High Pressure | Fog Lifting | No Report | Outstanding Representatives | Unfavorable Supes | Standout Wildcats | Newsletter Corrections | Bookmobile Dave | Holiday Dinner | Mac Nab’s | First Friday | Sentencing Delayed | Ukiah Defined | Frisco Skyscraper | Silent Mom | Caspar Token | Yesterday's Catch | Nothing Trivial | Park Dues | Bright Morning | EBT Shuffle | Scripted News | Green Sea | Loneliest Moment | Security Force | Without Violence | Foreign Bases | Free Venezuela | Dixon Portrait | Sap Heads | Lead Stories | Dichotomies | Bolshoi Theater | Human Equality | Mousehole Harbour | Poetry Introduction | Edith & Maynard | On Shamanism | Abandoned Ranch | Midnight Nan
STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A partly cloudy 40F this Humpday morning on the coast. There are a lot of high clouds flowing in the from the northwest. I see rain in the forecast for the 19th, quite a ways out ?
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE: High pressure continues to build over the area, bringing offshore flow and generally clear skies through Thursday along with night and morning valley fog. Light rain is possible mainly in Humboldt and Del Norte counties over the weekend.
* King Tides from December 3rd-7th may lead to minor coastal flooding in low-lying areas mainly around Humboldt Bay.
* Frost is possible Wednesday and Thursday morning in the colder valleys and along the coast.
* Dry and seasonably cool weather expected through Friday, followed by a chance of rain over the weekend.
AT TUESDAY’S SPECIAL BOARD MEETING, after Supervisor John Haschak first announced that the Board would discuss the big, recently completed $800k “draft” state audit report — some 18 months in the making — for a relatively short time of not less than half an hour, the Supervisors spent about three hours in closed session before Haschak returned to say, “Nothing to report.” They didn’t even provide a date for the release of the audit report. There was no public comment.
KEN FOSTER:
I’d like to take a minute to point out to the community the noble efforts, and sacrifice by Supervisor Madeline Cline our 1st District Representative to save our communities, farms, and homes.
Supervisor Cline has taken the concerns of the community into consideration, and is fighting for us, The People! Along with 4th District Supervisor Bernie Norvell they have shown true leadership and gone against the grain, they are out there fighting for their constituents in contrast to the balance of the board who I characterize as “Cake Eaters” that grift and pander to the “Establishment”! I ask that everyone take a chance to show your support to these outstanding representatives who put integrity and regard ahead of bowing to those who care less about the people of the County ! Hats off Hero’s!
MENDOCINO COUNTY SUPERVISORS' APPROVAL RATING STINKS — New Survey Shows
President Trump's headline-making poor approval ratings look good in comparison
by Elise Cox
While President Donald Trump’s low approval ratings have recently made national headlines, his worst polling numbers still exceed the approval rating Mendocino County voters give their own Board of Supervisors.
That’s according to a new survey of 660 likely voters living in unincorporated Mendocino County. The poll was conducted by FM3 Research on behalf of the Mendocino Council of Governments and presented at Monday’s meeting.
Asked whether they held a favorable or unfavorable opinion of the board, only 4% of respondents said their view was “very favorable,” and 26% said “favorable.” Half of respondents — 50% — reported an unfavorable opinion, including 23% “very unfavorable” and 27% “somewhat unfavorable.”
Mendocino County government as a whole scored slightly worse, with 52% holding an unfavorable view. But it also had a slightly higher favorable rating than the board, at 31%.
Respondents identified homelessness and a lack of good-paying jobs as the top issues facing the county, followed by the condition of local streets and roads, and waste and inefficiency in government.
One goal of the survey was to gauge support for a proposed 1-cent sales tax that would last 20 years. Exactly 66% of respondents said they were likely to support it, with 39% saying they would “definitely” vote yes.
However, the results also show voters are easily swayed by both positive and negative messages about the tax. Support rose to 69% after respondents heard positive arguments, then fell to 61% after hearing arguments against it.
Support increased among voters who were told the tax would qualify the county for millions of dollars in state and federal matching funds. Support also rose when respondents were informed the measure would include accountability provisions.
Ninety percent said they would be more likely to vote for the tax if funds were legally required to be spent on local roads and not diverted to other uses. Eighty-eight percent said they would be more likely to support the measure if it required public disclosure of spending.
