Mendocino County Today: Saturday 2/15/2025

DRY AND CALM weather is forecast for today, followed by a weak front bringing light to locally moderate rain, breezy south winds and mountain snow tonight into Monday. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A cloudy 36F this Saturday morning on the coast. Dry skies today, then rain Sunday, then dry Monday & Tuesday, then rain Wednesday. No really.

Noyo Beach (Friday morning) by Cristelle Hein

SHOOTING FROM THE HIP CAMP

by Mark Scaramella

It’s understandable that the Mendocino County Planning Commission had trouble coming up with even a draft of a regulatory framework for “Transient Habitation — Low Intensity Camping,” aka “Hip Camps” and the like. The complexity, controversy, and range of issues to be addressed probably exceeds even what cannabis regulation involves. At their last meeting on the subject, they voted 3-2 against a preliminary recommendation. But issues like this are what the Planning Commission is for. Instead of becoming a shadow Planning Commission, the Supervisors should send the issue back with a few comments and tell the planners to do their job and recommend a draft (or two) for the Board to consider.

Last Tuesday Planning Director Julia Krog, apparently giving up on the Planning Commission, suggested that the Board develop a zoning matrix approach with various hip camp permit conditions for each zoning category. It’s not a bad idea, but it’s not something the Supervisors should prepare. Krog walked the supervisors through a few of the issues and got some preliminary opinions from Board members and the public.

Nobody seems to know how many so-called “hip camps“ are already in Mendocino County. A preliminary review of the hipcamp website indicates that there may only be a few dozen formally registered hip camp hosts in Mendocino County. But others say that there may be 500 or more. There are even people who say there may be as many as 1000 to 1500. It probably depends on your definition of a hipcamp. The hipcamp website says hipcamps include “tent camping, RV parks, cabins, treehouses, and glamping.” One assumes that homeless camps, and friends visiting for few days are not “hipcamps” because those are not commercial transactions.

According to the County presser for Tuesday’s agenda, the proposed “new use type of Transient Habitation — Low Intensity Camping. would allow for a limited number of short-term commercial campsites.”

A limited number. Right. Ms. Krog didn’t ask what Board members thought about that or how it would be capped.

According to an on-line definition, “low intensity” or “low impact” camping means that there’s no indication that camping had taken place after the campers are gone.

Ms. Krog’s attempt to elicit input from the Supervisors was, as might be expected, um, well… incomplete.

For example, nobody seemed to have read the Hipcamp regulation example from San Benito County that Director Krog included in the agenda package because a number of the issues in that county’s approach were not raised during the board discussion. According to the board’s self-congratulatory Wednesday press release, the Board “directed the Planning Department to get various public input on the subject and come back to the board at a later date.”

What they should have done was direct the Planning Department to go back to the Planning Commission and take another shot at a draft regulation.

Unfortunately, the Board loves diving into the weeds, arrogantly preferring micromanaging to avoid controversy. They shouldn’t allow themselves to be drawn into this position. Instead they should refer the question back to the Planning Department and Planning Commission where it rightly belongs. This same fundamental error was made during the pot regulation days when the board assumed a planning role for something they know very little about. The predictable result was a crazy quilt/major failure which has taken years of time, money and contention to iron out and is still unfinished.

Here’s what the San Benito County Hip Camp ordinance says:

“25.08.031 Low Impact Camping

This section refers to uses classified as Low Impact Camping as described in Chapter 25.09. Such uses are subject to the regulations below. This includes tent camping, glamping, dry RV camping, yurts, or something similar.

A. Location and Site Regulations

In accordance with Table 25.03-B of this Title, Low Impact Camping is permitted in the AR, A RR, and RT zones subject to the following:

Acreage requirements per Accessor Parcel Number (APN)

a. One (1) campsite per acre up to nine (9) campsites

No more than 6 (six) campers permitted per campsite.

Campsites shall be setback a minimum of one hundred (100) feet from property lines.

The property owner shall maintain sanitation facilities that are fully self-contained or connected to a permitted sewage disposal system serving the property. At least one (1) ADA restroom shall be required. All solid waste shall be removed from the premises after each occupancy, and onsite trash receptacles shall abide by applicable animal-protection trash best practices or requirements.

No on-street parking shall be permitted in connection with a Low Impact Camping site.

Operational Regulations

All Low Impact Camping areas shall be operated in the following manner:

Temporary Sleeping Accommodation Only

No temporary sleeping accommodation shall be used for permanent human occupancy.

Temporary sleeping accommodations shall not exceed fourteen (14) consecutive nights per camper.

Noise

All low Impact Camping Facilities shall comply with Chapter 19.39 – Noise Control Regulations of the San Benito Municipal Code. Specifically, no amplified sound equipment or live music shall be permitted between the hours of 10:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m.

On-Site Manager

A designated on-site operator or manager shall be available by phone twenty-four (24) hours per day, seven (7) days per week.

Communal/Recreational Fire Pits

There can be only (1) communal wood burning fire pit per parcel and it shall be operated by the site manager or property owner. The site manager or property owner shall take all necessary training for the Fire Department or CalFire to operate.

Communal and recreational fires and fire pits shall comply with the following:

Recreational fires are not to be wider than three (3) feet in diameter and two (2) feet in height.

Recreational fires shall not be conducted within twenty-five (25) feet of a structure or combustible materials.

Open burning, bonfires or recreational fires shall be constantly attended until the fire is extinguished. A minimum of one portable fire extinguisher with a minimum 4-A rating or other approved on-site fire-extinguishing equipment, such as dirt, sand, water barrel, garden hose or water truck, shall be available for immediate utilization.

Portable outdoor fireplaces and barbeques shall be used in accordance with the manufacturer’s instructions and shall not be operated within fifteen (15) feet of a structure or combustible materials.

The business license holder shall obtain and maintain in good standing a certificate issued from the Tax Collector /Auditors Office for Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT), whether the business license holder collects TOT directly or through a third-party platform.”

As is obvious, enforcing such detailed requirements in a county the size of Mendocino would be a challenge, to say the least.

Also left unaddressed were questions of how much hipcamp use permits would cost.

Ms. Krog noted that “camp sites require adequate water supply, sewage disposal and solid waste disposal and oversight for the health and safety of those camping. Additional operational requirements to speak to these issues were requested, and therefore additional time is necessary to develop solutions and hear public comment.”

Lee Howard of Ukiah made the most blunt, if somewhat disjointed, comments. Nevertheless, his and similar comments need to be addressed in whatever hipcamp rules are prepared.

“Health and safety should be number one — paramount,” insisted Howard. Then, referring to a complaint he filed back in 2001 — apparently the hip camping has been going on far longer than we thought — Howard said that his complaint was “never taken care of,” adding that, “They couldn’t even find it [the camp]. You’re telling me that you’re gonna go out there when you’ve got, what?, 500, or so campsites? You don’t know where they are! You can’t even find them when you’re told where they are!”

In other words, how will rules be enforced if law enforcement or code enforcement can’t even find the campsites?

Howard also said that annual inspections should be required, but by whom? “Many of the campsites are in Calfire resource lands. Is Calfire going to inspect the sites for road and fire safety? Has Calfire even been consulted?”

Referring to his own experience with campers, Howard said that he had sent pictures of a problematic neighboring campsite with an outhouse to the County. “They were camping in waist high dry grass,” said Howard. “They need fire tools, more than just a fire extinguisher.”

Howard said that campers “drive through my place, They have to stop at my gate and I to get to talk to some of them. They’re from Texas, Arizona, New Mexico — all over the country. They don’t have a clue what fire in timberland looks like. I don’t want my place burned down.”

“They go through almost 3,000 feet of road on my place. Do the campsite hosts have any responsibility for that road? It’s a private easement for ingress and egress and they have turned it into a public commercial easement.”

“Road standards?,” Howard went on, “They need to meet CDF road standards. Period! No question! Turnouts. Everything, the whole nine yards.”

Sheriff Kendall has yet to be heard from. The private road question has not been answered. Local fire departments have yet to be heard from. Code enforcement has yet to be heard from. The existing conventional campground operators — all of whom must pay transient occupancy taxes — have yet to be heard from. This is all stuff that should be addressed by the Planning Commission and only then sent to the Board when the issues have been hashed out.

It’s one thing for a neighbor to invite some friends to camp out for a few days. But turning such activities into an ongoing commercial business with comprehensive regulation of random outsiders is far from simple. The Board has been evading the ever-worsening AirBnB issue for years. Now they’re supposed to solve the hip camp problem?

The issue should be referred back to the Planning Commission for serious deliberation and a formal recommendation — not casually bandied about by ill-informed and inexperienced supervisors.

PALACE HOTEL RESTORATION, A PHOTO GALLERY

by Karen Rifkin

Dec 11, 2024-Cleaned up by Tom Carter and his crew-base of 4 tower scaffolding

January 2024-prior to purchase by Tom Carter

Sagging rafters on third floor that will be shored up in the near future

Nate Miller pumps hydraulic jack while Chae Carter secures 2x12 beam to hold up roof rafters

Chae Carter and Nate Miller secure 2x12 beam

Chae Carter removes hydraulic jack now that the beam is secured

Four story tower built by Palace owner Tom Carter and his crew to shore up the roof

CALIFORNIA'S MOST CONTENTIOUS GROCERY OUTLET GETS THE GREEN LIGHT

by Matt LaFever

After nearly five years of legal battles, a Grocery Outlet is finally coming to Fort Bragg, a remote outpost on California’s rugged North Coast. First proposed in 2019, the project ignited a small-town showdown: working-class residents pushing for an affordable food source, an elusive business interests group fighting it in court over concerns about coastal views and traffic congestion. After years of heated debate over everything from the project’s potential impact on wildlife and air pollution to what its exterior stone facade might look like, last week, a San Francisco judge dismissed the final legal challenge, paving the way for construction to begin.

