Kathleen Anne Hughes Anderson. Photo courtesy of Diantha Stensrud.

BY EMILY MIBACH
Editor of the Daily Post

Atherton's former arborist has been identified as the woman found stabbed to death in her Menlo Park home.

Kathleen Anne Hughes Anderson, 62, was the arborist for the City of Atherton for 22 years, from November 1989 until her retirement in November 2011. She was the widow of Billy “Andy” Anderson, who owned Dahl Plumbing on Alma Street in Palo Alto. Andy Anderson died in 2007.

Before his death, the two were married for about 30 years and had no children.

Anderson was from Decatur, Illinois, and came to California to attend school in the 1980s, said her brother-in-law, Barry Anderson, who also works for the post office. The couple were regulars at the Alpine Beer Garden in Portola Valley.

Anderson was known for her green thumb at work and at home. Barry Anderson said her garden at her home at 925 Valparaiso Ave. was “amazing.”

Atherton Town Clerk Theresa DellaSanta said Anderson “was very passionate about her work as an arborist.”

Franz Wolke

“She had a deep passion for landscaping and trees, and she shared that love with many of our town residents by spending time with them in their gardens and giving them insight into tree pruning and planting,” DellaSanta wrote. “It was the little things Kathy did around town that residents remember and came to love about her. Kathy was a beacon of positivity to all who came into contact with her, and her impact on the trees in Atherton will last for many generations to come.”

Police found Anderson stabbed to death in her home on Wednesday (Dec. 12) after receiving a 911 call from Daniel Baggett, a former tenant of Anderson's. Baggett told police to The Post he stopped by at 5 p.m. on Wednesday after driving by and noticing her garbage cans were still on the side of the road a day after garbage collection. He also saw that her bedroom window, which was normally open, was closed, he said.

Baggett said he saw the back door was open and went into the house. He spotted Francis Wolke, 36, of Cincinnati, Ohio, at the top of the stairs. Baggett called 911. Police arrested Wolke on suspicion of first-degree murder.

Was there a connection between the three people?

District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said Friday that his office and Menlo Park police are still investigating the connection between Wolke, Baggett and Anderson, if there is one. Wagstaffe said the relationship between Anderson and Baggett was not rosy and that investigators are “digging” into the pasts of the three people to find a connection.

Wolke had an arrest warrant issued by the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office for prowling and drug possession from a 2014 case.

While police believe Wolke's current address is in Cincinnati, records indicate he was living in San Francisco in 2014. Wagstaffe said Wolke has not made any statement about why he allegedly murdered Anderson.

Wagstaffe said Anderson died as a result of being stabbed in the head with a “sharp object,” but because the investigation is ongoing, he could not yet identify the object.

Wolke is in prison without bail.

The post Homicide sufferer Kathy Anderson was former city arborist, widow of plumbing firm proprietor – Palo Alto Each day Publish appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Kelly Anderson of Anderson Plumbing Heating and Air was recently installed as president of the Plumbing Heating Cooling Contractors Association (PHCC) San Diego. Click here for a high resolution version

SAN DIEGO, CA–(Marketwire – September 27, 2012) – Kelly Anderson, call center manager at Anderson Plumbing Heating and Air, has been named 2012-2013 president of the Plumbing Heating Cooling Contractors Association (PHCC) San Diego.

“As the second woman to lead PHCC in its 110-year history, I feel a special responsibility to be a role model for other young women in San Diego who are interested in careers in the plumbing, heating and air conditioning industry or others Home service industries have chosen,” said Anderson.

“Our company has been involved in the PHCC organization for many years,” Anderson added. “In fact, my father, Walter Anderson, was the 99th president of PHCC in the early 1990s. Twenty-one years later, I am honored to follow in his footsteps as President.”

Anderson joined Anderson Plumbing Heating & Air shortly after graduating from San Francisco State University with a bachelor's degree in radio and television broadcasting. She quickly became a leader in both the Anderson Plumbing Heating & Air organization and PHCC. Anderson's plans for PHCC for 2012-2013 include focusing on training programs and certifications.

“PHCC has always been a great information conduit for our company because of its focus on education, training and hiring licensed contractors,” Anderson said. “This year, PHCC is taking on some exciting new initiatives, including our new PHCC offices to meet the high demand for our training programs, and we have expanded our operations to include heating and air conditioning training and certification.”

Joining Anderson on the PHCC Board of Directors are: Vice President Steve Fox, Steve Fox Plumbing; Secretary, Scott Ferrell, Black Mountain Plumbing; Directors: Doug Box, Dry Down, Inc.; Michael DeSilva, Plumbing Plus; John Perry, Perry Plumbing; Robert Price, Ferguson Enterprises, Inc.; Lani Testa, my plumber; and immediate past President Mark Ames, Roto Rooter Plumbers.

Anderson Plumbing Heating and Air has been serving San Diego County since 1978, providing residential and commercial plumbing, heating and air conditioning services including installation, upgrades, repairs and maintenance of new HVAC equipment as well as drains, water heaters, toilets, sinks, faucets, water , gas leaks, pipe replacement, pipe lining, sewer replacement, trenchless sewers and pipe repairs. Anderson Plumbing Heating and Air provides 24-hour emergency service in the greater San Diego area. Contractor Licenses #493163 and #853163.

The post Kelly Anderson of Anderson Plumbing Heating and Air Named President of Plumbing Heating Cooling Contractors Affiliation (PHCC) San Diego appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Handyman denies killing elderly woman as a witness alleges he heard the pair argue: ‘Fix it yourself’

• Stuart Paul Anderson is accused of killing his elderly neighbor, Vicki Ramadan
• Anderson allegedly beat Mrs Ramadan to death between March 23 and 25, 2019
• He pleaded not guilty and his lawyer argues he cannot be identified as the killer
• Anderson found Mrs Ramadan’s body in her Melbourne home on April 6, 2019
• He admitted to lying to police twice in interviews about discovering her body

By Karen Sweeney For Australian Associated Press

Published: 11:27 GMT, 27 September 2022 | updated: 11:27 GMT, 27 September 2022

Vicki Ramadan (above) was found beaten to death inside her Sydenham home in Melbourne’s northwest on April 6, 2019

‘She seemed like a very lovely lady, she didn’t deserve this at all.’

That’s what accused killer Stuart Paul Anderson told a reporter about the woman he’s accused of brutally beating to death.

There was a widespread appeal for information in the days and weeks after the body of his 77-year-old neighbor Vicki Ramadan was found in her Sydenham home in Melbourne’s northwest on April 6, 2019.

‘I really hope the cops catch the son of a bitch,’ Anderson said in the interview with A Current Affair.

The unedited footage of that interview was played to jurors in Anderson’s Victorian Supreme Court murder trial on Tuesday.

He has pleaded not guilty to killing Mrs Ramadan sometime between March 23 and 25, 2019.

Witnesses told the jury they heard multiple arguments between them in the days before she was killed.

It was Anderson who called the police after finding her body.

Stuart Paul Anderson (above) found Mrs Ramadan’s body and described her as a ‘very lovely lady’ who ‘didn’t deserve this’ but is now accused of her murder

He said he first met Mrs Ramadan when she knocked on his door and asked him to help her with some odd jobs.

A taxi drier saw the pair arguing about Anderson arriving late to help her with jobs on the morning of March 23, 2019.

Later another witness heard Anderson aggressively yelling at Mrs Ramadan, saying ‘f*** you, fix it yourself’ while assembling a flat pack before heading home. He later returned to her house.

Prosecutor Neill Hutton said there were signs of life on March 25 – a call from one of her phones to another at 9.30am and an electricity spike consistent with a hotplate at lunchtime.

Anderson told his partner he was going to check on Mrs Ramadan and pick up tools he left at her house about 9am on April 6.

Anderson previously told police her discovered Mrs Ramadan’s body inside her home (above) at about 9am on April 6 but later told them he actually found her between 1.30am and 2am and knocked in her back door

He said he found her body after going through the back door, which had been kicked open.

Anderson stuck with that story during his first two police interviews but after officers became suspicious about his story he told them in August 2019 that he had lied because he actually found her body between 1.30am and 2am on April 6 after he himself knocked in her back door.

But the trouble with what Anderson told the reporter, his partner and police is that it’s false, prosecutor Neill Hutton said.

‘It’s essentially a sham, a charade. It’s false,’ he said.

Mrs Ramadan was known for wearing lots of jewellery, but that and cash was still inside her home, jurors heard.

Anderson’s barrister Glenn Casement said identity was an issue in the trial.

‘My client didn’t kill the deceased,’ he said.

The trial before Justice Amanda Fox is continuing.

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Cool |
Bay Quake |
Dry Forecast |
Finn Mural |
No Hazmobile |
School Assembly |
Chimney Sweep |
Used Stove |
Studios Tour |
Zeni Chestnuts |
County Notes |
Bragg Aerial |
Microbusiness Grant |
Native Gardens |
Short-Term Rentals |
Elk Hunt |
Measure P |
Soft Tacos |
Woman Endorsed |
More Money |
Momentous Day |
Movie Sub |
Yesterday’s Catch |
Keep Chugging |
Optimist |
No Meaning |
Veg Hunt |
Pacific Flyway |
Sewer Smells |
Clean Water Act |
Baseball Exhibition |
Different Times |
Scab Not |
Dem Better |
Election Day |
Ukraine |
Jack-o’-Patriot |
Infrastructure Wars |
All Bark |
Progressive Cowards |
3 Faces

DRY WEATHER with slightly below normal temperatures are forecast today through tonight. Frost and freezing temperatures are expected again for the interior valleys late tonight. Also, gusty north and northeast winds are expected for the exposed terrain today and tonight. Cloud cover will increase on Friday as a front approaches from the NW. This front will most likely stall offshore, however a few light showers will be possible over the weekend, especially for Del Norte and northern Humboldt counties. A stronger front from the NW will emerge early next week. (NWS)

A RUMBLING, 5.1 MAGNITUDE EARTHQUAKE rattled a large swath of the Bay Area [yesterday], with residents reporting feeling the temblor from San Jose to the East Bay.

The quake struck nearly nine miles east of Seven Trees, a San Jose neighborhood, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Seismologists recorded a 2.9 magnitude aftershock roughly five minutes after the initial quake in the Calaveras fault zone, according to USGS data. Shortly after 3 p.m., a quake initially measured as a magnitude-3.6 hit in the same area. Athough many people in the area described an intense swaying that lasted around 30 seconds, the quake evidently did not leave a trail of devastation. As of 12:30 p.m. San Jose police said they had not responded to any calls reporting injuries or structural damage. Residents and workers also reported feeling the ground rock miles north in San Francisco, but nobody had suffered any damage, according to a tweet from the San Francisco Fire Department.

WINTER OUTLOOK SPELLS TROUBLE

by Hayley Smith

A warm, dry winter is in store for much of California as La Niña conditions are slated to persist through at least January, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The agency’s U.S. Winter Outlook, released last week, spells trouble for the drought-dried state as it enters what is typically its wettest season, when rainfall and Sierra snowpack help replenish water supplies that carry it through the rest of the year.

“We’re going on our third year of this extreme drought for much of the Western U.S., with the extreme drought currently focused over much of California, the Great Basin and extending northward into parts of Oregon,” Brad Pugh, operational drought lead with NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, said in a media briefing. “In terms of impacts, it’s adversely affecting agriculture, also increasing the wildfire danger and even has impacts on tourism.”

The country’s greatest chances for drier than-average conditions are forecast across Southern California and the Southwest, as well as the southern Rockies, southern Plains, Gulf Coast and much of the Southeast. About 59 percent.

