Mendocino County Today: Tuesday 2/25/2025

HIGH PRESSURE begins building in today as skies clear and temperatures warm. Other than a slight chance of showers mid week, ridging further amplifies through the end of the week with inland temperatures warming to well above average. Rain chances increase over the weekend with a frontal system. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): 43F under clear skies this Tuesday morning on the coast, another .11" of sprinkles from yesterday morning. Clear skies thru Friday then showers return for the weekend. Steve Paulson at KTVU said today March is showing signs of returning to a wetter pattern, we'll see.

IS THIS YOUR BULL?

Tina Gowan: “We have this bull at our place near the Farm Supply in Philo. Please let me know if it yours.”

NEW DOCUMENTS SHOW DISPUTED EXTRA PAY WAS DISCLOSED TO COUNTY ADMINISTRATORS

by Mike Geniella

For months serious criminal accusations have hung over the heads of elected Mendocino County’s Auditor Chamise Cubbison and former County Payroll Manager Paula June ‘P.J.’ Kennedy after District Attorney David Eyster filed felony charges of misappropriation of public funds 17 months ago.

There were public claims that vigilant County administrators led by CEO Darcie Antle had tipped law enforcement to the fact that Kennedy secretly drew about an $68,000 in pay over three years during the Covid pandemic by using a mysterious “470” county payroll code. Antle was credited with alerting the DA to an unauthorized pay scheme Cubbison and Kennedy allegedly had worked out.

After DA Eyster formally charged Cubbison, the County Board of Supervisors swiftly suspended Cubbison without pay and benefits, and publicly touted that it had acted to “protect” the county’s finances.

Those claims were shattered Monday in yet another dramatic turn in the Cubbison criminal case, however.

When the preliminary hearing resumed Monday after a month-long break, the court unexpectedly learned that the DA’s chief investigator last week had turned over “exculpatory” evidence.

It showed in fact the extra pay for Kennedy for three years had been routinely included in twice-monthly payroll reports that were automatically distributed to top county administrators, including Antle and her staff.

The specific information also had been sent to the County’s Human Resources Manager, who had earlier testified she didn’t even know what the 470 code was. The county code is one of dozens and typically used to label miscellaneous expenses.

The regular reports citing Kennedy’s extra pay also had been distributed for two years to former Auditor Lloyd Weer before he retired in 2021. Weer claimed during earlier testimony that he never authorized any extra pay for Kennedy while he was still in charge of the office, and that he was unaware she had been including it in her check.

The disclosure of the documents’ existence on Monday clearly displeased Superior Court Judge Ann Moorman.

Moorman called the documents “important” in the face of testimony that suggested secrecy surrounding the Kennedy extra pay was made in a covert manner.

“Willful ignorance will not be tolerated by this court,” declared Moorman.

Moorman said she would now have to look differently at the earlier testimonies of Weer and Cherie Johnson, the county’s Human Resources manager. Both had claimed to be unaware of the 470 code payments, as did Antle.

Moorman ordered the county’s IT department to produce copies of the regular reports that Weer, Antle, Johnson and other County officials regularly received, as well as “any member of the Board of Supervisors.”

The fact that earlier in the criminal proceedings significant time had been spent on thousands of missing county emails because of the collapse of an archival system also seemed to be on Moorman’s mind. The judge reminded participants that she had taken the extraordinary step of bringing in a special master to review for relevancy hundreds of emails that eventually were retrieved.

“Even with those steps, what was presented today was not discovered,” said Moorman.

Moorman paused, and then said again, “Willful ignorance will not be tolerated by this court.”

The hearing resumes at 10 a.m. today.

The outcome will determine if Cubbison and Kennedy will be ordered to stand trial, or whether Moorman will rule favorably on pending defense motions to dismiss the case.

Monday’s disclosure of the retrieved payroll reports dramatically shifted the focus of the preliminary hearing.

Until now, it has been a plodding examination of county payroll procedures and the extraordinary amount of time everyone agreed that Kennedy had put in processing a payroll for 1,200 county employees during the covid interlude.

The extra work came at a time when the Auditor’s Office was being buffeted by pandemic stresses, a faulty computer system, and board plans to forcibly merge the Auditor’s office with the Treasurer-Tax Collector, the second of the county’s two key finance offices to be led by an elected official.

CEO Antle was expected to resume her testimony when Monday’s preliminary hearing renewed, but instead Andrew Alvarado, Eyster’s chief investigator, was called by Cubbison defense attorney Chris Andrian to explain how prosecutors learned of the payroll reports.

Alvarado was followed by deputy County Counsel Brina Blanton who attempted to explain how her office had overlooked the reports. Blanton was followed by IT Manager/Deputy CEO Tony Rakes who attempted to explain why the reports didn’t surface during earlier searches.

On Moorman’s instructions, Rakes produced samples of the reports during an IT examination during the lunch hour.

Moorman directed that at today’s hearing she expects to have specific records submitted for six county officials including Antle, Weer, and Johnson, the Human Resources Manager.

SORRY, NO GUNS FOR YOU, CARLOS

On 02/20/2025 at approximately 4:30 PM, Deputies from the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office were dispatched to the 100 Block of Concow Blvd in Covelo for multiple reports of a suspect, Carlos Angelo White, 39, of Covelo, shooting a firearm in the area.

While Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office Deputies were responding, Round Valley Tribal Police Officers contacted White and detained him. When Deputies arrived on scene, they began conducting an investigation.

During the investigation, it was learned White was on active Postrelease Community Supervision (PRCS) out of Mendocino County for being a prohibited person in possession of a firearm. Per White’s PRCS probation terms, a search of his residence was completed.

At the conclusion of the search, a firearm and live ammunition were located inside White’s residence along with drug paraphernalia.

White was ultimately arrested on felony charges of Violation of Postrelease Community Supervision, Discharging a firearm in a negligent manner, Armed with a firearm in the commission of a felony, Prohibited person in possession of firearm, Prohibited person in possession of ammunition, and Possession of drug paraphernalia.

White was subsequently booked into the Mendocino County Jail where he is being held on a no-bail status.

BOYS SOCCER

Division 1

No. 4 Berkeley 2, No. 5 Ukiah 0

Ukiah’s season fell just short of the North Coast Section semifinals Saturday, as the Wildcats lost to Berkeley in the East Bay.

The Yellowjackets scored just 40 seconds into the start of the game, the contest’s only goal until they struck again with just seven minutes left.

The Wildcats end their season at 16-4-1 overall, with a second-place finish in the North Bay League Oak division with a 7-3 mark.

BASKETBALL PLAYOFFS

Division 6

No. 3 Point Arena 62, No. 6 Summerfield Waldorf 53

No. 5 Mendocino 43, No. 4 Rio Lindo Adventist 26

SINGLE MALE SEEKS INEXPENSIVE HOUSING

Rabbani Kenyon, the wood carver who used to be up in Noyo many years ago and is now part of the Elk gallery, is having to move, and has no place to go yet. He’s single, and has no pets. He’s looking for a small place, is hoping for something in the $500 to $700/mo. price range. His phone number is (707) 755-1858. E-mail: cleokenyon@gmail.com

(Tom Wodetzki, tw@mcn.org)

A READER WRITES: “We liked Scaramella’s recent (sarcastic) suggestion that the Board of Supervisors move public expression to after they’ve left the building. Hell, maybe we could pay the five of them to stay away full time. The new Supervisors don’t seem to be interested in calling out the BS and dealing with real county issues. So it will continue to be a bad Groucho Marx movie, kinda like DC.”

FRANK HARTZELL:

My article on the Fort Bragg Senior Center; many have been asking about this.

https://mendovoice.com/2025/02/federal-budget-turmoil-prompts-calls-to-action-at-fort-braggs-senior-center/

THE VITAL ROLE OF IHSS CAREGIVERS

Unless you have worked as a caregiver or experienced the need for a caregiver, In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) may be somewhat of a mystery. February celebrates National Caregiver Recognition Day and an opportunity to highlight the realities of those both providing and receiving these vital IHSS services.

Michelle Sides is an IHSS caregiver. She is also a mother, grandmother, daughter, sister, and active community member in the Ukiah Valley. She has a long history of helping others including 18 years as a SPACE board member, 8 years as a Ford Street Project board member, and a career in the human services field.

Michelle began her IHSS career at the request of a colleague who recognized her big heart and thoughtful personality. The family had been caring for their ailing father, Pete, and recognized they needed help. At the family’s request, Michelle applied to be an IHSS provider, attended orientation, passed fingerprinting, and attended training. “It’s difficult to have family members taking the role as caretaker. It can be stressful and, having someone to relieve some of that is so valuable,” shared Michelle.

After Pete’s passing, Michelle and her children came to live close to her father, James. She hadn’t been close with him and looked forward to reconnecting.

Although very independent, James quickly started to show signs that something was amiss. Michelle credits the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown for the swift timeframe from noticing abnormal behavior to diagnosis. “The signs of dementia can be very difficult to determine as they may present as being argumentative, forgetful and as fierce independence.”

James was an Ukiah Valley local yet, he began to get confused navigating around town, stopped regular maintenance on his car, ran out of gas several times, and would repeat stories from certain time periods. It was over 8 months before James was diagnosed with Dementia.

“Before learning more about dementia, I would’ve said my father was argumentative, but now I know he was struggling to organize things in his brain. I was making his brain do gymnastics with rapid fire questions. I realized my communication style was hindering our relationship,” says Michelle.

