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LIGHT to moderate showers along with gusty winds over the higher terrain. Showers will taper off late this afternoon, with lingering showers through tonight. Followed by drier and warmer conditions by mid week. (NWS)
STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A cloudy 49F with .28" of overnight rainfall this Monday morning on the coast. Scattered showers today then clearing by Tuesday morning. Patchy fog & some wind is in the forecast the next few days.
AV UNIFIED NEWS
Dear Anderson Valley USD Community,
Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers and grandmothers in our school community! We send our heartfelt thanks for the unwavering love, support, and guidance you provide to your children and to so many others in our community. Your dedication shapes not only the lives of your families but also strengthens the foundation of our schools and neighborhoods!
As a relative newcomer to Anderson Valley, I am enjoying both the gorgeous weather and the wonderful traditions and celebrations that happen during this time of year in our district!
Day of the Child was just magical, last Sunday! Students, staff, and families enjoyed an impressive array of activities and treats - all cost free! There was a salsa competition, games for all ages, a taco potluck, a firetruck (and a big fire hose spraying water for kids to run through!), the Boontling Classic footrace, and more! Many, many thanks to Sueno Latino group, the Anderson Valley Fire Department, the Mendocino Historical Society, the Mendo Library, and the many, many staff members, former staff members, alumni, parents, and grandparents, who worked together to make this event a success. What an amazing, heartwarming community event!
Agriculture Day at AVES was an absolute blast last Thursday! Our amazing FFA students came out to AVES with various animals and activities for all of our elementary students to enjoy! Each grade level at AVES had the opportunity to pet goats and rabbits, engage in a balloon swatting race against a giant blow-up cow, take a photo on a saddled hay bale, and play various games. It was delightful to see the high school students sharing their expertise with the “littles” and the sheer admiration in the eyes of our elementary school students for the “big kids.” What a foundational experience for everyone. Many, many thanks to the exceptional students of the FFA and to Beth Swehle and Alexys Bautista for their endless work to make this program one of the very best in the state!
Staff Appreciation Week concluded at AVHS on Friday and will begin at AVES this week! Thank you to students and families who have taken a moment to express your gratitude to our awesome staff members. There’s still time, especially at AVES, as they will be celebrating in the coming week!
COMING: Ribbon Cutting on Tuesday at 4pm. Join us as we celebrate the completion of the updates to our main wing and science rooms. We will be dedicating science rooms to Dr. Richard Browning and William “Bill” Sterling, and enjoying a brief reception and tour of the new rooms. The rooms are gorgeous and we are deeply thankful to former superintendent Louse Simson for spearheading this effort!
I will continue to update our calendar of events below. Please keep an eye on it, as some new activities will be added and some dates or times may change. We look forward to seeing you as we enjoy the many activities and celebrations to come!
Fondly,
Kristin Larson Balliet
Superintendent
ASSIGNMENT: UKIAH - GET ON BOARD. SHUT UP.
by Tommy Wayne Kramer
If you retain sentimental notions of local government being responsive to local citizens, and if you believe your voice and opinions are taken seriously by Ukiah’s leaders, I want to smile and pat you on your little head.
So darned cute! Bless your pea-pickin’ heart!
Naive and incomprehensible of course, but still awful darn cute.
Because while city officials cut ribbons, break ground and plant cornerstones down on East Perkins Street they do it in spite of what the average Ukiahan wants for downtown.
Your choice? Shut up.
Your other choice? 1) a new courthouse you never voted for. 2) no opportunity to analyze its merits. 3) no chance to discuss it.
This ugly mess is California muscling ghastly new courthouses into every county, replacing the old, stately classic building erected 100 or more years ago.
The State cares a great deal about your opinion, of course, and someone with a questionnaire will be knocking on your door within the next 72 hours. Have you any thoughts on the color(s) to paint the hallways, or whether the judges’ restrooms should have toilet seats covered in chinchilla, mink or baby seal skins? Thank you for your input.
It’s been a stealth development from the start, ramrodded into existence with zero local input. Despite newspaper stories and opinion pieces requesting local politicians, judges and/or city administrators to make public comments on the project, it remained shrouded in secrecy.
Where were County supervisors? What were their thoughts? And, given the project is the biggest in the city’s near 200-year history, didn’t city council members feel a need to speak to the peasants who pay the bills?
Why didn’t our local mob of judges issue statements voicing either support or misgivings about the project, if only to dispel rampant rumors it’s the only group, tiny as it is, that stands to benefit from the new courthouse? How? Judges will gain everything from names engraved on impressive brass private parking plaques to private elevators to their suites of chambers, offices, massage parlors and dining salons.
And from the 13th floor of the new courthouse, Oh such fabulous views of the little people down below.
Did anyone pretend to care what those laboring in the building think of the plans? The DA for instance, or the Public Defender or local bar association? None have so much as a bookshelf in the new 81,000 square foot behemoth, nor a rack to hang an umbrella. All but judges shall walk to work.
And given the well-known shortage of architectural firms in Ukiah, Mendocino County and the entire state of California, it was reluctantly decided to hire a Colorado outfit to design the new building. Have you seen the “artist renditions”?
They depict a big blank vertical box with stripes; perhaps it’s the package with the real courthouse tucked inside. So ugly. So generic. So little concern for how it will mingle with Ukiah’s admittedly quirky cityscape.
We wonder how Ukiah could ever get any uglier, and then the City’s ever-chirpy Shannon Riley chases after rumors the city will demolish the old courthouse and install a park. Or maybe not.
Seriously, Ukiah might tear down one of the two or three most impressive buildings in the city?
For a park?!?
We need another park like we need another Mexican restaurant or another bicycle lane or another big box store or another scandal to ooze out of the Ukiah Police Department. Trees, dirt and empty spaces is what Mendocino County is made of. Setting aside a half-acre of grass and benches for a park in the middle of Ukiah is a bad idea; tearing down the existing courthouse is worse.
Put our next park in the big dirt patch along South State Street between Thomas and Talmage Road, up against the Burning Bridges Homeless Training Facility. Or bulldoze the parched, grim “natural” moonscape around the Grace Hudson Museum and replace it with a nice lawn with benches and tables for picnics and lunch breaks. (Like it was 20 years ago.)
Between the courthouse project and the annexation plans, Ukiah is teetering, in danger of losing its old oddball charms in exchange for a bleak, blank, nondescript nowhere with almost all the charm of an office complex in Novato.
Ukiah, California, suddenly a place full of multi-story affordable housing projects, a courthouse that looks like a mistake, a new downtown park with a plaque marking the spot as the site of all the old courthouses that once stood there, a city payroll with hundreds of overpaid civil servants.
Tom Hine says “Welcome to the Future.” TWK says “Lemme out of here.”
DOES ANYONE READ THE BOARD AGENDA?
by Mark Scaramella
Every two weeks we try to review the Board’s agenda packet for interesting upcoming items. It’s not a particularly enjoyable task. But the entire point of the Brown Act’s requirement that agendas be posted in advance is to make the public aware of what the Board plans to discuss or decide before they discuss it, and, occasionally, make a decision or two.
As far as we can tell, very few people besides those directly involved in a particular agenda item take advantage of these notices.
Who can blame most members of the public? The County goes out of its way to clutter up the agenda with routine consent items (presumably, but often not routine, sometimes retroactive), and cryptic closed session items (often discussing lawsuits or personnel evaluations) along with a few possible item of interest. But even those are frequently larded with attachments and bureaucratese buried beneath layers of more bureaucratese that are hard to find much less understand or interpret.
We can’t think of any other local media regularly highlighting the board’s agenda or even linking to it or mentioning anything on it in advance.
The Board itself makes no effort to publicize their agenda besides the grudging, routine, obligatory postings of the agenda with its mind-numbing, eye-glazing detail.
During board meetings we seldom hear any public comment on agenda items from the public other than those who want to comment on a single item or issue.
The Brown Act is made nearly useless if nobody pays attention to it in advance of what the Board says they intend to discuss.
ANDERSON VALLEY VILLAGE List of Events
ED NOTES
RESPECTABLE PEOPLE down on their luck tend to live in their vehicles while they search for work and a permanent place to live. They are fairly numerous in urban and suburban areas but are generally invisible. The difference between the car people and the people who alarm or dismay much of the settled part of the population is that the car people are trying. They aren’t lurching up and down State Street drunk or cranked out of their minds committing misdemeanors and making nuisances of themselves. There are a whole lot of people on the streets who aren’t trying, among them full-time criminals of the cruder type, who live out their days with one ambition — to stay loaded. Used to be these people went straight out to Talmage where they were pleasantly housed in separate rehab units for drunks, for drug people, for incompetents, for the criminally insane. They even had a baseball team and a working farm. People unable or unwilling to care for themselves were not permitted to live on the streets, and that’s where any meaningful discussion of today’s problem should begin.
BUT IT DOESN’T start there because there’s no real strategy, let alone the leadership that would be required to do something about the pure numbers of free-range Thanatoids roaming our fading republic. That strategy would have to come from the top, at the federal level. Anybody see the possibility of that happening any time soon?
THERE ISN’T a state hospital system in California, thanks to the usual bi-partisan treachery, and there won’t be a restoration of a state hospital system thanks to the bipartisan servants of the oligarchy presently defunding all the civilized amenities that we used to take for granted, a state hospital among them.
SIMPLY ROUSTING street people only propels them to some other undeserving community. Yes, there’s that many Thanatoids. But for now, it would be a giant step towards clarity if we stopped describing lifestyle derelicts as “homeless.”
A SAN FRANCISCAN OBSERVES: “After years of observation, I’ve concluded there’s a whole lot of reasons why the homeless are homeless and it goes beyond addictions, laziness and indifference. In the long run it has a lot more to do with a lack of common sense, not considering the ramifications of one’s actions, failing to take personal responsibility for oneself and being just plain stupid. All of the above is the difference between getting oneself off the street or making the streets one’s permanent address. The enablers in this city are an additional factor. They have created an industry.”
A STATEMENT seconded by Pete Wilford, also of San Francisco: “After getting out of the Army I knocked around the country for a few years, staying in rented rooms and working odd jobs. I would come to town, get a room and, neatly dressed, go down to the rent-a-drunk outfit or employment office. I invariably got a job immediately. I wasn’t fussy - took whatever was offered. When I had enough cash I was off to the next town. In all that time I never met anyone who was homeless because he was ‘down on his luck’ or mentally handicapped. They ALL had simply chosen a lifestyle of not working - begging for a living. To this day I have no sympathy whatsoever for ‘the homeless.’ Give them nothing. People like to say ‘It’s different now.’ No, it isn’t. Anyone who really wants to work can find a job.”
AND A THIRD SAN FRANCISCAN OBSERVES, “The discussion of street people in America is important, but I don’t agree with comments that try to heap blame on the victims. The reasons people end up on the street are as varied and numerous as their number. Instead of trying to discern some common defect among the members of this rapidly growing group, the larger view would include context. This condition is the fruition of greed is good, and taxes and representative government and regulation of capitalism’s excesses are bad. If you are avaricious, it’s a great place to be; if not, it’s Welcome to Trickle Down World. Consider this: from 1932-1981 the top tax rate in this country was kept well above 50%. This kept a lid on excessive greed and allowed the middle class, and the country as a whole, to grow and flourish. Wealth was shared. Since 1982 the top tax rate has remained well below 50%, and we are living with the results, a winner-take-all society where the number of losers continues to grow. In this healthcare-for-profit country, all that stands between most of us and the street is a misstep in health. As of last year, six Walmart heirs owned more wealth than 40 percent of Americans. The terrible irony in this fact is the Walton business plan thrives when large numbers of people have to scrimp. Walmart is the perfect icon for our time.”
