Mendocino County Today: Sunday 2/16/2025

By AVA News Service on February 16, 2025

SHOWERS activity today, increasing in the afternoon mainly in Del Norte County. Lingering showers Monday afternoon, followed by briefly drier and calm weather through Tuesday afternoon. Additional rain is expected Tuesday night and Wednesday. A long period of dry and warm weather is expected to start settling in by end of the work week. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): Some lingering showers this Sunday morning on the coast but not before bringing us another .67" of rainfall. We might see a shower today or tonight but not much. Clear skies Monday & most of Tuesday then another shot of rain into Wednesday. Clear skies for a while after that, we'll see?

*Hericium coralloides* or Coral Tooth Mushroom (mk)

FLU COMING OUR WAY?

Jean Arnold: The Bay Area is having a flood of influenza cases, causing stress on hospitals and clinics. The typical pattern is for their contagious-disease problems to show up here about 10-14 days later, and that's especially pertinent on a three-day weekend. Masking, handwashing, and yes, vaccination! are the best tools to prevent illness. (A friend who can tolerate one vaccine at a time got the COVID one and failed to follow up and get the flu one; her partner got both. My friend got the flu and her partner didn't. Just two data points, but enough for me.)

Elise King: My neighbors both came down with a bad flu one week ago and they are still sick. And yes, they both had flu vaccinations in October. Didn’t prevent anything.

Joel Kies: In either case, individual anecdotal evidence is not conclusive on this topic. We're dealing with probabilities, and you need to aggregate a lot of data to reach a useful conclusion.

Jean Arnold: Well, they might have died otherwise, right? And was it this influenza, or something else -- they have new, dual tests that differentiate between COVID and flu now…

ANSWERING THE FACEBOOK QUESTIONS about the Boonville Water & Sewer projects.

by Valerie Hanelt, Chair, Anderson Valley Community Services District

How did the water projects get started? In 2012 the California State Legislature and the governor passed the “California’s Human Right to Water” law which declares that “every human being has the right to safe, clean, affordable, and accessible water adequate for human consumption, cooking, and sanitary purposes. Proposition One was passed to provide funds to the California State Waterboard to issue grants for the planning and construction of community water projects. It is best to construct a sewer system AND a drinking water system to ensure “clean water”. Prior to this there had been construction funds, but not planning funds. We were literally one of the first communities to appear in the State offices late 2013 to get our application started for a planning grant. This was the first opportunity for grant funds since the 1980’s when most communities got “sewered” and built state funded water systems. We had passed this opportunity up, so this is our next chance – 40 years later. This has actually worked in our favor ultimately as we are not upgrading a 40-year-old system – we are benefiting from the advances in technology and installing an MBR. This technology is used by smaller communities such as Gaming casinos, small developments (Boonville is considered a tiny system), and forward military bases). Our first task was to get real data about our ground water contamination. We did not have any funding at that point, so we had to keep our budget small. We contracted with Alpha Labs in Ukiah to do “blind” testing of two areas in Boonville with the highest population density. The Haehl street block and the row of residences on the east side of 128 from (but not including) Boontberry to the Anderson Creek overcrossing. The residents were willing to test – but we would not know which results went with which lot. (Ultimately some results were willingly shared with us by residents). The results of the testing is on our website AVCSD.org. Of the 24 wells tested, 87% tested positive for total coliform, 70% tested positive for E. Coli, and 61% had nitrates over 8.0 mg.L. (These are TERRIBLE results that shock any official who sees them!) This meant that Alpha Labs was required to inform 22 of the 24 owners that their water was dangerous and should not be ingested. The Mendocino Health department sent all parcel owners advisory information. (I want to point out that contamination does not respect property lines) No, private residences cannot be “red tagged”. The best well was at Ricard’s! He had installed a new deep well with concrete liner in 2003 when he was trying to develop those two parcels. He was not able to continue with development without municipal drinking water, however – so those parcels are ‘dead in the water’.

The original municipal boundaries shared the sewer boundaries. This is because we were concentrating on small lots with inadequate separation between wells and septic. However, another goal of the State Waterboard was to incorporate as many PWS (Public Water Systems) as possible into one water district. (Note list of 13 PWS in earlier post). The last PWS was the elementary school so that allowed us to go all the way down AV Way and invite more residents to participate who would not have been eligible under the original funding. This also allowed us to invite Meadow Estates to join our system and plan on abandoning the system that they have (they are deciding that issue now). The funding to incorporate the PWS was added to Proposition One. This meant the project could have enough customers to afford to maintain the systems. Aside: We surveyed the 52 Meadow Estates parcel owners but not enough were interested in joining the municipal sewer system, so those lots will all continue with independent septic systems.

Clearing The Water

Dear Boonville residents,

Please go to the Firehouse and look at the maps posted on the outside of the building to see if your property is within the boundary of the Sewer and Drinking Water project. The Sewer is a smaller district comprised of the main “downtown” area of Boonville including the high school and the Clinic on Mountain View Rd. The Drinking Water project boundary is larger and contains the sewer area as well as the Meadow View development (by the airport), AV Way and the Elementary School and the Museum. There are approximately 150 parcels that are in both the sewer and drinking water projects and an additional 100 parcels that will only have access to the drinking water project.

Let’s discuss the Drinking Water first.

ALL the easements for the components of this project have been acquired.

There will be two 150,000 gal tanks (totaling 300,000 gal.) on an elevated parcel on the southern end of town at the end of Hutsell Rd. This stored water will be used for fire suppression and will supply water to the approximately 40 hydrants throughout the system spaced 500’ apart.
Private wells have already been acquired by easement contracts. The wells at the Clinic, Museum, and four private wells have been negotiated, and their owners will be compensated by the agreed upon amount (adjusted for inflation) when construction funds become available. The well field at Meadow Estates will provide 2-4 additional wells and once the new system is operational the CSD will take over the operation of the Meadow Estates water system with all new infrastructure (this agreement is pending). In addition to these eight wells, the CSD will be drilling three new wells along the airstrip. The total number of wells that will supply the water capacity needed is approximately 12 and we are finished with the acquisition of wells. Other than the wells listed above, no other wells will be required for the project.
Joining the Drinking Water project is OPTIONAL. We are very close to having final rate information but at this time it is estimated that a single-family home would be charged a base rate of slightly under $80/month. Usage of water will add to that. The approximate cost of 1,000 gal will be around $5.12/month. The State suggests a single ‘family’ consumes about 5,000 gal/mo. That means the bill for base rate plus 5,000 gal for this ‘average’ family would be $105/mo. If you irrigate outside with your own well and only use the metered water in your kitchen, bathroom, and laundry you would probably use substantially less than 5,000 gal. Currently, we do not have monthly rates for commercial properties, schools, Fairgrounds, or multiple family homes (duplexes, etc). Also, the CSD has to approve the rate structure so the single-family rates I am providing are unofficial numbers – but I feel confident the single family homes can use this information for making your decision as to whether you want to participate.
As we are a “severely disadvantaged community” the State will be paying for 100% of the infrastructure. In 2019 the cost estimate was close to $19 million for Drinking Water. We are finishing the last steps of the planning process and will be applying for the construction grant. The State has been incredibly helpful and supportive – but I cannot promise that this project will be funded.
If you elect to sign a contract to join the drinking water project (coming late this year) you will be provided with a meter box (next to street) as well as a lateral to ONE residence on your parcel. There are a lot of parcels with multiple residences so the owner will have to deal with the pipes to the other residences. The path the lateral takes from the meter box to your home hookup is decided between you and the contractor. If you have a commercial property, there is some question about whether you will have to pay for the meter and laterals. Many of our commercial properties have residences on them so we are negotiating to have those residences supplied with a meter box and lateral which would vastly simplify hooking up the commercial buildings on those mixed lots.
Commercial parcels also have the option of not participating. The confusion is probably whether the commercial parcel is a Public Water System (PWS). We have the following PWS in Boonville: Clinic, High School and Elementary School, the Fairgrounds, groceries with delis (AV Mkt and Boontberrry), restaurants (Disco Ranch, Redwood Drive In, Boonville Brewery, Farrer building food service, General Store, Boonville Hotel, Pennyroyal). Two PWS are now out of business (old Lauren’s and the Pik&Pay). In about 2018 the Division of Drinking Water informed these PWS that, as it was probable that a municipal drinking water system would be installed, they should continue to do their monthly testing and submission of scores/mitigation of their systems to ensure safe water for their customers. Once the CSD system was in place they would not have to continue testing their water as that would be done by the municipal system. However, if any PWS decided to NOT join the water project then they would have to resume the permitting approval process with the Division of Drinking Water. This would require on-site storage of water (amongst many other requirements) and continued monthly testing. We had one PWS indicating some reluctance to join but every other PWS is anticipating much less hassle, red tape, and expense in their future.
If you elect to join the Drinking Water system you will not pay for any infrastructure. When the system is up and running and you turn on your tap you will start paying your monthly rate which will include usage. The monthly bill is the only expense you will have. (An aside here, your property taxes are unaffected).
If you do not elect to join at the outset (when the infrastructure is provided by the State Grant) there would be substantial expense to join later. You would have to arrange for and pay the construction costs to connect to the main line with a meter box and lateral(s). You will also have to pay for the County permit to do this. You will have to pay to become a member of our system and set up your account which includes our inspection of the work done to ensure it has been done correctly. The engineers estimated two years ago that these costs could come to $30,000. That is why some property owners without a residence on their lot are electing to have a meter box installed so that they can develop in the future. They would pay the monthly charge of the base rate (about $78/month) to keep their options open and avoid the high costs of installing water lines later.
Capacity of the system. The State will pay for the infrastructure to provide enough water for 100% of the residents who sign up to be customers. This means we cannot guarantee that we will have enough capacity for anyone who wants to join later. You might be willing to pay the substantial costs, but we might not be able to accommodate you.

Now the Sewer system.

We are acquiring a 20-acre site for the treatment plant and leach field right in town. The owners have agreed on the sale when the construction funds are available. The estimated cost in 2018 for the Sewer system was $17 Million. The system we are using is a MBR (membrane bioreactor) which uses microorganisms to produce essentially clean water (secondary plus). There is no pond. The effluent (liquids) are injected into a leach field. The sludge (solids) will be de-watered so that it is simpler and more cost effective to truck from the site. The sludge product at the end of this on-site process is odorless and light (I think it is like a shredded wheat cereal wafer – fluffy and no-smell.) The only visible part of the treatment plant is a 50x100 ft building. There is almost no odor (it’s amazing). There would be very limited noise from fans, however, the building will be far back in the 20-acre site. The 2 ½ acre leach field will have a chain link fence around it and it is suitable for a recreational use – some communities use them for a soccer field. How about a dog-walking park? The CSD is studying supplying our treated water for other purposes; it can be used for livestock watering, agricultural irrigation, firefighting, road construction, etc. It cannot be used for hot tubs or swimming pools by code, but reportedly won’t hurt you even if you drink it.

