Mendocino County Today: Sunday 3/16/2025

Wind Advisory | Angelo Deposition | Wave | County Notes | Milkmaids | AV Events | Fair Prep | Merengue Rojo | Boardwalk | Sheriff's Response | Local Economy | Four Pups | Pregnancy Toxemia | Found Cat | Ed Notes | Caffe Trieste | Early Days | Man's World | No Catch | Girly Truck | Middle Name | Solo Women | Juszczyk Back | Sound Gangster | Measles Spread | Dem Faithful | Musk Choreographer | Exact Moment | Zionist Arguments | Political Censorship | Death Penalty | Oligarchy Tour | Everybody Knows | Mickey Spillane | Lead Stories | The End | Yemen Strikes | Flattery

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WIND ADVISORY remains in effect until 5 pm this afternoon.…Heavy rain just north of the Oregon border will shift southeastward across the area today, eventually reaching southern Mendocino and southern Lake Counties by this evening. Showers and locally brief heavy rain will follow tonight. Strong and potentially damaging southerly winds will spread southeastward with the front. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A scant .06" today brings our monthly rainfall total to 3.02". A wet & windy 50F on the coast this Sunday morning. Today's forecast from the NWS: Rain. High near 56. Windy, with a south southeast wind 18 to 23 mph increasing to 24 to 29 mph in the morning. Winds could gust as high as 41 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New precipitation amounts between a half and three quarters of an inch possible. Showers continue into Monday then dry skies Tuesday into Wednesday. Later next week is looking drier now, we'll see?

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CARMEL ANGELO TAKES CENTER STAGE: CEO’s Testimony In Cubbison Case Disputed

by Mike Geniella

Mendocino County CEO Darcie Antle’s sworn testimony during the Chamise Cubbison felony criminal case is being challenged, casting doubts on exactly when she and other top County officials learned of alleged wrongdoing involving the Auditor and the County’s former payroll manager.

In what Cubbison attorneys describe as a “stunning revelation” that suggests a cover-up, Antle, District Attorney David Eyster, and other top county leaders learned months earlier about disputed extra pay than was claimed in court testimony and public statements. The timing sharply conflicts with the County narrative in the failed felony prosecution of embattled County Auditor Cubbison.

The new disclosures were made in a sworn deposition by former CEO Carmel Angelo last week.

According to a transcript of her interview with lawyers, Angelo stated that Antle told her she learned about the disputed pay issue several months earlier than when the county’s current CEO testified under oath. Antle in court said it was Aug. 31, 2022, when she learned that Paula June Kennedy, responsible for preparing twice monthly payroll for 1,400 County employees, was paying herself extra using a miscellaneous County pay code. (Cubbison was sworn in as Auditor in July of 2022.)

However, Angelo said it was in April or May of 2022 when she learned from Antle about the unauthorized Kennedy pay, which totaled about $68,000 over three years during the Covid pandemic. According to the transcript, Angelo said the Antle statements were made during a private meeting between the two in Angelo’s former office while they were discussing transition-related issues.

“Darcie considered it, you know, a major problem. I don’t recall if she said they were going to the Sheriff or they were going to the District Attorney, but I know she was working with the County Counsel,” Angelo stated.

Angelo’s testimony directly contradicts the narrative laid out by Antle and DA Eyster since the politically laced criminal case began to publicly unfold in October 2023. Superior Court Judge Ann Moorman dismissed the case on Feb. 25 and castigated Antle and other county witnesses for their apparent “willful ignorance.”

Cubbison’s attorneys are now arguing that it was much more than that.

Antle appears to be “knee-deep in the coverup of an unlawful scheme to oust Ms. Cubbison from public office,” according to declarations filed Wednesday in Superior Court by the San Francisco law firm of Cannata, O’Toole & Olson, Cubbison’s civil attorneys.

Angelo’s deposition disclosures are at the center of a new push by Cubbison’s team of attorneys to win an estimated $250,000 in back pay and benefits since her suspension was lifted after 17 months in legal limbo.

Cubbison returned to work on Feb. 26, the day after Judge Moorman dismissed DA Eyster’s quest to criminally prosecute the embattled Auditor. The County Board of Supervisors met behind closed doors last Wednesday to discuss Cubbison’s pending civil lawsuit. If successful, it could expose County taxpayers to substantial damages for denial of due process for Cubbison. Supervisors took no action.

Judge Moorman, also presiding over the pending civil litigation, held a status hearing Friday on new court filings focused on Angelo’s deposition and related issues. The judge acknowledged, without public comment, that she had received and reviewed the latest filings and scheduled another status conference for 11 a.m. on April 4.

Angelo gave her deposition under oath remotely from San Diego, where she is now retired.

Angelo testified that in either April or May of 2022, Antle informed her during a private meeting in the CEO’s office that Sara Pierce, a deputy administrator, had “discovered” the unauthorized payments to Kennedy. After Cubbison was suspended, the County Board of Supervisors named Pierce acting Auditor, a position she held for 17 months.

Angelo recalled Antle telling her she was “investigating the matter with County Counsel and law enforcement at that time.” Angelo officially stepped down as CEO in March 2022 and worked with Antle during a transition. Angelo said Antle had not formally signed her new contract, but she was the interim CEO then.

Cubbison lawyers argue Antle’s account to Angelo differs sharply from what was “repeatedly claimed, in the investigation and under oath, which is that revelation of the Kennedy payments happened on Aug. 31, 2022, in response to a report by Ms. Cubbison about a potential claim against the County by Ms. Kennedy.”

They suggest Antle, if placed under oath again, might have to explain why “she and other County officials did not inform Ms. Cubbison, who was Ms. Kennedy’s supervisor, of this discovery in April/May 2022 or falsely claimed to ‘discover’ it on August 31, 2022.”

During this same period, DA Eyster had his investigators working on the Cubbison case. Eyster offered the embattled Auditor a misdemeanor charge if she voluntarily resigned, but Cubbison chose to fight. A year after the sheriff’s office completed its investigation, Eyster finally filed felony charges of misappropriation of public funds against her and Kennedy in October 2023.

Chris Andrian, the Santa Rosa lawyer who successfully defended Cubbison from criminal prosecution, said he is disturbed by the county's resistance to bringing closure to the Cubbison case.

Andrian charged that Antle blatantly lied on the witness stand to cover up the fact that she, certain board members, and other County administrators were “hell-bent” on ousting Cubbison and attempting to take control of the County’s two key finance offices, which the Board of Supervisors had forced to merge.

DA Eyster acted beyond his official duties as the County’s chief law enforcement officer and supported the controversial consolidation. The District Attorney quarreled with Cubbison and other auditors over his office expenses for a decade. Finally, Eyster outlined and distributed a consolidation plan on Aug. 30, 2021, by private email to former Supervisor Glenn McGourty and Angelo while she was still CEO. Angelo, in turn, passed the email on to other top county officials.

“It’s wrong. All of it,” said Andrian.

Andrian said Antle should be ousted as CEO for her actions in the events that led to Cubbison’s charging and for her “evasive and questionable” testimony during the DA’s attempts to criminally prosecute the Auditor.

“Antle no longer represents the best interests of the board or the County,” said Andrian.

On Friday, Darcie Antle did not respond to a written request for comments about the contents of her predecessor’s deposition or the questions surrounding her sworn testimony during criminal proceedings.

San Francisco attorneys Morin Jacobs and Madeline Cline (no relation to the county supervisor of the same name) also did not respond to written requests for comment. Their firm, Liebert Cassidy Whitmore, has already billed the county $120,000 for defending county Supervisors, Antle, and other county officials in the civil litigation.

