Because I'm still learning.”

I'm still learning my language. I'm still learning songs for my ceremonies. I'm still learning a lot. And that was taken away by things like Fort Bragg, taken away by things like Fort Ross, and that was the Russians.

And the weird thing about it is Braxton Bragg. Does anybody really know who Braxton Bragg was? In the weeks before coming up here, I was like, I'm gonna learn about him. And he lost a lot of battles. He was in the Confederate Army. But, usually when they name places after people, they're winners.

And he was in the Confederate Army fighting for slavery.

It's weird also because he never even came here. I don't think he ever stepped foot in California. Right?

Right. So why name a place after a person that never came here? And before the Fort was only here for seven or so years. So to me, that's not a significant enough time to name something after.

There's pride, right, in in the military. But with the pride in the military, the soldiers came here to enforce things on the native people when they were just living their lives. So like I said, 10,000 years just living their lives in peace, eating fruits or vegetables or whatever, weaving their baskets, going fishing, going hunting living peacefully. And that's what I hope for all of us with this burning down the wagon that’s capitalism, patriarchy, and colonialism.

I think if we verbally burn those things to the ground and start to change things within our governmental systems, I really think all of us, no matter where you come from, if you're white, black, whatever it may be, I truly believe we're gonna live better lives without a capitalistic society, without taking everything from the earth. And, I mean, the earth is telling us right now, think about it: in Santa Cruz, there was a tornado. I think, one of the lithium mines just caught on fire. The fires in LA are the earth telling us that we need to look at certain things we're not focused on. Right?

A lot of these things are focused on money. So I believe if we get back to native life ways of taking care of the earth, I'm hoping that these fires will stop happening. And if I'm wrong, then I'm wrong. But I think indigenous history has shown that that's not wrong. So, yeah, I think if we kinda get back to those life ways, we can all live better lives and all live within a society that doesn't have $12 eggs or whatever it may be.

I know certain people said they were gonna have those prices down the 1st day in office. Oh, they did. Yeah. But we have seen that that's a lie.

And I think a lot of our country was hoping those prices coming down when they were ignoring so many racist, so many transphobic, so many homophobic things that were just coming from the Right and still are. I mean, we all saw it. I mean, I'm pretty sure we all have Facebook. We all have the media. We all have seen gestures that have been thrown out there. And it's like, why is this okay?

And that's the capitalistic society we're living in. Look at the inauguration. The spaces that are usually saved for people in government. Right? Now it's all a bunch of billionaires sitting there.

I think we have to get back to remembering that this country has always been a business. And it started by enslaving black people from Africa, enslaving indigenous people from areas like this. And it just always has has been a business, and it's always been about money. So I don't know how we're gonna do it, but I wanna try my best to at least get my community to come out and say, let's get back to a trade and barter system.

Try our best because I know it's hard in this capitalistic society. I have to live in it. I use cell phones, and I use all these new age things. If I'm gonna be honest. I love showers. I love living indoors. I love all these things. Right? So I benefit from all these things.

I'm gonna admit that. But also wanna talk about what these things have brought us to. It's brought us to a place where 45% to 54% of our country is at a 6th grade reading level. I might have to check those numbers. But I'm pretty sure it's between those numbers.

So our money is going to places like policing and military. Right? It's not going to educate people because we understand that educating people creates communities like this. And communities like this, they usually don't want more military spending.

But that's kind of what I'm about and what I stand for and what I wanna do. I'm a traditional dancer. The main thing in my life is my dancing and my sobriety because dancing for me is like AA. And in those moments you put on regalia. You're supposed to be praying not only yourself, but others around you, and you're also taking in prayers from people that are watching you.

So, that is very important to me is getting not only myself in those spaces, but kids that wanna get in those spaces and adults that have never been connected that also wanna get connected. Because for a lot of people our traditions were taken from them. I grew up in a Christian household, and it was forced on me. And I think it's okay for people to practice their religions and whatever it may be. But if you're forcing something on somebody, I think that's where it doesn't get fun.

It didn't get fun for me when it was pushed on me. But once I went to a traditional ceremony, my eyes just lit up. Everything inside me was just happy being in that. And my older cousin, he was getting regalia on me and doing everything for me to look nice and have the best necklaces. And in that moment, I knew I'm never going back to Christianity ever in my life.

Because in that moment I felt my ancestors. I just felt that. And I felt that in that moment, and I was never ever going back. I fell off, and I went towards drugs and alcohol, started partying, and went down that road like a lot of my community does.

And I wanna do my best to encourage kids to stay out of those spaces and play basketball. Like, I was at basketball practice today talking about coming up here. A lot of the kids are just asking me, like, what am I gonna say? Like, do I get nervous or whatever it may be? Like, other questions and, like, hell, yeah, I get nervous.

I'm like, I've done this so many times and my palms are still sweaty, armpits sweaty. No matter how many times I do it, I'm nervous. And I think that means I'm here doing the right thing. And no matter how nervous I am, no matter how much anxiety you have about it and because, like, I know Fort Bragg.

I know Fort Bragg Forever people are pretty proud here, like the Proud Boys and whatever it may be. So I was thinking about that too. It's like, am I gonna have to deal with that? Like, what situation am I gonna deal with? So just different things going through my head.

But I get here and started talking and having conversations with people and seeing people’s smiles and faces really brought a different energy out of me.

So just thank you guys for being here and being in a really safe space. And, yeah, just very happy to be here and very happy to be in community with you and very happy to be able to meet you. And if I ever come to Fort Bragg and if I see you, just come say ‘hi,’ because I wanna be able to create that connection between Fort Bragg and Point Arena.

There's a lot of, connections. There's a lot of similarities in what we're going through and what we have going on. I don't know about up here, but I know the fentanyl crisis down there is really bad. And I wanna do what I can. I can do my best, you know, without physical force putting these drug dealers off the ‘rez’ or out of the town because it's ruining our town.

