Mendocino County Today: Monday 3/17/2025

Showers | Coast View | Boatyard Sold | AVUSD News | Hendy Volunteers | Charge Eyster | Hop Festival | Recall Eyster | Disability Awareness | Citizen Action | Baskerville Review | Walton Book | Nick Visits | Ed Notes | Dog Trick | Arrowhead Study | Pink Zones | Yesterday's Catch | Apostrophe Man | Mudville Woes | Seals Stadium | Marco Radio | Her Eyes | Corktop Blows | Queensland 1963 | Dem Dysfunction | Luxor Vegas | Dr. Oz | Foucault Reader | Political Violence | Ulysses Reader | Thoughtless Cruelty | Wind & Rain | Billy The Kid | Lead Stories | Un-Pardoned | Couple Stoners

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RAINFALL (past 24 hours): Laytonville 1.80" - Yorkville 1.56" - Willits 1.39" - Boonville 1.07" - Hopland 0.93" - Covelo 0.79" - Ukiah 0.70"

SHOWERS and possible thunderstorms expected today. Blustery northwesterly winds to develop this afternoon into early this evening behind a low pressure trough. Cooler weather tonight with frost and subfreezing temperatures forecast for interior valleys. Another frontal system will bring more rain, mountain snow and strong gusty southerly winds on Wednesday.…Frost Advisory in effect from 3am to 9am Tuesday. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): I have .80" of new rainfall with mostly cloudy skies & 47F this Monday morning on the coast. Today should be a less intense version of yesterday with some wind & rain. Dry Tuesday then rain returns later Wednesday. Steve Paulson & the NWS are saying showers later week, the Weather Underground says dry, I'll go with not tearing any flat roofs off. A roofer's hedge.

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BOATYARD SHOPPING CENTER SOLD

Dean Cornwall (Coast chatline): $18,500,000! Wow! Scary how our little slice of the Earth is slowly being bought out by big corporations and the super rich…

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Marco McClean: So when they sell, will the original merchants pay back the $10,000,000 they got from a tax-money grant to build it in the first place? Or will that be tacked on to the $18,000,000 the new buyers pay?

PS. In Other News:

Q: Why did my car insurance go up so much so fast?

A: On January 1, 2025, California law increased the minimum required auto insurance coverage.

New Minimum Liability Limits:

Bodily Injury or Death: Up from $15K per person to $30K per person (And up from $30K per accident to $60K per accident.)

Property Damage: Up from $5K per accident to $15K per accident.

The updated insurance minimums address the rising costs associated with car accident claims, including medical expenses and vehicle repairs, ensuring that accident victims receive adequate compensation.

The increase in minimum legal coverage abruptly raised the cost of insurance. (My insurance cost doubled.)

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Frank Hartzell: These properties have been on the LoopNet for years. Being for sale isn’t really news to me. Everything is for sale for the right price in business. Because Citizens United and other nutty, lawless lawmaking from the Bench, created entirely by Sammie and Scalia and Thomas, give money the same access to the Bill of Rights that people have and made corporations into people and these people have ETERNAL LIFE if they wish, human owners and local owners have zero chance anywhere.

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AVUSD NEWS

Dear Anderson Valley USD Families,

Spring is in the air and we are having a lot of fun at school! Thank you for coming out of last week’s events; we look forward to much more fun to come!

Photos: Book Vending Machine at AVHS; Science rooms are being refloored; Lockers are installed and soon will be in use at AVHS

School Spirit Going Strong Across the District

• Pajamas and Pazole was a hit at AVES last Wednesday!  We had well over a hundred people attending and it was wonderful to see the families enjoying the stories and activities.  Representatives from the county Library were present to help sign people up for Library cards and Mr. Ramalia unveiled the newly filled book vending machine! Students can earn tokens for books by exhibiting kindness, positive behavioral choices, and through working hard in class! Huge thanks to Cora Hubbart, Deleh Mayne, Citlalli Lievanos, Yuri Cruz, Charlotte Triplett, Nat Corey-Moran, and Mr. Ramalia for their hard work with making this event happen. Thanks, also to the AVES PTAV for their support of this and all our other AVES activities!
• Donkey Basketball was a blast at AVHS last Tuesday.  A good time was had by all and funds were raised to support our outstanding FFA.  Huge thanks to the Anderson Valley Fire Department for their participation and to Mrs. Swehla, Mr. Bautista, Mr. Toohey, and all the other staff who supported this awesome event!
• This Week is a Spirit Week at AV Jr/Sr High! Join in the fun!

Monday - Green for St. Patrick’s Day 

Wednesday - Your most colorful outfit

Friday - Pajamas

Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS)

You will begin hearing more about “MTSS” as we conclude this school year and move into 2025-26. Think of MTSS as a way for our schools to provide the right kind of support for every student, similarly to the way a coach helps athletes by giving them the extra practice they need it.  Here’s how it works:

1. Tier 1: High-Quality Teaching for All Students
   Every student gets great teaching in the classroom. Our teachers use the best methods to help all students learn and grow.
   
2. Tier 2: Small Group Support
   If a student is having a bit of trouble—maybe with reading, math, or behavior—they’ll get extra help in a small group setting. It’s more focused support to help them catch up.
   
3. Tier 3: Individual Support
   For students who need even more help, we offer one-on-one support. This might be extra time with a teacher or specialized help to meet their unique needs.

The goal of MTSS is simple: to catch small problems before they become big ones. We want to make sure every child feels supported and confident in their learning. Parent support is critical to making this a successful endeavor.  We look forward to teaming with you to maximize your child’s success at school and beyond!

Dance Class Starts at AVES ASP This MONDAY!

The Mendocino Dance Project in ASP Mondays and Wednesday, starting March 17. Thank you, Mrs. Triplett, for organizing this fantastic opportunity!  Students, wear comfortable shoes!

Summer School Is “Under Construction”

Summer School will be June 23-July 22

8:30-12:30 / ASP 12:30-5:30 Transportation provided 

(bus leaves for the day at 3:00 p.m.)

• AVES will provide activities including sports, crafts, science, art, and field trips. Here is the AVES Summer School flier

• AV Jr High will provide fun learning activities.  

(More info coming soon.)

• Sr High School provide credit recovery opportunities 

(More info coming soon.)

We Value ALL Our Families: Immigration Support and Updates

Please find  links to additional information for families below:

• Mendocino County Office of Education: Immigration Resource Page
• Immigration and California Families: State Immigration Website
• National Immigration Law Center: “Know Your Rights” (English | Spanish | Additional Languages) 

If you would like to be more involved at school, please contact your school’s principal, Mr. Ramalia at AVES or Mr. McNerney at AV Jr/Sr High, or our district superintendent, Kristin Larson Balliet. We are deeply grateful for our AVUSD families. 

With respect,

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SORRY SAGA

To the Editor:

First, thanks for your excellent comprehensive reporting on the Chemise Cubbison debacle. It’s gone on for so long, with numerous twists and turns, that it was difficult to keep track. We especially appreciated the regular inclusion of a summary of events so far, such as the articles by Mike Geniella, including the recent one when the case was dismissed. We rely on you to provide info and insights, and your reporters have done exactly that!

This case has been going on for more than a year, and the whole time I was concerned (then relieved) about the possibility of being called to Jury Duty, having to make decisions about the complex facts and keeping it all straight. Fortunately, my fears were ungrounded!

Now the question comes: Who will pay for the expensive lawyer and court costs? Strong opinion in our household is that David Eyster should be held accountable for this whole sorry, totally unnecessary mess, out of his own pocket! He’s the one that started it all, and our community should fully expect that actions like his have DIRE consequences. Our taxes have enough legitimate and life-improving uses. There’s no room for unnecessary $400/hour lawyers! There’s a petition going around to dismantle the Department of Finance, and to recreate the old structures of Assessor, Auditor, and Tax Collector, repairing the damage that combining them caused. We’re signing it, and I’m planning to speak to the BOS when it comes up. Join us — Let’s get past this bad move and RECTIFY IT, so we can deal with life-improving issues for our delightful county!