The 16,157-square-foot store is slated to replace the deteriorating Old Social Services Building on a 1.63-acre lot at South Franklin Street, located between South Street and North Harbor Drive. Plans include a 53-space parking lot, perimeter sidewalks, stormwater drainage, and landscaping to manage runoff, according to documents presented to the California Coastal Commission. The store plans to operate seven days a week and employ 25 full-time and 10 part-time workers.

Currently, three grocery stores serve the roughly 7,300 residents of Fort Bragg and its surrounding area. Two are independent markets — Harvest Market and Purity Supermarket — and the third is the corporate chain Safeway. Unlike Mendocino County’s other two largest cities, Willits and Ukiah, Fort Bragg lacks a discount grocer like Grocery Outlet, which could provide more affordable options for the town’s middle- and lower-income residents. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 15% of the population of Fort Bragg lives in poverty. Additionally, an economic analysis conducted for the Sonoma Mendocino Economic Development District in 2023 found the cost of living in Fort Bragg is 17.2% higher than the national average, while the typical Fort Bragg worker earns $47,820 annually — nearly 30% less than the national average of $68,132.

Fort Bragg Vice Mayor Marcia Rafanan, a working mother of two with two jobs, understands the city’s struggles firsthand. She told SFGate that many families pool money and organize grocery runs to the Grocery Outlet in Willits — traversing 36 miles of winding mountain roads to get there — just to find affordable food. “They gather money, make a list, and send someone,” she said.

‘Desperate For This Store’

Developer Best Properties applied to build Fort Bragg’s Grocery Outlet in June 2019. By December 2020, the city and consulting firm LACO Associates had completed an initial review and decided any environmental concerns could be addressed with simple fixes, avoiding the need for a lengthy full-scale Environmental Impact Report.

The Planning Commission approved the resolution (4-0, one recusal) on June 9, 2021, and the City Council followed suit (3-1, one recusal) on July 26, 2021, after hours of public comment.

A month later, Fort Bragg Local Business Matters, a business group fiercely opposed to the proposed Grocery Outlet, sued under the California Environmental Quality Act, arguing the city’s review ignored major environmental risks. Best Properties withdrew its application and requested that a full impact report be prepared on its proposal, prompting the lawsuit’s dismissal.

The May 2023 report, spanning hundreds of pages, analyzed the proposed Grocery Outlet’s potential environmental impact in detail. The report’s key findings highlighted risks to nesting birds and bats, along with a rise in ambient noise. On June 5, 2023, after reviewing the findings, the City Council approved a coastal development permit for the project.

Dozens of Fort Bragg residents rallied behind the Grocery Outlet project during its lengthy permitting process, speaking at the many city agency meetings and meetings of the California Coastal Commission about the project.

Greg Burke, a Fort Bragg real estate agent, wrote to the Fort Bragg City Council in June 2023, “We need more affordable shopping options for seniors and younger families with children.” He emphasized the importance of a new store given the city’s isolated location, adding, “We are an island and will need more resources for our community in any challenging time.”

Linda Stanton, a Fort Bragg resident, expressed similar sentiments in an August 2023 email to the California Coastal Commission, calling local grocery stores “overpriced” and Fort Bragg a “low-income community” and saying, “Most Fort Braggers are desperate for this store.”

Gary McCray, a 15-year resident, wrote to the Coastal Commission the same month arguing that opposition from Fort Bragg Local Business Matters was really an attempt by Harvest Market to “prevent legitimate business competition.” He dismissed concerns about parking and traffic as distractions, and said approving the Grocery Outlet would enable “the possibility of not having to pay the exorbitant prices charged locally that are literally 30+ percent higher than 25 miles inland.”

Despite the resounding community support, Fort Bragg Local Business Matters appealed the decision to the California Coastal Commission, which prepared a staff report on the appeal. Fort Bragg Local Business Matters had argued the project would eliminate an informal parking lot used by beach visitors, limiting coastal recreation, and claimed it could increase traffic and contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and excessive energy consumption. They also contended that the store would obstruct public views of the ocean and scenic coastline, clash with Fort Bragg’s rural character and hurt existing businesses. Additionally, they asserted the project failed to meet water quality protection standards, lacked proof of an adequate water supply and would disrupt native wildlife.

On Sept. 6, 2023, Fort Bragg Local Business Matters took its fight to the California Coastal Commission via Zoom, but the Commission saw no red flags and unanimously approved the development permit.

Undeterred, the group sued the Commission in San Francisco Superior Court on Oct. 30, 2023, claiming the project would cause environmental harm and accusing the Commission of breaking its own rules.

After two years of legal battles, Judge Christine Van Aken ruled against Fort Bragg Local Business Matters on Feb. 3, 2025, finding no misconduct or violations on the part of the Coastal Commission. With the final hurdle cleared, Fort Bragg’s development permit stood, giving the Grocery Outlet a path to reality.

Mark Wolfe, an attorney representing Fort Bragg Local Business Matters, said in an emailed statement to SFGate that the court had “raised serious questions” about the Grocery Outlet project’s compliance with Fort Bragg water quality policies. “We of course are disappointed with this outcome,” Wolfe said, adding that the group will evaluate its options once the court issues a written order.

At Long Last

In 2021, Councilmember Lindy Peters witnessed an energy like he’s never seen in 22 years on the Fort Bragg City Council. He remembers the June 21, 2021, council meeting where residents were effusive in their support of the Grocery Outlet project. “I don't think I've ever seen an emotional outpouring at the podium like I did,” he told SFGate.

With grocery prices squeezing working-class families and a tourist-dependent economy struggling with the pandemic’s depressive effect on travel, the need to lower living costs for residents was dire. “Money was tight. Our economy wasn’t good for locals. Our median income was extremely low,” Peters recalled. Residents weren’t just asking for competition for Safeway and Harvest Market — they were pleading for it.

For the first time Peters could remember, several Hispanic residents, whom he said are typically absent from local politics, stepped forward. “They almost broke down into tears, begging the city to support this,” he said.

At the height of the pandemic — masks, distancing, long lines outside City Hall — people still showed up in person to make their case. “They were willing to do that to support Grocery Outlet. It meant that much to them,” Peters said. The council got the message. “I thought, well, we've got to support this. And we did.”

Rafanan, the vice mayor, sees Grocery Outlet as a necessity for Fort Bragg’s working class. “I’m for Grocery Outlet. We need it,” she said. She argued that the discount grocer wouldn’t hurt the high-end independent markets like Harvest Market, but would challenge Safeway instead.

To Rafanan, the debate exposed a class divide in Fort Bragg between wealthier people who retired to the area and the working folks who live there. “Retired people told me, ‘This isn’t why I moved here’ — but we need it,” she reiterated.

SFGate repeatedly contacted Grocery Outlet for comment on the next steps to opening its Fort Bragg store following the dismissal of the Fort Bragg Local Business Matters lawsuit, but received no response.

Fort Bragg City Manager Isaac Whippy, who oversees city operations and development, confirmed the city is moving forward with the development plans. “With this legal matter now resolved, the City anticipates the project moving forward as planned,” Whippy told SFGate via email.

Now, Whippy said, it’s on Best Properties to secure building permits and meet “any remaining pre-construction requirements.” The interior building permits have been reviewed by the city, and they are now awaiting approval from the Mendocino County Building and Planning Department, while the exterior permit review is ongoing, Whippy said. He added that Best Properties has indicated that demolition will begin within the next 60 to 90 days.

“I’m pleased to see this project advancing, as it will provide much-needed, affordable grocery options for Fort Bragg residents,” Whippy said. “Grocery Outlet’s presence will expand access to budget-friendly food choices, bring economic benefits to our community, and ensure that residents don’t have to drive over the hill to get groceries. This is a positive step forward for local families.”

SUPERVISOR NORVELL ADDRESSES THE COUNTY’S CHALLENGES

by Mary Benjamin

On January 30, 2025, at the invitation of the Mendocino Rotary Club, 4th District County Supervisor Bernie Norvell gave an overview of what he hopes the County Board of Supervisors will achieve in regard to the deeply rooted issues of the homeless, the drug and alcohol addicted, and the mentally ill residents in the entire county.

Supervisor Norvell has gained widespread notice since the reported success of the City of Fort Bragg’s approach to those issues was publicized. Outgoing Mendocino Rotary President Margaret Black introduced Novell as having had “a very transformative tenure as mayor and now bridging over into our county.”

Beginning in 2016, with the commitment of Police Chief Neil

Cervenka, program developer Police Captain Thomas O’Neal, and Mayor Bernie Norvell, a unique, city-wide response program was created based on the findings of homeless expert Robert Morbut’s 2018 report and recommendations to the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors.

Norvell specified that some of the funding for the new approach came from Proposition 47. With the collaboration of County Sheriff Matt Kendall, this funding has already extended the scale of CRU’s service from Westport to Mendocino.