FROM DAVID HELVARG’S , “The Golden Shore,” an AVA recommended read: “North of Gualala is Anchor Bay and its beach and Smuggler’s Cove where rumrunners used to drop their loads during Prohibition. Another half hour up the road is the town of Point Arena, a place author Stephan King would appreciate. There’s something insular and vaguely threatening about what some tourist books call ‘this sleepy hamlet.’ I remember a night my late love, Nancy Ledansky, and I couldn’t find a place to stay driving south down Highway 1 on a foggy Saturday night and finally we found a cheap motel there. The town was empty, cold and clammy and the taciturn innkeeper acted insulted when we pointed out there were no towels in our room and we walked under the marquee of the empty theater to a café where we were the only customers and a waitress who’d been crying served us soup from a can. Today Point Arena’s population is around 450 and its local politics have turned toxic as a result of a two-year campaign to recall the mayor and city council. Main Street is a hilly affair with the only movie theater for about one hundred miles….”
THINGS DO SEEM inclined to the sinister when the fog rolls in, but just up the road at Elk, even in the full glory of King Sol, I’ve always had to suppress an impulse to scream, “I don’t care if Charlie Acker does live here! There’s something fishy about this place!” Ferndale, a larger version of Elk up in Humboldt County, does that to me, too. Creeps me out. I’m not sure what it is about these places that’s so unnerving. Maybe it’s the tidiness of everything, the precious architectural exhibitionism, the suffocating smugness one senses in the residents. Of course anywhere that the Northcoast’s groove-ocracy comes to dominate, as it has in Point Arena, Arcata, Elk, much of the English-speaking population of Anderson Valley, the West Side of Ukiah, a silently screaming civic pathology takes hold, and intense little wars are always breaking out, wars about nothing at all beyond personalities. That’s why at election time the different sides take out newspaper ads with all the names supporting their candidate, just like back in the 7th grade when Donnie ran against Debbie for class president. Natch, the groovies dominate public employment — the whole show — from schools, to public bureaucracies to municipalities, to the courts, where blandly liberal opinions prevail as unvarying as the suburban incubators that hatched them. When a local couple moved to Eastern Oregon, the wife commented, “It’s nice to live in a place where everyone doesn’t think alike.” West of the Cascades, however, is pretty much West Ukiah. Squared.
NAVARRO-BY-THE-SEA DAY RETURNS!
MendoParks is thrilled to announce the return of Navarro-by-the-Sea Day at Captain Fletcher’s Inn at Navarro Beach (Navarro River Redwoods State Park) on Saturday, June 7, 2025, from noon to 5:00 pm.
This free, open-house community event features live music, BBQ, raffle, tours of Captain Fletcher’s Inn (led by State Park Interpreter, Michelle Levesque), and the breathtaking Navarro State Beach! The event’s music includes a return of the “Uke Jam” from noon until 1 (bring your uke or just come and enjoy!) and an afternoon lineup of amazing music. Proceeds from the event will go to the continued restoration of the Inn and MendoParks’ mission of supporting Mendocino Coast’s State Park events and educational programs.
“As with MendoParks’ King Tide event last November, I am looking forward to once again bringing locals and visitors to Captain Fletcher’s Inn. I love the building, the surrounding State Park, and the incredible coastal residents who are so passionate about the building and want it open on a regular basis,” says MendoParks Executive Director, Sid Garza-Hillman. “Navarro-by-the-Sea Day was last held in June of 2019, right before the pandemic. It was produced by the former non-profit that led the effort to save the historic Inn — Navarro-by-the-Sea Center, or NSCR. I’ve heard such great things about the event — that it brought the community together and was instrumental in saving Captain Fletcher’s Inn. I couldn’t be happier to help bring it back! Lucky for MendoParks, past NSCR president Jim Martin and long-time coastal resident Pattie DeMatteo have been lending an invaluable hand to help get the event back off the ground. Pattie has pulled together a fantastic afternoon of music for all to enjoy. I think this will be spectacular for the whole family.”
“Navarro-by-the-Sea Day was always such a wonderful way to bring supporters and the larger community together for a great cause!” says Jim Martin. “Some might think I’m crazy for stepping up to help revive Navarro-by-the-Sea Day in its new form. But I’m really happy to see it revived and have already heard from many past volunteers who want to help out. I am looking forward to seeing both new and familiar faces!”
The Inn was built by Fletcher in 1865 to house sailors, coastal travelers, and mill workers at the original town of Navarro. The mill closed during a big recession in the 1890s, and the original town succumbed to floods, fires, and the 1906 earthquake, leaving only the Inn and the historic Mill Superintendent’s House (circa 1864) as the surviving structures. The Inn continued to serve as an important destination for fishermen and tourists alike and became known as Navarro-by-the-Sea until it closed in the 1980s. Both buildings were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009 and continue to symbolize the rich history of our coast. By 2010, the Inn was on the verge of collapse, and NSCR stepped up to lead the charge in saving it. They held special events like Navarro-by-the-Sea Day, wrote and secured grants, and eventually oversaw the stabilization and reconstruction of the building. Since NSCR dissolved as a non-profit, MendoParks took over to open the historic Inn to the public by bringing back both the King Tide Open House and Navarro-by-the-Sea Day. MendoParks’ next step is to once again open the historic Inn as a visitor center to share its rich cultural and natural history.
For more Info: call 707-937-4700 or email [email protected]
HOTEL PRESERVATIONISTS SNATCH UP 151-YEAR-OLD NORTHERN CALIFORNIA GEM
‘The whole secret is to make people see Lake County as a destination’
by Matt LaFever
As one chapter closes in a historic Northern California town, a new one begins. Located about 2.5 hours from San Francisco, the Tallman Hotel, a 19th-century landmark in Upper Lake, has new owners with ambitious plans to transform not just the hotel, but Lake County’s entire reputation.
Lake County is often just a pit stop for travelers headed to Napa, Sonoma or the Mendocino coast — but they’re missing out. Upper Lake’s charming downtown offers dining, shopping and easy access to hikes and one of California’s largest lakes. Just 10 minutes from Lakeport, this town of 1,200 rarely makes national travel lists — but it should.
Hoteliers Amar and Rajvi Alapati, whose boutique hospitality company specializes in converting Gold Rush-era hotels into modern luxuries, believe the region is overdue for a rebrand. Under their stewardship, the Tallman Hotel isn’t just a beautiful place to stay, it’s a launching pad for something much bigger.
The hotel’s previous owners, Lynne and Bernie Butcher, told SFGATE that they began Tallman’s modern journey in 2002. They purchased what was then a long-neglected property, originally built in 1874 by a Gold Rush pioneer. A fire in 1895 forced a rebuild, but after the 1960s, the building sat silent for nearly 40 years and was on its way to being condemned before the Butchers intervened.
The Butchers revived the hotel and rebuilt the Blue Wing Saloon, turning the property into a cultural hub of vintage charm, fine dining and live music.
Now the Alapatis are stepping in, not to change the Tallman but to amplify what the Butchers started.
“This property immediately spoke to us because of its rich history and timeless character,” Rajvi said, adding that it felt like a natural extension of their company, the Serenite Collection.
The Serenite Collection specializes in restoring historic properties with character. Their current portfolio includes the Holbrooke Hotel in Grass Valley and the National Exchange Hotel in Nevada City — both Gold Rush-era icons they’ve turned into celebrated destinations.
“When we discovered [the Tallman], we saw that same spirit — deep roots, strong bones and a sense of place that’s hard to find,” Rajvi said.
Wander the grounds of the Tallman and you’re stepping into another era. Tucked into the heart of Upper Lake, the hotel channels the quiet grandeur of Gold Rush-era luxury — refined, handcrafted, and deeply rooted in place. Hand-colored bird prints line the lobby, and sepia murals of local marshlands wrap the dining room. Every detail reflects a deep respect for history, craft and character.
Upper garden rooms open onto porches perfect for an evening glass of local wine. Down below, rooms equipped with Japanese ofuro tubs offer deep, serene soaking experiences.
Next door, the Blue Wing Saloon, rebuilt in the style of its 1880s predecessor and with its facade painted robin’s egg blue, anchors the property in rustic elegance. The black walnut bar, crafted from a century-old tree that once stood on site, glows beneath salvaged redwood wainscoting.
Lake County has a reputation problem. It ranks among California’s least healthy counties, its crime rate is above the state average, and in 2023, it recorded the state’s highest overdose death rate. Visitors often side-eye Clear Lake, wary of seasonal algae blooms. But Amar Alapati sees something else entirely: “a very, very pretty lake” stuck behind an outdated narrative.
To shift that narrative, the Alapatis are launching a marketing push that leans on the region’s overlooked assets: quiet beauty, high-elevation vineyards, and affordability. The goal is to target travelers from the Bay Area and Sacramento who might otherwise bypass Lake County on their way to more established wine regions.
“People should come here who can’t afford to go and spend $800 a night,” Amar said, alluding to some of the pricier establishments in Napa or Sonoma County. In comparison, a night stay at the Tallman costs about $350. But affordability isn’t the whole story. What drew them in was the landscape, the silence, and the soil.
The area’s natural appeal runs deep. Mount Konocti, an active volcano, rises above Clear Lake, inviting hikes with panoramic views. Clear Lake itself, believed to be the oldest natural freshwater lake in North America, is a bass fishing haven. Families can hunt for volcanic gemstones known as Lake County diamonds, found nowhere else on Earth.
And with more than 30 wineries, visitors can sip bold reds and crisp whites in peace, without fighting crowds or paying prices expected in the counties next door.
Bernie Butcher, who spent years restoring the Tallman, believes the key to Lake County’s future lies in turning overnight stopovers at the Tallman into extended stays. Most guests, he explained, are just passing through — “breaking up their trip” between destinations, he said.
“But that’s one night. The whole secret is to make people see Lake County as a destination rather than a pass-through,” he said.
He’s already noticed a shift in Upper Lake itself. “I think the town has evolved in a positive way,” Butcher said. “Younger, more aggressive, more entrepreneurial people are seeing the chance to rent or buy shops cheaply here.” His wife, Lynne, pointed to signs of that energy, like the bustling, family-run Upper Lake Grocery Store with its standout butcher, and a new Mexican restaurant that just opened in the historic downtown.
The Alapatis agree and were willing to invest in one of the county’s most iconic locations to see it through.
“The hotel does a beautiful job of holding onto its past, and we want to continue that,” Rajvi said. “The Blue Wing Saloon is another gem — it has that special energy, with live music and a warm, local-meets-traveler vibe. We plan to nurture that spirit for years to come.”
Rajvi Alapati can already feel the shift at home in the Bay Area. “Everybody goes, ‘Clear Lake?’” she said, recalling a recent conversation near her home in Walnut Creek. “‘Yeah, we know Clear Lake.’” That spark of recognition, however small, hints at a changing perception.
“In five to 10 years, you will definitely see growth — travel, tourism a little bit of a change,” she said.
(SFGate.com)
MARCO MCCLEAN:
When I was five, winter of 1963, my mother’s then-boyfriend took us to Disneyland. His name was Gino Pelli, he was in college to be a doctor. I don’t know where his money came from, but he had a modern-art palace of a house in a canyon (or the hills) of L.A., that was enclosed in a wet green labyrinth of trees and vines and moss all around, with lights in the ground shining up through the moss. I clearly remember going there at night in my mother’s Oldsmobile and how, when we went back to the car to leave, the car looked so technologically attractive there, like a magazine ad for the car. When I saw ‘Once Upon A Time in Hollywood,’ the neighborhood the main character lived in seemed familiar. When my mother was working for realtors we often went to places like that in the hills. She’d measure everything with a 100-foot tape measure that I was allowed to wind up with its crank. She’d bake bread in the oven, take Polaroid pictures, make notes, use the phone, stick signs in the grass by the street. Go to the next place, repeat. Go back around to all the places and shut the ovens off, meet with anybody who showed up, run out the clock. And then maybe Bob’s Big Boy for hamburgers and milkshakes on the way home. I don’t remember what happened to the bread. The actual bread wasn’t the point; it was for the smell in the house. And I still slightly expect, whenever I open a car trunk, to see a mound of real estate signs there. That’s what a trunk is for, like Charlotte in ‘Pushing Daisies’ was raised by her aunts who made cheese for sale, so when she’s visiting a new friend and sees her friend’s refrigerator she says, “I like your cheese closet.”
