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WARMER WEATHER will continue through late week. Hot temperatures likely Friday and Saturday for the interior before a quick trend downward next week. Gusty northerly winds possible this weekend and early next week. (NWS)
STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): 44F under clear skies this Thursday morning on the coast. Patchy fog remains in the forecast for the next few days so you never know? Warmer temps for a couple days then cooling to follow.
POTTER VALLEY COUPLE WHO DIED 10 DAYS APART HAD ‘A TRULY REMARKABLE LOVE STORY’
Brian Beeson died in a UTV crash May 1. His wife, Rochelle, died unexpectedly May 11. Both grew up in Sonoma County ranch families and were deeply involved in their Potter Valley community.
by Chris Smith
It’s unthinkable that riders on horseback would gather in large numbers anywhere in the rugged, rural expanses of central-eastern Mendocino County — and Brian and Rochelle Beeson wouldn’t be there.
Yet, that’s what happened on Sunday, May 18, as a long procession of western mounts and motor vehicles moved somberly along a 5-mile route from Potter Valley’s rodeo grounds to its cemetery.
The funeral train honored the Beesons, both former Sonoma County ranch kids who married in 1988, then settled in Potter Valley to rear three children, raise cattle and savor all aspects of the genuine cowboy life.
Rochelle and Brian were born six months apart 58 years ago, he in Healdsburg and she in Petaluma. Brian grew up around beef cattle and sheep, Rochelle around dairy cows. Both became rough and tumble, mule-strong, dusty and sunbaked, supremely capable, no-nonsense, joy-fueled cattle ranchers who could not get enough of each other.
It came as a tragic shock to Potter Valley when each died this month — their deaths just 10 days apart.
On May 1, Brian Beeson was in Sonoma County tending cattle. He was behind the wheel of a Honda Pioneer on a ranch northwest of Lake Sonoma.
The CHP said Brian was killed when the off-road utility vehicle crashed into a fence, then tumbled down a hillside.
Rochelle, who was born into Sonoma County's prominent Bettinelli family, was mourning her husband when, on May 11, she died unexpectedly at home in Potter Valley.
The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office is working to establish the cause of her death.
In a eulogy at the double funeral service that followed the procession through Potter Valley, Lovina Penry, Brian’s sister, spoke of the Beesons’ “truly remarkable love story, full of highs and lows.”
“Each of us can only hope to have the fiery passion that they shared,” Penry said. “Their children say they couldn't go much longer than three days without each other, and rarely did.”
People close to the former Rochelle Raye Bettinelli speak of her as a spitfire who was rough and tough, kind and funny, and who snorted when she laughed and insisted that things be “fair.”
She was born July 19, 1966, to Constance (Moreda) Bettinelli and Ralph Bettinelli.
Nicknamed “Rocky,” she and her four siblings grew up on the longstanding Bettinelli dairy east of Petaluma.
Their dad, Ralph, was a third-generation dairyman who served for a time as president of the Sonoma County Fair Board.
As a kid, Rocky took right to the ranch life. The dairy girl poured herself into 4-H, FFA, horse shows and rodeos.
“She was barefoot, handy and feral in all the best ways,” cousin Constance Jones said in her eulogy. It surprised no one when young Rocky Bettinelli was voted “Ms. Vitality” in the District 2 Dairy Princess Pageant.
Her future husband, Brian Russell Beeson, was born in the old Healdsburg General Hospital on Jan. 27, 1967, to cattle ranchers Kay (Bartolomei) Beeson and Gerald Beeson.
Brian the country boy was just 3 years old when a rattlesnake bit him. His sister recalled in her eulogy, “He was hospitalized for 10 days and kept asking for his special yellow blankie. Well, his blankie had been destroyed so there was a wide search to find a replacement. Finally, Mom settled on one that was the same style but blue and when she presented it to him, he proclaimed, ‘Oh Mommy! You painted it!’”
Another oft-told story recounts how Brian’s kindergarten teacher in Healdsburg asked what he wanted to be when he grew up. “A cowboy!” he proclaimed.
He was becoming one when, at age 9, he was riding calves in a branding pen and one of the young bovines kicked him in the right arm, breaking it. Brian spent two and half weeks in traction.
As a teen, Brian grew strong and broad, and he tended his own flock of sheep. He became a master equestrian and he shone at training dogs as herders. At just 13, he began working with livestock at the Ukiah Auction Yard.
Brian had spent less than a year at Healdsburg High School when his family moved to Potter Valley, where the high school’s football team was happy to have him.
He raised both sheep and cattle in the FFA, and he ferried friends in his funky old Chevy Suburban.
“Brian was the Eel River Uber, before Uber was a thing,” his sister Lovina said in her eulogy. “Even though it was slightly miserable as the floor was rusted out, so you could see the road and the elements were blowing on you, we still had the best time hauling everyone around.”
Teenagers Brian Beeson and Rochelle Bettinelli met at the Lake County Fair’s team penning competition, in which young people mounted on horseback work together to separate cattle from a herd and drive them into a pen.
The two country kids clicked.
They married July 30, 1988, and settled in Potter Valley, where they welcomed into the world Chance, Raylene and Blair.
The Beeson family worked hard and played hard. Rochelle loved how Brian could sing along with every song on country radio. The two of them were deeply into swing dancing.
A recollection written by a relative told of how Brian would “gather with his friends and family, and would sit and swap cowboy tales for hours while sipping Coors Original or Black Velvet and soda, every chance he could.”
Constance Jones, Rochelle’s cousin, spoke in her eulogy of the rare connection that Rochelle and Brian shared. She said Brian was “one of the toughest men you could meet, yet he was always a fool for her. Catering, caring and cooking for her right up until his last day. Rochelle was cut from the same cloth, stubborn and strong-willed, but just as much a fool for Brian.”
Lovina Penry said of the couple, “They were truly genuine people. They were not haughty, they did not put on airs. They loved big — each other and all of us. They took care of others before taking care of themselves.”
The Beesons were deeply involved in their community. Brian savored mounting up for rides of the Sonoma County Trailblazers. Rochelle was essential to the Potter Valley Rodeo Association and the Potter Valley Drill Team.
Their family suggests memorial donations to nonprofits in service to Potter Valley youth or other causes.
(Santa Rosa Press Democrat)
WHY CALIFORNIA’S COMING HEAT WAVE COULD BE MORE DANGEROUS THAN YOU THINK
by Greg Porter
The Bay Area is heading into its first heat event of the season and it’s arriving abruptly.
A heat advisory is in effect for California’s interior Friday and Saturday, including parts of the East Bay, North Bay and South Bay. It comes as a strong area of high pressure builds over the West, triggering a sharp temperature spike that could push some Central Valley cities toward record highs for May.
In the Bay Area, it’s not just the peak temperatures that make this heat event notable, it’s how quickly they arrive. In places like Livermore, highs are expected to jump from the low to mid-80s on Thursday to triple digits by Friday: that’s an almost 20-degree spike in just 24 hours. This kind of surge would rank among the most abrupt single-day warmups the region has seen in the last quarter century.
The South Bay will see a similar surge. San Jose is forecast to rise from the low 80s on Thursday to the upper 90s by Friday, a 13- to 15-degree spike in one day. That would rank among the sharpest single-day warmups in the past 25 years. The jump will be a bit less dramatic in the North Bay, where hotter spots like Santa Rosa and Napa are expected to climb about 10 degrees, from around 90 on Thursday to near 100 by Friday.
What makes the heat even more striking is how unremarkable things have been until now. Most of the Bay Area’s inland cities have cruised through May with average highs, warm, but far from hot. San Jose hasn’t cracked 90 degrees yet this year; Livermore’s and Santa Rosa only did it once. For much of the region, this week marks the first true taste of summer heat.
With temperatures ramping up quickly, it’s the kind of shift that can catch people off guard. Our bodies need time to adjust to extreme heat, and most of us simply aren’t acclimated to triple-digit temperatures yet. That’s part of what makes early-season heat especially risky. The National Weather Service’s Heat Risk Index notes that first heat events of the year tend to carry higher health risks across all demographics, even for otherwise healthy individuals.
(SF Chronicle)
HIGH SCHOOL TRACK GROUNDBREAKING
With everything currently going on, I don't want to forget to tell you that we will be doing the track groundbreaking (thank goodness!!) on Friday, June 6th at 8:30 a.m. at AVHS.
Apologies for the short notice; we are on a very tight timeline due to the challenges with getting a contracting company in place and we just set the date today during our first meeting with the contractor.
Kristin Larson Balliet
Superintendent
Anderson Valley Unified School District
SUPERVISOR MAUREEN MULHEREN ON THE COUNTY BUDGET SITUATION (facebook):
“I like to put stuff in real life terms. I was thinking about comparing it to, like, Mom and Dad and family vacation and Dad says we can’t go to Disneyland this year. So where can we go? Can we go to Six Flags and eat peanut butter and jelly in the car and we’ll share the big soda and we’ll fill up on popcorn and we don’t have to spend a lot of money? Like, how do we work together to come up with ways and ideas to save money so that we can still accomplish the goals that we want to have and not have it be this us-versus-them dynamic that we seem to always get into? … Workin’ on it.”
PG&E CUSTOMERS FACE $532M BILL FOR DAM REMOVAL SOME DON'T WANT
'The true costs of decommissioning will be far greater,' one critic said
by Matt LaFever
Six years after first announcing plans to walk away from the Potter Valley Project, Pacific Gas and Electric Company has finally revealed the staggering price tag for dismantling the century-old hydroelectric facility: $532 million. That’s the estimated cost PG&E submitted to state regulators on May 15, a half-billion-dollar teardown that will be funded by PG&E customers, many of whom also risk losing the year-round water supply the system delivers to 600,000 people across Northern California.