Norvell credits the police department’s Care Response Unit (CRU) with its success in proactively assisting those who struggle on the streets. According to data presented by Norvell, prior to the program’s start and the creation of CRU, approximately 70-75% of dispatch calls to police, and 60-65% of police arrests were homeless people.

Norvell also noted that 72% of homeless in Fort Bragg are over 70 years old and that good police patrol has been able to refer those found in need of shelter to immediate resources. In fact, Norvell commented that Proposition 36, upheld by the courts, states it is illegal to sleep in public areas. Norvell said, “It forces the homeless to make the decision to accept help or leave.”

Now, less than 25% of calls are about the homeless, and arrests have been reduced by 75%. Police officers are now able to focus on other matters of basic policing, including traffic violations.

Norvell described how Marbut’s recommendations guided Fort Bragg in designing its homeless program. Like many experts, Marbut had earlier promoted the belief that housing is the first step in assistance of the homeless, those with alcohol and drug addictions, and the mentally ill who routinely end up on the streets.

Marbut’s recent research pointed to a different approach that Norvell referred to as “Housing Fourth.” Treatment should come before any other steps to better the lives of those who have no resource aid but want help. However, this approach is contrary to state and federal policy guidelines that must be met to receive funding.

One of Norvell’s biggest concerns, he said, is “how limiting state mandates are.” Norvell announced that he was working with county supervisors from Sonoma and Sacramento to gather reliable data that will show that the federal and state approach does not work. In fact, Norvell said, “State and federal policies are hurdles to a successful program.”

With the support of County Sheriff Matt Kendall and 5th District Supervisor Williams, Norvell hopes to see the County Board of Supervisors officially approve the county-wide program in the works.

According to Norvell, the county is now working on a program called CORE, Community Outreach Response and Engagement. He said, “It’s built around a boilerplate from the CRU program, but because you’re not just working with the city, you’re working in a lot more rural areas with a lot more clients, it’s going to be different.”

He explained, “Instead of just a police officer and a CRU member to direct people to services, it’s going to involve Sheriff Matt Kendall as the lead and then Behavioral Health and Social Services.“

He continued, “What they’re planning to do is break this demographic down into three different groups, with the top group being a little easier to deal with, maybe someone who’s about to lose their home, someone who might be in transitional housing or someone couch surfing. The work with that group is to keep them in a more stable life.’

“The middle third,” he said, “will be about your street homelessness, people living on the street, maybe with drug, alcohol, or mental problems,” Norvell commented that this group often self-medicates with meth in order to survive in hostile situations.

This group will involve the three county departments “going out together.” He hopes that targeting the top 50 “utilizers of services” and improving the lives of 25 of them will result in a 50% success rate, which is “a pretty good number for these programs.”

He explained, “It helps communities. It makes community members feel safer when that isn’t on the street. It’s better for the people suffering from that, and it’s better for the economy because it’s hard to draw people into your downtown when that problem is there on the streets. I know it’s made a big difference in the City of Fort Bragg in our Central Business District.”

“The bottom third,” said Norvell, “are basically people who need to go to jail. They may be criminals. There may be people on the street who are taking advantage of the street-level homeless people. For whatever reason, they have something going on that is constantly harming people. That would be most if not all handled by the sheriff’s department which has a good plan for that.”

Norvell said that he was a big supporter of what the county is planning, and believes they shouldn’t adhere too closely to the CRU model if they found something that might be better. He said he told them, “You can do it any way you guys see fit that is going to address these problems.”

Norvell added, “The only thing I expect is the same kind of results that CRU got. If we’re not getting those, we have to do the same thing the city did. When you’re going through this process, you have to be able to recognize that part of the program that isn’t working and be able to change things and go in a different direction.”

Norvell said he has “high hopes” for the program and that people might see the first results after six months but more likely after one year.”

(Ukiah Daily Journal)

ANDERSON VALLEY WATER PROJECT discussion

Debbi Pichler:

I would like to start a discussion about the water deal proposed here in the valley. I am doing this as a person who has lived in this valley for over 50 years. Please be respectful and thoughtful with your comments. I’m just trying to make an informed decision and would welcome your thoughts.

As I understand it, the CSD Board would like to buy out the wells within the parameters of the new water company. This would also give them access to your well and your property from where your well exists. There would also be taxes to pay on the buyout. Then you would have to buy your water back, for how much we don’t know. The state money does not allow for expansion, they will only help out with the existing population. Fire Hydrants would be installed, but we have the same amount of water to fight fires as we always did.

Please feel free to correct anything I have said if it is untrue and all respectful comments, pro or con, are welcomed.

John Toohey:

Does anyone have a link to any official proposal documentation? Without provisions for expansion and increased population densities, I am unclear as to the benefits of a water project - is it for the sake of the septic/well contamination issue on small lots?

Jeff Burroughs:

John Toohey, contamination in 3 wells of a total of 5 wells tested. Cherry picked wells that were already known to be contaminated due to old septic systems that failed because 1 they were overloaded because of the houses having 3 times the allotted occupancy standards. 2. Land owners never having brought their septic up to code. Some say the lots are too small to bring up to code. The focus here is the houses that exist in the subdivision block thar runs from the fire station around to Willie Housely's (the old AV Video Store). Using that subdivision as an example the board has pushed hard to pass this measure because it involves a ton of grant money if passed, but not enough to bring any kind of reliable system to fruition. The private wells, ones where the land owners actually upgraded their septic systems and stopped renting out 2 bedroom homes to 3 familys, are uncontaminated. The other problem is the responsibility of keeping the systems up and running being shifted from private water and sewer, to our Community Service District board. I don't trust them for 1 minute. Any fool can see that construction costs will go over budget and keeping it running 24/7 for years is impossible, and so the rates will go up, and up and up until granny, on a fixed income, will not be able to pay the monthly bill. It is then that the whole thing will come crumbling down and then what, nothing thats what the whole thing will be abandoned, or it may work sporadically. Just ask Jess Wagoner over at Airport Estates how she likes their community sewer and water system. I mean it, ask her John.

At least, at this moment, we landowners who brought our septic systems up to code, years ago, will have water and a shitter when their system collapse under its own weight of incompetency.

COUPLE IN SEARCH OF HOUSING/COMMUNITY LIVING/EXCHANGE

We are a young couple completing a work exchange in Albion. We've grown fond of this place and its people and would like to try and stay on the Mendocino coast (preferably anywhere between Albion and Fort Bragg).

A bit about us: We are clean, quiet and considerate with good references and credit, and take great care of our homes. We like sharing space/land as long as we get along well and there are healthy boundaries/communication in place. Sharing time and meals would be nice and we are open to exploring intentional communities too. We come with a small pop-up camper (this will be parked and is not big enough for us to live in full time) and an indoor cat.

We're open to a few different options but would prefer something for at least one year and hopefully longer:

house sitting / pet sitting (1 month or longer)
full or partial work trade in exchange for rent (we can offer cooking, cleaning, caregiving, admin, organization, art making, basic gardening and yardwork, small building projects)
furnished or semi-furnished studio, room or small dwelling under $1000

Please reply to me offlist at caitlindoherty04@gmail.com if you've got any leads.

Thank you,

Caitlin Doherty

BOB AYRES BIG BAND SATURDAY VALENTINE'S DANCE, February 15th

This Saturday night the Bob Ayres Big Band will tickle your feet and ears with a Valentine's Day musical celebration at Tall Guy Brewing in Fort Bragg. Music kicks off from 6:30 to 9:30. There is a free dance lesson with Mary and Al from 5:30-6:30.

Admission is free and the brewery is located at 362 North Franklin Street (the former Sears building).

BILL KIMBERLIN

View from the bar at The Little River Inn. I have been going here since I was a kid. I always liked to go for the Sunday brunch, however for the past few years it has been closed to anyone except guests of the Inn. But now it is open again for outside customers on Sunday. I have been two or three times lately and it remains excellent. Get the “Ollie's Favorite”.

BEPPE GAMBETTA WITH DAN CRARY at the Caspar Community Center

Sat. February 15 at 6 PM, is a very special show – Beppe Gambetta with Dan Crary. Two amazing acoustic troubadours, they will be performing at the Caspar Community for one night only and the tickets are going fast. Tickets available, $30 at the door, $25 in advance at Harvest Market, Out of this World and at brownpapertickets.com/event/6516006

Here is Beppe's Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beppe_Gambetta

Here is Dan Crary's Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Crary

Here is Beppe and Dan performing together on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yr_zk1mdIL8

Doors open at 6, music starts at 6:30. Aaron Ford is the opening act and the MC.

This show is a production of Roots and All Radio and Aaron Ford Music and is a benefit for KZYX.

Beer, wine, spirits, Rosa's Famous Tamales, and other goodies available.

BASEBALL, A MEMORY IN ONE BREATH

by Bruce Anderson

The Giants of 2010 fixated my feeble attentions to the point of mesmerization. As a kid, I saw lots of ball games at the old Seal's Stadium at 16th and Potrero. I remember the time Two Gun Allan Gettel threw both ends of a doubleheader across the bay in Emeryville for the Oakland Oaks in a dilapidated all-wood ballpark. By the time I was ten I could recite the starting line-ups of the entire Pacific Coast League, and the inspirational baseball novels of John R. Tunis gave me the only moral instruction that made any sense to me. A kid could get a bleacher seat at Seals Stadium for a nickel with the Knot Hole Gang. A nickel was about all the cash a kid had in 1949. I still remember Luke Easter, later a star with Cleveland, and among the first black ballplayers to play in the major leagues, pumping one batting practice ball after another clear over the right field wall, across 16th Street, and into the park.