Opponents cited high existing taxes and concerns about wasteful government spending as their primary reasons for voting no.
Past MCOG polling showing support for transportation-specific sales taxes has led to voter-approved measures in Willits, Fort Bragg, Point Arena and Ukiah. That leaves the county as the only jurisdiction without such a measure, according to Michael Villa, regional project coordinator for the Mendocino Council of Governments.
Supervisor Madeline Cline, who serves on the council, said the results did not surprise her. “I think it’s pretty clear that people want to see improvements in the roads,” she said.
Supervisor John Haschak asked whether the survey distinguished among county, state and city roads. A representative from FM3 confirmed it did not.
Respondents were contacted by email, text and telephone and completed the survey either by phone interview or online.
The survey results will be presented to the Board of Supervisors at a future meeting. The supervisors are then expected to discuss moving forward with a ballot measure.
(mendolocal.news)
AV VILLAGE NEWSLETTER CORRECTIONS
Thank you all for your prompt emails to inform me of some wrong dates! First off, some of you wondered what the quote was that got cut off: “I stopped believing in Santa Claus when my mother took me to see him in a department store, and he asked for my autograph.” — Shirley Temple
And then, some of you were keen to point out that the dinner couldn't be happening so soon, but I checked and this is the correct date: AV Grange Community Potluck Dinner: Friday, Dec. 7th, 5;30pm: Anderson Valley Grange.
The correct dates for the 2nd Sunday breakfast and Hendy Woods walk is The 14th. Wherever the heck I came up with the 9th is beyond me.
AV Grange Pancake Breakfast: Sunday, Dec. 14th, 8:30am to 11am: Anderson Valley Grange (2nd Sundays of the Month): Organic and local pancakes (gluten free available) eggs, and bacon. Juice, coffee, tea.
Hendy Woods State Park - Free Entry for Locals: Sunday, Dec. 14th, 8:30am to 7pm: On the second Sunday of every month, local residents have a free pass to enjoy the flora and fauna right in our own backyard. Just know your zip code.
I apologize for any confusion. I sure could use a good editor if anybody wants to volunteer!
One More Thing
While trying to clear up a few things this morning, I inevitably muddied another one up! The Grange Potluck Dinner is on Sunday, Dec.7th. Apologies again!
Happy Holidays, Patty Liddy
BOOKMOBILE DAVE RETIRES FRIDAY
Hi everybody,
Well this will be my last week on the Bookmobile. I retire this Friday, December 5th at 300pm! That will be 18.3 years and roughly 300,000 driving and riding miles aboard the Bookmobile.
I was the driver for about 11 years and Bookmobile Library Associate for the last 7 years. I want everyone to know it really has been a pleasure meeting all of you. Going to the schools and seeing the little ones get all excited. Back when we did the prison camps I brought study materials to help some prisoners get their GEDs. Some of my favorite memories are when people from other countries come up and ask if they can visit and a lot of them would tell me stories of when they were kids going to the Bookmobile.
All and all it's been a blast. I will be out and about on my Harley and if I see the Bookmobile at a stop I will definitely make a point to stop and say hi.
You all take care, and keep reading!
Dave The Bookmobile Guy!
THE ANDERSON VALLEY COMMUNITY HOLIDAY DINNER is rapidly approaching this Sunday evening and we still need a few good cooks, servers, decorators…you name it!
We have a sign up sheet on Google and hoping more will click the link or QR code to fill a need. If you don’t have time help, please feel free to show up with a dessert, entree, or main dish to share and remember to bring your own tableware!
LEW CHICHESTER:
Thanks for the photo of MacNab’s Mens Wear in Ukiah, a brief reminder of a past which is still with me. I’ve been in and out of Ukiah since before 1966, and remember what a pair of Levis jeans cost then. About $7, which for me was barely affordable, not to mention the “Warranted to be a Pendleton” wool shirt which was way too expensive to buy new. I got my Pendletons at the Goodwill, but the Levis had to be purchased new because there were never any in the used clothes stores. A few months ago, back in Ukiah again, I went to MacNab’s to check on the inventory and the old guys who work there. Wonderful store, it seems like the inventory is exactly the same as sixty years ago. The best hats, still with the Pendletons on the shelves (but they don’t seem to be quite as good as I remember) and Levis 501 with the button fly. I bought the Levis, they cost in MacNab’s a bit over $60, and can be found cheaper of course in any number of online/big box outfits. But the hand written paper receipt is priceless, that a store like this even exists anymore is priceless, and by the way, a $7 purchase in 1966 should inflation calculator out to be $70 now. So if you have to go to Ukiah, blow off the big box stores down by Walmart and at least walk around in MacNab’s time machine. On State Street, across from the courthouse.