(LA Times)

LAUREN SINNOTT: 

So much has been completed in my mural about the Fort Bragg Finns! My posts have fallen behind. I promise to present all the elements with the stories behind them soon. But right now, I’m almost done painting and I want everyone in the area who would like to see the process to visit. I have met a lot of people from the Finnish families, but please, those who haven’t seen the mural yet, come by! Here’s a taste of what it’s like on site, in this delightful downtown.

HAZMOBILE A NO SHOW

Where’s Haz?

A reader writes:

After taking the time to collect and box our materials for disposal, Saturday morning we drove half an hour to Boonville to meet the hazmobile, as listed on their schedule. Other folks had arrived, as well. No hazmobile was there, and they never showed up. This morning I called the Mendo Recycles hotline to ask why they cancelled and heard a muffled, barely audible message stating “Due to a staffing shortage no one is in the office to take your call…” Three quarters of the way through the message the voice tells us that “due to a staffing shortage” the hazmobile program is suspended. I haven’t seen or heard any announcements informing county residents of this. One would think they’d have the kindness and courtesy to save us the hassle by issuing a county-wide notice via all media that the program is not operating, rather than just a phone message.

Must be “due to a staffing shortage…”

BASKETBALL AND HONOR ROLL: The house was packed with parents and guardians for the meeting and many families came to celebrate the 113 kids that made the brown and gold honor roll. (Louise Simson)

A READER WRITES: It’s the time of year when chimney cleaning comes to mind. For years there were a couple of chimney cleaners businesses on the Coast. Now there appears to be ONLY ONE guy who has locked in business from Sea Ranch to Westport; the coast is his because he has no competitors. He can also charge a lot for one chimney to be cleaned. Anyone out there interested in a new business? The equipment is not that expensive and yeah, you gotta love climbing high, but if you charged less than this loan competitor, you’d have tons of customers. 

USED STOVE

The AV Grange has a new stove and is looking to re-home theirs.  Used but works, great for a hunting cabin or a canning kitchen, or ????.  It is currently in the Grange and available for pickup at building between Boonville & Philo on Hwy 128.  We can help load it, a trailer would be best.  Private message for more information or inquiry.

ARTISTS OF ANDERSON VALLEY show their fall colors. Veterans Day Weekend Studios Open to the public. Follow the signs along HWY 128. I am one of many. My studio is open November 12, 13, Saturday and Sunday, 10am. – 5pm. Inspiration inside and out. Take a break drive along our valley, find the art you dream of, visit a place like no other. (Rebecca Johnson)

NINTH ANNUAL CHESTNUT GATHERING AT THE ZENI RANCH will be Saturday October 29th. 10 am to 4 pm.

No potluck this year but you can bring a lunch and enjoy one of the picnic areas.

Adult and kids costume contest.

Dogs on leashes ok, but you’re responsible for your pet.

Chestnuts are $3.50 a pound if you pick and $4.50 a pound if already picked.

Call or text Jane Zeni 707-684-6892

Fresh raw chestnut honey, T-shirts and our popular nut sacks will be available, and other farm products.

COUNTY NOTES

by Mark Scaramella

Last Tuesday, the Supervisors briefly discussed two seemingly minor consent agenda items that should be captured for posterity because they are filled with potential problems and indications of managerial failure.

The first was the item to turn payroll over to the Executive Office and hire a $100k consultant to “assist” with it.

In August the Supes decided to transfer Mendo’s Payroll processing from the Auditor’s office to the CEO’s office on grounds that the Auditor was understaffed and Supervisor Ted Williams was worried about it without providing any specifics. 

Consent Item 3j: “Approval of Agreement with ClientFirst Consulting Group DBA ClientFirst Technology Consulting in the Amount of $100,000, to Assist with Payroll Processing Project Management, Provide Project Oversight for Recurring Munis Improvements, and Initiate and Plan for Munis Improvements in 2022 through 2023, Effective Upon Full Execution through June 30, 2023.”

Supervisor John Haschak: This is taking the payroll out of the Auditor Controller Tax Collector’s purview and putting it into the Executive office. Is that $100,000 being transferred also? Where is that $100,000 coming from to pay for this?

CEO Darcie Antle: Yes, that is $100,000 being transferred to the Executive office. Part of this is an ongoing process improvement that we have been working on that needed to be stepped up earlier in September, earlier than we originally planned. Mr. Dunnicliff is in the room and I believe we have these funds in the ITMP [?] that we are using to increase this contract.

Supervisor Ted Williams: Although the Executive office may be assisting with payroll, I believe ultimately the accuracy of every check is the legal responsibility of the Auditor Controller. County Counsel, do you agree?

County Counsel Christian Curtis: Yes, that is correct.

Williams: Including item 3j?

Curtis: Yes.

In this payroll item we detected another hint of “Get Cubbison” from Supervisor Williams in case the payroll transfer gets screwed up by people other than Auditor-Controller Cubbison who will get “assistance” from people she has no control over. Why did Williams even ask that question? Why did he say that the Executive Office would now be “assisting” Ms. Cubbison with payroll, not handling payroll as was originally claimed? Why are they paying $100k for “assistance” from a consultant about something that has not been previously discussed as a problem other than understaffing worries in the Auditor’s office? Why do they need “assistance” when the original idea was to transfer the payroll function to the Executive Office because the Auditor was understaffed and the Executive Office could (presumably) handle it? This one deserves close monitoring by the County Employees since it appears the Board is expecting problems to arise.

* * *

Farming out the Ag Commissioner, an update.

Consent Item 3m: “Approval of Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Sonoma County for Licensed Agricultural Commissioner/Sealer of Weights & Measures Services, Beginning Upon Execution Through April 18, 2023, in an Amount Not to Exceed $50,000.” 

Supervisor Glenn McGourty: This is one that Steve Dunnicliff and CEO Darcie Antle worked on very hard to find a solution by working with the Sonoma County Ag commissioner on a part-time basis to help direct our staff here. We are required to have an Ag Commissioner for certain functions and we are fulfilling that while we figure out what the next steps are going to be. Hopefully hiring a new Ag Commissioner. We are trying to stabilize a very important department that a lot of people depend on. So we are making steps in the right direction.

Williams: It appears that the state has set requirements for that particular position, the Ag Commissioner, that maybe there are 57 people who qualify in a state with 58 counties.

They already have an Assistant Ag Commissioner who presumably met his own set of licensing requirements. If there are so few Ag Commissioners in California, and the department is “very important,” why didn’t the County arrange for Assistant Commissioner Aaron Hult to finish his licensing? And if the job can be handled by a $50k part-timer out of Sonoma County, why wasn’t that done long ago? Need we recap the high turnover rate in the Ag Commissioner’s office again? Why isn’t someone trying to figure out the reason no one lasts very long in that particular job? What will happen if the SoCo Ag Commissioner wants something done that the Supes either disagree with or won’t pay for? Or refuses to do something staff wants or needs done? Never mind, the Supes have assured us that it’ll all be fine when (if?) they hire a new Ag Commissioner.

Obviously, we’d like to hope that these things will both work out to be just hunky-dory. But Mendo history shows that such hopes are unjustified.

Fort Bragg (and the Koch Bros ocean front property)

CALIFORNIA MICROBUSINESS COVID-19 RELIEF GRANT PROGRAM STILL AVAILABLE

Eligible microbusiness owners still have the opportunity to apply online for a $2,500 grant from the California Microbusiness COVID-19 Relief Grant Program. Grants will be awarded on a first-come, first-served basis until all funds have been granted. This grant is administered in partnership with Economic Development and Financing Corporation (EDFC) and funded by the California Office of the Small Business Advocate.

Eligibility Criteria

Verified as locally-owned and operated (physically located in Mendocino County).

The microbusiness is currently active and operating, or has a clear plan to reopen when the state permits the reopening of the business. 

Open and operating prior to COVID-19 (prior to December 31, 2019).

Currently have <5 full-time equivalent employees and had <5 full-time equivalent employees in 2019 and 2020.

Generated <$50,000 in business revenue in 2019.

The applicant is the majority owner and manager of the microbusiness.

This business was the applicant’s primary means of income in the 2019 taxable year.

Significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, as evidenced by at least a 10% reduction in revenue from the 2019 to 2020 taxable years.

Did not receive a grant from the California Small Business COVID-19 Relief Grant Program.

Not a business excluded from participation in the California Small Business COVID-19 Relief Grant Program, as specified in paragraph (2) of subdivision (f) of Section 12100.82. 

Please visit https://www.edfc.org/microbusiness-relief-grant-program/ for more information. 

Please contact EDFC at robert@edfc.org or by phone at (707) 234-5705 with any questions and support with the application process. Assistance is available in Spanish upon request.

(Mendocino County Presser)

PLANNING COMMISSION TO TAKE A CRACK AT SHORT TERM RENTALS

Discussion And Possible Action By Planning Commission Regarding Short Term Rentals Including Possible Adoption Of A Resolution Providing Clarification And Interpretation Of County Code 

The Planning and Building Services Director has previously interpreted Mendocino County Code section 20.164.015(L) Room and Board to apply to the occupancy of a single-family residence as transient habitation, finding that such use is an accessory use that is necessarily and customarily associated with and is appropriate, incidental and subordinate to the principally permitted residential use of the property. Chair Pernell of the Planning Commission created an ad hoc commission on December 2, 2021, to review the interpretation of the Planning and Building Services Director regarding Section 20.164.015(L) and Vacation Rentals.

The Mendocino County Planning Commission intends to discuss the recommendations of the Planning Commission Ad Hoc at their regular meeting on November 3, 2022 at 9:00 am. This may include possible adoption of a resolution providing clarification regarding interpretation of the applicability of Mendocino County Code section 20.164.015(L) and 20.024.135 as they relate to occupancy of a single-family residence as transient habitation. 

For more information about this meeting, please contact the Planning Division at 707-234-6650. The public zoom information is contained below and this notice has been posted on the Department’s website at: https://www.mendocinocounty.org/government/planning-building-services/public-notices

Planning Commission November 3, 2022 – 9:00 AM ZOOM Information

Please click the link below to join the webinar: https://mendocinocounty.zoom.us/j/86547840562

Or Telephone:

Dial(for higher quality, dial a number based on your current location):

US: +1 669 444 9171 or +1 669 900 9128 or +1 719 359 4580 or +1 253 215 8782 or +1 346 248 7799 or +1 646 558 8656 or +1 646 931 3860 or +1 301 715 8592 or +1 309 205 3325 or +1 312 626 6799 or +1 360 209 5623 or +1 386 347 5053 or +1 564 217 2000

Webinar ID: 865 4784 0562

MEASURE P: READ MORE CAREFULLY

To the editor: 

The writer of the long letter passionately urging a Yes vote on Measure P, to provide much needed funds for our county’s volunteer fire departments, apparently did not read the proposition. Because that is not what the measure actually says.

Measure P is a .25% sales tax that, to quote the exact legal wording of the measure, “will be placed in the general fund to support general County services and functions, including but not limited to fire protection services.” 

PERIOD. 

No further details, no promises or estimates of how much, if any, of the money will go to our volunteer fire departments.

For the ten years this tax will be collected, the supervisors can spend the money however they want, as long as some of the money — a million dollars? a thousand dollars? ten dollars? — goes to “fire protection services,” a term that, like everything else in the measure, is not specified.

We voters, and sadly our great fire departments, are all being misled.

L.C. Lewis

Willits

* * *

A REPLY TO L.C. LEWIS’ LETTER concerning Measure P in the October 25, 2022 online version of the AVA.

L.C. Lewis is either unaware of or has opted to deliberately ignore how and why Measure P was developed. Measure P is a general fund tax because a general fund tax can pass with a 50% plus one vote. It is timed to take advantage of a rare moment when another tax is sunsetting so that it can be implemented without raising current tax levels. As such it is a good (and the only) plan for getting our fire services the support they need when they need it, which is now (e.g., fire calls alone have gone up every year for the past five years, cumulatively by 52%).