Tony Gigliotti, PG&E’s senior licensing project manager, told SFGATE the half-billion-dollar figure is still a “very high-level estimate,” but it’s meant to reflect the full scope of the task ahead. “We did the best we could with the information we have today,” he said. “We don’t have engineering completed at this point, but that estimate is meant to be all-inclusive.”
“It includes the cost of engineering, permitting, the physical construction — or deconstruction — and then also the restoration and environmental measures that we’ll have to put in place,” Gigliotti explained. “We’ll continue to refine it as we move along in the process.”
The Potter Valley Project, built in 1908, radically altered Northern California’s water system by diverting Eel River flows to the Russian River through a milelong tunnel. Anchored by Cape Horn Dam and Scott Dam (which created Lake Pillsbury), the project has long been considered a lifeline by farmers and ranchers in Mendocino, Sonoma and Marin counties. Even though the powerhouse shut down in 2021, the system still delivers water year-round.
Now, with the Potter Valley Project slated for removal, a replacement is already on the drawing board. The New Eel-Russian Facility, led by the Eel-Russian Project Authority, commonly referred to as ERPA, would be built near Cape Horn Dam to keep water flowing while restoring the Eel River’s natural processes. The proposal includes upgraded infrastructure and modern fish passages to serve both ecological and human needs, according to ERPA.
But that vision comes with a price tag of its own. Stuart Tiffen, a spokesperson for the Sonoma County Water Agency, told SFGATE in an email that the current construction estimate for the New Eel-Russian Facility is around $50 million. That number comes from a 2024 engineering report, but with designs only 30% to 60% complete, the final cost could rise.
As for how the project will be funded, ERPA is considering a mix of state and federal grants, local agency contributions and, critically, cost-sharing among what Tiffen called “project beneficiaries.” When SFGATE asked specifically if that would include Russian River water users, Tiffen acknowledged that it would, meaning the 600,000 people who rely on these diversions for drinking water and agriculture could end up footing part of the bill.
Unlike the consistent diversions from the Potter Valley Project that have fueled the Russian River’s agriculture for more than a century, the New Eel-Russian Facility would halt transfers from mid-spring through summer when the Eel River’s water levels are too low. A draft memo warns that this could mean sharp cutbacks for downstream users, which would likely jeopardize crops, ranching and everyday faucets.
(sfgate.com)
WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?
Dear Editor,
On April 27 you published a news story (“Construction Begins On $144 Million Courthouse; The largest civic project ever in Mendocino County promises to reshape downtown, Perkins Street corridor”) by Mike Geniella in which he states that the City of Ukiah “favors demolition and relocating the Alex R. Thomas Plaza.”
I have investigated this never-reported and completely unattributed claim and found no evidence to support it.
I wrote to all five Ukiah City Council members, who uniformly affirm that the council has never discussed much less given any direction to city staff regarding the possibility of selling, demolishing and relocating Alex Thomas Plaza.
City Manager Sage Sangiacomo stated, “At this time, no such direction has been given by the Council or any subgroup thereof, such as an ad hoc committee. Furthermore, City staff have not sought any such direction.”
So naturally I am wondering who is responsible for making this claim. I posed that question directly to Mr. Geniella, and he did not respond to it.
Since Mr. Geniella is not a spokesperson for the City of Ukiah, I’m hoping you will look into this unattributed claim to determine who is making it and whether it has any basis in fact. If it cannot be verified, I hope you will issue an immediate correction/retraction.
Sincerely,
Andrew Lutsky
Ukiah
NEW LEADERSHIP AT THE HELM AT KZYX
KZYX hires General Manager/Director of Operations
KZYX Operations Director Andre de Channes has been promoted to General Manager/Director of Operations for KZYX/Mendocino County Public Broadcasting.
According to Board President Susan Baird Kanaan, the Board selected de Channes (pronounced de shan) following a nationwide recruitment that began in March. “We advertised the position on every major community radio industry website and received applications from nine solid radio professionals from around the country,” said Kanaan. “After reviewing the applications and interviewing the top three candidates, the Board’s Hiring Committee and then the full Board determined that Andre is the right person for KZYX at this moment. He brings a wealth of radio experience and management background, including extensive experience working in Human Resources. These qualities combined with his recent months of stellar work at KZYX made him a real stand-out among the candidates. We’re so pleased that he applied and has agreed to assume this leadership role.”
De Channes, a Canadian transplant, has been involved in the North Bay music and radio scene for decades. Before his arrival at KZYX, he served as the Music Director and Program Director for KRSH (The Krush), and was Operations Director for the five stations at Wine Country Radio for over two decades. He got to know neighboring Mendocino County while producing live remotes from the Kate Wolf Festival, Earth Dance, and other Mendocino County events. While his professional experience is with commercial radio, he grew familiar with community radio as a listener. “NPR and community radio have both been fixtures in my home for years, so I’ve enjoyed getting to know the behind-the-scenes of this side of the dial since joining the KZYX staff last Winter,” said de Channes. “We have such a wide variety of locally produced news and music/public affairs programs. There really is something for everyone.”
For budgetary reasons, KZYX recently joined the Operations and General Manager duties into one combined role. The recruitment process revealed that this combination is not unusual in community radio. “Several of the candidates who applied for the position were working at similar-sized stations where this combination has been implemented,” said Interim General Manager Dina Polkinghorne. “It was an affirmation that we were on the right track with this structural change.”
Two of de Channes’ key objectives are to grow the audience of KZYX listener/supporters and to move the station headquarters from Philo to its new home in Ukiah next year. “KZYX has a beloved place in this community, built on a foundation of members, listeners, and programmers who’ve been with us from the beginning. In order to sustain this precious community asset, we need to honor the past while also pivoting toward the future,” said de Channes. “I am really excited to lead us in those efforts.”
HEDGE FUND BUYS SIXTH MAJOR BAY AREA NEWSPAPER, 'FEAR' SETS IN
by Madilynne Medina
Staffers at the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, a 168-year-old newspaper in Sonoma County, say they have deep concerns about local journalism and the future of their newsroom after a controversial investment firm purchased the outlet earlier this month.
Those concerns were realized last week when employees received an email about a “voluntary separation agreement,” which offered a severance package for staffers who choose to leave the company.
“We don't want to assume that layoffs are coming,” Phil Barber, a longtime reporter at the Press Democrat, told SFGATE. “But obviously that’s sort of been a fear all along when we first heard about the sale.”
Employees were notified via email on May 1 about the sale to Denver-headquartered MediaNews Group, a subsidiary of Alden Global Capital. The deal, which was effective immediately, blindsided staffers and raised red flags over the new owner’s reputation of buying newspapers and axing jobs.
Before the sale to Alden, the Press Democrat — along with six other local publications — was owned by Sonoma Media Investments. Barber told SFGATE that SMI was in “serious negotiations” with Hearst, but that deal “fell apart pretty quickly” for reasons unknown to staff. (Hearst is SFGATE’s parent company.)
“For whatever reason, [SMI Owner Darius Anderson] decided to move away from that, and it was incredibly confusing and hurtful that not only did Darius Anderson choose to go in that different direction but completely blinded us with the sale,” Barber said.
Neither Anderson nor MediaNews Group responded to SFGATE’s questions or requests for comment.
‘Not a good signal’
Although the paper’s new management hasn’t announced layoffs, Press Democrat staffers told SFGATE that receiving the voluntary separation offer, not long after Alden took over, was worrisome.
“It was a small punch in the gut,” Barber said. “It’s nothing like getting notice that 10 people were getting laid off, nothing that dire, but it was a reminder that there’s a reality to this.”
The separation offer, viewed by SFGATE, allows full-time employees the option to resign, effective June 6, in exchange for severance pay. Employees had until May 23 to apply for the separation program, which provides one week of base pay for each year of employment, with a minimum of two weeks’ pay and a maximum of 15 weeks. After the May 23 deadline, staffers say the future is unclear.
“The main issue is just not knowing what plans MediaNews has for our new newsroom,” Barber said. “To be fair, I get a sense they don’t know yet either.”
Many employees, including Chris Chung, a photojournalist with the outlet for three decades and president of the newsroom’s union, believe the offer from MediaNews Group falls flat and there is “no motivation” for anyone to take it.
“It’s a weird offer, because not a lot of people can take advantage of it financially, unless you have a job already lined up,” Chung said. “For people with beyond 15 years of service you’re better off just waiting to be laid off because you get more.”
And even more concerning, staff members believe the offer is a precursor to something worse.
“It just was not a great signal. I know it’s business, and I could have guessed it was coming. I didn’t take it as a great sign,” Kerry Benefield, a columnist who has worked for the Press Democrat for 21 years, told SFGATE.
Alden, a New York-headquartered investment firm, has a long history of acquiring local outlets and downsizing those newsrooms through its MediaNews subsidiary, including the San Diego Union Tribune, Denver Post and Boston Herald. Layoffs have also hit some of MediaNews’ papers in the Bay Area, where it owns the Marin Independent Journal, Palo Alto Daily News, San Jose Mercury News, East Bay Times and Vallejo Times-Herald.
“We’ve seen all these papers meet these fates under this ownership model,” Anna Armstrong, a breaking news and community reporter, told SFGATE. “Are we next? Like, should we expect to see that same fate?”