FIRST FRIDAY AT GRACE HUDSON
Grace Hudson Museum will be in full holiday mode for First Friday, taking place on December 5 from 5 to 8 p.m. There will be caroling by the Ukiah choral group Cecilia, a family-friendly craft activity, and seasonal refreshments. Santa will be visiting kids of all ages in the Sun House. Beautiful and fragrant wreaths and swag will be on sale, hand made by the folks at McFadden Farms. Visitors can also check out the Museum's latest exhibition, "Mission Grafica; Reflecting a Community in Print," as well as the core galleries, featuring Grace Hudson’s artwork, exquisite Pomo basketry, and Carpenter-Hudson family history.
Grace Hudson Museum has free admission all day and evening on First Fridays. The Museum is located at 431 Main St. in Ukiah. For more information, call (707) 467-2836, or visit online at www.gracehudsonmuseum.org.
CONVICTED EX-ROHNERT PARK OFFICER FIRES LAWYER, DELAYING LONG-AWAITED SENTENCING
by Colin Atagi
Sentencing for a former Rohnert Park police officer found guilty of posing as a federal agent and robbing motorists of cash and cannabis has been delayed again while he seeks a new attorney, court records show.
Joseph Huffaker was scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. He faces up to 20 years in federal prison after a jury in July convicted him on six counts, including conspiracy, impersonating a federal officer and obstruction of justice.
His attorney, Richard Ceballos, filed a motion Nov. 24 asking to continue the hearing to Jan. 28, citing “a breakdown in the attorney-client relationship.”
“The reason for the continuance is that Mr. Huffaker has advised me that he no longer wants me to represent him and has taken affirmative steps to obtain new counsel for his sentencing hearing,” Ceballos wrote. “Furthermore, Mr. Huffaker has expressly directed me not to file any sentencing memorandum on his behalf until he has secured new counsel.”
Records do not specify why Huffaker wants a new attorney.
On Nov. 26, U.S. District Judge Maxine Chesney rescheduled sentencing to Jan. 21, over the objection of prosecutors, who noted Huffaker has already “cycled through” six sets of attorneys since being charged in 2021, more than four years ago. One lawyer had to be replaced after dying, they said.
Sentencing was initially expected in October before being moved to Wednesday.
“(Huffaker) should not be permitted to stand pat for several months after the trial, file the instant motion on the eve of sentencing, and further delay his ultimate sentencing and incarceration,” prosecutors wrote Nov. 24. “Moreover, there are real victims here who are entitled to justice and finality.”
The delay in Huffaker’s case has also stalled sentencing for co-defendant Brendan “Jacy” Tatum, a former sergeant with the Rohnert Park Department of Public Safety.
Tatum pleaded guilty in December 2021, and his sentencing has been rescheduled multiple times as Huffaker’s case has dragged on.
“The government believes Tatum’s cooperation is best evaluated after (Huffaker) has been sentenced and, thus, a continuation of defendant’s sentencing may also lead to delay in Tatum’s case,” prosecutors wrote.
Tatum, who testified against Huffaker at trial, had most recently been set to be sentenced Dec. 10. On Tuesday, Chesney approved a joint request to move that hearing to Feb. 18. While testifying in July, Tatum said he was cooperating with investigators in hopes of receiving a lighter sentence.
He and Huffaker remain out of custody pending sentencing.
The trial grew out of a yearslong scandal involving Rohnert Park’s drug interdiction team, a now-defunct unit disbanded in early 2017 after California legalized recreational cannabis. Prosecutors said Huffaker and Tatum used their training to pull over drivers, pose as agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and seize marijuana and cash that was later sold for profit. Much of the activity occurred along Highway 101 near the Sonoma-Mendocino county line.
The scheme began to unravel after a traffic stop Dec. 18, 2017, when two California Highway Patrol officers briefly encountered Tatum and Huffaker. Tatum’s presence was later referenced after another victim filed a complaint with the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office about an unlawful stop.