In 1963, Disneyland still had the hovercraft flying saucer bumpercars ride, and the spinning teacups ride, that they had to tear out right after that because of too many expensive neck injuries. My favorite ride was the round theater rocket ride to the moon with the screen in the floor and the ceiling, and hydraulic chair cushions and footrests to simulate G-forces. It gave me the same good-shivery, anticipating-the-future feeling that I got from ‘The Outer Limits,’ and from Klieg lights up to the sky that you’d see from the freeway and say, “Can we go there?” “Sure.” Turn off, follow the pillars of god-light, and behold! A brand-new gas station or a new movie opening, or a furniture store sale…
Juanita and I went back there to get married in November of 1988, on the roof of the Griffith Observatory, above the vast shimmering fairyland plain of L.A., and Juanita’s best friend Annye’s mother (they’re both dead now) gave us the wedding present of the next day and evening at Disneyland and then a night in the Disneyland Hotel. I hate and fear hotels, but it made it easy to stay in the park until the rides closed at midnight, which meant no lines; you could get off a ride and run straight to the front of the line of that one or the next one. I was almost 30; I still liked rides then. The only ride I really like now is the carnival one where you’re in a ring of chairs around a tower, they lift you up to the top, and they drop you. It’s very simple but it’s the best feeling. You’re not spinning around and being jerked this way and that until you throw up. It’s the exact opposite of nausea and a headache. It feels like the last instant as you deliciously fall asleep, especially if you’re sleeping at a desk or otherwise in a cramped position. Juanita still likes rides where they shake you like a can of spray paint.
SHERIFF MATT KENDALL: Marco that was great! Thank you for sharing your memories of Disney Land. Loved reading this!
When I was growing up the creek behind our hay field was the best spot on earth. We had tree forts and BB guns. A nasty old brick of day's work or brown mule plug tobacco was normally hidden somewhere near our fort.
We had An old horse and a mule named Amanda who lived the good life. They were our Cavalry. Those two took us on short rides while defending the pasture from communism, the NVA or whoever was currently an enemy of the US.
There were times when defense of the ranch turned for the worse and we brothers and cousins engaged in civil wars. These skirmishes consisted of rock fights, BB Gun assaults and grenades carved from oak balls.
My grandmother encouraged us to settle our issues in boxing matches which we held in an old corral by our barn. It was Madison Square Garden for us back then and definitely a more civilized means of squaring up with each other. We only turned to this option when we couldn’t muster our soldiers for war.
A few bumps, bruises and abrasions were to be expected. Occasionally one of our battle hardened 13 year olds proudly displayed an arm cast which was signed by all the kids in school.
It’s been a while since I have seen a kid in an arm cast. I wonder if that means we are getting smarter or perhaps our fears have grown to the point they won’t allow today’s children to engage in the childhood endeavors most of us experienced.
For better or worse it’s definitely a different world today.
MENDOCINO COUNTY LINE
lyrics by Bernie Taupin (sung by Willie Nelson and Lee Ann Womack)
Counted the stars on the 4th of July
Wishing they were rockets bursting into the sky
Talking about redemption and leaving things behind
As the sun sank west of the Mendocino County Line
As fierce as Monday morning feeling washed away
Our orchestrated paradise couldn't make you stay
You dance with the horses through the sands of time
As the sun sinks west of the Mendocino County Line
I have these pictures and I keep these photographs
To remind me of a time
These pictures and these photographs
Let me know I'm doin' fine
I used to make you happy once upon a time
But the sun sank west of the Mendocino County Line
The two of us together felt nothin' but right
Feeling you near immortal every Friday night
Lost in our convictions left stained with wine
As the sun sank west of the Mendocino County Line
I don't talk to you too much these days
I just thank the lord pictures don't fade
I spent time with an angel just passing through
Now all that's left is this image of you
Counted the stars on the 4th of July
Wishing we were rockets bursting in the sky
Talking about redemption and leaving things behind
I have these pictures and I keep these photographs
To remind me of a time
These pictures and these photographs
Let me know I'm doin' fine
We used to be so happy once upon a time
Once upon a time
But the sun sank west of the Mendocino County Line
And the sun sank west of the Mendocino County Line
MENDOCINO LUMBER MILL After The 1906 Earthquake
by Carol Dominy
When the April 1906 earthquake struck Northern California, its damage reached far beyond San Francisco. In Mendocino, the lumber mill was hit hard. The massive brick smokestack, built in 1864 and standing nearly 100 feet tall, collapsed under the force of the quake, crushing parts of the boiler room and the machine shop. While the boilers themselves escaped serious harm, the mill’s 15-ton flywheel cracked—an essential part of the engine that couldn’t easily be replaced due to the destruction of San Francisco’s foundries.
The structural damage to the mill was severe. Huge 20-by-20-inch foundation supports split and shifted out of place, and many of the heavy braces, mortised deep into the posts, were dislodged permanently. Water lines were broken throughout the facility, and a newly installed 20,000-gallon water tank was completely destroyed. While the main floor of the mill was spared, it took six weeks of determined effort to realign the building and get operations running again—though not at full capacity.
In the interim, the mill installed a makeshift smokestack using part of an old steamer’s stack with an extension of thin sheet iron. With no flywheel available for months, the crew took a chance and ran the engine without it. Remarkably, it worked well enough to keep the mill producing. The long-awaited replacement flywheel finally arrived seven months later, shipped in two pieces and hauled up from Little River.
By August 1907, real progress had been made. Ironworkers Edwin Graves and Charles Smith arrived on the Sea Foam to install two towering steel smokestacks—each 125 feet tall and seven feet in diameter. They finished the job in under two weeks. But coastal conditions posed new challenges. Just two years later, one of the stacks rusted through at the top and fell into the boiler room, barely missing Joe Nichols, who jumped out of the way just in time.
(KelleyHouseMuseum.org)
CATCH OF THE DAY Sunday, May 11, 2025
CHRISTOPHER ABSHIRE, 37, Redwood Valley. Suspended license.
MACELINO ANGUIANO, 45, Ukiah. Vandalism.
LORENE EICHNER, 51, Ukiah. Vandalism.
JUSTIN ELMORE, 37, Santa Rosa/Ukiah. Leaving scene of accident with property damage.
SUMALEE FOLGER, 53, Ukiah. Failure to appear.
SANTANA GARCIA, 24, Ukiah. DUI, controlled substance, paraphernalia, suspended license.
JOSHUA HANOVER, 37, Ukiah. Controlled substance, parole violation.
JOSE MERINO-BALTAZAR, 20, Ukiah. DUI.
CURTIS NELSEN, 38, Laytonville. Felon-addict with firearm, ammo possession by prohibited person.
RANDY SAINE, 38, Willits. Disobeying court order.
TY SIMPSON, 41, Potter Valley. Probation revocation.
KALA SMITH, 34, Willits. Controlled substance for sale with two or more priors, paraphernalia, under influence.
CODY WILLIAMS, 34, Ukiah. Disobeying court order, failure to appear, probation revocation.
JEVIN WOLFE, 27, Willits. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation revocation.
CHRIS PHILBRICK:
I’ve been a faithful Warriors fan since most of you were born. Attended their seventh game Championship victory in Oakland in 1975.
The late Bob “Swampy” Marsh (our 1960 UHS basketball coach), John Woodin, Roy Williams, and every deceased great basketball coach would roll over in their graves if they saw how the Warriors set screens. Instead of “screen and roll,” our Dubs screen and then forearm shiver their guy…every single game! It’s embarrassing to watch! You can’t teach skill…but you can teach basics that even Lurch could follow. C’mon Kerr. Please!
MR. ROGERS
Becoming more sensitive to gender issues, Fred Rogers slightly altered the third verse of this song for the ’You Are Special’ CD release:
Original lyrics: “Only girls can be the mommies. Only boys can be the daddies.”
Altered lyrics: “Girls grow up to be the mommies. Boys grow up to be the daddies.”
ALCATRAZ? REALLY?
Editor:
Just when you thought you’ve heard it all, along comes yet another insane comment from the unstable genius in the White House. Let’s turn Alcatraz back into a prison to house the nation’s worst criminals.
Really? I can’t even start to imagine the time, cost and public pushback that would follow. How about we turn Mar-a-Lago into a prison. It’s surrounded by tons of security and is already housing a convicted felon and the most dangerous man since World War II.
Lou Gouveia
Sebastopol
GIANTS LOSE IN EXTRAS; SWEPT BY TWINS TO CLOSE LOSING ROAD TRIP
by Susan Slusser
The San Francisco Giants‘ offense peeked back out on a warm day at Target Field, the defense was decent and, at least initially, got good enough pitching.
Pitching alone hadn’t worked in the first two games against the Twins, with the lineup quiet and the fielding less than perfect, highlighting what we’ve learned in the first quarter of the 2025 season: The Giants can win with pitching, defense and even just a smidge of hitting.
On Sunday, Heliot Ramos homered for the second day in a row and provided an RBI single and a sacrifice fly, driving in four runs, but it wasn’t enough to stop the Twins from sweeping the series. DaShawn Keirsey Jr. sneaked a liner down the left-field line with two outs in the 10th off Ryan Walker to give the Twins a 7-6 victory.
“Look, we took a lead, the first time we’ve had a lead here, and felt pretty good about where we were going,” manager Bob Melvin said afterwards. “We had our back-end bullpen guys ready to go, and it just didn’t work out. We had some good at-bats, had some bad at-bats. The game had a little bit of everything.”
The Giants had 11 comeback wins in their first 40 games, but couldn’t pull this one off. In the top of the 10th, David Villar — batting in the pitcher’s spot after the Giants lost their DH — sent in a run with a one-out swinging bunt off Jhoan Duran, with placed runner Jung Hoo Lee, the erstwhile DH, scoring from third. But the Twins countered in the bottom of the inning against closer Ryan Walker. Brooks Lee singled and, with placed runner Ty France thus at third, Ryan Jeffers hit a shot toward third that might have erased France had Chapman fielded it cleanly. But Chapman could only knock it down and get the runner at first.
Walker gave up only two hits and had to intentionally walk a batter in the inning, but the result is likely to reignite the debate about the Giants’ closer role, especially with Camilo Doval shining earlier in the day.
Of Walker’s performance, Melvin had thoughts, stating, “Maybe he wasn’t locating like he normally does, but it’s always tough to not potentially not give up one run (with the placed runner), but he ended up giving up a hit that brought in the second one. It’s a tough spot for anybody to come in with a man on second.”
At the plate, Ramos got some good pinball luck on his game-tying hit in the eighth; his sharp grounder was heading up the middle when reliever Griffin Jax got a just a piece of the ball with a stab, deflecting it away from second baseman Willi Castro, who had been in position to make a play on the ball. As Castro watched Ramos’ hit bounce into center, Willy Adames sprinted in from third. With two still on, LaMonte Wade Jr. struck out and after pinch hitter Wilmer Flores walked, Patrick Bailey pinch hit and grounded out.
Ramos also made a couple of diving catches in the outfield, and noted, “I have been trying to make some adjustments defensive-wise, because I know that I haven’t been at my best, but I’m trying to get better every day. I’m trying to get better at my first step, that’s the main thing, because once I get going, I can run pretty good.”
The Giants went 2-4 on the trip to Chicago and Minnesota, and their one outlier game, a 14-5 win at Wrigley Field, nine of the runs scored in the 11th, which masks how sluggish the bats were overall on the road. Subtract that game and the Giants scored just 13 runs in the other five games with a total of 32 hits and nine walks.
“These guys are playing their tails off, especially coming back,” starter Landen Roupp said. “You always trust those guys to get it going and it was just a rough road series for us.”
The team’s struggles at the plate might have led to Melvin’s ejection in the ninth on a called check-swing strike three on pinch hitter Christian Koss; he came out and argued with first-base umpire Ramon De Jesus, who ran him quickly.
