Mendocino County Today: Saturday 4/12/2025

DRY conditions are expected today as an area of low pressure moves east of the region. Northerly winds will be gusty along the coast and on ridgelines today. Lighter winds are expected on Sunday along with a warming trend into the first part of the work week. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A breezy 47F under clear skies this Saturday morning on the coast. Clear skies & breezy today, clear skies & lovely next week.

Sign says- 'Please Don't Feed Ravens' (Falcon)

DIOCESE TAKING BIDS ON HISTORIC HOPLAND CHURCH

by Mike Geniella

The Catholic Diocese of Santa Rosa is accepting bids for the landmark St. Francis Church in Hopland and surrounding mission property, according to an announcement by church officials this week.

The possible purchase of the historic 127-year-old redwood clad structure was hailed Friday by residents and former church parish lay leaders who envision the iconic local structure being converted into a community center.

Vintner John Fetzer said Friday that he, Golden Pig owner Julie Golden, and others who either live or do business in Hopland are behind a fledgling drive to secure title to a beloved church where generations of local families have been baptized, married, and eulogized.

“I am one of the people behind that effort, and I welcome the opportunity to assist in opening negotiations with the diocese,” said Fetzer.

Fetzer said local businesses, including hotels, restaurants, and specialty shops, need an event center. As important, said Fetzer, is a place where local families can celebrate special occasions, including anniversaries, birthdays, and weddings. Fetzer said art classes for kids, lecture space, and room for community discussions are other possible uses.

“We can return St. Francis to the center of our community,” said Fetzer.

Fetzer pledged to support the community drive. “I am asking everyone to join,” said Fetzer.

Loyal Catholic parishioners lost the church in 2020 when it was closed at the start of the Covid pandemic. Afterward, St. Francis was put on a list of church-owned properties to be considered for sale during the diocese’s bankruptcy proceedings.

Diocesan officials in December told church leaders in Ukiah that the Hopland church and the surrounding mission property would be sold.

No details, however, were provided nor any timeline set.

This week, however, the Rev. Peter Reddy, pastor of St. Mary’s Church in Ukiah, informed local church leaders that the diocese is “now ready to take bids on the property and buildings that make up the St. Francis mission” in Hopland.

The St. Francis Guild last year abandoned its efforts to keep St. Francis operating as a viable church because it could not secure a priest for even monthly Masses.

The guild then voted to transfer remaining community-raised church operating funds to the Mendocino Community Foundation. The money is being held in trust for 18 months for earnings and then grants are to be awarded specifically to the Hopland community.

“I believe the needs of a community center meets the intent,” said Pat Hartley.

Hartley and husband Dr. Lawrence Hartley, Ukiah residents, steadfastly supported St. Francis as attendance dwindled, and the church’s fate became increasingly uncertain at the diocesan level.

Hartley said she believes the efforts of Fetzer, Golden, and others will quickly attract widespread community support.

“It is the best possible solution. We will certainly help in anyway we can,” said Hartley.

Fetzer said Hopland community group representatives will seek a meeting with diocesan representatives to learn what it will take to secure the church and property for a community center.

“Our intent is for negotiations to begin as soon as possible so we can make this happen,” said Fetzer.

Diocesan attorney Reed Moran, and the diocese’s Vicar General Moses Brown could not be reached Friday for comment on the local announcement that bids for St. Francis are now being accepted.

John Fetzer’s family winery was instrumental in the emergence of Mendocino County as a recognized grape growing region.

For decades Fetzer has been a supporter of St. Francis. He still places a holiday wreath on church doors, a tradition he continued even after St. Francis’ closure by the diocese.

“It is an iconic structure for anyone who has lived, worked or attended Mass in Hopland,” said Fetzer.

Katie Gibson married into a family that has been tied to St. Francis since the 1890s. Her wedding on New Year’s Eve 2019 to Dino Gibson, whose 19th century ancestors donated land where St. Francis stands, was the church’s last.

Gibson said she learned Friday the diocese was moving ahead with a sale.

Gibson applauded Golden, Fetzer and others in the local business community who immediately stepped up to support buying St. Francis, and converting the local landmark into a community center.

Gibson said Hopland residents need a place “to gather, to celebrate as a community, and to create a special place for the next generation. I will do whatever I can to make this happen.”

CITY OF UKIAH TO CONSIDER NEXT STEPS ON ANNEXATION PROPOSAL AT APRIL 16 COUNCIL MEETING

The Ukiah City Council will consider whether to move forward with an annexation initiative during its regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday, April 16, 2025. If the Council provides direction, City staff would begin preparing a formal annexation application for submission to the Mendocino Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCo) later this year.

Over the past several months, City staff have conducted preliminary background work to assess what annexation would mean for public service delivery and have developed draft boundary maps for the Council’s consideration. If the Council authorizes the City to proceed, a more detailed analysis and formal planning process would follow.

“This is a key moment,” said Ukiah City Manager Sage Sangiacomo. “Staff has done the preliminary work to bring a thoughtful, well-researched proposal forward, and we are now awaiting direction from the City Council on whether to take the next steps toward annexation. We’ve already seen the benefits of greater regional coordination as Ukiah has led efforts to provide quality recreation, water, and emergency response services to areas beyond our physical city boundaries – annexation is a positive next step that would bring similar benefits of regional coordination for other public services.”

This action builds on policy direction given by the City Council in 2020 to explore annexation as a tool to support coordinated growth, service efficiency, and long-term planning in the greater Ukiah region. In recent years, Ukiah has implemented a series of proactive planning actions, positioning the City to now consider annexation as the responsible next step. These actions included adopting an updated 2040 General Plan in 2022 along with an updated Ukiah Municipal Service Review and Sphere of Influence Update. Additionally, the City worked with Ukiah Valley Fire District in coordinating emergency response through the Ukiah Valley Fire Authority annexation, and improved water resource management and supply through consolidation of smaller districts and creation of the Ukiah Valley Water Authority. The City has also secured a Master Tax Sharing Agreement with the County, successfully annexed City-owned properties and areas of the Western Hills, and passed a Right to Farm ordinance to protect agricultural land use within city boundaries. These existing service efficiencies and land use protections would be reflected and leveraged in a more comprehensive annexation effort that aligns formal city boundaries with existing urban growth patterns.

If pursued, annexation could:

Enable more reliable and coordinated government services, including police, code enforcement, and infrastructure maintenance.
Secure a stronger, more focused tax base to fund quality services and community amenities.
Give residents in annexed areas a voice in City elections and representation on issues that affect their neighborhoods.
Provide a foundation for sustainable housing and commercial development while protecting agricultural land and open space.

The potential annexation area includes land adjacent to current city boundaries, identified as likely to experience continued growth. These areas are currently served by a mix of county and special district services. A unified approach through City annexation could streamline service delivery, improve preparedness and planning efforts, and enhance responsiveness to community needs.

If the Council votes to proceed on April 16, Staff will move forward with preparing an application that would come back to the Council this summer for adoption and approval of any relevant analysis. If Council approves the application at that time, a formal public review process, led by Mendocino LAFCo, would begin later this year and include public hearings and opportunities for input.

The City Council will meet on Wednesday, April 16th, starting at 5:15 pm, at 300 Seminary Avenue. The full agenda packet and materials can be found online at www.cityofukiah.com/meetings.

Shannon Riley, Deputy City Manager

JOIN FORT BRAGG GARDEN CLUB for its Annual Spring Plant Sale on Saturday, April 26 from 10 - 2 at the Amerigas parking lot at 300 South Main Street. Native plants, landscape plants, succulents and vegetables will be for sale. There will also be a Pop-Up Boutique with some choice items for your home. All proceeds will benefit the Garden Club’s community projects.

A TALE OF TWO CEOs

by Jim Shields

The County’s Chief Executive Officer is an appointed position that is supposed to be subordinate to the Board of Supervisors since they are the ones responsible for hiring the person to serve in the post. However, in Carmel Angelo’s 12 years on the job, it appeared to many that she had flipped the script, and she became the tail that is wagging the dog.

One interesting aspect of the Angelo’s tenure is that the general public probably was more aware of the name and activities of a bureaucrat holding an administrative position than they were of the five elected supervisors who were the CEO’s boss and empowered with final decision authority basically in all matters.

Angelo also generated unvarnished high praise from some of the most popular and respected elected officials in this county.

Two that come immediately to mind are former Sheriff Tom Allman and former Supervisor John Pinches, but there are others for sure.

When Allman announced his retirement in 2019, he went out of his way to single out Angelo for praise and her stellar job performance. At that time, the UDJ reported, “Allman’s time as sheriff spans three boards of supervisors and three county CEOs. Allman gives current county CEO Carmel Angelo an A-plus rating. ‘Carmel is a workhorse. If not for her our reserve would not be where it is. She does her job and does it real well,’ Allman said, adding that he either met with or talked to Angelo every single Monday, a communication that helped him keep his department funded and working.” Pinches, who served on the BOS for a dozen years, told me that Angelo’s hiring was the “best thing to ever happen in Mendocino County” because of her unmatched skills as an administrator and budgeteer. Upon her retirement, Angelo spared no praises in assessing Pinches dozen years on the BOS, saying he was the “best” supervisor she served under. No arguments over that appraisal.

Pinches, who I worked with on many issues over the years, made his reputation mastering the intricacies of budget deep-diving. He told me once that most of his colleagues on the Board over the years “didn’t understand and didn’t seem to care much about the budget process. But with Carmel for the first time I had somebody I could work with and make some headway on improving this county’s finances. And keep in mind how many times the County was close to going over the cliff [bankruptcy] before she arrived.”

Pinches was always quick to defend Angelo whenever she came under fire from the public or media.

During a conversation we were having some years back where I said I would never tolerate her apparent (to me anyway) overbearing attitude and her sometimes publicly displayed authoritarian demeanor. Pinches replied, “Let me tell you something, Carmel Angelo has done more than anybody who was ever been in that position before to put this County on solid ground. She knows the ins and outs of the budget process and does a really good job of managing everything she’s responsible for. People who say she doesn’t, don’t know what they’re talking about or just don’t like her for other reasons.”

I understood fully what he was saying but as a former international president of a labor union, I also understand that there are certain dynamics inherent in the elected official vs. staff or bureaucrat relationship that bear extra scrutiny, and sometimes require “adjustments” to ensure the latter truly understand the former is the boss. One of the first lessons I learned about politics is notwithstanding all the encouraging words and assurances bureaucrats give elected officials about their primacy in the governing process, this is the bureaucratic credo: “I was here before you were elected and I’ll still be here after you are gone.”

When Angelo retired, in early 2022, the Board approved her hand-picked successor, Darcie Antle.