In February 2018, the FBI and the Sheriff’s Office contacted Tatum about a separate stop Dec. 5, 2017. Prosecutors say Tatum and Huffaker were not involved in that incident but tried to cover their tracks by issuing a press release and police report that borrowed details from the Dec. 18 stop.
Tatum resigned in March 2018 after an internal investigation began. Then-Public Safety Director Brian Masterson abruptly retired soon after. Huffaker was later found to have violated department policy and left the force in 2019 with a $75,000 settlement in exchange for his resignation.
In 2020, the city of Rohnert Park agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle federal lawsuits filed by eight drivers who said officers robbed them during unlawful stops.
(Santa Rosa Press Democrat)
UKIAH AS DEFINED BY THE URBAN DICTIONARY
FRISCO HIGH RISES (An on-line reader writes re The Big One):
"I was a field engineer in SF during the construction of 101 California St. and many lesser skyscrapers (always loved that word) constructed around 1976 to 1986. 101 California's foundation was about 1500 200-foot concrete piles sunk in bay mud and topped with 6 feet of concrete. No bedrock. Think toothpicks in jello. The building was designed to settle two inches into the mud when completed. It settled 1-7/8 inches. The ground level steel columns are two feet thick tapering in size as they reach the 48th floor. Column welds, independently inspected, every 2 floors. Every floor was designed to be an earthquake resistant steel and concrete diaphragm. Although I have some doubts about the piles in mud, the rest of the structure was impressive to a young engineer. Then there's the marble fascia. Huge sheets of beautiful Italian marble two-inches thick in 4-foot x 8-foot slabs. Heavy. Thousands of them. Each held on by a pair of little 1” thick steel clips that were epoxied and screwed on on-site. Glue and little screws. I can really imagine these connectors failing in a quake and plummeting to the street in a hail of one ton stone missiles. Never mind the floor to ceiling glass windows. Have a nice day."
WHERE DOES SHARON STONE LIVE?
by Bruce Anderson
I was paused at the overlook at the edge of the Golden Gate, contemplating the fabulous history stretched somnolently before me as if it were not merely a stretch of water with a beautiful bridge across it. Or, then again, I might have been thinking of dinner. Or the Giants. But that splendid vista really does get one out of the usual trivialities.
Two women, mother and daughter I assumed, approached. “Excuse me,” the younger of the two said, “are you familiar with this area?” I said I was, and I truly am because it's one of my favorite walks, although I doubt I could pass a docent's test.
“We want to see Sharon Stone's house.”
Whose house?
“Sharon Stone's house,” the girl replied as if a random old guy should not only know someone named Sharon Stone but know where she lived.
“You know, Sharon Stone the movie star,” the girl clarified.
Blonde celebrity vaguenesses occurred to me, but ever since Marilyn Monroe they tend to run together. I'd recognize Marilyn anywhere!
“She lives out here somewhere,” the girl assured me. I knew for a fact Ms. Stone didn't live next door to me in my prosaic neighborhood of furtive figures glimpsed only on garbage can day as they hustle their containers in and out of mysterious passageways. If movie stars lived anywhere nearby it would be Sea Cliff to our immediate west.
By then, the subject had changed. “How do we get back to downtown?” the girl asked.
Not by wandering around asking people where Sharon Stone lived, I thought. The older woman had hung back, letting the young one do all the talking, although to me mom would have been a more age-appropriate interlocutor. I steer clear of my fellow citizens in the 14-50 age range, although as a mathematical proposition I'm sure some of them are probably sentient beings.
I told the girl and Silent Mom that their best bet for downtown would be to walk to the bridge and catch an inbound bus, the 28, then transfer to the 30 Stockton. I liked showing off my local guy insider-ness.
“But we want to walk,” the girl said, as if I'd ordered her to take the bus. Neither one of them was togged out for long-haul pedestrianism. Both wore what I guess would be called dress shoes with heels, not high heels but certainly not walking heels. There's no as-the-crow-flies route downtown from where we stood.
I told them if they wanted to walk back to San Francisco's beating heart, they should go back to the bridge, proceed on down the hill to Crissy Field, and just keep on footin' it in a southeasterly direction on the edge of the Bay until they got to the Ferry Building or whatever venue they considered downtown. As the pair trudged off in the direction of the Bridge as I'd suggested, Mom said, “See, I fuckin' told you!”