Roupp allowed only an infield single the first three innings, but in the fourth, Trevor Larnach reached on an infield single to first before Brooks Lee clocked a one-out homer to right. The next inning, a Kody Clemens double, another infield hit and a sacrifice fly meant another run. Infield singles are the norm for Roupp: He’s in the top 2 percent in the majors in hard-hit ball rate.
Erik Miller entered in the sixth inning, and while he has been among the most reliable men in the bullpen, he didn’t have it Sunday, allowing three hits, a walk and a run and failing to record a run before getting lifted in favor of Doval. With the infield in, Doval got pinch hitter Jonah Bride to bounce to short and Willy Adames cut down the runner at home. Another fielder’s choice brought in one more run — giving the Twins the lead — and Doval struck out Byron Buxton to end the inning.
Opponents are 1 for their past 40 with 12 strikeouts against Doval. Also in great form Sunday was Tyler Rogers, who struck out the top three hitters in the Twins’ lineup in the ninth.
With the Giants’ offense skipping the first two games in Minnesota, Luis Matos found himself in the lineup Sunday. He’s an interesting case, a right-handed hitter who is in something of a platoon, but his numbers have been better against right-handers (.333 entering Sunday) than lefties (.100).
“It’s kind of a Catch-22 in that he’s targeted for left-handed pitching, and he hits right-handers better,” Melvin said. “It’s just trying to get him at-bats where he keeps feeling good, because he’s been swinging the bat pretty well.”
In another unusual move Sunday, Lee made his first career appearance at DH, providing an outfield spot for Matos.
“I’m just trying to get Luis a day in there, too,” Melvin said. “Luis on the bench (lately), DHing probably doesn’t do him much good, and this gives Jung Hoo half a day off.”
Matos went 0-for-3 before Flores pinch hit for him, and Lee ended a 0-for-12 skid with a base hit. He wound up back in center in the eighth, and the Giants lost their DH.
Reviewing the road trip, Melvin was left to observe, “Sometimes baseball is a cruel game, just a tough series for us. We have to go home and pick our heads up and play well at home, like we have.”
CALIFORNIA WANTS TO KILL ROOFTOP SOLAR — ALL BECAUSE OFFICIALS WERE DUPED BY THIS FLAWED THEORY
Too many officials have bought a key utility company excuse for rising energy prices — solar “cost shift.”
by Richard McCann
Late last year, California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order that instructed state energy agencies to look for ways to cut power costs.
The motivation behind the governor’s order was obvious. PG&E’s residential rates are more than twice the national average, increasing an average of 12.5% annually over the past six years. This is more than double the rate increases approved under California’s three previous governors, including those following the electricity crisis in 2001.
Unfortunately, California has spent the intervening months since Newsom’s mandate focusing on all the wrong things. The California Public Utilities Commission and some state legislators have almost exclusively pointed fingers at their favorite scapegoat: rooftop solar consumers.
California’s latest attack on rooftop solar comes from AB942, which would retroactively break contracts with millions of solar consumers by cutting the compensation they receive from providing energy to the grid if their home is sold or transferred. Those with solar leases, who are predominantly lower income, will be forced to buy out those contracts when they sell.
Why would the state do that to solar users?
For the same reason they’ve spent the past several years trying to make it financially untenable for homeowners to add rooftop solar: Too many officials have bought a key utility company excuse for rising energy prices — solar “cost shift.”
Maintaining, operating and expanding the electrical grid is expensive; transmission lines, substations and more need to be built and repaired to deliver electricity to homes. The rates you pay for electricity include the cost of this infrastructure. Cost shift theory argues that since home solar users generate their own electricity, everyone else is stuck paying more to keep the system running.
This theory has a kind of superficial logic. But its supporting evidence is based on a seriously flawed notion.
It asserts that PG&E owns 100% of the electricity generated by its customers and is entitled to full profits even for energy it does not deliver from solar users. PG&E’s claim that it is “losing money” on rooftop solar is only true when it claims ownership of the kilowatt-hours generated and used by home solar.
In other words, embedded in the seemingly dire calculations of the role cost shift plays in rising energy costs is the idea that PG&E deserves a profit on the energy generated by home solar owners.
But PG&E is not entitled to those profits. Nor does it need them to run a sustainable business.
As an energy consultant with four decades of experience, I did the math myself. Using the California Public Utilities Commission staff’s own spreadsheet, I found that customers with rooftop solar supply their own energy only about half of the time. They do not owe PG&E any payments for that amount.
Further, I found that in trying to tabulate the alleged impacts of cost shift to the system, the commission staff made several calculation errors, ignored the payments home solar customers do make to PG&E and excluded most of the savings created by the investments these customers have made.
Instead of freeloading off the system, rooftop solar actually saves ratepayers money by preventing the need for the system to expand. It played a major role in keeping energy demand flat since 2006, especially on hot summer days when California gets itself into the most trouble. In fact, the California Independent System Operator, which runs the grid, credited rooftop solar in its decision to cancel 18 transmission projects — saving ratepayers $2.6 billion in 2018 alone.
Those savings include avoiding the costs of new generators, transmission lines and distribution grid equipment. By my calculations, solar users provide 12,000 megawatts of energy to the system that would have needed to be filled through utility-controlled generation and assets.
Without rooftop solar customers paying to add that capacity, those expenses would have been added to current electric rates. That is why California launched the Million Solar Rooftop program in 2006 — it was wildly successful at meeting growing loads with customers’ own resources.
Moreover, California’s 2 million solar users aren’t the wealthy land barons they are often portrayed as. Nearly 60% are working and middle-class families who earn on average only 8% more than other homeowners. Their investments are on pace to save all ratepayers $1.5 billion in 2024 due to decreased load on the grid and other shared benefits.
Gov. Newsom should be doing more to promote rooftop solar, not less, if he wants to keep electricity prices down. He should also focus on the real driver of skyrocketing energy rates.
When analyzed over time, utility infrastructure spending — more than any other type of spending on things like wildfire mitigation, clean energy incentives or subsidies for lower-income households — is what’s primarily driving up rates. Grid infrastructure spending to bring power in from remote generation to your house has increased more than threefold over the past two decades, four times faster than the rate of inflation — despite electricity demand remaining flat. Wildfire spending, meanwhile, accounted for only 12% of total utility costs recovered from ratepayers in the past two years.
If electricity demand has remained flat for so long, what is PG&E spending all that money on exactly?
That’s the question state officials should be asking.
If the system’s costs are mostly “fixed” as PG&E claims, then these costs should not have increased so rapidly.
Yet instead of getting to the bottom of this quandary, the state is going after low- and middle-income families just trying to make living in California affordable by generating their own electricity from the sun.
Of course, flattened demand and cancelled investment projects do mean less profit for utilities like PG&E. To keep earning higher profits, PG&E must keep finding new ways to spend ratepayer money on grid infrastructure, and the commission must keep giving it the green light.
Yet utility profit motive should not be what drives energy policy in California.
If we really want to get rates under control, we need to stop attacking what’s working — betraying the good deeds that we asked solar customers to do — and instead focus on the true source of the problem.
Regulators and political leaders need to get serious about reigning in spending by utilities and stop basing our energy policy around expanding their profits.
(Richard McCann is a founding partner of M.Cubed, which provides economic and public policy consulting services to public and private sector clients.)
IS THE CALIFORNIA DREAM A MIRAGE?
The state is confronting what officials say is an unprecedented confluence of forces that will test its long record of enduring catastrophes, natural and otherwise.
by Adam Nagourney
California eclipsed Japan in 2024 to become the fourth-largest economy in the world. Gov. Gavin Newsom announced earlier this month that the state’s population increased for the second year in a row. Tourism has hit record levels, as Los Angeles prepares to step onto the world stage as the host of the 2028 Summer Olympics.
But for all of that, there are rising signs that California is entering one of the most difficult periods in its history. The state is confronting what many leaders and officials say is an unprecedented confluence of forces — economic, political, social, environmental — that’s about to test its long record of resilience in the face of catastrophe, natural and otherwise.
Those population figures may prove to be a mirage. Analysts say the state’s population could well decline because of the wildfires that wiped out more than 6,000 homes in Los Angeles in January and because of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. Many young people are moving to other states to escape a housing shortage, leaving behind an aging population in a state that has long been a symbol of youth and energy.
Los Angeles, an economic engine for the state, is grappling with a $1 billion budget shortfall even before it confronts the challenge of rebuilding from the fires and the potential economic drain of preparing for the Olympics. Like San Francisco, it is struggling with an epidemic of homelessness on its sidewalks and downtown business districts that have been hollowed out by the Covid pandemic.
And at a time when the state is more vulnerable and more desperate for federal assistance after the fires, it seems unlikely California can look to Washington for help. President Trump has been far more antagonistic toward the state than he was in his first term.
“California emerged from the Great Recession, when it was declared a dysfunctional, ungovernable state, as the world’s fifth-largest economy,” said Miriam Pawel, an author who has written extensively about California history and politics. “That said, California has never encountered this kind of adversarial, hostile relationship from the federal government, which creates a tremendous degree of uncertainty.”
Since the Gold Rush of 1848, California has been an American beacon of reinvention, creativity and opportunity. With its abundant natural resources, wealth and beauty, it has powered through disaster after disaster: the collapse of the defense and aerospace economy in the late 1980s, the Loma Prieta earthquake in San Francisco in 1989, the riots in Los Angeles in 1992.
For all the signs of trouble, some California leaders say they remain optimistic.
“We have problems, we have challenges,” said Gray Davis, a Democrat who served as governor of California from 1999 to 2003. “We can overcome them. We’ll see the evidence of that over the next few years. I wouldn’t bet against California.”
Jerry Brown, a Democrat who served twice as California’s governor, said he has long been skeptical of stories in the media that declare that California’s best days are behind it. “I remember a Look magazine article talking about the same thing when my father was governor,” he said of Pat Brown, who was governor from 1959 to 1967.
Still, even Jerry Brown said the coming months and years would be difficult, marked by budget deficits, higher taxes, battles with the Trump administration and climate change.
“I think the wealth of California will allow for a basic and enduring resilience,” Mr. Brown said. “There will be cutbacks in L.A. and in a lot of places. The point is that it’s such a wealthy state that there’s a lot of room to adjust. But a lot of people are going to get hurt in the process.”
James Gallagher, the State Assembly’s Republican leader and a sixth-generation California rice farmer, said conditions in the state were as distressing as he could remember.
“Look, I’m a California optimist,” Mr. Gallagher said. “I do believe that we can turn this around. That’s always been the California dream: If you come out here, you can follow your dreams and make them come true. That is becoming less true.”
At this moment of unease, the state’s political leadership finds itself at a crossroads. Over the next two years, there will be a new governor — Mr. Newsom is barred by term limits from seeking re-election — and what will likely be a hard-fought race to determine the next mayor of Los Angeles after Karen Bass. Mayor Bass faces an electorate frustrated with her response to the fires. And Mr. Newsom has roiled members of his own party as he pivots from assailing the Trump administration to publicly criticizing Democrats and inviting Trump supporters to appear on his podcast.
Democrats here, like party members across the nation, are in a battle about the future direction of the party, amid evidence that it lost some voters by staking out positions that were too far to the left. Mr. Trump lost California in the 2024 presidential election, but he had a relatively strong showing in parts of the state, winning 10 counties that Joseph R. Biden Jr. carried in 2020.
“We definitely need to reclaim the magic,” said Donna Bojarsky, a longtime civic leader and Democratic activist. “It’s not helpless, but it is Sisyphean. California does have particular challenges at this moment. It is different from what we faced before.”
Pete Wilson, a Republican, was governor from 1991 to 1999, a tenure that included the tail end of the collapse of the aerospace industry and a major earthquake. He said the state seemed in much tougher shape now, pointing to rising homelessness and struggling public schools.