Given the public’s concerns about how promises made about prior general tax measures have been honored (or not) the Board of Supervisors and our county fire chiefs’ implemented a very deliberate plan to create clarity and accountability for Measure P funds. Before it was put on the ballot, the Board of Supervisors unanimously enacted Resolution 22-159, which details how the money will be used, with 90% of the funds going to our local fire departments and 10% to fire-prevention work, using a specific preset percentage for each department that has been agreed upon by our County Fire Chiefs Association.

(See https://static1.squarespace.com/static/62e98ec6aa8745355a38c00b/t/62f2ff0109ae867245607be3/1660238300611/ProposedSalesTaxAllocations.pdf).

Resolution 22-159 also requires annual reporting on how the money is actually allocated. The County cannot spend the funds otherwise without violating this Resolution and breaking its commitment to the fire chiefs, who will be watching closely. As such L.C. Lewis’ claim that “No further details, no promises or estimates of how much, if any, of the money will go to our volunteer fire departments” is simply incorrect. As an added safety measure there is also a ten-year sunset in case the funds are not consistently allocated as promised.

So, for some people, your vote may come down to whether or not your distrust of your local government is so strong that, despite a specific promise we can all monitor, you would spite your local fire services rather than trust your local elected officials.

Apparently, L.C. Lewis distrusts his local government sufficiently to believe that all 20 of our county fire chiefs are gullible enough to be misled about a tax measure they helped bring into existence.

Scott Cratty, Executive Director, Mendocino County Fire Safe Council Ukiah

Boonville General Store

ENDORSED BY THE MWPC!

Greetings Fort Bragg Voters! 

I am honored to be endorsed by the Mendocino Women’s Political Coalition!

Experience matters and my participation in local issues as an active citizen and NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) representative is extensive. I am the only candidate other than incumbent City Council members who are running that have participated or attended local and regional governmental hearings, meetings etc. for over 20 years. I have left the area several times to pursue advanced academic degrees. I bring all my experience and skills acquired locally and internationally back home here to the Mendocino coast and our City of Fort Bragg.

Some quick snapshots of my experience and views (for more details of my platform go to Votersedge.org or email me at mrkaczorowski@gmail.com) FYI:

The skills I bring to this council position is A SOLID understanding and the ability to navigate the basic and laws regulations governing housing, land use and development such as The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) The California Coastal Act, Local Agency Compliance with Housing Element Law etc.

I was a labor union steward for CUE Local 3 when I worked at U.C. Berkeley Survey Research Center and I was instrumental in negotiating positive changes between management and employees in the workplace. I have worked as the executive assistant to the Fort Bragg Main Street Program Executive Director ( we helped start First Friday with the Chamber of Commerce in Ft. Bragg!) and on their Facade Grant program. I worked closely with Mendocino County Board of Supervisor Chair Charles Peterson and others on our Executive Board Team to help county residents prepare for input into the County General Plan per update as required by the State of California. Together with the Air Quality Management District, Farm Bureau, Environmental groups and other community groups to develop, design, and then implement a collaborative three-year series of Mendocino County Living Community Conferences. I worked as Operations Manager and with Joe Webb (Interim General Manager) in administration, community communications and operations during the transition the from Visit Mendocino County, Inc. to the Mendocino County Tourism Commission.

At the national level, I spent time in Washington D.C. area and worked with Alliance for Appalachia where we met with U.S. Congressional members of the 112th Congress and/or senior staff to present information and data on health, economic, poverty rates, environmental issues– related to large-scale mountaintop removal impacts on water quality in five Appalachian states.

During my MBA studies at Mills College, I worked in a position assisting the executive director in administration, communications, planning and development of programs and public/private partnerships/linkages at the Center for Socially Responsible Business (CSRB)

While in graduate school, I worked for CARD-Collaborating Agencies Responding to Disasters in Oakland CA where I researched and conducted policy analysis on ICS (Incident Command Systems) policies and procedures (nationwide). I also represented CARD at the Chevron regional stakeholder bi-monthly planning meetings (at Chevron Headquarters in Richmond CA) for emergency preparedness after the Chevron fire (culminated in the 2012 Richmond Preparedness Expo in partnership with Chevron, 2-1-1 Contra Costa County). I also facilitated collaborative partnership and community training with Northern California Islamic Council (80 organizations), and ICNA Relief USA – Disaster Response Services

Our City has a great deal to be proud of!

Together we have the opportunity to:

• expand and support our sustainable fishing economies

• introduce, design & establish ocean water infrastructure for aquariums, research, aquaculture, & to manage climate change resilience

• further support our downtown arts & business community

• to expand on preparations for climate change impact

and address housing issues!

I will work with the council & the public to build on these efforts!

My Best Regards,

Mary Rose Kaczorowski

We’ve reached our initial goal!!! Thank you to EVERYONE for contributing to and sharing our campaign. This is SO EXCITING! A big goal of this project is to help launch the music of The Real Sarahs into a wider listenership and for us to actualize a project we’ve long dreamed about – the Music Is Medicine Initiative. We’ll be taking music into prisons and nursing homes and other spaces where people need it the most. Please jump onboard and help us reach our big goal!
www.tinyurl.com/SarahsandAlex

THAT WAS COOL; From joy to pain and back again: 

How October 26 ended three lives and began another

by Justine Frederiksen

Life and death on Oct. 26: How one day turned great joy into great pain, then great pain into great joy.

Carolyn

In 1965, 20-year-old Carolyn was traveling with friends in Germany when she met a man in a bar. He helps her request a song from the band, and later in her journal she describes him as a “very quiet, nice person” whom she hopes to see again in Greece.

In Athens he waits a week, visiting the same spot every day at noon until she arrives. Then Carolyn decides to leave her friends and travel through Turkey with this “beautiful person who enjoys meeting and talking to people, and looks for the good things that happen.”

By the time they reach Syria she describes herself as “in love” with the 27-year-old Dane who speaks English with a Scottish accent and hitchhikes in a kilt

“I enjoy being with him so much. We don’t have to talk to each other, we can sit in silence for a long time, each having their own thoughts.” Her journal entries end soon after, but not their romance.

On Oct. 26, 1965, the pair married in Scotland, and Carolyn finally returns to Los Angeles in early 1966 with a husband.

Justine

Nine months after her wedding, Carolyn had a baby girl whose lungs could not keep her alive. But her third girl had lungs that worked too well, because Justine screamed all day, only sleeping when too exhausted to wail.

One morning when she was 15, Justine felt like screaming all day again. Already angry that her mother was gone birding, she got even angrier when Carolyn didn’t return in time for their day trip.

“But you’re not here, are you,” she tells her mother’s note promising to be home by 10. Soon after Justine starts to get ready anyway, there is a knock on the bathroom door. Thinking it is her mother, she begins stoking her anger again until it is drowned by the fear in her father’s voice.

“I need you to come out here, please. There are men here. There’s been an accident. Your mother’s not coming home.” 

The day before, exactly 20 years after her wedding, on Oct. 26, 1985, Carolyn was killed in a car crash.

As soon as the deputies left her house, Justine sneaked into her parents’ bedroom to pull out her mother’s pajamas and pillowcase, secreting them away to smell whenever she wanted.

The next day she went with her grandmother to see the body, but her father stayed home. “I want to remember her as she was,” he said of the adventurous American who had been his best friend for two decades.

After Justine carried her mother home in a box, the family scattered her ashes on Carolyn’s favorite beach, where she had gone every weekend at dawn to help save a small population of endangered shorebirds.

Decades later when Justine last saw her father, he said his wife had been hovering at his bedside, trying to tell him something.

“I should have gone to see her after. You were right to go.”

“No, dad, you were right,” she said, wishing she still saw freckles instead of black bruises on her mother’s cheeks.

When her father died, Justine brought his ashes to the same beach to finally reunite him with his wife on what would have been their 49th wedding anniversary: Oct. 26, 2014.

Sarah and Harvey

Also on Oct. 26, 2014, Sarah was recovering from what felt like a car crash: The birth of her first son.

“All those women who told me how beautiful childbirth is, I thought they were full of shit!” she remembers thinking as she lay in the hospital after 26 hours of labor, unable to feel her legs or hear her baby crying.

“Babies are supposed to cry, why isn’t he crying?” she wonders as the ever-growing number of staff in the room struggled to get her boy to breathe. Finally she heard him cry, and waited anxiously for them to give him back to her, looking forward to finally holding and trying to feed him.

But they said he needed to go to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, and “only let me hold him for a second or two.”

After a week in the NICU, her baby finally came home, but his breathing problems continued. Sarah said it took two years for her to emerge from the tunnel of trauma, finally pulled through by the need to keep up with a now thriving and determined young boy.

“He stubbornly keeps trying to get what he wants,” said Sarah, both awed and frustrated by her son’s drive and focus. “He is smart in ways I have never been, and I love that so much. I am very lucky that I get to be with Harvey.”

NOYO HARBOR, FORT BRAGG, CA – OCTOBER 1965

A submarine was launched in Noyo Bay on Friday. The 140-foot vessel went down the boat ramp with the assistance of a forklift truck, and on airplane-type tires. Also assisting was a large wrecker with a cable stretched across the bay.

The submarine, shipped to Fort Bragg to be used in the filming of The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming, required eight trucks and semi-trailers to bring in the ten sections.

Some two weeks and 2,000 man hours were required to get it assembled and ready for the water.

Jack Luoma, driving a forklift from the Eastman Transport Company, pushes the 140-foot submarine into the water Friday at Noyo. The craft was tied to the piece of powerful equipment and all on the site were hoping that Louma would not have to jump off or take a swim when the vessel moved down the ramp into the water.

The boat, built of plywood, had 4½ tons of steel on the bottom, is filled with 17 tons of styrofoam, and has outside measurements of 140 feet in length, is 20 feet wide and 22 feet high.

Yet to be installed is a 3½ ton, 3-inch practical gun, which it was felt was too heavy for the launching. Four motors will be used for power. All are McCulloch with 100-horsepower thrust. Two are forward and two aft, in specially built wells.

The craft, originally built by 20th Century for the Marlon Brando film Morituri, was German in design. Robert Boyle, art director for the Mirisch company, redesigned the exterior to make it appear Russian for this picture.

It is hoped that the seas will remain calm enough that the craft can be floated to Los Angeles, between two barges when its use is completed in this area.

(Mendocino Coast Beacon, October 22, 1965, p. 9, col. 5.)

CATCH OF THE DAY, Tuesday, October 25, 2022

Cespedes, Crosby, Farias

CARLOS CESPEDES, Garberville/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

JUSTIN CROSBY, Ukiah. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, registration alteration, smuggling controlled substance in jail.

JORGE FARIAS-ARAUS, San Francisco/Ukiah. DUI.

Heilmiller, Hendriks, Nelson

PAUL HEIMILLER, Redwood Valley. Sexual act with child of 14-15 years and perpetrator at least ten years older.

KELLY HENDRIKS, Point Arena. Failure to appear.

JARRETT NELSON, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

Ortega, Marcello Torres, Mauricio Torres

ARTEMIO ORTEGA-REYES, Ukiah. Ammo possession by prohibited person, probation revocation.

MARCELLO TORRES, Antioch/Ukiah. Robbery, short-barreled rifle, conspiracy. 

MAURICIO TORRES, Clearlake Oaks/Ukiah. Robbery, conspiracy.

Walls, Wilkins, Vazquez, Villalobos

WILLIAM WALLS, Ukiah. Robbery, willful cruelty to child.

ROBERT WILKINS, Covelo. Protective order violation.