It really is. And we're talking a lot of abandoned buildings. And and I come up to places like Fort Bragg and Mendocino. It's like, man, these places are popping. There's tourists. There's shops. People have jobs. People are eating good food. Like, how can I create that in my my town? How can I bring the spirit of ‘change the name of Fort Bragg’ to to my town?

How can I bring that change to Fort Ross? Because I don't think that's been a conversation yet. Right? Yeah. How can we work on getting that land back to the Kashia Pomo?

So this is just, like, really creating a lot of ideas in my head going forward and going home, and I'm just gonna be able to keep this for a long time. Because before in my life, I wasted my time in bars or parties or wherever it may be. And that didn't have the same energy as today. Like, the energy that everyone's being able to bring here and hopefully you're gonna be able to take home and give to people tomorrow is much better. And I'm gonna remember that for the rest of my life.

And all of our ancestors are tapped in right now no matter where you're from. And I understand, oh, some of this conversation might be difficult, but your ancestors push you to be here in this community in this moment and pushed you to come here and learn even if it is uncomfortable. They wanted you to be here. So remember that. They want you to be here in this space, and they want you to continue these words that I'm telling you or continue these conversations that you had with somebody else here in this room after I'm done talking.

They want you to push that to somebody tomorrow or somebody next week. If you're just feeling down, you remember this memory from today, and it gives you that spark again.

California Public Schools are now teaching Native History

https://calmatters.org/education/k-12-education/2024/10/native-american-history/

Knitting magazines are changing the names of stitches to no longer honor colonial violence of the past.

Join us for the monthly meeting of Change Our Name on Saturday, February 15 at 2 p.m.

Contact changeournamefortbragg@gmail.com if you’d like to attend. The Board of Directors meets at 3 p.m

CATCH OF THE DAY, Friday, February 7, 2025

TIMOTHY ELLIOTT, 52, Covelo. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

JESENNIA GARCIA, 31, Ukiah. Domestic battery.

RAYMOND BRIBALDO, 26, Willits. Controlled substance, ammo possession by prohibited person, probation revocation.

JOSHUA HITCHCOCK, 42, Nampa, Idaho/Ukiah. DUI-alcohol&drugs, suspended license for refusing chemical drunk test, no license, more than an ounce of pot, probation violation.

ROLANDO PEREZ, 20, Willits. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs.

ALEXANDER RAMIREZ, 32, Fort Bragg. County parole violation.

STEVEN RICH SR., 37, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, parole violation.

ERIC RODRIGUEZ, 21, Willits. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs, resisting.

GUILMAR SILVA-OLOZAGASTE, 36, Ukiah. DUI.

JOSHUA WINN, 40, Redwood Valley. Controlled substance, paraphernalia.

THINGS I CAN DO WITHOUT

by Paul Modic

Of all the things I can live without, dogs may be #1 on the list. (The only worst thing would probably be a roommate.) When you have a dog, how many times a day do you think about it? It’s probably all the time, endless, right now I’d have to stop thinking about this topic when the dog sauntered into the room. Then I’d have to reach over, pet it, and of course it would want more because my famous fingers are like a massage, and then it whimpers when I send it away, jeez. I’d have to build an office or turn a room into one, can’t a man just have a peaceful moment in bed with pen and paper and coffee? If you have nothing going on in your life, and don’t value your solitude, then maybe a dog is for you, otherwise…

I am doing without really tasty meals, restaurant or intuitive cook quality, though I’ve come a long way from the daze of can beans and cardboard Bien Padre corn tortillas. I look forward to my meals, though they are the same ones over and over in a loose rotation. The fact that it’s all health food, possibly even my half ounce of dark chocolate a day, makes a difference and I rarely eat out, as that brings added salt, fat, and sugar. As I eat my big salads three times a week I know I’m ingesting the best thing for health, it’s my broccoli medicine really.

I seem fine without a smartphone, I suppose there might be some time-wasting and fun apps I’m missing out on, like sleep-trackers which track and record your snoring, sleep apnea possibilities, and much more. Over the last year when I was addicted to checking the price of my stock investment, I can remember four or five times when I asked some rando on the street to check the price for me, when I was on the road or the power was out. (“Just put in ‘VGT price’,” I said.) Sometimes I have an exciting or creative idea which could require a smartphone, but I suspect that if I got one for that reason I’d soon lose interest in the project, as I usually do, and by then I’d be a thoroughly hooked sheep, like most of you.

I’m doing without alcohol though I used to enjoy a couple glasses of red wine with dinner, mmm, and actually I don’t have those nice big sexy (because of the wine) dinners anymore either, like pasta, chicken, and veggies. (After, I’d usually smoke a joint, turn on the lively music, and dance.)

I used to like making a margarita or two with fresh limes, or drinking a shot glass or three of good Patron tequila while listening to music, often with chocolate after dinner but silly me, I would never eat chocolate that late now with all my sleep rules. (I did have seven or eight glasses of wine last year, as well as six or seven beers, even though I say I’ve quit drinking.)

I can do without travel, taking hours or days loading my car with too much stuff, slapping in an exciting thriller on CD, and hitting the road. I used to have a place to go, up to Tacoma to visit my mother (and sister’s family) twice a year, usually just for two or three nights. Then when she needed more company or care, often for a few weeks when my sister was out of town I’d fill in. (I learned that even later when she was “put in a home,” she still needed someone around to advocate and visit her daily in that Medicare/ Social Security prison.)

It was good to get on the open highway with hundreds of miles to go, but I can’t be trusted to stay healthy: on the road I lose my routine and kitchen and I’ll eat anything, then feel lousy and self-loathing. Sometimes I kept it together up north when each day I drove twenty minutes to the waterfront and walked along Puget Sound for an hour. I went back and forth on the promenade, watching the ferries load and unload then float across the water to Vashon Island, while I was passing and greeting many other walkers. Yeah traveling I can do without, especially those monster runs down to Mexico, though I miss the mini-adventures sometimes mixed in.