Jacobs, in a response filed Thursday with the Superior Court, argued that the board “immediately lifted” Cubbison’s suspension after the criminal case was dismissed. However, Jacobs said, “In no way, shape, or form, the BOS (Board of Supervisors) was acknowledging any wrongdoing. “

Jacobs called the new Cubbison’s filings “improper.” She contended they are “replete with mischaracterizations, omit key information, discuss witness testimony in a way that is one-sided and argumentative and are drafted in a way to negatively portray the County in the eyes of this court, clearly with the intent to prejudice and bias your honor against the County.”

Cubbison’s civil lawyers, in their briefs, argued that a close examination of available evidence shows “Ms. Antle, (Deputy CEO Sara) Pierce, County Counsel, and the District Attorney, among others, were in communication as early as April or May 2022 about the Kennedy payments.”

“They said nothing to Ms. Cubbison about it,” according to the document.

The lawyers noted that Cubbison was sworn in as head of the newly merged offices in July 2022.

“Ms. Antle then pretended to discover the Kennedy payments on August 21, 2022, and created the false narrative throughout the investigation that Ms. Cubbison was the one covering up.”

Andrian noted that during criminal proceedings, Antle and other county staff testified they didn’t know the “470” code, implying that Cubbison and Kennedy had secretly conspired to use an obscure method to cover miscellaneous expenses.

“In fact, all of them knew. As we learned from documents produced late in the preliminary, they received payroll reports every two weeks documenting the extra pay for Kennedy and her use of the 470-county code. There were no surprises,” said Andrian.

Andrian said depositions like Angelo’s underscore the possibility of a conspiracy among county leaders to target Cubbison and seize control of key county financial functions, especially with the discovery that DA Eyster in the background supported that effort.

Andrian suggested that Cubbison drew the County administration’s ire when she joined other senior county finance officers in publicly opposing the forced consolidation of two independent offices that historically have been overseen by independently elected officials. Former county Treasurer Shari Schapmire and other senior staff quit rather than engage in the consolidation.

“It was a power grab. What happened is wrong,” said Andrian.

The new disclosures expose festering behind-the-scenes tensions since the county lifted Cubbison’s suspension after Judge Moorman freed her and Kennedy from the criminal charges.

Cubbison appeared at last week’s board meeting and gave an update on the status of the Auditor’s Office. The Auditor promised cooperation and asked that she be allowed to freely consult with Pierce, the deputy CEO who oversaw the Auditor’s Office. She returned to the CEO’s office when Cubbison’s suspension was lifted. Board members and Antle did not publicly respond to Cubbison’s request.

However, Cubbison's lawyers stated in the new filing that CEO Antle, at the end of Cubbison’s first whole week back on the job, informed the Auditor in writing that she was “not permitted to communicate directly with Ms. Pierce.”
Instead, Antle commanded Cubbison to “communicate department head to department head by preparing a list of questions/topics in order of priority and urgency and then give them time to gather information each week.”

Cubbison lawyers struck back.

“As an initial matter, this is irregular, improper, unprofessional, and indicative of Ms. Antle’s continuing animus toward Ms. Cubbison,” according to their new legal brief.

Attorneys argued that Supervisors' refusal to restore Cubbison’s backpay also is a “slap in Ms. Cubbison’s face. Ms. Cubbison is entitled to her backpay and unpaid benefits to make her whole for the damage she has suffered.”

Therese Cannata, Cubbison’s civil lawyer, told Judge Moorman, “There is a litigation hold letter in place, but the history of this case merits something more specific and subject to the contempt powers of the court.”

Cannata suggested to Moorman that county attorneys seek to delay planned depositions of other potential witnesses besides Antle and Pierce.

“The recently discovered evidence will require the depositions of former County Counsel Christian Curtis and District Attorney David Eyster, among others,” according to her declaration.

Cannata told the judge that Cubbison “wants to get back to work and be done with this litigation.”

(Photo of CEO Antle provided by the County of Mendocino.)

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COUNTY NOTES: Ignoring The Voters. Again.

by Mark Scaramella

To get a sense of how out of touch the Supervisors are, even with their own statements and decisions, one need look no further than a seemingly innocuous request by Supervisor Ted Williams at last Tuesday’s board meeting for “a breakdown of Measure AJ funding.”

Measure AJ, as a few readers may recall, was the advisory measure which accompanied the pot legalization and taxation of the local marijuana industry measure which would later collapse of its own weight. The AJ advisory called for half the pot tax proceeds to go into the County’s general fund and the other half specially allocated to increased emergency services, enhanced mental health treatment, roads, and enforcement.

“I haven’t seen any go to fire or EMS,” said Williams. “The language said not to supplant existing funding. The public has asked me several times.”

Deputy CEO (and former IT manager) Tony Rakes said he could “pull some definitive numbers at an upcoming meeting.”

A typically vague promise that will probably be ignored.

We doubt “the public” has asked Williams even one time. If they had all Williams would have to do is look back a couple of years to, June 6, 2022, when the County calculated that over $16 million of pot program taxes had been amassed.

At that time Supervisor John Haschak said: “The Cannabis tax is supposed to go to designated specific areas. It seems like now would be the time to direct the Auditor-Controller to set up that account so that people can see what's happening. Now that the cannabis income is way down it seems appropriate to do.”

Supervisor Williams agreed: “I would support that as well. It will create some problems for the budget because if we follow that advisory, which we should have all along, we will have some budget units short of funds. Right now it's going into the general fund.”

Supervisor Dan Gjerde had a novel if completely distorted idea of how to handle the problem: “I think we are going to be fulfilling the advisory because the advisory said that the majority of the funds should be spent on enforcement.”

No. Incorrect. The text of Measure AJ specifically asked: “Should the County use the majority of that revenue for funding enforcement of marijuana regulations, enhanced mental health services, repair of county roads, and increased fire and emergency medical services?”

The voters approved Measure AJ with over 60% in favor. Legalized pot was going to be a gold mine! And a significant portion of the proceeds would be allocated to very specific popular services.

Notice also that the language included the words “enhanced” mental health services, and “increased” fire and emergency medical services. Not business as usual, not to supplant existing funding, but to increase it.

No matter. Gjerde didn’t care. He was making up his own version of Measure AJ on the fly.

Gjerde continued: “I think [sic] that one category alone probably we are spending the majority of the revenue on law enforcement. Mental health, county roads, and fire emergency services… If you look at our general fund allocations to fire and emergency services which are outside of Proposition 172 and which are outside the Campground Transient Occupancy Tax, between fire and emergency and enforcement we are probably spending all of our cannabis tax in the coming year could be shown as going to those services.”

Gjerde’s bogus use of the words “thinks,” and “probably,” which went without objection from his colleagues, was without any supporting data about how the then-$16 million-plus in cannabis taxes collected so far had been spent.

Haschak and Williams quickly glommed onto Gjerde’s bogus idea and it was accepted by his colleagues. Not one nickel of those $16 million-plus cannabis taxes had ever been earmarked for the purposes the voters overwhelmingly advised them to allocate it to.

Since then the total pot tax revenues have increased to over $22 million. Gjerde’s self-aggrandizing “we’re keeping it” claim that some general fund money may already have been going to fire and emergency services — remember the language specifically said “increased” fire and emergency services — showed how little this Board thinks of their own promises, much less the voters' (i.e., the “public” that Williams likes to invoke) intent, even when the funding target includes what they all agree is for “public safety” and that they all agree needs “increased” revenue.