Antle’s three years on the job have been anything but a smooth ride given budgetary shortfalls (not her fault), ill-advised elimination of fiscal oversight and internal financial controls through forced consolidation of formerly independent financial departments, and related outside audits by the state of California over county financial reporting and organizational/operational mismanagement (resulting from BOS action or inaction).

Of course capping off these mostly self-inflicted problems is the infamous Cubbison affair, a one-of-its-kind, historical governing and political calamities to have occurred in the state of California.

Mike Geniella’s exceptional investigative reporting on the Cubbison fiasco revealed the underside of all the rocks buried in the political, legal, and criminal justice landscape of this county. These excerpt’s from Geniella’s reporting sum up this shameful chapter in local history.

“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 [Antle] testified under oath … 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.” … The documents showed that county payroll reports faithfully detailed how Kennedy’s extra pay had been distributed widely to administrators including CEO Darcie Antle and her staff over a three-year period yet no one questioned why. ‘It was all there if anyone had bothered to take a look,’ said Moorman.”

So there you have it. You might call all of this a tale of two CEOs.

Pinches and Allman’s positive takes on former-CEO Angelo may be a bit more accurate than many thought previously given her decision not to act in “willful ignorance” and she did “bother to take a look” at something that appeared to be not quite right.

Just giving the Devil her due.

(Jim Shields is the Mendocino County Observer’s editor and publisher, observer@pacific.net, the long-time district manager of the Laytonville County Water District, and is also chairman of the Laytonville Area Municipal Advisory Council. Listen to his radio program “This and That” every Saturday at 12 noon on KPFN 105.1 FM, also streamed live: http://www.kpfn.org)

FROM E-BAY, MORE POSTCARDS OF LOCAL INTEREST (via Marshall Newman)

Teepee burner at Burns Mill, located at the Carey Opening (?) near Philo.

Taylor's Hopland Court, Hopland, CA. Circa 1930s?

QUIET

It's midnight-thirty in Albion. If you're up, and around here, go outside and stand for a minute in the even moonlight from all directions at once through the sound-muffling blanket of fog. it's so quiet, so still.

Compare this to the all-day full-on blaring jangling roaring bullshit of yesterday, and all the yesterdays, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. I like it so much better at night, especially nights like this.

— Marco McClean

WILDFLOWER SHOW 2025

by Miriam Martinez

Have you seen those colorful signs around Anderson Valley? Yes, it's time for the AV Unity Club's Annual Wildflower Show. From May 3rd to May 4th the doors of June Hall at the Fairgrounds in Boonville will be open from 10 to 4 for visitors to come see the Mendocino County Wildflowers on display. Admission is Free!

You can purchase plants, many of which are pollinator, butterfly or hummingbird hosts. Bring a plant in for identification. Talk with the folks with the California Native Plants Society. Learn about ticks and Lyme disease. Kick back and have a cup of tea or a bite to eat. View the high school students’ Art Exhibit. Best of all, stroll through the displays of the many families of Wildflowers.

Saturday, we have two special events. First, the Community Lending Library will be open extra hours (from 10 to 4) and will be having a book sale. Usually books are $1 each for hardbound and 2 for $1 for paperbacks. Saturday May 3rd you get a full bag of books for only $5. Second, a talk on “Sudden Oak Death” will be presented at 2:00. You don't want to miss either event.

Both days there will be Silent Auctions of select items from local merchants, vintners, and artisans. Make a bid and gift yourself with dinner, wine, a tour, tasting, or a basket of fun around your cabin in the woods.

Proceeds from the Wildflower Show go to scholarships for graduating high school seniors, and other community projects sponsored by the Unity Club. Beautify your home, host pollinators, and contribute to scholarships; you can't do better than that.

Anderson Valley welcomes you to the Fairgrounds in Boonville for the AV Unity Club's Annual Wildflower Show May 3rd & 4th from 10 to 4. Admission is Free.

MUSSELWHITE IN MENDOCINO

Grammy Award-winning blues musician Charlie Musselwhite will perform on Thursday, July 24, 2025, as part of the 39th annual Mendocino Music Festival in Mendocino.

The festival takes place July 12-26. Tickets start at $25 and go on sale Monday, May 5, 2025. (Danny Clinch/Charlie Musselwhite via Bay City News)

THE PARROTS OF TELEGRAPH HILL

by Bruce Anderson

Unattended birds usually don't ride the bus, but they got on the 33 that day back in 2012.

Muni's 33 Stanyan line gets you a better look, faster, at The City than all the tour lines put together. You get on in the Richmond District behind the California Pacific Medical Center, not far from Washington and Cherry where the Zodiac killer shot a man I happened to know, a fellow cab driver named Paul Stine, a graduate student at San Francisco State.

Stine was 29 when the maniac cashed him in.

The year was 1969, and The City was a violently unhappy place. Bad vibes, as the hippies put it, had driven thousands of them north, back to the land at Anderson Valley, Albion, Southern Humboldt…

That night in October of 1969, Zodiac had leaned over from the rear seat of Stine's cab, and shot Stine in the back of the head. By his own account, which I'm not sure I believe, Zodiac then strolled off north into the Presidio. A few days later he mailed a piece of Stine's bloody shirt to the Chronicle to prove he'd done it, also warning the Bay Area that his next target would be a school bus “as the kiddies come tumbling off.” Stine's murder had been witnessed by young people looking out a window of a handsome home at Washington and Cherry. They phoned in the perp as a white man, but the dispatcher inexplicably described the shooter as “a black male.” The cops soon stopped a white male to ask him if he'd seen the black male. The white male said no. It is now assumed the cops had stopped Zodiac and let him go.

These days, The City is a very rich place, and has about as much per capita crime as Mendocino County. But it still has a lot of crazy people roaming the streets and riding the buses. On my way to catch the 33 the other day, and thinking about Zodiac and Paul Stine as I always do in that vicinity, a crazy guy on California Street — short, pudgy, longish hair and dressed in a sweatshirt, cargo pants, running shoes and carrying a squeegee — approached me from behind. He was a tweener, by which I mean he could have been the nut he turned out to be or merely a slob, but it's a rule of urban life that only the nuts accost people they don't know. In Mendocino County we're on a first name basis with all our neighbors.

“Do you know what Obama just did?” he asked me in an aggrieved voice.

I looked at him, which was all it took to get him to continue. “He just let 11 million bastards from Mexico into the country.”

Which country? I asked, breaking my own rule about not engaging street-wacks. After all, I engage the crazy people I do know every day in my work as a newspaper editor; I get my daily quota of wacks without searching them out.

“Our country, of course,” the squeegee guy continued. “Goddam, don't you pay attention? You better pay attention, buddy, because they're taking over.”

I said that I thought all the bastards already lived here, not only lived here but owned the place shore-to-shore, so what difference would a few more make?

“It's people like you who are destroying this country,” the street guy yelled. “Look in the mirror, you prick. It's you!”

I walked on, hooked a left on Arguello, right on Sacramento and there I was at the 33's Pac Heights terminus.

If you had only an hour to show visitors The City you could do it for two bucks on the 33, for 75 cents if your tourists are geezers.

The 33 skirts the park along Fulton, then Stanyan, a few blocks along Haight Street, up and over Twin Peaks with spectacular views of the city as the bus makes that exciting turn onto upper Market before plunging into the Castro and on down into the Mission, finally coming to rest at 25th and Potrero after a crucial stop at combat-qualified SF General Hospital, the place you want to be if you've been shot.

The passengers, as they climb on and off the 33, reflect The City's demographic. At the Richmond end of the line you get mostly Asians and old white people who get on and off at Geary, prosperous-looking people climb on and off in the upper Haight to upper Market, eccentrics of all descriptions get on and off at 18th and Castro, while Hispanics, who do The City's (and the County’s) heavy lifting, ride from the Mission to Pacific Heights where they do the work the gentry needs doing. Then, at the end of long no paid overtime days, back to the Mission.

And of course the 33, like all the Muni lines, sees lots of trendo-groove-o’s, the fashionably attired and tattooed young.

On a previous Friday, traveling from the Mission to the Richmond, I recognized the black woman driving the bus; I see her all the time. And I recognized two of the passengers, an odd Asian woman wearing heavy make-up who's always asleep until Arguello and Clement where she miraculously awakens and leaves the bus, and a wacky old coot, maybe my age, who wears pastel leisure suits and a pith helmet with scraggly bird feathers stuck into it at random angles. He sits in the back and occasionally shouts out versions of the same warnings. “Look out! They're coming up from behind!”

That day, the bus was tense. Some sag punks got on through the back door at Harrison and sat down by the crazy old guy, but didn't even look at him when he shouted, “Look out from behind!”

At 18th and Castro the parrots boarded the bus, six raucous young men dressed as women. One gal, the loudest, was wearing a big blonde wig and lipstick, and was throwing out what are now called 'f-bombs.' The parrots all sat down in the seats reserved, in theory, for the crippled and the elderly.

The driver immediately asked the guy in the wig to please watch his language. He ignored her and went on with a long, high decibel, f-bomb replete story about lost luggage at SFO, which the other parrots shrieked at like it was the funniest thing they'd ever heard.

“Please watch your language,” the driver said louder this time and was again ignored. “You're not in your living room,” she added, with enough force to make even these loons understand she was getting seriously angry with them, and this lady is quite formidable, as are all the women who drive for Muni. They deal with the gamut of America's social-psycho-emotional collapse every day and they're good at it.

Just then the old boy in the pith helmet yelled, “Look out! They're coming up from behind!” The gay boys looked back at him as if they were now the victims of an homophobic insult, as a nicely dressed woman of middle years halfway back suddenly announced, “I am Cherman!”

That declaration seemed to shut everyone up, and we all waited for her to flesh out its relevance.

“In Chermany we behave on the bus!” she said, obviously offended by the disorder she'd seen on the 33's journey up and over the hill.

“In Chermany,” she continued, “the driver is obeyed!”

The bus was quiet all the way to Geary where the parrots, doubly chastened by the driver and the Cherman, got off.

ROBERT TRIPPET

by Fred Gardner

“Stealing From the Rich: The Home-Stake Oil Swindle” by David C. McClintick (Evans, 1977) recounts how a Tulsa, Oklahoma lawyer named Robert Trippet masterminded the most lucrative Ponzi scheme of the 20th century. (Bernie Madoff began conning investors in the 1960s, but wasn't exposed until 2008.)