Thanks for your excellent reporting on this sorry story, we’ll keep reading!

Annie Gould, Doug Pratt

Ukiah

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RICHARD TOWLE

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DA INDICTS SELF

To the Editor:

What has become known as the “Cubbison Affair” is not only another blow to the already sullied reputation of Mendocino County, it is an indictment of the corrupt administration of District Attorney David Eyster.

Before the Cubbison Affair, Eyster had already developed a reputation of being a bully. A few years ago when I was on jury duty, I witnessed this for myself when Eyster, acting as the lead prosecutor in a criminal case, browbeat a prospective juror over his honest answers to the questions asked of him. Mind you, this was not a hostile witness, but a prospective juror doing his duty as an American citizen.

Eyster’s transparent attempt to bully the county’s auditor-controller, Chamise Cubbison, into resigning her position because she had the audacity to question the DA’s spending of public funds on lavish parties for his staff, is an unmitigated abuse of power. When Cubbison refused to resign upon Eyster’s threat of a bogus criminal indictment, Eyster then wasted likely over $100,000.00 of taxpayer money pursuing the indictment that was just recently laughed out of court by District Court Judge Ann Moorman. As an elected official, Eyster cannot be fired, the only remedy for the residents of Mendocino County is a recall election. Throw the bum out!

The Mendocino County Board of Superiors is not without fault in the Cubbison Affair, as they put her on administrative leave without pay, without even giving her an opportunity to respond to Eyster’s charges. This is a gross deprivation of due process by the county’s top officials for which the county is now being sued by Cubbison and which will likely cost the county additional tens of thousands of dollars in damages. The level of incompetence of Mendocino County’s governing board is staggering.

Jon Spitz

Laytonville

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BETSY CAWN:

I read almost everything in the AVA, except for sports and some hyperlocal announcements such as the School District reports. I try to include a range of input sources that range from left to right, using moderate mainstream sources like the Guardian and Politico.

Kuntsler is surely a sour grapes guy, with his unstoppable “told you so” plaints, but he points out some chronological intersections that are thought provoking on their own.

My primary focus is local (Lake, Mendocino, all of our surrounding counties, state as the context of interpreting world events.

Using my most optimistic imagination, I can see #47 as the ultimate catalyst of a fairer global collaboration against a destructive monarch and reforming of productive alliances.

The machinery of business operates the government at our expense, and we “let it,” apparently because we do not have the tools and the instructions for using them. Civil procedure?

Who actually speaks for (i.e., represents) us? Certainly not the elected Board of Supervisors, especially in your jurisdiction. Lake County’s Board at least puts on a good show of managing our systems — and invite public participation but keep the participation from view.

The Cubbison case being a prime example, where no “civilian” intervention arose to address the aberrant behavior of the Board of Supervisors and the District Attorney. Look at how much effort was expended to restore the Veterans Building, and how many comments involve the frivolous expenditures of public monies by individual Supervisors created via social media, making claims of official action that do not get challenged except by AVA readers.

But the protests at Tesla locations and the immediate push-backs from Canada, Denmark, Panama, and Mexico are healthy signs that “the public” is not swooned by the maga-maniac. Now goony Governor Newsom has flipped allegiance to the dark side he’s always lived on, if anyone was paying attention. (Yes, of course, AVAers.) How many companies invested in switching to electricity-powered lawn and farming equipment manufacturing, only to have the requirement suddenly null.

Ending on yet another happy note, I so agree with your comment about Sheriff Kendell’s homespun wit. Happy Sunday, everyone.

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Mark Scaramella Adds: We’ve heard reports of some Tesla owners putting signs in their windows like “I don’t like him either,” and “I bought this before he went nuts.” There are reports of people replacing the “T” logo with a different car brand’s logo. People who want to sell their Tesla’s in the wake of the Musk rampage are finding that nobody wants to buy them, even at discount prices. There are reports of sporadic vandalism not only to Teslas, but to Tesla dealerships, Tesla charging stations, etc. We have not heard reports of arrests of Tesla vandals locally. Apparently sales of Teslas are way off and, of course, Tesla stock has dropped.

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‘BASKERVILLE, A SHERLOCK HOLMES MYSTERY’ by Ken Ludwig

A review by Marylyn Motherbear Scott, photos by Larry Wagner

Mendocino Theater Company Production — March 6 through April 6

Directed by Alexander Wright

Cast:
Sherlock Holmes ….. Ricci Dedola
Watson …………….. Michael Bonner
Actor one………… Brady Voss
Actor two ………… Lucas Kiehn – Thilman
Actor three ………… Lorry Lepaule

Just what the good doctor ordered!

Mendocino Theatre Company has opened its new season with Ken Ludwig’s Baskerville, a Sherlock Holmes Mystery, directed by Alexander Wright. It is a quick-witted, quick-footed gambol into what the Playwright, the Director, and Sherlock Holmes himself calls the bleak landscape of life. In today’s world, these are challenging times, for sure. That alone is a good reason to see this play.

The play is set in what Wright calls (in the directors notes), the desolate Devonshire Moors. Baskerville Hall lies in the unforgiving landscape that represents the dark soul of humanity …

I related less with the bleakness and more with tripping the light fantastic at every turn and nuance.

The cast is made of a five players— Ricci Dedola as Sherlock Holmes; Michael Bonner as Watson; Brady Voss as Actor 1; Lucas Kiehn – Thilman as Actor 2; and Lorry Lepaule as Actor 3. The three actors perform many characters in quick-change succession. It is quite an amazing feat of performance. Gender, age, nationality, makes no difference. This is one of the fine points of the play and one of the aspects that makes Baskerville a play for these times.

The thread that holds the story together is the Sherlock Holmes mystery. Sherlock, as a character, has the toughest job of all. He represents the more exacting parts of ourselves, the intellect, the part that insist upon consistency and getting it right. This Sherlock insists upon telling the story correctly, including any mistakes he makes. Sherlock, as an actor, is not free to have the fun the others have. Sherlock has to figure out the story for us all. He has to make sure the mystery is solved. Or not.

Watson is the link between Sherlock’s more exacting behavior and the other actor’s frivolity. He also gets to perform some romps. Watson is the record maker, the notetaker, the historian, if you will.

The other three characters have somewhat freewheeling parts often reminiscent of silent film antics, performing farcical dances, hanging onto each other in hilarious dance lines. Each of the three actors bring a different quality to their multiple roles.

Much to our delight, this is the third time we’re seeing Brady on the MTC stage. In this play, he brings a flirtatious and hilarious quality to the characters. Brady is both clown and villain.

Lucas brings a bit of romance to the scene. He is the sweet aspect of innocence. Trusting and brave. A charmer really.

Lorry, beloved long time MTC actor, and Director, our hometown girl, offers an amazing set of characters. Do not miss out!

In order for these amazing quick changes to occur, Chris Wright, former head of costumes at Universal Studios in LA, created over twenty quick-change items, each one from scratch and each specially designed to be shed and donned in the blink of an eye. In addition, the costuming was handsome and era appropriate.

The staging is accomplished by a rear projection screen. Beautiful large scenes of the Devonshire landscape, the Baskerville mansion, and others are projected onto a large backdrop. It seems sometimes there is a magic to it — now you see it; now you don’t.

Are you in the doldrums? Sad? Perhaps a bit depressed by bad news? Baskerville is the antidote. Ask anyone who’s already seen it. It is fun. Entertaining. AND, you will rarely get to see a more talented collection of performers on the stage. And here it is, the Mendocino Theatre Company stage, right in your own backyard.