“It’s much worse now than it was then, and it was pretty bad then,” Mr. Wilson said. “If things don’t change, I’m not optimistic.”
Even before the January fires, California, with its high housing costs and taxes, had become an increasingly expensive place to live, particularly for younger and lower-income people. Juan Reyes, who owns a metal recycling business, said that with two incomes, he and his wife could barely afford the rent for their Monterey Park apartment. He said they were considering moving back to Mexico, where Mr. Reyes immigrated from more than 30 years ago.
“The truth is you can’t live in California anymore,” Mr. Reyes said in Spanish while sitting on a park bench in East Los Angeles. “Some time ago, one could afford to live here. Everything was cheap.”
But across town at the Grove, an upscale shopping center, there was confidence in the state’s future.
“Good bones are good bones, and California has good bones,” said Shem Bitterman, a 65-year-old screenwriter.
The biggest difference today, compared to the difficult chapters California has weathered since its founding in 1850, is the presence of a president who has expressed hostility toward the state. Mr. Trump and Washington Republicans have sought to unravel signature California policies and projects on auto emissions, electric vehicles, high-speed rail, and water and forest management.
When the Northridge earthquake devastated parts of Los Angeles in January 1994, leading to 60 deaths and $40 billion in damage, President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, marshaled federal resources and financial assistance from the earliest hours of the disaster. The governor at the time was Mr. Wilson, a Republican.
By contrast, Mr. Trump has said he would only consider granting California emergency assistance if the state bowed to a shifting list of demands, including implementing voter ID requirements and changing the way it managed the state water supply.
“There was a competition between our administration and the White House over who could do the most for L.A.,” said Bill Whalen, Mr. Wilson’s speechwriter at the time who is now a senior fellow at a conservative think tank, the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. “Clinton’s political default was ‘I can’t do enough for that state because I want those votes in 1996.’ The Trump administration’s default is, let’s just say, different.”
Mr. Newsom, who is considering a run for president when his term as governor ends, has in recent days sought to push back on the notion of a struggling California. When the state announced that its population had increased by 108,000 in 2024, Mr. Newsom offered that statistic as a corrective to the notion — pushed by Republicans — that people were fleeing California.
Demographers have raised concerns about the population trends, even before the fires. Nearly 200,000 Californians between the age of 20 and 29 left the state between 2020 and 2023. And in recent years, film and television producers have headed for other states and nations, drawn by the promise of lower costs and tax breaks. By one count, 180,000 jobs in Hollywood, an industry that has long helped define California, have disappeared over the past three years.
Mr. Newsom boasted about last year’s new tourism numbers, but said that the number of international visitors this year was already beginning to fall because of tariffs, immigration restrictions and the increasingly fraught relationship between Mr. Trump and foreign governments. The state now projects a 9.2 percent decrease in international tourism for next year.
The fires in January in Pacific Palisades and Altadena hit a housing market that was already reeling from high prices and scarcity. State officials said it seemed inevitable that some insurance companies will pull out of the housing market — making it much harder to build a home or get a mortgage — while others will raise already high rates.
Mr. Brown has been one of California’s biggest boosters for nearly half a century. He said in an interview last week that he remains as confident about the future of the state today as he was when he saw the Look magazine article about California’s woes when his father was governor.
“Things move in California, and they change,” he said. “We lost aerospace, but we gained the Silicon Valley. California is still a force.”
(NY Times)
STATE BRACES FOR TOURISM ‘TRUMP SLUMP’
by Sandra McDonald
California hit a new tourism record in 2024, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Monday, but the high isn’t expected to last thanks to President Trump’s tariffs.
Tourism spending last year hit $157.3 billion, up 3% from 2023, and created 24,000 jobs, according to a 2024 economic impact report from Visit California, the state’s nonprofit marketing agency.
California is still the No. 1 state for tourism and has the fourth largest economy in the world, but next year it expects a 1% decline in visitation and a 9.2% downturn in international tourism, “in direct response to federal economic policy and an impending ‘Trump Slump,’” according to a statement from the governor’s office.
Local LA tour groups and knickknack shops, usually booming at this time of year from spring break travel, have said the uncertainty of tariffs and the trade war’s effect on the stock market have turned people away from local travel.
But it’s not just local — Canadians have canceled plans to travel to California for events such as Coachella because of Trump’s aggressive 25% tariff on Canadian goods, worrying officials in desert towns that rely on snowbirds for income. Newsom announced a marketing plan to invite Canadians back to California after February figures showed a 12% drop compared with the same month in 2024.
In the Los Angeles area alone, the tourism and hospitality industry employs about 510,000 workers and supports more than 1,000 local businesses, according to the Los Angeles Tourism and Convention Board.
Last month, Tourism Economics, a Philadelphia-based travel data company, predicted that international travel to the U.S. could decrease 5% this year, with a 15% decline in travel from Canada.
In San Diego, home to Comic Con, some of California’s most beautiful beaches and the “Smithsonian of the West” in Balboa Park, tourism employs 1 in 8 residents and brought $14.8 billion in earnings in 2024.
ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
My definition of assault is irrelevant. Yours is too. The legal definition is pertinent.
18 U.S. Code § 111 says, “whoever forcibly assaults, resists, opposes, impedes, intimidates, or interferes with any person (or formerly served) designated in section 1114 of this title who are engaged in the performance of official duties, shall be fined and imprisoned for up to one year for simple assault, and up to eight years where such acts involve physical contact with the victim of that assault or the intent to commit another felony, and use of a deadly or dangerous, or inflicts bodily injury shall be fined and imprisoned not over 20 years “
LEAD STORIES, MONDAY'S NYT
U.S. and China Agree to Temporarily Slash Tariffs in Bid to Defuse Trade War
Flights Could Be Disrupted Across U.S., Transportation Secretary Warns
Hamas Says It Will Release Its Last American Hostage
Trump Is Poised to Accept a Luxury 747 From Qatar for Use as Air Force One
Auction to Dine With Trump Creates Foreign Influence Opportunity
India and Pakistan Agree to a Cease-Fire: What We Know
Leo Lived Here: The Price Goes Up for the Pope’s Childhood Home
THOMAS PYNCHON UNMASKED
The great California writer—if unknowingly—answers our questions about a U.S. Department of Jesus, moving back to the Golden State, and winning a Nobel Prize.
by David Kipen
Thomas Pynchon has never, ever granted an interview. This titanically talented writer guards his privacy like a flight risk. The National Enquirer recently stalked Pynchon for six months before stealing a photograph of him as he voted at his local polling place, which, to some of us, was like shooting a GI in the act of raising the American flag. Pynchon’s stance is that of every private writer: let the books speak for themselves.
The following Q&A takes very literally this reticent author’s plea. Here is the story of Pynchon’s life and work, with a particular focus on California, as told via his nine books. His answers are his own words, taken verbatim, one book at a time, from V. up through Bleeding Edge. A fine writer and his characters may think they’re discussing other things, but it’s my contention that every author’s keyboard is a polygraph. Pynchon—funny, prophetic, menschy, Californian to his fingerprints—writes his autobiography with every line.
First the facts: Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr. was born on May 8, 1937, in the Long Island, New York, city of Glen Cove. He entered Cornell as an engineering physics major, then turned a page in the course catalog and found a second home in the English Department. After graduation, he worked in Seattle as a technical writer for Boeing and spent time in, among other places, Mexico City and Guanajuato. Somewhere in there, he wrote one of the best American first novels of the past century, 1963’s V., where we begin.
David Kipen: Where should we look first to understand you?
Thomas Pynchon: To the west coast.
Kipen: But you’re a Yankee whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower! How would you describe your childhood impression of California before you ever visited?
Pynchon: Happy with westerns and detective stories.
Kipen: And how did your upbringing among traditional suburban families shape you? What do you remember most about Long Island?
Pynchon: The torso of the father solid and sure in its J. Press suit; the eyes of the daughters secret behind sunglasses rimmed in rhinestones…. Who could escape? Who could want to?
Kipen: Escape to where? What did you want to know about instead?
Pynchon: How the road is.… What it’s like west of Ithaca and south of Princeton.
Kipen: You sure found out. You wound up in Manhattan Beach, writing that L.A.-based mainstay of the Intro to Modern Fiction syllabus, The Crying of Lot 49. Tell me, what did living so close to the Pacific offer you?
Pynchon: A real alternative to the exitlessness, the absence of surprise to life, that harrows the head of everybody American you know, and you too, sweetie.
Kipen: You once wrote that Lot 49 was a story “marketed as a ‘novel’…in which I seem to have forgotten most of what I thought I’d learned up till then.” How can you say that? The book means so much to so many of us. Do you stand by that? Or have you had—?
Pynchon: Yeah…second thoughts.
Kipen: I understand if you think too many people turn first to Lot 49 just because it’s short. But still, the beauty of the text—
Pynchon: Why…is everybody so interested in texts?… You guys, you’re like Puritans are about the Bible. So hung up with words, words.… The reality is in this head. Mine. I’m the projector at the planetarium.
Kipen: Spent time at the Griffith Observatory, have you? By the way, your fondness in Lot 49 for the Raymond Chandler tradition really comes across. Do you still take an interest in L.A. writing? I hope you don’t mind if I recommend a terrific new book on the subject? I happen to have a copy here.
Pynchon: Your book?
Kipen: I’d be happy to sign—
Pynchon: Real good documentation, this Californiana crap.
Kipen: But I quoted you twice in it! You’re so quotable, I’m surprised nobody else has thought to stitch together an interview like this one.
Pynchon: Our lawyer will read it.
Kipen: Hmm. After Lot 49, you holed up and wrote what most people, a little hastily, consider your masterpiece: Gravity’s Rainbow. What was a typical working day like for you in L.A. back then? You wake up. What’s the first thing down there south of the airport that you hear in the morning?
Pynchon: A screaming comes across the sky.
Kipen: But that’s…you mean the most famous first line in modern literature came to you from living near the flight path at LAX?
Pynchon: Now—
Kipen: You also made room for other California outrages in the book, like the anti-Chicano Zoot Suit Riots of 1943. For all its darkness, there must be something about L.A. and its mythologies that you miss?
Pynchon: The lacework balconies of the Bradbury Building…
Kipen: The year 2023 will mark the 50th anniversary of Gravity’s Rainbow’s publication. Shouldn’t there be some sort of local observance of this milestone?
Pynchon: A conference or some shit?
Kipen: See if we invite you. Did you ever imagine the book would become such a classic? If not, what did you think the next half century might hold for the world?
Pynchon: A giant cartel including winners and losers both, in an amiable agreement to share what is there to be shared… They can pick us off out there one by one.
Kipen: Who would’ve been behind it?
Pynchon: A zany (or, if you enjoy paranoid systems, a horribly rational) Midland, Texas oil man.
Kipen: You mean the Bush family? Where would such a cartel have laundered its money?
Pynchon: All the oil money taken…by the Nobels has gone into Nobel Prizes.
Kipen: The Nobels? Shhh, keep it down. You might blow your chance at the prize by baiting them. Why risk it? What are they and all these other industrialists so guilty of?
Pynchon: Taking and not giving back.… The System removing from the rest of the World these vast quantities of energy to keep its own tiny desperate fraction showing a profit.
Kipen: Speaking of energy, where did yours go after Rainbow? All you published during the next 17 years was a collection of five youthful short stories, Slow Learner. It included “The Secret Integration”—the best possible place for Pynchon rookies to begin, a practically perfect story about racism and imagination—plus a charming, surprisingly autobiographical introduction. Why did you finally decide to give readers a glimpse of the life behind the literature?
Pynchon: Somewhere I had come up with the notion that one’s personal life had nothing to do with fiction, when the truth, as everyone knows, is nearly the direct opposite.
Kipen: So you admit that a bit of biography can sometimes shed useful light on a writer’s work? Not prurient questions about what’s in your fridge, or even on your bookshelves—more the human mystery of how who you are factors into what you do.
Pynchon: [Silence.]