The park is still there, but the fine little ballpark is gone, replaced by a blasphemous strip mall. I was so astounded at the pure splendor of Luke Easter's serial long ball feat it has stayed with me all these years. When Tommy Wayne Kramer told me that Easter, in old age and working as a security guard at a Target store in Cleveland, had been shot and killed by a couple of hold-up punks, I damn near cried.

St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Curt Flood is shown, March 1968. (AP Photo)

Curt Flood, a great ballplayer (and great human being) out of Oakland who came along just after Easter, made ballplayers rich, not that any of them shared the money Flood had made possible with Flood and pioneers like Luke Easter. It seems like another lifetime, but my late brother and I played American Legion ball against Flood the year Bill Irwin Post of Oakland won the national championship. The few times I've mentioned this to sports fans I can see them thinking, “What bullshit. All these old jocks say stuff like this.” But I've got the clippings. I pitched a 13-inning shutout myself in high school, and I played at Cal Poly six or seven years before Mike Krukow came along. I've got those clippings, too, so lighten up, skeptics. That Bill Irwin Post team out of Oakland consisted of Flood, Vada Pinson and Frank Robinson in the outfield, Jesse Gonder catching, Ernie Broglio pitching. That whole team went on to the major leagues. It was probably the best collection of young ballplayers in the history of this country. They beat us. Bad. Flood, a great hero of the game, was also a talented painter. He spent many years in exile in Spain and died broke in LA. I never saw the Giants play at Seals Stadium when they came west in '58 but I saw them often at Candlestick, even saw Ukiah's Kelvin Chapman play a game at second base for the Mets one afternoon. And I was listening to Russ and Lon when Willie McCovey lined out to Bobby Richardson at Candlestick in the Giants-Yankees World Series of 1962, and the Giants still hadn't won a World Series since coming to San Francisco in 1957, but 2010 just might be the year. In 1962 the first American troops had been dispatched to Vietnam, there were a few beatniks in North Beach, and I was living in a bathroom-down-the-hall hotel at 5th and Brannan. The entire four-story structure listed west like a sinking ship, and everyone who lived there, old guys and winos mostly, greeted each other on the street by leaning west. There were clean sheets once a week at the manager's desk. He was a shell-shocked veteran of World War Two. My girlfriend burst into tears on her one and only visit. “This is the most depressing place I've ever seen. Do you like it here?” She said the same thing about my next place on Scott Street where one of the tenants hurled himself down the stairs precisely at 8pm every night. Yes, I did like both places, especially 5th and Brannan. It was high-ceilinged, old-fixtured, and a Gypsy told fortunes and sold stolen transmissions on the ground floor. The same girlfriend flipped out at the Geary Theater one night. We were making our precipitous way to the cheap balcony seats when she suddenly screamed, “Vertigo! I'm falling!” She was a high-strung type, and exactly what I deserved for hanging out with intellectuals instead of taking the bus out to Candlestick for a ball game. I never worked on my game after high school. I wonder now with weight training and the good coaching how good I could have been. Not very, probably, but I was still good enough to play for a couple of years in college, which got me a meal ticket and a noisy free room in the jock dorm with Fred Wittingham who went on to the NFL as a linebacker.

Fred was described as “the meanest rookie” they had that year. I wrote term papers for him and, I must say, enjoyed his lively company, heavy as it was on physical humor. Years passed, a technicolor blur of improbable people and events. I followed the Giants but sat out the steroid years. I didn't care if those bloated weight lifters hit a million homeruns. They looked like robots out there on the green. The game was distorted, ruined for a while there, and anyway Russ and Lon had retired and I was having a hard time adjusting to the new radio guys. I started going to Giants games again in Bonds' last year. I might have been the only guy in the park who didn't stand up when he hit a homerun. I'd seen Mays and McCovey and Cepeda hit real home runs. I was happy when Canseco brought all the juicers down, revealed them all as steroid-dependent. I'd started going to Giants games again at AT&T Park because my nephew gave me a free ticket. I like that place so much I'd probably pay my way in for no ball game, just to sit up top looking out at the setting sun burning in the windows of the Berkeley hills and the ships and sail boats against the blue of the bay. I got to like the Giants a lot with Pablo and The Little Stoner and Fear The Beard and the amazing Omar Visquel at short, Molina behind the plate. There was something beguiling about them. Fat guys and little guys and old guys and guys who were supposed to be washed-up. If you saw them in their civvies walking down the street you might think they were a bunch of PG&E linemen on a lunch break. And they got more beguiling, led by a kid with a big fastball and 1975 long hair who looks like he just stepped out of a doublewide Willits crank lab. April of 2010, I was sitting in the rain watching an exhibition game when Mike Kalantarian and his daughter Annie, then 10, of Navarro showed up. We continued sitting in the rain. The field was wet and slippery. The game was called in the fifth when there were, max, 10,000 diehards still looking on. We agreed that the Giants would probably be a lot like they were in 2009 — good pitching, good games, terrific entertainment, but not enough bats, and not enough wins to get to the playoffs. If I'd put a hundred bucks on the Giants back in April I could have retired to, uh, Boonville. By early August, the Giants were five games behind San Diego but coming on. Tickets were harder to get. The beautiful people were coming out, the frontrunners, with the Giants either winning or losing an unlikely number of one-run games. Kuip, of Kruk and Kuip, said the way the Giants played was like torture, which it may be to a fine, plump people like us in no danger of being waterboarded or having our families killed by a remote control bomb unleashed on us from two continents away. The Giants were certainly excruciating. And interesting. The players were often candid, witty even in non-corporate ways, especially Huff, the youngest players, Bumgarner and Posey being the most guarded but never for a moment overwhelmed into disorientation. And the game was never over until it was over. There was no quit in these guys, no dog. Then San Diego collapsed and suddenly everyone in NorCal wanted tickets. Even the cheap seats were selling out. When I didn't have a ticket I found myself standing in right field at the see-through hole in the wall staring wistfully in at the game, occasionally looking behind me where a huge “Free Johan Mehserle” banner flew from a sailboat mast in McCovey Cove. Johan's got to do at least ten years for “accidentally” plugging Oscar Grant, and what the hell's this?, I thought, the whole point of baseball is that you get to tune out catastrophe for three hours, but here was this reminder flying in right-center. One afternoon, I had a ticket to Game Four with the Phillies. A kid was walking around with a sign that said, “I need ONE ticket.” I asked him if he'd had any offers. “A guy said he'd sell me one for $700, but $400's my limit.” I was lurking at the Cepeda statue. A petulant fatman was yelling into his cell phone, “You're at Willie Mays, I'm at Cepeda. If you think I'm going to walk all the way back to Willie Mays, you're crazy.” From the Cepeda statue to the Mays statue is maybe 150 yards, if that. Thin girls with large breasts and short skirts and spiked heels walked around handing out poster-size ads. The mega-rich were lined up at the luxury box entrance, a kind of hog heaven with its own elevator and attendants who bring the negative food value stuff direct to your barca-lounger. In the big bucks line was an angry looking man said to be worth $2 billion, Gordon Getty. He was with Mrs. Getty. I've often seen their pictures in the Chronicle.

The Gettys are always smiling, but Gordy wasn't smiling waiting to get to his thousand-dollar seat. People worth $2 billion aren't used to standing in line. Gordy probably hadn't stood in line since high school, and here he was midway in a long, slow moving queue of god knows who —musicians, actors, insurance brokers, magic money people of all sorts, not to mention the sea of undesirables swimming up against him from the sidewalk. The game was the best I've ever seen. Senor Uribe of the Dominican Republic won it with a sacrifice fly in the ninth, just after Oswalt had whistled three fastballs right under Uribe's chinny chin-chin to back him off the plate. Uribe had to reach clear over to the outside corner to get his bat on the ball, and here came Huff from third base with a triumphant, maestro-like pop-up slide at home and the Giants had won. The place went nuts, 43,000 people screaming and high-fiving. An hour later, on the 1 California bus, even the people who weren't at the game were talking about it, and out in the night all the way out to 8th Avenue there were shouts of pure joy. Then Saturday night, when Fear the Beard nailed that last strike and the Giants had won a trip to the World Series it was like a Happy Bomb had exploded over the city, as a huge primal affirmative rang out and firecrackers exploded and strangers hugged each other on the street — the full jubilation works! There were the '75 Warriors, the Super Bowl 49ers of Joe Montana and Dwight Clark, but there's never been anything like the 2010 Giants.

CATCH OF THE DAY, Friday, February 14, 2025

WILLIAM ANDES, 48, Petaluma/Laytonville. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, vandalism, resisting.

JASMINE BAILEY, 25, Ukiah. Petty theft with two or more priors.

DAVID BURNS, 56, Mendocino. Controlled substance with two more priors, paraphernalia, parole violation.

TIFFANI ESPINOZA, 54, Ukiah. Trespassing, resisting.

MIGUEL RAMOS-GUZMAN, 26, Santa Rosa/Ukiah. DUI.

HAVING THE COURT appoint you a lawyer is a little like having your wife pick out your girlfriend. Don’t expect too much in either case.