EDGAR VAZQUEZ, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

LUIS VILLALOBOS, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

MARIE TOBIAS: I went to see a counselor after my Husband’s passing. He died in my arms, we were together 37 years… In quick succession, I lost the love of my life, had my income reduced by 75%, lost the room we’d been renting from friends (they decided to sell their home), had my car break down with insufficient finances to maintain it, so I ended up driving his car. Ended up homeless for most of 2 months, living in that car, Within a year I was in a terrible car accident, totalling that car, and shattering the right side of my body, lost all my possessions of a lifetime when I couldn’t pay the storage bill, and had to deal with intermittent hunger (more than a couple times went nearly a week without food… it’s not as bad as it sounds, you kind of stop being hungry after about day 3.) And I guess, developed a pretty nasty case of depression. A friend got me to see his counselor for nearly a dozen sessions, I’m the kind of person who through adversity drops my head and just plows through as best as I can until I get to the other side… but this was a serious slog. I needed the extra support. I hear the same news, and see the same signs, and sometimes find myself more than a little terrified at where all this is going and what a single person in this blizzard of a shit storm can do to make a difference. The answer is I have no idea… The people who pull the bacon out of the fire almost to a person never know they were the one, until someone figures it all out, years after they left this mortal coil. So cope the best you can. Get the support you need. Surround yourself with as many loved ones as is humanly possible (and if you must, you make new loved ones.) And you drop your head and keep chugging, With any luck, you’ll get to the other side, and be part of the community that made a difference. And that my friend is the best life anyone living in this age can hope to have.

THINK OF LIFE AS IT REALLY IS, think of the details of life; and then think that there is no meaning in it, no purpose, no goal except the grave. Surely only fools or self-deceivers, or those whose lives are exceptionally fortunate, can face that thought without flinching. 

— George Orwell

CALIFORNIA’S DROUGHT IS UPENDING MIGRATION For Millions Of Birds Along The Pacific Flyway

by Kurtis Alexander

Millions of migratory birds fly south each year to winter in California, or continue beyond.

The white-faced ibis is one of the first. The large wading bird with its distinctive curved bill, like its avian counterparts that fill the sky in late summer and fall, relies on the state’s wetlands to rest and recharge.

But this year, the ibis that arrived at the California-Oregon border from points north didn’t find the marshes and ponds they’re accustomed to, just a lot of dust and dried-up mud. So, the birds touched down only briefly and kept flying — some all the way to Mexico, says John Vradenburg, supervisory biologist for the Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuge Complex.

As California’s fall migration revs up, many birds will have to abandon familiar stops and make adjustments, often big ones, if they haven’t already, to adapt to a landscape stricken by drought. For some, the changes may be asking too much, and the coming months will be difficult.

“A lot of the birds are just bypassing the mid-continent and going straight to the Central Valley, but there’s not a lot of habitat to support them there either,” Vradenburg said. “Wetland availability is just really low (everywhere) right now. … This landscape (level) drying is a phenomenon we haven’t really seen probably since the 1930s, the Dust Bowl.”

The fear is that migratory birds, from ibis and egrets to ducks and geese to hawks and eagles, won’t find the water and moist feeding grounds they need, even by flying the long distances they’re built for. Or, they’ll fly so far that they may tire, increasing risk of starvation, susceptibility to disease, vulnerability to predators and chance of reproductive failure — risks that grow as the stress continues over multiple years.

Already, last year’s counts of traveling birds at popular stopovers and wintering areas in California were down. With the drought in its third year, marking the state’s driest three-year period on record and following a severe five-year drought last decade, scientists, environmental groups and hunting organizations say the slide could worsen.

“In a lot of ways, the (birds) are built to handle drought,” said Jeff McCreary, western director of operations for the conservation and hunting advocacy group Ducks Unlimited, which recently launched aerial surveys to figure out where waterfowl are going when there’s no water at their usual roosts. “If the drought continues years on end, though, it will start to outpace the ability of the birds to respond.”

California is a key link in the 4,000-mile Pacific Flyway, one of the primary migratory routes used by birds to move north and south across the continent.The fall flights, which sometimes originate as far north as eastern Russia and span as far south as Patagonia, demand spots across the nearly 800-mile-long state for birds to stop and refuel, with water, plants, insects and fish.

With 90% of California’s historic wetlands no longer around, the options for stopovers are limited, with several of the go-to points being refuges created by the state and federal government with support from environmental and hunting groups. Many are now perilously low on food and water.

“Every year that we have drought, the problems in the flyway get magnified,” said John Carlson, president of the California Waterfowl Association. “The birds are resilient and they can move to where there’s water, but this is going to be a tough year.”

Some state and federal wildlife refuges have taken the unprecedented step of shutting down hunts for waterfowl in fall and winter, or delaying the season, because of the dry conditions and challenges for birds. Human predators would only add stress.

The Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge Complex is one that’s taken precautions, postponing its opener and reducing hunting quotas in many areas. The collection of five refuges in the Sacramento Valley has recently seen an influx of birds that are usually farther north this time of year, an advance that refuge managers chalk up to the feverish search for water.

The white-bodied, loud-honking snow geese have recently been reported in unusually high numbers, coming from Russia’s Wrangle Island and the western Arctic. So have greater white-fronted geese and northern pintails from Alaska. Most are holing up on the wetter east side of the Sacramento Valley.

The problem, refuge managers say, is that the parched landscape won’t sustain big numbers.

“These birds would typically be up in the Klamath Basin,” said Michael Derrico, supervisory biologist for Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge Complex. “There’s more pressure now on the food resources in the Central Valley.”

It’s the same story farther south in the Kern National Wildlife Refuge Complex, known for the sandhill cranes that come from Homer, Alaska, to winter in the San Joaquin Valley. Already, thousands of the once nearly extinct birds have arrived.

“We have more birds showing up and earlier, but we’re only able to provide so much,” said Miguel Jimenez, manager of the complex. “There’s just not enough habitat for us to support all the birds.”

Complicating matters, refuges face the same problems that many cities and farms confront during dry times: not having priority claims on water.

The Kern Refuge Complex, which relies on water releases from the federally operated Central Valley Project, received less than half of its full water allocation this year while the Sacramento Refuge Complex, also reliant on the federal project, received only slightly more. The Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuge Complex farther north is not allocated any water from the federal Klamath Project, and depends on excess in the system and from local farmers, of which there’s been little this year.

Beyond the refuges, many migratory birds seek out rice paddies, which serve as a surrogate for lost wetlands.

About 200 species of birds find shelter in the flooded fields and find food in what’s left of the harvest as well as in the insect- and crustacean-rich irrigation water. Some stay for days, like the recently arrived long-billed dowitcher. Others stay all winter long, like the incoming American wigeons and green-winged teals.

This year, however, less than half of the usual 520,000 acres of rice was planted in the Sacramento Valley because of water shortages, according to the California Rice Commission. This means less than half as much accommodation for birds.

“You take rice out of the equation, the Pacific Flyway will look a lot different and not in a good way,” said Luke Matthews, wildlife programs manager for the commission. “The lack of food and the lack of habitat is going to leave birds with worse body condition. They’re not going to be as healthy.”

In an effort to preserve these watery areas for birds, the state and federal governments are paying millions of dollars to rice farmers to continue flooding their fields. Tens of thousands of additional acres are coming online, which Matthews called a “Band-Aid” for the migration, but one that’s essential for the moment.

An added concern with sparse water in the fields and wetlands is avian botulism. The bacterial disease can paralyze waterfowl and is common when bird concentrations are high and water levels are low.

“Once the birds get here in full force and they’re forced to stack together in the limited habitat, you have the potential for an outbreak that could be pretty devastating,” Matthews said. “It might even be better to have no water than a little water.”

An outbreak of botulism two years ago in the Klamath Basin, as the area began to dry up, killed more than 60,000 birds.

Avian flu is also a threat. This year’s strain of the virus, which has already been detected in waterfowl in California, is being compared to one in 2015, which killed millions of domestic birds in the United States. Many chickens and turkeys were purposely put down to prevent spread of the disease, which moves readily between birds, including wild and domestic populations.

Nowhere is there more concern about birds than along the California-Oregon border.

The two most important refuges at the vast Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuge Complex — Tule Lake and Lower Klamath — have run completely dry, turning the areas into little more than mud flats. Only the Lower Klamath refuge has seen this happen before, but not since the 1940s.

Historically, this network of marshes and lakes, sometimes dubbed the “Everglades of the West,” has been visited by as many as 80% of the birds in the Pacific Flyway, leading refuge managers to call its decline this year the “collapse of the most important staging area” on the route.

Already, migratory waterfowl numbers at Tule Lake and Lower Klamath refuges fell 61% last year, compared with the prior year, according to refuge surveys. The estimated 42,716 birds that visited the refuges at peak migration last fall was the lowest count ever — and just 3% of what the peak was four years earlier.

“We’re seeing birds (this fall) but we’re not seeing them in any significant number,” said Vradenburg, the supervisory biologist at the complex.

When the ibis weren’t showing up in their usual droves, Vradenburg knew this year was going to be bad. Huge flocks of the birds from the Pacific Northwest and sometimes southern Canada have historically marked the beginning of the migration season.

“Most mornings in the summer (in the past), I would see two or three thousand birds fly over my house,” he said. “This year, I’d see maybe 10 or 15.”

While it’s too early to know how many migratory birds will end up visiting the Klamath Basin this fall, or any of the main spots in California, a recent state survey of breeding waterfowl shows that this segment of the population is slipping, meaning broader declines are almost inevitable.

In the state’s April survey, ducks, which made up the majority of birds in the count, experienced a 19% decrease since 2019, the last year that the census was done because of the pandemic. The number of American coots, the next most common bird, was down 30%.

“Birds have been through this before,” said Melanie Weaver, a senior environmental scientist with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife and a waterfowl expert who co-authored the April bird survey. “Drought is wired into waterfowl. They’re not going to fall out of the sky.

“That said,” she added, “we don’t want to see (dry conditions) every year, because it will cause a population decline.”

(SF Chronicle)

THIS ENVIRONMENTAL LAW Made Half of America’s Fresh Waters Swimmable and Fishable

by Robert B. Semple Jr.

In the early 1830s, the French historian Alexis de Tocqueville, on his way to the Great Lakes, is said to have described the waters around Cleveland as among the clearest he had ever seen. Less than four decades later, in 1868, a river he had greatly admired, the Cuyahoga, by then choked with industrial and municipal waste, burst into flames. It would do this periodically until 1969, when one last blaze persuaded the editors of Time magazine’s new “environment” section to publish pictures of the Cuyahoga on fire. “Some river!” Time exclaimed. “Chocolate brown, oily, bubbling with subsurface gases, it oozes rather than flows.”

The once-combustible Cuyahoga is now considered safe for fishing and other recreational uses. So, too, are the Delaware, the Potomac, Boston Harbor, large stretches of the Hudson and a multitude of once-filthy water bodies. They all owe their improved health mainly to the Clean Water Act of 1972, to this day one of the most creative and important statutes born of the great wave of environmental lawmaking that swept over Washington in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The act celebrated its 50th birthday this month, and its successes are worthy of toasts. But its work is not done. It established 1983 as the year when America’s fresh waters — its rivers, streams and lakes — would be fishable and swimmable. That proved wildly optimistic. A recent report from the advocacy group the Environmental Integrity Project shows that roughly half the nation’s rivers and streams, and a slightly larger percentage of its lakes, do not meet that standard.…

nytimes.com/2022/10/26z/opinion/environment/clean-water-act-sackett-epa.html

VIA MIKE GENIELLA: 

On this date 95 years ago in Yuba County history as reported in the Sacramento Union by sportswriter Bill Conlin, “On Oct. 25, 1927 Ruth’s Busting Babes and Gehrig’s Larruping Lous came to Marysville and they dismissed the schools that morning so we could all go to the ball park. Merchants closed their stores for three hours so that they, too, could see the game. As they did at all points on the transcontinental barnstorming tour, both Babe and Lou played first base, which brought Babe closer to the crowds and, besides, the Bambino liked to play first because there was more action. The rest of the two teams were made up of semi-pro Sacramento Valley Leaguers, who were as excited about playing with Ruth as the lads and lassies who were escaping a morning of school. The Busting Babes won that morning in Marysville, 9 to 7, before 3,000 fans…The Babe walked his first trip, flied to left, singled and then homered in both the seventh and eighth innings. Gehrig homered in the first inning, walked in the third, singled in the fifth, homered in the seventh and singled in the ninth.”