The purpose of the State grant is to remove all contaminants within the boundary, so this means there is no opting out. If the sewer project is approved, then ALL parcels in the sewer boundary are required to join. Your septic tanks will be decommissioned (flattened? filled with gravel?). The path of the lateral will be decided between the property owner and the contractor. I do not have the monthly charge for the sewer system yet. We are hoping it will be close to the drinking water rate. There is no change in the rate for usage; the monthly charge is constant for single family homes. (Commercial rates are based on flows, however). You will not start paying your monthly bill until you flush a toilet.

Timeline: we have about one more year of planning. We still have to

finish the CEQA process (another public meeting is required and the parcel owners in the boundaries will be receiving a postcard announcing that date in the fall),
get approved to be a Sewer and Drinking Water district by LAFCO (6 months), and then…
we send you a “rate letter” (called the “218 protest”). This can be considered a “vote” – but it is not a ballot. You will get a letter (two letters if you are in both projects) that tells you what rate you can anticipate paying every month. Your options are: You can do nothing, signaling your acceptance, OR you can send back a “protest” signaling you do not want the project (s) to move forward. If 50%+ 1 protests (76 for sewer and 126 for drinking water) are received, then that project cannot proceed.

The next step is sending in our Construction Grant application. The time required to get to the end of that process is 1-3 years. Once we get the green light, the engineers will finish 100% of the design (6 months) and then it goes out to bid (6 months).

Each project will take about two construction seasons. Sewer would go first but while the trenching takes place (each project is on different sides of the streets as potable water lines cannot be next to sewer lines), the water project is digging wells and installing the tanks and treatment buildings and then trenching while the sewer project is working at the its treatment site. We are very hopeful that installation will be 2027-2028. Caltrans has us on their schedule with a “Complete Streets” grant to follow the infrastructure with installation of traffic and parking markings, bike lanes and fresh paving. We are very hopeful that we can get additional grants to redo the sidewalk areas with landscaping as well. A public toilet in the “downtown” is highly desirable – which would be made possible by the installation of infrastructure.

Development: Please go look at the map and think about where development could happen within the boundaries. The 150 parcels that will have both sewer and water will have new possibilities to use the space their leach field now occupies. Perhaps those folks would like to have a granny unit (for granny, kids, rental), or would like to have a different sort of building. All your residential lots are R-C (Rural Community) which is a very flexible zoning. Your original municipal water meter and grinder pump will support any capacity the County approves without upgrading. If you have only municipal drinking water you also can have more ‘density’ on your lot which would also allow a granny unit (ADU). Look at the downtown area on 128. How would you feel about a pharmacy? A gift shop? A small hotel? Renewal of our blighted buildings? If development in the sewer boundary bothers you the resource you have is to oppose it in the planning process.

The Water Projects meet the first Thursday of every month at 10:30 AM at the Firehouse. Both projects are updated by the engineers and are available to answer any questions. Please let the CSD know if you would like to be on the distribution list so that you can be alerted to the meetings and the zoom link if you would like to attend remotely.

The water projects have extensive information on the avcsd.org website. All minutes and reports/documents/letter/FAQs are there, as well as any social media posts. This post will be on as well.

Cape Horn Dam and Van Arsdale Reservoir on the Eel River (Kyle Schwartz)

END OF AN ERA: PG&E PLANS TO DECOMMISSION POTTER VALLEY HYDROELECTRIC FACILITY

by Monica Huettl

PG&E held a town hall webinar on February 6 to present key details from its 2,086-page Final Draft Application for Surrender of License for the Potter Valley Project. The document outlines PG&E’s plan to decommission the hydroelectric facility, which has been operating under an annual license since its previous authorization expired in 2022. The plan also includes a proposal for a new seasonal water diversion system, the New Eel Russian Facility (NERF), to be developed by the Eel Russian Project Authority (ERPA). If approved, this facility would continue diverting winter water flows from the Eel River to the Russian River while allowing for fish passage.…

https://mendofever.com/2025/02/15/end-of-an-era-pge-plans-to-decommission-potter-valley-hydroelectric-facility/

KEY PROVISIONS OF NEWLY APPROVED PACT on Eel River water diversions into the Russian River

by Mary Callahan

Stakeholders on the Eel and Russian rivers have reached agreement on a framework for future water diversions from the Eel into the Russian River, once PG&E decommissions its Potter Valley power plant, through which flows have been directed for nearly 120 years.

A memorandum of understanding to be signed in a ceremony in Sacramento on Thursday allows for limited diversions to continue, but only when the Eel River has sufficiently high flows to accommodate different life stages of federally protected salmon and steelhead trout.

The mostly wintertime diversions will reduce annual transfers into the Russian River watershed from a current level of about 40,000 acre-feet a year to about 35,000 acre-feet. (An acre-foot is equal to 325,851 gallons, or about the amount of water needed to flood most of a football field one foot deep.)

PG&E’s water rights for the diverted flows will be transferred to the Round Valley Indian Tribes, which will collect $1 million a year from Sonoma and Mendocino County users in exchange for diverted flows.

Russian River users also will pay $750,000 to $1 million annually into an Eel River restoration fund to pay for fish recovery and environmental restoration efforts on the Eel River, which has long been impacted negatively by diversions and dams in the river.

The agreement will stand for a 30-year term plus a possible 20-year renewal, but Russian River users are intended to wean themselves from the Eel River by developing new water storage and supply solutions.

Parties to the agreement also agree to endeavor to raise $50 million or more for new diversion facilities and $50 million or more for additional restoration funding.

Signatories include the Sonoma County Water Agency, known as Sonoma Water, the Mendocino County Inland Water and Power Commission, Humboldt County, the Round Valley Indian Tribes, Trout Unlimited, California Trout and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

(pressdemocrat.com)

This map shows the seven major sub watersheds and mainstem rivers in California's third largest watershed, the Eel River watershed in Northern California (Caltrout)

KEELY COVELLO

It's time to take the fight for the Potter Valley Project to the media. These dams are going to get taken out if we stay quiet and just hope for the best; the best will not happen, Potter Valley/Mendo/Sonoma will lose our water.

This journalist for Breaking Points came across my article/videos about the Potter Valley Project and interviewed me last week. Then he posted this tweet thread which is going semi viral on X.

I can't tell this story alone. I do not even own land in Potter Valley, I just want to help the community I grew up in and love. But I need your help. Please help me spread the word. If you are willing to help please send me a message. I need videos, photos, stories from people this will affect, and help researching to get at the real story of the powers behind this.

We're gaining traction but we need to keep fighting.

https://twitter.com/5149jamesli/status/1889833065083707721

AV EVENTS (today)

The Anderson Valley Museum Open
Sun 02 / 16 / 2025 at 1:00 PM
Where: The Anderson Valley Museum , 12340 Highway 128, Boonville , CA 95415
More Information (https://andersonvalley.helpfulvillage.com/events/4431)

AV Village Monthly Gathering: Better Sleep!
Sun 02 / 16 / 2025 at 3:00 PM
Where: Anderson Valley Senior Center , 14470 Highway 128, Boonville, CA 95415
More Information (https://andersonvalley.helpfulvillage.com/events/4382)

NATIONAL PROTEST MONDAY!

‘Not My President’s Day’

12 Noon, Laurel And Main Sts., Fort Bragg

A Nationwide Protest On “All Presidents Day”

Signs might read ‘NOT MY PRESIDENT'S DAY’ or ‘TRUMP IS NOT A KING’ or ‘NO KING IN AMERICA’

https://www.newsweek.com/50501-movement-organizaers-not-my-presidenti-day-protests-2029529

CHAY PETERSON

Finally made a reservation at SŌBŌ Sake Bar in Boonville! Yummy sushi made by chef Christina Jones! Happy Vday. (Christina Jones is the former proprietor of Boonville’s Aquarelle restaurant. The popular and excellent chef’s new Sake Bar in the former Live Oak Building is most welcome. – ms)

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

SAM G ADDS:

Ben and Caitlin have done several sessions of extensive house sitting for us. They kept the greenhouses up, did chores very well and we returned to an immaculate home. We also have done a successful 6 week work trade with them through the workaway program. They have attention to detail, great senses of humor and work well together or separately. These are good people. — Sincerely, Sam

MICHELLE HUTCHINS: Thank you North Coast Comedy for recognizing the hard efforts brought forth by a family run business. Our sincere apologies to anyone who paid extra for a wet seat. We worked hard to eliminate that as the first joke of the evening. Great show! Lots of talent. We can’t wait for the next one in March.

SPAYING YOUR FEMALE PET

by Karen Novak, D.V.M., Mendocino Village Veterinary

Overpopulation of animals continues to be a problem here at home and worldwide. Every year, countless animals enter shelters and many are euthanized. We all know we can do our part by spaying or neutering our pets. For our female dogs, spaying not only prevents puppies, but also provides significant health benefits.

When a dog is spayed, it involves removal of the ovaries and uterus. Although it is a very common and safe surgery, it is considered to be major abdominal surgery.

The long-standing recommendation is to spay before the dog’s first heat. For most dogs this is generally around 6 months. The reason for this is a significant one. If spayed prior to their first heat, the risk of mammary cancer is 0.5%. After one heat, the risk increases to approximately 10%. After two or more heats, it increases to 26% and the protective benefit of spaying is lost.

The reason spaying has such an impact on mammary cancer, is that the hormones produced by the ovaries and uterus significantly contribute to the development of mammary cancer. Mammary cancer in dogs has a 50% malignancy rate with approximately 50% of these developing metastases. Mammary tumors are the most common neoplasm of intact female dogs. representing 50-70% of all tumors in this population.

People often worry that spaying before the first heat will contribute to incontinence later in life or will impact the dog’s physical development. Other concerns are that my dog will get fat and or lazy, anesthesia risks and personality changes. Discussing these concerns with your veterinarian will help with making the best and informed decision for your pet.

While spaying before the first heat has definite health benefits, should you still spay the middle aged or older female dog that just never got spayed? The answer to that is a resounding yes. This is because of the very real risk of pyometra. Pyometra is an acute or chronic infection of the uterus usually occurring six weeks following the heat cycle. It tends to occur when the hormone progesterone is elevated which makes the environment in the uterus more suitable for bacterial growth.While the dog is in heat, it is easy for bacteria to ascend into the uterus and cause an infection. The uterus will start to fill with pus, bacteria, toxins and dying tissue and can swell dramatically. Clinical signs will vary depending on how long it has been going on, but may include lethargy, depression, anorexia, vaginal discharge, abdominal pain and/or swelling, fever and vomiting. If left untreated the dog will die. Treatment is an emergency spay, but sometimes due to the poor condition of the uterus, these dogs will not survive the surgery. Sadly, mortality can be as high as 17% with surgery. One in four female dogs that survive to age 10 will get a pyometra, making this a very real risk for our older unspayed females.

As much as we all love puppies, spaying our female dogs not only contributes to population control, but will prevent significant health risks that will contribute to our beloved pets living a long and healthy life.