— Bruce McEwen

THE SOHUM SKINNY

by Paul Modic

Russian hackers

Bachelor blues

Facebook blocking

Here's the news:

Will the Russians divide us like they did last time?

When low-info voters bought the evil Hilary line?

Putin's bots are primed and itchin'

Chemtrail nuts Vs Quarantine Kitchen??

California really wants that smelly turd

Out of the White House, he's absurd

When you block me from farce-book and I see you in town

What is the etiquette, ignore your frown?

Why'd you unfriend me, were you in a bad mood?

More likely because I was rude crude or lewd

Let's not get our panties in a swirl

Facebook's not the real world

(But if the Russians hack Quarantine Kitchen

All that fancy dinner porn will go missin')

I Got the Boring Bachelor Black Bean Burrito Blues Baby

I know It's Healthy But May As Well Just Drink Booze Ladies

For a good time call…

Could you spare me a tupper of your beautiful food?

Drop the leftovers in my mail box if you're in the mood

Lookin' for a high class meals on wheels

Maybe we can cop some organic feels

I'll trade you some veggies out of my garden

How 'bout a zukini, beggin' yer pardon

Take it away Captain Hummingbird!

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

Soft deadline to email your writing for tonight's (Friday night's) MOTA show is 6pm or so. Or 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 all I'm here for, almost.

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 goto 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:

“Through a thousand years of philosophy, we have progressed to hate slightly different things.” https://existentialcomics.com/comic/589

Dr. Eleanor Janega's Black Death podcast. https://going-medieval.com/2021/05/12/a-very-short-introduction-to-the-black-death/

And rerun: Robert Crumb v. Donald Trump (Hup! Comics, 1989). (via Mark). The one with the pointy nose is Aline. The one with the rounded nose is Dian. https://boingboing.net/2016/06/21/r-crumb-v-d-trump-1989-ns.html

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

ED OBERWEISER

I just received another reequest for donation to the Democratic Party. Here is my answer. The Democratic Party has failed to provide any alternative to the oligarchy the U.S. has become. You are taking the country in exactly the same direction as the Republicans only more slowly. You didn't have the courage to include in your party's agenda the worst federal agencies waste. The U.S. doesn't need 750 bases in 80 countries. As of March 10, 2023 the fiscal year 2024 (FY2024) presidential budget request was $842 billion. In January 2023. Even worse, the Pentagon cannot account for 63% of nearly $4 trillion in assets. Meanwhile, In January 2024, more than 770,000 people were experiencing homelessness in the United States, a 18.1% increase from 2023. This number represents people living in shelters, parks, and on the streets. In 2023, 47.4 million people in the United States lived in food-insecure households, which is about 1 in 7 households. This means they didn't have access to enough food or healthy food. Also military excesses drain needed funds for creating a better educational system here. One of the reasons Trump has been elected twice is that the American public has been misled by his lies. A truly educated citizenry would never have elected a man guilty of 14 felonies.

Don't ever come to me begging for more money unless you start aggressively attacking the above problems.

NOBODY KNOWS

Awoke early at the homeless shelter in northeast Washington, D.C. and proceeded to Whole Foods for a breakfast nosh, and then on to the MLK Public Library to check emails on a guest computer. I’ve no idea what comes next, but it is okay, because nobody in the district knows what is next either!

Craig Louis Stehr

CALIFORNIA CITY MAKES ‘AIDING’ OR ‘ABETTING’ A HOMELESS CAMP ILLEGAL

by Marisa Kendall

The Fremont City Council gave final approval this week to an ordinance that bans camping throughout the entire city, while also making anyone “aiding, abetting or concealing“ a homeless encampment guilty of a misdemeanor.

The aiding and abetting clause has sparked alarm from local outreach workers who worry they could be targeted for helping people living in camps, and experts in homelessness law who say they’ve never seen anything quite like it in California. Council members considered changing that part of the ordinance Tuesday night, but ultimately passed it as-is 6-1.

“Our public spaces belong to the entire community and it’s really not compassionate at all to cede our public spaces to a select few individuals at the expense of everyone else in the general public,” said Councilmember Raymond Liu, who voted in favor. “Families should be able to take their children to the parks, to the libraries, without fear, and all residents should be able to use our public spaces without encountering any unsafe conditions.”

Council members discussed the camping ban at length in a five-hour meeting Tuesday, where nearly 200 people lined up to speak for and against the measure during public comment. It was an unusual amount of fanfare for an ordinance that the city council already passed once earlier this month – Tuesday’s vote was a “second reading,” which typically is just a formality that warrants no discussion.

But the controversy surrounding the ban, which prohibits camping on all sidewalks, streets and parks in Fremont and makes anyone who aids or abets such a camp subject to a $1,000 fine or six months in jail, prompted the City Council to reevaluate the ordinance.

Three council members, plus the mayor, expressed interest either in removing the aiding and abetting clause or adding language to specify that it wouldn’t be used to punish people for handing out food, water and other essentials in homeless camps.

That change seemed likely to go through until minutes before the final vote. But after City Attorney Rafael Alvarado said multiple times that the aiding and abetting clause would target people who help unhoused people set up illegal camps, not people who give out food, council members changed course. Ultimately, they passed the measure as-is.

Changing the language would have forced council members to re-introduce the ordinance, meaning they’d have to go through two more votes. By the time the City Council voted Tuesday, it was almost midnight.

The text of the ordinance doesn’t specify what qualifies as aiding, abetting or concealing a homeless encampment. That leaves some uncertainty as to how the ordinance will be enforced, despite Alvarado’s assurances, UC Berkeley Law professor Laura Riley told CalMatters.

“That might be their stance at the time of adoption,” she said, “but there’s nothing in the language of the ordinance itself that prevents targeting people from doing things as humane as giving unhoused people tarps when it’s raining.”

In practice, local police often determine how they will enforce an ordinance, Riley said. How the Fremont aiding and abetting clause is interpreted could change when the city’s leadership changes, she said.

The city attorney’s statements were small comfort to Vivian Wan, CEO of Abode Services, which provides food, tents, clothing and other services to unhoused people living in camps.

“We worry about the ‘concealing’ portion, as PD/City staff in Fremont have been known to pressure us to share confidential information, including where a participant is staying,” she said in an email to CalMatters. “I think this ordinance may be used to compel such information, breaking the trust with folks that often takes years to build.”

The measure also puts the city of Fremont at odds with the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern and Southern California, which, in a letter to council members signed by several other aid and human rights groups, said the aiding and abetting clause is “patently unreasonable and will expose the City to legal liability.”

More than two-dozen California cities and counties have either passed new ordinances or beefed up old ordinances banning camping in recent months, after the U.S. Supreme Court gave them more freedom to do so. But none of those bans appear to include specific language that makes it a crime to aid or abet a camp.

In a statement to CalMatters, the Fremont city attorney’s office said the aiding and abetting language is nothing new – it’s already illegal in Fremont, as in many cities, to aid or abet any crime. When asked about that by council members during Tuesday’s meeting, Alvarado said even if the new camping ban didn’t have that specific clause, “in theory,” someone could still be penalized for aiding and abetting a homeless encampment.

But Riley said it’s significant that the new camping ban explicitly makes it a crime to aid and abet an encampment – language she’s never seen in any other active camping ban in California.

“This does seem to be going further,” she said. “Because by making it explicitly tied to this section of the code, to me, it signals that there is intent to prosecute under this section.”

Legal experts CalMatters spoke with said this is extremely unusual. No other city, to the best of CalMatters’ knowledge, has attempted to use general municipal code in the fashion this ordinance would.

More than two-dozen California cities passed, strengthened or are considering ordinances that penalize people for sleeping outside, after the U.S. Supreme Court allowed cities to crack down.

(CalMatters.org)

DARKNESS DYING

by James Kunstler

“The nature of the NGO scams is to have a cause that sounds philanthropic, like ‘Save the Orphans of Sadville’ and then they pocket the money and zero actual orphans are helped.” — Elon Musk

The exorcism of the USA just keeps revving up. You can tell by the number of revolutions-per-minute Elizabeth Warren’s head spins while she spews pea soup at the cameras. Who knew what a demon-infested slough USA Management Central was? And yes, I would like some insight as to how humble civil servants like Liz Warren accrue a $12-million fortune… and $30-million for Samantha Power (ex-USAID-chief)… and more than a $150-million for Nancy Pelosi. Could it be as simple as just good stock-picking? (Is that how they spend their time?)

You have reason to suspect that what goes on in Washington DC is the greatest racketeering operation ever run on God’s green earth. “A threat to our democracy!” the Party of Chaos spouted incessantly during the election campaign in re: Donald J. Trump. “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” The Washington Post still declares on its name-plate. Yet, who exactly kept the lights off the past four years? Who scrambled the brains of the nation’s management and thinking classes? Who made mental illness aspirational?

You begin to detect that by “our democracy” they actually meant “our everlasting grift.” And it didn’t die darkness — it thrived, grew, and spread in the moist bureaucratic darkness like the Devil’s own slime mold. And now it is being revealed, to the astonished disgust of slightly more than half the nation that was not on-the-take. Turn over a log in the woods and you have the metaphor for “our democracy.” Countless hundred-footed things slither around under it, their feeding interrupted.

The political left’s success springs from its dedication to organizing its member ranks and their activities. Organizing has been the key to their grand plan for arriving at Utopia. Except, sometime near the dawn of this century, with the torch of communism burning out, they realized that Utopia was a destination unlikely to be reached. Instead, they could turn their organizing talent to directing the money flow from their ever-expanding roster of world-saving NGOs into the bank accounts of their own member ranks.

