SAN FRANCISCO, according to its own figures, is putting out $458,000 per day to house and help homeless people, which works out to $34 a day per homeless person, whether they are on the streets, in a shelter or in “supportive” housing. That's more than children's programs, public works and parks and recreation. Nearly half the homeless money, $81.5 million per year, goes for rent subsidies and programs to assist the 6,355 people living in that “permanent supportive housing.” Despite all, roughly 7,000 people remain unhoused because there's always a fresh supply of homeless no matter how much housing might be made available. As rich as Frisco is, and given the City's historical reluctance to compel the rich to pay their fair share of the social load, there will continue to be lots of people — drunks, drug addicts, the mentally ill, and the pit bull people — living on the streets. It's a national political failure not to seriously address homelessness, but given the political givens, which apply also here in Mendocino County, all of the above will be on the streets for years to come.
I WROTE that ten years ago. Nothing has changed except the merry-go-round is more expensive.
A READER WRITES: “Me being an old radio guy, I like to listen, too. I do my baseball listening at home on my nana's old 1946 Philco radio phono tower.
I inherited this baby from her when she died in the early 70s, and I've cared for it. Recently had a serious tube radio guy go through the internals completely. Obviously it's terrific cosmetically. Now it is fully restored. It has a 13 tube radio, featuring two 6L6 power tubes. Those are big tubes, used these days in the best rock guitar amps (see Marshall) and this thing really heats up. The sound is terrific. It runs a big original 12-inch speaker. You place the radio so it has about a two inch gap from the wall. These big tube amps have a sound that cuts. You can hear the game over anything all over the house. My wife says, ‘It sounds like America!’ Built in Philadelphia, PA, USA. I want to add that K&K, the Giants announcers, are world class. Imagine life with Joe Buck. No thanks.”
1.5 MILLION young people take the SAT every year, of whom a whole bunch would be wise not to go to the trouble and expense. Looking back on my college experience, I don't remember learning much of anything, but it did give me a lot of time to read on my own, scattered as my reading was because it wasn't in any way systematic. If someone at City College had simply handed me a list of a thousand essential books and told me to go home and read them it would have been better than sitting through four years of random classes. As it was, I got a little of this, a little of that, and at the other end of the pointless process I was like this description of the young Brett Harte: “A somewhat pathetic figure, a gentleman of refined tastes with no means of support, and simply untrained for doing anything that needed doing.” That was me. And millions of liberal arts grads like me.
IF I HAD IT TO DO over again, I wouldn't, and two years of my “higher learning” was funded by baseball, which I could play well enough to earn me free room and board until I lost interest in sports entirely for the rest of my youth, belatedly re-drugging myself in the sports pages in early middle age. The other two years of the three-and-a-half I spent stumbling towards a college degree, I paid my own way by taking late afternoon and night classes when I could at CCSF where, now that I recall that distant interlude, I did profit from a fascinating biology class taught by a cranky old guy who enlivened his lectures with hilarious stories of his battles with his neighbor and his neighbor's dog.
THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE courses were all required. They weren't difficult because I could already read and write and liked doing it, which put me ahead of many of my classmates who, as now, didn't read and hated to write, especially my fellow jocks who regarded me as a kind of pervert whenever they spotted me with a book. “Jesus, Anderson! What are you doing?”
I ADMIRED the people aiming at the tough diplomas in engineering and other math-based vocations. They were all a lot smarter than me but, and I understand this is still true, they didn't read particularly well and couldn't write much. I laughed when I read that the SAT's “would no longer include relatively obscure vocabulary words such as ‘punctilious’ and ‘lachrymose’ but would include words like ‘synthesis’.” (Better add ‘appropriate’ and ‘paradigm’ if you want to live in Mendocino County.)
PUNCTILIOUS and lachrymose? Punctilious you see a lot and should know. Lachrymose not so often, but by that standard you could just develop the speaking and gizmo-prose of today's young people. “Like I said to the dude, Like, dude, wtf? And dude like said to me, Like dude…” Accompany that with a lot of body language intended to convey meaning and who needs lachrymose? Only the punctilious, that's who. Who are about to be phased out altogether. If you want to design high rises or become a surgeon, or some other really, really skilled person, you should know these words and a lot more. But if you want to be a history and English major, which my diploma qualifies me not in the least for anything, forget college. Go out and enjoy your youth, reading when you can. Later, you can become a public defender or a superintendent of schools or whatever else pays nicely but requires even less in the way of intellectual preparation. For you liberal arts people, college is a waste of time and your parent's money. Whatever you do, don't rack up a lot of debt getting a four-year degree in the liberal arts. That's really silly these days. Ruinous, too. Work for revolution and free education for everyone who wants one.