FROM EBAY, A SEMI-LOCAL ARTIFACT: Caspar Token (via Marshall Newman)
CATCH OF THE DAY, Tuesday, December 2, 2025
TERRY ELLISON II, 34, Willits. Assault weapon, constructing firearm from parts, paraphernalia, stolen property, ammo possession by prohibited person, felon-addict with firearm, suspended license for DUI, reckless evasion-wrong way driving, county parole violation.
TESLA HENCZ, 31, Laytonville. Harboring wanted felon, probation revocation.
AMANDA KENNEDY, 37, Ukiah. Disobeying court order, failure to appear.
MARCUS SURBER, 55, Kelseyville/Ukiah. Failure to appear.
ADOLFO VASQUEZ, 26, Ukiah. DUI.
CHRISTOPHER WILEY, 33, Willits. Burglary, grand theft, vandalism, felon-addict with firearm, controlled substance, paraphernalia.
MATTHEW WILSEY, 36, Clearlake/Ukiah. Controlled substance for sale, paraphernalia, resisting.
"I'VE JUST learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial.”
— Irvin S. Cobb
SOUTHERN HUMBOLDT COMMUNITY PARK DUES
by Paul Modic
The park started charging a dollar an outing this year, is it worth it? To those of us who are out there three to five to seven days a week it is a dollar well spent. However, if you go out there almost every day it would come to $300 or more a year, which seems like a lot of money.
For many, if not most of us out there, that is our most important hour of the day, right? The hour which gets us out of the house, gives us exercise, nature, clean air and soft paths and is irreplaceable really, so why does it seem like it would be a hard sell to convince people to pony up? (No pressure, just a little note on the bulletin board from park management asking for the dollar. When I saw it last Spring I quickly gave $148 for last year, to catch up. Yes, I love the park as we all do.)
I ran through the cost scenario with someone who walks there nearly every day and his first reaction was, “They should pay ME for all my suggestions!” (This from the guy who has an opinion about everything but doesn’t do anything, unlike Dennis Bourassa who has been the park’s prime volunteer for years now, there’s a long list somewhere of what he’s done.)
I also pointed out that his wife comes out once or twice a week, that’s another $100 a year for the family total of at least $400. A couple I see there nearly every day probably gets their $300 times two on a yearly basis so that’s a hefty $600 for that relationship unit.
If payment was enforced rather than voluntary would people drive further for a not-as-nice place to save the buck, when gas to the alternate spot, if it exists, might cost a few extra dollars? No, that’s silly.
How about if you take your kids, is it still a dollar each? (Should pregnant mothers pay 25 cents extra until out of the belly? What if twins, 50 cents?
How about an extra fee for dogs? A couple with two dogs could add up to an astounding $900 a year and would it still be worth $3 a day to take the whole animal family? Probably. (How about riding a horse? Should that be counted as another whole person? Pretty big mammal there.)
If you’re on a fixed income what per cent would your dollar reflect? Let’s say you have some SSI or SSA for a minimum of $1200 a month, what per cent would your $30 a month be? Answer: About three per cent of your annual income would go toward your daily walk in the park, worth it?
Maybe there could be a cap of $200 per person per year?
So now we may see who the deadbeats among us are.
It’s worth a dollar a day for my best hour…
CRAIG GETS THE RUN AROUND
Warmest spiritual greetings,
Food Stamps Washington D.C. Failure
Three months ago I applied for an EBT card in the District of Columbia. I submitted a verification of benefits from the social security administration. Contacting the EBT office in Ukiah, California where I was residing prior to establishing residency in Washington, D.C., I was able to get from the EBT portal proof that my California EBT account had been closed. What showed on the portal was a picture of my EBT card with the words "Close Account" at the bottom, and a red circle with a white line through it, which signifies minus. I made a copy of this page, and submitted it to the D.C. EBT office at 7th & H Streets. I was told that I would be receiving a letter of acceptance in about a week, and that I needed to bring that in to get my new District of Columbia EBT card.
Three weeks later I still had not received the letter. I went into their office and inquired. I was informed that my application had been denied. I was informed that the California EBT portal page only proved that the EBT card had been cancelled, and that I still needed to get a letter to prove that the account had been closed. I replied that this was ridiculous, because no EBT office anywhere would only close the card, while leaving the account open, because then the user would have an open account with no means of being able to access it, not having the card. Nevertheless, I was told that if I wanted to get a District of Columbia EBT card, that I would have to reapply, because my application had timed out.