Armstrong, who has worked for the outlet for less than a year, said the buyouts and uncertainty surrounding the outlet’s future have been especially difficult for young reporters like herself.
“It’s been a mixture of shock and grief, frankly. I am just shy of a year into my career,” Armstrong said. “… I kind of landed my dream job, and I felt so lucky.”
She said she fears she could receive notice at any moment that she is going to lose her job.
Though the newsroom’s current contract goes through 2026, Barber said any layoffs would happen according to seniority, with the newest employees losing their jobs first. The company also has a limited number of “skips” to keep newer employees.
The corporate umbrella
Armstrong said less than four hours after the sale, she was alarmed by members of the new company describing the acquisition as “coming under the corporate umbrella.” She said she worries about losing the paper’s individuality and its Sonoma County roots.
“Even if jobs are going to be preserved, and nothing else changes again, which is unlikely, to lose our local flair and become kind of a cog in a more corporate journalism machine,” she said. “It’s just sad.”
Benefield, a Santa Rosa native who said she grew up reading the Press Democrat as her brother delivered the paper, agreed.
“This comes at me personally and professionally in a million ways because I know how much it means to this community,” she said.
Benefield said the sale has also sparked major anxiety in the community, whose members she described as active and engaged readers.
“I’ve heard from old-timers who are saying, ‘What does this mean for the paper that I love?’” she said. “What does this mean for the reporters’ names who I know and trust?’”
Going forward, Benefield said she hopes Alden and MediaNews Group understand the local value of the Press Democrat. In 2018, it won the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news reporting for its coverage of the devastating Tubbs fire, which killed 22 and destroyed entire Santa Rosa neighborhoods.
“Now that we don’t have local ownership, now that we are owned by an entity that we frankly don’t know, [I hope] that they know what they’re getting,” Benefield said. “That they appreciate the history of this newspaper, the quality of this newspaper and its place in this community.”
(SFGate.com)
ED NOTES
THE STORY about the sale of the Press Democrat to the predatory hedge fund which has already destroyed local papers here in oblivious Mendo, soft-pedals criticism of the paper's current owners, Darius Anderson and former congressman Doug Bosco. Of course Bosco and Anderson sold to the highest bidder, and anybody who thinks these two local predators have ever had the slightest interest in the well-being of local journalism is naive even by local Democrat standards. The irony here is that the PD was always worshipful at the feet of this pair of hustlers even before they owned the paper.
BOSCO also managed to rip off the remaining viable parts of the old Northwestern Pacific Railroad, which Bosco maneuvered into his front organization, NorCal's Democratic Party, a dozen or so shot callers who bring us the parade of mediocrities who grow rich “representing” us at all levels of government.
AMONG the lesser swindles of Bosco and the Democrats’ railroad cash-out, count the present site of the new Mendocino County Courthouse that no one wants except the royal family of our 9 (count 'em) superior court judges for our tiny popu;ation of 90,000 people, half of whom can be presumed to be children. (8 of our judges are Democrats. Cindee Mayfield, last time I looked, is a Trumper.)
THE WEEKLY DEMONSTRATIONS against Trumpism at Fort Bragg, Ukiah and even Boonville, come without criticism of our present Bosco clone, Jared Huffman, who blithely signs off on funding for the Palestinian genocide safe in the knowledge he can count on eternal re-election by the “progressives” of the Northcoast.
SPEAKING of the grotesque occupant of the White House, the difference between his and Biden's obvious dementias is volume; Trump does and says something absolutely batshit every day, while Biden's handlers severely limited his disastrous public appearances as they kept to the Democrat's decadent liblab agenda, which also included, and continues to include, removing from existence the Palestinian people. (Note to Mendo proggies: A vote for Democrats like Huffman is a vote for mass murder. If you can't even pull the plug on the blandly complicit Marin cipher, spare us your weekly anti-Trump demonstrations.)
HOW TO HELP THE BOONVILLE FAIR
Are you looking for ways to support the Mendocino County Fair and Apple Show, but don’t want or need to advertise a business like our traditional sponsors? We have started a GoFundMe page for an easy way for you to do that. Or you can send a donation directly to the Mendocino County Fair & Apple Show, PO Box 458, Boonville, CA 95415. Please write donation in the memo.
These donations would go towards the costs of the annual Mendocino County Fair and Apple Show held September 12th, 13th, and 14th, 2025, and some much-needed repairs of infrastructure (roofs, pavement). The Mendocino County Fair is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that has held onto its old-time county fair charm while also being a place that the community can rent for its fundraisers and special events. We receive very limited state funds and rely on these rentals for the income they provide. Any donation, large or small, would be appreciated. Thank you in advance for your support!
Other ways to support the Mendocino County Fair are to enter items in the fair or just come out and enjoy the fair in September, buy a corn dog, and check out the exhibits and livestock. Entries will be opening in June. Go to Mendocountyfair.com for more information.
Thank you in advance for your support.
STRING ORCHESTRA DEBUTS
Psalm 150:4 "Praise Him with stringed instruments and the pipe."
It has long been a dream of singer Carole Hester to lead a worship service with piano and strings as the sole accompaniment to singing. And now it is here.
Please mark your calendar to attend the June 1, 11 o’clock morning worship at Crossroads Christian Church-Ukiah, now meeting at 900 So. Dora Street, Ukiah, in the Trinity Baptist Church building. All are welcome to the free gathering.
The Rev. Joe Fry, the current Pastor, will bring a message on comfort.
Throughout the Bible are references to the importance of stringed instruments in worship: Isaiah 38:20 “The Lord will save me, and we will play my music on stringed instruments all the days of our lives, at the house of the Lord.”
The pianist for the event is Lori Schafer, OD. She started piano lessons at eight years old. “I have been playing the piano ever since and added the organ when I was a teenager. I earned the Associate of the Royal Conservatory of Toronto in piano performance while in college. My favorite piano playing is to accompany. I love to accompany: Choirs, congregations, and soloists vocal and instrumental. I love to share music!”
Sienna S’Zell, violinist and violist, has played for many years with Ukiah Symphony and taught strings and beginning piano at Ukiah School of Music. She started music in the third grade, piano with a neighbor, and violin in a tiny school orchestra.
Everestt Xinwen Zhang began studying piano at the age of 7 and violin when she was in fourth grade. An avid performer, she has played in the orchestra for the Seventh Day Adventist Christmas Cantata for the past two years and recently joined the Ukiah Symphony Orchestra for their 2025 Spring Concert. Outside of music, she enjoys sports and learning. Everestt is going to be a high school freshman this Fall. She is excited to share her love of music with the community at this special event.
Hester sang her first solo at age six at the city Christmas Tree Lighting in Fort Worth, Texas, and has been singing ever since.
“God commands us to sing in several places in the Bible, particularly in the Psalms and in letters by Paul. Some key verses include Psalm 33:1, Psalm 96:1, Psalm 98:1, Psalm 149:1, Psalm 150:1, Ephesians 5:19, and Colossians 3:16. These passages encourage singing to God, praising Him, and making music in our hearts and that’s what I most enjoy doing,” she said.
For more information, contact Hester at (707) 972-2795.
PRESCRIBED BURNS, HOPLAND
There will be prescribed burns at the UC Hopland Research and Extension Center on Tuesday, June 3. These burns, either two or three separate burns depending on CALFIRE capacity and weather conditions, will cover just over 100 acres. They are part of a 10 year Vegetation Management Program with CALFIRE to reduce fuel and will also complement land management research conducted at the site. The prescribed burns will be conducted under tightly controlled conditions, with crews monitoring weather, moisture, and wind to ensure safety. The burns will take place between 8am-3pm.
If you have questions or would like to talk with HREC staff about this burn and the associated studies, please e-mail me or call (707) 744 1424 ext 1642
Hannah Bird, Community Educator
THE NOYO BIDA TRUTH PROJECT sponsors a special program on Tuesday, June 10, at 7 p.m. in the Community Room of the Fort Bragg Library, 499 East Laurel Street.
Our third annual Essay Contest winner will receive his prize and read his winning essay on the subject “The Name of Fort Bragg Should/Should Not Be Changed”. Chosen by judges unaffiliated with TNBTP, the winning essayist is a Fort Bragg High School graduating senior who will receive a prize of $2,000.
We’ll also present a special Guest Speaker, Nathan Rich. Rich is of Dakota / Muscogee / Filipino / Irish descent. Born in Oakland California, Nathan will share his family’s history, their challenges and triumphs to build community and maintain a healthy cultural identity in an ever changing world. Nathan’s experiences of being raised in a Native Community in the diversity of the Bay Area provides a glimpse into the value of indigenous commitment to healthy communities.
This program is free and open to all.
For further information: www.thenoyobidatruthproject.org
A local grass roots non-profit, The Noyo Bida Truth Project is dedicated to an educational process in which we acknowledge the ecological diversity of our California Coast and encourage our true history to be preserved and acknowledged. To date the city of Fort Bragg is named for a Fort associated with the Mendocino Reservation where acts of genocide were committed against California tribal communities. The Fort was named for a general who had no connection to the Mendocino Coast; we have chosen to cease the glorification of Confederate General Bragg and the erasure of the Tribal communities.
Our goals include holding healing ceremonies, supporting Land Back to Indigenous peoples, a memorial to the victims of the Mendocino Indian Reservation, a cultural center, truthful historical signage, and improvements to California history education in our local schools which are also named for this Confederate general.
CATCH OF THE DAY, Wednesday, May 28, 2025
DELBERT ALFORD, 38, Covelo. Parole violation.