In March of 2023 the County’s pot program administrator provided the Board with this chart of Pot Business Tax Revenues:

So around $22 million in pot business taxes had been accumulated by June of 2023. It’s now about two years later and, assuming the downward trend continues, it’s probably up to around $23 million.

A reasonable interpretation of the language of Measure AJ would be that about $11.5 million should go to the General Fund and the other $11.5 million should go in equal shares to enhanced mental health services, roads, increased emergency services and pot program enforcement, or about $2.7 million to each.

When we first pointed out that Measure AJ was being ignored and that at least $2 million was owed to local emergency services (among the others), even the emergency services people were reluctant to pressure the board for their share of the highly needed funds because by that time Measure P, the sales tax increment that mostly replaced Measure B, was being promoted and they didn’t want to rattle that cage. They were very wrong, of course, but that’s what happened. Now, with Measure P finally producing some revenue, nobody’s bringing up Measure AJ.

Until Williams brought it up on Tuesday, as if his acceptance of Gjerde’s ridiculous proposal had never happened.

Mr. Rakes is pretty good with numbers, but even he will be unable to come up with anything about how the pot business tax revenues have been spent because Williams and his colleagues have all said they don’t care. The voters’ wishes are irrelevant.

So it’s highly unlikely that the Mr. Rakes will bring back the awful truth that no pot tax revenues have been allocated according to Measure AJ because that would expose the Board as being the forked-tongue politicians that they are. And as long as the public and the short-changed recipients are silent, that’s not going to change.

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ANDERSON VALLEY EVENTS (today)

Anderson Valley Village & Anderson Valley Historical Society Presents: Our
Own Antiques Roadshow - NOTE: CHANGE OF VENUE!
Sun 03 / 16 / 2025 at 10:00 AM
Where: Anderson Valley Senior Center , 14470 Highway 128, Boonville, CA 95415
More Information (https://andersonvalley.helpfulvillage.com/events/4475)

Anderson Valley Senior Center St. Pat's Day Dinner Fundraiser
Sun 03 / 16 / 2025 at 6:00 PM
Where: Anderson Valley Senior Center , 14470 Highway 128, Boonville, CA 95415
More Information (https://andersonvalley.helpfulvillage.com/events/4495)

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BOONVILLE COUNTY FAIR PREP BEGINS

We are already hard at work getting ready for Fair September 12-14, 2025. We are looking for volunteers. Anyone interested please contact the office or message us here. 707-895-3011. We can discus what we need and how you might be able to help.

(Mendocino County Fair & Apple Show)

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WHEN THE SUPES MEETING WAS ENTERTAINING

(November 1, 2011) — Allysum Weir, Executive Director of the Arts Council of Mendocino County, introduced a harpist at the Board of Supervisors meeting in Ukiah: “Today, we are bringing live music to the County Administration Center to celebrate Arts and Humanities month and to honor the art champions we are recognizing today. Allow me to introduce musician, Arts Council member, and Good Arts In The Schools Program grant recipient Jessica Schaefer to play a short piece for us.”

Ms. Schaeffer, fetchingly clad in the consistent red dress, told the Board that she would be playing one of her favorite tunes, “Merengue Rojo” (Red Merengue). Positioning her harp directly in front of the Supervisors' dais, she proceeded to pluck out a listenable version of the Paraguayan standard. After the performance, Supervisor John Pinches remarked, “You are a lot more entertaining than we are.”

(Mark Scaramella)

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SHERIFF KENDALL:

Alright Major let me set a couple things straight from your reporting yesterday.

Overtime: What I said was we are on track with the budgeted overtime in the jail and on patrol. We budgeted $2.3 million for patrol and 1.3 million for the jail and are tracking to be on budget. We may be a little over in the jail. This is because we were funded the amount we needed last year.

Inmate health is a huge issue in Mendocino County. We have many trips per week to the emergency room for inmates who suffer from a lifetime of addiction and abuse of their bodies. Many of these folks are classified as “two-deputy movement” because of assaultive nature. This causes us to call people in for coverage to meet the mandated staffing levels. This is a constant issue.

Three steps forward and two steps back? Well that’s because many recruits don’t successfully get through training. We have also had a lot of deputies simply decide to leave the state of California, I just received the resignation of a deputy who is moving to Arizona. I have also released people over discipline and we always have those folks who train here and head to another county for big pay increases.

“It seems like the price of doing business has gone up, but the profit we get from doing business is gone down.” I was referring to county revenue sources, also criminal fines which were once handed down upon conviction which are almost non-existent compared to many years past.

The massive increase in our budget ask this coming year is based on the fact we will need to add employees for the new wing of the jail and the contracts [raises] which were implemented for employees.

We are working hard to get the numbers down and find a budget we can live with. It’s not easy when we have big bills and small revenues, but we will get there.

Stay tuned as we work through this and hopefully we can find some kind of industry that would allow our county to thrive again.

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JIM SHIELDS:

Matt,

We had a thriving industry in this county for six decades but it was destroyed by incompetent, arrogant, know-it-all elected officials and their staffs who destroyed it, and in the process wrecked the economies of two-thirds of the population who live outside of the Ukiah Valley. Our wrecked local economies are completely ignored by the very people whose primary duty is to solve problems, not create and foster them.

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UKIAH SHELTER PUPS OF THE WEEK

Our Tropical Fruit Puppies are 16 weeks old and weigh 22-25 pounds, as of 3/11/25. Puppies are happy, adorable, and loaded with energy, and this quartet of cutie pies are no exception. They all enjoy playing with toys and zooming around, looking for their next fun-filled adventure. Puppies need guardians committed to spending time and lots of TLC to ensure their sweet bundle of fur will mature into well loved and behaved members of their pack. Canine training classes geared toward young dogs is an ideal way to interact with and learn about your pup.

To see more of the Tropical Fruit Puppies and all of our canine and feline guests, plus the occasional goat, sheep, horse or 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!

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PREGNANCY TOXEMIA IN SMALL RUMINANTS

by Dr. Kendall Willson

Spring has sprung in Mendocino County therefore lambing, kidding and calving has commenced. There are many commercial operations and backyard hobby farmers throughout the county, who support local farmers markets and supply our food chain. A serious and life-threatening issue that can occur during birthing season of sheep and goats is known as twin lamb disease or pregnancy toxemia.

Pregnancy toxemia is a metabolic disorder that occurs in sheep and goats with an onset in late term pregnancy. It is created by multiple fetuses growing rapidly, requiring significant energy demands. It arises due to lack of glucose present within the blood stream of the dam causing hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) generating a malfunction in her glucose mechanism. This malfunction leads to brain damage, as glucose is essential for normal brain and nervous system function, dehydration, and acute renal failure, which usually leads to death.

What Causes Twin Lamb Disease?

Twin Lamb disease is often caused by the dam not receiving enough nutrition in the final weeks of pregnancy. There are usually multiple fetuses present in utero, who have significant energy demands depleting the ewe or doe’s glucose and amino acids for their own growth and energy requirements. Animals that have poor body condition, or are over bodied conditioned, with more than one fetus, are most likely to be affected. Inadequate amount of feed throughout pregnancy or a period of stress can trigger the disease to cascade.

Clinical Signs

Animals who are affected by pregnancy toxemia will initially separate themselves from the herd or flock and will often be off their feed and lethargic. Sings will then progress to the dam being down in sternal or lateral recumbency, with blindness occurring in the final stages. Some animals will head press due to brain damage and others will abort the fetuses to try and protect themselves.