Kipen: Ho-kay… What advice would you have for budding novelists today—young or otherwise, on campus or off?
Pynchon: Shut up and listen to the American voices.… The ‘60s was…limited by the failure of college kids and blue-collar workers to get together politically…real, invisible class force fields in the way of communication between the two groups.
Kipen: Boy, I hope we never see that again. You revisited the counterculture in your first novel in almost two decades, Vineland, from 1990—one of very few novels to capture both Northern and Southern California between their covers. Where had you been all those years?
Pynchon: Humboldt County.… Beautiful country, only a short spin up or down 101 from everything.… You can hide, all right.
Kipen: The female characters in Vineland somehow seem even deeper and more dimensional than those in your earlier writings. What happened there?
Pynchon: Es posible, / Increíble, / It’s love…
Kipen: Ah yes, in 1990 you married your girlfriend—who I gather is also your agent—and you had a son together the following year. Congratulations on your 30th anniversary, by the way. And circa Vineland, on the brink of parenthood, what did you suppose the future held for the country?
Pynchon: Someday, with the right man in the White House, there will be a Department of Jesus, yes and a Secretary of Jesus.… Dismantle the New Deal, reverse the effects of World War II, restore fascism at home and around the world, flee into the past, can’t you feel it, all the dangerous childish stupidity—”I don’t like the way it came out, I want it to be my way.”
Kipen: Glad we dodged that bullet.
Pynchon: [Weeping bitterly.]
Pynchon: Around the time you published Vineland, you moved home to New York and completed Mason & Dixon, about the two 18th-century British surveyors who drew the border between slavery and freedom. One critic called it worthy of “[Pynchon’s] twin obsessions—America and science—but with his anger at the mess that greed has made of them both.” Maybe they left out a third obsession: you’re so passionate about music in your books. Do you listen to music when you write? What kind?
Pynchon: The very Rhythm of the Engines, the Clamor of the Mills, the Rock of the Oceans, the Roll of the Drums in the Night…Surf Music!
Kipen: Are you OK? I notice your language is getting a wee bit anachronistic…
Pynchon: And you too.
Kipen: You seem like such a mellow guy. Why all the emphasis on conspiracy and paranoia in your books? Why would the ruling class have it in for you?
Pynchon: Somehow, what I got into printing up, were Accounts of certain Crimes I had observ’d, committed by the Stronger against the Weaker.
Kipen: And yet the overall tone of Mason & Dixon seems gentler, more forgiving. What happened there?
Pynchon: What happens to men sometimes…is that one day all at once they’ll understand how much they love their children, as absolutely as a child gives away its own love.… The Miracle of Fatherhood.
Kipen: After Mason & Dixon, you published your longest, maybe most undervalued novel, 2006’s Against the Day, which one review later called a “still-smoking asteroid, whose otherworldly inner music readers are just beginning to tap back at.” It takes place all over Europe and beyond, but, as with Gravity’s Rainbow, it winds up in Los Angeles. California really got under your skin, didn’t it? When you think of L.A., what do you think of?
Pynchon: An incalculable expanse of lights…rat-infested pockets of old California money, a relentlessly unacknowledged past.
Kipen: A lot of Against the Day is as good as anything you’ve written. Why don’t you think it’s gotten its due from readers?
Pynchon: Lazy sons of bitches.
Kipen: Well, then, don’t you think critics and scholars have a role to play in elucidating your work for readers who might otherwise be intimidated by it?
Pynchon: All due respect to the Professor…I don’t know how much of that I can tolerate.
Kipen: Three years after Against the Day, you came out with Inherent Vice, a detective story that another critic called a “throwaway masterwork,” “a shaggy-dog epic,” an—excuse me, is that a complete, well-thumbed run of Alta magazine there? What’s the subject of your favorite piece so far?
Pynchon: Musso & Frank’s.
Kipen: My short story? From last summer’s issue? You liked it?
Pynchon: A nice piece of…work.
Kipen: Now that you know a lot more about California than at the beginning of your career, what do you imagine was the fulcrum moment in its history? The industrial boom of World War II? The discovery of gold in 1848?
Pynchon: The arrival of the Portolá expedition in 1769.… On the face of one of them—maybe Portolá himself? there was an expression of wonder, like, What’s this, what unsuspected paradise? Did God with his finger trace out and bless this perfect little valley, intending it only for us?
Kipen: That about breaks my heart. And what’s your most vivid personal memory of L.A.?
Pynchon: One night…in Westwood…a little girl…breathless with excitement in front of a lighted bookstore window, calling to her mother to come and look. “Books, Mama! Books!”
Kipen: Hey! Aren’t you supposed to be this incredibly polymathic novelist who should’ve won the Nobel Prize long ago, only his books are too hard for the Swedish Academy to understand? Why, Thomas Pynchon, you’re just an old softy!
Pynchon: Shh…
Kipen: If you love California so much, why don’t you just move back here? What are you waiting for?
Pynchon: A border where nobody could tell anymore in the fog who was Mexican, who was Anglo, who was anybody.
Kipen: Six years ago, you revisited New York for Bleeding Edge, “a lovably scruffy comedy of remarriage, half-hidden behind the lopsided Groucho mask of Pynchon’s second straight private-eye story,” according to still another critic.
Pynchon: Who are these people?
Kipen: Never you mind. So it’s an open secret now that you live…?
Pynchon: On the Upper West Side.
Kipen: But what about my thesis? Here I build this airtight case for you as the quintessential California novelist, I practically memorize all your novels, till I can quote you out of context and make you say anything—and then you go and set your most recent novel in Manhattan?
Pynchon: Empathy, we’re all out of that today, the truck didn’t show up.
Kipen: You’re, what, 82 now? So what’s life like for you these days?
Pynchon: We continue to work our ass off.
Kipen: I knew it! So there’ll be another novel soon?
Pynchon: Yes. No. I’m good…what?
Kipen: I understand. You don’t want to jinx it. Give me a heads-up when you can, though? And I see we’re running out of time. You’re forever making up songs in your novels—would you mind if we improvised a little soft-shoe number?
Pynchon: A duet?
Kipen: [At a patter-song tempo] Tom, what do you think of the current administration—just between you and me, over a couple of tall ones?
Pynchon: [In harmony] Donald Trump’s cost accountants…guiding principle…pay the major contractors, blow off the small ones.
Kipen: Still, deep down, are you a Californian or what?
Pynchon: I’m wearing California plates on my butt.
Kipen: That’s more like it [moving in for a hug]!
Pynchon: [One of those long West Coast shrugs.]
Kipen: [Arms flung wide] You’re certain?
Pynchon: [Curtain.]
“This ugly mess is California muscling ghastly new courthouses into every county, replacing the old, stately classic building erected 100 or more years ago.”
What’s ugly are the old, “stately”, “classic” wrecks, designed to keep us in mind of the magnificence and “royalty” of our rulers as compared to our own insignificance in our role as mere plebeians…
Wow, congratulations to the Ed. An extended sane Notes section today.
To the Ed, the last paragraph says it all!
ASSIGNMENT: UKIAH – GET ON BOARD. SHUT UP.
by Tommy Wayne Kramer
Well TWK,
You saw that picture a few days ago in the AVA of all those lefties protesting DJT, just look at them, you want them to stand up for change, you should stay in whatever Carolina you are in and enjoy life, I know I am:)
Good Morning.
ED NOTES.
there are a multitude of reasons why people end up homeless and I would say it is really a far reaching assumption to believe just because one has a car to sleep in while unhoused means they have some immunity in these conditions. Just because one has a car does not mean they have a job they can work or they have income of any other sort, it does not mean they are not addicted or are not struggling with mental illness. They technically are just safer. They have a car for safety and can go wherever they want.
I find it really frustrating and sad that there is a huge belief that people on the street very sick people are blamed and condemned for what is believed as personal choice.
Mental illness and addiction are illnesses that effect cognition, rational, and ability to make decisions. So blaming street people for their plight does not solve anything it does not fix a damn thing.
Many people with addiction and mental illness have homes and jobs and the difference is the support network.
Again, how much decision-making would you leave to your elderly mother with Alzheimer’s? Would you let her drive down the street to go to the grocery store?
We have had changes with laws and it takes a really long time to incorporate. It is our actions that actually determine what happens and unfortunately in Mendo, we are ignorant I was too!!
realizing my son easily was about to be one of those “crazy sick people”!
And for reference, this is important. His only addiction was cannabis.!!
There has to be housing, long-term supportive housing with treatment.
We can stop saying homeless, I try to use “street people” to make distinction of those in most dire need.
You cannot assume most of the street people can just buck up and get a job! There are many barriers with that first and foremost would be hygiene, of course maybe even the ability to fill out an application or possibly even be able to read! But what would help with finding a job is to be housed and treated for your conditions!
mm 💕
The Governor is now asking local jurisdictions to outlaw and clear out encampments.
I wonder what’s going to happen to the elderly when Congress eliminates subsidized housing. As they plan to do. People like Craig, elderly and carless, will be screwed.
Our country has a horrible history and present with migrants fleeing nightmare scenes.
Someday, those bemoaning the migrants eroding the dominant white culture will face the reality of being displaced and on the move. Homeless and desperate. Which has already started due to more intense storms and fires.
Hi Mike,
I did just read about Newsom‘s plan for outlawing encampments! It is very disturbing on so many levels!
looks like a certain group of people will have their wishes fulfilled. A dream come true no more “vagrants!”
Jail for the win!!! 🚓 👮♂️
So much fear & hatred ! As long as I do not have to be witness to your disturbing behavior I could care less about how you exist or what is wrong with you because it is your own damn fucking fault! 🤮
It will be same narrative if subsidized housing is lost.
You should have voted better
You should not have gotten old
You should have saved half your income
You should’ve went to college
You should have acquired a better paying profession
It’s your mom’s fault!
I am better than you because I am not poor!
on and on it goes
🤮🤢
mm 💕
I have some faith that in some future century there will be sanity, clarity and compassion as dominate characteristics in the human culture. I suspect it will take going through dark times and learning some lessons.
Mike
I am glad you have faith, it is our actions now that create the future and if we wait for clarity and compassion, we are doomed!
mm 💕
mm💕
Agree 100%
Thank you, for finding Jake.
Can someone tell me the location of the Clint Eastwood photo. I grew up in San Francisco in the 50’s and do not recall that background being anywhere in the city. Looks more like Marin or East Bay. Thanx
ED Notes today paints interesting pictures today. Not sure about the dark shadows as the dominant reality in our coastal communities but at least there are at times brighter scenes. Here is a glimpse of the Almost Fringe Festival in Point Arena:
https://youtu.be/aGUA-9722NY?si=V___jml0CWLKuMnW
A New business in Point Arena:
https://youtu.be/0bMgONFxY2E?si=2MQwPfTBgpjAMVLG
Warmest spiritual greetings,
Sitting here on a public computer at the MLK Public Library in Washington, D.C. reading the Mendocino County news on the Boontling Greeley Sheet. Straight up, why is there consideration of a new Ukiah public park, when the Alex R. Thomas Plaza is presently serving the community in a perfect location on State Street, right in the middle of the city? Second, why is there all of the hullabaloo about the ascetic features of a new courthouse? Who the hell cares about the architectural plan for a courthouse anyway? Nobody in any city in the world could care less what the courthouse looks like! Third, there is no solution to “homelessness”. If you wish to help somebody else, please go ahead.
Fourth, where is my Social Security SSI money which needs to go into my Chase checking account this month, and where is my senior subsidized housing? I’ll take a flight back to Mendo and temporary housing for starters. As a 75 year young productive patriotic American citizen, goddam right you owe me, and the government is here to serve me. What else??? Thanks for being sane.
Craig Louis Stehr
Adam’s Place Homeless Shelter
2210 Adams Place NE #1
Telephone Messages: (202) 832-8317
Email: [email protected]
May 12th @ 12:56 p.m. EDT
FYI:
AI Overview
Yes, Congress is proposing significant cuts to federal rental assistance programs. Specifically, the 2026 budget proposal, as outlined by the White House, includes a 43% reduction in funding for programs like Tenant-Based Rental Assistance, Public Housing, and Project-Based Rental Assistance. This would result in a decrease of $26.718 billion in funding for these programs.