And here’s where Ed Burt comes into the picture, as Conlin acknowledges, “No, this is not all from memory. The official scorer that game was Eddie Burt, the retired golf writer who then was sports editor of the Marysville Appeal-Democrat. He kept that scorebook. You see Babe Ruth autographed it.”

Presented here is that very scorebook signed as well by Gehrig—whom Conlin evidently gave short shrift in the column. Both pencil signatures rate about “9” in strength. In addition to the fully scored 10/25 barnstorming game in Marysville, there are also fully scored games from between June 5, 1927 and July 15, 1928. Condition-wise, the book features front and back interior binding reinforcements.

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

When I was 16 it never occurred to me to own a car. Very few kids that age had them. I had enough friends so that when we wanted to go out, one of the kids’ parents (including mine) would get the family car for the night. Mornings, I walked to school – a little over a mile away. I also worked weekends at a car wash as a car wiper and vacuumer (at $1.05/hr) to earn a few bucks, but I never thought about saving up the money to buy a car. Boy, are times different.

LEFTISTS, DON’T GASLIGHT YOURSELVES: It’s time to unite against the fascist Republicans

Think the Democrats are disappointing? You’re right. But that’s no excuse for allowing actual fascists to win

by Norman Solomon

Six months ago, people on the left in France faced a crucial choice. None of their candidates had gotten enough votes to make it into the presidential runoff election. On the upcoming ballot were the neoliberal president Emmanuel Macron and the neofascist challenger Marine Le Pen, who had trailed the incumbent in the first round by less than five percentage points. What to do?

Rather than sit out the decisive election and enable the far-right candidate to take power, millions of leftist voters held their nose and voted for Macron.

Now, progressives in the United States face similar choices. In key House districts and states with pivotal Senate races — including Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — leftist voters could tip the balance of congressional power. At this point, in the balloting that ends on Nov. 8, the choice is binary: neoliberalism or neofascism.

While the GOP is in a strong position to win a majority in the House of Representatives, the latest polling indicates that control of the Senate is on a knife’s edge. No doubt Sen. Mitch McConnell is hoping that enough progressives won’t vote for Democrats so he can run the place starting in January.

You don’t have to tell me how awful, and how corrupted by corporate money, the Democratic Party leadership is. On foreign policy, other than on such matters as climate and the Iran nuclear deal, the two major parties have similar approaches, including widely destructive militarism. But on domestic matters — while the Democrats’ tepid reformism falls far short of addressing the crises we face — their policies are vastly better than the increasingly racist Republican Party as it offers extreme versions of free-market economics and Christian fundamentalism. Claiming that there are no significant differences between the two parties is a form of super-ideological gaslighting on automatic pilot.

Abortion rights, judicial appointments, climate, environmental protection, taxation, racial justice, voting rights, labor rights, LGBTQ rights, misogyny and so many other basic matters are on the line. Yes, the Democrats are often anemic on such issues. At the same time, the Republicans are much worse. And their agenda now includes nothing less than destroying electoral democracy.

Republicans in office and even more extremist candidates seeking to join them are blending in with political scenery they’ve created to normalize gliding farther and farther rightward. They’re the electoral shock troops of a party now fully engaged in what scholar Jason Stanley, in his book “How Fascism Works,” calls “fascist politics.” What seemed dangerously outrageous not long ago can soon come to seem normal — becoming even more dangerous.

In Stanley’s words, “Normalization of fascist ideology, by definition, would make charges of ‘fascism’ seem like an overreaction, even in societies whose norms are transforming along these worrisome lines…. The charge of fascism will always seem extreme; normalization means that the goalposts for the legitimate use of ‘extreme’ terminology continually move.”

Progressives have overarching responsibilities to oppose the corporate power that ushers in oligarchy and also to oppose the far-right forces that lead to tyranny. Focusing on just one of those responsibilities while dodging the other just won’t do.

It’s accurate to say that the neoliberalism of the Democratic Party has been creating and exacerbating conditions that fuel right-wing engines. But at certain times — which definitely include the next two weeks, through Election Day on Nov. 8 — electoral battles come to a decisive fork in the road. We will be living with the consequences of this crossroads for the rest of our lives.

UKRAINE, TUESDAY, 25 OCTOBER

The Ukrainian military claims Russian forces are preparing for a “potential retreat” near a key river in Kherson as Moscow-installed leaders in the southern region step up their evacuation efforts in response to Kyiv’s advancing counteroffensive. 

US and Western officials have dismissed Moscow’s claim that Ukraine plans to use a so-called dirty bomb as a Russian false-flag operation. The UN Security Council will have closed-door discussions Tuesday on Russia’s allegation, sources say.

International inspectors will visit two nuclear sites in Ukraine at Kyiv’s request, the UN nuclear watchdogsaid. Ukraine’s foreign minister said Kyiv has “nothing to hide.”

A Russian court upheld US basketball star Brittney Griner’sdrug smuggling conviction Tuesday. Griner’s sentence of nine years in prison will be slightly decreased, as the judge ruled to count the time spent in custody since Feb. 17.

(NYT)

INFRASTRUCTURE WARS

by Patrick Cockburn

In 1944, a V-2 rocket blew up my parents’ house in St John’s Wood in London, reducing it to a heap of ruins. Fortunately for my mother and father – and for me – they were both out at the time. I still have the telegram which my mother, Patricia Cockburn, who was safely in Cumbria, sent to her mother. It begins: “I hope you are alright. My house destroyed…”

As a child, I learned that the V-2 explosion had vaporised much of the furniture in the St John’s Wood house, but a small round marble table had survived which I could see in the front room. It was not unscathed and had a great scar across its surface where the blast had ripped out the yellow, red and green stone inlay. I used to run my fingers down the crack and gained a healthy respect for the destructive power of ground-to-ground rockets.

The damaged table and the story of the V-2 strike also left me with a strong fellow feeling for people bit by rocket fire, most recently in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, Odessa and other Ukrainian cities. A difference from my parents’ experience is, of course, that many of those whose houses have been hit were at home at the time.

A lot has stayed the same in missile warfare since the Germans were firing V-1s and V-2s at London 80 years ago, but much has changed radically without the rest of the world paying attention. And it is the results of these changes which we are now beginning to see play out in Ukraine today.

Iranian-made drones

The White House is accusing Iran of supplying drones and missiles to Russia and on Thursday said that the Iranians had sent advisers to Crimea to instruct Russian military personnel on how best to use Iranian-made drones and missiles. The National Security Council spokesman, John Kirby, said that Iranian troops are “directly engaged on the ground” in Crimea supporting Russian drone attacks on Ukraine’s power stations and other key infrastructure.

This may well be true, but misses the point that we are looking at a new type of warfare that has taken decades to develop and has already changed the strategic balance in the Middle East. Put briefly, the US and its allies have lost their monopoly of precision guided missiles which they previously enjoyed.

I was in Baghdad in 1991 when US missiles and smart bombs systematically destroyed the Iraqi power stations, electric transmission cables, oil refineries and oil storage facilities. It did not take the US air force long to do this to 70 per cent of Iraqi generating capacity – much of it damaged beyond repair. Baghdad soon smelled of rotten meat thrown out by people when their fridges and deep freezes lost their power supply. Blackouts became the norm at night and life in Iraq largely returned to the pre-electric age – aside from limited power from little petrol-powered generators whose put-put sound was inescapable in the capital.

Great accuracy

In that period, it was only the Americans who had the capacity to quickly cripple a country’s infrastructure beginning with its electric power system. Even in a major oil producer like Iraq, petrol and diesel became scarce with boys selling bottles of them, often diluted with water, beside the road.

For many years, it was only the US that possessed large numbers of precision guided weapons capable of hitting any target precisely at long distance. But others have since made successful efforts to catch, notably Turkey and Iran, which have both turned themselves into what some military specialists call “drone superpowers”. Iran, in particular, has had a strong incentive to develop a weapon to counter the air superiority of the US and its allies in the Gulf.

A telling example of the vulnerability of infrastructure and economic assets to drone strikes came in September 2019 when on a single night drones and cruise missiles – almost certainly launched by the Iranians though they deny it – hit Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities at Abqaiq and Khurais with great accuracy. Saudi oil output was cut by 50 per cent and world oil prices surged. Not only was the damage great and vastly expensive to repair, but much of it had been caused by drones costing as little as $15,000 each.

Easy to damage

The same strategy is now becoming visible in the war in Ukraine, with Russia targeting the Ukrainian electricity system, knocking out 30 per cent of its generating capacity in a few days. Blackouts are becoming familiar in Ukrainian cities and lack of power also affects water and sewerage systems. Much can be repaired and Ukraine is looking for more and better anti-aircraft equipment, but swarms of drones and less frequent cruise missiles will overwhelm almost any defence, however sophisticated it may be. Infrastructural targets like power stations, oil refineries and water utilities are by their nature large, impossible to move, difficult to hide and easy to damage.

The worst has not happened yet. Russian military strategy has so far proved shambolic since President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine on 24 February. Reports that the Russians have started systematically degrading Ukrainian infrastructure using cheap drones and missiles may turn out to be premature. Presumably, Putin is aware that Ukraine would probably hit back at Russian infrastructure using similar methods, and this might give him pause.

There is a western fixation on Russia’s potential use of tactical nuclear weapons, which is understandable. But there are other non-nuclear and very destructive things that Russia and Ukraine could do to each other in the present war – and this new type of drone warfare is one of the them.

Patrick Cockburn is the author of War in the Age of Trump (Verso).

HOUSE PROGRESSIVES RETRACT LETTER To Biden Calling For Talks With Russia

Rep. Jayapal blamed the release of the letter on her staff

by Dave DeCamp

Progressive Democrats in the House have retracted a letter to President Biden calling for talks with Russia after facing backlash for suggesting the idea of pursuing diplomacy to end the war in Ukraine.

The letter was signed by 30 lawmakers and was led by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. In a statement, Jayapal said the letter was drafted several months ago and blamed its release on her staff.

“The Congressional Progressive Caucus hereby withdraws its recent letter to the White House regarding Ukraine,” Jayapal said. “The letter was drafted several months ago, but unfortunately was released by staff without vetting. As Chair of the Caucus, I accept responsibility for this.”

A source familiar with the matter contradicted the statement in comments to Politico, saying the letter’s release was personally signed off by Jayapal. The letter was initially drafted in June, and some signatories publicly said they wouldn’t have endorsed it today.

“I signed this letter on June 30, but a lot has changed since then. I wouldn’t sign it today,” Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-CA) wrote on Twitter Tuesday. “We have to continue supporting Ukraine economically and militarily to give them the leverage they need to end this war.”

In the letter, the lawmakers made clear that they support the Biden administration’s policy of shipping tens of billions of dollars in weapons to Ukraine but said diplomacy should be pursued due to the risk of nuclear war and “catastrophic escalation.”

Jayapal said it was retracted because it was being conflated with comments made by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who said a Republican-controlled House wouldn’t be willing to write a “blank check” for Ukraine.