Treatment

Prevention of disease by careful management and proper nutrition is best practice. However, if you suspect pregnancy toxemia is occurring in one of your animals, it is essential to seek veterinary assistance immediately. Early intervention and treatment are crucial for improving the ewe or doe’s chance of survival. As soon as you suspect twin lamb disease it is recommended that you separate her from the flock and give her a clean dry place to lay down, with food and water close by. Your veterinarian will often treat with fluids, intravenous dextrose, propylene glycol and increasing her nutritional plane. Treatment of advanced cases is often unsuccessful and unrewarding as most animal succumb to the disease.

(Kendall Willson DVM MRCVS, Mendocino Equine and Livestock, 707-468-8387.)

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ED NOTES

RUMMAGING through the Friends of the San Francisco Library, always fascinating book store at Fort Mason, I found a monograph called, “The Actor from Point Arena,” excerpts taken from the ‘Memories of an Old Theatrical Man,” by Frederick G. Ross.

ROSS'S family moved from San Francisco to Point Arena when the actor to be was still a child. The year of the Ross family’s move from the city to the untamed Mendocino coast was 1868.

YOUNG FRED, as a city kid, had already been bitten by the theater bug. He’d spent his formative years hanging around the numerous show biz venues then-clustered around Portsmouth Square, dreaming of one day becoming a performer himself. The lad was not eager to leave the excitements of San Francisco for frontier Point Arena where, still not quite into his teens, the boy became a ranch hand. “My father was a believer in hard work; he worked hard himself. So, from the age of twelve or thirteen, my time at first was spent with the roughest woodsmen. I soon learned to swear as well as the best of them. Let me say right here that with the men it was but a habit, for they were real men.

“LATER, it was my lot, after my father closed the years of his mill career, to do about everything on the ranch a young fellow was able to do. And let me say right here that ranch and farm life is real hard work. But how to attain my ambition to act was the question. I mustered courage to ask my father for permission to leave home and go to work in San Francisco. He was a just man, and finally, after a long talk, he agreed, with the proviso that I learn a trade, and preferably his own trade, that of carpenter. This was agreed upon.”

BACK IN SAN FRANCISCO, Ross became an apprentice carpenter at fifty cents a day. He soon parlayed his newly acquired skills into work as a stagehand then, when various performances required emergency replacements, Ross got his first roles, all of them temporary. But he had talent, and before long Ross was earning a handsome living as a full-time thespian, going on to become nationally famous with long runs in character roles on Broadway, some of them in plays starring the Booth brothers, one of them John Wilkes, Lincoln’s assassin.

I’VE NEVER SEEN so much as a reference to Frederick Ross, Mendocino County’s most famous actor, in any of the local histories, but then Frederick was still Little Freddy when he labored like a man in Point Arena, a town then not much older than he was.

A NICE LADY, who turned out to be just as nice in person, called Boonville from the county's tax office to tell me that as a veteran I didn't have to pay the business license fee. (Yes, the Boonville newspaper was a business. Why do you ask?) I was anxious to get the license because without it I am unable to open a bank account for the many thousands of dollars in new subscriptions arriving in Boonville at the rate of six mail bags a day.

BUT to get the exemption a veteran must produce what’s called a DD-214, a form proving he or she served and was discharged unblemished. I haven't had to produce the crucial document in years. The hippies, led by my little sister, stole all my military stuff years ago, including my DD-214. I had no idea where the thing was, so to avoid a lengthy search for the doc I simply paid the extra $42 non-vets pay for a biz license.

BUT DARNED if the grand County of Mendocino didn't have my old form on file! And double darned if the nice county lady didn't call me to tell me the good news, and triple darned if she didn't hand me my cash refund the very next day when I stopped in at her county office!

I TAKE IT ALL BACK, government, the years of abuse I've heaped… well, one positive interface in 60 years shouldn't carry me away off to Superlative Land, but the County's Treasurer/Tax Collector Office has always been A-OK with me.

SO, BACK IN FRISCO with a fistful of checks, I jogged a block to my all-Chinese neighborhood branch of the Bank of America to open my AVA account. There were some communication problems. “What kind biznest is this?” the manager asked, enunciating it, “What kine biznest is dis?” I explained the biznest was a weekly newspaper based in Mendocino County. “You live here, not there?,” he asked, puzzled. “You want an ATM card?”

I LIVE THERE much more than here, I explained and, no, I don't want an ATM card. Behind the manager was a huge print of Maplethorpe's pornographic Calla Lily. “You don't want an ATM card?” the manager asked. And asked five more times over the length of the transaction during which he also muttered skeptically several times to himself, “Biznest there, you here. Newspaper. Huh!” Then he’d say, “Meno what cowny? You want ATM card? Where is Meno Cowny? How far?”

TWO HOURS NORTH, I said. It’s very beautiful, beautiful like your Calla Lily, I said, pointing at the Maplethorpe behind him. The banker turned to look at the picture, its straining pestil leaping out at his forehead. The manager seemed to be seeing the painting for the first time. “San Francisco better,” he said. “You sure you don’ wan’ ATM card?”

A COYOTE is alleged to have attacked a 100-pound Rhodesian Ridgeback dog in Golden Gate Park. Signs warning passersby of the coyote menace were immediately posted. The owner of the two assailed dogs said the coyote bit one Ridgeback and “lunged” at the other one. Both dogs were leashed. The attack occurred, if it occurred, near Speedway Meadow. I say “if” because coyotes seldom attack things bigger than themselves and Ridgebacks, bred to fight lions on the African veldt, are very big dogs. I also say “if” because I've seen dogs in the park that I've had to look twice at because at first glance I thought they were either coyotes or wolves. I also say “if” because there's plenty of likelier coyote prey in the park — rabbits, squirrels, tiny winos, tame ducks. We need photo ID if we're going to blame this one on a coyote. And it's a pretty wimpy Ridgeback owner who won't off-leash his beasts to see what those big babies can do when confronted by urban wildlife in the form of a coyote.

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EARLY VALLEY DAYS

by Maurice Tindall

Many events of the earlier days of Anderson Valley and the stories of them are fast becoming only memories and faint ones at that. One story that was recently revived was that of the Mason and Dixon line in the Valley.

Two youthful scions of influential families at either end of the Valley had a fight and some hard feeling was caused in each family. Outwardly no more was said and the matter was seemingly dropped. But there was a certain remembrance.

Some of the younger people of that day with their ingenious ways of description, thought of the Mason and Dixon dividing line of historical fame and the name caught on. The line was at the Denmark Canyon where Dr. Fleishner's office was. It was a good location because it marked the north and the south portions of the Valley and also made a separation of the properties of the two clans and their friends and relatives. Those north of the line tended toward Philo and those to the south went to Boonville.

Many years ago the matter had some local importance and a certain political influence. To the credit of those involved, all worked together when the good of Anderson Valley was concerned and for a great many years the matter has only been mentioned in rare instances and then in a jocular manner.

In earlier days the ranchers of the valley were quite prosperous. All were more or less diversified and were run with economy and hard work. Of course, now we can look back and see where a lot of prosperity was caused by the utilization of the natural resources at hand and there for the taking. We can see by reading that all the valleys in the county were pretty much the same. Feed was good, land was fertile, and taxes were very low.

Living at the time was cheaper not only because prices were low along with wages, but most every family had a garden and a cow or two. There were sheep, cattle and hogs and every family had their own poultry flock. Feed was cheap and plentiful besides the natural grass and the acorns and pepperwood nuts in the fall. Game and fish played a very important part also in the livings of many families.