For a ticket information go to ((707) 937-4477 or boxoffice@mendocinotheatre.org

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TODD WALTON:

Announcing my new book!

https://underthetablebooks.com/blog/archives/7097

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NICK PALLAZOLA

I lived in the Valley from 1974-1983. Back then I was Nick Pallazola.

My mom is Jan Pallazola, retired teacher, who still lives on Peachland Road. My stepdad is Mike McDonald, longtime elementary school teacher and volleyball coach at AVHS.

I went to high school with the Legendary Jeff Burroughs, Holly and Diana Charles, Zack, Jessica and Ben Anderson, Larry, Lisa, Gina and Denise Carr, Olie and Pam Erickson, Teri Hiatt, the Hiatt sisters, Mike Hilton, DeDe Gowan, Nick Rossi, Bryant Wyant, Charles Davis, Greg Price, Cheryl and Randy Dury, Rhonda and Jerry Tolman, and many others on here.

I visit my mom pretty regularly and live Boonville more than ever…

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ED NOTES

REMEMBERING Occupy Wall Street, Frisco branch. The idea, and its ensuing slogan, anticipated Trumpian events, but were aimed at making it even clearer that roughly One Percent of Americans own… a lot, and that right now that One Percent, which is more like 20 percent, is aiming to own a lot more, mopping up you might say.

IT WAS A FALL AFTERNOON at Justin Herman Plaza at the foot of Market Street where a colorful array of tents and variously clad enemies of Wall Street had established themselves. They were barely distinguishable from the nearby open air stalls hawking tourist stuff, which has camped for years at the foot of Market Street.

THE WALL STREET OCCUPIERS at Justin Herman enhanced the usually vacant and always unadorned concrete of the plaza. But then all of Market Street at its east end is an uninviting dankness of sun-blocking skyscrapers and unwelcoming concrete. For a long stretch of Market you don’t get back into the sun until you get to the Ferry Building or, in the opposite direction, the Castro Safeway three miles to the west.

JUSTIN HERMAN’S plaza implies sunshine and public merriment but, like the man it commemorates, its shadowed expanse perfectly matches Mammon’s skyscraper forest that surrounds it.

THE GRIM concrete plaza is aptly named after Herman, one of the most destructive persons in city history, although there’s plenty of competition for that honor.

THE monkeybiz mayor that brought us Candlestick Park, George Christopher, working all the angles in 1959, the year Willie Mays could not buy a house on the foggy side of Twin Peaks because of real estate covenants forbidding black ownership, appointed Herman to head up the Redevelopment Commission, dubbed at the time by the black residents who lived in the area to be redeveloped, as the “Negro Removal Commission.”

THOUSANDS of black residents were soon redeveloped out of the Fillmore homes they’d occupied since the homes of their Japanese predecessors were impounded and packed off to their very own World War Two low-intensity concentration camps, one besieged minority succeeding the other.

WITH HERMAN leading the bulldozers, hundreds of black-occupied Victorians were destroyed, and in their place San Francisco got a tactical freeway — Geary Boulevard — and four blocks of concrete bunkers called the Japanese Culture and Trade Center where, once a year some young people who are probably Chinese, beat on big drums and dance around a struggling cherry tree, and that’s Japanese culture for another year. The rest of the alleged culture center consists of vaguely Asian-themed gewgaw shops and restaurants.

THANKS TO HERMAN, and perhaps by design, the disruptive four lanes of Geary Boulevard serves as a strategic barrier between the potential marauders the rich have always suspected of lurking along lower Fillmore and the mega-marauders of Pacific Heights, the target of Occupy. The Fillmore, only now, is just beginning to come back to life nearly 70 years after Herman destroyed it. In a way, then, to name an expanse of concrete at the dreary foot of dreary Market Street after Justin Herman and call it a plaza is just about perfect irony.

SEPARATING HERM’S PLAZA from the abomination of the Caltrans-like rubble of the Vaillancourt Fountains, an alleged sculpture — for all its self-certified sophistication, Frisco is pretty much run by rubes — is a motley collection of transient stalls selling stuff like flattened plastic beer cans and peace sign belt buckles. People complaining about the Wall Street Occupiers being unsightly and smelly overlook the ongoing fact that the whole area is unsightly, as is the rest of Market Street all the way west to at least Valencia.

THERE’S A LARGE banner over the Occupy camp that says “Occupy San Francisco: A Living Example of a Better System.” I wouldn’t go that far. If I thought I had to spend the rest of my life with twinklers and call and respond politics, however righteous, I think I’d take an early out, but it was definitely gratifying to see so many people with a clear grasp of who owns and runs the motherland.

I KEPT MY nose alert for the urine smell the rightwing claims is synonymous with San Francisco generally and Occupy sites specifically, but I was only able to detect the usual faint odor of raw sewage characteristic of those areas of the city built on fill; everything east of Kearney Street was once part of San Francisco Bay, as is most of the city’s southeast quadrant. The Marina, too. In the overdue Big One, much of the City built on fill, the geologists warn, will liquify.

I REMEMBER when The City was trying to do something about the persistent sewage odor at the foot of Market Street, but perfuming the omni-present smell went nowhere because irreconcilable factions refused to give up their commitments to the options — some people demanded a strawberry bouquet, others chocolate, some vanilla, and some probably held out for rum raisin.

THAT THURSDAY, the Occupy camp at Justin Herman was clean and orderly. Pumpkins decorated the paths between tents, feral children gamboled. Tourists were wandering around taking pictures of the slogans and the more photogenic protesters; a pair of ostentatious meditators were a big draw.

THE PREVIOUS night across the bay at Oakland’s Occupy camp, at zero provocation, the cops had shot a Marine with two Iraq tours behind him, shot him at point blank range with a tear gas gun. I saw the kid get it on the Ten O’Clock News.

FIRST THING in the morning, I verified what I was certain I’d seen on the News with the inevitable clips I knew would be on the internet. Sure enough, there it was: the Marine, a young man named Olsen, 24, was standing stock still no more than ten feet from the police barricade looking straight at their massed helmets. Standing next to him was a sailor in full uniform when Olsen, in his civvies, was suddenly hit in the head with something fired from very close, essentially point blank range, which turned out to be a tear gas canister, meaning that the badged psycho who shot the thing at Olsen head-high was indifferent to Olsen’s survival and ought to be tried for attempted murder. (Another Marine protester said the cops had used “a lot more force than we used on mobs in Iraq.”)

THE POLICE mustered to break up Occupy Oakland, were drawn from several Bay Area agencies. They claimed they were being attacked with bottles and other projectiles, but in the films of the confrontation you can see what look like teenagers, apart from the main body of Occupiers, lobbing an occasional object at the cops; the Occupy protesters didn’t appear to be throwing anything except peace signs.

THE LIBERAL governments of both cities didn’t know what to do about the Occupiers. They essentially said, “Well, golly, we’re liberals, kind of, but since we can’t trust the cops not to behave like maniacs we better just leave the protesters alone.” Which they did long past the camps being overtaken by outpatients and the usual "undesirables."

AT JUSTIN HERMAN, I counted 53 tents and maybe a half-dozen problematic wildmen who looked crazy enough to engage in ultra-vi, but most of the people occupying an otherwise empty, unwelcoming space were ordinary citizens, patriots of a very high order.

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BILL KIMBERLIN:

I sometimes hear coyotes when their packs are crying out, and it is so human like that late at night when I wake up to them it reminds me of a horror movie. I’d rather the explosives.

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Lately, I have developed a theory. I have not yet done the experiment to validate it but I soon will.

It concerns those neighborhood dogs that run out and bark at you while on your walk. Rather than arming myself with a rock or stick I have decided to carry a tennis ball. My theory posits the idea that a dog is constitutionally incapable of resisting the urge to chase that ball. I believe that every fiber of his body down to his sub-DNA is wired to chase that ball.

Therefore, instead of threatening him I am going to throw a tennis ball and see if he can resist chasing it. I don’t think he can.