Michelle credits a book, The 36-Hour Day by Nancy L Mace and Peter V Rabins, for much of her knowledge and understanding of dementia. “I communicate in a different way now that I better understand. I will nudge him in a direction to trigger what he was thinking. If I can’t trigger it, I suggest something he enjoys. I modify my communication understanding his brain now works differently.”

Getting James enrolled to receive IHSS services has allowed Michelle to focus on his care. Whether it is be a car ride the long way to get gas, a trip to the senior center or travelling to see family members, James is able to live a happy life with dignity. There has been great improvement of his medical conditions and Michelle attributes this to better monitoring, healthy meals, and a stable homelife.

When asked what she feels is most important for IHSS recipients, Michelle says consistency and patience. Recipients come with a wide variety of conditions and not every provider is the best fit. For recipients such as James, having consistent caregivers is key to his quality of life.

“It’s an adventure for sure. If you look at every day as an exciting opportunity, he’s going to enjoy life all the way. If left alone, he may sit and stare at the wall all day. I want to make sure he knows he is loved. I felt this way with Pete and, I feel that it is crucial to provide a space for our elders to live life to its fullest.” Michelle continues to care for her father and connect with their extended family through Sunday zoom calls.

There continues to be a tremendous need in Mendocino County for IHSS Providers. If you are interested in learning more about becoming a provider or would like information on IHSS services, please contact (707) 463-7900 or visit our website at https://www.mendocinocounty.gov/departments/social-services/adult-aging-services/in-home-supportive-services.

ANTIQUE EVALUATION WITH BRIAN WITHERELL

(22 Years With Antiques Roadshow)

Sunday, March 16, 2025

10am-2pm

Anderson Valley Museum

$5/Item for AV Historical Society members

$8/Item for non-members (3 items per person)

Hosted by The Anderson Valley Village & The AV Historical Society

Proceeds benefit the AV Historical Society

Do you have a family heirloom or treasured collectible that you’d like more info about? Curious about where it might have come from and what its value might be?

Come join us for a local “Roadshow” experience.

Hear the Stories, find out what your “treasure” is worth and enjoy Crunchy Snacks.

Brian and his associate Adam Anapolsky, will provide an informative, enjoyable experience in a wide range of categories including jewelry, coins, watches, fine art, comic books, sports memorabilia, advertising, historical memorabilia, collector cards, militaria, antique firearms, weapons, Native American, silver, sculpture, furniture and decorative arts.

ED NOTES

HE WAS NEVER SEEN AGAIN. Eric Christopher Grant, 30, was a biologist with the Mendocino Redwood Company. He was single and lived alone in Fort Bragg. No known enemies, not a drug guy or otherwise likely to have been impaired. Grant’s MRC truck was found on October 27th 2011, in the parking space called Navarro Headlands Vista Point near the junction of Navarro Ridge Road and Highway One. He was last seen at about noon in the King’s Ridge area off Navarro Ridge Road’s east end. Grant’s truck was found about 6 p.m. that day at the vista point lot where Grant was known to take lunch breaks.

ALEXANDER COCKBURN often visited the Anderson Valley. On one visit, over lunch at the always excellent Mosswood Market, The Major and Cockburn noticed an older couple take an AVA off the rack, younger couples tending to regard the print medium as kryptonite. Cockburn, always curious about the AVA demographic, asked the man buying the paper, “What do you like about it?” The gentleman replied, “Oh, we always buy it when we’re in town. We really like that guy Cock-Burn. He always makes us think.” “You mean ‘Co-Burn’?,” The Major corrected with a showy verbal emphasis on the glottal stop k in the correct pronunciation of Cockburn. “Oh, yes. Sorry. I guess so,” the freshly instructed fellow replied. “And this is him,” ungrammatically declared the Major, neatly canceling his authority as a linguist as he gestured proprietarily at Cockburn. The delighted man introduced himself and shook the famous writer’s hand, explaining that he was a retired UC Davis professor who had some property in Anderson Valley and was on his way to it for a weekend visit, a visit perhaps made memorable by his encounter at Mosswood.

A READER WRITES: “Sound familiar? ‘We meet in the midst of a nation brought to the verge of moral, political and material ruin… Corruption dominates the ballot box, the [state] legislatures and the Congress and touches even the bench… The newspapers are largely subsidized or muzzled, public opinion silenced… The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few’.’”

A FORT BRAGG FISHERMAN FRIEND told me a long time ago that Noyo Harbor has a long history of rogue waves roaring in from the Pacific and on up the channel, and that a recent tsunami would have been “a lot worse than it was if it had happened at high tide,” but was really just one more scary sea event in a long history of them. Another old fisherman friend, Miguel Lanigan, now a Lake County landlubber, writes: “What you say about rogue-waves is true and they can come up suddenly in shoaling waters out of a flat-calm ocean. That reminds me. Most of us small-boat fishermen — members of the ‘mosquito-fleet’ — had fallback skills to get us through the days when it was too rough to get out. One of mine was boat carpentry. One fisherman — more of a “wisherman” as he came to fishing later on in life from his job as a San Mateo fireman — hired me do some work on his Monterey boat, the Solo Mio. I replaced the rotten back deck, and also cut in a small fish hold. He left our harbor and went to fishing out of San Francisco. Butch loved his nose-candy, and one night, after a three-day speed bender, he somehow managed to broadside a passing sixty-five foot party boat and sprung several leaks, port and starboard. I declined his offer to come up and put the little girl back together again. He gave up on the Monterey boat, beached her, and became the contract skipper of a 45 foot, steel-hulled Monk boat fishing for a percentage. One afternoon he called his old lady at home in Bodega Bay and said he was only 45 minutes out of port and would be home shortly. It was a cloudless day with mild seas so he was running with the hatch cover off. A rogue wave came up behind him. His deckhand saw it coming, dove into the gaff hatch and held on. The unexpected wave came up so suddenly there was not even time to shut the wheelhouse door. The boat pitched, rolled, and turned turtle and that was the end of Butch. The deckhand survived to tell the story. Another bad place to be when “Rogue Waves” arrive is Tomales Bay. Several have died in these shallow waters. Landlubbers don’t treat mother-ocean with the respect she deserves, and many, many have paid the stark price for their arrogance and stupidity. Flashback: Late one night my old skipper, Dan Mitchell and I were making our way back to Pillar Point in pea-soup fog. We were navigating by loran and bottom depth readings. As we came up on the south end of the harbor reef we encountered a small skiff. Three frantic fishermen were waving and asking if we could guide them into the harbor. We told them sure, get astern of us. By the time we went through ‘The Jaws’ at the harbor entrance we had five other ‘wishermen’ astern of us. We looked like a ghostly nocturnal boat parade. ‘What are these idiots doing out here?’ asked Dan. ‘Stupidity and lack of respect for the ocean,’ was my answer.

THE DAY I MET the KZYX News Department. Here’s what happened: A tv guy passing through Boonville had heard Hanson on the radio. The tv guy asked me if it was the same Paul Hanson who’d tried to pull off a lottery scam up in Oregon some years ago. I promptly e-mailed Hanson, a man I knew only from his radio voice, to ask him if he was the Oregon guy. Ten minutes after the e-mail had whooshed up and away into the ether, a guy comes running through the door ranting about how “the bull dykes” were trying to ruin his life, that everything I’d heard was a pack of lies, that he loved his daughter and was a Vietnam veteran, and how these unnamed villains pursuing him had somehow followed him to Philo from Oregon. Hanson said he was pretty sure he knew who was “trying to get” him, but they were people from a long time ago, and anyway it was all untrue. Hanson wanted to know if I was going to write about it. I said I didn’t know what he was talking about, although I was already mentally composing an item called, “How I met the KZYX News Department.” When Hanson had burst through the door, I’d asked him to sit down, to tell us what was bothering him. We get a lot of troubled people passing through and, while not fully qualified as mental health professionals, we do try to be consoling. “I prefer to stand,” Hanson had said. I thought I might have to clip him one, he was that unhinged. As Hanson yodeled about the conspirators bedeviling him, I saw The Major taking a firm grip on The Nut Repeller, a four-foot broomstick The Major has kept under his desk ever since a deranged Frenchman went off on him and Dave Severn. Then, as abruptly as he’d arrived, Hanson stormed out. Thereupon commenced from him a series of abusive e-mails that accused me of various high crimes and misdemeanors, including an accusation that I’d said his boss, Mr. Coate, had tried to “extort” money for KZYX from a dying woman. That time, I’d written privately to Mary Aigner, KZYX’s hatchet person, asking Mares if anyone from the station had lately appeared at a diminished listener’s deathbed to pry her last few coins out of her. Aigner replied at length, and it was Aigner’s response that we printed. I’d merely done what any news hound would do — I’d asked for comment then reported the response. Mares and Co. probably resented the inquiry but they got off a plausible denial which soon appeared in print and that was the end of it. Hanson somehow had all this as some kind of attack on the station, which it wasn’t. I have indeed attacked KZYX every which way since its inception, but it had been a while since we’ve paid much attention to them. There was some more post flip-out electronic back and forth between Hanson and me. On my end I adopted my calmest, most therapeutic prose, while from him came back a deluge of insults that were so unhinged I feared him coming back to the office with a gun, against which The Major’s pathetic length of broomstick would be useless. So, I wrote to Hanson to say I had no intention of writing about him, although after all his insults I certainly was under no obligation to do him any favors. And Hanson, in a totally schizo about face, apologized to me. That was the end of it, I thought. And then he resigned. Frankly, I felt sorry for the guy, and I still feel sorry for the guy. So, what was Hanson’s big secret? Ten years prior, he’d tried to scam the Oregon Lottery for $25,000. He eventually pled out to a misdemeanor. Ho hum, but it got into the papers up north because those papers aren’t as nice as I am. And Hanson, a public person and career radio news guy, seems to have lost his Oregon job over it. Which wouldn’t have been fair, but when has fair ever applied to media? Anyway, and as I often say, why hold it against the man, especially here in Amnesia County where you are whatever you say you are and history starts all over again every day? No one will remember tomorrow, and today is already half gone. Fresh starts are the cosmic reason Mendocino County exists. Hanson should have stayed. He belonged here.