Trippet graduated from the University of Oklahoma law school in 1941. “While in law school,” McClintick recounts, “he married Helen Grey Simpson, daughter of a wealthy Tulsa oilman. The wedding was lavish and gay. At the reception, Helen Grey slid down the stair banister of her parents' home balanced on a mink coat.” Helen Grey came from a distinguished family. A great-great grandfather had been Attorney General when Oklahoma was still a territory. Her great-grandfather founded Home-Stake Oil & Gas Company in 1917. Her grandfather founded Home-Stake Royalty Corporation in 1929. Her father, Strother Simpson, had been a successful lawyer before taking over the family businesses in 1953. Helen Grey's husband, Robert Trippet, would found a company called Home-Stake Production in 1955.

Strother Simpson, who had a sterling reputation in Tulsa, served as titular president at the start. All power resided with Trippet, the executive vice-president, who raised capital mainly by selling stock to people who had invested in the Simpsons' Home-Stake companies. Trippet then bought properties on which to drill and began marketing Home-Stake Production as a tax shelter. (Investment in oil production can be deducted from taxable income. Thus a person making $200,000 in a year who invests $100,000 in oil production pays taxes on $100,000.) Trippet, according to McClintick, was “one of the first men in America fully to discern the appeal of oil tax shelters to wealthy people, and to devise a workable plan for marketing them on a large scale.”

From the start he siphoned off money for himself by various methods, such as setting up companies that supposedly provided services for Home-Stake and then pocketing the large sums paid to these companies. He had help in internal rip-offs from Charlie Plummer, a political fixer who Trippet employed as his top salesman. In February, 1957, certified public accountants auditing Home-Stake warned directors that Trippet had created five separate bank accounts into which he diverted company funds. Trippet gave the company a promissory note for $29,275 and closed the bank accounts. Home-Stake's secretary-treasurer, “disappointed that the board didn't take stronger action against Trippet,” resigned. Strother Simpson soon left the company.

Trippet made frequent trips from Tulsa to Manhattan, Los Angeles and Washington DC, to cultivate financiers, entertainers and lawyers – investors whose success, fame and influence would signal that Home-Stake Production was a very good buy. Sales soared after Trippet's Washington-based lawyers got approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission in 1964 for Home-Stake's first public-offering prospectus. An SEC-approved prospectus, McClintick points out, can be “a more effective swindling device than a totally unregulated piece of sales literature.”

Unlike oil companies that drilled exploratory holes, Home-Stake –according to Trippet's persuasive pitch– acquired oil fields that were no longer productive by conventional pumping methods, and then forced out the residual oil by injecting water or steam at high pressure. Whereas wildcat drilling was a gamble, Home-Stake was extracting oil known to be in the ground –”free storage,” Trippet joked to prospective investors. He was offering a tax-shelter that would also be a big money-maker.

Trippet successfully lured chairmen, presidents, CEOs and many high-ranking executives from General Electric, Pepsi-Cola, Citibank, Morgan Guaranty Trust, Walgreens, American Express, Procter & Gamble, Goodyear, Lazard Freres, Neiman-Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman, McKinnon, J. Walter Thompson, Armour, Eastman Dillon, Western Union, Bethlehem Steel, Macy's, Heublein, Manufacturers Hanover Trust, Warner-Lambert, Warner Bros., Salomon Brothers, Gannett, Perkin-Elmer, National Cash Register, Singer, Merrill-Lynch, Dean Witter, International Telephone & Telegraph, and other major companies.

Investors from the entertainment world included Alan Alda, Ed Ames, David Begelmann (president of Columbia pictures) Jack Benny, Candace Bergen, Jacqueline Bisset, Bill Blass, Joseph Bologna, Renee Taylor, Barbara Streisand, Elliot Gould, Martin Bregman, Dianne Carroll, David Cassidy, Julia Cassini, Saul Chaplin, Tony Curtis, Bob Dylan, Phil D'Antoni (producer of The French Connection), Sandy Dennis, Phyllis Diller, Faye Dunaway, Mia Farrow, Freddie Fields, Bobbie Gentry, Leopold Godolsky, Buddy Hackett, Shirley Jones, Walter Matthau, Liza Minnelli, Thurman Munson, Ozzie Nelson, Mike Nichols, Tony Roberts, Buffy Sainte Marie, Barbara Walters, Andy Williams, and Jonathan Winters.

Some 36 partners in leading New York and Washington law firms bought into Home-Stake drilling programs. Their names meant nothing to your correspondent, except for Thomas E. Dewey, the former governor of NY who had been favored to defeat Harry Truman for the presidency in 1948.

McClintick includes examples of how the inside info was passed around. (Sharing investment tips seems to be a form of intimacy among the rich and famous.) “'I first heard about Home-Stake when I walked into the locker room of my country club one Sunday morning to play golf,” recalls William H. Morton, who was soon to become president of American Express. 'I ran into two friends of mine. One of them heads one of the biggest banks in the world. They said, “Bill, you should be in on this…”'“

Comedian Phyllis Diller wasn't joking when she recalled, “I knew that anything Andy Williams was into had to be pure gold.”

Why did Bob Dylan invest $38,000 in Trippet's 1967 drilling program and another $120,000 in '69? My Dylanest friend says, “What to buy would not have been Dylan's call. He had a financial professional making those decisions –I think his name was Gilbert Haas. I'd heard he put Bob into Manhattan real estate.”

Every year Home-Stake's promotional literature, in violation of SEC rules, understated the number of “drilling units” being sold, thus diluting the potential value of each unit. "The SEC has only enough manpower to enforce the law in relatively few cases," wrote McClintick in 1977. Today Project 25 decimate the Securities and Exchange Commission and weaken the Internal Revenue Service, but as the Home-Stake swindle shows, these agencies weren't very potent back in the day, especially when it came to making the very rich abide by the rules.

Trippet's eldest daughter, Mary Susan – known as "Sudi" to family and friends, and as "Pebbles" later in life – grew up knowing that her father was preoccupied with his work. He used one room of their comfortable house as an office, and spent a lot of time in there at the typewriter. She did not know or even suspect that he was running a con. She sensed that her mother, once high-spirited, had become acquiescent in a loveless marriage. She began drinking heavily.

“Your basic dysfunctional family,” says Pebbles. She began suffering painful migraines in childhood. Her identity as a political activist emerged when she was in high school, befriending a Black classmate and supporting the NAACP in integrating Tulsa lunchrooms. She was offended by country-club capitalism and every form of inequality, oppression and repression. She left Tulsa in 1960 for the University of Wisconsin, hoping to meet some fellow travelers. Her two younger sisters would have no buffer from the household tension.

Peak Profits

Home-Stake Production's top salesmen were called vice-presidents. “For the most part,” McClintick observes, “they were lawyers, CPAs, or financial advisors whose clients depended on them to be objective in assessing investment possibilities, and free from conflicts of interest.” Harry Fitzgerald, who had been laid low by alcohol before Tripped helped steer him to AA, was in charge of the sales network. Fitzgerald was a charming son of the Tulsa elite who could have been a major league baseball player or a Joyce scholar. Trippet himself was the chief salesman, drafting all the brochures and pitches.

“Trippet wrote far more letters than the typical businessman,” according to McClintick. “He had an extraordinary ability to bolster, through letters, his image as an astute, conscientious, and capable oil man… Once he had an investor's money, Trippet began sending quarterly progress reports saying the drilling was producing more oil than originally expected. The investor usually would begin getting small checks about nine months to a year after making his initial investment. Trippet made sure the checks always exceeded the extremely small amounts promised for the first two years.” (It takes a few years for oil wells to reach peak productivity.)

“Many investors were so impressed that they signed on for a second and a third year. They had no reason to be particularly suspicious until the fourth or fifth year, when payments were supposed to rise dramatically and didn't.”

A New York businessman named William Rosenblatt began expressing doubts when his family's payout for 1962 was $1,000, instead of the $3,550 projected when he invested in Home-Stake four years earlier. “Now Trippet had to deal with a dilemma that eventually confronts any Ponzi swindler,” writes McClintick. “He began by making plausible excuses about why drilling wasn't going as well as expected. Most of the investors were so wealthy and had so many investments to keep track of, and Trippet had developed such rapport with them, that he managed to deflect many complaints for extended periods with nothing more than excuses… Complaints from Rosenblatt and others were only a minor annoyance for Trippet in December, 1962. He had collected another $4,195,368 from investors during the year.”

Rosenblatt persisted. In 1963 Trippet suggested that his family donate some of their Home-Stake holdings to charity. This, McClintick explains, “was an option devised specifically to placate disgruntled investors. Home-Stake prepared reports that set an artificially high value on the company's billing shares. Then it proposed that the investor donate his shares to a university, hospital, or other charitable organization and take a second tax write off (the first having been taken for the initial investment). The evaluation report was given to the investor to show to the IRS if it raised questions about the value of the second deduction. It rarely did in the early years… Trippet frequently cited tax savings in trying to minimize the significance of investor losses.”

Before 1964 Home-Stake's sales brochures had described the drilling programs and projected profits exceeding 400%. The company wasn't allowed to make such claims in its prospectus, but salesmen continued to circulate them in a looseleaf binder known as the “Black Book.” Each investor got a Black Book with his name embossed in gold letters on the cover. The 1966 Black Book predicted great success for Home-Stake's new drilling programs in Santa Maria, California: “Steamflooding is without doubt the most important development in the secondary recovery industry. Success ratios are good, and outstanding results are being achieved. From four specific projects we calculate that we will be able to recover 18,863,1o0 barrels of oil.” (How to Lie With Statistics.)

Although Home-Stake drilled approximately 110 holes in Santa Maria properties, fewer than half became functioning wells. Elaborate charades were staged for investors. “Visitors were driven to a particular well that appeared to be pumping oil from the ground,” McClintick recounts. “Expensively tailored men, sometimes accompanied by their mink-wrapped wives, would step from the station wagon, taking care to avoid getting too close to the greasy equipment or fieldworkers. On cue, a roustabout would turn a valve at the base of the well, and what appeared to be oil would gush forth into a jar. The valve would be closed. The jar would be taken over and shown to the investors. They would look at each other, smile, nod, and mumble how impressive it or was.

“What they weren't told was that that particular well had malfunctioned and was rigged so that it would appear to be pumping oil from the ground when it really wasn't. What they were seeing wasn't oil; it was kerosene distillate, a substance that was circulated through some wells to keep them free of sand. Then the party would move onto another well – a functioning one that was equipped with a squirter –a nozzle-like device that, when turned on, would shoot a pressurized stream of oil against the face of a nearby bluff. Company staffers would take colored photographs of the investors standing next to the squirter as a chatty oil so they would have a tangible souvenir of their visit.