Now a friend said, "You are going to lose a lot of tennis balls." To which I replied, "That is the beauty of this, he will undoubtedly bring it back to me, that is also in his DNA." Admittedly, there may be an argument over his actually releasing the ball to me at the return. I have not yet worked that part out yet.

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LEARNING POMO HISTORY THROUGH PROJECTILE POINTS

by Katy Tahja

There is a feeling today with some groups that ethnic history should be written by natives of that group. I see that as a fine idea going forward but dedicated ethnologists and archaeologists left us wonderful stories of human ingenuity and trading patterns in books written decades ago. Thomas Layton’s 1990 “Western Pomo Prehistory” was a 230 page monograph produced through UCLA. “Western Pomo” was the term used back then for Pomo’s on the coast.

The first 120 pages of text focused on a dig done by college students about a half mile north of what was the Albion River Inn back then in the 1980’s. Opinions change about how long, when and where Pomo people inhabited the coast. These researchers believed the coast was seasonally visited by Pomo from the interior of the county who came to collect marine food stuffs. There primary food came from acorns on oak trees in the Russian River Valleys. Buldam, the name for a native village at the mouth of Big River, was not occupied year round, according to early anthropologists, until modern times (after 1850) when white folks made life for the natives along the Russian River unsafe.

In an attempt to condense dry scientific language into terms easier to understand let me say the excavations in Albion revealed seven different layers of artifacts. Seven layers down was the bottom of the dig and was soil never disturbed by humans. In between that and today’s top soil were found layers with shells, bones, and projectile points (think arrow and spear points) made of rock found in locations hundreds of miles away.

It was the odd new facts I learned that I enjoyed. I would never have known how important the actual rock that made the points were, and what that rock could tell us about trade routes and seasonal migration. The shape of the points change over centuries and the source of the rock in the points changes too. There were 225 projectile points found in this site and they are illustrated in the book.

Another thing interesting me that I never considered before was the hydration of the obsidian points that came from Mt. Konocti in Lake County. They can date obsidian from the water content remaining in it. Local stone for Western Pomo point making came from geologic Franciscan formation, which is under our feet today. But how did rock forms originating in Monterey and found as far north as Pt. Arena end up in Albion? Radio Carbon dating and migration helped tell the story. (More on this coming up. But first…)

Digging down through levels students found the remains and shells of 12 different kinds of shellfish. Evidence did not show any use of boats or rafts as Pomo’s just collected along the shorelines. Layton seemed to believe Pomo migrated to the coast in April to fish and collect sea life all summer, then migrated back to the interior river valleys to collect acorns, the staple of their diet. He believed Pomo had been visiting the coast for 5000 years.

In the book I loved the term “task specific resource procurement” which means Pomo went after certain foods at certain times of the year. Natives understood the concept of “Red Tides” when sea foods could be poisonous and did not collect shellfish when it could poison their people. The author believed they came in late spring and left mid-summer.

These Pomo carried stones they liked best with them to make new projectile points when the ones they had broken or were lost. They chipped them into points in Albion. At some of the older levels at the dig, dated 425 to 100 BCE natives were using local Franciscan chert rock and radio carbon dating of charcoal at the suite provided the time span.

Farther up in the levels obsidian points appeared. Were migrating food seeking natives from Lake County Pomo’s here? Next level up Monterey chert points were back. Had natives from Pt. Arena and points south been visiting or trading stone dating from years 1200 to 1600? The top layers the students excavated dated between 1600 and 1800 and were back to Franciscan rock chert — had trade or migration ceased? The soil above the seven layers discovered featured “Historic Euro-American items” and showed Pomo’s were trading for commercially made items of metal and glass beads.

The book has drawings of the projectile points and charts of seasonal availability bot food stuffs, i.e., Chinquapin nuts were collected in September and sea lions hunted in October. If Roosevelt Elk bones were found it was noted if they were adults or juveniles. The book has photos of the trenches with the levels visible. Note: this dig was ALL on private property. Along with the 120 pages on Albion there were 50 pages on “Nightbird’s Retreat,” a Pomo village west of Calpella near Eagle Peak and 20 pages on “Three Chop Village” at the headwaters of Parlin Creek north of Highway 20.

This book is hard to find but museums and reference collections in libraries will allow you to sit for an hour or two and browse the volume. I found it fascinating when I could understand the science. It reflects years of research and I’m glad we have it to help us understand Pomo people better.

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ANDREW LUTSKY:

I thought I would pass along a flyer (attached) I received from my friend Phoebe Buffay-Hannigan, the Chief Information Officer at the Pink Zones Project of Mendocino County. Sounds like fun, I thought you might like to promote it.

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Sunday, March 15-16, 2025

JACOB ARIAS, 28, Shasta/Laytonville. DUI.

DAVID AVALOS, 30, Willits. DUI, probation revocation.

ALEXANDER BARGER, 21, Ukiah. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, failure to appear.

BRIANNA DEVLIN, 29, Alameda/Ukiah. DUI.

SEAN FINNEGAN, 54, Ukiah. Controlled substance with two or more priors.

CHRISTOPHER FRANCE, 28, Willits. Burglary, petty theft with two or more priors, controlled substance with two or more priors, theft by use of access info, paraphernalia, conspiracy.

CHRISTOPHER GARCIA, 44, Ukiah. Paraphernalia, parole violation.

WINTER GREENEAGLE, 45, Albion. DUI.

AARON HUNT, 18, Fort Bragg. Marijuana for sale, felon-addict with firearm, ammo possession by prohibited person, loaded handgun-not registered owner, child neglect, violation of juvenile probation.

COLE ICKES, 33, Fort Bragg. Parole violation, resisting.

SHAYLYNN LOCKHART, 31, Potter Valley. County parole violation.

DANIEL MILLER, 33, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-under influence, parole violation.

STEPHANIE PHILLIPS, 37, Ukiah. Controlled substance with two or more priors.

MATTHEW STURGES, 38, Willits. Burglary, controlled substance, conspiracy.

JARRED THURMAN, 20, Willits. Conspiracy, unspecified offense.

KODY TOLLOW, 23, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

CHRISTINA TORRES, 37, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

JOSHUA WINN, 40, Redwood Valley. Bench warrant.

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MAN WITHOUT A TEAM

by Tommy Wayne Kramer

The sun is out, the skies are blue and we’re deep into Spring Training. But I live here in Mudville, and there is no joy in baseball 2025.

‘Twas not always thus. There was a time (more like 70 times) in my life that this was my favorite time of the year. Although it was cold, snowy and miserable in Cleveland, I was getting three daily dispatches from Tucson, Arizona, mis-informing me about the Tribe’s prospects for the coming season.

I say “mis-informing” because the updates were supplied by the dishonest liar sportswriters at the Cleveland Press, the Cleveland News and The Plain Dealer. Every morning and twice in the afternoon the writers covering the Cleveland Indians were fabricating accounts of how sharp the team was looking, how healthy all the injured players from last year were now feeling, how much improved the starting pitching, and how the Easter Bunny would be batting cleanup.

Beware Yankees, and the six other teams in the American League! The Tribe will soon be printing tickets for the 1957 World Series.

And every year the Indians would have a couple strong weeks surrounded by a couple dreadful months and by mid-June someone in the bleachers would hold up a sheet of cardboard with “WAIT TIL NEXT YEAR” scrawled on it, and the 2500 fans in attendance trudged out of Municipal Stadium in the sixth inning.

Same thing next year, but being nine years old I swallowed sportswriter bait again, and like every season, I bet my older brother a dollar the Tribe would be AL champs come September. I think I still owe him $12.

So what? Twelve bucks is worth about 60 cents in 2025.

Some segue back to the present, huh? But if we’re here in 2025 we’re also in Mudville, where joy is spread thin as pepperoni slices on a Little Caesar Pizza.