(“Ask the Vet” is a monthly column written by local veterinarians including Clare Bartholomew of Mendocino Coast Humane Society, Colin Chaves of Covington Creek Veterinary, Karen Novak of Mendocino Village Veterinary and Kendall Willson of Mendocino Equine and Livestock. Past articles can be found on the Advocate-News and Beacon websites by searching “Ask the Vet.”)

UKIAH SHELTER PET OF THE WEEK

Floyd is a shy dog who needs time to adjust to any new environment or people. He’s treat-motivated (which is great for training) and has shown an interest in toys—he just needs to learn they are not going to hurt him. Floyd came from a hoarding situation, and unfortunately did not get much socialization with people. He’s lived with other dogs. We think with time, lots of TLC and patience, Floyd will gain confidence and become a wonderful and loyal companion. We’ve certainly seen this scenario before—it’s a wonder what love can do! Floyd is a Terrier x, 2 years old and 20 sweet pounds.

To see all of our canine and feline guests, and the occasional goat, sheep, tortoise, and for information about our services, programs, and events, visit: mendoanimalshelter.com Join us the first Saturday every month for our Meet The Dogs Adoption Event at the shelter.

Please share our posts on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mendoanimalshelter

For information about adoptions please call 707-467-6453. Making a difference for homeless pets in Mendocino County, one day at a time!

ED NOTES

MUSK. I don't think the guy is wearing well, but he's all of a piece with the rest of Batman-quality villains gnawing away at the crumbling foundations our doomed country. But then I didn't think Trump would survive, and I thought that well before his statement on national television that Haitian immigrants were eating America's household pets. It's possible that a guy that wacky can be president? Yup, I saw it myself. I was certain Trump was so obviously defective that not even the remedial readers would go for him, and here we are with Musk and Trump successfully, so far, carrying out the coup the American fascisti have dreamed of for many years.

SO FAR. But the counter-coup will begin as soon as the weather warms up. Trump has seriously estranged forces far more numerous than his Maga legions, and what an interesting summer we'll have.

THE FOX NEWS guy in charge of the Defense Department was roundly criticized this week for saying what has been obvious with Putin's war on Ukraine from the beginning: Russia will keep the areas of Ukraine it's occupied for more than ten years, and Ukraine won't be able to join NATO which, you historians out there will recall, was supposed to be a temporary construct to keep Russia from swallowing Europe after World War Two. The Fox News Guy revealed his bargaining chips before the ceasefire negotiations began, but everyone knew what they were anyway. Then the vice president criticized Europeans for their lack of commitment to free speech, a har de har hot one coming from the guys who just banned AP for refusing to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.

THE LOSS of faith in the media (and government) was solidified in the fragged American brain every time Biden tottered out to slur-stumble through a teleprompter address. Media nevertheless treated him as if he was all systems go when it was obvious he was ga-ga. “Damn! If they lie about what we can see with our own eyes isn't true, they're lying about everything else, too.”

TRUMP'S election was then inevitable when Biden's handlers shoved Kamala up front in Biden's place, with the Democrat puppeteers ignoring the price of eggs while they trotted out the daughter of the most evil figure (so far) in American history, Liz Cheney, as if that non-coup would cause the Magas to desert their orange totem. (Mendo's Democrats, natch, are throwing a fundraising costume party in a few weeks to make sure we get more of the above.)

IF ALL POLITICS is local, how come the comment lines are clogged with discussions of national and international affairs when right here in Mendo we have a board of supervisors who just paid a “facilitator” $5,000 for an day's presentation to their slack-jawed, credulous selves while our DA burns through public money in a conjured pursuit of a County Auditor simply because she challenged his attempt to write off a holiday debauch as a “training”? The DA's fake court case then stalls in an 18-month-long preliminary hearing because the judge says she's gotta go on vacation or she won't get her reservation money back! Multiply this minor league swindling and millions of the fed up opt for Trump.

CENTRALIZED water and sewer for Boonville? I doubt it will happen because too many of the people in the target area are happy with their own wells and septic systems, defective as they may be. My acre of two modulars and a dozen feral cats in central Boonville is squeezed between two expanses of old Mexico, and I couldn't be more pleased. It enjoys an inexhaustible pair of wells delivering water as pure as any quaffed by Adam and Eve, and a septic system designed originally for a small hotel. Soooooooo, I don't need centralized water and sewer, but if my friends and neighbors vote for it, which I seriously doubt they will, I, or the ghost of me, will go along to get along.

SF CHRONICLE: “Mission Bay lacks most of the qualities San Franciscans tend to celebrate in their neighborhoods.There are no colorful Victorians, cable cars, steep hills, funky mom-and-pop corner stores, family-owned pho spots or burrito. It doesn’t have alleys lined with colorful murals or music spilling out of cozy corner bars. It’s flat and much of the architecture feels boxy and institutional. But, 20 years after UCSF opened its community center and student housing building, the neighborhood has emerged as one of San Francisco’s most successful redevelopment experiments.”

IN LIVING FACT, and I speak as a guy who has spent lots of time at Mission Bay over the past year, the old Frisco of deserted warehouses was majorly superior to this soul-less panorama of Stalinist high rises, but the medical complex in its spaciousness and ease of accommodation is radically superior to tired, teeming old Parnassus, even with its panoramic views of The City.

I WAS AT MISSION BAY just last week for an appointment with my ace speech therapist, Erik Steele, and my surgeon, Dr. Ryan, the surfer-looking dude who installed the neat little hole in my throat in pursuit of the cancer that was choking me to death. I managed to croak, “NetFlix” and Erik went away happy. Then a young female doctor appeared for a look and to say, “Dr. Ryan is running late.” I'll say. For a noon appointment I left without seeing him at 1:40. No hard feelings and total understanding on my part that a highly skilled guy like him has tons of more urgent priorities than a worn out old beatnik.

HOW'S MY HEALTH? Loath to be one of these geezers you don't dare ask because you'll get thirty uninterrupted minutes of medical lamentations, I can report it's pretty good apart from minor but persistent discomfort arising from the service demands of my new throat.

POINT ARENA, CIRCA 1910 (via Marshall Newman)

CATCH OF THE DAY, Saturday, February 15, 2025

LUCERO ARGUETA, 27, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs, resisting.

ANDREW FRANQUELIN, 31, Ukiah. DUI-alcohol&drugs, under influence.

JOSEPH GOMEZ-ANGULO, 24, Ukiah. DUI with blood-alcohol over 0.15%, controlled substance, evasion.

JESUS GONZALES, 49, Ukiah. Controlled substance with two or more priors, paraphernalia, parole violation.

SHEILA OWENS, 32, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

ALDA PETROCCHI, 55, Covelo. Domestic violence court order violation, paraphernalia.

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

JUAN RODEA, 47, Covelo. DUI.

ALYSSA ROJAS, 18, Ukiah. Domestic battery.

MARK SPPITSEN, 49, Ukiah. Controlled substance with two or more priors, paraphernalia, probation revocation.

AARON STILL, 43, Fort Bragg. Controlled substance with two or more priors, paraphernalia, resisting.

JOSEPH TURNER, 30, Aurora, Colorado/Fort Bragg. Domestic abuse.

RIORDAN WILHELMI, 41, Mendocino. Failure to appear, resisting, probation revocation.

FRED GARDNER

As I unpack these folders of leaflets and letters and yellowing newspaper clippings, I sometimes nod in agreement and I more often wince. One thing I regret is being so critical of Bob Scheer, who I've always admired as a reporter.

OPEN MIC

by Paul Modic

Last week I went to the first open mic at Innerbloom Wellness, the new community meeting place in town located at the Organic Grace building. The venue hosts many activities and events, from yoga and massage to kick-boxing, Chambers of Commerce meetings, parties, workshops, movies and much more. It’s a large and beautiful comfortable space available to rent. (There was a food booth out front with tables and festive lights, people were having dinner of Indian fry bread in the crisp winter night, and others had been there for lunch earlier in the afternoon when I dropped by to check out the venue and do a sound check.)

There were a few people standing around talking inside and some musicians setting up, including the MC Arpeggio, and then the other MC Kate arrived with her friend Taylor, the two upbeat women exploding into the room in a swirl of laughter and conversation.

The first musicians played a couple songs, the signup sheet was set up on a table by Justin, the host, founder, and manager, and I went up and recited my Weed Odyssey poem, declining to use the microphone. (I should have at least tried it out, maybe next time.) I got a lot of fun response to my ballad, about fifty years of growing weed in Humboldt, from the audience of 10-15 people and then more good musicians came up with their guitars and sang, including Kate and Taylor who did a duet.

A lone guitarist inspired a row of women to break out dancing in the back of the seats, from 0 to 30 in half a minute, the kind of spontaneous fun-lovers who can start up at any moment. I joined them for half a song, then tired of my own moves and started mirroring their energetic arm thrusting, which got an amused look or two.

“I like to mirror,” I said, inspired by their dancing. (I hadn’t been in an indoor dancing scene with a group of people since before the pandemic.)

One of the first musicians, an older guy with a lot of stage presence (most of the people seemed to be in their thirties), went up and told a long joke between songs. There was a break and Justin announced that he was making a beverage with cocoa, and other interesting ingredients, which he offered on a wide antique lectern on the side of the room with the nice bamboo floor. (It was intoxicatingly delicious though I didn’t want to drink too much because I wasn’t sure about the caffeine content, my loss.)

I talked to a couple people, one of the dancing women asked me if I believed in aliens and I said well, I’ve never seen one, have you? I passed out my English/Spanish dictionaries to nearly everyone, just for fun and nonprofit, and talked to the MC Kate for a while. I told her she was the life of the party, which she tried to deny, though I insisted she was the beating heart pumping her joyfully inclusive vibes to us. After the break she encouraged me to get back up and recite the story I’d brought, just finished writing that day and also with a weed theme, and it was fun and got some laughs.

I was standing in back most of the time, able to take in the whole scene, look at the door when someone came in, and see everyone. Between songs I talked with a young guy named Osha who had been standing nearby for the whole hour, and asked him if he thought Kate was on something, or always like that, naturally high? (She reminded me of a certain wild dancing girl at the last park benefit before the pandemic.)

Osha also guessed I’d been talking about Nancy Peregrine in my story about building the community center with her, last year sold his house in the Gulch, Carol’s old place and, since then he had bought a Sprinter Van and traveled around the west coast.

When I was getting ready to leave, before anyone else, I leaned over to say goodbye to Kate, she jumped up and gave me a hug and said it was nice to hear my stories about the wild weed times, now disappeared. (It turned out we knew some of the same people, a few of whom I’d mentioned in the story.)

Everyone was nice and friendly and I felt relaxed for the whole hour and twenty minutes, mostly leaning against the bamboo pole in the middle with a beatific grin. Upstairs, movie night was happening, as well as Tai Chi lessons, though I never went up to check it out.

It was a fun mini-festival in little old Garberville just a few minutes drive away including people who came all the way from Shelter Cove to Alderpoint.