I can live without watching the news, sports talk (now that the 49ers are out of the playoffs), and binging on Netflix. I’m down to watching less than half an hour a day of a couple comedy series which are starting to be tedious, but I’m too lazy or uninterested to look up new ones. I’ve even cut down on listening to standup comedy specials while prepping food in the nearby kitchen, instead just listening to folksy stories or thrilling murder mysteries. (It’s just easier to flick on the CD player rather than turning on the HDTV and clicking a few times to find the raunchy, politically incorrect comedian I’d been watching. (Update: I’m back listening to the stand up shows, I missed all that laughing!)

I’ve found I’m completely uninterested in anything serious on Netflix, including the fire show: you sit there and watch a crackling fire on the big screen, like a wall of golden yellow, which I did for a couple seconds, but hey, some day more? Yeah, I should probably get more comedies into the rotation, as I’m writing this I’m remembering how much I laughed, sometimes uproariously, when listening to the outrageous monologues and jokes from those talented performers.

(I still get plenty of news via the New York Times website, scrolling, choosing, and printing stories I’m interested in, then reading them later while reclining on the bed, thereby eliminating some screen and chair time.)

So what is it I don’t want to do without, even though technically I would still survive without them for a while?: Healthy food, walks in the park (add singing in the park, I’m up to twenty songs an hour now), reading good books, writing in the morning, strong coffee goddammit!, a good night’s sleep (an interesting nightly struggle/adventure the last couple years), talking to friends mainly on the phone, going uptown for errands, and listening to music all the time.

I’m living without doing all the necessary repairs and improvements to the house, (need a paint job and a new floor), which may come back to bite me in the ass, but for now I’m keeping the complications down to the basics.

To try to satisfy the need for attention, I’ve started a new routine of editing at least one essay in the early afternoon, typing up another in the late afternoon, and posting them for a few eyes to see on facebook pages and a few websites. There are rarely any or many responses, although a couple times last year I hit the right tone and got 100, and then 200 reactions and comments and both of those were about marijuana, still a popular topic around here.

FROM A FOLDER called “Lefty Groups,” containing leaflets from the 1970s.

This is how Lyndon LaRouche hit the scene – as some kind of lefty. The USLP platform is 54 pages, lithographed. I never read it. Giving it a glance just now, it looks like a left equivalent of Project 2025 — very detailed plans for running things when they take power. Page 54 is the text of “The Fertilizer Research and Development Act.”

(Fred Gardner)

ELIMINATING USAID

Editor:

My father was city manager in Richmond, Los Altos, Fontana and Lake Elsinore. In 1967, he joined the U.S. Agency for International Development. He learned Vietnamese and worked in Vietnam for seven years, instructing people on how to organize roads, create sewage plants and other projects. He disseminated information on how to store, sanitize and use water efficiently. How is that evil?

He also worked in Indonesia, Upper Volta (Burkina Faso) and Mauritania. To be nearby, we lived in the Philippines, Taiwan, Sumatra (Indonesia), Singapore, Upper Volta and Morocco. We gained understanding of ethnic and cultural differences, learned foreign languages and ate exotic food. I’m grateful for that opportunity.

My heart breaks for career foreign service officers and their families who have dedicated themselves to helping others live better lives. Now, they have been uprooted and told to go back to the U.S. Elon Musk has said they are evil. Not only the families of the U.S. foreign service but all the people in these countries have lost a connection to a better life.

Musk has all the money in the world. Why isn’t he doing something to make the world a better place? Selfishness. There is no honor in not helping others.

Megan Hope

Guerneville

BILL KIMBERLIN

City of Benicia, the first state capital of California with the Carquinez Strait Bridge in the far background. Cool town these days with lots of walkable space and many shops and good restaurants, especially for brunch on a sunny day.

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

Soft deadline to email your writing for tonight's (Friday night's) MOTA show is 6pm or so. Or if that's too soon, send it later or any time during the week and I'll read it on the radio next time. That's what I'm here for.

Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio is every Friday, 9pm to 5am PST on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg and KNYO.org. The first three hours of the show, meaning till midnight, are simulcast on KAKX 89.3fm Mendocino.

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

Rerun: German hillbilly acoustic techno. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/H8qrbwfhtn4

German men compete at making sexy deer noises. https://boingboing.net/2025/02/03/german-hunters-at-the-national-deer-calling-championship.html

And rerun: Jonathan Richman - I Was Dancing in the Lesbian Bar, uh-hmm, uh-hmm. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_y-6FZvbxmY

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

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

I would like to see all advertising for drug companies stopped. If you can't advertise cigarettes on TV, why should we be subjected to constant, non-stop advertising of drugs whose names we can't pronounce to treat diseases that we've never heard of before? Why can't we go back to a time when we trusted our doctors to tell us what our afflictions are and prescribe what they know is best for us?

UC DAVIS HOPES TO SEE FEDERAL FUNDING CONTINUED FOR DELTA SMELT CAPTIVE BREEDING PROGRAM

by Dan Bacher

The disinformation about the Delta Smelt spouted out by President Trump and his Big Ag allies has deluged social media and both mainstream and “alternative media” in recent weeks.

As an independent journalist who has covered the Delta Smelt and the California water wars for the past three decades, I was intrigued when I saw a piece in San Francisco Chronicle about the federal funding for the Delta smelt being cut.

“After President Donald Trump’s recent criticism of the delta smelt — a fish he has tied to the lack of water for fighting the Los Angeles fires — his administration is planning to cut funding for a captive breeding program intended to ensure survival of the endangered fish,” reporter Kurtis Alexander wrote.

