Mendocino County Today: Monday, Aug 15, 2016

• Clayton Fire
• Turner Rumor
• V Rumblings
• Bad Odds
• Congressmen
• Drone Parade
• Yesterday's Catch
• Great Letter
• P&F Convention
• Ain't Afraid
• Progressive Pundits
• WVFD Fundraiser
• Coulda Been Jeb
• Long Day
• Killing Osama
• KZYX Meeting
• Financial Concerns
• One Party
• Mae West

CHP NEWS RELEASE (4:08 am): Highway 53 remains closed between Highway 20 and Highway 29.  Unknown ETA for re-opening.  Highway 20 and 29 are open.

CHP UPDATE (5:18 am): Highway 53 closed between Highway 29 and Olympic Drive in Clearlake.  Roads west of 53 are open, roads east of 53 are remaining closed at this time. Unknown ETA for re-opening.  Highway 20 and 29 are open.

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FROM OUR LAKE CORRESPONDENT:

Subject: CA-LNU-Clayton - Page 9

CHECK OUT THIS WEBSITE: From Lower Lake, some firefighter reported “Hydrant system just went dry” (Post #84). http://hotlist.wildlandfire.com/threads/54244-CA-LNU-Clayton/page9

Post #83: Direct link to SKY7 Video from KGO: Lower Lake is fucked — NOT A RUMOR: see the footage http://abc7news.com/live/7704.

Hospital evacuated earlier this afternoon to Sutter Lakeside; will check in there first thing tomorrow, and be at KPFZ for PIO assistance.

Evac center set up at Twin Pine Casino, Kelseyville HS (not Grace Evangelical Church), Clearlake Highlands Senior Center. Over 1,000 people evacuated today. (Plus animals, when possible.)

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UPDATE: By Sunday evening over 4,000 people were reported to have evacuated the area.

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TUNE IN to Wildoak Living on KZYX at 9am Mon Aug 15: CLAYTON FIRE Update and Resources - Art and Sustainability

Join Johanna "Wildoak" for Wildoak Living, the radio program about living sustainably in Mendocino County and beyond.

The next program will air live on Monday, August 15, from 9 to 10am PT on Mendocino County Public Broadcasting (KZYX) and on the web at kzyx.org <http://www.kzyx.org/>

Program Topics:

CLAYTON FIRE - Update & Resources

Johanna “Wildoak” provides an update about the Clayton Fire in Lake County. It started Saturday night and is spreading rapidly. We will share resources for people impacted by the fire.

Time permitting, Johanna will also talk with artist and TV talk show hows Michael Killen about art and sustainability.

HOT RUMOR from Fort Bragg says Mayor Turner and family were accosted at their campsite east of town by "several" intruders. They called for help but deputies were occupied elsewhere and an hour away. We've got a request into Turner for the specifics, if any.

REMEMBER RIGHT TO FARM? The State law that exempts ag practices from being declared? The one the County and the wine growers cited when most of Anderson Valley was kept awake for days at a time by their infernal (and newly introduced) giant vineyard blowers? That one? Mendocino Redwood Company is now citing Right To Farm in response to the recently passed Measure V. MRC has told the County that their use of hack-n-squirt is exempt from any kind of nuisance declaration as declared by Measure V because Right To Farm is a state law which trumps anything local officials or voters may try to do. Somehow the self-described “well reasoners” who drafted Measure V overlooked this angle. Combined with the previously discussed muddle associated with whether the County has to put the measure into official County code, it’s looking more and more like Measure V will have no effect on anything.

CURIOUS ABOUT the Graton Casino, we swerved off 101 at Rohnert Park, drove over the Don Clausen Overpass, proceeding west of the Press Democrat's mammoth print shop, and on into a vast, paved expanse heralding the entrance to a cavernous palace of bad odds, so bad you can't win.

AT 10:30 on a Saturday morning there were a surprising number of people feeding slot machines, people who didn't look like they had money they could afford to donate to the Vegas corporation that shoves a few bucks to the Indians. The only crowds were Chinese at the Pai Gow tables, complete with Asian dealers and a movie-quality pit boss down to his six inch good luck pinky nail.

THE GRATON CASINO is an interesting place. A huge circular bar surrounded by slot machines and blackjack tables, with restaurants ranging from inexpensive to expensive lining the perimeter. Attached to the south end of Slot Heaven there's a large hotel under construction. The vibe is low energy apocalyptic, at least that's the one I sensed but I'm a doomer.