Come now and hear my sad laments, my piercing wails and my bitter vows to wreak doom, destruction, and rain toads upon the evil lords of baseball. I’ve been the Indians’ most devoted fan yet after 70-plus years of loyalty I was forced to watch the team name wokified into “Guardians” and Chief Wahoo lynched in downtown Public Square.

A few years earlier the massive, majestic cathedral known as Municipal Stadium was abandoned so the team’s front office droolers could install a fashionable new “retro style” mallpark, a cheesy replica of the game’s old baseball parks. (Note: Municipal Stadium was built in 1928.)

Having the Tribe snatched away I took solace where I could. I sighed, fell in with the Oakland A’s, and 15 minutes later they announced the team was moving to Las Vegas.

Major League Baseball has probably treated other fans even worse than me, and I would like to meet those people. I would like to compare stories, share the grief, plot the revenge, and figure out how to make huge swarms of big fat living toads come raining from the skies and onto the heads of everyone responsible for not taking me out to the ballgame this season.

RFK Jr., RECONSIDERED

If the Dems could do it over again, and if the Dems had been honest with the public, and if the Dems had acknowledged Moribund Joe was one of only two professional Democrats in the country who could not defeat Trump in 2024, and if the Dems had instead picked RFK Jr to head the ticket a whole lot of people would have voted for him.

Maybe even me.

What other candidate could have combined so fresh a face with such legendary lineage? Robert Kennedy Jr. had it all. If he’d been nominated the Democrats and media allies would have airbrushed his warts and downplayed the stuff about how he’d eaten his grandchildren and believed wibbly waves from Venus cured cancer. He most likely would have won.

But the Dems went with Biden until they went with Harris, and in between they demonized Kennedy to the point he dumped the Dems, jumped the ship and is now running the nation’s health department.

Eeek!

Well, it turns out he does think polka dots from Venus produce cancer in humans, his grandchildren have been missing since the early ‘90s, and (I’m not making this one up) he believes Vitamin A can cure measles.

So vaccines are out and multi-vitamins are in? I will now join my liberal friends and move to Canada, unless Canada is now Northern North Dakota.

I have heart issues and would prefer Doctor Robert not limit my medical options to Eye of Newt, twice daily, and weekly blood lettings via strategically placed leeches.

Y’know, kinda like “My Body, Myself!” but with stents instead of ovaries.

(Tom Hine produces these weekly columns even when stranded in North Carolina with his wife, dog and imaginary assistant, TWK. Write him at General Delivery, Winnipeg, North North Dakota.)

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SEALS STADIUM, SAN FRANCISCO (1940s)

In the 1940s, Seals Stadium was a thriving venue for minor league baseball, where fans packed the stands to watch the San Francisco Seals battle their Pacific Coast League rivals. The ballpark’s intimate setting allowed fans to get close to the action, creating a lively atmosphere. During World War II, baseball provided a much-needed distraction, and players who weren’t drafted into military service continued to play for enthusiastic crowds. Seals Stadium was a cherished part of San Francisco’s sporting culture before the city eventually joined Major League Baseball in the late 1950s.

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MEMO OF THE AIR: I keep thinking of the funnyman scene in V for Vendetta.

Marco here. Here’s the recording of last night’s (Friday, 2025-03-14) 7.5-hour-long Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio show on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg (CA) and KNYO.org (and, for the first three hours of the show, also 89.3fm KAKX Mendocino). Local announcements, poetry, theater, fantasy, science fact and fiction, music, current events and history, goofy erotica, jokes, puzzles, questionable medical advice and, eh, like that: https://tinyurl.com/KNYO-MOTA-0635

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

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

Ruh-roh. https://boingboing.net/2025/03/12/tom-the-dancing-bug-elon-musk-and-his-doge-pals-in-auto-graft.html

It’s like a giant slow sneeze. (The balls would be the germs.) https://misscellania.blogspot.com/2025/03/when-practical-effects-arent-so.html

"There seems to be no crime too low for these astonishingly depraved penguins." https://flashbak.com/sexual-habits-of-the-astonishingly-depraved-adelie-penguin-by-levick-1911-473759/

And "I will make an infinite number of items for attack and defense." https://news.lettersofnote.com/p/i-will-make-an-infinite-number-of

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

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WILL THE REAL MIKE THOMPSON PLEASE STAND UP?

by Eva Chrystanthe (Marin Confidential)

Representative Mike Thompson (4th Congressional District including Lake, Napa, and parts of Contra Costa, Solano, Sonoma and Yolo) carries with him a reassuring and competent presence that seems ready-made for cable news. Trim and virile, the 74-year-old looks and feels “presidential”. Thompson conveys this so effectively to his Party that he was selected by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to serve as the “designated survivor” during President Trump’s joint address to Congress on March 4.

You don’t gain that kind of trust on the cheap: Thompson voted tightly in line with former President Biden’s stated positions throughout the 117th congress, including positions on foreign policy. But a younger Thompson had not hewn so closely to (then-Senator) Biden. In 2002, Thompson, then in his early fifties, had traveled to Iraq on a fact-finding mission during the run-up to the US invasion, and he expressed skepticism about the claim that Iraq was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. This was, in fact, distinct from the position that Biden took on Iraq, despite Biden’s later claims that he had “always” opposed the Iraq War.

Then, in 2012, just ten years after that mission to Iraq, Thompson demanded health benefits for the over 6,000 US military veterans subjected to the Defense Department’s chemical weapons testing in Project 112 (1962-1974). Per Thompson’s office, the chemicals that US military personnel were subjected to by their own government included: Vx Nerve Gas, Sarin Nerve Gas, and E. coli, as detailed in the press release part of which is provided as a screenshot below:

With that demand, Thompson, a Vietnam veteran who was awarded a Purple Heart for his service in the 173rd Airborne, made clear that US military and US foreign policy has, at best, an uneven record, even toward its own soldiers. This makes his April 2024 vote to send an additional $26 Billion to Israel during a plausible genocide so much more disappointing.

And it was in his dual capacity as veteran and congressman that Thompson held, on March 7, a press conference outside a community clinic in Santa Rosa. Thompson wished to bring attention to the calamitous cuts that the Trump administration had made to veterans’ services, cuts which no reasonable person would support. But Thompson had to know that some attendees would have questions about his support for Israel.

Enter “Taxpayers Against Genocide”

Retired schoolteacher Seth Donnelly is a veteran not of any wars but of 35 years of human rights work and several decades of teaching high school, during which time he was a much-loved teacher. And in the same way that Thompson’s image fits a familiar type, Donnelly’s earnestness is a throwback to an earlier, more confident vision the left once projected.

But Donnelly’s unpretentious persona belies a disciplined and cogent writing style; he publishes regularly in various left-wing publications, is frequently interviewed in local and national media, and has published a book about human rights which is available in English and French. Donnelly was a lead plaintiff in a well-argued (but now-dismissed) lawsuit filed by a group called “Taxpayers Against Genocide” (TAG) against Representatives Mike Thompson and Jared Huffman (2nd Congressional District, which includes Marin and most of Sonoma.) The lawsuit challenged Thompson’s and Huffman’s votes for an additional $26 Billion in military aid to Israel in April of 2024, months after the International Court of Justice had established that Israel was engaged in a plausible case of genocide in Gaza.

The lawsuit was dismissed in 2025, and thus it was in Donnelly’s capacity as a reporter for the bilingual publication Solidarity Springs that he appeared at Thompson’s press conference. Like many of the TAG plaintiffs, Donnelly has grown increasingly concerned about the fate of Palestinians in Gaza as the Israeli government has publicly bragged about cutting off not only all humanitarian aid, but also all electricity. That amounts to public bragging about a genocidal act, and it is deeply disturbing to many Americans that their government, regardless of Republican or Democratic administration, remains beholden to Israel’s cruel whims.