Concerned about the reported slashing of the captive breeding program funding by the Bureau of Reclamation, I contacted UC Davis spokesperson Bill Kisliuk, who sent me his statement about the current status of the captive breeding program, indicating that they were hoping to get funding for the program extended past Feb. 28…

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/2/6/2302001/-U-C-Davis-hopes-to-see-federal-funding-continued-for-Delta-Smelt-captive-breeding-program

“HAPPY WIVES make for happy football players.”

Legendary Packers Head Coach Vince Lombardi bought mink stoles for each of the players’ wives or girlfriends after the Packers’ 1961 NFL Championship victory.

SHARE OF IMPORTS INTO US BY COUNTRY…

Mexico: $480 billion

China: $448 billion

Canada: $429 billion

Germany: $163 billion

Japan: $151 billion

South Korea: $120 billion

Vietnam: $119 billion

India: $87.3 billion

Ireland: $82.7 billion

Italy: $75.2 billion

UK: $64.8 billion

France: $59 billion

Thailand: $56.6 billion

Switzerland: $52.8 billion

ED NOTE: The following may be AI, but it's also kinda funny so here it is:

“I don’t understand where y’all get this stuff…” Travis Kelce said, shaking his head when asked about the conspiracy theory that every Chiefs game is rigged by the refs.

“I mean, rigged? Really? WTF does that even mean, rigged.” He grinned, eyes twinkling.

He pointed at his microphone. “Is this rigged?”

He pointed at his hat. “Is this rigged?”

He tugged at the chain around his neck. “What about this? Help me understand.”

A reporter cleared their throat. “Rigged, Travis… It means ‘to manage or conduct something so as to produce a result or situation that is advantageous to a particular person’.”

“Oh. Fuck,” Kelce murmured, momentarily lost in thought.

Then he shrugged. “Well, I mean… I don’t know if this counts, but before every game, after draining the life force out of a baby lamb, Taylor has this little routine…”

He said it so casually that the room fell silent.

“She uses the lamb’s life force to summon dark forces from beyond.” He gestured vaguely.

“You know, demons from the four points of hell. The ones still loyal to her after her breakup with Azazel, Betrayer of the First Flame. Pretty chill dudes, honestly. They surround her in a star formation, and then… boom… horns extend from her head, flames engulf our penthouse or, like, her private jet, depending on where we are.”

Kelce leaned back, stretching, almost looking bored.

“Then, Taylor morphs into a lizard like creature and crawls toward me. Her eyes roll back, and she mutters ‘Z’kalth n’vurash mal’koth, sha drenthul varr!’ while gripping my head and breathing fire into my mouth. Then I black out. When I wake up, the Chiefs have won.”

He let the words sit for a few moments before looking around with complete confidence.

“Does that sound rigged to you?”

HALF THE PEOPLE in the world think that the metaphors of their religious traditions, for example, are facts. And the other half contends that they are not facts at all. As a result we have people who consider themselves believers because they accept metaphors as facts, and we have others who classify themselves as atheists because they think religious metaphors are lies.

― Joseph Campbell, Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor

HOW IT WORKED

by James Kunstler

They never prepared for algorithms that could map everything. For personnel pre-positioned everywhere. For a president who counts every week like it's his last.” — VP JD Vance

If you wondered since 2016 how come the blob and the Democratic Party were aligned so exquisitely in their operations to destroy populism (personified by Mr. Trump) and to permanently entrench single party power in America for all time to come, it’s because an endless font of taxpayer money was streamed into countless non-governmental orgs creating a shadow civil service of Democratic Party activists that melded seamlessly with the big policy-making agencies.

The money was laundered through manifold layers of these orgs and their sub-orgs to pay for an ongoing “color revolution” in the USA — lawfare, election fraud, propaganda, censorship, career cancellation, medical fuckery, open borders, and other totalitarian ploys — while enriching political players at all those manifold layers from multi-millionaire congressmen and senators to thousands of NGO officials making six-figure salaries to street hustlers like Patrisse Cullors of Black Lives Matter and “anti-racism” racist Ibram X. Kendi and his $50-million Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University (recently axed) — and, of course, ultimately the former Potemkin president “Joe Biden” and his family.

It was all this money that drove eight years of sponsored insanity. Mainly, it kept the hands of the Democratic Party firmly on the levers of power so that nothing could be done about the insults and injuries they were inflicting on our country. So, is it a mystery now that nobody was prosecuted for burning the cities in 2020, or for magically creating millions of extra “Joe Biden” votes out of nowhere that year, or setting up the kickback machine from Ukraine to Congress, or forcing millions to get a janky vaccine?

Pam Bondi is going to be a busy girl. The DOGE has uncovered a government racketeering operation of which the USAID scandal is but one cog in a colossal engine of grift. What the public, including you readers, may not appreciate is how much planning went on over the past year to mount the DOGE effort, and how comprehensively the work of its many hundreds of computer techies (not just six whiz-kids) has laid bare the money-trails out of previously impenetrable government computers. Their algorithms have pierced the firewalls, revealing decades of fraud and deceit.

Mr. Trump’s cabinet officers have started the job of dismantling the machine by getting rid of the employees who set it up and worked for it. By Thursday, Secretary of State Rubio, fired all but 300 of the 10,000 people working for USAID. CIA Director Ratcliffe offered the agency’s entire workforce a “deferred resignation” option that will allow them to bail out and still collect their salaries until September. Look for straight-up firings to ensue. Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove ordered the acting FBI director to terminate eight senior FBI officials and asked for a review of up to 5,000 involved in J-6 investigations (including, presumably, agents who engaged in abusive SWAT-team deployments).

Many lawsuits have been mounted by blob-adjacent attorneys to make all this stop. But one big problem for them is that their gigantic legal fees — hundreds of dollars an hour on the meter multiplied by x-hundreds of lawyers — were previously paid by exactly those NGOs that are getting shut down now. So, perhaps you see exactly how those levers of power worked. The money will have to come from somewhere else, and I doubt that like Silicon Valley billionaire blob-supporter Reid Hoffman wants to piss away the rest of his fortune on this.