RICH CULBERTSON: MY SIDE OF HOW AND WHY I WAS FIRED AT KZYX

Christ Skyhawk:

As many of you likely know, I am part of a KZYX programmer group that is filing a petition with the station’s Board of Directors concerned about the unjust, and probably unlawful firing of our hard working and beloved, Operations director Rich Culbertson, Rich sent us the below letter. It is long and somewhat technical, and sometimes his frustration bleeds into the text, but I hope you will read it. As a 30-plus year volunteer programer, I can say without reservation, that KZYX is adrift, an unelected Board is allowing a toxic and unqualified (check out her record at other local non profits) interim General Manager, Dina Polkinghorne, to run roughshod, over our community station; I will send out some resources in a different email. Thank you. Respond, or not, as you see fit,

Hello KZYX Community,

I’ve been asked to make a statement about my dismissal as KYZX’s Operations Director. I have added the gory details below if you want more, but for the preface I’ll just say this:

I love and support the idea of KZYX, and have since even before I arrived 17 years ago. I want it to survive. I don’t want the staff frustrated and feeling attacked by the public, especially for something that they had nothing to do with. I commend them all for working in what I now believe is a dysfunctional and toxic workplace. You can share my disagreement, disappointment and even controlled anger but please also share my feeling that everyone at KZYX is there to perform a very important role to our community and need to be able to work without personal attacks and derision. Please feel free to let the people involved in this decision that you have an issue with recent management actions, as they need to hear from the listeners, but never engage people who don’t wish to do wish to discuss it.

We need many more members, not less. As we gain community voters (at a low of $25) we can usher in Board Members who understand their role and are responsive to the views of the community they serve. The way to improve things is by increasing members and voting for good Board Members who in turn hire a good, experienced, community oriented General Manager who will supervise a good staff.

KZYX has an obligation to the community that funds it and unfortunately I see a dangerous loss of focus from local communication, local fundraising and an effort to change the tenor of the station in an attempt to get big donors hung up on stupid (unimportant to the mission) details and national and regional grants all to fund the new building. I strongly support the new building (always have) but not at the expense of current broadcast capabilities or by losing the heart of the station.

Now, to set the firing record straight:

On Dec. 2, 2024 I came in to work at 5:30am (as usual), and started getting the day ready. Dina came in around 8:30 or 9:00, said hi and went to the back office. Minutes later she came back out front and said she wanted to talk. She asked what I thought the state of the station was in. I told here we are at a crisis point and I need help and we need to get back on focus. She replied I think we need to “make a change.” I asked “Am I’m being fired?” She said yes. She handed me a letter with my final check (including earned vacation time.) No warning, no severance pay was given, no chance to save my job, just a note saying “effective immediately”. I was thrown away like used trash. I would have never left KZXYX without super advanced notice to allow for my replacement. (way more than 2 weeks) but I had to go immediately. She also tried to bribe me by saying if I resign with a smile I could get a cake and goodbye party. Are you kidding me?!

I asked for an explanation. She said “poor performance.” I felt strongly that I successfully disputed (with evidence) each of her examples and asked for arbitration. She said, “fine but it won’t change anything.” (They then never followed up on my request.) I then asked how long I would have to transition to the next person? She said this was effective immediately and I had to leave today. She claimed to have gotten complete BOD support, staff support, Marty’s support, some programmers support and it was all vetted through a lawyer. I have not confirmed any of that. When I asked about the transition of what was my baby for 17 years Dina went on to gleefully say she already contacted Brian Henry and they decided who should replace me. Not a hiring committee, not the rest of the staff just Dina with Brian’s help. If what she claims is true it would seem that there was plenty of time to have an office meeting where details are laid out for the necessary improvements to keep a job that has been exceptionally executed for over 17 years and Whose steadfast loyalty would earn the right to try to make it work the way any decent employer would do or maybe give a transition date that could allow for a gracefully exit over a few months allowing for a smooth transition and for an employee that served the station well to prepare for a change in budget.

I really feel stabbed in the back. But most, (over 71 and growing) programmers and volunteers have reached out with words of support and disagreement with Dina’s move. My sadness and disappointment are only countered by the overwhelming support I’ve gotten from all of you. I’m stunned (and a little frightened) how many KZYX people have contacted me with good supporting thoughts and so many ordinary folks have recognized me from the website or from my voice or the building fund video etc. and come up to express their disbelief, anger and good wishes for me. I even got a recent offer but it was out of the area in a dangerously hot area (fatally unhealthy for my partner) and didn’t pay well so I had to thank them and continue to hunt.

I should say that the staff have all assured me that they did NOT approve of this move. The Board of Directors acted as a rubber stamp for Dina and never once contacted me to confirm what was being said about me.

Now for the important part of all of this.

I love and respect community radio. I feel strongly that it needs to be saved. Please don’t let KZYX be destroyed. The community needs to take control back.

Right now we have a corporate style governance taking over the sensibility of the spirit of the station. I was constantly under pressure do things outside my job description to save the station money. Management got hyper-vigilant about staff hours and they worried more about appearances for grants then they did for the function and purpose for the station itself. Our recent on-air emergency response (or lack thereof) was embarrassing. KZYX staff have to do what is necessary to serve our community! Long hours, wild equipment setups, exhausting discussions are all part of the responsibility we take on. The folk who try to claim they won’t let this job take over their lives don’t last here. This job is that important that it should take over your life. It’s a matter of public safety. We needed less time talking to the bookkeeper (although Steve is a great guy) or the GM and more time doing the many, many details of our jobs.

Thank you all for indulging me in all of this. I honestly felt that after making KZYX my home for over 17 years, I had to make it clear that I gave everything and would have continued to give it all until I couldn’t anymore. I understood that at some point we’d need someone to replace me in my job, but I expected to hand it over to someone else who cared as much as I did and would build on what I started and hopefully improve it. I would have loved to be treated with respect and be given the time to go out with my head held high and proud of my years there. Now I leave feeling used, lied to and that I wasted 17 years of my life. I have to remind myself that I was a part of a great team that literally saved lives.

A now a rebuttal to Dina’s claim’s:

Dina claims the was no problem between her and I. I would not agree with that whatsoever. She may not have heard me complaining every second I saw her because I try to get along with people and work with what I have and not force the issue. If she wants to claim that is equal to liking or respecting each other, she’s mistaken. I made it very clear that I felt like I wasn’t being listened to and that I was not provided the support (time, assistance, money, etc.)

Dina also said in the release to the programmers/public that there was no sudden incident that forced this nor any conflicts with staff. That was true but it begs the question if it wasn’t an emergency then why wasn’t I given the respect I’ve earned to be warned my job was in danger and be given a chance to change whatever she wasn’t happy with.

Dina’s allegations were that we had too many incidents of dead air and that the generator died at a bad time and I should have seen that coming. I plead partially guilty about both the dead air and the problems with the generator. But neither problem was happening because I was lazy or that I was not actively trying to address it.

Most of my time lately at KZYX was been spent new building issues like a temporary internet set-up

At the new building only to be literally yelled at by Brian’s partner who happens to be the project manager. Dina never apologized for setting me up for that shit. I also was maintaining the Talmage, Fort Bragg and Willits remote studios, setting up new phones and personal email addresses, fixing and upgrading computers while trying to stay within our budget, preparing for pledge drives, doing remote broadcasts, working with and around aging software, and training new volunteers. All this of course is in addition to the constant ordeal of overseeing the extremely complex weekly on-air broadcast DAD playlist and managing live feeds for live special programming. (which has work at KHSU for 28 years and here at KZYX for 18 years!!!) During those years Enco logged into them plenty of times and never said it was wrong. It was set up of our situation. I along with a chief Engineer from KUSP were the ones who installed it at KZYX 1 full year before I was ever hired at KZYX. I was called back a month later because DAD had become too much for them all to deal with. I came back and set it up exactly like I had it at KHSU and it worked flawlessly for years and only recently struggled. (You can confirm all of this with Burton Segal who was the Ops guy before me.) I asked many, many to replace the DAD PC with a Windows 11 machine and was always told to wait for it to crap out before we have to spend that kind of money in the lean years. Then I was told to right for the right moment in the budget cycle which never seemed to come and then most recently I was told on many occasions by Marty and Brian to wait for the new building since it’s getting all new equipment.

For literally years — (and in one case a full decade) -- I have begged Brian to address major issues, but they never got done. I asked for the 88.1 signal to be fixed, since it was not reaching the public as well as it used to and worse, almost every time it went off it wouldn’t turn back on and I had to drive up to the tower and manually turn it back on. Brian always told me he had a plan, he had a plan, he had a plan. He also told me he wanted to see if some emergency money or money around the new building would pay for the upgrade, so we should wait before doing anything major. (I notice that Brian or Andre with Brian finally fixed 88.1 the first week I was gone, which is real cute and shitty!)