USAID was the poster-child for that, a flowering of mutually-referential dollar feedback loops providing six-figure “jobs” and non-stop cocktail partying for the elite surplus churned out of left’s training academies, Harvard, Brown, Yale — with a whopping vig paid to congress-persons and senators who disbursed massive taxpayer funding for each newly-sprouted org dedicated to the uplift of the “marginalized and oppressed.”

Of course, that was merely the feeding frenzy of the small fish on the surface. Deeper down, the money-flow was going to much more demonic enterprises: the color revolution gang in the CIA, State Department, and God knows what other surreptitious agencies… Antifa and BLM (the Democratic Party’s shock troops)… the news industry (now completely corrupted into a global mind-fucking operation)… Hollywood’s zeitgeist-shaping dream factory of girl-boss fantasies… book publishing (with its zillion-dollar “advances-on-royalties” to political celebrity authors, who could never possibly earn-out that windfall on book sales)… the school systems at every level… the medical-pharma matrix… the military procurement racket too vast to even quantify (and the probable cause of the Pentagon’s consistent audit failures)… and, we’ve learned recently, the care-and-feeding of twenty-million illegal aliens ushered into our country by the “Joe Biden”/Al Mayorkas travel agency.

This colossal worm-farm lies exposed now with its slithering denizens drying up under the DOGE sunlamp. The response by the political left’s clown troop fronting for all these scams is the most pathetic performative cluster-B psychodrama ever enacted on the streets of our nation’s capital: Schumer, Maxine Waters, Ayana Pressley, Liz Warren, and every other mewling loser in Wokedom singing that old union ditty Which Side Are You On for the cameras — as if they were reenacting the 1907 Monongah Mining Disaster. They are crying— as the old saying goes — all the way to the bank.

The histrionics of the past three weeks are only the beginning, you understand, since USAID was just a mole-hill beside the mountain range of past turpitudes yet coming into view as Mr. Trump’s generals deploy in the battle-space. Yesterday — mirable dictu! — Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., was sworn-in for Health and Human Services, to oversee the empire of fraud that public health became during the rogue reign of Tony Fauci and his cohorts. The flip-side of MAHA is Make Medicine Truthful Again. Everything about health-care in America slouches in disrepute and ignominy, from the doctors hostage to their private equity taskmasters to the faked drug trials at FDA to the deliberate data mismanagement at CDC to the grant-and-kickback game at NIH and NIAID, to the hellscape of medical insurance fraud, to the revolving door between pharma and government —RFK faces one of the most onerous tasks of filth-clearing since Hercules shoveled out the Augean stables. And then there’s the giant hairball of poisoned American food.

The solitary figure who remains absent on the playing field is Kash Patel, and you can tell by the delaying tactics employed by the Party of Chaos that they (and their blob allies) dread the coming day that he gets confirmed to lead the FBI. That’s when the combined forces of avalanche, tsunami, earthquake, and fire send forth an exterminating spewage of long-suppressed information about the 1960s assassinations, RussiaGate, the Epstein matter, the Ukraine money-laundry, and any number of other unresolved treasonous scandals. It’s going to happen. And, if by some quirk of fate, Mr. Patel fails to get the votes, somebody else eventually will, somebody equally capable of fumigating that rat-hole. When that day comes, I’m sure Chuck Schumer will sing Kumbaya from the Capitol steps, expecting to make it all magically go away.

TRUMP NOMINATES BIG OIL LOBBYIST KATHLEEN SGAMMA TO HEAD BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT

by Dan Bacher

Washington, D.C. - If you thought it couldn't get any worse with already terrible Trump appointments to key cabinet positions, it just did.

Trump has nominated Kathleen Sgamma as director of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), according to an update on Congress.gov. Sgamma currently serves as the president of the Western Energy Alliance, an oil and gas trade group that has sought to greatly increase fossil fuel drilling on public lands and slash protections across landscapes. She was a Project 2025 author on energy policy.

If confirmed by the Senate, Sgamma will oversee an agency whose mission is “to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations.”…

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/2/14/2303738/-Trump-nominates-Big-Oil-lobbyist-Kathleen-Sgamma-to-head-Bureau-of-Land-Management

THE REST OF THE BARGAIN

Editor:

Donald Trump says that if Canada became the 51st state Canadians would get lower taxes, more military protection and no tariffs. What he doesn’t say is that if Canada joined the United States, Canadians would also get more poverty, greater income and wealth inequality, less social mobility, more expensive and less accessible health care, higher infant mortality and lower life expectancy. Maybe the United States should join Canada instead. But I doubt they’d want us.

Harvey Kantor

Santa Rosa

JEFFREY ST. CLAIR:

I’m not a cognitive psychologist, but this doesn’t sound like a mind firing on all cylinders:

“I spoke to Governor [sic] Trudeau on numerous occasions and we’ll see what happens [Canada becoming the 51st US state], but it just sets up so good for them. Look the people would pay much less tax than they’re paying right now. They’d have perfect military protection. They don’t have any military protection, because they, essentially, because, um, and you take a look at what’s going on out there, you have Russian ships, you have China ships, you have Chinese ships, you have, uh, you have a lot of ships out there. You know people are in danger. It’s a different world today. It’s a different world that they need our protection.”

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

I too have to resist the urge to turn away, turn off the TV or turn the page of the newspaper to something soothing and frivolous instead of cringing in horror at President Trump flouting the Constitution, practicing open racism and misogyny, and promoting crackpot 19th-century ideas about social Darwinism and imperial power.

I’m 80, and joining a march on Washington, as suggested by another letter writer, is not an option. Besides, this administration is capable of ignoring marchers or, worse, attacking them. But I have to do something.

Here’s what I have decided: I can contribute to the campaigns of moderates. I can donate to organizations that defend or care for immigrants. I can write letters to the editor and to members of Congress. I can subscribe to news media that challenge Trumpism.

I can vote, no matter how seemingly inconsequential an election is. I can volunteer to do whatever I am capable of. I can speak up when I hear MAGA nonsense. Anything is better than doing nothing. We have to keep the moral lights on.

LEAD STORIES, SATURDAY'S NYT

German Chancellor Rebukes Vance for Supporting Party That Downplays Nazis

Vance Shocks Europe With a Message That He Has Long Promoted at Home

A Quick, Quiet Trip to Belarus Signals a Turn in U.S. Policy

Zelensky Says Ukraine Is Unlikely to Survive Its War Without U.S. Support

Uncertainty About U.S. Economic Policy Will Test Business Leaders

Immigration Crackdown Stiffens Rules for Release of Migrant Children

As Trump Cuts Federal Jobs, Alabama’s ‘Rocket City’ Braces for Impact

In Trump Administration’s Cuts to Aid, a Clash Over Christian Values

Forest Service Layoffs and Frozen Funds Increase the Risk From Wildfires

Slash Now, Fix Later

TRUMP BANS ASSOCIATED PRESS FROM WHITE HOUSE FOR REFUSING TO ACCEPT GULF OF AMERICA

The Trump administration has indefinitely banned the Associated Press from the White House after the outlet refused to abide by the Gulf of America's new official name.

BAD NEWS FOR CHEETO EATERS

RFK Jr: “Today, over 100 members of Congress support a bill to fund Ozempic with Medicare… Most of these members have taken money from the manufacturer of that product, a European company called Novo Nordisk.”

“There is a push to recommend Ozempic for Americans as young as six over a condition—obesity—that is completely preventable, and barely even existed 100 years ago.”

“Since 74% of Americans are obese, the cost of all of them—if they take their Ozempic prescriptions—will be $3 trillion a year.”

“This is a drug that has made Novo Nordisk the biggest company in Europe. It’s a Danish company, but the Danish government does not recommend it. It recommends a change in diet to treat obesity, and exercise.”

“For half the price of Ozempic, we could purchase… organic food for every American—three meals a day—and a gym membership for every obese American.”

“For 19 years, solving the childhood chronic disease crisis has been the central goal of my life. And for 19 years, I have prayed to God every morning to put me in a position to end this calamity.”

“I believe we have the opportunity… to transform American health… and, I believe, to save our spirits and our country.”

DRONE HIT ON CHERNOBYL

by trustworthy Harvey Wasserman

“Chernobyl/Pripyat Exclusion Zone (018.8060)” by Pedro Moura Pinheiro is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Today Putin’s Russia used a drone to hit the sarcophagus that covers seething nuclear reactor at Chernobyl, in Ukraine.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/14/europe/russia-ukraine-drones-chernobyl-intl-hnk/index.html

As of this writing, there has been no formal statement from the Russians.

But it really doesn’t matter: this terrifying strike sends the world a clear message…in the age of drone warfare, any “Peaceful Atom” plant can be turned into a radioactive apocalypse at any time.

Chernobyl is not in a “hot” war zone. Drone warfare has evolved into a highly sophisticated, carefully controlled nightmare with very advanced computerization.

https://progressive.org/latest/drones-nukes-and-the-myth-of-reactor-safety-wasserman-20250129

Coming just after Putin spoke personally with Donald Trump, some may see this attack as a calling card. Whatever the Russians say about it must be taken with many grains of plutonium.

But it can easily be interpreted as a message to the Ukrainians, warning them that they—-and the rest of us—-can instantly be showered (again) by lethal radiation. All it will take is a “errant” drone directed from Moscow.