AARON BLACK, 33, Covelo. Trespassing.
MICHAEL GIBBONS, 26, Potter Valley. DUI.
JESUS GONZALES, 49, Ukiah. Parole violation.
ANITA GOUGE, 58, Fort Bragg. Embezzlement-leased vehicle.
SAVANNAH GOUGE, 30, Fort Bragg. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, failure to appear.
NOAH LURANHATT, 34, Ukiah. Under influence, parole violation.
OMAR MEDINA-TORRES, 23, Clearlake/Ukiah. Domestic battery.
DEANNA RENFORT, 49, Willits. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, failure to appear, probation revocation.
ANTHONY TOLBERT, 36, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, parole violation.
WILLIAM YOUNG, 36, Willits. Concealed dirk-dagger, failure to appear.
DANCING ON LIGHT BEAMS
Just sittin' here on a public computer at the Martin Luther King Jr. Library in Washington, D.C. Enjoying on YouTube a medley of Native American spiritual music, the songs from Buddhist Plum Village, and of course Indian healing ragas. Not identified with the body. Not identified with the mind. Immortal Self I am. Contact me if you wish to do anything. Sahaja Samadhi Avastha.
Craig Louis Stehr, craiglouisstehr@gmail.com
IT WAS OUR TIME
A Remembrance: The E Street Commune
by Chuck Dunbar
“E Street” — That’s what we proudly called ourselves. We were the E Street commune in Golden Hill, San Diego, located on a corner — 2496 E Street to be specific — a short distance, just east up the hill, from downtown. Once a fashionable neighborhood for the well-off, Golden Hill had lost its gleam. It was an area in decline, some of the formerly noble homes were now shabby and run-down. But no matter, we’d all come to this old neighborhood to live together. We were one of several urban communes of young folks in the early 70’s, spread over several blocks in Golden Hill.
Our communal home had once been an elegant near-mansion. A large two-story (with large attic) home, built on a rather grand scale, it featured a full length, covered front porch with pillars at the entrance and around the sides. Above the porch was a full second-story balcony facing the three bedrooms at the front of the house. There were six bedrooms in all, with space in the attic for two more odd-shaped rooms. Entering the home, one found two large living room areas on either side, one with a large fireplace. Majestic wooden pillars framed the entrance to these areas. Straight ahead as one entered the house, past the living areas. was a grand, curving, central stairway, leading to bedrooms arranged around a circular balcony. In the backyard was a good-sized carriage house, now a small apartment. On the southwest corner, in the front of the house, stood a stately Norfolk Island Pine, about 80 feet tall. In my mind’s eye, even after all these years, I can still work my way through the house, seeing the details of the entrance, the downstairs living areas, kitchen and dining room, then up the staircase and into each bedroom and out onto the balcony. And there was a small basement, as well as an attic. This old house was a unique, truly memorable, setting for our commune.
As we moved into our new home, we found it was long-neglected, disheveled, in general disrepair. The exterior paint was dull and dirty, flaking and peeling, just a sad mess. The central heating system was fully defunct (no problem — we were young, warm-blooded, and heck, it was sunny, warm southern California!). While the general plumbing system worked after a fashion, it was decrepit and leaky. The poor old place had not been given much care or maintenance for a long while. But all of this mattered little to us. We didn’t need a luxurious place. Our E Street home was the place for us — we all fell in love with it. And indeed it proved to be the just-right place for our years of communal living.
And even better, due no doubt to the poor condition of the house, the rent for our dream commune was low-end, at around $600 per month (in “as is” condition — we were warned not to expect much in the way of repairs or maintenance). Split among 8-10 residents, it made for a real bargain — cheap living worked for all of us! My own contribution for rent and utilities came to about $75 a month.
It was more than 50 years ago, 1971, as I recall, when we began our commune. You might imagine we were hippies, but with one exception, that was not so much true. Several of us were social workers (some worked at The Bridge, a service agency for runaway kids, which had been housed in the E Street house before we moved in), while I was a gardener for the City of San Diego, working in the area’s beautiful park system. Others worked at various jobs, including teaching at summer camps. A good bunch of our group were recent migrants from Ohio, come to California for the ways of alternative living then in vogue. We were mostly middle class youth, many just out of college, ready for the adventures of counter-culture California life. We were full of idealism, new ways of being, influenced by the enthusiasm and promise of the 60’s. Communal living, of course, was a part of all that. And now here we were in a new decade of promise. Our sweet futures stretched-out before us. It was our time.
Many of us at E Street were single, but from time to time there were several couples living among us. Curiously, there were few, if any, housemate love affairs sparked between our single folks over the years (though, who knows, maybe there were some enticing secrets I wasn’t aware of). An oddity is that we never had any children living with us. That’s too bad, I think now, as children would have been a fun addition to our way of life. Kids scrambling about the place would have had a great time playing there, and would have garnered lots of love and attention from all of us.
I was a young guy in my mid-twenties, a recent graduate of San Diego State and married for several years. But my wife and I had been too young and naive to choose life partners. Our marriage came to a necessary end not long after we began living at E Street. I’d led a fairly sheltered life as a child, son of an Army officer and a librarian-teacher, good, solid, middle-class parents who gave my younger brother and me a fine start in life. Yet I was a pretty hardcore introvert, shy and something of a loner. I’d acquired lots of book-learning, but knew precious little about life out in the big world. Bluntly, I was pretty clueless and unschooled in the ways of life; there was so much I needed to learn. Among other things, I’d had few women friends, knew little still about love, had never seen close-up how others lived, and had never known life in a lively, creative group setting. To my good fortune, living at E Street turned out to be a fine way to get educated in a larger, fuller life.
My E Street housemates were a fascinating, diverse group of good-hearted folks. We were quite a cast of characters who, through life’s mysterious grace, came together for awhile. There was Chris (later, Kristin) from Ohio and one of our unofficial house leaders. She was very social and interactive, well-liked by everyone, and always seemed to know everything that was going on in the house. Moro, also from Ohio, was Chris’ romantic partner for a long while; then they parted ways. Moro had sleepy eyes, was an intellectual, an introvert of sorts, and he loved Bob Dylan’s work. Chip was another Ohio transplant and was one of our social workers. He was a fine guy of high energy and purpose, always a “can do” attitude. In one photo of the time, commune folks are scattered all over the outside of the house — on the porch, the balcony, the front steps. But it’s Chip who stands out; he’s on the roof, way up on the very top.
And there were more: Pat was with us always, a sweet, pleasant, solid woman with a lovely smile and manner. She had a quality of quiet “knowingness,” and was, as I recall, on the path to becoming a family therapist. Dave, a social worker, joined us at some point, a smart, really nice guy, super-dedicated to his work with teen gangs in the nearby areas. Tom, a big guy, joined the commune a year or two after we started; he was a guitar player, an all-around nice guy with a big smile, got along well with everyone. Years later I saw him briefly, a nicely groomed, business-suit-wearing staff at the City of San Diego, quite a contrast to a group photo at E Street where he’s got a beard and long hair, wearing a Mickey Mouse t-shirt. Then there was Dennis, younger than most of us, and our only full-on hippie, a lively, interesting guy, a lady’s man as I recall. Indi joined us several years in, a fine artist, and lovely young woman, who later on left the commune to travel in her van. There were others also, as over time some folks left and others joined us, but these were the main ones, dominant in my memories.
But there’s one more central person in our commune still to speak of: Connie Comus (who went — always — by her last name) had also recently moved to San Diego from Ohio. In one group photo in our house garden, Comus stands apart from the others, right next to a large sunflower as tall as she is. She’s got a kind of goofy, fooling-around smile — a big, toothy grin — looking up, with the sunflower, at the sky. It’s a playful, fun image that reveals her sense of humor, one of her essential qualities. As I ponder those days, I see Comus as perhaps the central character in our communal life. She was a short, roundish woman, wore her black hair long, had glasses. A wry, smart, funny, entirely lovable person, she was an old soul with a huge heart. Comus was easy to relate to; she put folks at ease and made them smile. It’s fair to say that all of us loved her. Just about every memory of this time in my life is colored in some way by her presence. She was a major part of the glue that held us all together. Comus truly loved our communal life; she was a natural at it — for her it was the ideal life, the real deal.
And then there were our E Street friends who dropped by regularly to visit, party with us, move in for awhile or stay for just a night: Christie, the upbeat, free-spirited hippie from Oregon; lovely, solid, good soul Val, a gardener, like me, in the city park system; sexy, cool, Kate, who one-by-one seduced most of us guys; Bob, the therapist/wise man, older and more experienced than we were; Sue, the budding oceanographer and her sister, sweet, quiet, Laurie, both from Ohio; Mark, a genuine hippie, frequent traveler to Mexico and good soul; Gary, BMW motorcycle guy, smart, kind of eccentric, wryly humorous; Tanya, quiet and ethereal — I often wondered what she was thinking; Peter, Chris’ friend from Ohio, a sweet hippie who lived with us for several months, then left without a word, leaving some belongings behind. There were others, too, some whose faces I can still picture, but whose names and characters have dimmed in my memory.
E Street was a fun place to visit, that’s for sure — there was always something to do, good folks to hang-out with, great music to listen to (it’s a long, stunning list — the truly great albums introduced in 1971), wine or a joint to share. There was even the occasional food fight during dinners in our large dining room. And then there were our fine, fun parties from time to time. The E Street house was a grand party place. It could easily hold many partiers without seeming crowded, and had many rooms, nooks and crannies to hang-out in. It’s worth bragging — our parties were a blast.