I also asked him to address the 91.5 dropouts. He said the inland signal needed new arrays on the broadcast antenna, and the antenna needs to be re-tuned and since everything will change soon with the new set up in Ukiah, we should just wait to replace it. (Just wait, and then blame the Ops guy.)

The biggest concern I expressed to Brian (because it’s an FCC violation), was that we didn’t have full control of the transmitters remotely. I begged and begged for new telemetry. Finally, we got the equipment, thanks to an Area Foundation grant. But Brian would never put them in. For a long while it was because he said he had no time. (which I defended for him) Then he eventually did hook up a phone connection to ONE of the transmitters. However, he didn’t install the other one. Also that’s not what we bought from the Area Foundation grant. He said, it was because he wanted to wait for the new building. (I doubt the FCC would agree.) So, the equipment that the Area Foundation paid for sits under my desk and in the caboose to this day. Marty even had me sign a document to the Area Foundation saying the equipment had been installed, when in fact we only used a couple of PC’s. from the grant.

I certainly own my own issues. With many new programs and programmers, it became more difficult for Eddie and I to program our DAD playlist and many mistakes were made which yet added to more down time. After 18 years of service DAD also started experiencing issues (no doubt because it desperately needed and upgrade.) KZYX wasn’t able to afford the new DAD PC at the time this first came up and there were concerns raised by a developer from ENCO I met at NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) that there were also issues in how DAD was talking to the Wheatstone Board

I also confess to not being as sharp in recent months. Dina accused me of being stoned, and while I don’t admit to that specifically, I do admit that I have had a tough year that included heavy medication both prescribed and homeopathic to address severe pain in my back and knees and from a botched dental procedure. This year also included a ton of depression following the loss of a family member and then the election. I expressed this to both Marty and Dina, but apparently my medical and mental health conditions were not considered or accommodated here at this progressive, community business as they are at PG&E and other businesses.

In her public message to the Programmers about my firing, Dina focused on an incident with the generator. Here’s the true story. A couple of times during the summer the automatic generator tests stopped happening. However, the generator always worked during this time. I got Rich Martin to come out and look at it and he found nothing wrong. Later in late fall the generator test failed again. I called Rich Martin again mentioning the weather getting worse, and I asked him to find out what was happening. Again, it was still auto-starting, just not doing the weekly test for some reason.

I had been pressured all year to take vacation, so I was planning to squeeze in some time off before the end of the year. Unfortunately, as I was about to go there was a warning of a coming storm. I offered--and in fact insisted that I change plans and skip the vacation. But every staff member encouraged me to take my vacation anyway, including Dina.

A few days before my vacation, the generator failed to auto-start. It would still start at the generator itself. I called Rich Martin again, and he said the soonest he could come out was the next Friday. I took what I could get from him and asked around if there was anyone else who could help with it sooner. I got no good answer, so we had to wait and hope we didn’t need to run out in the rain to start it. Days later into the next week and while I was on vacation, the generator then failed completely. Dina called Rich Martin and he came out that Friday (as he told me he would). He found a hidden wire had been chewed through by an animal and he said wouldn’t have been easy to find. Dina’s version is that she was the hero who called Rich Martin and that I carelessly went on vacation without caring if things were working or not.

Sadly, since the moment Dina moved from Board President to being Interim General Manager, I have felt no respect from her. I felt that she either tuned out or disregarded most things I brought up. I tried to sit with her in her office and talk with her and even politely said she was being micromanager. She rejected that and said she was trying to stay out of the way. She didn’t express any dissatisfaction with my work and seemed to hear the concerned I raised but in fact she then became much worse than a micromanager by questioning every step the staff made, imposing program changes and prioritizing my task with her needs rather than my priorities for the station. I gave her a long list of projects I was working on with the top priorities in red at the top of the list. She never offered or provided any help to achieve those top priorities. But she did not hesitate to put me on some unimportant task and those top priorities sat up there for years. She feels she can direct things better than the staff that performing the job and process they have succeed with for decades.

I even mentioned to coworkers at that time that I felt uneasy and wondered if she would try to cherry pick stuff to fire me. It was a huge added stress on top of an already difficult time for me.

I won’t go into the many issues with repeated programs, dead air money, being wasted and more that have resulted since my firing. I was kind enough to help Eddie fix a problem that went on for at least 3 days. I was never contacted by Andre and would have received the call well since I had no reason to blame any of this on him. I now hear he’s chosen to take unprofessional pot shots at me and my work with snark like, ‘people tell me they liked how the other guy raced in to fix things but I think it’s better to find out why it failed’. That’s such pathetic shit. I’ve been in radio for almost 35 years. I have help KZYX succeed to beyond its 35 years with dedicated and professional skill. I was also using the last year or so trying to study to be a Chief Engineer (a task KZYX said they supported me taking the time to do.) In fact recently moved up to Certified Broadcast Technician which completes the 2nd of the 3 levels to became A Certified Engineer from Society of Broadcast Engineers to be fully certified Engineer. You shouldn’t have to shit on the previous guy to make yourself look good. Sad to hear that.

I see that management has now given the support, time and money to spend to address what I begged them to let me do. I was always told to wait for a bump in the budget cycle (which never seemed to come at the right time for Marty or Dina (I told Dina all of this and even gave her my priority list but something she wanted do trumped that list every time. (There are literally years’ worth of emails confirming this!)

I felt I had an affable personality that worked well here for almost two decades (and 8 GM’s). But personalities aside, look what’s happened the last few years. We lost a super effective Program Director in Alicia Bales, we lost both Renee Wilson and Sara Reith for their own reasons that included the stress of working at KZYX. We lost Victor, twice. (He was obviously a bad hire.) We will be losing our great bookkeeper Steve Winkle soon. We’ve had one staff person pack up and walkout out of frustration (and then they came back because of KZYX’s mission). And there have been complaints from others that show their frustration with the current manager. Yet no one hears the staff concerns and the BOD is not interested in doing anything but what Dina wants. As a result, the station suffers frequent disruptions and instability from a high staff turnover.

Thanks so much everyone. I will always love and respect the staff and programmers I’ve worked with and the community I served. Please save KZYX.

Sincerely,

Rich Culbertson

CATCH OF THE DAY, Monday, February 24, 2025

RICHARD BARTH, 65, Willits. Failure to appear.

JEANIE BETTEGA, 30, Covelo. Paraphernalia, probation revocation.

ISAIAH BROWN, 29, Covelo. Grant theft.

KENNETH BUTTREY, 67, Willits. Failure to appear.

MATTHEW FAUST, 50, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol. (Frequent flyer.)

VANESSA ELIZABETH, 55, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

DONNA FLORES, 77, Willits. DUI-alcohol&drugs.

JUSTIN GOODNOUGH, 33, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-under influence.

CHRISTOPHER LUCE, 52, Fort Bragg. DUI.

SARINA MCDOW, 42, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-under influence.

DAKOTA MILES, 30, Laytonville. Failure to register as transient.

ALEC NICOLI, 30, Crow’s Landing/Laytonville. DUI.

KRISTO OUSEY, 41, Ukiah. Paraphernalia, parole violation. (Frequent flyer.)

MARKEL PLUMMER, 36, Ukiah. Under influence, disorderly conduct-loitering.

LAURI ROMESBURG, 49, Philo. Suspended license-habitual offender.

PAUL SCHOCK, 24, Philo. Probation revocation.

WHAT’S LOST AT POINT REYES

Editor:

It was fascinating to read about the group of wealthy investment types who gathered with their private chefs in the Marin enclave of Ross to pool the funds necessary for the Nature Conservancy to drive the historic dairies out of Point Reyes National Seashore. No doubt they are all experts on the dynamics of multigenerational family farms and the rural communities they and their workers inhabit. I wonder if any of them knows which end of a cow the milk comes from.

Asked about future stewardship of the former dairy land, the Nature Conservancy representative expressed confidence that the government will take care of it. Will the government also help support the farmworker families who have lived and worked on these dairies for decades — or the restaurants, retailers, schools and other services in those communities that are losing their primary base of economic sustenance? Perhaps they could schedule another Ross conclave to raise money for those causes? Don’t hold your breath.

Last year another group of brutes masquerading as environmentalists shut down what was the largest family-owned organic dairy in Sonoma County. Perhaps our fancy neighbors to the south will have to adjust to imported milk in their lattes.

Steve Page

Sonoma

FAT POLITICS

by Paul Modic

Recent studies show that many overweight people don’t see their doctors because they’re embarrassed to be weighed by the intake worker. Some offices and clinics are changing their policies and making weigh-ins optional because of this, though I don’t think the actual number of pounds matters as the appearance of the obese patient will be obvious, and the doctor can factor that in if weight has a bearing on his diagnosis, as it usually does. Too much weight is a warning sign for many ailments and if someone is afraid of how much they weigh they should probably consider therapy to deal with their fears, as well as try to lose weight. Reading about this made me think about my experience with weight:

I was fat, smoked pot nearly every day and always got the munchies. My go-to snack was three or four bowls of “Honey Bunches of Oats” with milk, and if I was out of that then “Grape Nuts” would have to suffice. Sometimes a mix of peanut butter and honey was all I had around, and a real treat was pancakes at midnight: embedded walnut pieces and banana slices, butter melted in maple syrup, and yogurt and sometimes eggs on top, with a cold glass of milk if available.