Some actual persons will have to be held accountable for all the mischief carried out in rogue agencies over many years. It has to start somewhere. I nominate Samantha Power as a first test case. She was in charge of USAID for nearly four years — until Jan 20, 2025 — including the duration of the Ukraine War. She was also personally very busy hands-on in arranging attempted color revolutions in Hungary (failed, against Viktor Orban), Georgia (failed), Mexico (failed), and Brazil (succeeded against Jair Bolsonaro). Ms. Power provided money from USAID-connected NGOs to foster instability in many more countries, including our country. It must have come as quite a shock to her that Kamala Harris did not win the 2024 election. USAID will not be paying for Ms.Power’s legal representation.

Much more will come to shock the blobsters and their legions — though just now, as the reformation of government begins, it’s comforting just to think of all those dedicated seditionists, Wokesters, Marxians, and Jacobins unable to make their rent payments or buy groceries all of a sudden. The paychecks have stopped coming for thousands who wanted to turn American life upside-down and inside-out. This happened most colorfully at the fake-news outfit called Politico this week. Turned out they were a subsidiary of the blob. Who knew? (Everyone who was paying attention to the jive they published.) Management had to send out a memo that reporters and editors would not get paid this week, or maybe ever again. Boo hoo.

It was also revealed this week that the Reuters News Agency, the Associated Press, The New York Times, the Wash-Po, and around 700-other news outfits altogether had been receiving financial support from USAID, the CIA, and other government entities. Now do you understand why the Democratic Party voters are so obdurately deluded and deranged?

Besides the perfunctory lawsuits filed against DOGE and the agency chiefs, the response to all this corrective action has been surprisingly feeble. You might conclude that they couldn’t marshal the rioters this time because the money for rioters has been cut off. Instead, you saw a motley pack of political creeps — Jamie Raskin, Ayanna Pressley, Liz Warren, Chuck Schumer, Maxine Waters, Jasmine Crockett , Ilhan Omar — crying crocodile tears outside USAID HQ at 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. They looked like roaches after the exterminator’s visit.

The reform of our gone-rogue government is barely underway, notwithstanding these mighty initial actions. Yet to come, you have the whole filthy underbelly of the public health agencies who brought you Covid-19. The terrified Democrats are holding back confirmation of Patel, Gabbard, and RFKJr, but even if they fail to get confirmed, the new administration will put capable figures in those jobs at FBI, ODNI, and HHS. The party of Chaos must know that they cannot stop the dismantling of their evil machine.

Beyond these grifts lies the Okefenokee of treason, bribery, conspiracy, and sedition deriving from RussiaGate, the impeachment of 2019, and all the shenanigans emanating out of Ukraine since the Maidan Revolution in 2014. Turns out, it was all of a piece. The same cast of characters were involved in all these nefarious events. I believe we’ll see those “Joe Biden” preemptive pardons tested in the SCOTUS. You haven’t begun to hear about the cases that AG Bondi will have to consider in that giant hairball. It’s only her second day on the job. Have mercy.

THE SINISTER, “can-you-believe-this-shit” smirk on the face of Netanyahu tells you everything you need to know about the direction things are heading…

Earlier this week, Trump referred to Gaza as a “demolition site” and then he rolled out the red carpet at the White House to welcome the man (referred to in a White House press release as “His Excellency”) who has been indicted for demolishing it and lavished him with gifts, including a billion-dollar shipment of new bombs, shells and military hardware, a pledge to take over Gaza off his hands and forcibly evict the 1.9 million Palestinians who survived the demolition by US-made weapons previously gifted to Israel by Biden, reconstruct it into a seaside resort and, in a few weeks, give him the green light to annex the entire West Bank.

— Jeffrey St. Clair, CounterPunch

LEAD STORIES, SATURDAY'S NYT

Judge Halts Access to Treasury Payment Systems by Elon Musk’s Team

Musk Wields Scythe on Federal Work Force, With Trump’s Full Blessing

Trump Is Revoking Biden’s Security Clearance

Trump Says He’ll Dismiss Kennedy Center Board Members and Make Himself Chair

Trans Youth Are Rattled by Efforts to Ban Gender Care. So Are Hospitals.

Advocate of Jan. 6 Rioters Now Runs Office That Investigated Them

How Trump’s Tariff Threats Ruptured the U.S.-Canada Bond

Senate G.O.P. Unveils Its Own Budget Plan, Teeing Up Fight With House

‘We Are in Disbelief’: Africa Reels as U.S. Aid Agency Is Dismantled

Falsehoods Fuel the Right-Wing Crusade Against U.S.A.I.D.

AH LOVE!

could thou and I with Fate conspire

To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,

Would not we shatter it to bits -- and then

Re-mould it nearer to Trump’s Desire?

— Omar Khayyam

THE MEDIA IS BUSTED

And will soon die.

by Matt Taibbi

From the New York Post: “The White House said Wednesday that federal agencies are in the process of terminating expensive contracts with Politico after Elon Musk, leader of the Department of Government Efficiency cost-cutting initiative, called them a “wasteful” use of taxpayer money… About $8.4 million in taxpayer funds were obligated to Politico over the 12 months ending Sept. 30, 2024.”

I held off on writing about the “payoffs”-to-media story, for fear I might say too much. The betrayal I feel is almost too vast to express. It’s bad enough that I grew old in this business watching it break its own rules, screw up, and smear its best practitioners, many of whom were friends or mentors. Now, at a critical juncture, the smearers are playing victim. It’s the last straw. The legacy press needs to be put out of its misery.