REVEALING REPORTING ON TRUMP'S WAR from a respected Israeli journalist. We need to get this mostly censored information out there:
Israeli Journalist & Peace Activist Alon Mizrahi writes, "We are witnessing history. Iran is, to the surprise of everyone, fucking up US bases so thoroughly and extensively and so decisively that the world isn’t ready to see it.
In 4 days, Iran has managed to expand its scope of military domination in the region. Iran has destroyed the most precious, most expensive military bases, assets and equipment in the whole world. American bases in Bahrain and Kuwait and Qatar and Saudi Arabia are some of the biggest military installations in the entire world. These are assets that took trillions to build over the course of several decades. We’re talking a major chunk of military expenditure for over 30 years, going up in smoke.
We are seeing radars costing hundreds of millions of dollars apiece being destroyed in an instant. We are seeing entire military bases being abandoned and burned, decimated and destroyed. And I’m telling you from my knowledge, the US has never suffered such devastation in its entire history, except maybe Pearl Harbor but that was one attack.
No enemy in a normal war has done to the US military what the Iranians are doing to the US military right now. This defies belief. The military situation is so bad that censorship blocks practically every piece of new information about this war. If you’ve noticed we’re being exposed to less and less every day.
Thirty-five years ago during the first Iraq war, we were being shown endless footage from Iraq. The smart bombs and the cameras were a novelty back then, but every night we were being shown night footage. Now we are seeing almost no video.
Understand this! This is supposedly the world’s biggest military power having the world’s biggest air capabilities and for 4 days when the US is on the offensive, supposedly and is supposed to be breaking through Iranian defenses we are seeing NO signs of American domination over Iranian skies. Where is all the footage of our planes flying over Tehran or any part of Iran for that matter?
American soldiers cannot even dream of setting foot in Iran. And to understand how desperate this war is, that on the 4th day you’re already hearing the craziest suggestions and ideas from the Trump administration. They are suggesting to send military escorts for oil carrying vessels coming out of the Persian gulf. What are you even talking about?! You want to send American ships into the range of thousands of Iranian missiles? NO ONE can pass through the strait of Hormuz right now.
The Iranians have been preparing for this for decades. They’re flaunting this idea of arming Kurdish militias to invade Iran. What the FUCK are you talking about? Have you seen a map of Iran?! It seems like the Trump administration has never seen a map of Iran! Do you know how massive it is? What do you mean invade Iran?! You think a 10,000 man militia can invade Iran?! Or even 50,000?! Or 100,000?! Iran will swallow them.
The US and Israel have already lost this war. The US and Israel can kill millions of civilians in their homes. They have huge bombs and can explode buildings, but they will not win this war. Iran’s military infrastructure and weaponry is so far underground all over Iran. There is no way for the Americans and definitely not the Israelis to reach any of it. They are screwed.
They have started something they have no chance of bringing to an end. When this is over the US will never come back to West Asia. There will be no American presence in the Middle East. I’m telling you this now with certainty.”
— Alon Mizrahi, Israeli journalist and peace activist.
(Alon Mizrahi is an Israeli writer, political analyst, and peace activist known for his staunch criticism of Zionism and Israeli policies regarding Palestine. He identifies as an Arab Jew—specifically with Moroccan-Jewish heritage—and has been outspoken about the need for a just peace in the region.)
A READER WRITES:
We are already taxed to death! The County already gets road taxes from us. Now they want more???? Our pockets are empty, especially these days and it’s getting worse. The County should put road maintenance and other critical infrastructure first in the budget not last. They vote themselves a raise every April, for what? Stop using the citizens as your personal bank account. We are dry. We are exhausted, we are sick of the whole s@#$ show. Have you no decency? You bunch of hypocritical fools. Vote NO on any tax hikes!!! Hold officials accountable for the funds we already pay. Do your jobs and stay out of our pockets for more.
CRAIG STEHR irritates many readers who view him as the COMPLEAT DEADBEAT. (I'll wait here while you google “compleat.” Let me know what you discover and if I've used it amusingly.)