So I smoked and ate and no one (except Archie on my softball team who would call me Fat Boy when he was annoyed with me) shamed me or guilt-tripped me to consider changing my gluttonous ways. Did no one love me enough to say something or stage an intervention? Just respected my right to make my own decisions, bad as they were? (There was a theory I had heard that eating sweet white creamy food was a “love substitute.”)

When I reached 270 pounds I figured I could go for 300 or do something about it. I finally talked to a nutritionist, my next door neighbor Marie Raphael, who told me about nonfat food options and serving sizes. I quit smoking pot, started taking five mile round-trip hikes up to the top of the Gulch and back, lost eighty pounds and moved to town. I started smoking again and got so high I decided to run for supervisor, started eating a pint of Hagen Daz every night, put fifty pounds back on and then the next year took it all off again. (Once a checker looked at me oddly when I bought sorbet along with nonfat milk.)

Now it’s been twenty-five years and I’ve mostly kept it off, which is a success story though it’s been a struggle, sometimes going back up to 223, hoping for 206, and recently stabilized around 190-200. (At 6’ 2” I’m still considered overweight, though the BMI standards are being reviewed). I’ve developed super-healthy eating habits, regular exercise, and battle insomnia off and on, though I did average seven hours of sleep this year.

People are just damn weak, as I was, depressed and overworked and being fat is a deep emotional issue related to the perception of attractiveness, making it difficult to find love, marriage, and children, what most people strive for.

Yes, I knew why I was fat: I was depressed, ate too much unhealthy food, didn’t exercise enough, and therefore I knew it wasn’t genetic or that I was just “big-boned.” I was a big fat pig of my own making and figured every other overweight person was also responsible for making themselves fat and unhealthy.

What altered this thinking somewhat was my mother’s situation, as she had always been overweight and clinically obese. Sure, she had ailments probably related to her weight, like diabetes, but she lived to ninety! I didn’t think an obese person could live that long, and so that tempers my judgement of others, but not of myself.

(She did have bad knees, which were related to her weight, and she was afraid to get them replaced until it was too late. She ended her life in a nursing home, unable to walk the last couple years, going from walker to wheelchair to being hoisted up and into the bathroom at all hours by workers, strangers who often weren’t gentle. It was a bummer way to go but at least she had four loving children who cared about her.)

I’m staying on a healthy diet, eating mostly copious amounts of healthy food, munching for an hour like a horse on a twelve-veggie salad three times a week, and pretty much devoting my life to keeping my “healthy trinity,” together: food, exercise, and sleep.

I did have some distinct advantages to go all out to lose weight and keep it off: the money to buy healthy food, the time to focus on the diet/exercise project, and no one else around to distract me with their food preferences or like junk food.

(I have a sister, maybe all three of them, who object to the word fat when describing someone. When I send them a story or essay I’ve written I’ve learned to censor any reference to sex or women, and though I did that recently, one “fat” slipped through, and I heard about it.)

THOSE WERE THE DAYS, WAY BEFORE ESPRESSOS AND DECAF LATTES

MITCH CLOGG: On Aging

In “Who Can I Turn To” Nancy Wilson sang, “I’ll beg, steal, or borrow my share of laughter”. Just those words: “my share of laughter” got me to thinking. Have I had my share of laughter? No. Laughter is not something to be doled out. It’s not measurable in shares. Ask a tree if it’s had its share of rings.

Have I had my share of happiness, joy, jubilation? Has mine been a happy life? The question seems Disneyesque. Socrates said the unexamined life was not worth living--not the “unhappy” one. The good and the bad are bound together, Yin and Yang, delight and misery; you can’t have one without the other.

As far as misery goes, my life (and yours, and yours) has not been short-changed, any more than with exultation. My pre-pubescent agreement with the gods was that my coming life not be boring. Nothing was said about happiness. My part of the agreement was to do good and pursue adventure, like Superman.

They’ve held up their end. Whatever happens from here, I can’t cite breach of contract.

Now, aging. There’s no clear line between “getting older” and “old,” but I can’t pretend that, for me, it’s still unclear.

I see aging as a treatable condition. I notice symptoms, consider the sources, and decide what, if anything, to do. It’s surprising how much of aging might fall into the treatable category. Exercise is the key to reduce much of aging—for a while. No wonder kids are energized like bunnies. They run from place to place, simply because they can. You don’t get wind in your ears from walking. They exercise because they have to be healthy and vigorous and grow to breeding age and git ‘er done. After that, nature doesn’t care. Get fat, get sick, get heart trouble, get diabetes—samo samo; get off the stage.

Well, that was then, before the age of AI and Donald Trump (who, despite what I may have said, is not an avatar for artificial stupidity—he just seems like it. I don’t have a name for what he’s an avatar of). Anyway, now that we know how vital exercise is we can mark that off the list, right? Wrong. You gotta DO it. And let me tell you how eager my eighty-sixed body is to get its daily dose of exercise: zero. It’s lucky if it gets its daily dose of exercise once a month. (i will do better i promise)

Maybe a better example is my left foot. It got infected and swollen. All the doctors, and all the nurses, and all the specialists said it was dying and needed to go or else it would poison my blood and take me with it. I shit you not. They were as clear and blunt as that.

In the final showdown, we were together in a hospital room at night, them standing, arms crossed, I unable to stand, Ellie with me on the bench. They proposed, in response to my reluctance, that they summon an ambulance right now and take me, no charge, to San Francisco. For amputation. They said it was not really optional. Any other course of action would result in them putting “Against Medical Advice” in my record.

I saw my foot as treatable. So did Ellie. We and professional people had been binding and dressing that foot religiously. At the showdown, it was in better shape than it had been. It had healed some—still a mess, yes, but better. I did not doubt the skill and smartness of those present, but I had already been bedded weeks and months in Frisco with my foot. I hadn’t been to Wheeler Street, seen my goldfish, the quadrupeds, my turf, my girl. I said I’d probably take their advice, but I wanted… I needed to touch base. (The “probably take their advice” part was maybe more placatory than honest, but, like I told my kids, lying was verboten except when hunting for work or shelter or when facing potentially hostile authority.)

They were neither fooled nor placated. We slunk from Howard Hospital in Willits, California as fast as three legs could carry us, flang ourselves into the car, slammed the doors, whooped and hollered and almost died laughing.

My foot was under this table, last I checked, and attached. See? Misery and exultation—I’ll take it.

WARRIORS FETE ANDRE IGUODALA, HONORING THE MAN WHO HELPED IGNITE A DYNASTY

by Ann Killion

That was a neat trick the Warriors pulled off Sunday, converting Chase Center into a time machine and — perhaps in honor of Andre Iguodala’s jersey retirement — making it feel as electric as Oracle Arena did a decade ago.

Fans roared and chanted “Warrrrrrrriors.” They greeted their new hero Jimmy Butler with adoration in his first home game. The outmatched Mavericks showed frustration and by the end of the 126-102 blowout all the Warriors starters were on the bench with towels over their heads. Almost like old times.

And after the game, the Warriors hung a No. 9 jersey in the rafters, in honor of the player who started everything and who changed their world.

You changed the course of our entire franchise,” Warriors guard Stephen Curry told Iguodala in the postgame ceremony.

Iguodala’s is just the seventh jersey retired in franchise history. Outsiders might not fully understand his significance. But anyone around for a minute knows that his arrival changed the Warriors forever and his presence set the tone and the culture for a dynasty.

Iguodala impact No. 1: In 2013, after his Denver Nuggets team lost to the baby-faced Warriors in a playoff series, Iguodala joined the Warriors as a free agent at a time when good players were hesitant to don what had been a league-wide laughing stock jersey.

“You were the first one that chose us,” Curry said.

Iguodala’s was a voice of maturity and sophistication and he taught the youngsters how to be professionals.

“He unlocked our confidence,” Curry said.

Iguodala impact No. 2: Though Iguodala was still an elite player, new coach Steve Kerr convinced him to come off the bench and anchor the second unit, for the good of the team. It was the first Strength in Numbers moment.

While privately not thrilled about it, Iguodala agreed and the move not only helped shape the Warriors’ first championship run, it set a cultural tone that still thrives a decade later. Draymond Green, Klay Thompson and even Curry all came off the bench and inevitably referenced Iguodala when they did it.

“He checked his ego at the door and everyone else kind of followed suit,” Curry said.

Iguodala Impact No. 3: The moment that made Iguodala’s jersey retirement a no-brainer and could be his ticket to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame came in the 2015 NBA Finals. Kerr reinserted Iguodala into the starting lineup, replacing Andrew Bogut, and flipped the Warriors’ fortunes against Cleveland. Iguodala was named Finals MVP.

“When I was standing on that stage in Cleveland and they announced Andre as the MVP, that was the ultimate validation of everything I’ve always believed in the game,” said Kerr, who called it the proudest moment of his career.

Along the way, Iguodala became Curry’s staunchest defender, at a time when — yes, youngsters — some of the NBA elites played down his greatness. The affection between the two men is palpable; in his ceremony Iguodala posited “Steph Curry might be the greatest human being.”

“Playing in the NBA for so long, you see so many different personalities, so many different egos,” Iguodala said. “You want to play somewhere with joy and that starts at the top, with the leader, the best player on the team. When you see someone who is like (Steph) is, it’s rich. It makes it very easy to show up and go to work every single day.”