I recall an unusual, I think one-of-a-kind party, that involved the use of good amounts of LSD. (Usually our parties were pretty casual and low-key. We were mostly a moderate bunch, really, with just wine and marijuana as our substances of choice.) The odd, unfortunate, coincidence of this party was that Comus’ parents from Ohio were visiting San Diego to see their daughter. These-oh-so-straight middle Americans were present this night as we partied on. I vividly recall them sitting quietly on a couch in one of the living rooms as the party went on. While I don’t think any of us were engaging in truly outrageous behaviors, still, we were high as kites, pretty out-there. The memory makes me wince. What must they have thought as the night went on? It must have been a truly surreal experience for them. With better planning, one of us should have taken them for a nice San Diego dinner, then back to their motel room, the better for their innocence of our great fun that evening. Alas, that’s a better plan, but over 50 years too late.
We were a largely harmonious, peaceable group. All of us basically got along well together over the four or so years we lived at E Street. Perhaps my memory is a bit rose-tinted by all the years that have passed, but I recall few serious instances of conflict. We had regular house meetings to work things out by consensus, like dealing with house chores, food issues, care of the house dogs, choosing new house mates. Mostly we were responsible, sensible and friendly sorts — living together worked well for us. (Only much later, as I worked as a social worker in several service agencies over my last 25 years, did I realize that such harmonious small groups are fairly rare in life. And thus all the more to be treasured.)
But there were several instances where tough problems arose, and needed to be acted-on by commune members:
In one instance Dave, who was very busy and invested in his social work with local gangs, was having a hard time being a reliable commune partner. He was neglectful of shared commune chores, and no reasonable solution was found. He finally was asked to leave. I remember coming home from work one day to find his belongings boxed and stacked on the front porch. So Dave left our commune. But we all remained friends in different ways with him — he was a good guy, just not well-suited to our way of living.
The second instance was not so simple, a tougher, potentially dangerous, situation. D. and D. were a young couple who joined the commune several years in. I don’t recall how they came to join us, but they were troubled folks. They were not a good match for our group, and they brought trouble to us. Around this time some of us had very briefly experimented with “reds” (barbiturates), a very addictive, dangerous prescription drug. Most of us quickly realized that this drug was not a wise path to take; we stopped. D. and D., however, did not stop, and they became heavy users, addicted and very ill-affected. Their appearances and behaviors were clear indicators of a serious problem, hollow-eyed, thin, erratic, unreasonable at times. Then we found out that Ms. D. and Moro, our housemate, had engaged in a sexual encounter. Mr. D. had found out about it, and he was announcing his intent to seriously harm Moro. This was a dangerous situation, of course. Several of us, Chip and I and others, pleaded with Mr. D. to deal with his anger and hurt in better ways. Our interventions were successful — but we were done with D. and D., and they agreed to move out. We’d learned some hard lessons.
E Street was a strong, committed commune for 4 years or so, and then, as best I recall, the communal energy shifted. There was no big rift or disruption, just a number of smaller events, I think, that led to a big change for us.
Some folks had come and gone over time; others who still lived there began to focus attention elsewhere, like outside of the commune relationships and living situations, and engagements in work. The freedom and limitless possibilities of youth were seductive, leading some of us to other paths. During this time another group of young folks wanting to live communally inquired about the house. If we disbanded, they were willing to move in.
In the end, that’s what happened. Some of us moved on from communal living. And some of us — Comus, Pat, and I, as well as several others — moved to a smaller home just up the hill from the San Diego airport. We continued our commune on a smaller scale there, and it was a pleasant time. But of course it was not the same as it had been in the years before. After a year or so, my basic introversion guided my decision to leave the commune. I wanted to live more quietly in a smaller setting with my girlfriend. The other folks, though, continued to live in our second communal home for a time.
Nearing the end of our communal tale, there’s a very sad part left to tell. Several years after we began life together, Comus had received a diagnosis of later stage Hodgkins Disease, a cancer far less treatable then than it is now, after medical advances in treatment over the decades. Comus underwent treatments for this cancer, but then at some point she also suffered a serious stroke. It was a terrible blow that severely affected her speech. Finally, as she struggled with these very serious health problems, she chose to return to her parents’ home in Ohio. After she’d gone home — I think it was only months later — we received her obituary notice, clipped from the local Ohio newspaper, and sent to us by her parents.
I recall that Dave had once said, in the midst of this tragedy, that we couldn’t really grasp the full meaning of what was happening to our friend. He was referring to our youthfulness, to our lack of experience with serious illness and the prospect of death. Dave’s assertion struck me as a wise observation. It’s of course especially hard to see someone young and full of promise die. We know that truth more fully if we’re fortunate in living into old age. And so it was with Comus. I’m sure all of us wonder what she would have done with her life, what paths and adventures she would have chosen, had she lived on, a lovely soul who died too soon.
Over the years I’ve often dreamed of life with my friends at our E Street home. These dreams have been of a pleasant, nostalgic nature, a looking-back at a time of great change and adventure in my own life. Now in my late 70’s, I have a far deeper appreciation for the kind blessing life gave me in those far-off commune days. Several times in my life I’ve had a sure and certain sense of being led toward an important, life-altering path. And it was surely my good fortune to have been guided to E Street.
Many years later, living now in Northern California, I returned to the E Street house during a visit to San Diego. I was moved somehow to see the place once more. Our old home had now become a professional office building. And, astonishingly, there it was, like new, gleaming, fully restored to pristine condition. Our old, wonderful, but so run-down commune home was now truly magnificent. It was heartening that someone again cared for the place. There was an extra bit of wonder on the front lawn. We’d planted a Canary Island Pine there one winter, as the new year began. The pine had been the commune’s smallish, potted Christmas tree. Now it stood 35-40 feet tall, a magnificent tree with fine long needles and beautiful, patterned bark. It was thrilling to see that our tree had survived, a legacy of beauty we’d left for our old home.
I chose to stay outside on the sidewalk, somehow wanting to keep close my memories of how it was, back then, to walk inside that front door. I stood there for a long while taking it all in, flooded by vivid memories of our days there, tears in my eyes. Of when indeed it was our time, when we were young and free and beautiful. Seeing in my mind’s eye the faces of Comus, Chris-Kristin, Pat, Chip, Indi, Tom, Moro, Dave, Christi, Bob, Dennis, Val, Mark, Gary, Kate, Jo, Lauri, Sue, Tanya, and all the others. Remembering all those times we had as we lived together, back when we called ourselves “E Street.”
WAITING FOR THE PLUMBER
Or, Orange Pain(t): The Last Laugh — A Matter of Pronunciation
(Upon the Death of George T. Dyer, Jr.,)
by Don Shanley (Halloween, 1977, Hemenway Ranch
“In the forests, alongside river,
everything speaks to man. The desert,
on the other hand, is uncommunicative.
I couldn’t understand its language: that
is, its silence.
— Pablo Neruda, as quoted in ‘Memoirs’ (Farrer, Strauss & Giroux: New York, 1977)
There were three short laughs of equal timbre and they formed one sustained laugh. The tone was a well-defined irony with considerable bite. The one, which was three, occured as a response to an argumentative hyperbole. Actually, the argument excluded exaggeration but I enjoy the way the words, argumentative hyperbole, fit in my mouth. There had been a dispute over diction, specifically, a matter of pronunciation. The dispute was never settled — no conclusion, capitulation, compromise or agreement; however, the dispute, in the active voice, ceased.
There were three short laughs of equal timbre, accompanied by the indefinable, irritating drone of a radio broadcast from Boise, Idaho. This dashboard Muzak was immediately turned-off.
There were three short laughs of equal timbre, followed by a complaint of pain in the lower neck. The nagging pain in the lower neck became white knuckles, became a paralyzed left side, became a disoriented mind became verbal incoherence became blindness became bodily functions (i.e., the movement of all internal solids, liquids & gasses), monitored, manipulated, controlled by plastic & gum tubing, by pressure gauges, kymographs, vacuum pumps, oxygen cylinders, syringes, became restlessness — shackled, first in taut-white — canvas, then chemically, until resistance became mime, wordless gesture— the lifting of a right hand, thumb & index finger grasping the image of a burning Camel cigarette, the image of a ripe Georgia peach, the image of a double-shot of Tanqueray gin on-the-rocks,
became fever,
became erratic-rasp clogged with blood mucus
chunks of eroding lungs,
became stillness,
silence
became sibilations,
became cold,
white
& stiff.
The sardonic humorist rode shotgun through the Nevada desert. There were three short laughs of equal timbre. His pain did not respond to massage. He slouched, listing slightly to the left.
Later, he became an estimate on a National Funeral Arrangement Sheet. He became the deceased on a Death Certificate, the deceased on an Authorization And Receipt For Delivery Of Cremated Remains, the Deceased on a Permit For Disposition Of Human Remains. He became the occupant of a flat-top casket.. He became ash. He became the contents of one Certified Mail envelope. He became scattered became an obituary a Death Notice became Title Of Case, Probate became #50459
the decedent.
There are seriously broken pipes in the bathroom and I do not have access to a pipe threader. I have severely severed my left index finger with a large French knife. My housemate has painted the kitchen trim orange. There were three short laughs of equal timbre. How do you, Reader, pronounce S-T-U-C-K-Y’S?
(Parenthetically, this particular S-T-U-C-K-Y’S is one of a truck-stop restaurant chain located in the Nevada Great Basin Desert between Battle Mountain and the Humbolt Sink (“…an area of interior drainage where streams lose their identity beneath the ground instead of contributing their waters to the sea…” (Note 2) — that is, the area ignores
both East
& West,
& flows-into
itself.