Craig's been tuned in to the AVA for many years, and certainly is not the first person to seek and perhaps even find solace in our welcoming, often therapeutic pages. I have a faint memory of meeting the man himself years ago at the Anarchist Book Fair in San Francisco in, I think, 2001. Craig, looking hyper-normal in that context, strolled up just as I was being harangued by another lunatic whose assessments of me and my newspaper were violently negative. I recall being poised to physically repel the man if he got any closer. As mentioned, Craig was a presentable-looking dude amid the slovens gathered in the Hall of Flowers, and I remember thinking, “This guy doesn't look nuts,” but crazies dress normal, as another clinically delusional local in a lucid moment once wrote. I was aware of Craig from his unique letters-to-the-editor — he's been with us going on 40 years — and had assumed that he was only tenuously tethered to the reality I still shared with most people, but I got big hoots from his letters. Craig had appeared on the Northcoast during Redwood Summer, a series of demonstrations aimed, rhetorically, at saving redwoods but, in retrospect, a self-aggrandizing cash and carry scheme orchestrated by a small cadre of unpleasant, five foot women and denatured men — imagine the Manson family as environmentalists — who parlayed fake political commitment into an impressive mound of cash for themselves while using the honest druids they'd mobilized as mere props. Craig, as often confirmed in his candid public accountings, said he had a social security income which he thought would be adequate to get himself a permanent berth at one of Ukiah's better managed fleabags, the aptly named Voll Motel, for instance, where he'd stayed before. But rather than just check in at the Voll, Craig, a lapsed Catholic having wandered into the American nut cult version of Hinduism, apparently still wants divine intervention to get him somewhere. All he needs is a room, and if he can get himself to Ukiah there's helping professionals galore, 31 agencies of them at last count, to flesh out his government income. The guy's no kid. I think he's about 75 now, not an age one wants to be unmoored in, as Craig says, “post-modern America.” If you can hear this, Craig, it's Uncle Bruce at the AVA urging you to return to the true church you were raised in, return to the inclusive embrace of the Church of Rome and the true Christians of the Catholic Worker who, I believe, still maintain a farm in the Greater Bay Area where you would certainly be welcome. Er, check that — everyone has to work and you seem labor-averse, but it's a thought. Well, hell, can't say I didn't try. And still do. Get out of DC, Craig, back to redwood country where you're well known and where the gracious Ms. Malone can be depended on to steer you to safe harbor.
JENNIFER SMALLWOOD on Mendo’s Back Taxes: No wonder the county doesn't have enough money. I just went online to pay my installment on my taxes they say I owe because they did not reassess my property when I bought it and the website says the page doesn't exist… "When you have more than you need, don't build a higher wall. Set a longer table!"
A READER WRITES: So the deputy who sexually assaulted his roommate got diversion! You cannot say who I am but I served honorably as a peace officer in Mendocino County. If he is a good boy all goes away! This is bullshit! He was a deputy! So much I can tell you!
THE LOST COAST EXPERIENCE
Marshall Newman: A few decades back, I backpacked a portion of the Lost Coast; Shelter Cove to Big Flat and back. Back then, beautiful and empty. So empty my partner and I encountered a sea lion on the beach, which we thought was dead until it took off for the ocean. A foggy place, with mountains that drop precipitously into the ocean.
Yukon: About 30 years ago, I went surfing out there and got permission to stay at the barn. It was a crazy hike in (we miscalculated the tide and almost got smashed into the cliffs), and we saw a dead whale with huge chunks bitten out of its side. That encounter cast a dark pall on the surfing mission. Good thing we had the pilot dude fly in 4 cases of beer and a gallon of whiskey. In case you are wondering, the waves were pretty flat and the water unsurprisingly was like ice.
Jeff Fox: I backpacked that route to Big Flat twice in ’71 & ’72. It was a tough hike with a backpack and all that soft sand. Basically deserted most of the time during those years, both times we didn’t encounter anyone else on the beach. We also packed the upper trail once. The staff at the BLM office in Ukiah asked us to report back on how to improve the trails. They were still in the process of mapping it and figuring out which trails to improve and which ones to abandon. Fun days.