“The field workers hated the squirters because after the visitors left, the workers were required to clean up the oil that had been shot against the bluff. It was an extremely messy and time-consuming task. But Trippet insisted on the demonstration and gave detailed instructions on how the photographs of investors were to be taken. 'You have to put the stream of water between you and the subject and also have to crouch down…”

Home-Stake raked in $9,499,430 in 1965 and $10,468,000 in 1966 from investors. The Rosenblatts had hired a Tulsa lawyer to negotiate a settlement, but Trippet was unyielding. They finally sued in September, 1966, claiming they'd been duped by false profit projections and that Trippet was stealing from the company. “The suit was on public file in the federal courthouse, but it attracted little attention,” notes McClintick. Trippet reckoned correctly that the Rosenblatts' legal action –which had been joined by group of Memphis investors– would remain below the radar unless and until it came to trial.

When a famous celebrity or powerful businessman wanted out they would be accommodated. In 1967 Home-Stake agreed, McClintick writes, “to re-purchase interests for which Barbra Streisand had paid $238,545, leaving her only with a 1964 investment that cost her $28,200… The company could continue to claim her as an investor.”

Trippet made adept apologies. “Computer error” was a favorite. When the son of Henry Luce (founder of Time, Inc.) noticed that his pay-outs were declining, Trippet responded, “I am hastening to send you a correction check. I want to apologize for these errors on programming our computer. When the first error was made, it was programmed in permanently and has grown proportionately each time. There is no excuse for this. It reflects the kind of clerical help one is able to obtain these days.”

On December 29, 1967, Trippet agreed to buy back most of the Rosenblatts' holdings, and they and their Memphis co-plaintiffs dropped their suit. Thus no allegations against him were heard in court. The Tulsa lawyer who filed the suit tried and failed to interest the regional office of the SEC in Home-Stake's shenanigans. Charlie Plummer, the salesman who had sold the Memphis investors on Home-Stake, asphyxiated himself in his garage, holding a note that said “Tired of living.”

Trippet muted potential whistle-blowers within the ranks by paying well (“golden handcuffs,” one employee recalled) and buying off potential whistleblowers. When a retired Home-Stake petroleum engineer threatened to write an exposé, he accepted a $3,600 “consulting fee” and wrote nothing. “Stealing From the Rich” provides many examples of Trippet paying hush-money.

McClintick: “As Home-Stake's drilling declined, its sales literature became more optimistic.” The 1967 annual report claimed that the company had developed “a stainless steel wire-wrap liner to keep sand out of the oil… that would enable the company to produce many millions of barrels of oil in a very economical way.” The report was not signed by an independent accounting firm. “Trippet took the calculated risk that few investors would bother to question the lack of independent accounting certification.” Annual sales kept rising. “Most of the corporate executives and lawyers in New York Washington and Los Angeles who invested in 1968 were back again in 1969 with even more money… A newcomer was Dr. Arthur Sackler (in for $200,000).”

In 1970 the SEC requested a meeting with Trippet in Washington. He sent Fitzgerald in his place, saying, “I'm not gonna let those Jew SOBs tell me how to run my company. They can go fuck themselves.”

When the SEC was slow to approve Home-Stake's prospectus, Trippet did not feel threatened. He well understood, as McClintick explains, “Many investors attitude toward prospectuses in general was cynical. The SEC was forever making companies warn investors about the 'high risk' of this or the 'speculative nature' of that. Home-Stake retained a unique aura because of the prominence and sophistication of its clients.”

In 1970 Home-Stake took in more than $23 million. That November a New Yorker named Bernhardt Denmark complained to Tulsa lawyer R. Dobie Langenkamp that he was getting a lower return from Home-Stake than a friend who'd made an identical investment. Langenkamp confirmed the fact. (“Trippet had established a hierarchy of 16 pay categories,” McClintick explains, “ranging from 'full pay' for people he wanted to appease to zero for charities and others he didn't fear.”) Langenkamp also realized that Home-Stake had not recovered much oil over the years, but had taken in $100 million from investors. When he drafted a lawsuit accusing the company of fraud, Trippet offered Denmark a refund. The suit was not filed.

Beginning of the End

Knowing that his scam couldn't last, Trippet escalated his diversion of Home-Stake assets (mostly money from investors, not from oil sales) to entities he had created and controlled. The workforce in the fields was cut, and production kept declining. Home-Stake made a loan of approximately $3 million to Trippet via a crony.

The SEC finally sued Home-Stake in February, 1971 for circulating their Black Book without registering it, and knowing that the estimates of oil to be recovered were vastly exaggerated. Trippet, according to McClintick, “was relieved that the agency had focused only on the 1970 program and had failed to penetrate the overall fraud. But outwardly Trippet displayed a great deal of righteous indignation.”

In a memo to Home-Stake officers and key staffers, Trippet wrote, “The lawsuit is without merit and we will defend it vigorously.” In April '71 Home-Stake settled the SEC suit by agreeing to offer a refund to investors in the 1970 drilling program and putting $23 million in escrow. Investors were advised that “Some of the information dispensed in 1970 was misleading or without foundation,” and given five months to request payback. McClintick waxes psychological: “Trippet bet that when wealthy investors were told about disappointing profits, they would rationalize that they had still been prudent investors because they had sheltered their money from taxes… By donating their stock to charity, the swindled investor could maintain a positive self image… In the end only a little more than $5 million was reclaimed, leaving Home-Stake with more than $18 million.

“It seems remarkable that Home-Stake raised any new money at all in 1971,” writes McClintick, but they took in nearly $14 million. George J.W. Goodman, an acclaimed financial expert who wrote two best sellers under the name “Adam Smith,” invested $120,000. But '71 was the first year that the company didn't meet its sales goal. Questions about its legitimacy were spreading. In April Home-Stake's treasurer, Elmer Kunkel, resigned.

Harry Fitzgerald, the ace salesman, resigned in July. Trippet offered him a raise. He turned it down. Trippet offered to put $500,000 in Fitzgerald's wife's bank account “and nobody would ever know where it came from.” Fitzgerald nixed the bribe. Soon Fitzgerald and his wife were harassed by anonymous phone calls. Threats were made against their children. Fitzgerald left town. In Los Angeles he got an anonymous letter claiming that photos of him having sex with another woman would be sent to his wife if he didn't pay $30,000. The DA's office taped a follow-up phone call –Fitzgerald stalled, said he was trying to raise the money– but the harasser was not heard from after that. The reader infers that Trippet used mobster tactics in a vain attempt to pressure Fitzgerald to rejoin the company.

In Washington, attorney Harry Heller (formerly an assistant director of the SEC's corporate finance division), who had been steering Home-Stake's prospectus through the approval process since '64, was hearing rumors that the company was spending much less on drilling than it had raised from investors for that purpose. He confirmed the truth from Conrad Greer, the engineer in charge of the Santa Maria properties. Greer resigned in September, but Trippet convinced him to stay on for a month. On October 8 Greer accompanied Trippet to a meeting in New York with an IRS agent who was auditing the tax returns of Faye Dunaway. The agent was an engineer who specialized in evaluating oil companies. His concerns were not allayed. He recommended that the actress's $47,298 gift deduction be cut to $7,898.

Also in October '71 the Chase Manhattan Bank, acting as executor on behalf of two deceased investors, hired Dobie Langenkamp to sue Home-Stake in federal court in Tulsa. “It was the first suit formally to allege that Home-Stake was a Ponzi scheme,” writes McClintick. “A headline in the Tulsa World read: 'NY Bank Alleges Fraud in 'Pyramid' Suit Here.' But the lawsuit received no publicity elsewhere, and there weren't any Home-Stake investors in Tulsa. The suit was settled quietly a month later, when Home-Stake agreed to pay $303,690.”

In December Harry Heller dropped Trippet as a client. Heller had been outraged to learn of a $3.2 million deposit Trippet made in 1969 with a bank in the Bahamas. Trippet promised to return the funds, but was scheming to keep $2,650,000. (This maneuver was too complex for your correspondent to understand, let alone summarize. Trippet had described it jokingly to Fitzgerald as “the great train robbery.”)

In 1972 Home-Stake investors accelerated their gifts to charities. Corporate chieftains often made donations to their alma maters. Thomas Gates, a former Secretary of Defense, gave more than half his Home-Stake stake to the University of Pennsyvania. Candice Bergen favored the Library of Congress; Tony Curtis, the American Cancer Society; Jack Benny, the Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles.

Despite its fraying reputation, Home-Stake took in $5.4 million in '72. Investors were lured with a plan to drill gas wells in Ohio. One gullible investor explained, “I fell for the excuses… We received a lot of clippings from the Wall St. Journal that gas is the thing of the future.” When he didn't “hit a bonanza,” he was mollified by the tax deductions.

Con vs. Con

If the chapters of McClintick's book had titles instead of numbers, 11 could have been called “Con vs. Con.” With his Ponzi scheme nearing its inevitable collapse, Trippet put out word that his health was failing and he was seeking new management for Home-Stake. A mutual acquaintance told Mike Riebold, a Mexico businessman with an urgent need for cash, that Home-Stake had $5.4 million in assets from its 1972 drilling program. Also, that Trippet “had had his problems in the past years, mainly with the SEC and the IRS, and he was tired of fighting the battle and he was looking to find management that he would turn the company over to, who could carry forward with Home-Stake Production and wouldn't go out of its way, go back into past history and dig up things.”

As of May, 1973, Riebold had squandered the money his three small oil, gas, and mining companies had taken in from investors, and most of the $6 million he had borrowed in a series of loans from the First National Bank in Albuquerque. To get these mostly-unsecured loans, Riebold had bribed a senior vice-president at the bank, Don Morgan, with $27,000 in cash and a big chunk of stock in his American Fuels company. Both men knew that the illegal loans would be exposed at the next audit by federal bank examiners.

A Home-Stake executive with friends in Albuquerque warned Trippet that Riebold was considered “a rascal, unscrupulous, cheat, liar and confidence man. He had fleeced everybody that had had any association with him.” Trippet was not put off. “He held at least a dozen meetings with Riebold and his henchmen over the next several weeks,” McClintick recounts. Plans were made for one of Riebold's men, Carlos Robinson, to become CEO of Home-Stake as of June 18. Trippet notified stockholders by letter that Robinson had “extensive experience in all management phases of the oil and gas industry as an independent operator.” Also, that company headquarters might be moved to Denver or Houston.

Riebold's takeover of Home-Stake was completed July 10 when three more of his men were appointed directors and two long-time directors resigned. Carlos Robinson became CEO and Trippet –by pre-arrangement with Riebold– was fired. This, McClintick explains, “would make it easier for him to blame the new management for any problems discovered at the company.”

Trippet's input was still needed, however, and he didn't vacate his office. He made a list of assets that Riebold could sell quickly for cash. He provided on-the-job training for the new directors. (One was an insurance agent, one a physician, and one the manufacturer of a cleaning compound.) Trippet notified his long-time banker at First National of Tulsa that he was leaving Home-Stake for health reasons, and introduced him to Riebold and Robinson. They immediately transferred $3,750,000 to Albuquerque, thus allaying suspicions of the bank examiner who had questioned Morgan about his loans to Riebold.