“Because of the timing, our message is being conflated by some as being equivalent to the recent statement by Republican Leader McCarthy threatening an end to aid to Ukraine if Republicans take over,” Jayapal said.

Jayapal pointed out that there has been no opposition to the Biden administration’s Ukraine policy from Democrats in Congress. She said Democrats “have strongly and unanimously supported and voted for every package of military, strategic, and economic assistance to the Ukrainian people.”

Jayapal said that the war in Ukraine will only end with diplomacy after “a Ukrainian victory.” According to the Ukrainian government, victory means driving Russia out of the territories it has captured since February 24, all of the Donbas and Crimea.

The Biden administration has shown no sign of seeking diplomacy with Russia to end the conflict despite the president’s recent warning that the world is facing the highest risk of nuclear “armageddon” than at any time since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

The Washington Post reported earlier this month that US officials have ruled out pushing Ukraine to the negotiating table even though they don’t think Kyiv can win the war “outright.” In an earlier statement, Jayapal said the Congressional Progressive Caucus supports the administration’s policy of not negotiating with Russia “about Ukraine without Ukraine.”

(news.antiwar.com)

The post Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2022 – Anderson Valley Advertiser appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

ANOTHER WEAK FRONT will bring increasing clouds and
some showers north of Cape Mendocino this afternoon and tonight.
A strong ridge of high pressure will result in building inland
heat and fire weather concerns this weekend, with very warm
temperatures extending to the coast early next week. (NWS)

FIVE NEW CASES (3 Native, 1 White, 1 Unreported)

THE LAYTONVILLE-POT HOME INVASION

by Jim Shields

This past weekend there was a home invasion in the northern Laytonville area that stretched over several days starting on last Thursday, Sept. 17. The MCSO press release that’s been published does a good job of laying out the basics of the crime.

The mastermind, I guess you could call him, was Louis Bagliere, 73, now of San Jose but formerly a resident of Laytonville. Evidently Bagliere returned to the area to rob some people who he had rented his former property for the purpose of growing weed.

How do you rent property that you don’t own? I don’t know but evidently that’s what Bagliere did.

According to a number of people I know, Bagliere sold his property — which by the way and ironically was the site of the Jeffrey Settler pot grow murder four years ago — a couple of years after that homicide was committed. Reportedly, it was sold to a San Jose real estate investor. It’s a 160-acre parcel located five miles north of Laytonville and five or six miles west of Highway 101.

Bagliere, who has been a mid-level career criminal his whole life, reportedly has been arrested and/or charged, and/or served time for mostly drug-related offenses in California, Texas and Utah. He’s been looked at by California authorities for a couple of murders but was never arrested or charged for them, and is known to have associations with Bay Area street gangs, and had some type of “business” relationship (most likely meth) with the Hell’s Angels. 

Anyway, apparently he “rented” his old property to these folks who were growing weed. Most likely, they had some kind of deal with Bagliere over the grow.

The Sheriff’s report has all the details of what ensued when Bagliere and his Bay Area crew of heavily armed crooks/gang members showed up Thursday at his old homestead. They relieved the “renters” of 20 pounds of weed and said they’d be back Saturday presumably for more weed and/or money.

Bagliere’s crew returned to the property on Saturday confronting the renters comprised of three men, a woman, and young child. They demanded money from the renters, firing off three or four shots to show their demand was serious. 

But it was bad news for Bagliere and his gangsters in that they were all caught and arrested, including the one bad guy who managed to evade the cops for a day, but he was nabbed by an alert resident who placed him under citizen’s arrest, trussed him up with zip ties, and delivered the violent dolt to Sheriff’s deputies who arrived on the scene. That citizen deserves a commendation from the County.

By the way, the one inexplicable thing that occurred was the authorities released Bagliere due to “pre-existing medical conditions.” How can somebody who was medically fit enough to plot this caper, arm himself with an assault rifle, and ride around in a van on rough country roads for part of a weekend, be released for any reason at all, medical or otherwise? If he’s physically fit enough to carry out several days of violent mayhem, he’s well enough to have his ass locked up with the rest of homies.

Also, the cops released a young woman who obviously was part of Bagliere’s crew acting as their “lookout”, according to a several people I know. 

At the very beginning of this Saturday felonious matinée, she was observerd by a neighbor sitting in a car for a long time in front of a gate (on which the lock had been cut) on the road leading to where Bagliere’s “renters” lived, a very remote area needless to say.

So this person walked down the road to ask the woman what was up, could they be of any assistance? The young lady’s response to the inquiry? “Why you asking, what’s the matter, don’t you like niggers?”

And so it goes in the timeless world of crooks and crime. 

MORNING GLORIES

IF YOU ARE A REGISTERED VOTER and you haven’t yet received your sample ballot, you might wonder if the Elections Office has your correct address. If you did not get a sample ballot, call the Elections Office (234-6819) to confirm your registration. Actual vote-by-mail ballots go out next week.

— Kathleen McKenna, Boonville Precinct volunteer

KYM KEMP of Redheaded Blackbelt on Paul McCarthy: ” I run my own online website and Paul was so generous with information and photos. If he had images from the scene of a rescue or a crash, he would secure permission for me to use them. I always tried to return the favor but it was rare I could beat him to info in his beloved Mendocino Coast. 

Since his death, there have already been occasions when something was going on in Mendocino County and I didn’t have his site to turn to to see what he already knew about the subject and I’ve teared up not just for the personal loss of Paul, but the loss to the whole community of his service. 

Paul, thank you for your kindness to me and for keeping your community so well informed.”

YESTERDAY AFTERNOON’S CLEAR SKIES

THE GASKILL SCHOOL

by Wes Smoot

As one travels east from the town of Boonville on Highway 128 for about 17 miles at milemarker 46 there stands a little abandoned schoolhouse that is slowly melting to the ground. This little schoolhouse was placed there in the year of 1926. This was the second location of the school. The first location was across the highway from the Jim Hill Ranch driveway at milemarker 44. It is not known exactly what year it was built at that location, however the records show that it was approved by the County of Mendocino on November 21, 1860, and that it was number six in the County. When it was moved to the present location in 1926 the land it was placed on was donated by a Mr. Silas E. Gaskill. More can be learned about Mr. Gaskill by going to the “Mendocino County History Book.”

The school was taught first through eighth grade by only one teacher teaching all eight grades. I was enrolled into the first grade in the fall of 1938 and it had a student body of ten children spanning almost all eight grades. I must also mention that of the ten children I was the only boy in school. I always felt that I was well looked after. At the end of that school year in 1939, four of the girls graduated and went on to high school and two of the others moved to Boonville.

My first teacher was Mrs. Betta (Berk) Kerr. She was a very soft-spoken lady and made learning interesting. She taught for two years and then my third and fourth grade teacher was Christine Berk. During this time span one other student graduated and went to Cloverdale high school. Then my fifth and sixth grade was taught by Mrs. Alice Holland and my seventh and eighth grade teacher was Mrs. Eva Farrer. She was the wife of J.D. Farrar of Philo Lumber company. 

During my second year I was given a job at the school of going there early each morning during the winter with my father where he stored the school bus in a large corrugated metal building. I was to open the schoolhouse and build a fire in a big pot bellied cast-iron stove to get the schoolhouse warm when the rest of the kids got there. I would also sweep the floors and dust the desks. For this I was paid 25 cents a day. This was my first paying job in my life. This was really big-time stuff. 

My father, Ray Smoot, drove schoolbus for the Anderson Valley School District for 19 years. At Gaskill we didn’t have some of the activities that other schools had. For instance, the schoolyard was too small to play baseball, besides there were not enough kids to make a team. We played jump rope, hide and seek, anti-over with the bus shed, hopscotch and other games to occupy ourselves. On rainy days we would play blackboard games like solitary, draw pictures and others.

The bathroom facilities were not the world’s finest: for the girls was a small factory-made little house located up a little hill just west of the schoolhouse that had a room for only one person at a time. The boys bathroom was a common small redwood lumber outhouse with two holes in it. It was located several feet east of the big bus shed. In the winter there was a 2 x 12 plank walkway to the boy’s outhouse so we wouldn’t have to wade through the mud. There was a small wash sink on the front porch with running water but no hot water. Sometimes in early summer before school was out our water supply would dry up but we got by. In the fall there would be no water until it rained.

In June 1946 four of us graduated from the eighth grade and we were to go on to higher education facilities. One girl and myself went to Anderson Valley High School as freshmen. The other went to Cloverdale High School. 

My first day as a freshman in high school was the most frightening day of my entire life. After going to Gaskill for eight years where the average pupil count was seven or eight, then to go to a new school where the student body count was 78 youngsters of all ages and I did not know a single one of them — I was petrified. I had never been in a school with so many rooms and not knowing which one to go to. I just started to follow the largest group of kids wherever they went. Bad decision. I was supposed to go to algebra for first period. But instead I follow the crowd to the geography class. After about a week I finally got my act together and made it all right.

After the four of us graduated from the eighth grade there were only three kids left in Gaskill school. The school managed to stay open for another year until 1947 when the state mandated that all schools must have hot and cold running water as well as flush toilets. This was an impossibility at Gaskill school so the little school was to be closed for good.

After I grew into adulthood I looked back at my experience at Gaskill school and could see how fortunate I had been to be educated in that manner. Many times while the teacher was conducting a class on a subject we were being exposed to their learning as well. This made it much easier for us when we reached that level. It may sound as though I am prejudiced about the Gaskill school but I am far from that. Looking back I find that there were about seven or eight other schools in the same situation throughout all of Anderson Valley and I am sure that they all had the same results. God bless our little one room schools.

THE PROCESS TRULY IS… 

CSD Board Chair Valerie Hanelt writes:

Hi Mark, In the AVA this week you stated: “…a water and sewage project wending its inexorable way to a likely vote if the opposition is large enough to force one.”

This is a serious enough misconception that I need to correct you: 

This sounds as if there is a vote only if there is opposition. That is not how the process works. There WILL be a vote – a separate vote for each project. Once the projects have finished the design process and nailed down all their components, the rate adoption process will be shared with the public. Once the rate structure (base rates/usage, etc.) has been approved by our CSD Board, every parcel will receive a “rate letter” explaining the monthly payments the parcel will be incurring. The parcel owner can respond in one of two ways: do nothing OR send in a protest. The protests will be counted. If the number of protests reach 50% plus 1 of the “hook up” parcels, the project is defeated. For example, if we have 200 drinking water hook ups, 101 protest letters would have to be received to defeat the project. This is called the “Proposition 218 Vote” – which ensures that property owners have a say in any new property related fees and charges. 

There is still a lot of time for public comment and education before we reach the Prop 218 vote (rate letter). We still have the CEQA and the LAFCO processes ahead which require public notice and meetings. We will also have two Zoom meetings about Boonville hydrology and health. We are getting closer to finalizing the design of both systems, so hope to start these public meetings Winter/Spring 2020/2021.

Val Hanelt

ED NOTE: The error is the editor’s, not Mark’s.

REGULAR MEETING OF THE WATER PROJECTS COMMITTEE

Anderson Valley Community Services District

To be held via teleconference 

Phone # 669 900 6833 Meeting ID 845 5084 3330 Password 048078

Public comments must be submitted by 10:00am on October 1, 2020 electronically to water.avcsd@gmail.com

 Thursday October 1, 2020 at 10:30am

Call To Order And Roll Call:

Recognition Of Guests And Hearing Of Public:

Approval Of September 3rd, 2020 Regular Meeting Minutes

Changes Or Modification To This Agenda: 

Report On Drinking Water Project

Report On Wastewater Project

Public Outreach

Concerns Of Members:

Adjournment:

FINAL BOONVILLE FARMERS’ MARKET OF THE SEASON

Celebrate the end of summer at the last Boonville Farmers’ Market, this Friday from 4-6pm in the parking area of Disco Ranch. Stock up on organic meat and local spices and olive oil and balsamic. We are a small group but have a great selection of local produce, meat, eggs, olive oil, mushrooms and body care. Also, have your knives and garden tools sharpened while you wait! Come enjoy a vibrant array of fresh local goodies and support our local food producers! 