Bruce Anderson: Me too. Alexander Cockburn and I and Joe and Karen Paff did the slog straight down the beach without consulting the tidal tables, which made skittering around the rocks a little too exciting. We spent the night about half way with a couple of fifths of Irish whiskey. Woke up to mountain lion tracks a few feet from where we slept. Didn’t meet a soul until we were a few miles out from Shelter Cover when we encountered a kid toting a surf board headed in the direction of that intriguing house all by itself about half way. Another year Cockburn and I did the inland trail, which is definitely not recommended unless you’re reasonably fit. Up and down the whole way. A single fifth of whiskey and a long discussion of George Orwell about whom I was ill prepared for Cockburn’s critiques of the great man. Sleep disturbed by elk munching the trailside vegetation. Met a small mob of about twenty junior high-age kids just setting out from Usal with way too much stuff and already complaining that they there hot and tired. I didn’t envy their teachers, and doubt they made it more than a couple of miles. The difficulty of both Lost Coast routes should not be underestimated.
Steve Heilig: I’ve hiked into Big Flat, and perhaps the most memorable thing about that particular spot was that there were rattlers under every rock. At one point they seemed to be rattling in chorus. Striking but unsettling…
Norm Thurston: I’ve visited both ends of the Lost Cost beach trail, and once stood upon the top of Kings Peak (back when you could drive to within a couple of miles of it). Love reading all the stories from those who have hiked those trails.
BA: PS. And the amazing shell mounds!
STEPHEN DUNLAP (Coast Roofing Contractor):
For the last many years all re-roof permits city or county were handled thru the county Plan & Build with fees increasing on a regular basis.
In the last few weeks we learn all re-roofs in the city limits starts with the permit app starting at the city before it heads over to the county for further processing (and fees).
I learn yesterday that now a re-roof permit for a regular home in the city limits (of Fort Bragg) costs $700 to over $800 total after going thru city & county hands.
Is this Sebastopol ?
Add to this the already endless other county fees & taxes I pay all the time
You have got to be kidding…
‘THE ATTACK LAUNCHED ON IRAN by the US and Israel on February 28 was a textbook case of international aggression, justified in only the most cursory fashion by fictional Iranian threats and undertaken with no clear aims and no clear demands or terms.
In announcing the war Donald Trump described it as a wholesale attack on both government and state. The US and Israel would “raze their missile industry to the ground” and “annihilate their navy”. Benjamin Netanyahu called on Iranians to “come out to the streets and finish the job”.
The first week of operations was conducted with characteristic disregard for civilian casualties. Among the targets hit with airstrikes were medical facilities, the state broadcaster and a school. An Iranian frigate not engaged in combat was sunk in international waters with its crew. The official nomenclature matched the sense of euphoric violence emanating from the war itself: the US christened its campaign Operation Epic Fury; Israel chose Lion’s Roar.’
— Tom Stevenson on Iran, London Review of Books
ON-LINE COMMENTS OF THE WEEK
[1] Trump wanted to disrupt - did his voters realize he was going to disrupt on a global scale? Engaging our military in yet another foreign war being led my incompetent politicians. Did anyone really think a talking head from Fox is qualified to lead a war - any war - let alone one in the Middle East? After what we learned from Iraq and Afghanistan, who thought this was a good idea? Netanyahu and Trump…certainly not the American people.
[2] Apply this observation to the new County Courthouse in Ukiah:
How can city officials and developers be so utterly stupid and destructive? Is it that they are not stupid but so corrupt and immoral that they build these life-destroying abominations just for the money that will flow into their pockets? If city officials and developers build them for the profits they will reap, then they are immoral and unethical to an extent that I would not think possible.
[3] Woulda, shouda, coulda. Thankfully, I am retired and mostly watching this tragedy unfold from the sidelines. However, both middle aged sons and wives are in the crosshairs in the type of jobs that can and mostly likely could be deemed unnecessary by the AI advancements. Just like in the 1980's when the government policies drove thousands of manufacturing jobs out of the country. Our government sold out the middle class for corporate profits. I've seen this unfold before, but this will be worse.
[4] Great. A failed state with a bunch of hidden nuclear material and a population full of people grieving for the next 25 years over the children and neighbors our president suddenly decided to murder to distract attention away from Epstein. What could go wrong? If I were the father of one of those children, I can imagine wanting to go on a suicidal terrorist mission to deliver some of that material to the ballroom.
[5] Cancel the twice yearly time change, and ban travel across time zones. Let’s stay in our silos. It’s healthier.
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