Teaming was a source of income in the summer and fall and of course there had to be hay and grain for the teams. That took up most of the farming land. Then when the sawmill was started in Navarro (Wendling) many Valley people found employment there. Another industry of benefit to the early local people was the tanbark industry which made a year's grubstake for many. Early in the history of the Valley was the raising of grain for feed for livestock and most places would have some thrashing equipment. Grain was cut by a binder and stacked in round stacks to wait for the thresher.

Nearly every ranch had a granary or the some big bins for grain storage. Some might be sold but mostly it was fed on the farm and enough was held over for seed.

It must not be forgotten that the crew had to be fed at the ranch house and that was a big job for the women folks for there was a big crew of hungry men. The cooks took great pride in putting out good food and lots of it especially at threshing time.

Threshing was a hard, usually hot job and was a great place to separate the men from the boys.

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Saturday, March 15, 2025

(Unavailable due to technical difficulties.)

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MY TOYOTA TRUCK

by Paul Modic

I don’t drive my old truck much anymore, just a couple times a year for trips to the dump, but when I take it out on the highway I feel the freedom of the open road, having driven it to Mexico and back eight or nine times over the last twenty years. I take it out every week now for twenty minutes, heater on high, because I’d been neglecting it and last year it got a little moldy.

It’s a 2000 four wheel drive Toyota with 191,000 miles on it and feels brand new, and I imagine just taking off on a road trip, but of course I’d take my Subaru if I were going to do that, but anyway I’ve got nowhere to go.

It was the first vehicle I bought new, and with 1700 miles on it I was sideswiped on the dirt road into town one harvest morning by a harried mother from Texas trying to get her kid to school on time and it was nearly totaled.

My harvest girl and I waited for the CHP to come out and investigate and while I knew there probably weren’t any scraps of weed in the garbage, I stashed the bag in the woods just in case. I saw a box behind a log and looked into it, saw it was full of weed, just shake leaves, showing once again that there was weed everywhere in Humboldt county.

The CHP officer inspected the skid marks on my side of the road, the mother had headed on to the school, and said that it’s usually one driver’s word against the other’s but in this case it was very clear that the other driver had been on my side of the road. (I was feeling bummed until a friend pointed out that the out-of-control car had came within a foot of hitting me in the cab, and I realized it could have been way worse.)

I realized I really didn’t need a brand new truck and hoped they’d just say sorry it’s totaled, and here’s your money back. But no, they fixed it for $12,000 charged to the insurance company, and I was on the road again.

When I get high I usually get off the couch, lock the doors, and go to bed but one night just months after the accident I fell asleep, and when I awoke the next morning discovered my truck was gone. I had left it in the parking lot unlocked with the keys in the ignition, as I used to in the hills. Also a daypack containing my camera was missing from the house so what did those guys do? Find the truck available for the taking, go up on the porch and see me sleeping, hear me snoring, and then come into the house, grab the backpack, and drive off with my almost new truck?

Once again I was hoping the police didn’t find it but they did, hot-rodded down to the Mendocino Coast, and they brought it back for me. Really, I just wanted the insurance money but I got it back and then fixed almost back to new, with the steering feeling just a smidge out of true.

I didn’t like that truck like I love it now, the main reason being the color.

“My mom’s truck is more masculine than yours,” a girl friend said, and forever after I was insecure that I had a midnight blue girly truck, but dammit it was purty. (I didn’t get over that one for years, as I’m easily influenced when teased.)

Ah that truck! All those trips out to the Gulch to water my crop when I moved to town, all the trips to Tacoma to visit my mom, and back in 2009 when I decided to outfit my Mexico place with a complete stereo system, including TV and subwoofer. (I’d never had a subwoofer before and didn’t know exactly what it did, but a friend said I had to have one.)

On the trip down after unloading essentials for the night at a motel, somewhere in Arizona, I left the tailgate down when I went to sleep with all the stereo stuff right at the back still in the boxes. In the morning I discovered my lapse and everything was still there.

I used to grow weed out in the Gulch then haul it to town for the trimmers to clean it. On the last trip one of the last years I loaded my truck with weed, drove it in and parked out front just off the country lane, and went inside to get something to eat before unloading. A few minutes later I looked out the kitchen window and saw the CHP parked right there! What? Then I noticed a ratty little Subaru parked nearby and grokked the situation instantly: The kid was being pulled over but decided he could maybe ditch the cops by driving down my road? (“That’s it, no more, I’m outta the biz!” I thought, but that didn’t happen.)

Another time I drove up to town, filled up some propane tanks at the gas station for the drying shed and went home. The next week I got a letter from the sheriff’s department saying that I was under suspicion for theft of propane, what? Oh shit, I had driven off without paying and I’ve got weed everywhere, drying and getting clipped! I immediately drove up to town, paid for the gas, called the sheriff’s office and told the deputy that it had been a mistake, and I’d taken care of it. (Whew!)

So yeah, I love that old truck though it did break down once outside Grant’s Pass, I needed a new rear end and the tow truck driver directed me to the go-to mechanic. I spent a couple nights at a downtown motel and found it was a nice little town with good coffee shops and tasty Mexican food, and I also had some good friends who lived there in a remodeled church, so that was fun.

Once I was driving out to the Gulch with my handyman and Scrabble buddy Hugh and lost a wheel, probably shook loose driving those rough roads in Mexico a few months before. That was weird, we found the wheel but not the nuts, and Hugh showed me the trick of taking a nut off each of the other wheels to replace the lost ones when remounting the tire. (He knew all those kinds of tricks.)

The last time I took the truck to Mexico they wouldn’t let me in because my registration was out of date. No amount of cajoling, begging, and bribery attempts would make the border official change her mind. (No papers, no tortillas.)

Before I drove 150 miles back to Austin to get the truck title, I drove into the desert looking for a flat rock under which to hide my weed stash. I saw one and slowed down, looked across the road at the prison towers, and kept moving.

A mile later I saw one and got the stash out of the garbage bag where it was underneath stinky compost: rotting banana slices, orange peels, coffee grounds, and egg shells, and hid it under the rock.

I drove back to the border a couple days later to try again with my correct registration, found the stash, and few minutes later some crooked cops stopped me for “speeding.” They shook me down for $362, I bargained them to half that, and was back on the road again.

(Twenty-five years I’ve had that truck and will probably have it until I run out of gas myself…)

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TIPS FOR SOLO WOMEN

To the Editor (New York Times)

Re: ‘Travel 101: Tips for Solo Women Travelers’

This small feature presents a capsule of what it is like to be a woman even now in 2025: When you are alone, limit where you go, where you stay, what you do and where you dine. Be aware of your surroundings, and be sure your whereabouts is known by others at all times.

The pleasure of solitude is a privilege women who are alone can seldom enjoy, whether traveling or just engaging in everyday activities, like going for a walk in a park or running on a beautiful but secluded trail.

We are used to it, of course, but wouldn’t it be great if features like ‘Tips for Solo Women Travelers’ did not need to be written?

Karin Kramer Baldwin

Petaluma

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49ERS BRING BACK FAN FAVORITE KYLE JUSZCZYK LESS THAN A WEEK AFTER CUTTING HIM

by Gabe Lehman

Less than a week after releasing him on Tuesday, the San Francisco 49ers have agreed to get back together with Pro Bowl fullback Kyle Juszczyk, agreeing to terms on a two-year, $8 million deal.

The transaction was reported by multiple outlets, including ESPN and AP News.