PS. Note 1: Thank you, R. Foreman, for “Pain(t)”
PPS. Note 2: Sessions S. Wheeler, ‘The Nevada Desert,’ Caldwell, Idaho, Caxton Printers, Ltd., 1972, p.21.
(Reposted to correct previous posting error in title and attribution. Our apologies to Mr. Shanley.)
REP. CARBAJAL REINTRODUCES BILL TO BAN FUTURE OFFSHORE OIL DRILLING OFF THE CALIFORNIA COAST
by Dan Bacher
On April 22, Representative Salud Carbajal (D-CA-24) announced the reintroduction of the California Clean Coast Act, a bill that would permanently ban future offshore oil and gas leasing in areas of the Outer Continental Shelf off the coast of California.
This act was the first bill Congressman Carbajal introduced as a Member of Congress, according to an announcement from his office. The bill was first introduced in January 2017 on the anniversary of the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill.
Over 100,000 barrels of crude oil were spilled into the waters off the California Coast during that spill, spurring widespread outrage and playing a huge role in the creation of the modern environmental movement.
Representatives of environmental groups applauded the reintroduction of the legislation.…
ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
I'm to the point where I don't care who is in or out of the Hall of Fame, because I don't care that it exists in the first place. People played pro baseball. Some of them were really, really, good at it. Some were just good at it. They were all better at it than the average person, and all fun to watch. Leave it at that.
NEW CALIFORNIA RULE FOR TRANS ATHLETES FACES CRITICISM FROM ALL SIDES
At the state high school track and field championships, cisgender girls who did not qualify for the meet because a transgender athlete placed ahead of them will be allowed to compete.
by Sophia Bollag
After President Donald Trump and a chorus of conservative activists criticized California for allowing a transgender teenager to compete in a high school girls track competition, the state’s governing body for high school sports announced an effort to find middle ground on the issue.
At the state track and field championships this weekend in Clovis (Fresno County), cisgender girls who did not qualify for the meet because a transgender athlete placed ahead of them will be allowed to compete, the California Interscholastic Federation announced just hours after Trump threatened the state on social media Tuesday morning.
In addition, if transgender athletes place at the state championships, they will be awarded medals but won’t “displace” cisgender girls, a spokesperson for Gov. Gavin Newsom told the Chronicle.
The CIF follows rules implemented in 2013 stating that athletes “will participate in programs consistent with their gender identity or the gender most consistently expressed.” While Tuesday’s decision gained support from Newsom, it quickly sparked criticism from advocates both for and against trangender athletes’ participation in girls sports. It comes after dozens of adults heckled the 16-year-old transgender girl this month at a track meet.
The girl, AB Hernandez of Jurupa Valley High School in Riverside County, told a reporter for the news outlet Capital and Main that her performance at that meet — she placed first in triple jump, eighth in high jump and third in long jump — disproved the argument that cisgender girls can’t compete fairly against her.
This past weekend, Hernandez reportedly finished first in the triple jump and long jump and fourth in the high jump at the Southern Section Masters Meet at Moorpark High School in Ventura County. The program for the state championship, scheduled for Friday and Saturday, lists her as a qualifying entrant in all three events.
In a post on his social media website Tuesday morning, Trump exaggerated Hernandez’s exploits. “This week a transitioned Male athlete, at a major event, won ‘everything,’ and is now qualified to compete in the ‘State Finals’ next weekend,” Trump wrote. “As a Male, he was a less than average competitor. As a Female, this transitioned person is practically unbeatable.”
In a confusingly worded announcement several hours after Trump posted about Hernandez and threatened to withhold federal funding from California because of trans girls’ participation in girls sports, the CIF said it was piloting a new policy.
“Under this pilot entry process, any biological female student-athlete who would have earned the next qualifying mark for one of their Section’s automatic qualifying entries in the CIF State meet, and did not achieve the CIF State at-large mark in the finals at their Section meet, was extended an opportunity to participate in the 2025 CIF State Track and Field Championships,” the organization wrote.
A spokesperson for CIF did not respond to questions about the new policy, including how the organization would determine whether an athlete is a “biological female.”
A spokesperson for Newsom praised the change. “CIF’s proposed pilot is a reasonable, respectful way to navigate a complex issue without compromising competitive fairness — a model worth pursuing,” Izzy Gardon wrote. “The Governor is encouraged by this thoughtful approach.”
The policy change, though, did not appease Assemblyman David Tangipa, who argued that trangender girls should be barred from competing in girls sports entirely. “This pilot program is an admission that opportunities are being stolen from female athletes,” the Clovis Republican wrote in a statement. “This decision doesn’t effect (sic) a select few athletes, but rather every female competitor in the state.”
Anna Posbergh, a sports management professor at Florida State University who studies gender in sports, said she has “mixed feelings” about the California policy. She’s glad that California officials didn’t cave to Trump’s demands and ban trans girls entirely. But she also said she believes that cisgender girls already have adequate opportunities to compete for spots in the championships and worries that the only way to enforce the policy will be to have girls submit to genital checks by doctors or coaches.
“What is concerning to me is that’s really the only feasible way at a high school, middle school level,” she said. “You just don’t have the funding to do a chromosome check.”
Posbergh also said that the number of transgender athletes is so small that creating an entire policy around them is unnecessary. At the event this weekend, the controversy has centered on just one openly transgender girl who qualified to compete. “From a pragmatic standpoint, there’s no need for a policy,” said Posbergh, who competed in track and field as a young athlete. “It’s one trans girl.”
In his social media post, Trump also criticized Newsom, using his preferred insulting nickname. “California, under the leadership of Radical Left Democrat Gavin Newscum, continues to ILLEGALLY allow ‘MEN TO PLAY IN WOMEN’S SPORTS,’” Trump wrote. “THIS IS NOT FAIR, AND TOTALLY DEMEANING TO WOMEN AND GIRLS. Please be hereby advised that large scale Federal Funding will be held back, maybe permanently.”
Trump previously threatened to revoke federal funding for Maine over its policies allowing transgender girls to compete in sports, though his efforts were ultimately blocked in court.
Trump said he would speak to Newsom later Tuesday. Trump tried to call Newsom on Tuesday afternoon while Newsom was busy at an event, Gardon said, adding that the governor hopes to speak with the president soon.
Newsom stoked speculation that he supported banning trans girls from playing on female sports teams earlier this year, when he said on his podcast that allowing transgender girls to compete with cisgender girls was “deeply unfair.” His comments prompted calls from across the political spectrum, from his allies in the LGBT rights movement to Donald Trump’s education secretary, for him to clarify his stance.
In April, Newsom said it’s an issue he’s grappled with for years, notably in 2023 when two girls who qualified for a state track meet were accused of being transgender and taking spots from cisgender girls.
“We literally were talking to some International Olympic Committee experts, we talked to our own state experts, we were trying to figure this out and couldn’t figure it out,” Newsom said during a news conference in Modesto. “I just couldn’t figure out how to ‘make this fair.’”
The girls ultimately did not compete in the meet due to harassment. Newsom said it was an unfortunate outcome for everyone. He urged compassion for transgender children, whom he said “just want to survive.”
(SF Chronicle)
NEWSOM’S BUDGET NUMBERS UNDERMINE HIS CREDIBILITY AGAIN
by Dan Walters
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s revised state budget assumes California will see a sharp decline in projected revenue, largely because President Donald Trump’s tariffs will slow the nation’s economy.
Newsom blames a “Trump slump,” as well as an unanticipated increase in spending on Medi-Cal, California’s medical program for the poor, for punching a $12 billion hole in the budget.
Both of those factors, however, underscore a consistent trend in budgets Newsom has proposed and signed during the last six years — projections of income and outgo that miss the mark, often by many billions of dollars, thus undermining the credibility of the governor’s financial depictions.
The most obvious example happened in May 2022, as the state’s economy was recovering from the brief but severe recession caused by shutdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Newsom presented a revised 2022-23 budget that was $14 billion higher than his original proposal, boasting that the state was experiencing a $97.5 billion surplus. “No other state in American history has ever experienced a surplus as large as this,” Newsom said as he unveiled the revision.
The budget he signed a month later added still another $7 billion in spending with immense new commitments, including cash payments to poor families, expanded health care for undocumented immigrants and new funds for early childhood education.
The surplus Newsom extolled, however, was an illusion. He and his budget advisors had assumed that a one-time spike in state revenues would be permanent, setting a new base of personal and corporate income taxes and sales taxes well in excess of $200 billion a year.
But it didn’t happen.
A year ago, a brief passage in Newsom’s 2024-25 budget revision acknowledged the error.
“Due to the revenue spike from 2019-20 to 2021-22, the budget acts of 2021 and 2022 were based on forecasts that projected substantially greater revenues in the last two fiscal years than occurred,” the budget declared.
“Substantially greater” indeed.
An accompanying chart on revenues from the state’s three major tax sources revealed that “The total difference across the four fiscal years is a negative $165.1 billion,” meaning the error was $40 billion or more a year.
However, the fiscal damage was done. Newsom and the Legislature had already committed the state to tens of billions of dollars in new spending based on revenues that didn’t exist. They created what’s called a structural deficit — a chronic gap between income and outgo — that’s currently estimated at $10 billion to $30 billion a year.
One might think that, having made such an immense error of fiscal judgment, Newsom and his Department of Finance would be ultra-careful in projecting revenues and spending.