THE WHOLE SHOW is not a wise use of what was once prime ag land, but you could say that about all of Rohnert Park, most of Santa Rosa, all of Windsor, much of Cloverdale, and probably half the United States.

EVEN DON CLAUSEN, a moderate Republican from Crescent City when there were still moderate Republicans, might have looked askance at contemporary SoCo land use policy. Congressman Clausen was the very picture of the old style pol — tall, portly, florid, who always looked like he was ready for a drink or five. Clausen represented the Northcoast for many years until he was unseated by Doug Bosco, who the libs thought was one of them. Turned out he was, too. From Bosco on we've had a parade of teetotalers, closet crazy people and Hillary Democrats of the blandly bland types we now have running errands for the wine industry.

DAVID GURNEY WRITES:

Thought these pics might stimulate your funny-bone re: FBPD, and our portly, Linda Ruffing-appointed Police Chief, at their military-style inspection on Aug. 5th. That's councilman Scott Deitz in the suit and blue jeans.

There's an explanation by the Chief on why he did this, about 5:00 minutes into the video posted here: https://www.facebook.com/FortBraggAdvocateNews/ (Aug 5 at 9:02am)

The drone has been used to find homeless encampments. (I think we need a skit about some DT'ing drunk under a bush, worrying about those infernal drones. Yikes!)

CATCH OF THE DAY, August 14, 2016

MARK GILMORE, Laytonville. Domestic battery.

RYAN GRIMM, Potter Valley. DUI causing injury, domestic battery, battery of peace officer.

PERRIN HOAGLEN, Covelo. Failure to register.

NASEEM KHAYYATA, Victorville/Ukiah. Pot sales.

JARED KIDD, Ukiah. Burglary tools, probation revocation. (Frequent Flyer)

JAMES LOWE, Clearlake/Ukiah. Parphernalia, probation revocation.

DANNY ORESCO, Ukiah. Controlled substance.

A GREAT LETTER!

Editor:

This is a great letter. I know that because I'm an amazing letter writer read and write unbelievable letters.

Most of the letters in this paper are poor letters. Really bad letters. I guarantee this letter is very great. Other letter writers are morons and losers. Total losers. They're disgusting.

I learned to write really amazing letters at Trump University. Really great college. Huge. Other universities are killing letter writing. They teach politically correct letter writing. Give me a break! I write it like it is.

You have to be really smart to write a letter like this. And believe me, I'm really smart. Other letter writers are idiots. I'm telling you. Believe me. Believe me.

The rumor that I have a ghostwriter is a total lie. From lying letter writers. I'm suing all of them. And I will win. I'm a winner. I write all my own letters. That's why they're very, very good. People love my letters. Everybody loves my letters. I am the best letter writer.

I am making letters great again! Okay? You hear me? You don't need to write letters. Leave it to me. I am your voice.

If the editor doesn't print this great letter it's because this paper is rigged.

Drew Fagan

Gualala

MEANWHILE…

According to Ballot Access News, Saturday’s vote in Sacramento at the nominating convention of the Peace & Freedom Party of California had 80 delegates casting votes for four candidates.

Gloria La Riva of the Party of Socialism and Liberation (PSL) won a stunning first round victory with 58 votes. In a distant 2nd place was Monica Moorehead of Workers World Party with 12 delegate votes. In 3rd place was the Green Party nominee Jill Stein who only got support from 9 PFP delegates for a dismal 3rd place finish. One vote went to 4th place finisher Lynn Kahn.

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

So here we go again, Truthdig recycles Chris Hedges’ “Rise of American fascism” bollocks. The minute that working class people show the moxy to defend their own interests, they’re branded as fascists.

I have some advice for the likes of Truthdig and Hedges. Seeing things as they are is an adaptive response. Seeing things as they aren’t is the opposite. Here’s the advice: wake the fuck up.

Here’s more: insulting people won’t put you into their good graces. Neither will condescending superiority.

Now, this pearl of wisdom is important because Hedges and his disdainful ilk are way outnumbered. I mean, what do we have here? A social class instrumental in ruining the lives of tens of millions and then calling them names for daring to object? Names like “fascist”? Are they outta their fucking minds?