Consistent with his style, Donnelly waited until everyone else had spoken to ask his question, but Thompson immediately refused to answer, angrily claiming that Donnelly had filed a "frivolous" lawsuit against himself and Rep. Huffman, which prevented Thompson from answering Donnelly’s questions.

But Thompson knew that the lawsuit had been dismissed, and therefore there was nothing barring him from answering Donnelly’s questions, which were posed in such a general fashion as to allow Thompson ample room to answer. And Thompson didn’t merely shut down the question, he insulted Donnelly, who has long served his community as a teacher, reporter, and activist, by claiming that Donnelly was not from “the legitimate press.” But even if Thompson wanted to claim that Counterpunch wasn’t “legitimate”, shouldn’t he take a question from a constituent?

The local Fox News affiliate was there to record the event, but no part of the encounter made it into their report. It does seem from the video that the Fox News cameraperson declined even to turn their camera onto Donnelly. This is part of a pattern of media ignoring or downplaying reporters’ questions that challenge US policy, and downplaying citizens’ resistance to US foreign and domestic policy. For example, the week after the Thompson-Donnelly encounter, thousands of protesters turned out on the streets of New York to protest the Trump administration’s unlawful seizure of a Palestinian organizer, Mahmoud Khalil, but the size and scope of the protests were vastly underreported even on the news outlets that managed to include them.

Here’s the video of Thompson dismissing Donnelly’s questions, as recorded by Jason Sweeney, who deserves our thanks for archiving what Fox News and Rep. Thompson did not want you to see: https://marincountyconfidential.substack.com/p/i-local-fox-news-affiliate-turns

The Dismissed Suit Has Only Grown In Influence

The TAG lawsuit was only filed after the plaintiffs had attempted for a year to contact and meet their congressional representatives “to persuade them to stop funding the genocide in Gaza.” Thus, in the fall of 2024, they formed TAG, which eventually included over 2,000 plaintiffs from 18 counties in Northern California — the territory covered by Representatives Huffman and Thompson.

On February 10, the case was dismissed by Judge Vince Chhabria of the Northern California Federal District Court in San Francisco, who posited that the issue raised by the plaintiffs was political, not legal, which gave Chhabria an excuse not to hear it.

This dismissal had been predicted by TAG, which had already been formulating their next move: presenting their case to the UN Human Rights Council’s Periodic Review in April.

By that time, TAG organizers hope to have expanded the number of taxpayers in the lawsuit from well beyond the initial 2,000. It seems likely they will meet that goal.…

https://marincountyconfidential.substack.com/p/i-local-fox-news-affiliate-turns

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COALITIONS NEEDED

Editor:

Democrats are practicing losing again, savaging Gavin Newsom’s declaration that trans women competing in women’s sports may have unfair advantages. Yes, get rid of Newsom; Republicans will look after trans kids.

Democratic insistence on issue alignment ruptures coalitions. Republicans happily work with anyone who agrees with them most of the time. They build successful institutions and alliances pushing antidemocratic policies to victory while Dems ice pick one another over subtleties that leave voters concerned that their priorities are being ignored.

Democrats should defend all civil liberties, full stop, but Pew Research found only “0.5% to 0.6% of Americans generally, and 1.4% of teens identify as transgender.” This doesn’t make them unworthy of protection, but as a party banner fronting trans bathrooms or sports doesn’t compete with Social Security, decimation of the Department of Veterans Affairs and Medicare. Maybe our millionaires should imitate Republicans by funding think-tanks, institutions and viable networks rather than running for office?

Who will support more Democratic norms and institutions — Newsom or JD Vance? The answer is any Democrat.

Thousands dismissed from the VA, kids dying of measles again, the Supreme Court controlled by billionaire cash while Dems snipe at a compelling candidate for issue deviance. Donald Trump didn’t campaign to undermine democracy. He won power. That’s the ball to watch.

Peter Coyote

Sebastopol

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A STAY AT THE DECREPIT TOMB OF WHAT WAS ONCE THE VEGAS STRIP’S COOLEST HOTEL

When it opened, Vegas had never seen anything like Luxor. Now, it’s one of the most hated hotels on the Strip.

by Katie Dowd

In 1993, a promotional video was made to herald the opening of Luxor Las Vegas, the “next wonder of the world.” It opens with photographs of explorer Howard Carter at the entrance to Tutankhamen’s tomb. “As he chips a hole through the end of the passageway, Howard Carter is asked, ‘Do you see anything?’” a narrator says. “‘Yes,’ he replies. ‘Wonderful things.’”

The video then smash-cuts to the towering black pyramid on the Vegas Strip. “If only he had lived to see this!” the narrator exclaims.

Over 30 years later, a resort that was once compared to the greatest discovery in archaeological history has 2.5 stars on Yelp. And within 10 minutes of my arriving at Luxor, it was clear why it’s one of the most reviled hotels in Las Vegas.

I pulled into the porte cochere shortly before noon and headed inside with my luggage in tow. Hoping to stow my bag while I explored the resort, I walked over to the bell services desk. The employee gestured for me to come closer, then angrily pointed behind me.

“That’s the line,” she said.

I turned to see a queue about 10 feet away. It extended all the way through the lobby to the casino floor. Mortified by my mistake, I joined the throng, watching as a man emptied out his suitcase on the floor and repacked it. Nearly 10 minutes went by, and the line had barely budged. Behind the desk, a loop of early 2000s music videos played. I wondered what Howard Carter would have thought about the Click Five.

Then, by some miracle, I got a text: My room was ready. I passed two broken moving walkways, a closed cafe and a long, blank wall lined with employee-only doors before finding the ancient-looking bank of elevators. When the first one opened, the electrical panel was exposed, wires spilling out. The doors shuddered shut, and the ascent began. Because Luxor is a pyramid, the elevators are more like funiculars, climbing sideways at a 39-degree angle. Signs in each elevator include this fact — perhaps to get out in front of the complaints — and describe it as a “thrilling” experience. Roller coasters are thrilling. Luxor’s elevators are a nuisance.

There’s a case to be made that this is one of the worst designs in hotel history. The elevators rattle uncontrollably, shaking the occupants like a martini all the way up. They’re also incredibly slow. I was on the 21st floor, and it took over a minute to get there. Sometimes, the lights on the buttons didn’t work, making it impossible to know if you were actually headed to your floor. Once, the elevator doors opened to a pitch-black chamber. In horror, I watched a man walk inside. I didn’t see him walk back out, so I assume the mummy’s trap worked and his soul was extracted through his eyeballs.

Things did not improve when I reached the room. As I closed the door behind me, I saw that there was no deadbolt, no bar lock, no privacy latch. Anyone with a key could walk right in. Does Luxor mistrust its guests so much that it doesn’t provide interior locks? I wondered how many times a day its staff had to force their way into rooms, and why.

The room was so dim that I thought for a moment I’d forgotten to take off my sunglasses. The dark exterior of Luxor made for a perpetual tint in the room, worsened by the fact that one of the windowpanes was crusted in desert dust. This is probably a great setup for someone with a blistering hangover, but it gave a depressing pallor to the space. Upon closer inspection, I found tiny flies, both alive and dead, on the windowsill. I thought about smushing the lone survivor but, worried these might be minions of King Tut, decided against it. I wasn’t going out like elevator guy.

There were two positives. One was the Wi-Fi, which was strong enough to seamlessly maintain a video call. The other was the toilet, which flushed with the force of a cruise ship lavatory. If you’re eating at the Luxor buffet, this is no doubt a hygienic necessity.

Luxor wasn’t always the butt of jokes, though. When it opened in 1993, it was one of three highly themed megaresorts that reshaped the Strip: Over a two-month span, Luxor, MGM Grand and Treasure Island all debuted. Luxor, which was funded by Circus Circus, was the most spectacular in many ways. The light beam that burst from the top of the pyramid was said to be the most powerful on the planet. The LA Times wrote that its designers said you could read a newspaper by its light 7 miles up, although proof from a passing astronaut was not provided. Luxor had the world’s largest atrium, an enormous sphinx out front that shot lasers out of its eyes and a Nile boat ride that encircled the main floor.