Here’s a more detailed breakdown:
Proposed Cuts:
The budget proposes a 43% cut to funding for programs like Tenant-Based Rental Assistance, Public Housing, and Project-Based Rental Assistance, as well as Housing for the Elderly and Housing for Persons with Disabilities.
Impact:
These cuts could significantly impact millions of low-income individuals and families who rely on these programs for housing stability.
State Responsibility:
The proposed plan shifts responsibility for administering rental assistance programs from the federal government to individual states.
Funding Reductions:
The proposed cuts would reduce funding by $26.718 billion and would also eliminate programs like CDBG and HOME Investment Partnerships, according to The National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials.
State-Designed Programs:
The remaining funds would be block-granted to states, allowing them to design their own rental assistance programs based on their specific needs and preferences.
Two-Year Cap:
The proposal includes a two-year cap on assistance for able-bodied adults.
The solution to homelessness is you guessed it homes!!
However, all of the other issues contributing to homelessness must be addressed from concurrently!
The longer a person remains without housing the harder it becomes to address their issues!
People cannot do it alone! That is one of the tenents of the entire system structure! Agency a person’s right to choose and decide for themselves to access their own power.
The reality is, they are powerless.
mm 💕
Mazie:
“The solution to homelessness is you guessed it homes!!”
Yes!!!
clint eastwood in china cove in san rafael or lake berryessa in napa
AI Overview
The image shows actor Clint Eastwood carrying two women, possibly actresses or models, on his shoulders at Lake Sherwood in California. The photograph was taken in 1954 by photographer John Dominis for LIFE magazine. Lake Sherwood is a reservoir in the Santa Monica Mountains, known for its scenic beauty and has been a popular location for filming since the 1920s.
Be well,
Laz
I have been reading some Orwell recently. This was published in 1933. Seems germane to today’s discussion.
From “Down and Out in Paris and London”
It is worth saying something about the social position of beggars, for when one has consorted with them, and found that they are ordinary human beings, one cannot help being struck by the curious attitude that society takes towards them.
People seem to feel that there is some essential difference between beggars and ordinary “working men.” They are a race apart, outcasts, like criminals and prostitutes. Working men “work,” beggars do not work; they are parasites, worthless in their very nature. It is taken for granted that a beggar does not “earn” his living, as a bricklayer or a literary critic “earns” his. He is a mere social excrescence, tolerated because we live in a humane age, but essentially despicable.
Yet if one looks closely one sees that there is no essential difference between a beggar’s livelihood and that of numberless respectable people. Beggars do not work, it is said; but then, what is “work”? A navvy works by swinging a pick. An accountant works by adding up figures. A beggar works standing out of doors in all weathers and getting varicose veins, chronic bronchitis, etc. It is a trade like any other; quite useless, of course – but then, many reputable trades are quite useless. And as a social type a beggar compares well with scores of others…
The question arises, why are beggars universally despised? – for they are despised, universally.
I believe it is for the simple reason that they fail to earn a decent living. In practice nobody cares whether work is useful or useless, productive or parasitic; the sole thing demanded is that is shall be profitable. Money has become the grand test of virtue. By this test beggars fail, and for this they are despised. If one could earn even ten pounds a week at begging, it would become a respectable profession immediately.
A beggar, looked at realistically, is simply a business man, getting his living, like other business men, in the way that comes to hand. He has not, more than most modern people, sold his honour; he has merely made the mistake of choosing a trade at which it is impossible to grow rich.
Thank you for this KH!!!! 💕💕💕💕
mm 💕
If you have time Mazie, I highly recommend this book. It is fascinating and hard to put down. Still wildly relevant today about all kinds of topics – restaurants, travel, work, dignity, humanity, social values.
Thank you I will read it!
mm 💕
It’s obvious that this author is speaking about times long ago. Today’s beggar is far from that, he or she is not someone down on their luck just trying to get by. Today’s homeless mostly have mental issues or drug addicted or both. They are not asking for money. They are committing crimes against everyday people and property. Our justice system has given them a free pass. No longer can a judge order a person to get treatment, police have been asked to deal with them. We give millions to groups like RCS, we should be able to contact them and they should come out and deal with the person. This does not happen, I’ve experienced first hand. But our elected leaders just keep throwing money at these groups with no oversight. Meanwhile citizens have to engage to protect themselves and their property. So yes Mazie, jail becomes a real alternative. Just as I have expressed to you before, if Jahlan Travis is breaking into your car, it’s not because he is cold, he is looking for money to buy drugs. Yes, he is mentally ill, but he is dangerous. He has been arrested at least a 100 times for all kinds of violations which include brandishing a weapon, assault, breaking and entering, theft, threats, under the influence, possession, etc. If the County’s programs they spend millions on allow this,. Then jail is where Jahlan belongs.
CSI…..🤦♀️😤
If I am homeless and hungry I would steal a sandwich if I were cold I would find a car to sleep in, if I were jonesing to feed my addiction I may even break into a car.
Prop 1 passed making judges able to require treatment not only that we have Assisted Outpatient Treatment.
Jail is not treatment and if we actually address the issues causing the problems crime will decrease.
Jalahn needs treatment not jail.
Guess who has received treatment Jake Louis Kooy he is thriving. Although I do not know details how he was agreeable to treatment.
Has not been arrested in some time!!!
I am not scared of Jalahn, or any other homeless individual.
There of course instances where arrest has to happen but it should be much less common.
The problem is no intervention, support & treatment.
Crimes against everyday people and property? Let’s not inflate that issue.
mm 💕
Ha ha! Speaking of inflating the issue, look in the mirror. You’re the one that wants everyone to believe they steal because they are hungry, they broke into your car because they are cold. Everyday people pay the taxes that are suppose to go towards a solution. They don’t deserve to feel threatened or have their properties deficated on and vandalize. Don’t know who is scared, it’s not me. I try and deal with them respectfully but firmly. I don’t care how they got here or give them an excuse. If they have mental illness then get help, if there addicted, go to rehab. If they can’t make that decision on their own, then jail and a judge can enforce help. Believe it or not that’s called compassion. Allowing them to live on the streets is a slow death and is chaos for everyone else.
Dude
I I do look in the mirror and the reality is homeless people do those things for the reasons I stated. Not the only reason obviously.
Street people are not all problematic and everyone needs and deserves housing
I pay taxes too
I just have awareness and understanding of the bigger picture
You do realize that your taxes pay for the jail too!
more intervention less crime less Jail that is what our taxes were meant to accomplish
mm 💕
As we slide deeper and deeper into authoritarianism spelled with an “f,” I think a reminder about history is appropriate.
The Shoah, the murder of 6 million European Jews didn’t start with Jews. It started with laws passed to address the problem of the homeless made destitute by the Treaty of Versailles’s reparations provisions that stripped the German economy. First the homeless were rounded up to get them off the streets. Some might have even argued that this was “compassionate”. Then some, likely conservative, legislators decided that housing them was a waste of money, and there needed to be a “final solution”.
The short form reads, as I told a meeting in Berkeley on this issue over 40 years ago, “First they came for the street people, then the homosexuals, and then the Jews.” Somewhere in there were the Romani, the Gypsies, and after the Jews, they came for the Catholics.
This Grants Pass decision allowing criminalizing homelessness, followed by Newsome’s scheme to criminalize homelessness in California cities creates the same legal framework in California as was created in Germany in the early 1930’s, leading ultimately to the event we know as the Holocaust. We need to look at this very carefully, with a long view toward where it may be extended and what may be the moral consequences of following this path.
John Charles Fremont, having made the maps that brought the immigrants to California and made a fortune in gold and served as Lt General in the Civil War, the first Republican to run for president campaigning as the pathfinder, well, he died homeless in his advanced years on the streets of San Francisco… we will all follow him down to the same end, sure as hell. Amen.
Right, my taxes pay for jail too. Then let’s use it. You dodge the waste of tax dollars. All these services you promote are failing. There is no crew of people who will respond if you encounter someone trespassing or illegally camping. The list of numbers Mo gave me and guaranteed someone will help. That was a failure, Building Bridges told me to get them a motel room and Social Services laughed at me. 20 some million to the Schrader’s and it’s worse. You know what does work? Jail, at least there off the streets for 2 or 3 days. There in a controlled environment with food and a cot. And more importantly there not shitting and pissing on people’s property, or stealing.
CSI
I have never dodged the waste of tax dollars. nor promoted the services. I have said countless times that the services are not working as they should and action & protocols are necessary.. I have questioned the spending of money on more services such as the CRU.
We are not different in wanting change and something to be done.
However I want people to be given the understanding. tools & support to be off the street and succeed to best of their ability.
You said yourself you could give a shit less how they got there or why they’re doing what they’re doing. But you see that is very important because that is where the solution is. When you understand why then you can solve it!
homeless = a home
addicted = treatment
mental illnesss = medication & therapy
All 3 = all the above & hand holding support
leaving garbage = all the above
Crime= all the above
Public defecation= all the above
A sense of worth & belonging!!
To bad there seems to be no solution for people who have the belief their existence “trumps” those who are less capable, troubled, indigent or lost.
mm 💕
You can’t help people that won’t help themselves.
Your little word play says it all. They are excuses. Are you really looking for the solution? The answer is no. At some point the afflicted must want to change. All you’re doing is enabling the problem. If you want to dig a hole, somebody has to get dirty. The world is full of theories.
CSI
Those are not excuses. Those are the facts as far as a person wanting to change, it does not really apply in these situations because the truth is the conditions, these people face are practically insurmountable without assistance!
Not a theory ….
Enabling would require providing what is causing harm
mm 💕
Much as Gavin Newsome and other leaders of wealth, along with our investor-owned media, want to view broken, downtrodden homeless people as the problem, the homeless are a necessary part of our economic system. Capitalism is an extractive economic system that takes surplus value from working people’s labor and profit from consumers’ spending, and delivers that extracted value to investors. Capitalism necessarily squeezes out anybody who fails or is incapable of supplying their necessary quotient of value to the investor class, labeling those as “failures” to be walked around on the street and their existence an anvil in the press to squeeze value out of the populace.
According to Rand Corporation financial analysts, the investor class, the top 10% by wealth, have successfully squeezed $50 Trillion, that’s $50 Thousand Billion, from the bottom 90% in the U.S. since 1975. The result is a burgeoning homeless, destitute, dispirited and self-destructive population of people squeezed out of “society,” while at the same time that top 10% strategize and scam to reduce their taxes even further, cutting what minimal supports exist for the squeezed out. Such a monumental moral failure this Nation has become!
James,
Yes thank you!! 💕
mm 💕
“Does anyone read the Board agenda?”
A few years ago there were concerns about Brown Act compliance when the County of Lake was beginning to switch to “remote” broadcasting of their regular meetings — due to the pandemic restrictions. (Remember the installation of those plastic shields, and the six-foot separation rules, and having to “clean” the public microphone after each person spoke?)
One of the comments made by then County Counsel Anita Grant addressed the need to make agenda items “understandable” by the public.
Both of our Boards of Supervisors employ the style and presentation of agenda items that comports with some kind of compositional rule(s) for which I can find no codification.
To begin with a seemingly trivial artifact of compositional style, look at the fact that almost all of the words are capitalized, which reduces the ability to convey meaning. Irritating to look at, for starters, but hospitable to napping.
There may not be “any other local media regularly highlighting the board’s agenda or even linking to it or mentioning anything on it in advance” — but there is no doubt that the utility of your scrutiny is greatly valued.
After 25 years of working with community organizations in Lake County, and two decades of documenting the operations of its top municipal government, I can sympathize with the invisible ranks of concerned citizens who are unroused by those reports — because in point of fact, getting “involved” in local governance is a lot of tedious, frustrating work.