Garbage like this is rampant. Hedges sez lower class whites want the freedom to hate. No, what they actually want is to earn a decent living. But crapping on them is a sure and direct route to earning the hate he talks about.

Now that we’re on the topic of hate, hate is what their “betters” inflicted on them. Does anyone seriously think that calling blue-collar workers under-educated, fascist, racist ignoramuses isn’t hate? You hear it all the time. If it isn’t hate then what is it? Oh, I can hear them now, degreed smarty-pants saying it’s just telling it like it is. Um, well, no, it isn’t “telling it like it is”. It’s telling it like it isn’t.

OK, more advice, go find David Brooks and find a way to socially inter-mingle. You guys are smart, you’ll figure out how. Maybe go find a working class bar near some boarded up factories. Or join a bowling league or sumpin’. Some more advice, when you talk, don’t try to drop your g’s. It’s fake and it’s hideous. And, for chrissakes, don’t do like Hillary with the fake drawl.

So, for the self-interest of preening “progressive” pundits who claim the greater wisdom and who spread shit like this, I would implore them to shut the fuck up. They discredit themselves. And trying to sound as if they know what they’re talking about (which they don’t) by dressing things up with quotes from Arendt isn’t fooling us.

REPUBLICAN PRIMARY VOTERS could have picked poor Jeb Bush: the brother, the son and the presumptive nominee as heir apparent. Poor Jeb, who initially raised more money and spent more money than the other candidates combined. Poor Jeb, whose demeanor at the debates was described by someone as that of an exasperated substitute teacher in front of a class of unruly high-schoolers. Poor Jeb, who, stung by Trump’s nickname for him, “Low Energy,” rebranded himself on campaign signs and brochures as “Jeb!” Jeb!, who suggested that national health insurance programs would somehow become obsolete because of gadgets such as Apple watches. Jeb!, whose solution to the economic crisis was “People need to work longer hours.” Jeb!, who kept changing his mind about whether his brother was right or wrong to invade Iraq. Jeb!, who said that his brother “kept us safe,” apparently forgetting when 9/11 occurred. Jeb!, who delivered what he considered an “uplifting message” to African Americans from a South Carolina hall full of white people: We won’t “take care of you with free stuff … You can achieve earned success.” Poor Jeb!, who, as governor of Florida, stated that evolution should not “be part of the curriculum” in public school science classes, intervened to prevent the family of a brain-dead young woman from ending her life support, and opened the nation’s first Christian prison.

— Eliot Weinberger

LONG DAY FOR GEMMA

WHAT REALLY LED TO THE KILLING OF OSAMA BIN LADEN?

by Seymour Hersh

(The following excerpt from The Killing of Osama Bin Laden introduces the reader to dramatically different details than the official narrative disseminated by the White House, Pentagon and CIA.)

It's been four years since a group of US Navy SEALS assassinated Osama bin Laden in a night raid on a high-walled compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The killing was the high point of Obama's first term, and a major factor in his re-election. The White House still maintains that the mission was an all-American affair, and that the senior generals of Pakistan's army and Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) were not told of the raid in advance. This is false, as are many other elements of the Obama administration's account. The White House's story might have been written by Lewis Carroll: would bin Laden, target of a massive international manhunt, really decide that a resort town forty miles from Islamabad would be the safest place to live and command al-Qaida's operations? He was hiding in the open. So America said.

The most blatant lie was that Pakistan's two most senior military leaders — General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, chief of the army staff, and General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, director general of the ISI — were never informed of the US mission. This remains the White House position despite an array of reports that have raised questions, including one by Carlotta Gall in the New York Times Magazine of March 19, 2014. Gall, who spent 12 years as the Times correspondent in Afghanistan, wrote that she'd been told by a "Pakistani official" that Pasha had known before the raid that bin Laden was in Abbottabad. The story was denied by US and Pakistani officials, and went no further. In his book Pakistan: Before and after Osama (2012), Imtiaz Gul, executive director of the Centre for Research and Security Studies, a think tank in Islamabad, wrote that he'd spoken to four undercover intelligence officers who — reflecting a widely held local view — asserted that the Pakistani military must have had knowledge of the operation. The issue was raised again in February, when a retired general, Asad Durrani, who was head of the ISI in the early 1990s, told an Al Jazeera interviewer that it was "quite possible" that the senior officers of the ISI did not know where bin Laden had been hiding, "but it was more probable that they did [know]. And the idea was that, at the right time, his location would be revealed.