“Nobody ever put the Nile River in a building before,” Luxor’s general manager bragged to reporters.

The ride, which was skippered by an employee with a microphone, passed through Oldworld, Modernworld and Futureworld. Oldworld was primarily Egyptian history, although it did include some Aztec architecture. (If you’ve ever wondered why the Blue Man Group is housed in an Aztec pyramid-shaped theater, this is why.) In Modernworld, Luxor recreated New York City. The last vestige of this can be seen from the upper floors of the resort: Look down, and you’ll see a Chrysler Building mixed in among the atrium structures. Finally, Futureworld consisted of cutting-edge rides, including one deliciously ‘90s concept where guests watching a live-action David Letterman-style talk show were sucked into a 3D action ride.

The riverboat was more than just an attraction. It was also the only form of transportation more annoying than the elevators themselves. Newspaper coverage of the opening noted that guests rode the boats from the check-in desk to the elevators. No mention is made of what happened to their luggage or how irritated they were to stand in line for a boat after getting in late. Guests who survived the nautical gantlet could then eat at the 1,100-person dinner show “Winds of the Gods,” which featured, for a time, a live elephant.

Tragically, Stoney died in 1995 with perhaps the grimmest exit of any Las Vegas performer: “The trainer walked through the door and that elephant started chirping and calling to him; then he reached out his trunk to the guy like he wanted to touch him,” an employee recalled. “The guy said, ‘Cut it out, Stoney,’ and sort of pushed the trunk away. Then the elephant kind of sighed and then he died.”

Thousands of people “jammed the Las Vegas Strip behind temporary fences” to catch the grand opening in October 1993, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported, and over 100,000 people passed through the resort in its first weekend.

There was nothing like it: Long before every inch of Las Vegas Boulevard became crowded with hotels, Luxor stood alone. It was “going to hurt the 30- and 40-year-old square boxes with no personalities,” one gaming analyst confidently told the Associated Press.

This was not the case. Almost immediately, the over-the-top Egyptian theme didn’t resonate with the gambling crowd. The hotel’s unique design was also the source of problems, like flooding in guest rooms and elevators on the fritz. “We’re in the doldrums, and you just have to suck it up,” Circus Circus president Glenn Schaeffer said less than three years after Luxor’s opening. “It is entirely unpleasant, but no one in the history of Las Vegas has built a property entirely from the inside out and then had to reposition it.”

The original project had cost $375 million, and Circus Circus dropped $300 million more to add two new towers and scale back the Egyptian-style architecture. Gone was the Nile River ride, which presumably corroded the interior of the building. By 2007, almost all of Luxor’s grand original theme had been removed.

"We’re not a British museum with ancient artifacts, we’re a casino-resort," Luxor’s president said at the time. "This was a brilliantly conceived building from the outside. The pyramid always created a sense of wow and wonder, but the inside never delivered on that promise."

Stripped of its novelty, though, the gloomy interior is now bare and brutalist. Luxor has all the glamor of an apartment complex in the Soviet Bloc. As you wander the empty corridors, you wonder when a KGB thug is going to pop out from behind an ice machine. Hallways echo with the sound of doors slamming and, at least on my floor, there was a perpetual sound of dripping water.

The atrium, once a space unlike any other in Las Vegas, is a confusing mix of attractions. There’s the aforementioned Blue Man Group in one theater and Carrot Top in another, deepening the sense that you’ve somehow wandered into a time travel wormhole. A Titanic exhibit boasts the Big Piece, the largest single chunk of the ship on display. Next door, a King Tut exhibit is $35 per person, which is $24 more than it costs to see actual items from Tutankhamen’s tomb (travel costs aside). I was unwilling to pay for this experience, but the website informed me it was a grab bag of general mummy lore, plus a VR walk-through of the tomb. The spirit of Howard Carter, wherever it is, is probably relieved he didn’t live to see that.

With limited food options at the hotel, I ate elsewhere for dinner. On my walk back, I kept looking at the beam emanating from Luxor. Maybe it was the brightest light on Earth, but on a clear March evening, it seemed frail against the immensity of the sky.

That night, afraid of falling asleep without a security lock, I dragged an armchair in front of my door. At $299.32 for two nights, it felt particularly absurd to be redesigning the room for safety. Still, sleep refused to come, so I flipped through a book on the history of Egyptian tomb raiding I’d brought with me. It told the story of how, for centuries, Egyptians have descended below the sand and returned to the surface with untold treasures. A few years ago, Luxor refreshed its guest rooms using some of the old furniture from the Bellagio. Even tomb raiding at the Las Vegas Luxor was depressing.

After a fitful night’s sleep, I stumbled down to the lobby Starbucks. As I sat among health care conventioneers in lanyards, it crossed my mind that this had once been the epicenter of Las Vegas cool. Will Smith filmed the music video for “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It” at this very hotel. It had a nightclub frequented by the likes of Paris Hilton and Kobe Bryant. Tupac Shakur was staying here the day he was killed. But in the dingy atrium, sipping a $10 coffee, I had rarely felt less jiggy.

(SFGate.com)

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HOW A QUACK TV DOCTOR MADE IT TO WASHINGTON

by Eoin Higgins

Before medical contrarianism became intrinsic to his identity, Dr. Mehmet Oz appeared motivated by curiosity rather than opportunism. Arriving at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in 1986 to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a cardiothoracic surgeon, Dr. Oz became well respected in the field. But much to the chagrin of administrators and peers, he also showed a penchant for questionable medicine.

In the mid-1990s, he invited a healer into the hospital’s cardiac operating room “to run a kind of energy, which science cannot prove exists,” through patients’ bodies. Proponents claim that kind of practice and its adjacents (think Reiki or “therapeutic touch”) improve people’s health and result in faster recovery times, less pain and better physical function for patients — despite a lack of scientific explanation for how they might do so.

“Not everything adds up,” Dr. Oz told The New Yorker in 2013. “It’s about making people more comfortable.”

This nonconformist approach endeared Dr. Oz to patients and to a public eager for a warmer approach to medicine. At the same time, it became a way to accrue decades of fame and fortune.

Those efforts have culminated in Dr. Oz’s nomination by President Trump to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Senate hearings are to begin Friday. If confirmed, his appointment would be yet another signal to a new wave of charismatic health personalities that science and evidence are negotiable in the service of ambition.

In 1996, Dr. Oz helped transplant a heart for the brother of Joe Torre, then manager of the New York Yankees. It was “his first big splash of publicity,” a former colleague, Dr. Eric Rose, who led the Torre operation, said, “and he loved it.”

Dr. Oz chased the high. He guest hosted Charlie Rose‘s talk show, published books and consulted on the Denzel Washington film “John Q.” Starting in 2003, Dr. Oz began hosting his own show, “Second Opinion With Dr. Oz,” on the Discovery Channel. One of his first guests was Oprah Winfrey. Soon, he was making multiple appearances on her show as a medical expert. By 2004, Ms. Winfrey was calling him “America’s doctor.”

Dr. Oz said in a 2003 interview that his approach to medicine, and by extension his show, was about making available to patients the best treatments they could afford. Noting that he had an M.B.A. in addition to a medical degree, Dr. Oz said, “I think as physicians, we are abdicating our responsibility to the society, to our community if we don’t take an active role in figuring out how to spend money.”

Dr. Oz’s answer to the money question was alternative treatments. In some cases, holistic medicine may appeal to patients as an affordable option when expensive conventional therapies failed them. But Dr. Oz’s openness to alternative medicine would gradually give way to the promotion of quackery.