In the Comments section, we see the dozen or so Mendo residents who advocate from the sidelines, but often have valuable knowledge to share with those few who might take the trouble to go to those meetings.
In Lake County, there is practically nowhere to engage through local media (Lake County News publishes the next-day’s BoS agenda but provides no comment option for readers; the Lake County Record-Bee provides neither).
However, on Sunday afternoons, KPFZ (88.1 fm, Lakeport) broadcasts a two hour program that typically includes a review of our upcoming BoS agenda, and information about county issues that our BoS is ultimately responsible for.
[It is truly shocking — not unlike Trump saying he doesn’t know if he has to uphold the Constitution — to see that your Board does not take responsibility for the county’s fiscal system. Let alone allowed the DA to attack your elected Tax Collector-Treasurer / Auditor-Controller, or the City of Ukiah’s annexation action based on zero fiscal analysis?]
But we understand how off-putting the process is (and have to guess that its arcane puffery and “eye-glazing detail” are preferrable to plain English) — attending those meetings and taking detailed notes (occasionally transcribing some of the more outrageous dialogues) is laborious, but the results are often unexpected revelations, especially when our Supes describe their “Calendars”: usually a rundown on meetings both past and planned, with lots of jolly community “events” as well as substantive updates on various committees and councils they “advise.”
The great economic divide separating the “better off” citizens who may have time to “lean into” the actions of our ruling leaders and those in our huge dependent class, consumers of mandatory government services with more pressing concerns than how agenda items are constructed, unless the subject happens to affect their homes or neighborhoods.
A couple of weeks ago, Mr. McEwen posted in your Comments “[i]t appears we have a committee to petition the county.” This refers, I assume, to the General Governance Committee that Mr. Haschak chairs.
As Mr. McEwen suggests, several Mendocino activists — Norm, Saco, and Laz — could create some kind of a petition (on the subject at hand, which was Mazie Malone’s nomination for a consultant position serving the Mental Health Advisory Board) that might be submitted to that Governance Committee. But you will find that no such opportunity is offered to the public by that body.
The reality is that circulating and presenting petitions is also a lot of footwork. Gathering “data” to make the petitioners’ case is another drain on human resources, and squeezing information out of shielded government agencies can be infuriating.
One possible solution would be to provide a Public Information Office, to which citizen “complaints” can be referred to enable better agency engagement. Public “services” that shield responsible parties from the public are short-changing the collective process of good governance.
That action, of course, would have to be taken by the same Board of Supervisors who obscure their intentions by creating obfuscative language in their agendas.
Elected officials who lack understanding of their legal obligations and willingness to use their “police powers” on behalf of the electorate and dependant citizens can be educated, through citizen advocacy projects, if there are enough people with the time to spare.
Poetry/Music/Art/Performances
Event in Point Arena
https://youtu.be/0bMgONFxY2E?si=2MQwPfTBgpjAMVLG
https://youtu.be/aGUA-9722NY?si=V___jml0CWLKuMnW
wow
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
(mk) majestic k
?? ERROR! Attribution.
RE:
Kipen: Glad we dodged that bullet.
Pynchon: [Weeping bitterly.]
Pynchon: [[sic… Kipen not Pynchon]]
Around the time you published Vineland, you moved home to New York and completed Mason & Dixon, about the two 18th-century British surveyors who drew the border between slavery and freedom. One critic called it worthy of “[Pynchon’s] twin obsessions—America and science—but with his anger at the mess that greed has made of them both.” Maybe they left out a third obsession: you’re so passionate about music in your books. Do you listen to music when you write? What kind?
Pynchon: The very Rhythm of the Engines
He writes like he listens to a lot of Grateful Dead. His subplots go on and on like a Jerry Garcia guitar riff, intricately tireless… I can’t listen to the Dead or read Pynchon.
Thank you Betsy,
I have actually been considering reviewing the agendas to address MH & BH issues with submitting my input online. It is really hard for working people to attend meetings. I dread the thought of having to read through the items and all the unnecessary boring info.
I have never applied to be a part of the BHAB which at this point they would not have me anyways lol.
Protocol & appropriate action required through understanding
mm 💕
The hobo tradition started with the Great Depression, and has grown due to not only the capitalist measures mentioned by Orwell but exponentially as well due to the population explosion. The railroad tycoons stole all the money and the squeeze was on— which the last drops are being wrung out by the new tycoons even as we speak, so to speak. I’ve seen so many old hobo camps back when a kid in the 50s and they look the same today— but there’s sure lots more and not just along the tracks. Not all crazies; not all moochers; not all con artists, drunks or stoners. Some are dangerous. That’s why you have to hide when you sleep rough. But some are crafty enough to use the system and skate through life—having tried the dead-end shit jobs available and measuring the rent on a cupboard (supposing anything that small would even be available—it’s not) against that feeble check…hah!
I don’t know when the hobo tradition started, but it seems timeless. Substance abuse, a lack of ambition, and mental illness are at the heart of this behavior. “Harry McClintock wrote Big Candy Mountains” in 1895, and copy righted and recorded it in 1928. There are hobos in children’s fairy tales. Rip Van Winkle wasn’t a hobo, but he was a bum. I suppose in our capitalist system we can afford to be more tolerant of hobos. In less affluent societies of the present and past this life style is unaffordable.
Sure, they started with the railroads, swelled in numbers during the depression, mixed with fruit trackers to pick cherries in Montana and apples in Washington and with the itinerant marijuana trimmers of more recent history in Mendocino. Lots were onetime or part time hobos who hopped freight trains for adventure and let it go, others became professional bums, others still were simply down and out like Steven Foster who died on the streets with 30-odd cents having wrote a song that is still raking in the millions for Simon & Garfunkel… fate being fickle and all.
I think what the rails did was give bums a chance for a free ride to somewhere. That was mostly unavailable before. Now hitchhiking is another potential option.
Stephen Foster, like all artists, find it difficult to have financial success. Having a job, or benefactors, and/or patrons supported many, as well has the Catholic Church. Often popularity comes after death. Being a salesman is essential for an artist’s financial success. I would not classify Stephen Foster as a bum. He had a passion for music. Artist’s, as a whole, are not known as being prudent investors, either.
No, not prudent investors, your artists. But they follow their calling no matter if it leads to the dark side of town or the bright city lights. My only point, a frail one, is that people like John C Fremont and Stephen Foster ought not to have met with such cold indifference from the clever chaps who did invest more judiciously; no, not after serving not only their country—Foster collected all the music from the newly emancipated slaves and it’s all part of the national treasure — but as valid in my book as Fremont’s service, as a boon to humanity in general— although your estimation of value my differ from mine, George.
The measure of personal self worth is always in the hands of others.
By George, that’s a splendid epigram! As Mark Twain said, “write it down [get it copyrighted] or you’ll soon be taking your own good advice from somebody else.”
Brown Act Done MCERA Board Style
Mark Scaramella’s “Does Anyone Read the Board Agenda” made me reflect back to my time on our county retirement board and what I would call “Brown Act Done Mendocino County Employee Retirement Association (MCERA) Board Style”. We took a vote in closed session, on if an embarrassing and costly mistake, should be reported out of the session or just swept under the rug. If not reported, the cost, although very material, would just be lost in the next years actuarial report Mumbo-Jumbo that nobody can ever understand and all mistakes always inure to the taxpayers to pick-up. These mistakes are amortized over several decades, with a artificially high return rate making the cost today very small, and are lost in the amount of extra contribution the county has to pay on their side of the pension contribution; the employees absorb none of the cost (it is why we, our county, have a quarter of Billion dollars, and growing, in unfunded pension debt as of June 2024). Of course the rest of the board voted to not disclose or report out any vote. (heck, it was embarrassing!) It was in total violation of the Brown Act on several fronts, but what can one do against a super majority board of foxes (by charter), elected by fellow foxes, counting taxpayer guaranteed chickens. You could go full lawsuit on them, but other than that they can just shrug their shoulders knowing, by design, no one can really do anything about it or understand it anyway. I imagine when it looks like the chickens can’t really be guaranteed there will be a mad rush to rearrange the chairs on the Titanic and many more will be paying attention. The county will find that quarter Billion extra in the budget won’t they? If they can’t, the state will pick up it up won’t they? If the state can’t find the scratch, I am sure the feds will pay for these pensions, they can just borrow another quarter Billion from our friends in china…
Thank-you Ted, for your service on the Retirement Board. Your candid insights and refreshing openness was appreciated. However, I must disagree on your characterization of the Board as “a super majority board of foxes”.
Much has been said about the composition of the Board of Retirement. The Board has 9 members (excluding alternates) and is comprised of 4 members who are elected by either current employees or retirees: 2 elected general members (current non-safety employees), 1 elected safety member (law enforcement), 1 elected retired member. The remaining 5 members are comprised of 4 appointees of the County Board of Supervisors (1 of which is usually a sitting supervisor), and the County Treasurer-Tax Collector (per state statute). Of the 5 members that are not elected by current employees or retirees, 2 are elected officials who are also county employees. In summary you have a majority of 5 members who are either elected officials of the county or appointed by elected officials of the county. Because the 2 elected officials are also county employees, it is also sometimes claimed that the employees have a super majority. But that lays the responsibility for the actions of those 2 officials on current employees and retirees, when it should be rightfully assigned to those 2 officials and the voters that elected them. One thing I think we can agree on is that county employees and retirees do not need misguided and inflammatory comments cast on them.
Norm, thanks. The “foxes” are with a board that is not at risk from making bad decisions, or from taking improper actions, which might include the reduction of employee’s share of pension cost. The tax payer picks up the tab, and the members on the board, and the people who appointed them get their pensions they are overseeing, regardless. If the board was overseeing a pension fund that if improperly managed would have a negative effect on the board member’s pensions, the situation would be completely different. A majority of that board should consist of board members who, at the least, won’t be collecting a county pension.
The employee’s pension contribution percentage is set at the time they are hired, based on their age. While there are small adjustments that may be made year-to-year, the employee’s rate should not change significantly. Any subsequent reduction in the employee’s cost would have to be approved by both the Board of Retirement, and the Board of Supervisors, and if done properly include a provision for funding the portion employees will not longer pay. To my knowledge, that has never happened in Mendocino County, and most likely, it never will.
Norm, remember “excess earnings” ? The board decided in the late 1990s that the pension fund was making so much money from the stock market that there was no need for an employee contribution.
“Excess earnings” was the term used to justify the payment of retiree health costs. That program came to an inevitable end, and was never funded by the county. The retirement system used to make an internal transfer each year, to allocate interest to the individual employee accounts (the allocated interest stayed in the system, unless an employee left their job and withdrew their contributions). In the late 90’s, there was not enough earnings to cover retiree health costs, so the Board of Retirement suspended the annual interest allocation.
Dang, if the job (s) wasn’t plagued by such a toxic energy environment, it almost sounds like a good gig to get retirement/benefits. Good grief! I’ll stick with “hopeless taxpayer/citizen” for now. ffs
https://www.cato.org/blog/its-tax-season-five-charts-who-pays-whats-risk#:~:text=During%20this%20same%20time%2C%20the,the%20highest%20since%20the%201980s.
“Data on income tax payments and estimates from the Treasury Department show that the US federal tax system is highly progressive. The top 10 percent of income earners pay more than 60 percent of all federal taxes and 72 percent of income taxes, shares that have been increasing over time.”
“Since 2001, average income tax rates have fallen for all five income groups. During this same time, the share of income taxes paid by the top 5 percent increased from 52.2 percent to 61 percent, while the share paid by all other taxpayers declined. According to the National Taxpayers Union, the top 1 percent’s income tax share is the highest since the 1980s.”
More apologetics for the wealthy, eh, George? Just what percentage of total national wealth do those top ten percenters own? They should be paying 90 percent on ALL income in excess of around $200,000 annually…from ALL their income sources, with no loopholes. Living in a bright red state, I hear the nonsense you peddle all too often.