I would appreciate any help that I may receive to get my Washington, D.C. EBT card. Thank you very much.
Craig Louis Stehr, [email protected]
ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
Back in 2018 I was working as a contract programmer/data-analyst at a major media analysis firm. You've all heard of it.
The walls were plastered with TVs. Notably, the only station I never saw on a TV was Fox News. I'm not a Fox News booster but the absence of that station was conspicuous given that there were multiple sets showing ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC and CNN.
What particularly struck me was how I could walk from room to room and often not just hear the same story but the exact same wording coming from different stations.
The synchronicity was stunning. I specifically remember the time around the confirmation of Gina Haspel as CIA chief and how the phrase "Trump's controversial choice" was being parroted on every set.
It seemed completely overt and unhidden. I guess part of the strategy is the assumption that few people would notice the "scripting of the news."
“THE LONELIEST MOMENT in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.”
— F. Scott Fitzgerald
STREET VIOLENCE, an on-line comment:
Although some people would tell us to accept high rates carjackings, murders, assaults, and a host of other crimes as "just a part of urban life," candor requires us to acknowledge that all too many of our big cities (including my hometown of Baltimore) have become de facto disaster zones in terms of violent crime and its impact on the safety and security of the citizenry. You really dispute that? If so, you are seriously misinformed.
It doesn't have to be this way. It is possible to live in a big city without the fear of being victimized by criminals, it just takes a real desire to do so. Trump certainly has the authority to deploy the Guard to secure DC, and possibly other cities, too, on the grounds of guaranteeing the security of the citizenry.
I, too, would prefer that local police do the job, but when they won't, or can't, it is reasonable for the feds to step in. I don't recall Gov Orval Faubus asking for federal troops to be deployed to Arkansas to secure the right of its black citizens to attend public schools. But Eisenhower did deploy the 82nd Airborne, and I think it was the right thing to do. Same principle applies here.
"IT'S ONLY WHEN you see a mosquito landing on your testicles that you realize that there is always a way to solve problems without using violence."
— Charlie Musselwhite
WORLD’S MOST TYRANNICAL GOVERNMENT WANTS TO FREE VENEZUELA FROM TYRANNY
by Caitlin Johnstone
President Trump has been holding talks with top advisors this week regarding potential US attacks on Venezuela in order to bring about regime change in yet another oil-rich nation.
As the western political/media class frames Venezuela’s President Maduro as a “dictator” who must urgently be removed from power, it is worth noting that any US military operation to remove him would be taking place directly against the will of the American public. A recent CBS News poll found that seventy percent of Americans “would oppose” the US taking military action against Venezuela.
So here we have the president of a nation which calls itself a democracy, holding meetings to plan military operations which are completely and unambiguously against the wishes of the electorate, in the name of removing a dictator and spreading freedom and democracy.
Interesting.
Whenever I see the US empire saying they plan to remove the latest Official Bad Guy from power in order to liberate a nation from tyranny, I always want to ask, what is tyranny?
Is it tyranny to constantly topple foreign governments by force if their leaders disobey you?
Is it tyranny to circle the planet with hundreds of military bases in order to dominate all of humanity?
Is it tyranny to continuously be inflicting mass military slaughter, backing genocides, staging foreign coups, fomenting unrest and uprisings in foreign nations, meddling in foreign elections, funding proxy conflicts, imposing blockades and starvation sanctions on civilian populations, and engaging in nuclear brinkmanship in order to rule the world?
Is it tyranny to treat the entire global south as your personal piggy bank from which to extract limitless labor and resources and murder anyone who tries to inhibit these practices through any movement toward national sovereignty?
Because if it is, it’s a bit silly for the US to claim to be liberating any nation from tyranny.
Kinda like a morbidly obese man coming up to you and saying he’ll train you to shed those extra pounds.
It’s like Nick Fuentes offering cultural sensitivity training workshops.
It’s like the Green River Killer publishing a book on the the importance of combating toxic masculinity.
The US empire is the most tyrannical power structure on earth, by an extremely massive margin. There is no close second place in contention. Nobody else is brutalizing and terrorizing the entire planet into compliance with its dictates. No other power is constantly assaulting any government or population anywhere on earth that doesn’t bow to its demands. Only the US empire can be said to be guilty of this.