Some who should know better are pretending this isn’t a story. Others are trying to wordsmith the problem away. The note from Editor-in-Chief John Harris is the same insult handed out recently by the likes of Newsguard (“We do not receive any government funding”) and Stanford’s Internet Observatory (no government funds were “used to study the 2020 election or to support the Virality Project”). True, they have sizable publicly-listed contracts or grants from the DoD or National Science Foundation, but you can’t call that receiving money. Politicospelled out the concept with gusto. “We have never received any government funding — no subsidies, no grants, no handouts,” Harris wrote, adding that while government agencies subscribe, “this is not funding. It is a transaction.”

Oh, a transaction. Much different! You should be insulted that you’re asked to take this seriously, that they think audiences are that dumb.…

https://www.racket.news/p/the-media-is-busted

THE SEED OF THE SACRED FIG

by Saleem Vaillancourt

When Iman shows his wife, Najmeh, his new gun, it comes with the news that he’s been promoted to the post of investigating prosecutor in Iran’s judiciary. He needs the gun for security, he says. Yet he’s also proud of the power his masters have given him. Or have they really taken it away?

The moment comes early in Mohammad Rasoulof’s new film, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, which won the Special Prize at Cannes last year and is among the first to dramatise the Woman, Life, Freedom movement. Rasoulof was jailed in Iran more than once because of his films. In April 2024 he fled the country on foot to escape an eight-year prison sentence.

Iman’s first task is to sign a death sentence without reading the defendant’s file. (‘Death sentences are overwhelming,’ he’ll say later, when forced to process them in bulk.) He tries to insist that he can’t rubber-stamp an execution without knowing the facts. But he’s expected to obey.

‘I didn’t try to make Iman similar to the regime,’ Rasoulof told me in London, when I asked if he stood in for the Islamic Republic. ‘I tried to focus on a character who is used to obeying a system, is used to submitting himself to power, and whose ambitions and desires and dreams lead him to the greatest violence of which he is capable.’

The Seed of the Sacred Fig is set in late 2022, soon after morality police killed Jina Mahsa Amini in custody. Tehran is surging with protests. Najmeh and her daughters peek from behind the curtains to glimpse events outside. The daughters know their father’s work is ‘sensitive’ and they can’t join the protests. But then a schoolfriend is shot in the eye during a crackdown. The family argues over the truth of what’s going on, with the girls following social media – Rasoulof intercuts actual smartphone footage of the protests – and the parents parroting state television.

‘I have this need to tell stories in the closest possible way to reality, without hiding anything, without any self-censorship,’ Rasoulof told me, calling it a matter of ‘dignity’. ‘Otherwise you feel you become the means of spreading lies.’

For several months in 2022 and 2023, I edited English translations of reports of young Iranian protesters who’d been blinded. I looked at dozens of photos of punctured, swollen, bleeding eyes. Hundreds of people were injured in this way. Some months ago, an Iranian woman described the Islamic Republic to me as a ‘wild animal’ that thinks it’s right, that thinks it knows everything, but knows nothing and cannot be rational.

Towards the end of the film, Najmeh tells her daughters that she’s been hiding their father’s ‘true colours’ for years. Najmeh is ‘on a trapeze’, Rasoulof said. The traditional family dynamics mean the mother is ‘doing this huge balancing act, to keep the family together’, helping her daughters while still defending her indefensible husband. And while Rasoulof would like the film ‘to remain the story of a family’, he accepts there is ‘a certain layer of power that does everything it can to maintain the status quo’.

‘People who work in that system slowly drown,’ he said. ‘They become removed from themselves, foreigners to themselves.’ Iranian officials ‘hand their head over to someone else’, as a Persian expression has it, ‘and the system continues because of those people.’ ‘Submission to power is complex, it depends on other people submitting to power, and it has deep roots.’

Ficus religiosa, the sacred fig tree, grows on other trees before plunging its roots into the ground and enveloping its host. The film ends with a sequence that suggests Iran’s rulers and its people are both chasing and fleeing from each other. But there is also a fresh planting, new roots overtaking old ones, against a backdrop that suggests a vision of patriarchy ‘collapsing within the system it created.’

(London Review of Books)

THE LIMITS OF ART

by David Yearsley

It was the first June of the new millennium and we were in the northern Italian foothills of the Alps. The Italians call them the Prealpi, as if the rugged terrain makes for a collection of preludes to the snowcapped works of nature rising to the north.

We had been staying with one of our daughter’s godfathers in the northern industrial city of Brescia. Berretta, founded in the early 16th century and the oldest continuously operated firearms company in the world, still has its main factory there.

Brescians turned metal not only into guns and bullets but also into organs. The famed Antegnati family of organ builders lived and worked in the city from the 15th century into the 18th, during which time they supplied instruments across northern Italy, from the Piedmont to the Veneto. Amongst these masterpieces is that still in Brescia’s Old Cathedral, a circular Romanesque structure so ancient that you walk down from modern street level to enter. This monumental organ by Gian Giacomo Antegnati is from 1536, completed four hundred years after construction began on the cathedral. The organ is subterranean, perhaps a unique position for any King of Instruments.

We had our two daughters with us. The eldest was two-and-a-half. The younger had been born in the first days of January—a true millennial. In the cathedral and outside on the street and in shops and restaurants, old women would stop to marvel at the blonde bambine. There were many trendy shops with expensive baby clothes in the windows, yet we almost never saw any other babies. After decades of decline, the birth rate in Italy had stabilized just above one child per woman.

After a few days, we left Brescia and drove northeast up through the Prealpi to our friends’ summer house in a village called Binzago west of Lake Garda. The landscape was mostly wooded, the winding road popular with motorcyclists clad in colorful leathers and moving at dangerous speeds. Ducati screams rebounded off the hillsides. At the turn-off from the main road to the narrower by way snaking up towards the village, there was a dilapidated but still functioning iron factory.

We drove past farms and a few holiday houses and into Binzago with its terraced houses of light-brown stone. At the center of the village, the road made a slight jog around the church. At the fountain, a dark-skinned mother did her laundry with her five kids around her, the youngest in a collapsible stroller.