Apparently not.
Last year, one of those 2022 commitments based on the erroneous surplus projection — the extension of Medi-Cal coverage to everyone in the state, including undocumented immigrants — took effect. Early this year, the administration revealed Medi-Cal costs were outpacing expectations by more than $6 billion, mostly due to the coverage expansion.
In other words it’s a double whammy. The false assumption of budget surpluses has been compounded by a false assumption about Medi-Cal costs, thereby worsening the structural deficit that, if left to fester, would compound itself even more. The Legislative Analyst’s Office says the deficit could reach $42 billion by 2028-29.
The administration’s sorry record on income and outgo projections should make the Legislature and the voting public very skeptical of Newsom’s current assumption that the “Trump slump” from tariffs will punch an even larger hole in the budget.
That certainly could happen, but with tariffs and their impact shifting day-to-day, putting any number on the revenue impacts is nothing more than guesswork. And we already know that the administration’s fiscal guesses are unreliable.
(CalMatters.org)
IN A BREAKTHROUGH that could transform architecture and sustainability, Liangbing Hu, a materials scientist at the University of Maryland, has developed a wonder of modern engineering: Superwood. Refined by his Maryland-based startup, InventWood, this densified timber is not only 12 times stronger than natural wood but rivals steel and even carbon fiber in durability while being far cheaper and eco-friendly. Through a fast two-step process that removes lignin and compresses cellulose nanofibers into aligned perfection, Superwood becomes resistant to fire, rot, pests, and harsh weather. It’s innovation rooted in nature, engineered for the future and production begins this year.
“THE WAY I SEE IT, we are all perfectly mediocre day-laborers for God. We forget to punch in, we always forget some important element of inventory; our attitudes sour and fail; we come to act as if we own the store, and then, after all that, we wonder when the raise is coming. And, unlike our earthly supervisors, God bestows upon us, through Christ and the agent of art, which I believe to be God-given, such unfailing love and understanding that we feel we must turn over that new leaf, try to get to work on time, show some initiative, but we never do. In a matter of days—or moments—we are right back to our usual habits, because, as we already know, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. We are only human. We are conceived in sin. We are utterly shit.
“I am amazed that in my worst phases, when I was most delinquent, I still knew what I was missing—which makes my dereliction even more fascinating, more pathological than ever.
“We like to say that as writers we are own bosses, but I think writers realize more than others just who really is in charge. The blank page, the moistness under the arms and above the lip, the sheer terror of Nothing Happening. I know that it doesn’t come from some nook of the brain when the words start to come. I know that I’m not wrestling forth a novel, a phrase, one perfectly wonderful sentence. I know where it comes from. I can sometimes feel Him slip into me like a thief with good tools. I think Tennessee was permanently in search of his various gods, seeking, hoping. What kills me is that I repeatedly forget the wonder of it—the aid, the completion, the seeking again, the finding again.”
— Walker Percy/Interview with James Grissom/Baton Rouge
ROPES
by Mary Oliver
In the old days dogs in our town roamed freely. But the old ways changed.
One morning a puppy arrived in our yard with a length of rope hanging from his collar. He played with our dogs; eventually he vanished. But the next morning he showed up again, with a different rope attached. This happened for a number of days — he appeared, he was playful and friendly, and always accompanied by a chewed-through rope.
Just at that time we were moving to another house, which we finished doing all in one evening. A day or so later, on a hunch, I drove back to the old house and found him lying in the grass by our door. I put him in the car and showed him where our new house was. “Do your best,” I said.
He stayed around for a while, then was gone. But there he was the next morning at the new house. Rope dangling. Later that day his owner appeared—with his papers from the Bideawee home, and a leash. “His name is Sammy,” she said. “And he’s yours.”
As Sammy grew older he began to roam around the town and, as a result, began to be caught by the dog officer. Eventually, of course, we were summoned to court, which, we learned quickly, was not a place in which to argue. We were told to build a fence. Which we did.
But it turned out that Sammy could not only chew through ropes, he could also climb fences. So his roaming continued.
But except for the dog officer, Sammy never got into trouble; he made friends. He wouldn’t fight with other dogs, he just seemed to stay awhile in someone’s yard and, if possible, to say hello to the owners. People began to call us to come and get him before the dog officer saw him. Some took him into their houses to hide him from the law. Once a woman on the other end of town called; when I got there she said, “Can you wait just a few minutes? I’m making him some scrambled eggs.”
I could tell many more stories about Sammy — they’re endless. But I’ll just tell you the unexpected, joyful conclusion. The dog officer resigned! And the next officer was a different sort; he too remembered and missed the old days. So when he found Sammy he would simply call him into his truck and drive him home. In this way, he lived a long and happy life, with many friends.
This is Sammy’s story. But I also think there are one or two poems in it somewhere. Maybe it’s what life was like in this dear town years ago, and how a lot of us miss it.
Or maybe it’s about the wonderful things that may happen if you break the ropes that are holding you.
LEAD STORIES, THURSDAY'S NYT
Trump Gives Clemency to More Than Two Dozen, Including Political Allies
Trump Tariffs Ruled Illegal by Federal Judicial Panel
U.S. Will ‘Aggressively’ Revoke Visas of Chinese Students, Rubio Says
A Disillusioned Musk, Distanced From Trump, Says He’s Exiting Washington
French Crypto Chiefs Step Up Security After String of Violent Kidnappings
Bruce Logan, Who Blew Up the Death Star in ‘Star Wars,’ Dies at 78
Greg Cannom, Who Made Brad Pitt Old and Marlon Wayans White, Dies at 73
FEDERAL COURT STRIKES DOWN TRUMP’S TARIFFS on countries around the world
The U.S. Court of International Trade ruled unanimously that the president overstepped his powers in imposing the tariffs on dozens of trading partners, most of which he’s since paused.
by Doug Palmer, Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein
A federal court has struck down President Donald Trump’s tariffs on dozens of countries, saying his effort to justify them with broad claims of national emergencies exceeded his legal authority.
The unanimous ruling of a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of International Trade strikes a blow to one of the central planks of Trump’s economic agenda at a time he is seeking to use tariffs as leverage to strike trade deals around the world.
“Today’s court order is a victory not just for Oregon, but for working families, small businesses, and everyday Americans. President Trump’s sweeping tariffs were unlawful, reckless, and economically devastating,” said Oregon’s Attorney General Dan Rayfield, who filed one of the lawsuits challenging Trump’s tariffs, along with 11 other state attorneys general. “We brought this case because the Constitution doesn’t give any president unchecked authority to upend the economy. This ruling reaffirms that our laws matter, and that trade decisions can’t be made on the president’s whim.”
The court’s ruling also means that the government may have to pay back duties it has already collected. “Anybody that has had to pay tariffs so far will be able to get them refunded,” said Ilya Somin, a professor of law at George Mason University, who helped argue a case against the tariffs brought by several small businesses.
The Justice Department quickly filed an appeal, setting the stage for more legal arguments over the extent of Trump’s tariff authorities. Ultimately, the case could end up at the Supreme Court.…
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/28/federal-court-strikes-down-trumps-april-2-tariffs-00373843
HOW BAD DOES IT HAVE TO GET BEFORE THE DNC DECLARES AN EMERGENCY?
by Norman Solomon
Midway through this month, Democratic Representative Hakeem Jeffries sent out a fundraising text saying that he “recently announced a 10-point plan to take on Trump and the Republicans.” But the plan was no more recent than early February, just two weeks after President Trump’s inauguration. It’s hardly reassuring that the House minority leader cited a 100-day-old memo as his strategy for countering the administration’s countless moves since then to dismantle entire government agencies, destroy life-saving programs and assault a wide range of civil liberties.
Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is so unpopular with the Democratic base that a speaking tour for his new book – abruptly “postponed” just before it was set to begin more than two months ago – still hasn’t been rescheduled. The eruption of anger at his support for Trump’s spending bill in mid-March made Schumer realize that being confronted by irate Democrats in deep-blue states wouldn’t make for good photo ops.
Last month, a Gallup poll measured public confidence in the Democratic congressional leadership at just 25 percent, a steep drop of nine points since 2023 and now at an all-time low. Much of the disaffection comes from habitual Democratic voters who see the party’s leaders as slow-moving and timid while the Trump administration continues with its rampage against democratic structures.
Away from the Capitol, the party’s governing body – the Democratic National Committee – is far from dynamic or nimble. Maintaining its twice-a-year timetable, the 448-member DNC isn’t scheduled to meet until late August.
In the meantime, the DNC’s executive committee is set to gather in Little Rock, Arkansas on Friday for its first meeting since December. That meeting is scheduled to last three hours.
The DNC’s bylaws say that the executive committee “shall be responsible for the conduct of the affairs of the Democratic Party in the interim between the meetings of the full (Democratic National) Committee.” But the pace of being “responsible” is unhurried to the point of political malpractice.
The extraordinary national crisis is made even more severe to the extent that top Democrats do not acknowledge its magnitude. Four months into his job as the DNC’s chair, Ken Martin has yet to show that the DNC is truly operating in real time while the country faces an unprecedented threat to what’s left of democracy. His power to call an emergency meeting of the full DNC remains unused.
This week, Martin received a petition co-sponsored by Progressive Democrats of America and RootsAction, urging the DNC to “convene an emergency meeting of all its members – fully open to the public – as soon as possible.” The petition adds that “the predatory, extreme and dictatorial actions of the Trump administration call for an all-out commensurate response, which so far has been terribly lacking from the Democratic Party.” Among the 7,000 signers were more than 1,500 people who wrote individual comments (often angrily) imploring the DNC to finally swing into suitable action.