Even if Maduro really was the worst dictator on earth (he’s not), and even if this push for regime change really had anything to do with liberating the Venezuelan people (it doesn’t), and even if you could make a convincing argument that regime change interventionism would probably make things better for Venezuelans (you can’t), the US would be the last government on earth with any business doing so. The world’s most tyrannical power structure has no business trying to liberate anyone from tyranny.
If the US empire wants to make the world less tyrannical, its first and only move should be to dismantle itself.
(caitlinjohnstone.com.au)
"I FEEL FREE of all cults, isms, movements, countries, latitudes and philosophies. I am alone, a man, an artist by Jesus, and I want nothing to do with these sap-heads. They talk like weather experts who always manage to predict sunshine when it rains."
— Henry Miller
LEAD STORIES, WEDNESDAY'S NYT
Trump Appears to Fight Sleep During Cabinet Meeting
Trump Calls Somalis ‘Garbage’ He Doesn’t Want in the Country
Republican Wins Tennessee House Race After a Trump-Led Rescue Mission
Michael and Susan Dell to Put $250 in 25 Million Children’s Accounts
Europe Wants to Get the Word Out: Russia Is to Blame for Sabotage
Those Sky-High Bitcoin Prices That Everyone Said Were Here to Stay? They Left
IT WAS THE BEST OF TIMES, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.
— Charles Dickens
EQUALITY WITHOUT FEMINISM?
by Elaine Blair
On the evening of August 30, 1918 an assassin shot Lenin twice as he was leaving an armaments factory. The assailant was 28-year-old Fanny Kaplan, a member of the Socialist Revolutionaries, a rival party to the Bolsheviks. Kaplan was furious that Lenin had dissolved the Constituent Assembly (the governing body) to prevent duly elected Socialist Revolutionaries from taking power. She turned herself in, explained her reasons, and refused to name her accomplices. Lenin survived.
The assassination attempt became the official pretext for the Red Terror, a violent campaign against non-Bolshevik parties. The secret police summarily executed more than 6,000 Soviet citizens in the first two months after the shooting. Kaplan was among the first to be killed without trial.
In the early 1980s a Soviet economist went out into the field to study the nation’s factories and collective farms, and published a devastating report. The highly centralized Soviet economy was on the verge of collapse. Bureaucrats in Moscow couldn’t manage the production and distribution of food and goods across the vast territory. Workers were demoralized and cynical: the animating dream of building communism together had been crushed by corruption and poverty. The economist, Tatyana Zaslavskaya, was a committed socialist who believed that it was “necessary and possible” to improve the Soviet Union’s troubled system. She stressed that the economy needed not reforms but a thorough restructuring — perestroika — from the ground up. She went on to become an informal adviser to Mikael Gorbachev, who found her work useful.
These two women, Kaplan and Zaslavskaya, whose stories appear in ‘Motherland,’ Julia Ioffe’s wide-ranging account of the past 150 years of Russian history, were living out the Soviet ideal for its citizens: women, like men, could be revolutionary actors on the world stage or highly specialized workers lending their talents to their country. Neither Kaplan nor Zaslavskaya had been concerned with the rights or plights of women — why would they be, when gender equality was already enshrined in law?
The Soviet experiment was built on a vertiginous, alluring idea: that gender equality can spring from a source other than feminism. Women would bypass the divisive process of group advocacy, avoid making adversaries of men, and instead simply be equal, joining the collective socialist struggle on the same terms as male comrades, becoming part of a movement whose belief in universal human equality was so powerful that no one would be exempt from its logic.
(New York Review of Books)
INTRODUCTION TO POETRY
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
— Billy Collins (1988)
PRIEST OF THE DEVIL: ON SHAMANISM
by Mike Jay
On the remote island of Siberut off the west coast of Sumatra, the Mentawai have a well-documented tradition of shamans: individuals known as sikerei heal people by communing with spirits. Manvir Singh, in the middle of his doctoral research in human evolutionary biology, went there in 2014 to undertake fieldwork. Sikerei were easy to spot, with their long hair, loincloths, strings of beads and spidery tattoos, which traced patterns and broken lines up their spines, limbs and torsos and across their faces. Singh was hoping to embed himself in a traditional community and witness its ceremonies.