"And the right time would have been when you can get the necessary quid pro quo — if you have someone like Osama bin Laden, you are not going to simply hand him over to the United States." This spring I contacted Durrani and told him in detail what I had learned about the bin Laden assault from American sources: that bin Laden had been a prisoner of the ISI at the Abbottabad compound since 2006; that Kayani and Pasha knew of the raid in advance and had made sure that the two helicopters delivering the SEALS to Abbottabad could cross Pakistani airspace without triggering any alarms; that the CIA did not learn of bin Laden's whereabouts by tracking his couriers, as the White House has claimed since May 2011, but from a former senior Pakistani intelligence officer who betrayed the secret in return for much of the $25 million reward offered by the US, and that, while Obama did order the raid and the SEAL team did carry it out, many other aspects of the administration's account were false.

"When your version comes out — if you do it — people in Pakistan will be tremendously grateful," Durrani told me. "For a long time people have stopped trusting what comes out about bin Laden from the official mouths. There will be some negative political comment and some anger, but people like to be told the truth, and what you've told me is essentially what I have heard from former colleagues who have been on a fact finding mission since this episode." As a former ISI head, he said, he had been told shortly after the raid by "people in the 'strategic community' who would know" that there had been an informant who had alerted the US to bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad, and that after his killing the US's betrayed promises left Kayani and Pasha exposed. The major US source for the account that follows is a retired senior intelligence official who was knowledgeable about the initial intelligence about bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad. He also was privy to many aspects of the SEALS' training for the raid and to the various after-action reports. Two other US sources, who had access to corroborating information, have been longtime consultants to the Special Operations Command. I also received information from inside Pakistan about widespread dismay among the senior ISI and military leadership — echoed later by Durrani — over Obama's decision to go public immediately with news of bin Laden's death. The White House did not respond to requests for comment.

It began with a walk-in. In August 2010 a former senior Pakistani intelligence officer approached Jonathan Bank, then the CIA's station chief at the US embassy in Islamabad. He offered to tell the CIA where to find bin Laden in return for the reward that Washington had offered in 2001. Walk-ins are assumed by the CIA to be unreliable, and the response from the agency's headquarters was to fly in a polygraph team. The walk-in passed the test. "So now we've got a lead on bin Laden living in a compound in Abbottabad, but how do we really know who it is?" was the CIA's worry at the time, the retired senior US intelligence official told me.

The US initially kept what it knew from the Pakistanis. "The fear was that if the existence of the source was made known, the Pakistanis themselves would move bin Laden to another location. So only a very small number of people were read into the source and his story," the retired official said. "The CIA's first goal was to check out the quality of the informant's information." The compound was put under satellite surveillance. The CIA rented a house in Abbottabad to use as a forward observation base and staffed it with Pakistani employees and foreign nationals. Later on, the base would serve as a contact point with the ISI; it attracted little attention because Abbottabad is a holiday spot full of houses rented on short leases. A psychological profile of the informant was prepared. (The informant and his family were smuggled out of Pakistan and relocated in the Washington area. He is now a consultant for the CIA.)

"By October the military and intelligence community were discussing the possible military options. Do we drop a bunker buster on the compound or take him out with a drone strike? Perhaps send someone to kill him, single assassin style? But then we'd have no proof of who he was," the retired official said. "We could see some guy is walking around at night, but we have no intercepts because there's no commo coming from the compound."

In October, Obama was briefed on the intelligence. His response was cautious, the retired official said. "It just made no sense that bin Laden was living in Abbottabad. It was just too crazy. The president's position was emphatic: 'Don't talk to me about this any more unless you have proof that it really is bin Laden.'" The immediate goal of the CIA leadership and the Joint Special Operations Command was to get Obama's support. They believed they would get this if they got DNA evidence and if they could assure him that a night assault of the compound would carry no risk. The only way to accomplish both things, the retired official said, "was to get the Pakistanis on board."