Our house was beyond and above the village on a steep hillside. The broad, tiled porch looked out over the narrow valley. In the early evening, a pair of cuckoos began calling to each other below.

We found haircutting scissors in the house and gave our five-month-old her first haircut on the porch. Her soft blond locks fell like hatchling’s feathers as the cuckoos continued their vesper antiphon.

The cuckoo population was—and still is—decreasing dramatically in northern Italy on account of, among other factors, the loss of habitat and the pesticides of industrial agriculture like that practiced in the vast Po Valley that spreads south and east from Brescia.

Cuckoos are brood parasites. They lay their eggs in the nests of other species, their young to be raised by their competitors. This biological outsourcing strategy has been imbued with allegorical resonance in many human cultures through tales told or sung of cuckolds, of foundlings of royal birth, of monarchical pretenders, and of deadly sibling rivalries.

The falling minor third of the cuckoo’s two-note call and the hollow timbre of their delivery of it have been drawn on for thematic content by many composers across centuries. This raw material evokes not only the rebirth in the springtime but also the origins of human music in nature. The birds sang first, on before people did.

The simplicity of the cuckoo’s call is both an inspiration and a challenge—assuming there’s a difference between the two—to human musicians. How to elaborate on the bird’s proto-melody while remaining true to it? Can a human musician prove to be as clever through art as the conniving cuckoo is in nature?

The next morning was Sunday and we walked to Santa Maria Annunciata, arriving as the mass was ending. The congregation was made up of a few old women singing a Lutheran hymn to Italian words. The old religious animosities over which European nations warred among themselves for centuries have mostly been forgotten or at least ignored. After the service was over, the young priest from El Salvador took us up to the small choir loft.

The organ was from 1726, not a sumptuous creation like those of the Antegnati, but a rough-and-ready model for a mountain village. The tarnished pipes sat in a simple wooden case with scrolled decorations painted in faded red.

The instrument was dirty and neglected, but, thanks to the maker’s craftsmanship, it still mostly worked and proved capable of singing out with characterful power and variety. Like most Italian organs of the baroque, it had just one manual and a scant octave of slanting pedals used for pastoral drones or to mark off cadences. There was no back panel on the case. Instead, the instrument had been set against the wall of the church. In the gap between the windchest with its pipes and the stone vaulting, pigeons had been nesting. Among the ranks of more forceful registers was a single flute stop that could be made to puff like a dove or a cuckoo.

The priest left us to stay and play for as long as we wanted.

We started with Girolamo Frescobaldi’s Capriccio sopra il Cucho, published in 1624 in a collection of characteristically ingenious and flamboyant contrapuntal keyboard works. The capriccio is a genre that paradoxically evinces both erudition and willful liberty, command of and adherence to the rules of composition while also indulging a fantastical freedom. Frescobaldi had his collection printed in the open score, that is, with a separate staff for each of the four voices described by analogy to vocal music as soprano, alto, tenor, and bass. In this format, his command of counterpoint could more plainly be seen on the page, even if it was more difficult for lesser keyboardists to play from.

From the beginning to the end of the six-minute piece, the soprano voice has only two notes: a minor third descending from D to B-natural. Below this continual call, the composer weaves a fabulous tapestry of contrapuntal motives in an ever-changing combination. These are interspersed with occasional flashes of figuration and enlivened through rhythmic variation. Harmonic feints constantly reframe the unchanging melody above. Moments of poised reflection are interrupted, as if spontaneously, by flights of fancy, all as the cuckoo calls with obstinate simplicity from its perch atop the array of voices. Frescobaldi’s is a daring, self-conscious display of self-imposed limitations that paradoxically do not constrict his imagination but spur it.

What lessons are to be learned from this ingenious piece? Should limits be respected or ignored, embraced or rejected? Does art “improve” on nature or is art a cage? Or both? Should we be delighted or dismayed—or both—by Frescobaldi’s capricious cuckoo? Is the cuckoo doomed to disappear from the world, the capriccio to become the bird’s mournful echo?

After an hour of music, we left the church. Outside, another woman with her children was at the spring doing laundry. As we walked back to our house on the hillside track, the cuckoos began calling again.

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

I’M HAPPY to be a woman, but much of it was learned over the course of life. Really thudded into me. You learn it. It’s a kind of mastery and artistry. The deeper person underneath the scent of Diptyque Philosykos or whatever is much less gendered. Every person has a range. In fiction, you get to be it all. I’m as much the men in my book as I am the women. I write how I write and there is no mission to stake a claim.

– Rachel Kushner

EVERY LIFE is in many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love, but always meeting ourselves.

— James Joyce, Ulysses

WALT WHITMAN, from the preface to Leaves of Grass:

Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.

19 Comments

George Hollister February 8, 2025

“Election cash to prospective judges is a form of corruption, of course, but who are you going to complain to about it? The courts?” Of course there is some truth here. There is also the seldom mentioned corrupt transaction of, “vote for me and I will give you money, and vote for me and I will take care of you.” This is followed with, “I gave you money, now what do I have to do to get you to vote, for me, of course.” Matt Taibbi touches on a single. instance of this. See above. The most problematic is when government bureaucracy, and government unions play this game, which they commonly do. The same can be said for government funded NGOs.

- Chuck Dunbar February 8, 2025
  
  Way off-base here. A far, far, worse problem is the lobbying money spent by private firms–insurance, health, banking, manufacturing of all sorts, big tech, etc.–spent to influence, guide and even direct, government decision-making, often in the most nefarious ways. We are at this point so badly corrupted by these multiple sources that government programs meant to assist the common man’s and woman’s interests are severely endangered. Take note right now of the Trump tax cut extension arguments for cuttings such program so the very well off can rake-in more bucks.
  