Almost all the fans at the game stayed for the ceremony. A video presentation contained congratulatory messages from past Warriors including Jordan Poole, Chris Paul, Harrison Barnes and Kevin Durant. In the on-court seating were array of faces from the Warriors dynasty, including Thompson who came out of the Mavericks’ locker room for the event. Thompson’s presence was one of the reasons Iguodala thought Sunday was a good date to do the honors.

But back when the jersey ceremony was announced in late January, the Warriors were struggling, unable to find any traction, looking lifeless. Now, with the arrival of Butler — another high IQ, veteran force, like Iguodala once was — the level of play and team confidence has soared.

“You love players who understand the game and lift the level of everyone around them,” Curry said.

Iguodala did that upon his arrival. Sunday’s ceremony was just the first of what will be at least three, perhaps four, more jersey retirements. Iguodala, quite pointedly, closed his remarks by saying, “This is the beginning of the Steph Curry celebration.”

The players involved all seemed a little shocked that history is already starting to claim their careers.

“Because of your competitive nature you never really appreciate your accomplishments,” said Iguodala, who now serves as the executive director of the players’ association and says he’s busier than ever, too busy to play golf.

“It’s funny that you start to celebrate it while it’s still going on,” he said.

On Sunday, it did feel like it was still going on for the Warriors. What Iguodala helped start is still going.

“It’s very weird and surreal watching him be the first one of all of us to go up there and celebrate everything we accomplished,” Curry said. “When you reflect on when Andre joined our team, I felt like I was kind of coming into my prime and I’m still on the floor competing … there’s a sense of urgency.

“It’s just the idea that we’re at a moment where we still can win, and we’re talking about a guy that helped us do that for a decade.”

Like a time machine and the present moment combined. What Iguodala started isn’t over. Not yet.

(SF Chronicle)

‘HONK IF U HATE ELON’: THE SF STREET CORNER AT THE CENTER OF ANTI-MUSK RESISTANCE

by Stephen Council

In San Francisco, the intersection of Van Ness Avenue and O’Farrell Street is fast becoming the go-to hotspot for anti-Elon Musk resistance.

On Saturday, the busy junction that plays home to Tesla‘s lone car dealership in the city saw its fourth substantial protest in eight days. More than 100 people gathered — some for their second protest of the week — to chant, wave signs, scare away potential customers and commiserate about the CEO’s power grab in the federal government.

After Donald Trump’s inauguration, a media narrative quickly emerged that ardent opposition to the president’s actions, dubbed “The Resistance” during his first term, was weaker and less visible this time around. Now, Musk and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency raids on government agencies have become a rallying point for a backlash to coalesce around. Across the country, protests and marches are far smaller than in January 2017, but Tesla dealerships — especially the one in San Francisco — are seeing repeated assemblies against the unelected billionaire and his staff’s bungling methods.

Protesters were at the showroom on Feb. 15 and then two days later for Presidents Day. Two days after that, on Wednesday, federal workers rallied at the same place. San Francisco resident Patty Moddelmog listed the Saturday protest on Indivisible.org, and reruns are scheduled for, so far, every Saturday through early April. In sunny weather, Moddelmog led the crowd in chants of “People over profit! Stop the steal!” and “Stop the coup!” and lambasted Trump and Musk through her speaker.

Moddelmog told SFGate that the busy intersection is perfect for visibility and for freeing drivers and passersby from their personal echo chambers online. She said she sees the stances of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders as her personal “gospel” in national politics.

“We can all come together around the fact that the wealth gap between the rich and poor is getting bigger and bigger,” Moddelmog said, gesturing around her. She added that as far as she knew, everyone at the protest was “closer to being on the street than being a billionaire.”

Around Moddelmog, the crowd waved signs with calls to boycott Tesla, insults against Musk and protestations of Musk and Trump’s early actions in office. Some took the form of pleas (“Save our public lands”), some were ad hominem attacks (“No one voted for the fascist dork,” “Putin’s puppets”), and others were very, very simple (“F—k Musk,” “Bad Doge”).

A circle of musicians played peppy tunes between Moddelmog’s chants as another soundtrack of the protest came from passing vehicles. Van Ness is a busy thoroughfare, with continuous traffic beside a lane for a workhorse bus line. Drivers laid on their horns as they passed by, often gesturing with support or yelling out their windows. An attendee named Nancy, who declined to share her last name due to fears of retribution, waved a “Honk if u hate Elon” sign and told SFGate she’d been to another protest at the showroom two weeks prior.

“The man is toxic right now,” she said. “Even people in Teslas beep when they go by.” (SFGate can confirm, though a passing Cybertruck did not honk.)

Protestors gave various reasons for their attendance, but most of them spoke about feeling an extreme urgency amid the Trump administration’s rapid cuts to federal staff and proposed shutdowns of regulatory agencies. In signs and interviews, several called Musk’s actions a “takeover.” One said she’d been protesting America’s actions for decades, but this time, it feels like it’s about the fate of the entire country.

The crowd skewed older, but 26-year-old Sami Maher stood out on Van Ness’ median, holding up her sign. She told SFGate that the climate crisis is a key issue for her, and she bemoaned Trump’s unfounded blaming of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts for the January plane crash near Washington, D.C. But the most salient moment of Trump’s second term, for Maher, was Musk’s Nazi salute in front of a crowd on Inauguration Day. She said that as an autistic person, she found any attempts to blame Musk’s move on a lack of social awareness or on his Asperger’s syndrome “insulting.”

“Elon didn’t seig heil because he’s autistic,” Maher’s sign read. “Elon did it because he is a Nazi.” (Musk has downplayed the gesture.)

Anti-Musk demonstrations have popped up across the state, including one at a Tesla dealership in Colma and at another in Palo Alto attended by folk legend Joan Baez, per Palo Alto Online. Moddelmog plans to keep coming back to San Francisco’s showroom and encouraging more people to challenge Musk.

The organizer, yelling hoarsely through her speaker at the Saturday demonstration, said, “He is not a super-citizen because he is the richest person in the world.”

NO WAY OUT

by James Kunstler

CBS’s 60-Minutes show was at it again Sunday night in the most prime primetime weekend news slot on the old broadcast spectrum — Sunday at 7:00, the power-hour of national mind-fuckery — with blob PR-agent Scott Pelley singing the blues over the systematic disassembly of the rogue bureaucracy. Trouble is, fewer and fewer minds are susceptible to the argument that the blob exists to “save our democracy.”

You’re supposed to go boo-hoo because the Department of Justice is under new management. Now get this: since 2015 the Department of Justice and its step-child, the FBI, have devoted their vast and savage powers to manifold acts of sedition, treason, malicious political prosecution, obstruction of justice, suborning perjuries, and countless other abuses of law in an ever-widening gyre of ass-covering operations as year-by-year their crimes multiplied.

RussiaGate was initially a cover-up op for the Clintons’ many acts of mischief and moneygrubbing when Hillary ran for President, just as the Mueller Special Counsel Investigation was a cover-up for the crimes committed by the DOJ and FBI after Hillary lost to Mr. Trump, just as Impeachment #1 was a cover-up for the Ukraine money laundry and its role in RussiaGate, and Impeachment #2 was a coverup for the 2020 election ballot hijinks that got rid of Mr. Trump, and just as the Mar-a-Lago raid was a cover-up to retrieve evidence of all-the-above that Mr. Trump had archived, and just as the flurry of Trump prosecutions in 2024 was the final (and amazingly inept) effort to put the Golden Golem of Greatness out-of-business forever.

But somehow, perhaps an act of Providence, he prevailed over all that adversity, like some paladin out of the ancient myths, and is suddenly back in charge — to the abject horror of all those lawyers and spooks behind the aforesaid ops, now nervously awaiting subpoenas in their Beltway McMansions. You will learn shortly that there is a difference between “justice” based on fraud and fakery and justice served by way of fact-patterns and evidence.

And so late Sunday evening after the 60-Minutes pity party, came the pretty astounding news that former Secret Service agent and now podcaster Dan Bongino is appointed Deputy Director of the FBI. Astounding because Mr. Bongino has documented the worst blob crimes of recent years in a series of books that comprehensively presents the entire tapestry of lawlessness in microscopic detail. He knows the whole sordid, epic story, all the names, and all the money trails in every obscure corner of the worst aggregate matrix of scandals in US history. Believe me when I tell you, this is like a death sentence for the blob.

For instance, Mr. Bongino is acutely aware of what went down on J-6, 2021, when a supposed pipe-bomb was “found” at the DNC headquarters, the part it was supposed to play in the larger J-6 op to rid Washington of Mr. Trump, and the lying confabulations of former FBI Director Christopher Wray afterward. Now he is in a position to compel current and former FBI officials to answer questions about that, and much more, from the Crossfire Hurricane scam to the shenanigans in Judge Juan Merchan’s court last summer.

Those investigations will require a whole dedicated division of new FBI agents while Kash Patel attends to the latest grifts uncovered by the DOGE, the threats against public order and safety posed by countless military-aged illegal aliens ushered into the country by “Joe Biden” and Alejandro Mayorkas, the turpitudes of former AG Merrick Garland, and the crimes committed by officials in the CDC, FDA, and other public health agencies around Covid-19, and lingering monstrosities such as the Jeffrey Epstein capers, the huge fortunes mysteriously amassed by US senators and congressmen, the 1960s assassinations of the Kennedys and MLK, the censorship operations conducted by the combined FBI/CIA, State Department, and dark offices of the Pentagon, the theft of US largess given over to Ukraine, and the infiltration of American institutions by China.