As I was walking to my car I saw one of the musicians, a yoga teacher at Innerbloom and also a mother and college student, hanging out with her friend in the parking lot and I said goodbye, I’m leaving.

“Why?” she said

“Oh, I’m old, I have all these rules…” I said.

“See you next month!” she said, and leaped into my arms for a hug.

Something had happened, I imagined, and it felt like it could change my life. A reason to get out of the house? Congregate, collaborate and perform with new people, new friends? I drove home contented.

Three weeks later I’ve got some performance ideas for future open mics, including doing a dialog with someone. Next show is Friday, February 22 at 6pm.

JOHNNY WEISSMULLER wasn’t just fast in the water—he was untouchable.

In the 1920s, when competitive swimming was still evolving, he was already rewriting the record books. Five Olympic gold medals, over 50 world records, and the first man to swim the 100-meter freestyle in under a minute—these weren’t just numbers, they were statements. Weissmuller wasn’t racing his competition; he was racing the limits of human ability, and more often than not, he left those limits gasping for air in his wake.

But his legend wasn’t confined to the pool. Hollywood came calling, and Weissmuller answered with a roar—literally. Cast as Tarzan in 1932, he became the definitive jungle hero, his muscular frame and natural athleticism making him the perfect fit for the role. His famous Tarzan yell, an eerie, almost supernatural call, became as much a part of pop culture as his Olympic triumphs. Over 16 years and 12 films, he swung from vines, wrestled crocodiles, and cemented himself as the face of one of cinema’s most enduring characters.

Few athletes have ever transitioned so seamlessly from sports to entertainment, and fewer still have done it with such dominance in both fields. Later swimmers would break his records, and Hollywood would find new Tarzans, but Weissmuller’s impact never faded. He wasn’t just a champion in the pool—he was a champion of larger-than-life greatness, a man whose legacy still echoes, whether in the history of swimming or the distant call of the jungle.

LOVE SONG

Some people tell you

Love all depends

on whether it lasts

But love never ends

Starts as a locket

Turns into a chain

Love is the source of life's greatest

Confusion, resentment and pain

And it riseth like steam

…falleth like rain

Love is a pattern of neuro-

transmissions inside of your brain

Love takes your money

Love makes you sore

Love is a con and a clown and a

Snob, a cheat, and a bore

Love –I spit it out!

It's so overrated!

Love is a great big pain in the ass

Why can't I hate it?

…Riseth like steam

…Falleth like rain

Love is a pattern of neuro-

transmissions inside of your brain

— Fred Gardner

MEMO OF THE AIR: I say it's spinach, and I say the hell with it.

Marco here. Here's the recording of last night's (Friday, 2025-02-14) eight-hour-long Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio show on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg (CA) and KNYO.org (and, for the first three hours of the show, also 89.3fm KAKX Mendocino). This time I was passive-aggressive-resentfully whisper-mumbling the whole time, the microphone practically inside my mouth, to please Juanita's sour elderly downstairs neighbor who bangs on her ceiling, Juanita's floor, hard enough to shake the building, complains to the property management people, and has Juanita terrorized into tiptoeing around in stocking feet and opening and closing her own drawers and cupboards with the worried precision of a cat-burglar. I made the mistake last night, during The Mysterious Traveler episode, of going into the kitchen to make ramen. BANG! Next week I'll be back in Albion, where I can even flush the toilet if I want to, as well as talk to myself, and you, in a normal indoor night-time voice like a person. Anyway, here: https://tinyurl.com/KNYO-MOTA-0631

Coming shows can feature your story or dream or poem or essay or kvetch or announcement. Just email it to me. Or send me a link to your writing project and I'll take it from there and read it on the air.

Besides all that, at https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com you'll find a fresh batch of dozens of links to not-necessarily radio-useful but worthwhile items I set aside for you while gathering the show together, such as:

“I say it's spinach, and I say the hell with it.” This cartoon has always had a special place in my mental gallery. Right next to the one where a small defiant boy is towered over by his enormous mother and father, also at the dinner table. The father, a coarse-looking working man in his undershirt, says maybe-gruffly maybe-puckishly, eyebrows arched up, “An' what's wrong wit' broccoli, if I ain't bein' too inquisitive?” https://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2025/02/i-say-its-spinach.html

I grew up in my grandparents' Italian restaurant. When I was eight my mother married Roland, who had two boys and a girl, all older than I, and we moved to Fresno, where Roland was a road circuit salesman in a Ford Galaxie 500 for Sunshine Biscuit company (Hydrox, Vienna Fingers, Golden Fruit Biscuits, Lemon Coolers), and the dinner food abruptly changed from spaghetti and meatballs and perfect hard garlic bread and crisp iceberg lettuce salad and real pizza, sausage sandwiches, sometimes pork chops, or veal, or ravioli, frozen blueberries in sugar sauce, and spumoni ice cream -all good, normal food- to weird single-dad food that Roland and his kids liked, that was normal to them, like, uh… My mother matter-of-factly put this runny bean soup on the table, that looked and tasted spoiled, like it was sewage. Everybody else ate. I tasted it, said, “What is this.” It's beans. It's good. I said, “May I be excused?” My mother said, “There are children starving in India who would love to have dinner but they can't. You will sit there until you clean that plate.” Okay, I understood. I would sit there forever. I said, “Can I get my book?” No. They all finished, got up, washed their dishes, went to the other room to watch teevee. I sat at the table for what I remember was three hours but it probably wasn't that long, listening to the teevee, counting things around me in the room, daydreaming, planning the conversations that would happen depending on who came back through here first. I tasted the soup again a few times. Equally vile every time. Eventually my mother came back in, looked at me, picked up the soup, said quietly, close to my ear, “You don't have to eat this,” and spilled it down the drain in the sink, which surprised the heck out of me; it had been impressed upon me to /never waste food/ (another story, another time). Some kinds of beans are okay in salad or in a burrito or a chili dog, or just chili if you're really hungry and you have soda crackers to crumble on it, but even today almost sixty years later if I'm somewhere they have sludgy soup with that repulsive flesh-colored maggot-like kind of beans in it, I'm right back there in Fresno, in that dim house with so many people breathing in it at night. She was on my side about the food and in many other ways. It was a good kind of conspiracy whose internal benefits lasted all my life. It made me a better teacher. I say it's sewage and I say the hell with it. Damn straight. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JEDa1BnEF4

And how to trim a palm tree and not get killed. Save this information for when they change the name of Fort Bragg, California to The Palms and then plant palm trees up and down Main Street and change that also to the The Palms (not The Palms Blvd. or Ave. or St., but simply The Palms), making it the only north-south pavement in town named for a kind of tree (all the east-west streets are named for trees); unless they go with Lindy Petersville, which is leading in the polls again, and would be cheaper and safer. https://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2025/02/how-to-trim-palm-tree.html

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

LEO NOMELLINI

Nomellini was an Italian-American professional football player and professional wrestler. He played college football for the Minnesota Gophers and was selected by the San Francisco 49ers in the first round of the 1950 NFL draft. He played 14 seasons as a defensive tackle in the NFL, all of them with the 49ers, playing his first three years as an offensive tackle as well. Nomellini was a seven-time tag team champion in wrestling for two different tag teams. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1969 and to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1977. “He was as strong as three bulls,” said 49ers teammate Joe Perry. “He'd slap you on the back and knock you twenty feet.”

THIS MENTION of Leo Nomellini reminds of my childhood when I was a close neighbor of the Great 49er.

Leo ‘The Lion’ Nomellini, star tackle for the 49ers from 1950-1963 died of cancer at age 76, October 22, 2000, at Stanford Hospital. Several of his football friends contributed tributes and anecdotes for a couple of pretty good Bay Area obits for the big bruiser the following day. We had our own. It happens that Mr. Nomellini was a down-the-street neighbor of ours when I was a kid growing up in Palo Alto from 1953 to 1955. Mr. Nomellini was born in Italy and grew up in Chicago. He was a tough but friendly man who was well known to the neighborhood as the big 49er lineman down the street who always waved, smiled at, and occassionally chatted with the star-struck kids who rode by on their bikes. These were the days of hand-powered push mowers. Nomellini, who stood 6-feet 3-inches and weighed upwards of 270 pounds, impressed us kids by being able to stand on one side of his front lawn and give his push-mower a giant shove. It would somehow mow 20 or so feet of grass before it came to a stop at the other side of Nomellini’s front lawn. Nomellini would then stroll across the new-mown strip, turn the mower around, give the mower a couple of short pushes to catch whatever it had missed on its prior one-shove dash across the lawn, then shove the mower back across the lawn again, and again, and again in single bursts, back and forth, until it was thoroughly mowed. By the time he was done, Nomellini usually had ten or twelve awestruck kids standing around watching and applauding each shove. He didn’t pay us much attention though — when mowing, the future Hall of Famer was all business. — Mark Scaramella

INSIDE LURIE’S NO-NONSENSE PURGE OF SF’S JUNKIE SCOURGE

by James Reini

Pitiful fentanyl addicts still shoot up in the grubby tent communes that pockmark downtown San Francisco, but, apparently, this world-famous cultural hub is cleaning up its act.

At least, that's the message from its new mayor Daniel Lurie, a centrist who trounced progressives in a November vote by promising to restore order to the city's apocalyptic streets.

Now those same liberals accuse Lurie of turning City Hall into a 'dictatorship' with the sweeping new powers he's assumed to get more cops on the streets and addicts into rehab.

But the mayor is an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, and San Francisco voters have grown weary of soft-on-crime policies that turned a once-glorious city into an opioid hellscape.

Also, the mood has changed since President Donald Trump returned to the White House, giving leaders of blue cities cover to get tougher on drugs, gangs, and homelessness.

For the city's 809,000 long-suffering residents, change could not come fast enough.

Del Seymour, a Vietnam War veteran who overcame 18 years of homelessness and addiction and founded Code Tenderloin, a self-help charity, is on the front-lines of the fentanyl scourge.

'We've got to quit trying to be Mother Teresa,' the 77-year-old told DailyMail.com.

'Because of its passions for equity, acceptance and sanctuary, the city became a magnet for people suffering from addiction.'

The dad-of-two says San Francisco's liberal policies spurred to a 'three-fold increase in addiction and homelessness' that's made it the 'zombie apocalypse' seen today.

Locals rail about the open-air drug market on Sixth Street, where addicts and prostitutes are seen slipping needles into their necks, ankles, or anywhere with a vein.

The troubled Tenderloin district has become known for its squalor and misery, forcing local businesses to shutter because of shoplifting and lack of staff.

Large groups overtake sidewalks, turning them into squalid camps where people lived in their own filth - more reminiscent of scenes from the Walking Dead than a regional economic hub.

A San Francisco worker captured the carnage in a widely-shared video, in which she navigates a crowd of dozens of homeless addicts sprawled across the road for hundreds of yards.

Downtown areas have become a crime-filled 'ground zero' for the region's opioid crisis, even as Open AI founder Sam Altman and other tech billionaires live just miles away in chichi suburbs.

San Francisco is most often described as a 'ruined' or 'fallen city' - a case study of how progressive policies breed crime and social mayhem.