Dobie Langenkamp was preparing a suit for a group of disgruntled New York investors who had put more than $4 million into Home-Stake over the years. ”On July 18 he drove to Oklahoma City and got a temporary restraining order barring the removal of Home-Stake funds or records from Tulsa.” He was too late to block the transaction. Also on July 18 the under-staffed Washington DC office of the SEC authorized the over-extended Fort Worth office (which has jurisdiction over Tulsa) to swoop down on Home-Stake. Two investigators arrived on the tenth floor of the Philtower Building to serve subpoenas on company officers and warn them not to conceal or remove evidence. McClintick describes Trippet as “smooth and cordial as he accepted his subpoena with a smile.”

Langenkamp's next move was to have a court order served on Carlos Robinson with a demand that the money be returned from Albuquerque to Tulsa. Robinson told Riebold he was scared, wanted them to comply. Realizing he had no choice, Riebold got unsecured loans for $2,880,000 from First National Bank, where Don Morgan was no longer being scrutinized by a bank examiner. Trippet would be relegated to a small office on a lower floor and Robinson had the locks changed on the main office suite.

Another legal front was opened on July 30 by William Wineburg, a San Francisco lawyer representing disgruntled investors who arrived at Home-Stake's office with two assistants, two clerical workers, a portable microfilm machine and court permission to inspect the company's books. SEC investigators joined Wineburg in examining Home-Stake's records. Eventually they came across a print-out of investors' names, each with a mysterious number alongside it. It turned out to be proof of unequal pay to investors –the essence of a Ponzi scheme. Wineburg filed his suit September 6. The SEC filed suit the next day.

The IRS was on the case, too, McClintick writes “after years of sporadic auditing of a few Home-Stake investors by local offices,” McClintick notes. “For the most part, the IRS compromised on those audits, leaving intact major portions of the investors' deductions. By the late summer of 1973, however, the IRS was challenging hundreds of drilling and gift write-offs.” Home-Stake was found to owe almost $1o million in back taxes for 1969 alone! The directors installed by Riebold got legal help and sued Trippet and his top executives for fraud, theft, and mismanagement. Because Home-Stake was insured against employee dishonesty, they also filed a claim with Aetna, alleging that Trippet had stolen more than $4 million from the company.”

On September 20 Home-Stake was declared officially insolvent. A retired judge was appointed trustee. “The investors were protected from further fraud,” McClintick writes, “but nobody cheered.” Home-Stake had taken in slightly more than $140 million over 18 years. It had paid out at most $50 million, and its common stock tanked from $12 million to zero. Because the investors' tax deductions were mostly fraudulent, the ultimate victim would be the US Treasury –meaning US taxpayers.”

Soft Landing

McClintick foreshadows the ultimate outcome: “If a swindle is as complex as Trippet's and the swindler is as smart and as well-financed as he, proving him guilty of a crime or liable for damages usually is far from simple, no matter how blatant the fraud may appear to be. White-collar criminals frequently emerge from litigation and the criminal-justice process with light punishment and much of their fortunes in tact.”

The SEC prepared a criminal indictment for the Justice Department to prosecute. The Manhattan US Attorney's office wanted the case, but the DOJ assigned it to Los Angeles, where the head of the fraud and special prosecutions units, Stephen Wilson, had “an impressive string of convictions to his credit.”

Wilson spent months interviewing witnesses and prepared an indictment that dated the conspiracy from the launch of Home-Stake in April, 1955. Trippet was accused of 22 counts of securities fraud and making false statements in SEC prospectuses; 12 counts of filing false income-tax returns; and three counts of using the US mail to defraud.

“At the trial, all of the evidence will come out,” Trippet wrote in a statement to the media, “and I sincerely believe that… my innocence will be established.” He and his co-defendants then sought a change of venue, citing what McClintick terms “an obscure provision of federal law that permits people accused of certain tax crimes to be tried in the jurisdiction where they live.”

The DOJ maneuvered to keep the case in L.A., but a federal judge –after eight months of pondering– decided it should be held in Tulsa. “Stephen Wilson's duties as head of the Los Angeles fraud and special prosecutions unit prevented him from handling a major trial outside Los Angeles,” McClintick explains. The case was handed off to William Hawes, 31, a relatively inexperienced lawyer who simplified his task by re-writing the indictment. Instead of alleging that the conspiracy began in 1955, the new indictment said it started in 1967. Important aspects of the scam were ignored. Allegations against four defendants were dismissed.

In Tulsa the suit would be tried by Allen Barrow, the chief federal judge, who had known Trippet since their days at law school. Trippet added a fourth lawyer to his team –Patrick Malloy, who McClintick describes as “known to be particularly adept at plea-bargaining and for being a close friend of Judge Barrow.” Malloy then negotiated a deal whereby Trippet would plead “no contest” and get off light. The other defendants made similar arrangements, except for Norman Cross, who had been Home-Stake's CPA. McClintick covered his trial for the Wall St. Journal. He was appalled by Judge Barrow's obvious bias and the prosecution's incompetence.

The judge, according to McClintick, “lost few opportunities to display… his disdain for the rich, out-of-state city slickers who claimed to have been cheated by Bob Trippet… His prejudices and his limitations as a judge were on display throughout. 'When the so-called Okies left Oklahoma, it improved the IQ of Oklahoma and California also,' he told a Los Angeles witness who had invested heavily in Home-Stake. Of entertainment celebrities Barrow said, 'I wouldn't go across the street to get a photograph of one upside down standing on their head.' He showed a remarkable propensity for misstating certain facts of the Home-Stake case and portraying the wealthy investors as stupid, greedy and undeserving of sympathy.”

In a farcical flourish, Barrow ordered Trippet, along with Harry Fitzgerald and a Home-Stake VP named Simms, to spend 24 hours in jail before he sentenced them. Then –playing to a crowd that knew the fix was in– the judge pretended to scold Trippet, who pretended to have learned his lesson.

Barrow: Mr. Trippet, you have spent a night in jail, a day. I don't think you liked what you saw, did you?

Trippet: No, your honor. I think that the experience I have had would have a big impact on anybody. The room was fully spotlighted all night long, very noisy, and I slept not a wink, and I remember it vividly.”

Barrow: I imagine you will remember it forever.

Trippet: I am sure I will.

Barrow: But you can imagine what 50 years would be like then.

Trippet: Yes, sir.

Excused, Trippet “settled into a chair at the defense table, leaned back, and surveyed the scene like the chairman of the board he once was.”

(McClintick, a reporter, occasionally writes like a novelist.)

“Barrow then called on his long-time friend and confidant, Pat Malloy, the lawyer who had negotiated the no-contest plea for Trippet. Malloy –a bluff Irishman with long silver hair, a flushed face, and a small potbelly– orated for 15 minutes. He pleaded for mercy for his client. He said Trippet entered his plea not because he was guilty but because of the 'persistent and recurrent tragic serious health problems plaguing not only the defendant, but also members of his family.'

In addition, the Home-Stake criminal case had been based mainly on “falsehoods originally initiated by the press. A lack of serious investigation and a flair for sensationalism and the dramatic all led to the appearance in the Wall St. Journal of a feature article that catapulted the California prosecutors into the hurried and irresponsible indictments – 'Ponzi scheme,' 'pink pipes,' 'black books' 'missing money stashed in Swiss bank accounts,' catchphrases, movie stuff, Arthur Haley novel material. But not evidence. Fortunately, your honor, still in this country newspapers do not convict when the judges involved are guided by the evidence, not headlines, and by fact, not pressure…'“

McClintick responds in a footnote: “It would seem wise to say for the record that the press initiated nothing in the Home-Stake case… As Malloy and Judge Barrow knew or should have known, the original Wall St,Journal article and other stories reported the existence of some 30 lawsuits and voluminous other documents filed months earlier by the SEC and well over 100 investors. The lawsuits asserted unanimously that Home-Stake had operated a giant Ponzi scheme and offered substantial evidence to support their allegations.”

By the time Robert Trippet began fending off suits from those he had bilked, most of his Home-Stake millions had been put into Helen Grey's accounts. His “no contest” plea –never having admitted guilt– would help him greatly in civil litigation.

In 1982 "Stealing from the Rich" was re-issued with an epilog from McClintick:

“By the autumn of 1982, five years after the publication of this book, the Home-Stake litigation had grown into one of the most complex protracted securities and tax fraud cases in history. Depositions have been taken from more than 100 witnesses and generated more than 100,000 pages of transcript. Tens of thousands of documents had been analyzed. But only mixed results had flowed from the investors' attempts to recover funds from convicted conspirator Robert Trippet, the Home-Stake corporation and the other alleged swindlers. The IRS's efforts to collect back taxes both from Home-Stake and the investors had fared no better.

“After initially pressing a tax claim of $31.3 million against the Home-Stake Production Company, the IRS settled for only $3.2 million, or about 10 cents on the dollar –a settlement typical of IRS capitulation to corporate taxpayers.”

The last of the civil suits wasn't settled until 1996. Robert Trippet died in 2000, Helen Grey in 2004.

The Rebel Girl

Pebbles Trippet learned something useful from her old man, even though she had no interest in his business affairs. He took her to Tulsa Oiler games and taught her the basics of baseball and how to keep score. He taught her how to drive stick shift on a classic 1950 Mercury (the family's second car, the first always being a Cadillac) And it must have been from him that she inherited her extraordinary drive (as in “determination to go all the way.”)

Pebbles had suffered intractable migraine headaches since early childhood. When she began smoking marijuana in the 1960s, she realized it had a palliative effect. It wasn't until she moved to San Francisco in 1972 that legalizing the herb became her primary focus as an activist.

In 2017 NBC San Francisco aired a documentary that gave Pebbles proper credit for advancing the movement. Peter Coyote narrated the 45-minute video, which used the Ken Burns template of integrated interviews, still photos and spoken commentary.

Coyote: With the war winding down, Trippet turned her organizing skills to the growing marijuana movement. In 1972 she helped get the California Marijuana Initiative on the Ballot. Proposition 19 would be the first time Americans could vote on marijuana. It was doomed to fail, but…”

Trippet: It was a surprisingly good showing. We won 33% of the vote. Out of the blue. No one had ever thought of it before… The public had no idea what it thought. We felt that was a tremendous victory… ‘Let’s go on in 1974 and let’s do it again!”

Coyote: Trippet had been using cannabis to control her migraines for years. She carried low-potency joints in her car. (Close-up of rolled joints)… Every time she was arrested, she argued that it was her medicine. And she was arrested a lot.”