The Trump admin knows that it will have to strike hard and fast in all these matters and more. Cases will have to be prepared briskly and removed to federal courts outside the blob-controlled DC district. A great many political figures will have to be taken out of circulation. It will be helpful to finally understand the bizarre capture of the old legacy news media so, for instance, it becomes clear why an outfit such as CBS’s 60-Minutes ended up on the dark side, committed to burying the truth and distorting reality at every opportunity.

The Democratic Party was the political enabling partner in all this sedition and treason and it is hard to see how it comes out of this alive. Expect to see a lemming stampede of resignations out of Congress and the Senate. And some of them, like Sen. Adam Schiff, and Rep. Eric Swalwell could end up in prison. You saw the fear in their public antics the past two weeks as the cabinet confirmations mounted. They know what’s coming. They are desperate, but the power they once wielded is now in other hands. There’s no way out.

On a bright note, it was heartwarming to see that Joy Reid got “axed” from her primetime perch at MSNBC over the weekend. (Nobody axed me, but I approve!) She’ll be doing a must-watch farewell show this coming week. Don’t miss it!

STOP REPEATING THE VAST UNDERCOUNT OF GAZA DEATHS, IT IS TEN TIMES GREATER.

by Ralph Nader

Enough already of the media’s lazy indifference to the vast undercount of the Palestinian death toll from Netanyahu’s genocidal daily bombing and shelling of Gaza’s defenseless civilian population. I’m referring to all the media – the corporate media, the public media, and the independent media. They all stick with the Hamas Ministry of Health’s (MOH) count of named victims whose corpses have been identified by hospitals and mortuaries. For months there have been no operating hospitals and mortuaries to send their grisly data to the Health Ministry.

The official Hamas count that all sides like to cite is now over 48,000 deaths. As American doctors back from Gaza before the Rafah closing last year said—just about everybody surviving in Gaza is sick, injured, or dying. They put the death estimate almost a year ago at a minimum of 95,000, not counting tens of thousands of families buried under the rubble when Israeli F-16s blew up entire apartment buildings.

Why would all sides to this one-sided Israeli war of extermination rely on Hamas’ figures? Well, Hamas has an interest in low-balling the number of deaths to limit the rage of its inhabitants and allies abroad for not protecting the people of Gaza and not providing them with shelters. The Israeli super-hawks want to keep the undercount low to dampen down the international rage, boycotts, and demand for more sanctions and ICC prosecutions. The Biden administration and now the Trump regime also benefit from a low number.

Here is the Washington Post’s esteemed foreign affairs editor Karen DeYoung’s reply on September 6, 2024 to my inquiry:

“We use the Gaza MOH [Ministry of Health] figures – as does the United Nations, World Health Organization and virtually every other humanitarian organization – while noting that independent media are not allowed to enter Gaza and the casualty counts are most certainly underreported… The Lancet [British Medical Journal] report notes that based on other ‘recent conflicts…it is not implausible to estimate’ that four times as many have died than those listed by the MOH…The time will come, I believe, when an independent accounting can be done.”

But six months later the time still hasn’t come. The Biden State Department had a much higher estimate of deaths but refused to release their analysis, obstructing our Freedom of Information request filed last May 24, 2024. All kinds of estimates and projections by reputable universities, specialists, global health groups and UN agencies point to a much higher death and overall casualty toll. But the State Department won’t come forward with a reasonably estimated number that can replace Hamas’ statistical immolation.

For example, in late 2023, the chair of Global Public Health at the University of Edinburgh—Professor Devi Sridhar—said that if the destruction continues, half a million Palestinians would die in 2024. The devastation has gotten worse—the bombings, the genocidal denial of “food, water, medicine, electricity, fuel” in the omnicidal words of the high Israeli military officials, the spread of diseases, untreated injuries, babies born into the rubble, infants starved, lack of potable water, sick elderly without critical medicines, and more. This is the result of 110 thousand tons of bombs (Israeli admission) daily tank shelling and precise destructions. Yet neither she nor most other experts who have projected continuing mayhem have offered a number.

Interestingly, the media has no trouble estimating the Syrian deaths at the hands of dictator Assad (500,000) nor the deaths in the wars in Sudan or Ukraine. Only the Palestinians, who are not allowed to live, don’t get the respect of having their deaths accurately estimated. One team of Gazan undertakers said they buried 17,000 bodies in mass graves by February 2024, including 800 in one day.

Were the shoe on the other foot, Congress would not only have had intense public hearings: it would have declared war against Hamas. With total U.S. co-belligerency – from huge weapons supplies to the veto at the UN, Netanyahu gets away with blocking Israeli and all other reporters from going freely into Gaza, and shuts up those conscience-stricken Israeli soldiers who are sickened by what they were ordered to destroy. One of them said, “I felt like, like, like a Nazi … it looked exactly like we were actually the Nazis and they were the Jews.”

Some columnists in the U.S. like Charles Lane and Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post and Netanyahu’s mouthpiece, Bret Stephens of the New York Times, do not believe the Israeli military consciously targets civilians and civilian infrastructure. Israelis scoff at such naivete; many want more annihilation of all Palestinians whom they regard as “subhuman,” “vermin,” “snakes,” or “animals” (racist words from high Israeli politicians over the decades).

Some 45 years ago, former UN Ambassador and Foreign Minister Abba Eban —under then Prime Minister Menachem Begin—wrote that Israel “is wantonly inflicting every possible measure of death and anguish on civilian populations in a mood reminiscent of regimes which neither Mr. Begin nor I would dare to mention by name.”

In August 2024, based on available historical, empirical, and clinical records, we estimated about 300,000 Palestinians had been killed. (See the August/September 2024 issue of the Capitol Hill Citizen). By now it is over 400,000. Yet the media still uses the figure by Hamas and ignores the lives blown apart under the killing fields in Gaza.

At 400,000 and growing, far more Palestinians have been killed in Gaza than the combined total of deaths from Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Dresden in World War II. This week, Netanyahu dropped leaflets in Arabic signaling a forthcoming violent exclusion of Gaza’s trapped, unsheltered Palestinians from their homeland. More accurately estimated civilian casualties matters morally and for the intensity of the political, diplomatic, and civic resistance when the world learns the truer toll of death and injuries in this tiny enclave the geographical size of Philadelphia.

To remind the world of the daily Israeli violations of settled international law inflicted on Gazans (also in the West Bank and Lebanon), international law practitioner Bruce Fein compiled this concise list:

Israel’s Ten Violations Of International Criminal Humanitarian Law In Gaza

Genocide Count I. Killing Palestinians in Gaza.
Genocide Count II. Deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.
Genocide Count III. Destroying hospitals and maternal care necessities intended to prevent births by Palestinian women in Gaza.
Crimes against humanity. Extermination and persecution of 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza as part of a systematic attack directed at Palestinian civilians.
Deliberately targeting civilians and civilian property for destruction.
Failing to provide for the security and welfare of the inhabitants occupied by the Israeli Defense Forces in Gaza.
Impeding delivery of humanitarian assistance.
Forcible relocation of civilian population.
Use of military force causing civilian casualties vastly disproportionate to the importance of any legitimate military objective.
War of aggression against Gaza Palestinians.

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Just look at the progress in my lifetime. My grandmother, small town, paid her bills in person and with cash. My mother kept a checkbook to facilitate her budgeting and bill paying. We have gone from a checkbook, to credit cards, to debit cards, to PayPal, to tap Credit cards, and now we are being told about stores accumulating prices as you go and eliminating cashiers. It is not the banks, folks, it is us, demanding easier ways of doing business.

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MEXICANS WELCOME IN CANADA

https://lp.inmigracioncanadiense.com/lp/InmigracionCanadiense/hispanic_community

MOST OF MY WANDERING in the desert I’ve done alone. Not so much from choice as from necessity—I generally prefer to go into places where no one else wants to go. I find that in contemplating the natural world my pleasure is greater if there are not too many others contemplating it with me, at the same time. However, there are special hazards in traveling alone. Your chances of dying, in case of sickness or accident, are much improved, simply because there is no one around to go for help.

Exploring a side canyon off Havasu Canyon one day, I was unable to resist the temptation to climb up out of it onto what corresponds in that region to the Tonto Bench. Late in the afternoon I realized that I would not have enough time to get back to my camp before dark, unless I could find a much shorter route than the one by which I had come. I looked for a shortcut.

Nearby was another little side canyon which appeared to lead down into Havasu Canyon. It was a steep, shadowy, extremely narrow defile with the usual meandering course and overhanging walls; from where I stood, near its head, I could not tell if the route was feasible all the way down to the floor of the main canyon. I had no rope with me—only my walking stick. But I was hungry and thirsty, as always. I started down.

For a while everything went well. The floor of the little canyon began as a bed of dry sand, scattered with rocks. Farther down a few boulders were wedged between the walls; I climbed over and under them. Then the canyon took on the slickrock character—smooth, sheer, slippery sandstone carved by erosion into a series of scoops and potholes which got bigger as I descended. In some of these basins there was a little water left over from the last flood, warm and fetid water under an oily-looking scum, condensed by prolonged evaporation to a sort of broth, rich in dead and dying organisms. My canteen was empty and I was very thirsty but I felt that I could wait.

I came to a lip on the canyon floor which overhung by twelve feet the largest so far of these stagnant pools. On each side rose the canyon walls, mainly perpendicular. There was no way to continue except by dropping into the pool. I hesitated. Beyond this point there could hardly be any returning, yet the main canyon was still not visible below. Obviously the only sensible thing to do was to turn back. Instead, I edged over the lip of stone and dropped feet first into the water.