'We deal with one person one day, but then it's three more people coming in the next,' said Seymour.

'We can't solve the problems as fast as they're coming in.'

By 2022, San Francisco voters were so fed up with the chaos they booted out their reformist District Attorney Chesa Boudin and three progressive school board members, in recall elections.

In November, voters axed incumbent mayor London Breed and chose Lurie in an election that was overshadowed by fears of crime, disorder, drugs, and vagrancy.

Lurie, a married dad-of-two and non-profit founder, ran as a common-sense centrist and even won the backing of a group of moderate San Francisco Republicans, the Briones Society.

At the same time, Trump made gains in the overwhelmingly blue city.

The Republican only got 15.5 percent of the presidential vote, but that marked a seven percentage point gain on his 2020 tally.

In recent days, Lurie has started to deliver on his promise of cleaning up the streets.

He opened a 'triage center' near the beleaguered Sixth Street corridor, where police officers, public health professionals and staff from other city agencies operate out of seven pop-up tents.

They help transport drug users to jail, connect them to treatment or give them a bus ticket to leave town, with the aim of getting people with addiction and mental health problems off the streets for good.

Days later, the mayor launched a 'hospitality task force' to boost cop numbers in some of the city's key economic areas and turn the tide on retailers fleeing the city.

Last month, Walgreens became the city's latest retail casualty, shuttering a dozen San Francisco stores, following in the footsteps of Bloomingdale's, Macy's, Nordstrom and others.

Some of Lurie's policy shifts were made possible by a February 4 vote, when the city's Board of Supervisors gave him greater powers and flexibility to expedite the city's crackdown on fentanyl.

The mayor can raise cash, hire specialists, sign contracts and add shelter beds with fewer checks.

He said he's trying to 'treat this crisis with the urgency it demands'.

It's not yet clear whether Lurie's triage center and more arrests will do much to tackle such a deep-rooted crisis.

When DailyMail.com visited downtown San Francisco, the streets were still full of wretched homeless addicts with mental health problems vividly on display.

But there were also more cops on the streets, and we saw at least two people getting cuffed and detained.

In January, the city recorded significant gains against a crime wave that had made some neighborhoods unlivable.

Data from the California Department of Justice statistics showed San Francisco's crime rate was the lowest it had been in 23 years, with sharp drops in homicides and car thefts.

Still, addiction experts told DailyMail.com that 30-day rehab programs will struggle to turn around the city's homeless addicts.

It takes much longer to fix someone with mental health problems, who's cut off from their family and can't hold down a job.

And Lurie will struggle to fund more costly programs due to the city's staggering $876 million budget deficit, which he's promised to trim.

Others point to California's 'homeless industrial complex' - a gravy train of funders, officials, shelter owners and charities more keen on gobbling up tax dollars than solving the crisis.

Lurie faces political headwinds too. His progressive bedfellows in the Democratic Party already say his administration is edging toward tyranny.

Supervisor Jackie Fielder slammed the recent 'unprecedented transfer of power' to Lurie.

Her colleague, Shamann Walton, warned of a 'dictatorship within San Francisco government'.

Unlike other Democratic mayors, Lurie has said little about Trump.

Even when the president signed executive orders on immigration that could cut funding to sanctuary cities like San Francisco, Lurie stayed quiet.

Insiders say that's a calculation to avoid spats with the president that could drain Lurie's time and political capital.

Jay Donde, a co-founder of the Briones Society, says Lurie would be wise to get on Trump's good side if he wants a federal cash injection into his cash-strapped city.

'That won't be forthcoming from the Trump administration unless Lurie is able to show real progress in dismantling the city's homelessness industrial complex, as well as removing sanctuary protections from fentanyl dealers,' Donde told DailyMail.com.

'The powers-that-be in the city have so far refused to take these steps, but maybe the prospect of municipal bankruptcy will shake some common sense into them.'

(DailyMail.uk)

DELTA TUNNEL PROJECT RECEIVES INCIDENTAL TAKE PERMIT FOR CALIFORNIA ENDANGERED SPECIES

by Dan Bacher

On the afternoon of Valentine’s Day, Governor Gavin Newsom announced that the controversial Delta Conveyance Project has received an Incidental Take Permit, a “critical milestone” in the advancement of the embattled Delta Tunnel.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) issued the permit to the California Department of Water Resources. Under the California Endangered Species Act (CESA), DWR is required to obtain an ITP to “minimize, avoid, and fully mitigate impacts to threatened or endangered species” as a result of the construction, operation, and maintenance of the Delta Conveyance Project.…

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/2/15/2303945/-Delta-Tunnel-Project-Receives-Incidental-Take-Permit-for-California-Endangered-Species

MIKE TYSON: “Remember, when I accomplished all that I did, I was just a kid. I was just a kid doing all that crazy stuff. I wanted to be like the old time fighters, like Harry Greb or Mickey Walker, who would drink and fight. But a lot of the things I did I'm so embarrassed about. It was very wrong and disrespectful for me to dehumanise my opponents by saying the things I said. If you could quote me, say that anything I ever said to any fighters that they remember like making Tyrell Biggs cry like a girl, like putting a guy's nose into his brain, like making Razor Ruddock my girlfriend… I'm deeply sorry. I will appreciate their forgiveness.”

I used to fight tough guys for ten bucks. l got my nose broken, my eardrum busted, and my eyebrows laid open in a fight that paid me eight lousy bucks. Poverty has been with me nearly all my life.

— James J Braddock

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

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. Yet just about every single red-blooded American is trained to think and say, “Canada has socialized health care! Commie bad! Commie bad! U-S-A! U-S-A!” like a bird-brained parrot.

“IN IRELAND, you go to someone's house, and she asks you if you want a cup of tea. You say no, thank you, you're really just fine. She asks if you're sure. You say of course you're sure, really, you don't need a thing. Except they pronounce it ting. You don't need a ting. Well, she says then, I was going to get myself some anyway, so it would be no trouble. Ah, you say, well, if you were going to get yourself some, I wouldn't mind a spot of tea, at that, so long as it's no trouble and I can give you a hand in the kitchen. Then you go through the whole thing all over again until you both end up in the kitchen drinking tea and chatting. In America, someone asks you if you want a cup of tea, you say no, and then you don't get any damned tea. I liked the Irish way better.”

― C.E. Murphy, Urban Shaman

‘THE GOVERNMENT IS A GIANT PILE OF DUNG’

Matt Taibbi: All right, welcome to America This Week, I’m Matt Taibbi.

Walter Kirn: And I’m Walter Kirn, I almost forgot,

Matt Taibbi: Is it that bad, are we forgetting our names yet?

Walter Kirn: I live 50 miles from Yellowstone National Park, and in great wilderness areas there’s a phenomena at this time of year called winter kill when the weaker deer and elk and so on just basically expire, starve, bog down in the snow and give up. I’m not there yet but I’m close. If I thought there were deserving wolves that could nourish themselves on my body as they do on deer in Yellowstone, I might give myself to nature and its cycles, but…

Matt Taibbi: I’ve had exactly the same thoughts. So right outside my window, there’s a big fallen tree that fortunately fell that way and not on my house, and it’s rotting and underneath it looks like a fox family’s going to have kids this year.

Walter Kirn: Aww.

Matt Taibbi: So I thought, yeah, if it gets really bad, I can just crawl under there and feed the family for a year or so.

Walter Kirn: It’s like sky burials among the Native Americans and some sects in India. You just put yourself up on a platform and let yourself be eaten by predators or under a fox log.

Matt Taibbi: I’m totally for it, I love the idea, yeah. However, we’re not there yet, so a show we will do. And boy, what a busy few days, week/ whatever it is. In fact, it’s so busy that things are going to happen while we’re taping this show that are going to make this show irrelevant, almost certainly so-

Walter Kirn: Or eerily uncannily, synchronistically prophetic. Because without the things even happening, we may get parts of what happens through unconscious transmission.

Matt Taibbi: That’s right, yes. We may may, through osmosis, absorb truths and just relay them to you. So because of that, I want to start with something completely sort of nonspecific, or not time friendly, but just something totally-

Walter Kirn: In fact.

Matt Taibbi: Bizarre.

Walter Kirn: In fact, timeless really, because I think it will go down in history as one of the great congressional assertions.

Matt Taibbi: So this is just funny, and it’s kind of unfortunate. So this is about a congressman from Illinois, from Skokie actually, the Skokie/ Evanston area. Jan Schakowsky, who was once actually recommended as a candidate for president by the nation back in 2004, back when I knew them, and I believe I’ve worked with her office over the years on a number of issues, probably Dodd-Frank and some other things. I always thought of her as one of the smart ones, and then this week this happened. She was, I forget who the witness was, but this was the questioning.

Jan Schakowsky: Yesterday, I met with a manufacturing company, but they also are engaged in getting young people more engaged in manufacturing. So I asked them, “So how many of those students that are signing up and want to do this, how many are women?” And they said, “Well, I know there’s at least 13% or something.” It was a low number. And you had mentioned trying to engage more women in manufacturing, I’m just wondering if just the name manufacturing sounds like a guy?

Matt Taibbi: Manufacturing, it has “man” in it, apparently. So this is the ranking member of the Commerce and Manufacturing committee. The root is actually not man, it’s manu or well…

Walter Kirn: Yeah, hand, hand, as in manual, as in make, okay.

Matt Taibbi: Yeah, handmade and manufactum, right, or manufactura, what’s the root there?

Walter Kirn: Well, I don’t know my Latin that well, but it’s the same word for hand that goes into manual, and she was close in the way that a three-year-old might be close. Does this mean making men? I’m surprised that she didn’t think that factories are where men come from.

Matt Taibbi: I don’t want to make too much of this, but again, this is the ranking member of the committee who doesn’t know that manufacturing means made by hand.

Walter Kirn: And the committee is named for manufacturing.

Matt Taibbi: Right, exactly.

Walter Kirn: It’s a word that she sees on stationary 1700 times a week. I wonder how long she’s been holding back this thought, this witticism. I also wonder how many people on her staff have had to nod when she makes this observation?

Matt Taibbi: No, no, no, no, no. The staff, I can’t imagine that she ran that past staffers and they all said nothing, no way.

Walter Kirn: Maybe not. I like to think highly of these staffs, because there’s only one way that Congress could still exist given the absolute stupidity I’ve seen there, and that’s that the staffs run after them, like dog trainers after dogs that haven’t yet learned not to go to the bathroom on the floor, cleaning up their messes. There was probably even a press release afterwards saying the Congress and woman’s joke was much appreciated by the manufacturing community.

Matt Taibbi: Right but yeah, I guess it would be womanufacturing.

Walter Kirn: Chickyfacturing.