As several dozen top DNC officials fly into Little Rock’s Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport, they will bring with them the power to begin shifting the direction of the Democratic Party, but the chances of a positive course correction look meager. The DNC’s current executive committee is a bastion of the party establishment, unlikely to signal to grassroots Democrats and the general public that the party is no longer locked into automatic pilot.
The pattern is a sort of repetition compulsion, afflicting Democratic movers and shakers along with the party as an institution. While many journalists focus on the ages of congressional leaders, the lopsided power held by Democrats in their 70s and 80s is merely a marker for a deeper problem. Their approaches are rooted in the past and are now withering on the political vine.
Even with the rare meeting of the DNC’s executive committee just a couple of days away, the official Democratic Party website was still offering no information about it. The apparent preference is to keep us in the dark.
But anyone can sign up to watch livestream coverage from Progressive Hub, during a four-hour feed that will begin at 12:30 pm Eastern time on Friday. Along with excerpts from the executive committee meeting as it happens, the coverage will include analysis from my RootsAction colleagues Sam Rosenthal, who’ll be inside the meeting room in Little Rock, and former Democratic nominee for Buffalo mayor India Walton. The livestream will also feature an interview with Congressman Ro Khanna, who has endorsed the call for an emergency meeting of the full DNC.
Right now, the Democratic Party appears to be stuck between Little Rock and a hard place. The only real possibilities for major improvement will come from progressives who make demands and organize to back them up with grassroots power.
(Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. The paperback edition of his latest book, “War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine,” includes an afterword about the Gaza war.)
WHO STARTED THE CULTURE WAR?
by Matt Taibbi
Racket just published an essay called “Can ‘Abundance’ Top the ‘Culture-Warrior-in-Chief?’” by friend David Sirota, whom I’ve known for two decades. I met Bernie Sanders through David, watched as he was set upon by press jackals for absurd reasons, and have been amazed at how much hard reporting his site, The Lever, puts out on a regular basis. (David also wrote an underappreciated and entertaining book about the politics of 80’s movies called Back to Our Future). Without talking out of school, I believe the Democratic Party establishment that’s given him such a hard time over the years would probably still be occupying the White House if it followed his general thinking, which was to tack away from neoliberalism and toward a New Deal model focused on working-class issues.
His essay today, which we publish in the spirit of stepping out of our bubble, echoes some of those themes, but I feel a need to offer a gentle reply. For instance I don’t agree, about Donald Trump, that “sure, he embodies the rise of oligarchy.” The bulk of institutional America opposes him, he’s been outraised in all his presidential runs, and even the New York Times now concedes his base is concentrated in “working-class counties.” Oligarchy to me is a better description of the duopoly that squeezed out candidates like Sanders for so long.
I also think that to see Trump as a creator of culture-war controversies is to miss something key about his politics. The candidate I saw in 2016 was doing the same thing Sanders did, drawing huge crowds by speaking to existing frustrations about trade, war, bailout economics, the “rigged” insider politics symbolized by Hillary Clinton’s Wall Street fees, and more. But Trump the reality star did something Sanders couldn’t and apparently wouldn’t do, hunting the broader audience, people who lived in those busted ex-factory towns and in addition to the other slights felt powerless to impact loony academic trends, corrupt media, hectoring Hollywood. I know Sanders was aware of these issues because he talked about them. After Trump’s first election, Sanders noted that when Trump voters saw themselves depicted, it was always “a caricature, some idiot. Or maybe some criminal, some white working class guy who has just stabbed three people…” The rage was there already,
Trump didn’t invent it. He just had an ear for it, while Democrats refused to listen even to legitimate complaints without condescension, a tendency which has now cost them two elections.
I agree Democrats need to stop getting their political ideas from Davos and Ezra Klein, but I’m not sure the urgency is in “swinging disillusioned voters away from the authoritarian right.” I believe ending the culture war starts with respecting the choices of those voters and dealing with them as legitimate. I remember after 2016 when Sanders, whose rhetoric was often eerily similar to Trump’s (“Look at products like the iPhone, the X Box. These are American inventions, but they’re not even made in America anymore”), talked about giving Trump a chance, offering to work with him on legislation, etc. He framed it as “we will see to what degree there was any honesty in what he was saying” about, for instance, “draining the swamp.”
What happened there? If the populist wing of Democrats who Sanders and AOC ostensibly represent could stop calling Trump names and offer to work on areas of agreement, like for instance tearing down trade deals they dislike, it would have the twin benefit of terrifying Chuck Schumer/Davos Democrats and creating leverage to urge Trump back from various constitutional ledges. I know David’s essay is meant to imagine a new long-term political approach, but reading it I couldn’t help but feel that just offering to build that factional bridge would incentivize everyone to behave better, open eyes all around, and turn the gain down on worsening culture war madness.
Or maybe not. Either way, thanks to David for his piece, which offers food for thought.
Gotta agree with the editor about all the Trump protesters. Where were they when Biden and Co propped up the old bones and disallowed a Democratic primary. They fell in lock step to a wholly un-democratic coup. One devout Team Bluer even said, “Ms Harris received the requisite amount of delegates.” In my opinion, Team Blues idiotic decisions rolled out the orange carpet.
Much enjoyed Chuck Dunbar’s account of his youthful interlude as a communard. Thanks, Chuck.
+1
Laz
+1 or is it +2?
I, too, lived in Golden Hill, and worked for San Diego Youth Services late ’70’s.
I was part of the surfing, and sailboat communities.
Paradise!
Lilian, then you probably remember John and his wife Mary Ann. John, who started SD Youth Services, a visionary community activist who was revered by Chip and Tom of the commune. John died some years ago. Chip, Tom and I had a mini-reunion two years ago and visited our old commune house, with Mary Ann, a lovely person.
Chuck, did you know Dacia Adams? She was the Exec. Director in Golden Hill(s…I thought it had an ‘s’).. .
I may have met him in Balboa Park at one of the luncheons.
GREAT PEOPLE…they helped me, and gave me so many wonderful opportunities.
Heaven on Earth
No, Lilian, I didn’t know Dacia. Yes, there were great folks in that agency. I volunteered there for a while. Tom and Chip, at our reunion, spoke of SDYS and John Wedemeyer (took me a bit today to remember his last name) as a major formative experience in their long social work careers. Great that it was a good experience also for you.
WHY CALIFORNIA’S COMING HEAT WAVE COULD BE MORE DANGEROUS THAN YOU THINK
…and, all the while dictator trumples ignores reality and serves only the wealthy. We sink lower into the cesspool of stupidity day-by-day, as we have been doing for decades. Whadda country, eh!!!
Mendocino County Soldiers Killed in Vietnam
Interesting. Last time I checked the checked, probably in the mid 90s, Calaveras County had exactly ONE name listed. His was a name I was familiar with and was only a couple of years older than me. I remember his death being reported on the intercom system at the unified district high school in San Andreas, an unincorporated town that was the county seat (the only incorporated town, Angels Camp, had its own district with an elementary and a high school, which always seemed odd to me…). The death was reported (with a lot of sputtering from the intercom system) while I was attending a math class. Needless to say, it was a shock.
I apologize for my poor editing. My dog was distracting me.
NEW CALIFORNIA RULE FOR TRANS ATHLETES FACES CRITICISM FROM ALL SIDES
Much ado about nothing as far as I am concerned. There are REAL problems that this country faces.
Thanks for sharing your experience living in a commune Chuck Dunbar. I spent a short part of my youth after college organizing and living in a commune in South San Francisco. It didn’t last as long as yours did but it was an interesting experience I look back on with mixed emotions. I can’t help but think communal living will make a comeback for young people that will never be able to afford housing and maybe older people too being squeezed by rising costs on a fixed income. Sharing the rent or a mortgage and living expenses among several people is an alternative to being homeless or living in a car, and doesn’t burden tax payers.
‘A TRULY REMARKABLE LOVE STORY’
Man, that’s a love story to remember, makes one smile to read it, despite the fact that it comes by way of a memorial piece for the couple. Loved this line about Rochelle—“She was barefoot, handy and feral in all the best ways.” Rochelle and Brian—-the perfect match. Hope they’re together in heaven.
Congratulations Andre de Channes on your promotion to KZYX’s GM and Executive Director. You deserve all the support in the world!
Once again just sitting here on a public computer at the Martin Luther King Jr. Public Library in Washington, D.C. I have nothing at all to do on the planet earth now. There is nowhere that I need to go. I am free. So, let us listen to the Nīlakaṇṭha Dhāraṇī. This features the Guan Yin Goddess of Compassion. Here is the long version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpyb9HWTdYs
Here is a shorter Sanskrit version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-gWBj21lpM
Here is the complete explanation of this crucial mantra: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C4%ABlaka%E1%B9%87%E1%B9%ADha_Dh%C4%81ra%E1%B9%87%C4%AB
Otherwise, I got mugged this morning by an insane individual at the bus stop, who began by growling at me, and then hit me in the stomach, and when I did not respond, pushed my face making the new Kangol baseball hat fall off. He remarked: “I’m tired of people like you!” Following this reverse racial discrimination attack, I walked around to the other side of the bus stop, and everybody said that they were sorry that it had happened. I replied: “That’s okay. I understand that he is insane”. As the ancient Indian Vedas explain: “The real you is not affected by anything at all”. Contact me when my Mendocino County housing is set up and the SSI money is returning. ;-))