Deeper than I expected. The warm, thick fluid came up and closed over my head as my feet touched the muck at the bottom. I had to swim to the farther side. And here I found myself on the verge of another drop-off, with one more huge bowl of green soup below.

This drop-off was about the same height as the one before, but not overhanging. It resembled a children’s playground slide, concave and S-curved, only steeper, wider, with a vertical pitch in the middle. It did not lead directly into the water but ended in a series of steplike ledges above the pool. Beyond the pool lay another edge, another drop-off into an unknown depth. Again I paused, and for a much longer time. But I no longer had the option of turning around and going back. I eased myself into the chute and let go of everything—except my faithful stick.

I hit rock bottom hard, but without any physical injury. I swam the stinking pond dog-paddle style, pushing the heavy scum away from my face, and crawled out on the far side to see what my fate was going to be.

Fatal. Death by starvation, slow and tedious. For I was looking straight down an overhanging cliff to a rubble pile of broken rocks eighty feet below.

After the first wave of utter panic had passed I began to try to think. First of all I was not going to die immediately, unless another flash flood came down the gorge; there was the pond of stagnant water on hand to save me from thirst and a man can live, they say, for thirty days or more without food. My sun-bleached bones, dramatically sprawled at the bottom of the chasm, would provide the diversion of the picturesque for future wanderers—if any man ever came this way again.

My second thought was to roar for help, although I knew very well there would be no other human being within miles. I even tried it but the sound of my anxious shout, cut short in the dead air within the canyon walls, was so inhuman, so detached as it seemed from myself, that it terrified me and I didn’t attempt it again.

I thought of tearing my clothes into strips and plaiting a rope. But what was I wearing?—boots, socks, a pair of old and ragged blue jeans, a flimsy T-shirt, an ancient and rotten sombrero of straw. Not a chance of weaving such a wardrobe into a usable rope eighty feet long, or even ten feet long.

How about a signal fire? There was nothing to burn but my clothes; not a tree, not a shrub, not even a weed grew in this stony cul-de-sac. Even if I burned my clothing the chances of the smoke being seen by some Hualapai Indian high on the south rim were very small; and if he did see the smoke, what then? He’d shrug his shoulders, sigh, and take another pull from his Tokay bottle. Furthermore, without clothes, the sun would soon bake me to death.

There was only one thing I could do. I had a tiny notebook in my hip pocket and a stub of pencil. When these dried out I could at least record my final thoughts. I would have plenty of time to write not only my epitaph but my own elegy.

But not yet.

There were a few loose stones scattered about the edge of the pool. Taking the biggest first, I swam with it back to the foot of the slickrock chute and placed it there. One by one I brought the others and made a shaky little pile about two feet high leaning against the chute. Hopeless, of course, but there was nothing else to do. I stood on the top of the pile and stretched upward, straining my arms to their utmost limit and groped with fingers and fingernails for a hold on something firm. There was nothing. I crept back down. I began to cry. It was easy. All alone, I didn’t have to be brave.

Through the tears I noticed my old walking stick lying nearby. I took and stood it on the most solid stone in the pile, behind the two topmost stones. I took off my boots, tied them together and hung them around my neck, on my back. I got up on the little pile again and lifted one leg and set my big toe on the top of the stick. This could never work. Slowly and painfully, leaning as much of my weight as I could against the sandstone slide, I applied more and more pressure to the stick, pushing my body upward until I was stretched out full length above it. Again I felt about for a fingerhold. There was none. The chute was smooth as polished marble.

No, not quite that smooth. This was sandstone, soft and porous, not marble, and between it and my wet body and wet clothing a certain friction was created. In addition, the stick had enabled me to reach a higher section of the S-curved chute, where the angle was more favorable. I discovered that I could move upward, inch by inch, through adhesion and with the help of the leveling tendency of the curve. I gave an extra little push with my big toe—the stones collapsed below, the stick clattered down—and crawled rather like a snail or slug, oozing slime, up over the rounded summit of the slide.

The next obstacle, the overhanging spout twelve feet above a deep plunge pool, looked impossible. It was impossible, but with the blind faith of despair I slogged into the water and swam underneath the drop-off and floundered around for a while, scrabbling at the slippery rock until my nerves and tiring muscles convinced my numbed brain that this was not the way. I swam back to solid ground and lay down to rest and die in comfort.

Far above I could see the sky, an irregular strip of blue between the dark, hard-edged canyon walls that seemed to lean toward each other as they towered above me. Across that narrow opening a small white cloud was passing, so lovely and precious and delicate and forever inaccessible that it broke the heart and made me weep like a woman, like a child. In all my life I had never seen anything so beautiful.

The walls that rose on either side of the drop-off were literally perpendicular. Eroded by weathering, however, and not by the corrosion of rushing floodwater, they had a rough surface, chipped, broken, cracked. Where the walls joined the face of the overhang they formed almost a square corner, with a number of minute crevices and inch-wide shelves on either side. It might, after all, be possible. What did I have to lose?

When I had regained some measure of nerve and steadiness I got up off my back and tried the wall beside the pond, clinging to the rock with bare toes and fingertips and inching my way crabwise toward the corner. The watersoaked, heavy boots dangling from my neck, swinging back and forth with my every movement, threw me off balance and I fell into the pool. I swam out to the bank, unslung the boots and threw them up over the drop-off, out of sight. They’d be there if I ever needed them again. Once more I attached myself to the wall, tenderly, sensitively, like a limpet, and very slowly, very cautiously, worked my way into the corner. Here I was able to climb upward, a few centimeters at a time, by bracing myself against the opposite sides and finding sufficient niches for fingers and toes. As I neared the top and the overhang became noticeable I prepared for a slip, planning to push myself away from the rock so as to fall into the center of the pool where the water was deepest. But it wasn’t necessary. Somehow, with a skill and tenacity I could never have found in myself under ordinary circumstances, I managed to creep straight up that gloomy cliff and over the brink of the drop-off and into the flower of safety. My boots were floating under the surface of the little puddle above. As I poured the stinking water out of them and pulled them on and laced them up I discovered myself bawling again for the third time in three hours, the hot delicious tears of victory. And up above the clouds replied—with thunder peals.

I emerged from that treacherous little canyon at sundown, with an enormous fire flaring in the western sky and lightning overhead. Through sweet twilight and the sudden dazzling glare of lightning I hiked back along the Tonto Bench, bellowing the Ode to Joy. Long before I reached the place where I could descend safely to the main canyon and my camp, however, darkness set in, the clouds opened their bays and the rain poured down. I took shelter under a ledge in a shallow cave about three feet high—hardly room to sit up in. Others had been here before: the dusty floor of the little hole was littered with the droppings of birds, rats, jackrabbits and coyotes. There were also a few long gray pieces of scat with a curious twist at one tip—cougar? I didn’t care. I had some matches with me, sealed in paraffin (the prudent explorer); I scraped together the handiest twigs and animal droppings and built a little fire and waited for the rain to stop.

It didn’t stop. The rain came down for hours in alternate waves of storm and drizzle and I very soon had burnt up all the fuel within reach. No matter. I stretched out in the coyote den, pillowed my head on my arm and suffered through the long night, wet, cold, aching, hungry, wretched, dreaming claustrophobic nightmares. It was, all the same, one of the happiest nights of my life.

— Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire (1968)

Edward Abbey by the Colorado River at Canyonlands National Park in 1969

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George Hollister February 25, 2025

HE WAS NEVER SEEN AGAIN. Eric Christopher Grant, 30

Eric went missing on 10/27/2010, and was 33.

Steve Heilig February 25, 2025

The Point Reyes ranch eviction scenario is divisive and complex. Most of the ranchers were well-liked longtime locals, as were their many mostly Latino resident workers, legal or not. After long battles most of the ranchers took the deal – not that they had much choice left, after agreeing to previous deals and delays and getting lots of $ as part of those – and most of the terms are confidential. They got big final payouts tho. How many are helping their workers find new homes with some of that cash? How much did those workers get in the deal? Why have the ranchers now thrown in with MAGA-types as a last-ditch attempt to derail something they agreed to, repeatedly, now absurdly alleging “conspiracy”? Only they know. The story continues. But so far the only undeniable “winners” might be the tule elk.

https://www.marinij.com/2025/02/20/marin-voice-pt-reyes-settlement-reflects-changes-in-how-we-eat-farm/

Steve Heilig February 25, 2025

A favorite Ed Abbey prophecy, from 1979 (Hello Mr. Musk?):

“Fools talk of leaving the earth, launching themselves by space shuttle and revolving cannisters of aluminum into permanent orbit somewhere between here and the moon. God speed them. While others plan the transformation of the earth through technology into a global food factory, fusion-powered, computer-controlled, supporting a close-packed semihuman population of 10 billion—twice the number already stifling themselves in the mushroom cities of today. R. Buckminster Fuller thinks it can be done. Herman Kahn thinks it can be done. The Pope thinks it can be done. All good Marxists think it can be done. Their counterparts in Europe, Brazil, China, Japan, Uganda, Mexico, everywhere, think it can be done. And if it can be done, therefore, by their logic it must be done. But Kahn and Fuller and their look-alikes are in for many a surprise before that Golden Age of Technocracy encloses us. (It never will.) As with all fools, their lives shall consist of a constant succession of surprises, mostly unpleasant, as surprises tend to be.
The Devil take them.
The Devil take them!”

from The Sorrows of Travel, in Harper’s and Abbey’s Road.

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