Matt Taibbi: I’m sorry. This is partly on my mind because I was just in Congress this week and went through my own weirdness. There was a lot of really surreal stuff that happened at that committee hearing, and I guess we can get into some of that later. But I guess the reason this matters is because this is why the political situation right now is where it is. One side of the government is moving with tremendous alacrity and purpose controversially, I’m not sure that I agree with all of their decisions, but they’re certainly doing all kinds of things that they set out to do, and the other side is just like in this free fall where they’re stuck in this twilight zone. In fact, one of the members of Congress who questioned me or questioned us yesterday, yelled at us, didn’t question us, talked about being in the Twilight Zone, and I think they have no idea what to do, and they’re just kind of lost in this echo chamber that used to make sense. I don’t know.

Walter Kirn: Okay. First of all, Matt, in a minute, let me interview you on your experience Wednesday, because I have a few of the questions that I think anyone in the public might have. But we’ve been seeing a lot of Congress lately because of the confirmation hearings, more than we do usually, except during an impeachment or something. And all Congress people wait for those few moments where it isn’t just C-SPAN addicts who might be watching them. So this view of things, which I’ve happened to be able to see up close by being at the RFK hearings, which were incredibly well attended and very highly scrutinized, has caused me to have a whole new theory about Congress. And practically, how can I put it, especially about the Democrats in Congress and in the Senate particularly, and that’s that there was no there there for a while now, that they have been cast for various reasons, various political reasons.

It’s hard to see how any of them have really fought their way up in some true Darwinian political contest because they’re very stupid, and the ones who aren’t stupid are very fraudulent. They are often not in command of the issues that they claim to be their central issues. And so her saying that manufacturing sounds like something for guys, though it looks like a big gaffe or a joke, is to me almost the rule at this point. And I came back sort of like the ancient Mariner to Montana from the Senate saying, “Hey guys, it’s not that they’re incompetent, it’s not that they’re corrupt. Yeah, they’re all those things, but they’re also just putting on a fucking show. They don’t really know what they’re talking about. They’re like ABBA singing in English or Milli Vanilli. They really aren’t informed, aware, maybe even conscious. And also by the way, some of them are vampires.”

Ron Wyden is the closest I’ve seen to a vampire in real life. His skin looks like a combination of wax and pancake makeup, except it’s his actual skin not applied to the surface. And everybody who says to me, “Oh, I don’t know why so-and-so sold out, or how they got to so-and-so, or why they changed.” I say, “I don’t think it’s that. I think some of them are vampires and the rest of them are soap opera actors who’ve been cast for looks or background, and it’s just pure fake.” You’re talking about a masquerade, not a genuine political process. And it’s especially true on the Democrat side, and it happens sometime in the last few years because I don’t remember it from maybe over 15 years ago.

Matt Taibbi: So the phenomenon, and you probably have to lay some of this at the feet of redistricting and the fact that there are so many non-competitive districts. There’s only a handful of house districts that really are truly competitive in any given election cycle, and so most of what you’re getting are safe seats. So the choice, the person who is sitting in front of you in Congress is really someone who’s been selected by a combination of the DCCC or the Republican Congressional Committee, I forget what that one’s called, is it the RCCC? And the local chapter. And so they just cruise through often, it’s like a third of the seats are like this, and then they get assigned to a committee by a process that’s chosen by the leadership, and really it’s not always relevant to whatever their experiences, if they have any.

So you get a lot of people who are just there, and then as you mentioned, Walter, they’re not usually writing their own speeches. They figure out what the best use of the medium is not even to ask questions unless they absolutely have to in the RFK hearing. They just go up there and they give a presentation and the aides will hold stuff up behind the members’ heads, and they just read off a speech, and they’re there because they present a certain look or feel to the constituency that the party is after, and that’s true on both sides.

Walter Kirn: It is true, Matt, but this is one of the hardest aspects of my revelation. It’s so much more true or was at least in the Senate Democratic side at the RFK hearings than it was on the Republican side that I was shocked. The Republicans seemed a little bit in a time warp where, as I’ve said, they were small town bankers or guys with four car dealerships

Matt Taibbi: Or lawyers, yep.

Walter Kirn: Or lawyers who came a little late in life to be senators and are kind of guys who would be at the rotary giving a speech, and they remember the rituals of civic engagement and are kind of respectful toward them like history teachers might be or something. On the Democratic side was, as I say, it was like they had been cast in a large casting call to represent different types, to look like different types, to have different ideological specialties, but were like a boy band in which they actually weren’t singing.

Matt Taibbi: Out of sync instead of in sync.

Walter Kirn: Yeah, out of sync.

Matt Taibbi: Yeah. No, I think increasingly we have to think of it in those terms, right? We have the Bernie, Warren, AOC wing of who were supposed to be the true progressives who were considered contenders in the last presidential cycle but really never had a chance, as we later found out, and then there are others who are the national security Democrats. And look, this is true of politics just generally, but I think it’s just become more clear that I always thought there was a genuine difference between Bernie and the rest of the Democrats, and I think it’s just becoming less true over time, I guess.

Walter Kirn: Yeah, I don’t know what happened there, but I’ve been reflecting on this and refining this thesis, it’s going to be my philosophy of all politics soon if I don’t stop. And I came across a Mark Twain essay from 1884. Think about how long ago that was, almost 150, 140 years ago. And it’s called, “On Consistency.” It’s an essay that comes from a speech he gave on a Monday evening social club night in Hartford, Connecticut. And basically he bemoans partisanship in politics. He says, we’re allowed to change in everything else in our life, we stop crawling and we start walking, we expand our vocabularies, we change our dress, but we’re expected to stay for a lifetime loyal to one party, political party, and often one religion too. And he says that this expectation of loyalty is really the original sin of party loyalty, the original sin of American politics. And he says this, he says, about loyalty, “The workers convention, the convention packers, know they are not obliged to put up the fittest man for the office, for they know that the docile party will vote for any forked thing they put up, even though it do not even resemble a man.”

Matt Taibbi: Any forked thing.

Walter Kirn: And that is the banner I would fly over Congress, “Any forked thing.” The convention. I almost want to shield children from this knowledge or anyone who believes in America. Immigrants, those abroad who looked at us with admiration, because if they saw inside it, it might freak them out. It actually still has me freaked out.

Matt Taibbi: Oh, yeah. Once you see how Congress works, and it’s funny, my best education from this came from following Bernie around for a month in Congress, and he wanted me to know how it worked. But over the years, I’ve increasingly been allowed to see how the whole thing works, especially the media operation, what they’re really trying to do with these public hearings, what their purpose is, and on and on. And it’s become increasingly desperate and shallow in the Trump era. Before my testimony on the censorship thing, I asked one of the aides, and then maybe not even one of Jordan’s aides, but just I think it was a committee staff, we’re like, “What are you expecting?” And they just said, “Oh, they’re just going to throw a bunch of Musk shit at you, and it’s just going to be Musk, Musk, Musk, that’s the whole thing.”…

https://www.racket.news/p/america-this-week-feb-14-2025-the

LWV URGES CONGRESS TO EXERCISE ITS AUTHORITY

Today, the League of Women Voters of the United States and League chapters from all 50 states and the District of Columbia sent a letter to congressional leaders expressing strong concern over abandoning its duties and authorities under Article I of the US Constitution, urging leaders to address the unprecedented executive branch overreach threatening American democracy.

In the detailed letter to Congress, the League — a nonpartisan organization with over one million members and supporters across all 50 states and the District of Columbia — highlighted several recent executive branch actions that are causing significant harm to millions of Americans, including the undermining of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, attempts to end birthright citizenship, pause distribution of congressionally allocated federal funds, and dismantle federal agencies without proper congressional oversight.

Of particular concern is the creation of an unofficial "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE) with free rein to sensitive government systems and the summary removal of 17 inspectors general without the required congressional notice. Additionally, DOGE employees who lack security clearance have gained access to the Treasury Department payment systems and other sensitive data from different departments. These unauthorized personnel have prevented federal workers from entering their offices and can manipulate or stop payments to federal agencies, including USAID, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the US Department of Education.

"The dismantling of our sacred democracy on full display for the world is one of the most horrific events in modern-day politics," said Celina Stewart, CEO of the League of Women Voters of the United States. "When the executive branch egregiously signals it will defy court orders and neglect the welfare of citizens, that is when Congress must be reminded of their duty to defend the Constitution. The League demands Congress act to prevent threats to the very fabric of our Republic.”

"This is a critical moment for congressional oversight, and Congress must do its part to ensure that our great democracy is preserved and protected," said Marcia Johnson, chief counsel at the League. "The outcry from Americans speaking out against the impact of these executive orders should be all that is needed for Congress to stand in its authority and restore stability to our system of government."

The letter emphasizes that while federal courts have already enjoined several of these executive actions, Congress has not exercised its constitutional oversight. The League and its supporters urge Congress to exercise its authority to protect the rule of law, defend the Constitution, and rein in the executive branch's overreach. Read the letter here.

THE MAFIA STATE

First we got a mafia economy. Then we got a mafia state. We must rid ourselves of the ruling criminal class or become its victims.

by Chris Hedges

Kiss the ring. Grovel before the Godfather. Give him tribute, a cut of the spoils. If he and his family get rich you get rich. Enter his inner circle, his “made” men and women, and you do not have to follow rules or obey the law. You can disembowel the machinery of government. You can turn us and the natural world into commodities to exploit until exhaustion or collapse. You can commit crimes with impunity. You can make a mockery of democratic norms and social responsibility. Perfidy is very profitable at first. In the long term it is collective suicide.

America is a full blown kleptocracy. The demolition of the social and political structure, begun long before Trump, makes a few very, very rich and immiserates everyone else. Mafia capitalism always leads to a mafia state. The two ruling parties gave us the first. Now we get the second. It is not only our wealth that is being taken from us, but our liberty.

Since the election of Donald Trump, Elon Musk, currently worth $394 billion, saw his wealth increase by $170 billion. Mark Zuckerberg, worth $254 billion, saw his net worth increase by nearly $41 billion.

Tidy sums for kneeling before Moloch.

At least 11 federal agencies that have been affected by the slash and burn campaign of the Trump administration have more than 32 continuing investigations, pending complaints or enforcement actions, into Musk’s six companies, according to a review by The New York Times.

The mafia state ignores legal constraints and regulations. It lacks external and internal control. It cannibalizes everything, including the ecosystem, until there is nothing left but a wasteland. It cannot distinguish between reality and illusion, which obscures and exacerbates gross incompetence. And then the hollowed-out edifice will collapse leaving in its wake a shell of a country with nukes. The Roman and Sumerian empires fell this way. So did the Mayans and the sclerotic reign of the French monarch Louis XVI.

In the final stages of decay for all empires, the rulers, focused exclusively on personal enrichment, ensconced in their versions of Versailles or The Forbidden City, squeeze the last drops of profit from an increasingly oppressed and impoverished population and ravaged environment.

Unprecedented wealth is inseparable from unprecedented poverty.

The more extreme life becomes, the more extreme ideologies become. Huge segments of the population, unable to absorb the despair and bleakness, severs itself from a reality-based universe. It takes comfort in magical thinking, a bizarre millennialism — one embodied for us in a Christianized fascism — which turns con artists, morons, criminals, charlatans, gangsters and grifters into prophets while branding those who decry the pillage and corruption into traitors. The rush towards self-immolation accelerates intellectual and moral paralysis.