  - Harvey Reading February 8, 2025
    
    You left out AIPAC…
    
  - George Hollister February 8, 2025
    
    About 35 years ago there was a good liberal Democratic Party Congressman in a gerrymandered district of the East Bay who at one point was on the board of directors of a large privately owned timber company, something never known to his constituents. In a social meeting with one of his past timber industry associates he said, ‘I am nothing but a whore’. He stayed in office by being a good Environmentalist, keeping the money flowing to his constituents in exchange for their vote, and became monied from money flowing into his pocket from lobbyist, like the rest of his Congressional associates did, and do. It is not a mystery how our elected representatives become monied while in office, though at times it can a mystery how they can get away with it.
    
    - Harvey Reading February 8, 2025
      
      They get away with it because the disease affects “both” parties, at all levels of partisan politics.
      
  - Jim Armstrong February 9, 2025
    
    And Consumer Protection agency eliminated today to the apparent approval of a majority of Americans.
    Bedlam.
    
Harvey Reading February 8, 2025

SOCIAL SECURITY & CUTS

I keep wondering how many delays there will be in processing federal tax returns and refunds this year…or if we’ll get them at all. Trump and Musk should both be deported to South Africa…permanently.

- Chuck Dunbar February 8, 2025
  
  Yes, Harvey, to both your comments. Hope you are taking the winter well, out there in the wilds…
  
- BRICK IN THE WALL February 8, 2025
  
  South Africa? I’d be truly inclined to send them to Guantanamo.
  
  - Harvey Reading February 8, 2025
    
    But then we’d have to pay for their upkeep.
    
Craig Stehr February 8, 2025

Awoke early at the Adams Place Homeless Shelter in northeast Washington, D.C. , and following morning ablutions, went outside to receive food from the Calvary Baptist Church volunteers. Ambled on down the hill to the bus stop, picking up litter along the way. Chanting Om Namah Shivaya continuously! The body-mind complex is the fit instrument of the Immortal Self. Contact me if you want to do anything crucial on the planet earth. Otherwise, keep doing whatever your sadhana is, and enjoy the bliss divine. It’s your birthright. ;-)
Craig Louis Stehr
2210 Adam’s Place NE #1
Washington, D.C. 20018
Telephone: (202) 832-8317
Email: craiglouisstehr@gmail.com
February 8, 2025 Anno Domini

Harvey Reading February 8, 2025

Ducati screams rebounded off the hillsides.

During my mid-to-late teens, the crew I grew up with were into riding bikes, it being the 60s, when bike popularity really took off, accelerated by all the Japanese bikes that were very popular. I first had a Harley “Scat”, a 10 cubic inch (160cc), one-lunger, two-stroke Harley, with a three-speed tranny. The only way to start it cold was to coast it downhill, then pop the clutch. Once it warmed up, the kick starter sufficed. It was a weird bike, with wheels and tires that looked like those on a hog. Mixing the gas and oil was a nuisance, too. It would do maybe 70 miles per hour, tops. Later, I had a Yamaha 250cc Big Bear Scrambler, which was slightly faster, had a five-speed transmission, and reached its top speed much more quickly. Plus it mixed the gas and oil itself with an oil injection system, called “AutoLube”, if I remember correctly. Finally, in my early 20s, I got a used BSA Firebird Scrambler, a 650cc twin with upswept pipes, essentially a Lightning with different trim to make it look like a scrambler, and a transmission that jumped out of third gear under anything more than moderate acceleration. The latter didn’t really matter, since fourth gear had plenty of torque that made up for only having three dependable gears.

Oh, and I lost all real interest in bikes by the time I was 30. Lower back pain from riding accelerated the loss of interest. Last time I was on a bike was about 12 years ago. My neighbor, and buddy, had a souped-up Yamaha dirt bike that he insisted I try out. Well, I wobbled down to the graveyard and back, being careful not to attempt any forceful acceleration, which would have caused a wheelie that would have probably killed or injured me badly. By the time I got back, my neighbor was gone, so I leaned the bike up against an exterior wall of his house, where he kept it, walked to my place, and went into my house.

Back in time to my main point: My buddy, two years my senior, had a Ducati 125. The little cutie was a work of art to behold. The trouble was, it broke down a lot.

John Kriege February 8, 2025

Re: Change Our Name Fort Bragg:
Did Philip Zwerling cringe a bit when his presenter compared the Fort Bragg Forever people to the Proud Boys?

- BRICK IN THE WALL February 8, 2025
  
  Gotta ask…is a name change what anyone would want on the resume? Or is the effort just for an epitaph???
  
Dale Carey February 8, 2025

to the office manager: i tried to mail a check,but it came back with “no mail receptacle” on it.
im a dinosaur and dont have paypal…how can i pay? you dont have a telephone now either?
im addicted to your paper(?) and love bruce (im the only one)…can u help me?

- Mark Scaramella February 8, 2025
  
  Mailing address is AVA, PO Box 459, Boonville, CA 95415
  Phone is 707 391-4916
  
Chuck Dunbar February 8, 2025

WITHOUT

Cool essay today, Paul Modic, on the many things an older guy can now do without. I can relate to most of your list, pretty much the same for me, whittling down as I go on to what really matters. I like your list of things “I don’t want to do without,” especially listening to music, which remains such a sweet gift over all the years. Thanks, Paul.

David Stanford February 8, 2025

I agree, just like stogie ads were eliminated they are drugs that we have never heard of, stop the advertisements

David Stanford February 8, 2025

Legendary Packers Head Coach Vince Lombardi bought mink stoles for each of the players’ wives or girlfriends after the Packers’ 1961 NFL Championship victory.

Those were the days, lets return to them, walking on the RXR tracks, swimming at madson hole and barebutt hole you had to be from Fort Bragg to get there and walk the skunk tracks for several miles while eating huckleberries ands salmon berries for lunch, what a life so good:)

19 Comments

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