Juszczyk has become a fan favorite since he joined the 49ers in 2017 thanks to his consistency — he’s made the Pro Bowl all eight years he’s been with the 49ers — and his unique position on the gridiron — most modern NFL teams do not carry fullbacks on their roster.

He earned second team All-Pro honors last season, amassing 226 total yards and three touchdowns.

Off the field, Juszczyk, a Harvard grad, was known as a great clubhouse guy who helped propel the team to four NFC Championship Game appearances in five years.

Juszczyk’s wife, Kristin Juszczyk, also became a minor celebrity for her sportswear fashion designs, which have become a staple among 49ers players’ spouses and have even been worn by the likes of Taylor Swift.

The signing comes as a surprise given the direction of the 49ers offseason. San Francisco has already parted ways with a number of notable players, including Deebo Samuel, Dre Greenlaw, Talanoa Hufanga and Juszczyk himself, leading some to wonder if the team would fully clean house and offload expensive contracts like that of Christian McCaffrey.

(SFGate.com)

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THE COD LIVER CURE

Editor:

Measles continues to spread among low-vaccination rate populations in West Texas and New Mexico. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has confirmed the worst fears of those who opposed his nomination. Instead of advocating an active campaign with a proven safe and effective measles vaccine, he has equivocated. “Vaccination is a personal choice, blah, blah,” and he has advocated quack medicine, vitamin A and cod-liver oil, which anti-vaxxers are embracing. While we have to remember that Donald Trump nominated Kennedy and Republican senators confirmed him, he is nevertheless the public face of this federal fiasco. Perhaps we should dust off a chant from the Vietnam War protest movement: “Hey, hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?”

Robert Reuter

Santa Rosa

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ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

The Democrat faithful will embrace a turd wrapped in a sweatsuit if it has a “D” after its name, and will accept an obviously faked primary season as a legitimate expression of the will of the people (all of the people, not just the faithful). The more the Big Guy's detractors pointed out his senility and criminality, the more the Democrat faithful embraced and defended him. The brainwashing has been that successful. The non-Democrats, of course, saw the senile grifter for what he was and reacted in disgust as the DNC tried to force it down our throats.

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A READER WRITES: This for the few AVA readers who don't watch the Daily Show: Troy Iwata's hilarious stint as the choreographer for Elon Musk!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riGvU5WRRzg&t=89s

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THE MOST COMMON ARGUMENTS Zionists use to justify colonizing Palestine, & how to debunk them: A Redwood Peace and Justice Coalition response to Shalom Humboldt’s letter to the editor published in the Mad River Union February 26, 2025.

by Rainer Shea

The following is a condensed version of a response to the local Zionist group Shalom Humboldt’s letter to the editor published in the Mad River Union DATE.

The full accounting of their lies can be found at our website with article titled “Zionist lies, the politics of disavowal, & the agency we all have to help save Palestine”: www.redwoodpeaceandjustice.com/news

Shalom Humboldt said, “Zionism is nothing but the belief that Jews deserve to live in that part of the world.”

The problem with this idea is that in practice, Zionism has never looked like simply a peaceful project to have Jews live in Palestine. Theodore Herzl, Zionism’s founder, stated that “The Jews who wish for a State will have it. We shall live at last as free men on our own soil, and die peacefully in our own homes.” The minds behind Zionism envisioned a Jewish state, and in order to get this state there would need to be an effort at pushing out the Palestinians. This is what David Ben-Gurion concluded when he said that “There can be no stable and strong Jewish State so long as it has a Jewish majority of only 60 percent.”

Shalom Humboldt said, “Israel gives its Arab citizens full and equal rights.”

There are dozens of discriminatory laws within the Zionist state, which limit the Palestinian citizens in terms of housing options, land rights, political speech, and other aspects of life. There’s also a normalization of individual discriminatory behavior towards Arabs, which restricts them when in areas like employment. It parallels the United States of the Jim Crow era, where even when discrimination wasn’t officially part of the laws, the system enabled whites to target Black people.

Shalom Humboldt said, “The Arab states invaded Israel in 1948 just because a Jewish state had been formed.”

The Arab countries that participated in the intervention never crossed into the territories which the U.N. had designated as Jewish land. They only got militarily involved within the lands that were designated for the Palestinians, but that the Zionist state had decided to take for itself anyway. As part of this effort to seize more than it was supposed to have, the Zionist state was forcibly relocating the Palestinian residents, as well as crossing into the borders of its neighbors. Its neighbors responded by defending themselves, as well as the Palestinians who the Zionist state was making into refugees.

Shalom Humboldt said, “The Palestinian side has rejected all offers for having a state of its own.”

There wasn’t a real breakthrough on negotiations towards a two-state solution until 1995, with the second Oslo Accords. The Zionist state promised a Palestinian state after five years, but it didn’t fulfill this promise, so in 2000 new negotiations were arranged. Then these negotiations fell apart, because the Palestinians weren’t actually offered a state—they were asked to accept a “state” that didn’t control its own airspace, didn’t have its own military, and could be invaded by the Zionist state at any time. These are among the many other unreasonable demands that the Israelis placed upon the Palestinians, who weren’t going to accept a “state” that wasn’t sovereign.

Shalom Humboldt said, “‘From the river to the sea’ is a call for murdering Jews.”

Shalom Humboldt doesn’t try to provide evidence for this assertion, because there is no evidence to point to. It’s a claim that’s lacking in any historical or current basis, so there’s no concrete example one can point to in which “From the river to the sea” has served as a call for genocide. And Hamas, the leading Palestinian resistance organization, has stated that its “conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion.” Which means that when protesters borrow Palestinian resistance slogans like this one, they aren’t borrowing from a political force that’s motivated by anti-Jewish hate.

Shalom Humboldt said, “Hamas steals aid, uses Gaza’s people as human shields, & tortures hostages.”

Like with the last claim, none of these assertions have any real evidence behind them. And we know this because of how thoroughly Hamas and the Gaza strip have been investigated by the globe’s human rights organizations. Gaza has been more extensively scrutinized by these groups than any other place on earth, and the investigators have consistently found that the Zionist state is the one responsible for Gaza’s desperate conditions. They’ve also been unable to find proof of Hamas strategically placing civilians in between itself and the IDF, or proof that Hamas has committed sexual violence. Entities like the United Nations, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch lack any real incentive for covering up evidence of Hamas abuses, because these entities largely exist as extensions of American soft power. Yet they can’t confirm the atrocity stories that the U.S. is using to justify its support for the Zionist state.

Conclusion

These arguments that Shalom Humboldt has put forth are the ones which Zionists most commonly use. The effect they have is to distract from the extermination effort that our government is facilitating in Gaza, and now increasingly the West Bank as well. In Humboldt and all other areas, we must work to spread the real story about Palestine, and not let Zionism’s falsehoods go unchallenged.

(Redheaded Blackbelt/KymKemp.com)

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POLITICAL CENSORSHIP

He Ran the Cartoon above, and Gannett Fired Him

Criticizing the government of Israel for essentially destroying Gaza.

Is criticism of Israel by definition anti-semitic? No self-respecting editor would think so.

Rob Rogers was fired by a Pittsburgh paper during the first Trump administration for his editorial cartoons criticizing Trump.

Example:

Rogers is still at it!

(Rob Anderson, District5Diary)

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BARBARIANS AT THE DEATH HOUSE GATE: THE FIRING SQUAD RETURNS TO AMERICA

by Jeffrey St. Clair

What says the law? You will not kill. How does it say it? By killing!