Trippet: I was busted 10 times in 10 years in five counties. It was usually on the road driving late at night. My Sonoma County bust came in 1990. My Marin County bust in 1992. My Contra Costa bust in 1994, and also the Humboldt County bust and the Palo Alto bust.”

Coyote: Trippet had a plan: aim for the Supreme Court. She went to the law library at UC Berkeley and read up on every case involving marijuana. Trippet learned how to file court papers and how to defend herself… She found hope in the US Constitution.”

Trippet summarizes the ways in which she saw marijuana prohibition as unconstitutional: “It’s cruel punishment to punish a medical act… It wasn’t statutory law, it wasn’t California law, but I had ‘Unreasonable searches and seizures’ of medicine' and ‘Unequal protection’ compared to other drugs.”

Coyote: Trippet also had one key supporter: Dr. Tod Mikuriya, a psychiatrist who lived in Berkeley He was also a director of marijuana research for the National Institute of Mental Health. In 1967 he published a book titled Marijuana Medical Papers.” [Mikuriya’s brief stint at NIMH had ended in ’67. His anthology of pre-prohibition medical literature on cannabis was self-published in 1973.]

Trippet: Every county I would bring him to the stand and he would testify ‘Yes, I believe that she uses it legitimately.’ It made all the difference, because if I’d had no advocate, I’d just have been up there flailing around about my Constitutional rights.”

Coyote: When she lost at one level the appeal moved up to a higher court because she was claiming Constitutional rights… In the mid-1990s her argument for the right to transport marijuana for medical purposes was sent to the US Supreme Court.

Trippet: My papers went to the Supreme Court and they all read it. And of course I was denied a hearing on these Constitutional grounds. The idea is simple: you must be able to carry with you the medicine you can legally possess, or it’s unequal with every other medicine.”

Coyote: In 1996 Proposition 215 legalized medical marijuana in California but it left out one key element: it was still illegal to transport marijuana. [Prop 215 was also silent on distribution.]

Trippet: What about transporting? It wasn’t there. That’s because they [the primary drafters] thought ‘It’ll make us lose, people will think we’re smuggling.’ So they left it out.”

Coyote: But by this time Trippet had spent decades building the legal foundation for the transportation of medicinal marijuana. The California Supreme Court used her work to create what the justices called ‘The Trippet Standard.’ (Shot of federal court building.)

Trippet: Somebody had to argue it and include it, so I did. And they granted transportation as ‘the implicit right.’ Those are their words! Wow! Perfect!”

Coyote: The Trippet standard also established how much marijuana a person could carry based on their medical condition. It had taken three decades, a dozen arrests, and two years in various jails, but Pebbles Trippet had made it possible for California to have an entirely legal marijuana business.”

The segment ends with Trippet explaining why “to lose is a good thing… because if you lose, you have the opportunity to win higher for everybody. That’s where you set precedent.”

Trippet amplified her point to O’Shaughnessy’s: ”Lawyers have largely been discouraged from pursuing appeals once their clients lose at trial or take a plea, since the probability of winning on appeal is slim, only two to three percent.. When Tony Serra discovered this disparity in his own practice, he told me, ‘Forget it. I want to win.’ He turned [his efforts] to winning at jury trial where there is no need to appeal.

“But the problem with that is that very few cannabis defendants go to trial —two to five percent. And even fewer win, and most can’t afford the appeal process. So the laws by and large have remained unchallenged for decades; the defense bar is trained in criminal, not civil, law. We have not built an infrastructure of lawyers schooled in civil constitutional challenges. So a marijuana challenge comparable to Roe v Wade eludes us and prohibition persists.

“I hold the lawyers responsible for this. Most defense lawyers rely on a statutory motion to suppress the evidence, based on no probable cause or lack of a warrant, or whatever —so they have nowhere to go once they lose on appeal. The 1538.5 suppression motion is the end of the line for appeals —unless constitutional rights are also argued.

“Usually on appeal lawyers use the suppression motion to get rid of the evidence, which I was instinctively opposed to because I wanted to bring out the evidence, not suppress it… Any lawyer could do the same thing but they are too afraid of losing their reputation on a futile or failed attempt, so they stop at the suppression-motion stage and don’t even try. That’s why I say ‘losing is a good thing.” If you’re incapable of accepting loss, you’re incapable of getting a win.

“When Prop 215 passed, I suddenly had new statutory rights, which I of course incorporated. They could not ignore someone with knowledge and staying power. Being ignored for years taught me how not to be ignored and to be affirmed instead.”

MENDOCINO COUNTY HISTORY (Jack Saunders)

This photo is cropped from a larger one taken near Fort Bragg around 1910 (give or take) and illustrates what kids there did before television, computers, and skateboard parks. I have no idea who this kid was, but the rifle would seem to be an early version of a Winchester with an octagonal barrel, presumably a large caliber model like a 92 or 94. The dog seems content to just sit by his master's side with the recently deceased buck staring down at him. I imagine the reward for bringing home the family dinner was perhaps a nickel for a cornucopia (ice cream cone) from the local sweet shop. By the time my dad was around in the 1930s the price had risen to a dime.

CATCH OF THE DAY, Friday, April 11, 2025

ANDRES FUENTES-LUCERO, 30 Ukiah. DUI-fourth or subsequent prior within ten years, suspended license for DUI, no license, cruelty to child-infliction of injury, probation revocation.

MICHAEL GIAQUINTO, 29, 7 Pump House Road, Idaho/Ukiah. Assault weapon, loaded handgun-not registered owner, metal knuckles, resisting.

TIMOTHY JUDD, 62, Philo. DUI, resisting.

JAMES LANKSMITH, 35, Redding/Ukiah. Failure to appear, offenses while on bail.

KENNETH PARTRIDGE, 57, Fort Bragg. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, offenses while on bail.

DRIVING HABITS STUCK

Editor,

Regarding “Rush hour is over in the Bay Area. Welcome to the era of permanent traffic” (Bay Area, SFChronicle.com, March 31):

The story mentions a future where “everyone has self-driving cars and traffic becomes significantly more efficient.”

This is poor logic. If everyone has a self-driving car, there is no reduction of vehicles on the road. If self-driving cars are community resources, they must drive to and from their pickup points, increasing the number of cars on the road.

Community-owned self-driving cars allow us to pack parking lots more tightly, but the only way to reduce traffic is to put several people in each car. We should be doing that right now.

In some far distant future, when all the cars are self-driving and can talk to each other, some tricky merges could become more efficient, but traffic will remain a hideous snarl until we make significant lifestyle changes.

Cynthia Cudaback

Oakland

HUMBOLDT COUNTY, CALIFORNIA, 1895

“Ka Ha”, a member of the Hoopa tribe. Near the Trinity River. (Source: Ericson Photograph Collection Humboldt State University Library)

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

Soft deadline to email your writing for tonight's (Friday night's) MOTA show is 5pm or so. If that's too soon, send it any time after that and I'll read it next Friday.

Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio is every Friday, 9pm to 5am PST on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg and KNYO.org. The first three hours of the show, meaning till midnight, are simulcast on KAKX 89.3fm Mendocino.

Plus you can always go to https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com and hear last week's MOTA show. By Saturday night I'll put up the recording of tonight's show. You'll find plenty of other educational amusements there to educate and amuse yourself with until showtime, or any time, such as:

A rideable headless Cylon horsedog. Hi ho, Silver! Away! https://www.neatorama.com/2025/04/08/Kawasaki-Brings-Us-a-Rideable-Robot/

“A little chippy cut there, but I'd rather have a chippy cut than a crooked crack.” https://www.youtube.com/shorts/900I1RhVGCo

And experience Regina, Capital City of Saskatchewan. (via Tacky Raccoons) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74B5kMLNd5Q

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

45-FOOT TALL NUDE WOMAN STATUE erected in San Francisco park for “one-of-a kind liquid light show”

The Statue ‘R-Evolution’ has had previous stints at Burning Man and in Las Vegas

by Josh Marcus

A towering 45-foot statue of a naked woman will be officially unveiled on Thursday in San Francisco.

The work, “R-Evolution,” is meant to symbolize female empowerment and strength, and will stand for six months in front of the city’s Ferry Building.

"This sculpture is about being seen," artist Marco Cochrane said in a March interview with the San Francisco Recreation and Parks agency. "Women’s presence in public art is rare. When they are depicted, it is often through outdated or passive narratives. R-Evolution challenges that. She stands strong, aware, and grounded—calling for a world where all people can walk freely and without fear."…

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/san-francisco-statue-naked-woman-b2731321.html

JUNG HOO LEE’S 3-RUN HR sparks Giants’ 9-1 win over Yankees; game called in sixth

by Shayna Rubin

NEW YORK — A 26-minute delay to start Friday’s game at Yankee Stadium didn’t scare away the rain. All the Quick Dry grounds keepers spread over the dirt between innings couldn’t prevent accumulation of mud. The downpour was relentless and conditions turned treacherous.

With two outs in the top of the sixth inning, officials called the game, but in essence it had been decided long before: The San Francisco Giants took a commanding lead early and stuck a 9-1 win on the Yankees on Friday night to open up the three-game series.

“In the KBO (Korean Baseball Organization), the game wouldn’t have even started,” Jung Hoo Lee, previously a KBO superstar, said with Justin Han interpreting.

The win required the kind of perseverance that this team will need throughout a demanding trip. A stretch from New York to Philadelphia and Anaheim is one many in the clubhouse consider a true test to see how they stack up against some of baseball’s best teams.

“Obviously, the conditions were tough and it seemed like the game was never going to end,” manager Bob Melvin said. “But we did some really good things offensively.”

Lee, nicknamed the Grandson of the Wind, broke through the frigid gusts with his first home run of the year. The three-run shot was the centerpiece of a five-run deluge on Yankees starter Marcus Stroman before he could record a single out. The Giants chased him out of the game one out shy of a full inning of work.

Stroman threw six different types of pitches, few of them landed for quality strikes. And the Giants took advantage. Mike Yastrzemski, a hot hand batting leadoff for the first time this season, got things started with a double into the right-center gap. Willy Adames let Stroman get more uncomfortable and drew a walk.

Lee, a lefty, took full advantage of Yankee Stadium’s right-field porch. He launched a 1-1 sinker 387 feet into the seats. It would have been a home run in just 10 of 30 ballparks, Statcast estimates.

“I knew Stroman would throw a lot of cutters and sinkers,” Lee said. “First pitch cutter in, second pitch felt like it was going to be a sinker away, so that’s where I felt it was going to be when I got the hit.”

The Giants piled on. Matt Chapman and Heliot Ramos drew back-to-back walks and LaMonte Wade Jr., bumped from his leadoff spot for a slow start to the year, took a satisfying swing for a two-run double to make it 5-0. The Giants added three runs in the third inning when the Yankees bullpen walked the bases loaded. All scored on a ground out, wild pitch and Patrick Bailey’s opposite-field RBI double.