The four reactors at Chernobyl were built by the Soviets in the 1970s and 1980s. Unit Four exploded on April 26, 1986.

For decades the global nuclear industry had denied any civilian reactor could explode. That disaster has been attributed structural and operator error.

As radiation circled the planet, the US industry took pains to say that Chernobyl was an “inferior” Soviet reactor, but that those designed in the US could not explode.

Then, on March 11, 2011, three US-designed nukes at Fukushima, Japan, melted and exploded, followed by a fourth that blew up in a hydrogen explosion. That Unit Four, which had been shut for refueling, barely avoided a fuel pool disaster whose radiation releases could have been gargantuan.

Chernobyl’s radioactive cloud blanketed most of Europe. It was detected at a bird sanctuary north of San Francisco within ten days. It measurably circled the globe at least twice. Three Russian scientists later estimated the human death toll at more than one million. Residual fallout levels are still significant in much of Scandinavia and the Arctic circle.

Putin’s army poured through the Chernobyl site early in its Ukrainian invasion. Unit Four is still “hot,” demanding constant maintenance and cooling. Russian invaders at Chernobyl ignited extreme tension with Ukrainian nuclear operators, seriously jeopardizing plant safety.

Indeed, Putin’s occupation has been fraught with atomic terror. The Russians’ technical capabilities are questionable at best. A European coalition has covered Chernobyl 4 with a $2 billion sarcophagus meant to contain leaks and any further explosions. As of this morning, that’s what’s been newly “adorned” with a Russian drone.

But eight other atomic reactors are now in the war zone, six at Zaporizhzhia, in Ukraine, two at Kursk, in Russia. Three more lie dormant at Chernobyl. Overall Ukraine has a total of 15. There are more than 410 worldwide, including 92 in the US, many of them on earthquake faults.

Mortar and other shells have been flying around Zapo and Kursk for a while now. Chernobyl 4 is the world’s only nuke with a protective sarcophagus.

But a guided (or mis-guided) drone could easily cause any atomic power plant to melt and/or explode.

As of this writing, there has been no formal explanation from the Russians about how their drone wound up in apparent attack mode on the Chernobyl sarcophagus.

But whatever Putin says, what’s at stake here is no less than the ability of the human species to survive on this planet.

Chernobyl 4 is the only nuke on earth with a massive protective sarcophagus is not reassuring. The other 400+ don’t have.

The clear message is that atomic energy is not a sustainable technology. In addition to its escalating costs, extreme heat emissions, “normal” chemical and radioactive fallout, climate threatening Carbon 14 and so much more, an actual reactor site has now been hit with an explosive device, in the midst of a war.

And in the age of drone warfare, they are all terrifyingly vulnerable to obliteration…either by accident or design.

Battery-backed renewables are now exponentially cheaper, safer, cleaner, more reliable and faster to build.

No drone hitting a solar array will ever carpet the earth with lethal radiation.

The nukes that could need to shut. NOW.

Originally posted: https://freepress.org/article/putin%E2%80%99s-drone-hit-chernobyl-today-sends-us-all-atomic-message

(Harvey Wasserman wrote Solartopia! Our Green-Powered Earth, & co-wrote Killing Our Own: The Disaster of America’s Experience with Atomic Radiation. Most Mondays he co-convenes the Green Grassroots Emergency Election Protection Zoom (www.grassrootsep.org).)

(via Fred Gardner)

BOWL OR BUST: CICERO, TRUMPIUS, AND LAMAR

by David Yearsley

It is the year LIX, BCE. The Roman LIX translates into 59 in Arabic, soon to proclaimed “American Numerals” by Trumpius Maximus, newly returned to the Consulship.

BCE stands for Big, Crazy Entertainment, and it is fitting that this edition of the games are being staged in Caesar’s Superdome in New Orleans. During his conquest of Gaul, Julius Caesar besieged and then obliterated old Orleans, then called Cenabum. Later Roman overlords of the province would bestow the name Aurelanium on the city. The first 59 BCE (Before the Common Era) was the year that Caesar was first elected Consul.

I watched Sunday’s American gladiatorial spectacle with a Dane — soon-to-be an enemy combatant in the looming Bellum Americanum — and the famed Roman orator and statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero. We were in an unheated safe house in the midst of the Arctic temperatures of Upstate New York (actually colder than those now prevailing in the Arctic). As historical happenstance would have it, we were not far from two towns named in his honor: Tully and Cicero, both in Onondaga County.

Cicero hated Caesar, though he was not part of the conspiracy that assassinated the usurper in the Roman Senate in 44 BCE. Nonetheless, Cicero wrote that he “wished he had been invited to that superb banquet.”

In the aftermath of the bloodbath in the Curia, Cicero lambasted Ceasar’s henchman and would-be successor, Marc Antony, in a series of fourteen speeches known as the Philippics. Antony’s thugs then tracked down Cicero as he fled the Italian peninsula and cut off his head and hands.

When Antony’s wife Fulvia saw Cicero’s severed head displayed in the Roman forum, she grabbed hold of the legendary orator’s tongue and began jabbing it with a hairpin pulled from her lavish coif.

Luckly, Cicero’s allies included Rome’s leading physician, Asclepiades, who had not only developed an atomic theory of the human body, but was also the inventor of cryogenics. Just in time, the good doctor had this beautiful mind spirited to a subzero cave in the bowels of an Alpine glacier north of Milan (Mediolanum), where Cicero has been cooling his head — though not his heels (these were never found) — for the last two millennia-and-change.

That glacier has been melting quickly in recent decades, so, thanks to a Living Latin kick-starter campaign, Cicero has recently been moved secretly to a luxury frost-o-leum at an unspecified location in North American. As befits his exalted status, Cicero’s current berth is between the noggins of baseball immortal Ted Williams and Walt Disney, who, since his temporary demise in 1966, has been anything but animated.

Soon after it was announced that Kendrick Lamar would do this year’s Super Bowl halftime show, a secret meeting of the Ciceronian Cryonic Society (CCS) deemed it worthwhile, nay essential, that, for the first time since his beheading, the celebrated orator be warmed up a few degrees in a slow oven.

Cicero would want to know what’s going down in the American Republic during the current stampede towards Dictatorship. Cicero had seen it all before. He hadn’t fared too well in Ancient Rome under such circumstances, making any advice from him suspect at best. But at least he could offer rhetorically elegant commentary.

Cicero is on record — papyrus and occasionally parchment — as enjoying the theatrical preludes to the gladiatorial games staged in the Colosseum. But he found the human combat distasteful and felt particular compassion for the elephants forced to participate. In the Philippics, Cicero savaged Antony for his “gladiator’s body,” one that housed a mind of the same brute qualities.

On Super Bowl Sunday, Cicero scoffed as the dandified champions paraded through the tunnel to the arena, not in their armor, but in purple-suited finery, their hair slicked and styled, their necks draped with gold chains, their mangled fingers ornamented with bejeweled rings, their cauliflower ears coddled by music muffs. Later, when games had at last begun after all the pomp and circumstance, Cicero wondered why the American legionnaires’ curious flying chariots hadn’t descended from above and disgorged their own gladiator to battle with those already in formation on the green, gridded floor of Caesar’s Superdome? I drew the Roman’s attention to the fact that this amphitheater had a roof. “Have these machines not catapults that could launch incendiary missiles to blast a hole in the battlements?” I didn’t dislike the idea.

Just before kick-off, the CCS technicians had hooked up DeepSeek’s recently unveiled Large Latin Language Model and Nero-Neuro-translator to the cooling Kelvin-Pole on which they had mounted Cicero’s head.

Given the Ancient hack-job on his tongue, Cicero wasn’t in top elocutionary form, and during the half-time show he wondered if a kindred lingual fate had befallen the Pulitzer-prize-winning performer. Had some modern-day Fulvia recently mutilated the rapper’s silver tongue?

Even through this marvel of the latest AI technology, Cicero only caught a few words that passed Lamar’s lips as he babbled into what the Roman thought was some kind of magic scroll, not of parchment but of exotic metal gripped tightly and held close to his mouth. Cicero couldn’t make heads or tails of the patter, though he had dropped mega dinari (having gotten into digital currency a good ten years ago) on the coin toss, in spite of his long-ago fulminations against gambling on the games.

Luckily, Cicero had also taken the over on the national anthem, set by oddsmakers at 120.5 seconds. In his heyday Cicero had been a master of rhetorical emphasis and well-timed repetitio, and a warm grin broke through his icy lips grin when Jon Batiste circled back not once, but twice through “the land of the free,” vaulting the New Orleans native’s bluesy rendition of the British-white-man’s-drinking-society-song-equipped-with-an-American-racist’s-ridiculous-lyrics a few seconds past the over/under line. “Tasty tag, my man!” exclaimed Cicero, dollar signs flashing in his frozen eyes.

By contrast, the only words from Lamar’s half-time show that Cicero did understand were: “The revolution will not be televised.” Cicero’s response to that fleeting moment of clarity was immediately seen in English on the DeepSeek tablet and uttered simultaneously by a virtual voice that sounded a lot like James Earl Jones’s: “It could have been televised this very moment in this very place, toppling the would-be emperor from his throne high up in the amphitheater, if you only you, Kendrick Lamar, weren’t so obsessed with the sound of your own indecipherable voice, and the attendant fame and lucre in which you bathe. Entertaining Trumpius and his masses is a form of venal submission, not courageous dissent.”