Win a Boonville Farmers’ Market apron!!!!- receive a free raffle ticket with each vendor purchase. Winner will be contacted later by phone. EBT accepted – Market Match up to $30! Credit Cards accepted $$. Please remember to wear your mask and maintain a 6′ distance from others. 

A LA NINA CLIMATE PATTERN has developed and is likely to persist through the winter, according to an advisory issued today by NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.

La Nina — translated from Spanish as “little girl”— is a natural ocean-atmospheric phenomenon marked by cooler-than-average sea surface temperatures across the central and eastern Pacific Ocean near the equator, the opposite of El Nino (“little boy”) which features warmer-than-average sea surface temperatures in that region.

For the months ahead, scientists say there is a 75% chance that La Nina will be in place from December 2020 through February 2021.

During the winter, La Nina typically brings above-average precipitation and colder-than-average temperatures along the northern tier of the U.S., along with below-average precipitation and above-average temperatures across the South. A region of concern this winter will be the Southwest, where a weak summer monsoon resulted in extreme drought.

The last La Nina appeared during the winter of 2017-2018, and El Nino followed in 2018-2019. When neither climate pattern is present, as we saw during the winter of 2019-2020, the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is neutral and does not influence global climate patterns.

noaa.gov/news/la-nina-develops-during-peak-hurricane-season

BOONVILLE HAPPENINGS

As we surrender to a new way of life at home, we’re finding opportunities to explore the diversity in our own backyard. Anderson Valley has become a creative mecca for the A16 team and an adventure for the wonderful guests who have visited us. The abundance of Northern California produce has left us nearly in awe of the menu possibilities, so let’s celebrate the incredible fall harvest!

On that note, we’ve created a 4-course meal for the coming weekend honoring the farms of this rich land. From the winemakers sourcing grapes from Filigreen Farm’s biodynamic vineyards to Penny Royal’s impeccable goat and sheep cheeses, the menu is a mouthwatering celebration of this magical place. We also offer casual lunch and takeout options. Jump in the car for a drive to the redwoods and delight in some of your favorite A16 provisions! 

Antipasti 

Panzanella Filigreen new girl tomato, tuna conserva, cucumber, friselle, basil, capers. Burrata crostini, finocchiona salami, fig

Pizza. Raccolto Filigreen Chadwick tomato, Pennyroyal Laychee goat cheese, corn, squash, mint, garlic, chili

Secondi

Liberty Farms Duck alla Genovese

or

Hen of the Woods Mushrooms alla Genovese 

Contorni

Chestnut polenta grana padano, Sicilian oregano

Cannellini beans Filigreen San Marzano tomato, Pennyroyal Boont Corner goat cheese

Wild arugula lemon agrumato, olive oil, sea salt

Dolci

Apple granita Bates & Schmidt Farm apples

Cannoli chocolate and cherry 

Hours

• Friday: 4pm – 8pm (take-out/walk-in only)
• Saturday: 12pm – 8pm
• Sunday: 12pm – 8pm 

Address: 14111 CA Highway 128, Boonville, CA 95415

Wine pairings + bottle and glass selections feature Mendocino and Italian favorites. Walk-in guests are invited to enjoy a casual spritz, beer, glass of wine, or snacks on the patio + provisions to go!

IT’S NO SECRET that the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg loved wine (even if a bottle of Opus One could put her to sleep), but she was also a key figure in expanding the free commerce of alcohol in the U.S., Tom Wark writes in his blog: “She embraced an interpretation of the Constitution that has led to a radical re-imagining of the role of state regulation of alcohol.” 

— Esther Mobley

MURDER VICTIM IDENTIFIED

Updated Press Release:

The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office has identified the deceased 44 year-old male as being Jamie Eugene Wilcox and a forensic autopsy has been scheduled for the afternoon of 09-24-2020.

The 28 year-old male victim was medically treated and is expected to recovery from the injuries sustained during the shooting incident.

Updated Press Release:

The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office has identified the deceased 44 year-old male as being Jamie Eugene Wilcox and a forensic autopsy has been scheduled for the afternoon of 09-24-2020.

The 28 year-old male victim was medically treated and is expected to recovery from the injuries sustained during the shooting incident.

Updated Corrected Press Release:

On 09-23-2020 at 8:07 AM the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office received a call for service in regards to a shooting that had just occurred at a residence located in the 2500 block of Twining Road in Ukiah, California.

Sheriff’s Deputies responded to the residence along with personnel from the Ukiah Police Department and the California Highway Patrol.

Upon their arrival they contacted the identified shooter, Thomas Dean Jones, who self surrendered to Deputies without incident.

Jones

While at the residence, Deputies located two shooting victims, one being deceased (44 year-old male) and one having sustained life threatening injuries (28 year-old male).

The critically injured victim was transported to an out of county hospital by air ambulance.

Initial scene investigations determined the shooting appeared to be the result of a family dispute in regards to the development of the family property.

Sheriff’s Detectives were summoned to the scene and are now conducting ongoing investigations into the incident with the assistance of the Mendocino County District Attorney’s Office and the California Department of Justice.

Jones was transported to the Mendocino County Jail where he was to be booked on charges of murder (187 PC), attempted murder (664/187 PC), being armed during the commission of a felony (12022.5 PC) and prohibited person in possession of a firearm (29800 PC).

Jones was to held at the Mendocino County Jail on a No Bail status.

Original Press Release:

On 09-23-2020 at 8:07 AM the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office received a call for service in regards to a shooting that had just occurred at a residence located in the 2500 block of Twining Road in Ukiah, California.

Sheriff’s Deputies responded to the residence along with personnel from the Ukiah Police Department and the California Highway Patrol.

Upon their arrival they contacted the identified shooter, Thomas Dean Jones, who self surrendered to Deputies without incident.

While at the residence, Deputies located two shooting victims, one being deceased (28 year-old male) and one having sustained life threatening injuries (44 year-old male).

The critically injured victim was transported to an out of county hospital by air ambulance.

Initial scene investigations determined the shooting appeared to be the result of a family dispute in regards to the possible sale of the family property.

Sheriff’s Detectives were summoned to the scene and are now conducting ongoing investigations into the incident with the assistance of the Mendocino County District Attorney’s Office and the California Department of Justice.

UH-OH. At last Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, County Budget maven Darci Antle gave one of the briefest and least informative presentations we’ve ever seen. After noting that about 76,000 staff hours have been spent on Covid response, she quickly shifted to non-budget items, saying that the County has arranged for Covid testing with a couple of testing outfits without mentioning the cost, the continuation of food and meal distributions, and added that only four “at risk” people are still in Covid-paid motel rooms. “And at this point that would end my report for today,” Antle abruptly concluded. Not one budget number, not one mention of reimbursements, nor when they are expected or in what amounts, nothing about overtime hours… Conclusion: Ms. Antle has been told to keep bad budget news to herself ever since her statement a month ago that the Covid budget numbers were “sobering” because of the likely exclusion of some County expenditures from being reimbursable compared to the escalating expenses. Further, not one Supervisor expressed any interest in the budget report or the numbers or the extreme brevity of Ms. Antle’s report. CEO Angelo has probably made it clear that any blurting of budget negativity will be frowned on, even though the budget is probably the single most important issue the Board and the County should be dealing with. PS. We are not out of the first budget quarter yet and already the Sheriff has had to use significant overtime on several high-profile crimes. And nobody seems worried about it.

AT LAST TUESDAY’S SUPERVISORS MEETING, Supervisor John McCowen tried to get the County’s Covid staffers to focus on known Hispanic Covid hotspots in Ukiah — statistics show that a majority of cases are Ukiah area Hispanics in non-work situations — by, for example, putting up notices on apartment doors and trailers in trailer parks about how to stay safe. But McCowen got nowhere. HHSA manager Bekkie Emery quickly argued that the “hotspots” have “shifted and changed and there’s no specific area or location.” “It’s not as clear or easy as you may think,” Emery claimed, adding, irrelevantly, “Addresses are confidential. There’s no one neighborhood. We are watching and evaluating, but there’s no overlay like the one you are indicating.” McCowen didn’t agree, saying, “That’s inconsistent with the information I have,” then gave up with a “but whatever.” Even if “there’s no specific area” (of course there are areas in Ukiah that have significant concentrations of Hispanic residents that could and should be focused on, given the stats), what would be wrong with doing what McCowen proposed anyway by providing simple notices in any areas that might be or become hotspots? Unfortunately, none of McCowen’s colleagues felt like following up either. Just another example of how useless and ineffectual our well-paid supervisors are — even when they make the slightest inquiry or request, if staff doesn’t agree — “oh well, whatever!” Staff will do whatever they want to do and that’s the end of that. 

MENDO IS GEARING UP for a big mail-in ballot process in November. Item 4j on Tuesday’s consent calendar was for the purchase of an “Omation 210 Envelopener” for $7,770.35. The attached purchase order includes a few more thousand for maintenance for an extra three years, but that was not part of the agenda item amount. As usual nobody bothered to ask what this was for nor is there any reason given in the Agenda packet. However, it’s probably safe to assume that such a device is for November mail in ballots. As best we can tell it’s just a glorified tabletop cutting device that strips the top edge of an envelope off at a rate of several hundred per minute. The envelope still has to be hand-opened and the ballot unfolded and processed, though. It’s probably helpful, but we doubt it’ll produce election results any sooner than the month-long process that we’re already used to.

A COOL MIL FOR AV CLINIC

The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) has awarded $79 million in construction and other capital support to 165 health centers in disaster prone areas in the U.S. The awards, called the Capital Assistance for Disaster Response and Recovery Efforts (CADRE), aim to ensure access to healthcare and increase health center capacity to serve their communities after disasters.

Anderson Valley Health Center (AVHC) is proud to have received the maximum award of $1 million to renovate the existing health center to improve disaster readiness and ensure our full range of services remain available through a crisis with a particular emphasis on mental health.

AVHC is one of a few critical disaster resources during a crisis in Anderson Valley and is a first stop for community members seeking assistance. AVHC has been planning for a larger remodel for over three years and has plans to add over 5,000 square feet of new office space, a behavioral health reception area, a new teen clinic, acupuncture and specialty service rooms, telehealth exam rooms, and more.

AVHC plans to install an additional solar array that will continue to highlight our commitment to combating climate change and to being the first LEED certified health center in California.

ED NOTES

THE LAYTONVILLE HOME INVADERS must be the tip of a much larger iceberg because their bails are set very, very high, much higher than the twenty pounds of bud they ripped off and their related hijinks of firing guns to frighten the invaded, who included a small girl. Mr. Edmonds’ bail is $2.58 million, Mr. Watson $1.58 million, Baglieri Jr. $830,000 and so on with a couple at $710,000, Mr. White at $310,000 while the apparent mastermind of this bumbling project, Baglieri Sr., inexplicably cited and released into the the fall winds, will have to come up with $1.58 million before he resumes his life as a Senior Citizen home invader. Baglieri Jr. has said he will pay for a private attorney, as will Mr. Stewert. The two-and-a half million dollar man, Edmonds, has signed on with a public defender, and Villalona is going with Al ‘Al The Trumper’ Kubanis. A young woman lingering at the gate while these characters did their thing is assumed to be affiliated with the child terrorizers, a kind of dumb guys’ gang girl. She wasn’t arrested but probably should have been if mopery were still a crime.