“It’s huge,” Giants starter Robbie Ray said of the offense. “Especially coming off the two games at home getting shut out. It was nice to see the bats after an off day come alive like that.”

A prolonged top of the first, on top of the delay, meant Ray had to sit on ice for a lot longer than expected before throwing a single pitch. On top of that, Ray found the mound grew muddier each time he went back to pitch, making it difficult to get his footing right in his wind-up. It all posed some of the worst conditions Ray, 33, had ever pitched in.

“It’s definitely not easy, you have to stay locked in mentally,” Ray said. “The game started in a delay, already you have to buckle down and prepare as best you can. I felt like the weather itself wasn’t bad, but the field conditions started to turn after the second and third inning. But glad I could stay in it.”

What Ray could do was plenty. He walked four batters, but struck out seven and limited the torpedo-bat-equipped Yankees to Austin Wells’ RBI that took a fortunate bounce off the top of the wall into play for a double. It was one of two hits he’d allow over four innings. Due to the shortened-game, Ray earned the win.

Briefly: A second delay was ordered when New York Yankees reliever Yoendrys Gómez couldn’t throw a pitch over the strike zone and summoned grounds crew to patch up the mound with two outs in the top of the sixth inning. With the game official after five completed innings and decision-makers tracking on the radar a heavy rain cell looming, officials called the game. … Kyle Harrison was scratched from his start for the Triple-A Sacramento River Cats on Friday just in case the Giants were rained out and in need of a fresh arm. Jordan Hicks will start, as scheduled, for the Giants on Saturday afternoon.

(sfchronicle.com)

HOW TO FIGHT TRUMP'S ATTACK ON FARMWORKERS

by David Bacon

On March 25, Alfredo Juarez was driving his compañera to work in the flower fields of Washington Bulb, the largest tulip grower in Washington State. His family, including two uncles, all work there, and until two years ago, he did too. That's when Lelo (as he is known) started working full-time for the union, Familias Unidas por la Justicia (FUJ).

Lelo speaks to migrant farmworkers and their supporters on a May Day march to call for unions and human rights for farmworkers. (David Bacon)

That morning, however, was anything but normal. In the predawn darkness he saw flashing lights in his rearview mirror and pulled over. As a Border Patrol agent approached the car, Lelo rolled his window down partway. He asked why he was being stopped and if the agent had a warrant. When he reached into his pocket for his ID, however, the Border Patrol cop broke the window. The agent dragged him out of the car as his partner began shouting, demanding to know why he was being brutalized, before the agent took him away.

The Border Patrol first brought Lelo to the nearby Ferndale Detention Center, and then to the giant migrant prison in Tacoma run by GEO Group. Within days, he was lined up to board a deportation flight to Sonora, Mexico. But, without a clear reason, he was called out of line and returned to detention while the others were flown off. There he remains, at least as of the publication of this article.…

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/migrant-farmworkers-trump-2025

NETFLIX'S ‘ADOLESCENCE’ IS A DIRE WARNING ABOUT MALE RAGE

by Drew Magary

It’s the late 2010s and I’m on a road trip with my wife and children. We’ve been in the car for six-plus hours and I’m getting cranky behind the wheel when, HEY SURPRISE! The last stretch of highway is more backed up than Elvis in his final hours. Now I’m pissed. Enraged. The f-bombs fly out of my mouth. My wife asks if I’d like her to drive and I testily reject the idea. My kids, who can hear every word, sit stone silent in the back seat. My wife goes quiet, too. None of them want to say anything, because they’re afraid it’ll just make me start cursing again. They don’t want the rage to grow.

So when I tell you that I see myself while watching the British Netflix show ”Adolescence,” you know that isn’t a good thing. It’s the final episode. Thirteen-year-old Jamie Miller (Owen Cooper) has stabbed one of his classmates to death, leaving the rest of his family to grapple with the aftermath. Jamie’s father (Stephen Graham) is driving to the hardware store with his wife (Christine Tremarco) and daughter (Amelie Pease) when the grief-stoked rage hits him. He screams. He pounds the wheel. Eddie Miller has lost almost all ability to control himself in the moment. Meanwhile, Manda and Lisa Miller are trapped in the car right next to him the entire time. Silent. Terrified.

And so are you, because each episode of “Adolescence” consists of a single uninterrupted camera shot. Show director Philip Barantini doesn’t want you to feel like you can escape. He’s already trapped you inside the Miller house when the cops come to bust down the door (first episode), inside Jamie’s miserable public school as investigators try to piece together a motive for the killing (second), and inside a juvenile detention room as a court-appointed psychologist (Erin Doherty) calmly tries to evaluate Jamie only to find herself hostage to multiple fits of his own rage (third). When those characters, usually women, are trapped dealing with a man’s rage. That’s no different from the real world. A study undertaken by the Biden administration found, “A greater proportion of females had diagnosed anxiety (20.1% vs. 12.3%) and depression (10.9% vs. 6.0%), while a greater proportion of males had diagnosed behavior/conduct problems (8.2% vs. 4.3%).” You can sense a relationship between those statistics, can’t you? More boys act out than girls, which in turn causes girls more mental distress than boys. I’ve caused people I love similar distress with my own fury, so I felt these moments in “Adolescence” acutely when I watched them.

It’s not a comfortable feeling. Every time a male character on “Adolescence” lashes out, he suffuses the air around him with fear, silencing everyone else on screen. Trapping them. Just like my wife and kids were trapped in that car with me all those years ago. When we finally got to our destination, my wife laid down the law and told me to get my s—t together or else we’d have to take separate cars on every road trip. So I treated my anger issues by going to therapy, taking meds and listening to my loved ones rather than ignoring them. But why did I need so long to see my rage so clearly? And what happens when rage-addicted men DON’T get their s—t together?

Given the current news of the world, I think you know the answer. That’s why “Adolescence” is the show of the moment, with untold millions of people watching it, according to Netflix’s sketchy viewership numbers. The Miller family saga is compelling as straight drama, but it’s also probably the most accurate depiction that I’ve seen of just how damaging male rage has become in the 21st century. It shows how men become their rage, and how they tacitly insist that their rage never be questioned.

These episodes easily could have proven tiresome viewing, with “Adolescence” simply name-dropping modern problems (Cyberbullying! Sending nudes! Online infamy!) and occupying that “It’s 10 o’clock, do you know where your children are?” genre of parental angst content. The creative team behind this show could have made the line between bully and victim distinct, rather than fuzzy and often permeable. They could have made Jamie into a demon child, stripping away any chance the audience had to identify with him. And they could have gone fully didactic, as David Simon did with “We Own This City,” and have the main characters give long soliloquies on What’s Wrong With Our Society Now.

But that’s not what Barantini, or writers Jack Thorne and Graham, were interested in. In fact, you don’t even learn Jamie’s true motive by the end of “Adolescence.” You don’t get a flashback to the murder. You don’t get Jamie spelling it out to the psychologist. The only answer you get is rage, which was Barantini’s explicit intent: ”Really what it's about is looking at male rage and looking at our own anger and looking at who we are as men.”

This show made me look at who I am as a man, especially in my worst moments. I saw myself in Graham’s road rage incident. I saw myself in Jamie throwing a chair across the interview room when a grownup dared to poke him in the most vulnerable parts of his psyche. I’ve raged like both of them. I’ve never been violent, but I’ve shaken and screamed and taken my anger out on unsuspecting inanimate objects, leaving those around me to deal with the resulting mess. I’ve also raged online, as many men do. And I’ve raged in silence, as many men also do. I used to have imaginary fights with my wife, complete with stinging barbs. I enjoyed those visions, because in them I was always the one in the right.

That’s how easy it is to get infatuated with rage when you’re a man. In fact, you’re conditioned to. What’s the best part of any action movie? When the hero finally snaps and shoots the villain 500 times. The best part of any war movie? When Corporal Starry Eyes watches his platoon mate die and cuts down every last German responsible for it. Hell, the funniest part of any Adam Sandler comedy is when Adam gets pissed. Rage is heroic in our culture. Rage gets things done. That’s why we elected rage as our current president, and why so many of us who oppose that president believe that we must counter his rage with our own. Rage is motivating. Rage works!

You and I both know that’s a lie, and “Adolescence” shows you why in unflinching detail. Rage is irrational, and accomplishes nothing other than making everyone around feel helpless in its thrall. Worst of all, it’s endemic. You saw those numbers from the Biden study. Rage ties many of our worst problems together, and yet so much of American culture — cable news, the internet, commuting — has been designed to stoke rage rather than extinguish it. “Adolescence” is the rare mainstream television show that illustrates the consequences of that. I saw myself in this show. I saw my past rage for what it really was, and I didn’t like it. I hope other men watching this show feel the same way.

(SF Chronicle)

THERE ISN'T A MAN ALIVE who had to hustle more for his daily bread. I was as far down as a fellow could go when I took on my first fight. I was a silver miner, earning five dollars a day and working like a slave, but the work agreed with me. I didn't mind it, but with a big family sharing that salary, there was nothing in it for me. I liked fighting and I took on a few amateur bouts. But I didn't remain an amateur long.

I fought my first professional fight in Colorado, and my opponent was a fellow named the Fighting Blacksmith. They called me Young Dempsey, and Young Dempsey scored a knockout in the third and got two-and-a-half dollars. Wasn't that sweet? Well I spent that money on a couple of tramps who looked hungry. We all had a hearty meal on that prize money and, believe me, we all enjoyed it. That's why that bird who just caught me got that five bucks.

I can't resist giving that type a helping hand for they always bring back to me the days when I was hungry and tired and didn't have the guts to ask others to give me some help or I didn't know whom to ask. I'd roam and roam. I'd hop the freight and sell my services at any kind of work, just to get enough to buy myself some grub.

— Jack Dempsey

“IN ONE SCENE Rocky is trying to develop speed by sparring with Roberto Duran. I weighed about 198+ Duran was about 160+ I figured I might cut loose a little, give him a few shots… didn't take long for me to get back to the reality that I'm an actor…”

— Sylvester Stallone

LEAD STORIES, SATURDAY'S NYT

Scott Bessent Takes Tricky Center Stage as Trade Wars Roil U.S. Economy

In South Carolina, a Once Thriving Textile Hub Is Baffled by Trump’s Tariffs

2 Signature Trump Policies. 1 Agenda.

Trump Showed His Pain Point in His Standoff With China

Raise Prices? Eat Higher Costs? Retailers Face Tough Questions.