– Victor Hugo

Brad Keith Sigmon never denied his guilt. He never claimed to be innocent in the 2001 murders of Gladys and David Larke, the parents of his former girlfriend. He didn’t claim ineffectiveness of counsel. He didn’t blame the murders on his crack addiction or a history of childhood trauma abuse. At the end of his trial, Sigmon stood up and confessed to his heinous crime: “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I am guilty. I have no excuse for what I did. It’s my fault and I’m not trying to blame nobody else for it, and I’m sorry.”

But Sigmon did object to being put to death by the state of South Carolina. As a Christian, he believed his own life had value, even after having committed an atrocious crime. He felt he still had something to contribute, even in the restricted society of prison. He feared that his execution would cause even more pain and anguish to his family.

However, his pleas to continue living were rejected, first by state and federal courts and then by South Carolina’s Governor, Henry McMaster. McMaster refused to commute his sentence or, after 23 years in prison, grant him clemency.

No confession or acts of contrition would assuage the politicians who demanded his death, an execution that even the daughter of the slain couple objected to. In the end, the only choice left to Sigmon was how he would be killed. And even that was a cruel choice, a final infliction of mental torture.

The state of South Carolina presented Sigmon with three options: be burned to death in an ancient electric chair, endure prolonged spasms and seizures as poison is injected into his body or have his heart blown apart by a firing squad. According to Sigmon’s lawyer, Gerald “Bo” King, Sigmon eventually made the harrowing decision to be executed by firing squad, fearing that he would “burn and cook him alive” and that the drugs used in lethal injections result in a painful and protracted death, assuming his executioners could find a vein into which to drip the deadly poison. In South Carolina’s three previous executions by lethal injection with phenobarbital, it took the condemned at least 20 minutes to be pronounced dead.

Brad has no illusions about what being shot will do to his body,” said King. “He does not wish to inflict that pain on his family, the witnesses, or the execution team. But, given South Carolina’s unnecessary and unconscionable secrecy, Brad is choosing as best he can. There’s no justice here. Everything about this barbaric, state-sanctioned atrocity – from the choice to the method itself – is abjectly cruel. We should not just be horrified – we should be furious.”

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Sigmon was an Army brat from South Carolina, born to a teenage mother and abusive, alcoholic father, whose escalating violence was eventually directed at Sigmon and his younger siblings. The Sigmon family moved from Army base to Army base, including a stint in the Philippines.

The marriage ended in divorce, and Brian divided his time between living with his mother and father until high school, when he dropped out two months shy of graduating to get married. The young couple soon had a son and by all accounts Sigmon was a dutiful and attentive dad.

But the marriage was not a happy one, marred by marital spats and Sigmon’s increasing use of alcohol and cocaine, and ended in divorce. Sigmon racked up numerous arrests for drunk driving and was shot in the stomach four times while attempting to break into his estranged wife’s home. The couple’s son was also shot in the altercation.

In 1998, Sigmon entered a relationship with Rebecca Barbare. The couple lived together in a trailer in Greenville, South Carolina for three years. But in 2001, Barbare split, moving in with her parents, David and Gladys Larke, in the Greenville suburb of Taylors. Sigmon took the breakup badly. He called her obsessively, begging her to resume their relationship and followed her around in his car, obsessed that she might be seeing another man.

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On the night of April 26, Sigmon was drinking and getting high with a friend named Eugene Strube. Sigmon spent the night ranting about Barbare, eventually telling Strube that he was going to the Larke’s house the following day after Barbare took her children to school, “tie her parents up,” and wait for Barbare to get home. Strube had apparently heard this kind of talk with Sigmon before and wrote it off as a drug-fueled bluster. But the following morning, Sigmon, still high, broke into the Larke home carrying a baseball bat, which he used to savagely beat David and Gladys to death in a frenzy of violence, hitting each of them in the head at least nine times, shattering their skulls.

Sigmon found David’s gun in the Larke house, sat in a chair as David and Glayys bled to death and waited for Rebecca to come home. Sigmon forced Rebecca at gunpoint into her Honda SUV and planned to take her to North Carolina. But Barbare jumped out of the car and fled. Sigmon fired multiple shots at her as she ran away. One shot hurt her foot, but Barbare managed to escape. After a three-day manhunt, Sigmon was found and arrested in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and soon extradited back to South Carolina, where he was charged with two counts of capital murder and one count of kidnapping.

These were brutal, senseless crimes, driven by passion and jealousy, and committed while in a cocaine haze. His trail was swift. Sigmon admitted his guilt and the only real defense his lawyers offered against the imposition of the death penalty was that Sigmon had been unbalanced by the breakup of his relationship with Barbare, acted under the influence of drugs and had been a model prisoner while in jail. It wasn’t enough to sway the jury, which voted unanimously to sentence Sigmon to death.

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Over the next decade, Sigmon’s lawyers filed numerous appeals in state and federal court challenging his conviction and death sentence. All were rejected. After the Supreme Court denied Sigmon’s final appeal on January 11, 2021, Sigmon was served with a death warrant, scheduling his execution for February 12, 2021. But a week before he was slated to be put to death, the South Carolina Supreme Court issued a stay of execution, ruling that the state of South Carolina lacked the necessary supply of lethal drugs needed to kill Sigmon. Since the state’s last execution in 2011 of Jeffrey Brian Motts, it had been unable to acquire a new stockpile of phenobarbital, after pharmaceutical companies in the US had stopped shipping drugs for the purpose of executions. At the time, death by lethal injection was South Carolina’s only legal form of execution.

And so matters sat until May 14, 2021, when South Carolina’s Governor signed Act 43, which revived death by electrocution as the state’s primary means of execution and legalized death by firing squad as an alternative option. In March of the following year, the state’s Department of Corrections announced it had prepared procedures to perform executions by firing squad. After a series of lawsuits, the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled in 2024 that executions by electrocution and firing squad didn’t violate the constitution’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment and ordered the the state’s Corrections Department to carry out six executions within the next year, each state murder to take place 35 days apart. South Carolina’s first execution in 13 years took place on September 20, 2024 when, after a new supply of phenobarbital had been acquired through dubious means, 46-year-old Freddie Eugene Owens was put to death by lethal injection.

The second in South Carolina’s assembly line of executions took place on November 1, 2024, when Richard Moore was poisoned to death. An autopsy revealed that the execution of Moore required two pentobarbital doses and that his lungs were filled with fluid, “an excruciating condition known as pulmonary edema.” Despite Moore drowning to death in his own fluids, the state of South Carolina proceeded to kill Marion Bowman Jr. on February 16, also by lethal injection. Sigmon’s name was next on the execution list.

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Shortly before 6 pm on March 7, Brad Sigmon was led into the death chamber at Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia. Three prison guards had volunteered to shoot Sigmon from behind a wall 15 feet away from where he was strapped to a chair, a red target on a white circle taped to his chest, a few feet away from the electric chair that had last been used to kill James Reed in 2008.

Sigmon was dressed in a black jumpsuit to conceal the blood from his shooting. His legs and wrists were strapped to the chair. Two minutes before a fusillade of bullets killed Sigmon, a hood was placed over his head and a sling tied his jaw shut. The prison warden read the execution order as Sigmon’s chest rose and fell with deep, anxious breaths. His shackled arms trembled. Then there was the crack of gunfire and his chest exploded, as three expanding .306 bullets blew through the target and out his body into a steel-plated wall. His body shivered. Blood, bone and viscera flew out of his chest into a basin placed on the floor. In the words of his lawyer Bo King, “The wound on his chest opened very abruptly and violently.” A minute or so later a doctor approached his body, checked for vital signs, found none and declared Brad Sigmon dead. For the first time in 15 years, a person had been executed in the United States by firing squad. At 67, Sigmon was the oldest person ever executed by the state of South Carolina.