But during the 1970s most of them had been relocated from their longhouses in the forest to government-built villages; by the 1990s guides were organizing “tribal tours” for foreigners and marketing the sikerei as a spectacle of “living stone age culture.” A long and muddy trek to an isolated longhouse in the interior of the island led him not to a pristine shamanic community but to a small family subsisting in isolation with a few pigs. Exhausted by the heat, unable to grasp the language or to find what he was looking for, he abandoned this first visit to Siberut after a couple of weeks and and took the ferry back to Sumatra.
Singh would have no such problems, in subsequent years, connecting with shamans on visits to the Peruvian Andes and the Amazon. Here, their ceremonies are not merely open to tourists but have been reconceived with them in mind. They are the basis of lucrative local businesses, with a dollar-power that draws experienced shamans from far-flung mestizo communities, where their traditional role is low in status, economically precarious and fraught with disputes and vendettas. There is much more money and status to be had conducting visitors on medico-spiritual “journeys” of healing, personal growth and self-actualization under the influence of ayahuasca, cacti and magic mushrooms.
Traditionally, it was the shaman who swallowed or sniffed intoxicating plants as a way of gaining access to the world of the spirits, but the new Western clients are focused on their own psychedelic experiences. They rarely show any interest in Indigenous cosmology or in the local uses of the ceremonies, which are typically in healing physical illness or answering questions about lost possessions or a suspicious run of misfortune. The visitors are steered away from shamanism’s dark undercurrents, its involvement with sorcery, evil spirits and psychic warfare, and towards what Singh characterizes as psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, to help with mental health issues such as depression or trauma.
The world of the shaman is always changing. Indeed the ayahuasca traditions of many Amazon tribal groups date back only as far as their encounter with Jesuit missionaries and the rubber boom of the early 20th century. The plant sources of the most potent hallucinogen in the ayahuasca brew, DMT (dimethyltryptamine), were once typically powdered and sniffed or propelled up into the sinuses with blowpipes. The antiquity of this practice was confirmed with the find in 2008 of a thousand-year-old ritual bundle in an Andean cave containing the powdered ingredients of ayahuaca together with a bone snuffing tube. Only previously isolated communities were threaded into a network in the years around 1900, notably by Black rubber tappers who encountered ayahuasca in the forest and adapted its use for Christian worship in the cities, did the secret of macerating and boiling together a specific combination of plants to produce a brew for oral consumption spread across the region and replace older traditions.
Despite this long history of mutual influence, the potential for culture shock remains, on both sides. One veteran shaman, returning from his first experience performing at a top-dollar eco-lodge, asked the ayahuasca researcher Stephan Beyer why these people had come halfway round the world to see him when they weren’t sick. And why do they all hate their parents?
Yet many shamans are content to trade old practices for the new, and see the Western visitors as one more novelty in a rapidly changing and increasingly joined-up world. The visions of ayahuasqueros now commonly include futuristic Western doctor’s offices and clinics, X-ray machines and brain scanners operated by spirits or extraterrestrials dressed in surgical scrubs. Singh quotes a Mazatec mushroom healer: “We have to adapt to survive,” he shrugs, “and we have to help those who need the medicine.”
(London Review of Books)
TO MIDNIGHT NAN AT LEROY'S
Strut and wiggle,
Shameless gal.
Wouldn't no good fellow
Be your pal.
Hear dat music. . . .
Jungle night.
Hear dat music. . . .
And the moon was white.
Sing your Blues song,
Pretty baby.
You want lovin'
And you don't mean maybe.
Jungle lover. . . .
Night black boy. . . .
Two against the moon
And the moon was joy.
Strut and wiggle,
Shameless Nan.
Wouldn't no good fellow
Be your man?
— Langston Hughes (1926)
A big salute to Dave the Bookmobile Guy. Thank you.
What a great job, what a great service. Good for you Dave, and have lots of retirement fun on that Harley.
“However, the results also show voters are easily swayed by both positive and negative messages about the tax. Support rose to 69% after respondents heard positive arguments, then fell to 61% after hearing arguments against it.”
Sales taxes are totally regressive in nature. They insure that those with modest incomes pay a higher percentage of income for them compared to the percentage of income paid by the wealthy.
Oh, and on another subject, “Lake” Pillsbury is an artificial impoundment, or reservoir, NOT a lake.