Americans Are Racing to Buy Car Seats, iPhones and Christmas Gifts

How Much Are Tariffs on Chinese Goods? It’s Trickier Than You Think.

How to Ease Your Money Anxiety When the Economy Is Stressing You Out

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

I'm in England and even I'm aware that many US politicians earning relatively modest salaries, have become multi-millionaires since attaining office. Surely those people can be prosecuted at least if their bank accounts are audited and misappropriation or malfeasance proved?

BURN IT ALL DOWN

Globalization, once hailed as a panacea, has proven to be fundamentally corrupt and needs to be blown to kingdom come

by Matt Taibbi

From NPR this morning:

But, by the end of the day, Trump apparently had reached his threshold of market pain. He reversed course, ditching some of the tariffs, because, he said, people “were getting a little bit yippy, a little bit afraid.”

The market rallied Wednesday, but with Trump increasing tariffs to 145% on China, by Thursday, the Dow was down again. And, remember, China has leverage, too, because it buys a lot of U.S. government debt, and they seem to have every intention of using it.

Translation: a serial trade and human rights violator that with the help of decades of corrupt politicians from both parties polluted, price-dumped, and stole its way to a generation of American jobs and revenue, now owns so much of our debt that we must put up with its shit indefinitely. That’s the point of view of our own federal news agency. We have officially cucked ourselves past the point of no return.

Trump or no Trump, the international trade system needs to be blown to hell…

https://www.racket.news/p/burn-it-all-down

EVERYTHING BUT THE TRUTH

by Lucinda Williams

You got the power to make this mean ole world a better place
You got the power to make this mean ole world a better place
People say they hate you, try to kill you, while they're grinning in your face
You got the power to make this mean ole world a better place

Before you can have a friend, you gotta be one
Before you can have a friend, you gotta be one
You gotta do the right things, gotta jump on in and see that it gets done
Before you can have a friend, you gotta be one

Everything's gonna change, everything but the truth
Everything's gonna change, everything but the truth
He's not playing games, he's taking names, he is bullet proof
Everything's gonna change, everything but the truth

God put the firewood there, but you gotta light yourself
God put the firewood there, but you gotta light yourself
You gotta go it alone, you gotta gather it up and nobody gonna help
God put the firewood there, but you gotta light yourself

You gotta make the most of what equipment you've got
You gotta make the most of what equipment you've got
Don't sit around complaining, crying all the time, cause you don't have a lot
You gotta make the most of what equipment you've got

Sooner or later before too long, you gotta make a payment
Sooner or later before too long, you gotta make a payment
You've gotta settle up with this sweet ole world and give back what you've taken
Sooner or later before too long, you gotta make a payment

‘HANDS OFF’ PROTESTS AND PRO-PALESTINE ACTIVISTS RALLY IN DC

by Greg Collard

One of the pro-Trump talking points about last week’s “Hands Off” rallies was the age of the protesters. There were lots of video posts on X showing old people. Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA got in on the act.

Sure, there were more older people at the nationwide “Hands Off” protests than what we’re used to seeing, but it’s not like people of different ages didn’t participate, as you’ll see in this Activism, Uncensored video from News2Share’s Ford Fischer. It’s also not surprising since concerns over the future of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid were among the reasons for the “Hands Off” events.

But even if every person was, in the words of Turning Point USA, in “their 60 to 70s and are using walkers and wheelchairs,” who gives a shit? Are they supposed to stay silent because they’re old?

Politically, I found it amazing that Turning Point was so dismissive of a group of people who vote in higher percentages than any other. I guarantee Turing Point will be seeking their votes come election time.

This Activism, Uncensored video also covers protests against the U.S. policy of providing military aid to Israel in its war with Hamas. It starts with a protest less than a mile from the Hands Off event in Washington, D.C., and captures another protest Thursday in Norfolk, VA. Activists gathered there because they say a Maersk ship docked in Norfolk was taking F-35 parts to Israel.

https://youtu.be/jce14gFEE74

IS A NUCLEAR RENAISSANCE COMING?

Data center power demand is sparking interest in new reactors.

by Jonathan Thompson

In 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered his famous “Atoms for Peace” speech at the United Nations. First, he spoke of the world’s rapidly growing stockpile of atomic warheads and the dangers they presented. Then he pivoted, explaining that the very same atomic reaction that could destroy the world could also save it. Nuclear energy, he said, could be used to “serve the needs rather than the fears of the world — to make the deserts flourish, to warm the cold, to feed the hungry, to alleviate the misery of the world.”

Eisenhower’s vision was partially realized by a fleet of new reactors that ultimately produced about 20% of U.S. electricity. But it was scarred by uranium mining’s toll on landscapes and on human health across the Colorado Plateau, even as disasters and near misses, from Three Mile Island to Chernobyl to Church Rock, soured the public on the technology. Cheaper renewables and natural gas began edging out nuclear generation; the San Onofre nuclear plant near San Diego shut down in 2012, and Diablo Canyon near San Luis Obispo was slated for retirement this year.

Today, however, Eisenhower’s dream is being dusted off for a new age. Only this time it’s tech giants like Amazon and Switch that are jazzed about nuclear energy — not to alleviate misery or feed the hungry, but to power their growing army of energy-guzzling data centers.…

https://www.hcn.org/issues/57-4/is-a-nuclear-renaissance-coming/

19 Comments

George Hollister April 12, 2025

Jack Saunders photo shows a fat buck with a nice rack in velvet. There would have been much good meat for the table. I am unaware of the game laws them, but today that buck would be out of season.

- Houndman April 12, 2025
  
  Current California Department of Fish and Wildlife regulations allow a buck in velvet to be taken during A Zone archery season.
  
Chuck Dunbar April 12, 2025

A trip south yesterday into Sonoma and Napa County, via 128–Spring beauty all over, so many flowering trees in bloom, what beautiful countrysides we have!

Made the “mistake” of going the large tree farm at the north end of Santa Rosa on the way back–great place, lots of folks spring shopping. Ran across some very large Deodor Cedars there, in huge containers, $225 each, but so nice.They had a variety there, “aurea,” with gold-tipped branches, that I fell in love with, now trying to convince myself NOT to spend a good bit on 3 of them, as well as the cost of transporting and planting them, way too much for this old gardener to do on his own….

- Bob Abeles April 12, 2025
  
  Go for the tree, Chuck. Plant it, and you’ve given yourself a tiny slice of immortality.
  
  - Chuck Dunbar April 12, 2025
    
    Thanks, Bob. I am trying to make the case for it in my mind, and your thought is a good one at my old age. My wife her her doubts, so more talking to do…
    
  - Marshall Newman April 12, 2025
    
    Maybe not immortality, but close. Back in the early 1960s, AV High School offered Sequoia seedlings to students who wanted them. My brother and I took the leftovers and planted them in the back country of El Rancho Navarro near Philo. Most died within a few years (it’s a non-native species, after all) but one I planted has done fine and is now nearly 70 feet tall. I’ve had the rare privilege to see its progress for more than 60 years.
    
    - Chuck Dunbar April 12, 2025
      
      That’s really something, Marshall, as you say, quite a privilege. I am old enough now, that for the first time as I think about planting these cedars, I wonder how long and how tall I’ll see them grow, surely not into maturity. The allure of these cedars in large pots is that they’re 8-9 ft tall, got a good already start on their life. Thanks for the tree tale.
      
- George Hollister April 12, 2025
  
  Keep in mind, Deodor Cedars grow with a lean in them.
  
Chuck Dunbar April 12, 2025

CEO STUFF

Jim Shields makes a reasonable argument, based on credible reports from Tom Allman, and especially John Pinches, that Carmel Angelo managed the County’s finances in an informed, effective manner. That’s an important achievement, done in part during a challenging time.

However—and others as well as I have made this important point before—there’s another side, beyond financial management, to the Angelo story. That regards her highly autocratic mode of governing, a deficiency in management that, over the years, filtered down through the departments to all staff, and had a profoundly negative effect on the County’s functioning.

Prior to Angelo, there was a general sense of “we’re all in this together” among County workers, a positive sense of purpose and morale. As her reign of power became entrenched over more than a decade, there was a clear change in this spirit. Angelo was dismissive, often mean-spirited, had a know-it-all manner. Her way was the only way, and for a number of respected administrative staff who left the County, it meant the end of their service, pushed-out by Angelo. They had deigned to speak their minds too freely, and out the door they went. Angelo was a bully. She abused her power in these ways—the maltreatment of staff became part of her show. And it was a palpable thing, a powerful, disturbing change that slowly spread in the workplace. Trust was lost, the workplace was tougher, less supportive. This was widely commented on by staff, and widely lamented. Once this kind of change happens, it’s a major task to mend and surmount it. I understand that it partly persists still, with Angelo several years gone.

So, I’ll add this perspective to the picture, giving a fuller sense, I think, of Angelo’s legacy.

- Me April 12, 2025
  
  Lived it. You are correct on all of it.
  
  - Chuck Dunbar April 12, 2025
    
    Some law suits filed by those forced-out staff, probably more than we’re aware of, were another expensive consequence…
    
    - Me April 13, 2025
      
      I had a front row seat at the show, it was pure evil. Always scary how her minions worshipped her, you could trust no one.
      
  - George Hollister April 12, 2025
    
    Toxic work environments are legal, but self destructive. Good people will leave, and also stay away. A boss micromanaging subordinates is a typical trait along with the boss “being the smartest one in the room”. I am an outsider, but the symptoms are recognizable from a mile away. The best way to prevent this sort of management is to only hire a professional manager that has at least 3 years non management experience working for someone other than family.
    
- keith Lowery April 12, 2025
  
  100% spot on
  
- Norm Thurston April 13, 2025
  
  Carmel had an outstanding assistant named Kyle Knopp to handle budget and financial matters. Kyle deserves a lot of credit for getting the County through a difficult period.
  
Jane Tzu April 12, 2025

NEW STATUE IN SAN FRANCISCO

This one’s about everything the City is NOT.

‘The work, “R-Evolution,” is meant to symbolize female empowerment and strength’…HOW ⁉️ NAKED?🤔⁉️

- Norm Thurston April 12, 2025
  
  My only reaction for now is surprise and curiosity. Let’s see how this ages over the next six months. I am sure there will be some interesting conversations. Maybe the empowerment and strength all comes from within.
  
  - Jane Tzu April 12, 2025
    
    Maybe the art schools in the City can take turns dressing her for success?
    
    Don’t get me wrong, I liked her at Burning Man.
    
Jim Armstrong April 12, 2025

Re image of “Ka Ha”:
Other sources give other places, time and tribe but he is an interesting, well-worn man.
I wonder what he has on his feet. Having just stood in mud doesn’t really seem to explain it.

Go Giants!

19 Comments

Leave a Reply Cancel reply