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Sigmon’s last statement calling on his fellow Christians to rise up against the death penalty was read by his attorney, Bo King:

I want my closing statement to be one of love and a calling to my fellow Christians to help us end the death penalty. An eye for an eye was used as justification to the jury for seeking the death penalty. At that time, I was too ignorant to know how wrong that was. We … now live under the New Testament, where [Jesus preached} You have heard that it has been said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ but I say unto you that you do not resist an evil person. Whosoever shall smite me on the right cheek, turn to him the other one as well.” Nowhere does God in the New Testament give man the authority to kill another man: ‘Did not Moses give you the law? Yet none of you keep with the law.’ We are now under God’s grace and mercy.

But the teachings of the radical Palestinian prophet of the Galilee have rarely been mirrored by the religious institutions that claim to worship him as a deity. It is true that the Emperor Constantine, after declaring Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire in 313 AD, outlawed crucifixion. But he still ordered the execution of thousands of people, including his son, Crispus, who he killed with poison (the lethal injection of its time) and wife Fausta, who he ordered plunged into a bath filled with boiling water.

Today’s Christian Nationalists, who have taken political power in many states and are deeply embedded in the judiciary and federal government under Trump, rarely dip into the gospels, preferring the stern, retributive justice prescribed by the Old Testament (except when it might be applied to them). These politicians want to make punishment by the state cruel and usual. This is what we have come to as a society in regression, a rogue nation, drunk on its own perverse piety–and there will be much more of it to come, as Oklahoma, Utah, Idaho and Mississippi have all re-legalized executions by firing squad with other states set to follow suit.

The firing squad has been the preferred method of execution by imperial powers since at least the age of Napoleon, where its brutality as a means of political repression was immortalized by Goya’s Los fusilamientos del tres de mayo, depicting the execution of suspected Spanish resistance fighters by French soldiers during the Peninsula War. It has been used to kill deserters, mutineers, resistance fighters, political opponents, and deposed rulers. During discussions between Churchill, Stalin and FDR at the 1943 Tehran Conference about the fate of Germany after the Nazis were defeated, Stalin proposed executing all 50,000 to 100,000 members of the German General staff before firing squads. Churchill, the man who oversaw the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians from southern Africa to the Indian subcontinent to Dresden, feigned shock, but Stalin’s admirer FDR quipped, “Perhaps 49,000 would be enough.”

There was no rational excuse for Brian Sigmon’s murder of David and Gladys Larkes and even less of a reason for South Carolina’s premediated killing of Sigmon. He posed no threat to anyone. He’d been a model prisoner for more than two decades. The daughter of the Larkes opposed his execution. His murder would provide no closure for the murder of the Larkes, if state killings ever provide closure or compensate for the deaths of the people they killed. The only real claim the state made for killing Sigmon was that it would provide a deterrent to other would-be murderers. But there’s no evidence to back this up and plenty of statistics to dispute it.

Brad Sigmon was executed to exhibit the power of the state over its citizens. By choosing to be put to death by firing squad, Sigmon forced the State of South Carolina to put this power on full and grotesque display. There was no hiding behind the supposedly humane method of filling an IV with poison and injecting it into a vein through a needle and a tube. There was no illusion in this execution. Sigmon wasn’t put to sleep. He had his heart blown out of his chest in front of 14 witnesses.

If the execution of Brad Sigmon serves as any kind of deterrent, it should be as a moral deterrent to future executions and the merciless political forces that order the pulling of the triggers.

(Jeffrey St. Clair is co-editor of CounterPunch. His most recent book is An Orgy of Thieves: Neoliberalism and Its Discontents (with Alexander Cockburn). He can be reached at: sitka@comcast.net or on Twitter @JeffreyStClair3.)

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EVERYBODY KNOWS

by Leonard Cohen

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died

Everybody talking to their pockets
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long stem rose
Everybody knows…

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"I HAVE NO FANS. You know what I got? Customers. And customers are your friends."

Mickey Spillane reportedly needed quick cash to buy some land for a house in 1946, so he wrote the detective novel “I, The Jury” in less than a month. Although he had been a professional writer for magazines, “I, The Jury” was his first novel. It sold over three million copies and made him a celebrity due to his frank combination of sex and violence. He went on to write several more novels with his main character from “I, The Jury,” hard-living private eye Mike Hammer.

Several actors have played Hammer over the years in the movies and on television, including Spillane himself; “The Girl Hunters” (1963), a British-made crime drama film directed by Roy Rowland, adapted from the 1962 Spillane pulp novel of the same name, is one of the few occasions in film history in which an author of a popular literary hero has portrayed his own character. It also starred Bond girl Shirley Eaton (“Goldfinger” (1964)), veteran actor Lloyd Nolan, and syndicated newspaper columnist Hy Gardner as himself. The film features examples of product placement when Spillane and Nolan share a couple of cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon.

Also, during the first newsstand scene, Mad Magazine #77 (March 1963) is clearly visible. Spillane recalled meeting crime figure Billy Hill in London and invited him to the film set. According to Spillane, Hill provided firearms that were used in the film. Spillane also noted that the producers surrounded him with actors who were shorter than he was. Producer Robert Fellows intended to follow the film with Spillane's “The Snake,” but it was never made.

When literary critics had a negative reaction to Spillane's writing, citing the high content of sex and violence, Spillane answered with a few terse comments: “Those big-shot writers could never dig the fact that there are more salted peanuts consumed than caviar… If the public likes you, you're good.”

On a dare from his publisher, Spillane wrote a children's novel called “The Day the Sea Rolled Back” (about two boys who find a shipwreck loaded with treasure). The book went on to win a Junior Literary Guild award. Following this success, he wrote a second children's novel called “The Ship That Never Was.” (IMDb/Wikipedia)

Happy Birthday, Mickey Spillane!

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LEAD STORIES, SUNDAY'S NYT

Judge Orders Halt on Deportations of Venezuelans Under Wartime Law

How a Columbia Student Activist Landed in Federal Detention

Trump’s Hard-Line Tactics Are Driving Down Migration

An Indian Student at Columbia Fled the U.S. After ICE Came for Her

Why Maids Keep Dying in Saudi Arabia

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TRUMP ORDERS ATTACKS ON MILITANT SITES IN YEMEN AND ISSUES A WARNING TO IRAN

The air and naval strikes on targets controlled by the Iran-backed Houthi fighters were intended to open up international shipping lanes in the Red Sea.

by Eric Schmitt & Jonathan Swan

The United States began large-scale military strikes on Saturday against dozens of targets in Yemen controlled by the Iranian-backed Houthi militia, President Trump announced.

It was the opening salvo in what senior American officials said was a new offensive against the militants and a strong message to Iran, as Mr. Trump seeks a nuclear deal with its government.

Air and naval strikes ordered by Mr. Trump hit radars, air defenses, and missile and drone systems in an effort to open international shipping lanes in the Red Sea that the Houthis have disrupted for months with their own attacks. The Biden administration conducted several similar strikes against the Houthis but largely failed to restore stability to the region.

U.S. officials said the bombardment, the most significant military action of Mr. Trump’s second term so far, was also meant to send a warning signal to Iran. Mr. Trump wants to broker a deal with Iran to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon, but has left open the possibility of military action if the Iranians rebuff negotiations.

— NYT

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