“Second Opinion” lasted only one season, but in 2009, Dr. Oz returned with “The Dr. Oz Show.” By the early 2010s it was in the upper echelon of daytime TV programs. On his own show and elsewhere, he gave credence to any health fad, no matter how flimsy the science behind it. Dr. Oz touted the healing properties of hyperbaric oxygen and colloidal silver (tiny silver particles suspended in liquid), and hosted the antivaccine conspiracy theorist Joe Mercola to promote a dietary supplement.

Still, viewers ate it up — and it’s not hard to see why. In my new book, I show how media figures leverage their positions as established, trusted experts to become iconoclasts. Touting consensus wisdom makes you one of a million. But if you’re a contrarian, you immediately shrink the pool of voices competing for attention.

Dr. Oz is not a public health edge case. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spent decades shifting further into vaccine skepticism as his stance garnered more attention; he’s parlayed that attention into a position of power as the new secretary of health of human services. The physician and health economist Dr. Jay Bhattacharya found fame through his rejection of Covid-19 mitigation policies in 2020, drawing scorn from the medical community; he’s now on track to lead the National Institutes of Health.

This reactionary strain is right at home in our electoral politics, but it marks a change from how the government’s public health policy has traditionally been decided and carried out.

In April 2012, Dr. Oz told his audience that sleeping with a sock full of heated, uncooked rice could help with insomnia; a lawsuit followed after a man taking his advice claimed he was injured. Researchers in 2014 found that only 21 percent of “Dr. Oz Show” recommendations had “believable” evidence behind them.

That same year, Dr. Oz appeared before a Senate subcommittee hearing to defend his advocacy in favor of weight-loss substances and faced pointed criticism from lawmakers. “I don’t get why you need to say this stuff, because you know it’s not true,” Senator Claire McCaskill, the Missouri Democrat, said.

In 2015, a group of doctors called on Columbia to cut ties with Dr. Oz, describing him as someone who “has manifested an egregious lack of integrity by promoting quack treatments and cures in the interest of personal financial gain.” On his show, Dr. Oz fired back, vowing not to be silenced. Two years later, a cohort of academics, writing in the American Medical Association’s Journal of Ethics, questioned if there should be some sort of sanction for his “inaccurate and potentially harmful” advice.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, he repeatedly appeared on Fox News to promote unverified treatments like hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, leading to intense criticism. Eventually, his show began bleeding viewers and never recovered, after which he ran an unsuccessful campaign for the U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania.

But the reputational damage hasn’t stopped him. He already made the leap from the operating room to the TV screen; now he seems poised to enter the federal government. His fame has endeared him to Mr. Trump, and his nonconformist reputation is perfectly suited for the new health administration.

We don’t know for sure what Dr. Oz will do if confirmed as head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. He may be an effective leader. But his past is likely to prove concerning for people on Medicare and Medicaid who are counting on stable, reliable access to health care.

Dr. Oz’s confirmation could also encourage a cadre of actors to follow his path and sow more discord in what’s left of the nation’s public health structures. It’s one thing to advocate alternative methods for the benefit of your patients. It’s quite another to build a career on rejecting traditional medicine — an abdication of his responsibility as a health professional.

(Eoin Higgins is a journalist based in New England whose work focuses on tech, media, and politics. He is the author of “Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left.”)

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SINGLE PAYER POLITICS

by Mark O’Connell

Since the assassination on December 4 of the UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, by an alleged shooter whose apparent motive was righteous fury at the iniquity and injustice of America’s profit-driven system of health care, one thing we have been hearing again and again is that political violence changes nothing. This idea has been expressed more or less uniformly by countless and diverse figures from the world of politics, business, and the media. Everyone keeps saying it, and everyone agrees: violence is no way to bring about change.

Everyone keeps saying it, you suspect, to ward off the suspicion, even perhaps the certain knowledge, of its being completely untrue. If violence changed nothing, would American taxpayers have spent over $824 billion last year on maintaining the world’s most powerful and deadly military force? If violence changed nothing, would the United States exist in the first place? “Violence,” as the Black Panther leader H. Rap Brown put it, “is as American as cherry pie.”

Thomas Jefferson’s more celebrated remark about the tree of liberty having to be “refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants” is one with which many Americans still presumably agree. Is Thompson’s alleged killer, Luigi Mangione, a patriot? He appears to have felt that he was acting in the interests of his countrymen; and a great many of his countrymen, with surprisingly nonpartisan consensus, seem to agree. But let’s leave that question aside, momentarily, to address the knottier question of whether Thompson himself was a tyrant. America’s profit-driven health care system, which in his death Thompson came to represent, certainly has a stranglehold on the lives of its citizens. In many cases the level of private health insurance a person possesses—and whether their insurance provider is willing to honor it in a reasonably timely fashion—is a determining factor in whether that person lives or dies.

One of UnitedHealthcare’s more notable recent innovations is its introduction of AI into the claims adjudication process. In 2023 the surviving family members of two deceased policy holders sued the company, accusing it of knowingly using a faulty machine-learning algorithm to deny elderly patients coverage for procedures that their doctors deemed medically necessary. (The United-owned company, NaviHealth, which developed the technology, has denied this allegation, insisting that the algorithm is not “used to make coverage determinations.”) Such a technology makes an already impersonal corporate bureaucracy outright inhuman. It also does away with the need to pay people to carry out the administrative labor involved in denying other people health care—making it, from the standpoint of brute profit, a two-birds-one-stone situation. A company like UnitedHealthcare represents a blandly roboticized authority, an impermeable bureaucracy of death.

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ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

As I watch this president and his cultish coterie of worshiping Republicans dismantle the U.S. government with thoughtless cruelty, while wiping out a century of social and economic progress and dismantling our relationship with our allies, I find myself shaking my head in painful disbelief at the scope of the global wreckage that my children and grandchildren’s generation will have to dig out from under.

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RAIN AND WIND AND OH MY

Well, the winds and rain have had their way,

they’ve torn the top from me greenhouse today.

The plastic’s gone stupid and got itself torn,

but I’ll just have to wait to make it reborn,

till rains have calmed down, and wind’s gone to bed,

till then I’ll have to plant the potatoes in me head.

— Notty Bumbo

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BILLY THE KID

On the night of April 28, 1881, just two weeks before he was set to be hanged, the infamous outlaw Billy the Kid was sitting in a jail cell on the top floor of the Lincoln, New Mexico courthouse, awaiting his fate.

Then he asked the deputy who was watching over him to let him use the outhouse around the back of the building.

On the way back to his cell, Billy slipped out of his handcuffs, beat the deputy, grabbed his gun, and shot him in the back.

His legs still shackled, Billy then snatched the shotgun belonging to the other deputy who’d gone to the restaurant across the street earlier in the evening.

Billy ran to the window, saw the other deputy coming back to the courthouse in response to the gunshot and yelled to him, "Look up, old boy, and see what you get."

When he looked up, Billy shot him dead.

Then, he used an axe to break his shackles, stole a horse, and fled.

Legend has it he was singing as he rode out of town.

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LEAD STORIES, MONDAY'S NYT

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With Deportations, Trump Steps Closer to Showdown With Judicial Branch

Trump Administration Revives Detention of Immigrant Families

DOGE Cuts Reach Key Nuclear Scientists, Bomb Engineers and Safety Experts

Bread Lines and Salty Drinking Water: Israeli Aid Block Sets Gaza Back Again

NASA Schedules Quick Return of Astronauts in SpaceX Capsule

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JUST IN: Trump has declared his predecessor Joe Biden's last-minute pardons 'void, vacant and of no further force or effect' in a post on Truth Social Sunday night as he warned that members of the House committee investigating the January 6 riots can now face prosecution. Trump claimed that because Biden used an autopen, the pardons cannot be enforced. Biden had issued preemptive pardons for all nine members of the January 6 Committee - including former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney,  Adam Schiff and Dr. Anthony Fauci. (Daily Mail)

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