The mafia state makes no pretense of defending the common good. Trump, Musk and their minions are swiftly repealing executive orders regarding health, environmental and safety regulations, food assistance, as well as child care programs such as Head Start. They are fighting a court order to halt their dismantling of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has ensured that Americans have been reimbursed with more than $21 billion due to cancelled debts, financial compensation and other forms of consumer relief. They are abolishing the U.S. Agency for International Development. They are closing federal defenders’ offices, which provide legal representation to the poor. They have cut billions of dollars from the budget of the National Institutes of Health jeopardizing biomedical research and clinical trials. They have frozen permits for solar and wind projects, including sign-offs needed for projects on private land. They fired more than 300 staffers at the National Nuclear Security Administration, the agency that manages our nuclear stockpile. They are gutting the workforce of the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service and the United States Geological Survey.

The mafia state, its blueprint contained in Project 2025, ignores the dire lessons from history of extreme social inequality, political disintegration, wanton ecological plunder and the evisceration of the rule of law.

We are, of course, not naturally destined for freedom. It was two millennia before democracy reappeared in Europe after its collapse — largely because Athens became an empire — in ancient Greece. The mafia state, not democracies, may be the wave of the future, one where the wealthiest one percent of the globe owns some 43 percent of all global financial assets – more than 95 percent of the human race — while 44 percent of the planet’s population lives below the World Bank’s poverty line of less than $6.85 per day. These calcified regimes endure solely because of draconian systems of internal control, wholesale surveillance and the evisceration of civil liberties.

We have at the same time wiped out 90 percent of the large fish such as cod, sharks, halibut, grouper, tuna, swordfish, and marlin and degraded or destroyed two thirds of the mature tropical forests, the lungs of the planet. Lack of access to safe drinking water, and the resultant spread of infectious diseases, kills at least 1.4 million people annually — 3,836 per day — and also contributes to 50 percent of global malnutrition, according to the World Bank. Between 150 and 200 million children are impaired by malnourishment. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is well above the 350 parts per million that most climate scientists warn is the maximum level for sustaining life as we know it. By May of this year, atmospheric CO2 levels are forecast to reach 429.6 ppm, the highest concentration in over two million years. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that the measurement could reach 541 to 970 ppm by the year 2100. At that point huge parts of the planet, beset with high population density, droughts, soil erosion, freak storms, massive crop failures and rising sea levels, will be unfit for human existence.

Clans, in the later period of the Easter Island civilization, competed to honor their ancestors by constructing larger and larger hewn stoner images, which demanded the last remnants of the timber, rope and manpower on the island. By the year 1400 the woods were gone. The soil had eroded and washed into the sea. The islanders began to fight over old timbers and were reduced to eating their dogs and soon all the nesting birds.

The desperate islanders developed a magical belief system that the erected stone gods, the moai, would come to life and save them from disaster.

The belief by Christian nationalists in the rapture, which does not exist in the Bible, is no less fantastic. These Christian fascists — embodied in Trump appointees such as Russell Vought, head of Trump’s Office of Budget and Management, Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Mike Huckabee, nominated to be the ambassador to Israel — intend to use schools and universities, the media, the judiciary and the federal government as platforms to carry out indoctrination and enforce conformity.

The followers of this movement defer to a leader they believe has been anointed by God. They embrace the illusion that the righteous will be saved, floating naked upwards into heaven, at the end of time and the secularists they despise will perish. This retreat into magical thinking, which is the foundation of all totalitarian movements, explains their suffering. It helps them cope with despair and anxiety. It gives them the illusion of security. It also ensures retribution against a long list of enemies — liberals, intellectuals, gays, immigrants, the deep state — blamed for their economic and social misery.

Our millennialism is an updated version of the faith in the moai, the doomed Taki Onqoy revolt against the Spanish invaders in Peru, the Aztec prophecies of the 1530s and the Ghost Dance, which Native Americans believed would see the return of the buffalo herds and slain warriors rise alive from the earth to vanquish the white colonizers.

This retreat into fantasy is what happens when reality becomes too bleak to be absorbed. It is the appeal of Trump. Of course, this time it will be different. When we go down the whole planet will go with us. There will be no new lands to pillage, no new peoples to exploit. We will be exterminated in a global death trap.

Karl Polanyi in “The Great Transformation” writes that once a society surrenders to the dictates of the market, once its mafia economy becomes a mafia state, once it succumbs to what he calls “the ravages of this satanic mill,” it inevitably leads to “the demolition of society.”

The mafia state cannot be reformed. We must organize to break our chains, one-by-one, to use the power of the strike to cripple the state machinery. We must embrace a radical militancy, one that offers a new vision and a new social structure. We must hold fast to moral imperatives. We must forgive mortgage and student debt, institute universal health care and break up monopolies. We must raise the minimum wage and end the squandering of resources and funds to sustain the empire and the war industry. We must establish a nationwide jobs program to rebuild the country’s collapsing infrastructure. We must nationalize the banks, pharmaceutical corporations, military contractors and transportation and embrace environmentally sustainable energy sources.

None of this will happen until we resist.

The mafia state will be brutal with any who revolt. Capitalists, as Eduardo Galeano writes, view communal cultures as “enemy cultures.” The billionaire class will do to us what it did to the radicals who rose up to form militant unions in the past. We had the bloodiest labor wars in the industrialized world. Hundreds of American workers were killed, tens of thousands were beaten, wounded, jailed and blacklisted. Unions were infiltrated, shut down and outlawed. We cannot be naïve. It will be difficult, costly and painful. But this confrontation is our only hope. Otherwise, we, and the planet that sustains us, are doomed.

(chrishedges.substack.com)

NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON

Want me to tell you something that will blow your mind or make you lose sleep?
Well, look at this picture.

Each of those dots you see is a GALAXY…
And each GALAXY has roughly 100 BILLION STARS.
Also, each STAR has at least 1 PLANET.
Now how many galaxies do you think there can be in that picture?
And this is just a photograph of a very little parcel of the universe.
This makes me lose sleep, thinking about how so insignificant we really are.

THE VULTURES are interesting. In the morning they would rise, one by one, from their communal roost a quarter-mile below our lookout, and disperse themselves to the four quarters of the firmament. Each patrols its chosen — or allocated — territory, rising so high and sailing so far it soon becomes invisible to human eyes, even when our human eyes are aided by Bausch & Lomb 7 × 50 binoculars. But although we cannot always see them, the buzzards keep an eye on one another as well as on the panorama of life and death below, and when one bird descends for an actual or potential lunch its mates notice and come from miles away to join the feast. This is the principle of evolutionary success: mutual aid.

At evening, near sundown, the vultures would return. Friendly, tolerant, gregarious birds, they liked to roost each night on the same dead pine below. One by one they spiraled downward, weaving transparent figures in the air while others maintained a holding pattern, sinking slowly, gradually — as if reluctant to leave the heights — toward the lime-spattered branches of the snag. They might even have had nests down in there somewhere, although I could never see one, with little buzzard chicks waiting for supper. Try to imagine a baby vulture.

Gathered on their favorite dead tree, heads nodding together, the vultures resembled from our vantage point a convocation of bald, politic funeral directors discussing business prospects — always good. Dependable. The mature birds have red, wrinkled, featherless heads; the heads of the young are a bluish color and also naked. The heads are bald because it’s neater, safer, more sanitary, given the line of work. If you made your living by thrusting your beak and eyes and neck deep into the rotting entrails, say, of a dead cow, you too would prefer to be bald as a buzzard. Feathers on the head would impede a hasty withdrawal, when necessary, and might provide lodging for maggots, beetles, worms, and bacteria. Best for the trade to keep sleek and tidy.

I respect vultures myself, even like them, I guess, in a way, and fully expect someday to join them, internally at least. One should plan one’s reincarnation with care. I like especially the idea of floating among the clouds all day, seldom stirring a feather, meditating on whatever it is that vultures meditate about. It looks like a good life, from down here.

— Edward Abbey, Watching the Birds: The Windhover (1982)

LEAD STORIES, SUNDAY'S NYT

Putin Has Long Wanted More Power in Europe. Trump Could Grant It.

Trump Aides and Russian Officials to Meet Next Week on Ukraine War

Ukraine Rejects U.S. Demand for Half of Its Mineral Resources

Trump Suggests No Laws Are Broken if He’s ‘Saving His Country’

Trump’s Ambition to Redraw the World Map Ignores Those Affected Most

Trump Officials Attack a German Consensus on Nazis and Speech

EVERY EMPIRE, however, tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate.

– Edward Said

23 Comments

George Hollister February 16, 2025

I know I am just one data point, and I hate getting the flu. For the first 40 years of my life I contracted the flu at least once every year. Then I started getting an annual flu shot and since then have only had the flu once, that I can remember. I know I can get the flu anytime and break my almost perfect streak in spite of getting a flu shot every year. My only advice is if you don’t mind getting the flu then don’t get a flu shot.

Reply
- Mark Stillman February 16, 2025
  
  I also used to get laid low by the flu every year. The first time I tried to get a flu shot at our local clinic (RCMS in Gualala) I was turned down for being too young. I was in my thirties but apparently the flu shots were only recommended for the elderly… I was mad when I once again got the flu. A few years later they were for everyone and one year the nurses stood outside in the driveway and I joined the line of pickup trucks where we’d stick our arm out the window and get injected with a smile and a joke then be on our way. I had to resist the urge to drive back around and do it again, they’d made it fun.
  
  Reply
Brian Wood February 16, 2025

Valerie Hanelt gives a mostly clear rundown of the plan for sewer and water systems in the valley. However, I didn’t understand where the drinking water would be stored, presumably separately from the fire suppression water. How large will those tanks be. Will they be in the same location and could the drinking water supplement the fire water in a catastrophic fire situation?

Another question I have is whether commercial water use has been considered. For instance, the brewery draws water from the local aquifer, presumably for free, and sells it around the country. Would that business or any other be legally limited in increasing their share of water if they expanded operations? What is the existing data for the aquifer beneath Boonville that will feed the system? How much water can be drawn from it annually before it becomes overdrawn?

Also, has a way to prevent hijacking water from hydrants for private and commercial use been considered?

Thank you.

Reply
Brian Wood February 16, 2025

Regarding the sewage treatment system, it would be near my home. I’m not completely comforted by the comment “almost no odor (it’s amazing)” as summer breezes typically blow my way on summer afternoons. Also, regarding the minimal fan noise, can dB measurement be given? What is unhearable during the day might be an annoyance at night for those of us who sleep with the windows open.

Reply
Kimberlin February 16, 2025

Editor: On Mission Bay. Have you not heard of “Dog Patch”. How about the boat yard and the restaurant next to it called, “The Ramp”? How about, “Mission Rock” restaurant on the water as well with great views? And possibly the best breakfast restaurant in San Francisco, “The Plow”? Technically not in Mission Bay, but so close to not matter. “Plow” is very close to “Christopher’s Books”, one of the best bookstores in the City? You need to look around a little.