During the late autumn of 2010, the US continued to keep quiet about the walk-in, and Kayani and Pasha continued to insist to their American counterparts that they had no information about bin Laden's whereabouts. "The next step was to figure out how to ease Kayani and Pasha into it — to tell them that we've got intelligence showing that there is a high-value target in the compound, and to ask them what they know about the target," the retired official said. "The compound was not an armed enclave — no machine guns around, because it was under ISI control." The walk-in had told the US that bin Laden had lived undetected from 2001 to 2006 with some of his wives and children in the Hindu Kush mountains, and that "the ISI got to him by paying some of the local tribal people to betray him." (Reports after the raid placed him elsewhere in Pakistan during this period.) Bank was also told by the walk-in that bin Laden was very ill, and that early on in his confinement at Abbottabad, the ISI had ordered Amir Aziz, a doctor and a major in the Pakistani army, to move nearby to provide treatment. "The truth is that bin Laden was an invalid, but we cannot say that," the retired official said. " 'You mean you guys shot a cripple? Who was about to grab his AK-47?'

"It didn't take long to get the cooperation we needed, because the Pakistanis wanted to ensure the continued release of American military aid, a good percentage of which was anti-terrorism funding that finances personal security, such as bullet-proof limousines and security guards and housing for the ISI leadership," the retired official said. He added that there were also under-the-table personal "incentives" that were financed by off-the-books Pentagon contingency funds. "The intelligence community knew what the Pakistanis needed to agree — there was the carrot. And they chose the carrot. It was a win-win. We also did a little blackmail. We told them we would leak the fact that you've got bin Laden in your backyard. We knew their friends and enemies" — the Taliban and jihadist groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan — "would not like it."

A worrying factor at this early point, according to the retired official, was Saudi Arabia, which had been financing bin Laden's upkeep since his seizure by the Pakistanis. "The Saudis didn't want bin Laden's presence revealed to us because he was a Saudi, and so they told the Pakistanis to keep him out of the picture. The Saudis feared if we knew we would pressure the Pakistanis to let bin Laden start talking to us about what the Saudis had been doing with al-Qaida. And they were dropping money — lots of it. The Pakistanis, in turn, were concerned that the Saudis might spill the beans about their control of bin Laden. The fear was that if the US found out about bin Laden from Riyadh, all hell would break out. The Americans learning about bin Laden's imprisonment from a walk-in was not the worst thing."

Despite their constant public feuding, American and Pakistani military and intelligence services have worked together closely for decades on counterterrorism in South Asia. Both services often find it useful to engage in public feuds "to cover their asses," as the retired official put it, but they continually share intelligence used for drone attacks and cooperate on covert operations. At the same time, it's understood in Washington that elements of the ISI believe that maintaining a relationship with the Taliban leadership inside Afghanistan is essential to national security. The ISI's strategic aim is to balance Indian influence in Kabul; the Taliban is also seen in Pakistan as a source of jihadist shock troops who would back Pakistan against India in a confrontation over Kashmir.

Adding to the tension was the Pakistani nuclear arsenal, often depicted in the Western press as an "Islamic bomb" that might be transferred by Pakistan to an embattled nation in the Middle East in the event of a crisis with Israel. The US looked the other way when Pakistan began building its weapons system in the 1970s, and it's widely believed it now has more than a hundred nuclear warheads. It's understood in Washington that US security depends on the maintenance of strong military and intelligence ties to Pakistan. The belief is mirrored in Pakistan.

"The Pakistani army sees itself as family," the retired official said. "Officers call soldiers their sons and all officers are 'brothers.' The attitude is different in the American military. The senior Pakistani officers believe they are the elite and have got to look out for all of the people, as keepers of the flame against Muslim fundamentalism. The Pakistanis also know that their trump card against aggression from India is a strong relationship with the United States. They will never cut their person-to- person ties with us."

Like all CIA station chiefs, Bank was working undercover, but that ended in early December 2010 when he was publicly accused of murder in a criminal complaint filed in Islamabad by Karim Khan, a Pakistani journalist whose son and brother, according to local news reports, had been killed by a US drone strike. Allowing Bank to be named was a violation of diplomatic protocol on the part of the Pakistani authorities, and it brought a wave of unwanted publicity. Bank was ordered to leave Pakistan by the CIA, whose officials subsequently told the Associated Press he was transferred because of concerns for his safety. The New York Times reported that there was "strong suspicion" the ISI had played a role in leaking Bank's name to Khan. There was speculation that he was outed as payback for the publication in a New York lawsuit a month earlier of the names of ISI chiefs in connection with the Mumbai terrorist attacks of 2008. But there was a collateral reason, the retired official said, for the CIA's willingness to send Bank back to America. The Pakistanis needed cover in case their cooperation with the Americans in getting rid of bin Laden became known. The Pakistanis could say: 'You're talking about me? We just kicked out your station chief.'"