Two hours earlier, as Batiste had hymned the American Republic (its own over-under expiration-date dropping rapidly in Vegas), Trumpius had risen from his imperial seat in salute. From the crowd came a giant surge of jubilation as the plebes and patricians saw his flame-topped image spread across the giant screen.

It was time for Cicero to quote himself, his prodigious memory undiminished by the intervening centuries since he first gave the speech in the Senate:

“Behold, here you have a man [Caesar] who was ambitious to be king of the Roman People and master of the whole world; and he achieved it! The man who maintains that such an ambition is morally right is a madman; for he justifies the destruction of law and liberty and thinks their hideous and detestable suppression glorious.”

After the rituals opening patriotic displays, Cicero soon became bored by the on-field maneuvers and on-screen decadence, all of it familiar to him from the last days of the Roman Republic. After halftime, Cicero seemed downright depressed. Hyped as a great orator, Kendrick had proved a grave disappointment. Even Trumpius made for a dismal display: “I knew Caesar and Trumpius is no Caesar.”

As the epic “entertainment” ground on, Cicero began to cool further, then lost interest altogether. In the third quarter he glanced over as we finished off the Buffalo Wings. “Finger LIXing good,” he quipped, the great orator reduced to infantile wordplay. Such was the state of the Republic of Rhetoric.

These games were a bust and so was he, he punned again, forlornly.

The CCS technicians came early in the fourth quarter and took him. The Dane made an ardent plea that he be hidden somewhere Greenland, but even she knew that he would not be safe there.

The next morning, we got word that the van had been intercepted by ICE, Cicero kidnapped by one of the Osprey plane-helicopters from the Super Bowl fly-over. His head had been flown immediately south and from a great height pitched into the Gulf of America just off of Nova Aurelianum.

(David Yearsley is a long-time contributor to CounterPunch and the Anderson Valley Advertiser. His latest albums, “In the Cabinet of Wonders” and “Handel’s Organ Banquet” are now available from False Azure Records.)

THE BLOKE WHO INVENTED BEER

A long time ago, way back in history

When all there was to drink was nothing but cups of tea

Along came a man by the name of Charlie Mops

And he invented a wonderful drink and he made it out of hops.

He must have been an admiral, a sultan or a King

And to his praise we shall always sing

Look what he has done for us, he’s filled us up with cheer

Lord bless Charlie Mops the man who invented beer.

Beer, beer, beer,

Tiddley beer, beer, beer.

The Furey’s bar, the Clancy’s pub, the hole in the wall as well

Of one thing you can be sure of, it’s Charlie’s beer they sell

So come on all me lucky lads, at eleven o’clock ye stop

For five short seconds, remember Charlie Mops

One, two, three, four, five.

He must have been an admiral, a sultan or a King

And to his praise we shall always sing

Look what he has done for us, he’s filled us up with cheer

Lord bless Charlie Mops the man who invented beer.

A barrel of malt a bushel of hops,

You stir it around with a stick

The type of lubrication to make your engine tick

Forty pints of wallop a day will keep away the quacks

It’s only eight pence halpenny a print and one six in tax.

He must have been an admiral, a sultan or a King

And to his praise we shall always sing

Look what he has done for us, he’s filled us up with cheer

Lord bless Charlie Mops the man who invented beer.

— Wylde Nept

15 Comments

Bruce McEwen February 15, 2025

Wordsmith David Yearsley’s meeting with Cicero is as cleverly done as Gulliver’s meeting with Homer and Aristotle.

Norm Thurston February 15, 2025

Tom Carter is the best thing to happen at the Palace Hotel since Tommy Tutone.

George Hollister February 15, 2025

I shop in both large grocery stores in Fort Bragg. What I don’t see when shopping there are first, or second generation Mexicans. They are likely the largest group of working class people in Fort Bragg. So where do these folks shop? Willits and Ukiah. Many moons ago when I did some shopping at Walmart in Ukiah it was a good place to meet common folks from Fort Bragg. That is a lot of driving.

- Mike Kalantarian February 15, 2025
  
  There are Mexican markets in Bragg, which I imagine Mexicans frequent.
  
  But what was even more egregious was LaFever completely ignoring Down Home, which is the area’s best grocery for my money.
  
  FB also sports an excellent Farmer’s Market.
  
  This is how you lose good local small business.
  
- Bruce McEwen February 15, 2025
  
  Try Mi Esperanza (my hope) grocery store in Boonville, George, if you like Mexican fare. I used to shop there all the time— coldest beer in town and a barrel of peanuts when you come in the door. They used to cash a lot of paychecks from the vineyards and wire money back home to Mexico until, that is, an Argentine national working illegally in the US pulled an armed robbery there a few years back. The scurvy dog was nabbed before he could board a plane in New York bound for Argentina, so he is probably languishing in a California prison awaiting deportation to some unpleasant South American dungeon, the poor devil.
  
Chuck Dunbar February 15, 2025

James Marmon

Today, as I recall, is the memorial for James in Redwood Valley. I hope he gets a good send-off, maybe a bunch of motorcycle buddies roaring off down the road….I’ll bet there’ll be some darn good James stories, some good humor, some awe of his varied life endeavors. Like others, I am sorry for his too-young passing and, oddly, even sorry that he didn’t get to see for himself the coming of the MAGA rule. He would have loved that. James cared deeply about a lot of things, some many of us disagreed with, some we shared with him. He had a strong life force, he spoke his mind.

It still seems weird not to see his AVA comments now and then. R.I.P., James.

- Bruce Anderson February 15, 2025
  
  Marmon, fundamentally, was a good person and, imo, an excellent CPS worker until he got screwed over by irresponsible colleagues with official County support. I think that experience drove him MAGA.
  
  - Chuck Dunbar February 15, 2025
    
    You’re probably right, Bruce. By the way, if anyone here attends the memorial, it would be great to get some feedback, hear a few of the stories and all.
    
Marshall Newman February 15, 2025

In case you do not know, Beppe Gambetta and Dan Crary are legends in the world of bluegrass music. This is a show not to be missed.

Lew Chichester February 15, 2025

Re: sewer and water in Boonville-
Writing from Covelo here’s a few things to share. We have had a sewer district in the unincorporated town for decades. There’s a monthly bill for the sewer hookup. About half the parcels don’t pay the monthly bill and the unpaid bill eventually gets tacked onto the property tax assessment. There’s no water system. Every parcel has it’s own well. No domestic water system, no fire hydrants, no water pressure, no way to put fire sprinklers in a building without providing the big tank and a pump. The water from a well in town is usually sufficient for domestic use unless the well isn’t deep enough and there’s a long drought. This has happened. Without a water system to provide fire hydrants and fire sprinklers it is almost impossible to build anything new. All the building codes require sprinklers now, and a developed, unincorporated area without fire hydrants is a fire insurance nightmare. Anderson Valley, in your considerations about water and sewer you will need to take care of this, sooner or later. And what do they do in Laytonville, or Westport, or Hopland, or Mendocino even? Point Arena, Willits, Fort Bragg, Ukiah are all legitimate towns and most likely have real sewer and water, including fire hydrants.

Kimberlin February 15, 2025

Editor, I know Gordon Getty, he is a friend of mine. We are on the same board of advisors. I have flown with him on his private airliner. All in all he is a very modest man. Flying on that plane spoiled me for public air travel. He wears a cheap watch and his sports jacket looks as beat up as that of a highschool teacher. He spends his money where it makes sense. His house is on the same block as your nephew’s mansion. I told Gordon that your Robert had an indoor basketball court and he said, “I have an indoor swimming pool, but I don’t have an indoor basketball court.” He has a full size jetliner instead of a Gulf or Lear jet becausee he is six feet five inches tall and couldn’t stand up in a small plane like a Lear. Makes perfect sense if you can afford it. Gordon inherited his money and your nephew married into it. I don’t see a difference.

gary smith February 15, 2025

“Chernobyl 4 is the world’s only nuke with a protective sarcophagus.”
Our own Humboldt Bay nuke plant has one.

Mark Donegan February 15, 2025

I’ll be impressed with Bernie when he quits grandstanding on single past debatable success. So far, he has brought nothing forward for the county. During the last well attended BHAB meeting there was still debate over who to call for what. Mo just did a video about BHRS money being state and federal monies, we just in some cases do a shit job in distributing it. But how would anyone know if they don’t look or are tangled in minutia? It is not in the contracts or RFP’s, it is simply just suggesting moves in one direction or another to a single person, the director.

Mike Jamieson February 15, 2025

Looking ahead….polling from 538 site
Harris

36%
Buttigieg

10%
Walz

9%
Newsom

6%
Ocasio-Cortez

5%
Whitmer

4%
Shapiro

3%
Cuban

3%
Fetterman

2%
Pritzker

2%
Warnock

2%
Booker

2%
Crockett

2%
Polis

1%
Beshear

1%
Gallego

1%
Moore

0%
Smith

0

Mark Stillman February 15, 2025

Thanks for the timely baseball tale of the 2010 Giants. I had been part of a group of season ticket holders from Ukiah and Willits. As the low man on the totem pole, I got the 1st playoff game. When it became apparent that Lincecum was coming out to pitch the 9th, the whole place practically melted with joy, a rare and unforgettable shared emotion.

15 Comments

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