Reply
Jim Armstrong February 16, 2025

There is no joy in Potter.
Jared Huffman has sold out.

Map of Eel River above: The Potter Valley Project involves only about half of one of the six major forks of the river. Look at it.
The new plan provides no water to Potter Valley, only increased flooding of the river through the valley in winter on its way out of the county.

Has the Board of Supervisors made any effort to address the situation? Even mentioned it?

The AVA has supported the screwing over of this part of the county from the first.

Reply
- Adam Gaska February 16, 2025
  
  The County has a bad track record of collaborating on water projects that would only benefit one part of the County. It’s primarily resistance from the Coast to support inland (Russian River) water projects.
  
  Reply
  - Paul Andersen February 16, 2025
    
    Don’t lump the “coast “together. There’s a north and south. The town Mendocino, of course, got a multi million dollar grant for their water. Crickets when it comes to the rest of the coast, especially the south coast. I think about the inland as red states and the coast as blue states, and just like the rest of California sends more money to red states than it gets back, the coast sends more money to the county than it gets back, that’s for sure!
    
    Reply
    - Adam Gaska February 18, 2025
      
      The town of Mendocino is in the 5th district which encompasses the south coast. It’s great that they have received grant funding to study groundwater availability as well as to do much needed upgrades to the sewage treatment plant that will enable the recycling of water for non potable uses.
      
      The County is in the process of developing a Drought Resilience Plan as mandated by the state. There are upcoming public meetings that community members should attend. Even better is for representatives from water districts to attend so they can communicate their community’s needs to the County so they are on the radar and the County can help get grant funding for projects.
      
      Reply
  - Jim Armstrong February 16, 2025
    
    Huh?
    
    Reply
    - Adam Gaska February 18, 2025
      
      Mendocino County BOS voted not to financially support the building of Coyote Dam back in 1950 primarily because coastal supervisors didn’t want to pay for a project that would only support inland water supply. People in Ukiah and south to Hopland organized a property tax measure to fund bonds to pay for a portion of construction to get some water rights. The community of Redwood Valley didn’t support the property tax because they didn’t see how they would benefit not being located below where the dam would be built and didn’t see how they would pump water over the hill to Redwood Valley. 25 years later, Redwood Valley borrowed $8 million to build a water system, treatment plant and install pumps to “pump water over the hill”.
      
      Most recently, former supervisor Gjerde balked at the County financially supporting any efforts to support efforts to save the PVP as he felt the cost should be paid for by water users. In the 3rd district, there is also a good amount of support to decommission the dams hoping that it will help in the recovery of salmonids.
      
      Currently we are in a similar situation. The County doesn’t have a stand alone water agency to focus on County water issues in large part because the different regions of the County are focused on their own issues and are reluctant to support each others interests when projects don’t directly benefit them. My feeling is that we need to work together to have a stronger voice at the state and federal level in order to increase our chances of getting funding for water projects.
      
      Reply
Chuck Dunbar February 16, 2025

Chris Hedges–“The Mafia State”– lays it out for us, pretty much describing what we’ve become. Now, with Trump’s brazen moves, it becomes very clear. Hedges is right that resistance now is the way out–“confrontation is our only hope.”

Reply
Craig Stehr February 16, 2025

Stop identifying with the body and the mind, and your problem is solved! The Absolute works through the body-mind complex without interference. Give the mind something to do, such as prayers, or chanting mantras, or positive affirmations, as an alternative to random discursive thinking. You have nothing left to achieve. I am available on earth for revolutionary ecological and peace & justice action.
~Happy Presidents Day~
Craig Louis Stehr
Adam’s Place Homeless Shelter
2210 Adams Place NE #1
Washington, D.C. 20018
Telephone: (202) 832-8317
Email: craiglouisstehr@gmail.com
February 16th, 2025 Anno Domini

Reply
- A Harpy February 16, 2025
  
  Where is the Mind?
  
  STRESS 😬 relief
  
  https://www.instagram.com/reel/DFMquuKvG2F/?igsh=MXBpcnc4MGptNWx1bA==
  
  Reply
Jim Mastin February 16, 2025

Dear Editor,

What was almost never mentioned in all this time regarding the EeL/Russian River deal was Lake County’s role in the negotiations. Scott Dam, Lake Pillsbury and the majority of the newly opened Eel River is in Lake County and it would appear to the public that they were not considered a stakeholder. I wonder if we’ll ever hear “the rest of the story”.

Jim Mastin
Ukiah

Reply
- George Hollister February 16, 2025
  
  That is an excellent point, and has been mentioned numerous times over a long period. Jared Huffman did not want Lake involved, so they were left out as a stakeholder.
  
  Reply
- Norm Thurston February 17, 2025
  
  Also worth noting is that the Eel-Russian Project Authority (ERPA) is made up of only three member agencies: the County of Sonoma, the Sonoma County Water Agency, and the Mendocino County Inland Water and Power Commission. I do not expect Mendocino County interests to get much attention under this configuration.
  
  Reply
  - Adam Gaska February 17, 2025
    
    That is definitely a concern. Although, of the 5 member board, IWPC has 2 seats, Sonoma Water 1, Sonoma County 1 and RVIT 1.
    
    Where is the funding going to come from? If it comes from the government, does that mean it will split equitably?
    
    If it comes from private financing such as bonds, then it becomes a pay to play situation. In that scenario, Mendocino County loses.
    
    Reply
    - Norm Thurston February 17, 2025
      
      My thinking is that the cool $1 mil going to RVIT will come mostly from Sonoma County interests, which could influence how they vote. I would like to hear your thoughts though, as you are much more informed on the matter.
      
      Reply
      - Adam Gaska February 18, 2025
        
        $2 million. $1 million directly to RVIT and $1 million to an Eel River restoration fund. This will all be paid by ERPA or whatever agency eventually owns the infrastructure and sells the water so the actual payment will come from whoever purchases the water. There is an adjustment to raise the payment annually based on CPI so at the end of the first 30 year lease period, the initial $2 million becomes $4.25 million annually.
        
        On top of this, one of the stipulations to exercise the 20-year lease extension option, the restoration fund needs to have received an additional $25 million in funding not counting the annual payments. So, the Eel River restoration fund goal is $50 million.
        
        Reply
- Betsy Cawn February 17, 2025
  
  The “Eel-Russian River Commission” was formed decades ago, but Google did not produce any link to the Commission itself. The “AI” explanation:
  
  AI Overview
  Learn more
  History – Inland Water & Power Commission of Mendocino County
  The website for the Eel-Russian River Commission is mendocinocounty.org/government/affiliated-agencies/water-agency/eel-russian-river-commission.
  Explanation
  The Eel-Russian Project Authority (ERPA) is a joint powers authority that was formed by the County of Sonoma, Sonoma County Water Agency, and the Mendocino County Inland Water and Power Commission. ERPA’s responsibilities include:
  Negotiating with Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E)
  Decommissioning the Scott and Cape Horn dams on the Eel River
  Constructing and operating a new water diversion facility near the Cape Horn Dam
  
  The link to Mendocino County’s website does not provide background and history, but PG&E began its process for decommissioning Scott Dam and the hydro-electric generation plant in Potter Valley in the early 2000s. In December 2006, PG&E conducted a public “outreach” meeting in Upper Lake (at the Tallman Hotel) attended by residents in the Lake Pillsbury area, along the old “logging road” between Scotts Dam and Potter Valley, and Potter Valley and Mendocino County users of Eel River diversions to Potter Valley, Lake Mendocino, and Russian River “consumers” of Lake Pillsbury-sourced water supplies.
  
  The County of Lake was duly notified of the decommissioning plans (allowing the FERC-issued licenses and permits to expire), but took no action in the Eel-Russian River Commission meetings until Jared Huffman began his campaign, at which time a new Lake County Supervisor obtained local funding for the “fee” Huffman was requiring for voting on proposals such as the “two-basin solution” (as unworkable as the cease-fire agreements between Israel and Palestinian authorities leading to a “two-state solution”).
  
  Lake County worked with all of the affected parties with interest in one or another decisions about “South Fork” diversion options. The Inland Power & Water agency is led by Janet Pauli, formerly the Executive Director of the Potter Valley Irrigation District that owned and operated the Van Arsdale Reservoir and its hydro-electric machinery. Pauli’s husband, retired Executive Director of the California Farm Bureau, tried to negotiate terms of future operation that would protect Potter Valley agriculture and “rural residential” users, but IWP was effective in working with inland Mendocino water districts and customers to come up with the conditions of “re-operation” of the reservoir and irrigation system infrastructure.
  
  Lake County tax payers and participants in organizations like “Lake Pillsbury Alliance” and property owners dependent on the reservoir’s critical fire suppression water supplies (including the US Forest Service Mendocino National Forest and PG&E) have attempted to gain access to Huffman’s “Planning Committee” but with the results reported today in the AVA.
  
  A report on the economic impacts of loss of the reservoir has been developed to provide the basis for a future law suit (against PG&E?). And the County has developed a consortium including the Round Valley Tribal Councils to attempt to satisfy the Humboldt-based environmental advocacy groups, releasing already-reduced levels of irrigation water to the south for salmon restoration and recovery. The truly-collaborative agreements allowing Russian River watershed “diversions” to customers of the Sonoma County Water Agency (which include, when there is “excess” supply, sales to Marin County water agencies) and permitted extraction by riparian parcel owners (a lot of them grape growers) have not been recognized by PG&E so far.
  
  On last Tuesday’s agenda for the Lake County Board of Supervisors was a closed session item “FERC Project #77 PVP.” No idea what the results of that discussion were, no “action” taken to report per the Brown Act meeting requirements. No indication of whether the item was initiated by PG&E or the County.
  
  Lake County provides potable water to six surrounding counties — Humboldt, Mendocino, Sonoma, Napa, Solano, and Yolo — without any compensatory revenues for maintenance of source facilities such as the Scott Dam.
  
  Reply
Frank Hartzell February 17, 2025

I like the wine industry more than many others. They do good here and have lovely estates and more. But would support for these water projects be greater if they were part of a localization movement, to help provide grain and a grain mill and a place to process the meat we eat and veggies instead of wine? The wine industry is in a tight spot right now. Might be a way out. Support the Charter County status this time and local banking and food together and use water judiciously? We should have our own electricity and use the Great Redwood Trail for a railroad again, something new tech. We are crazy not to become more self-sufficient as Hawaii has done. We can do it here.

Reply
- Adam Gaska February 17, 2025
  
  Wine grapes take very little water compared to most other crops. They also take less labor compared to vegetable crops which is another large issue. Housing is expensive and we struggle to provide affordable (read cheap) housing for agricultural workers who generally aren’t paid high wages.
  
  It’s not just a matter of being able to grow a crop but can we grow enough of something to support the services and infrastructure to get the crop from field to consumer. Can we do this competitively?
  
  Reply

Mendocino County Today: Sunday 2/16/2025

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