(Seymour Hersh has written for the New Yorker and the London Review of Books, as well as serving as a Washington correspondent for the New York Times. He established himself at the forefront of investigative journalism more than four decades ago with an exposé of the massacre in My Lai, Vietnam, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize. Since then he has uncovered stories such as Kissinger's role in extending the Vietnam War as well as the military torture regime at Abu Ghraib prison. He has won the George Polk prize five times, the National Magazine Award for Public Interest twice, the LA Times Book Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Courtesy, Truthout.org)

IMPORTANT MEETING OF KZYX

To the Editor:

The next meeting of the Mendocino County Public Broadcasting Board of Directors (KZYX) takes place on Monday, August 29th, at the Point Arena Library at 6 pm. The address is: 225 Main St, Point Arena, CA 95468

The public needs to attend this very important meeting. We need to know why Lorraine Dechter just resigned as the station's general manager and why Raoul van Hall resigned as the station's program director a few months ago. Both Lorraine and Raoul are public radio professionals with impressive resumes and tons of credibility.

Why did they resign? Indeed, what's going on at KZYX?

And does Ms. Dechter's resignation mean that former KZYX Board President, and current Board Director, Stuart "Stewie" Campbell, get the general manager's job he so desperately wanted back in December when he tried to hijack the hiring process and bypass Lorraine Dechter?

John Sakowicz

KZYX Board of Directors (2013-2016), Board Treasurer (2014)

Ukiah

CUT THE CRAP, CRAIG

Editor,

For all the decades that his self-advertisements have appeared in the AVA, it is clear that Craig Stehr's "Warm spiritual greetings" have been little but a mask for "Cold financial demands." His letters have almost exclusively focused on two obsessions: that he is so enlightened and selfless that the readers owe him money, and that a bunch of slackers owe him $55 for a utility bill. With a little psychobabble and vague claims of great suffering on his part on our behalf to leaven the loaf, that is all he has ever had to say.

Now that Stehr has $150,000 in the bank, maybe he has forgiven the $55. If he is so transcendently yogic that even God owes him money, he should donate his $150,000 to the Seva Foundation, for example, where some real work, not spiritual blather and posing, may occur. God will make it up to you, won't He, Craig? So consider the admonitions of Jesus Christ as to the rich and their possessions. And drop the Holiness Horseshit. The 70s are over.

Jay Williamson

Santa Rosa

WITH TRUMP CERTAIN TO LOSE, FORGET ABOUT A PROGRESSIVE CLINTON

by Thomas Frank

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/13/trump-clinton-election-chances-moderate-policies-economy

THOSE WERE THE DAYS

August 20, 1941 — Mae West, the American institution, caused quite a stir when she undulated into an American Prison Association banquet at the Fairmont Hotel last night on the arm of Governor Olson. She was dressed in a white evening gown, a white ermine wrap and carried accessories of gold cloth. The Governor was dressed in his customary dinner jacket. Miss West, who has made many dramatic entrances, was not abashed by the murmurs of some 500 guests. She paused a moment, smiled up at the Governor, who smiled back, and then proceeded to her table accompanied by her ever-present manager and press agent. The Governor, although he had looked Miss West in the eye at close quarters, walked to the speaker’s table under his own steam. Midway through the program, Miss West, who is a delegate to the convention, caused another stir. She rose up and in a sultry voice delivered the following blast against the social forces that make for crime in the world. Said Miss West: “When your distinguished Governor invited me up here to look you over while you’re looking me over, he assured me that I could speak freely. So I will. I suppose you might like for me to tell you the best way to handle men — not my gentlemen friends who would like to be lifers with no expectation of reprieve. Well, I follow the prison psychologists in suggesting prevention of crime rather than correction of criminals. Crime doesn’t become crime until it grows into a process of the mind. To beat this you have to elevate the mind rather than smash the spirit with gloomy walls, black bars and bread and water punishment.” Miss West continued in this vein for several minutes. After her speech Miss West said she would remain in San Francisco for the duration of the convention, would visit local prisons and return to Hollywood at the end of the week.

(Courtesy, the SF Chronicle Wayback Machine, collected by Johnny Miller.)