T.Bagliere, Edmonds, Stewart

Villalona, Watson, White

AMONG the notes wafting out of cyber-space today, one says, “The next hotbed of covid might come from the (Name Withheld) Winery. Their Friday night drinkathon has about 100 people.” And, “Hey, you guys missed a Janet Jackson minute at Tuesday’s meeting of the Supervisors.” The message went on to say one of the zoomer participants offered an inadvertently (we assume) bared breast as she spoke which, I guess, is a hazard of going live from one’s bedroom, but caused much merriment Wednesday among County staffers who’d tuned in.

UNDER the auspices of Sarah Larkin, the nursery at the Philo end of Anderson Valley Way seemed to prosper. 

It was called Goodness Grows before it suddenly closed in a flurry of rumors that somehow a glib tweeker-pot grower who lived up on Mountain View Road not far from the Boonville Dump got involved and everything associated with him went blooey, including the wonderful Goodness Grows. 

Not so old timers will recall that a man assumed to be some kind of high flyer from the Bay Area name of George Bergner, bought the old Schoenahl apple orchard and developed the nursery property with two nice little yurt-like redwood buildings on it out of which he sold apple juice. Prior to Schoenahl, much of that area was owned by Mr. and Mrs. Gerber of the baby food fortune. 

They occasionally occupied the modest house just down the road from what became Bergner’s apple enterprise. The Gerber house, occupied briefly by Bergner himself, who was also invested in the New Boonville Hotel when it was owned by culinary criminals who fled for Oregon in the middle of the night. The house has been vacant now for years after Bergner went broke. The Gerber place was quite modest compared to some of the spreads that latter day savages have since built up in the hills, the diff being old money modesty and new money barbarism, you might say if you’re given to gratuitous insult. After Bergner disappeared, Wendy Ludwig created a fine little nursery at the former apple enterprise, and Wendy herself, like Sarah Larkin after her, knew everything about plants. When Bergner had evaporated, the many productive acres of apple trees were bulldozed and burned in what amounted to sacrilegious pyres by a Napa Valley bullethead named William Hill who planted wine grapes on the site, leaving the nursery property alone, which, fortunately, was not Hill’s. 

Looking west from the defunct nursery, now closed going on two years, you can see an unplanted space in the middle of Bullethead’s vineyard — The David Severn Indian Burial Ground Set Aside. 

Severn, with a big exploratory assist from Jed Adams, discovered that Bullethead’s vineyard was the previous site of an Indian burial ground and an inhabited place for thousands of years prior to the bulletheads of the world the bulletheads have pretty much destroyed. Severn got an archeologist to verify that the site was indeed sacred, and there it will be, un-graped, in perpetuity. Also at the very end of AV Way a dirt road runs west into the hills, there is now a modern bridge that crosses the stream separating the hills from the flats. The old bridge was a rickety affair that miraculously lasted to serve auto traffic into the late 1980s with only a single mishap having nothing to do with its condition. It involved three drunk, legally blind, men, including Larry Parsons, the famous little blind winemaker of the Holmes Ranch, creator of the also famed braille wine label. Parsons, since deceased via a Yorkville car crash, and perhaps the least sympathetic handicapped person in the country at the time, and his two friends, all possessed blind man concessions in Bay Area public buildings. That night, drunk, and how and why three blind men were drunk driving around the Anderson Valley remains unknown, but somehow they wound up at the old bridge west of Anderson Valley Way where they paused to relieve themselves, with one of the blind men stepping off a forty-foot drop into eternity where he thought the bridge was. When I asked Larry about his friend’s fatal accident, he said, with an amused chuckle, “Heh-heh. I told him to watch that first step.” Larry’s exit, incidentally, was also (presumably) something of a fluke. His underage daughter at the wheel with Larry in the back seat, daughter piled into an unyielding madrone on the far side of Yorkville. Of the four persons in the car, only Larry died. Not a scratch on anybody else. 

AN ON-LINE RECOMMENDATION:

Winter is icumen in — Yep, the rain and sleet and dark of night are on their way, and there’s never a better time than now to get yer chimney/s chim-chim-churryed clean by a real professional. Just had ours done by Ye Olde (actually, he’s quite a bit younger) Chimney Sweep, Joshua Long. He did a fantastic job, showed up ON TIME! (Can you believe it? I mean, Mendo Time and such…) And left the place clean and breathin’ easy! Six thumbs up! Give him a try, before the rain sets in! 

UKIAH PAST

RODIN THE FEARLESS

Dear Editor,

I am supporting Mari Rodin for Second District Supervisor. The job of county supervisor is a tough one, especially in these times. The supervisors deal with local issues like roads and budgets, but they will also confront large issues like climate change, wild fire and the virus, I don’t know of anyone who is more prepared to do the job than Mari Rodin.

Mari will face the issues directly and fearlessly in all their complexity. I have known Mari for many years both professionally and socially. She has the character to lead us in these troubled times. She is honest, has integrity and will listen to a diversity of views. Mari has a mixture of strength and compassion that will serve us well.

Sincerely,

Dave Nelson

Ukiah

CATCH OF THE DAY, September 24, 2020

Britton, Ersland, Ferris

SHAWNA BRITTON, Covelo. Elder abuse, probation revocation.

DREW ERSLAND, Ukiah. County parole violation.

BRENDAN FERRIS, South Lake Tahoe/Ukiah. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

Flinton, Gilchrist, Humphries

SEAN FLINTON, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

TAMMY GILCHRIST, Willits. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

WILLIAM HUMPHRIES, Willits. Assault with deadly weapon not a gun, failure to appear.

Jones, Secker, Underwood

THOMAS JONES, Ukiah. Murder, attempted murder, armed in commission of felony, felon-addict with firearm.

NATHANIEL SECKER, Fort Bragg. Controlled substance, failure to appear, probation revocation.

BRENDAN UNDERWOOD, Ukiah. Disobeying court orders.

LULU’S BACK IN TOWN

From the SF Chronicle, 9/23/20: “A fourth candidate, Stephen “Lulu” Schwartz, said, ‘We need a serious long-range plan that supports all housing needs.’

From the NYT obituary for Stephen Cohen, 9/20/20:

“Loosely identified with a revisionist historical view of the Soviet Union, Professor Cohen held views that made him a controversial public intellectual. He believed that early Bolshevism had held great promise, that it had been democratic and genuinely socialist, and that it had been corrupted only later by civil war, foreign hostility, Stalin’s malignancy and a fatalism in Russian history.”

I’ve always been with Cohen. (Isaac Deutscher, actually.) The obit by Robert McFadden goes on:

“A traditionalist school of thought, by contrast, held that the Soviet experiment had been flawed from the outset, that Lenin’s political vision was totalitarian, and that any attempt to create a society based on his coercive utopianism had always been likely to lead, logically, to Stalin’s state terrorism and to the Soviet Union’s eventual collapse.”

The State Department line was once laid out by George Kennan, who did distinguish between Lenin and Stalin. But the field has moved to the right since the Kennan era, with Daniel Pipes and disciples deciding what to publicize from the KGB files.

The author of the Wanda Tinasky letters sent you a remarkable photo of Nikolai Bukharin, who he referred to as “Bucky.” (Were there other Bolshevik leaders in the shot? Do you still have it?) When I was writing annotations I read Stephen Cohen’s Bukharin book, which got me thinking about a factor (sic) in false confessions: You and only you know the worst things you’ve ever done and considered doing. So even if the charge against you isn’t on the mark, you know in your heart that you are that bad. Maybe I’m just projecting.

Frederick Gardner

San Francisco

Ed note. Yes, I still have that photo of what appears to be Bukharin, Trotsky, Stalin and a couple of Soviet admirals. It was found in an attic in, of all places, Navarro. How it got there and who the outback Bolshevik who stored it there was remains a mystery. I’m with you on Cohen and Lenin. We might have had a kind of humanistic socialism if either Bucky or Leon had succeeded Vlad, who’d made it clear he saw Stalin as a menace. On the other hand, the idea of a proletarian vanguard to run things for everyone else is… Well, it requires an idealism that probably doesn’t exist. They all wind up in the big, black limos. Re Steve Schwartz: The kid’s always been full of surprises.

WE’VE GOT OUR OWN REASONS TO ELECT BIDEN — and He Isn’t One of Them

by Norman Solomon

Many people are now painfully aware that the United States is on the verge of falling under an iron fist of repressive rule, crushing basic democratic possibilities, if Donald Trump gets a second term as president. Yet the Democratic Party nominee is weak, uninspiring, often inarticulate and apt to be distasteful or worse when he’s intelligible.

What are progressives to make of this truly dire situation — and, most importantly, what are we to do? Right now.

At this potentially cataclysmic moment, I haven’t seen better answers anywhere than on the new website NotHimUs.org, where a basic precept is laid out in big letters on the first screen: “We’ve got our own reasons to vote for Biden, and Joe ain’t one.”

The next words are from Cornel West: “A vote for Joe Biden is . . . a way of preserving the condition for the possibility of any kind of democratic practice in the United States.”

The “Not Him Us” site goes on to ask a central question: “We wanted a political revolution. Now what?” The answers begin by reframing the current realities to include not just clear and present dangers but also great possibilities:

”It might not feel like it right now, but our movements are starting to win. In the streets: one of the most massive uprisings in our nation’s history is unfolding, demanding racial justice and systemic change. And in the halls of power: from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, to Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush, more and more people’s champions are challenging a failed status quo — and winning.”

”To continue to gain ground, we need to keep building our movements and elect more people’s candidates. But right now our forward trajectory depends on stopping Trump in his tracks. Our organizations, movements, and people’s candidates are engaged in an incredibly consequential contest for the future. If history is any guide, we cannot allow an authoritarian demagogue like Trump to continue to consolidate power.”

“We must defeat Trump soundly in November. It’s up to us. Plug into a voter engagement effort in a priority state.”

Tweeting in support of the Not Him Us project last week, Naomi Klein wrote: “Vote for a more favorable terrain. Our struggle goes way beyond elections. We’re in the streets. We’re talking to our neighbors and co-workers. But who controls the presidency changes what’s politically possible for our struggles.”

In response to the launch of #NotHimUs, former Bernie Sanders senior advisor and speechwriter David Sirota tweeted, “This is good. This is the right message. It’s honest. It doesn’t try to pretend Biden is awesome. It doesn’t insult voters’ intelligence. It doesn’t try to insult or vote shame people into voting to defeat Trump. It makes a positive case. Solid.”

The project director for Not Him Us is Jonathan Smucker. The initiative draws on his 25 years as a grassroots organizer, mostly involving non-electoral social movements like Occupy Wall Street, which was heavily featured in his book *Hegemony How-To: A Roadmap for Radicals*. He was an active volunteer on the Bernie 2020 campaign, and some of his training curriculum was used in the campaign’s field program.

With less than six weeks till the end of voting in the presidential race, Smucker sees the peril and the promise for our lives, our country and the planet. “The bad news is that the Democratic Party’s corporate-friendly old guard won the presidential primary,” he told me. “Now we have a nominee that millions of working-class people and young people are not at all enthusiastic about, and this enthusiasm gap could spell a second term for Trump.”

Yet meanwhile, Smucker went on, “the old guard is on its way out — if we do the work. A growing wave of people’s candidates, backed by growing popular movements, can frame the terms of debate and push Biden and Congress on key policies like a Green New Deal. But if Trump wins, we’ll all be playing defense for at least four more years.”

Playing defense in years ahead is the last thing progressives need. And Trump’s increasingly obvious intentions to steal the election should be energizing instead of paralyzing. The need is now crystal clear for progressives nationwide: Organize and volunteer to boost the Biden vote against Trump in the dozen swing states.

At this ominous crossroads, Not Him Us offers vital clarity. (That’s why at RootsAction.org we eagerly accepted an invitation to partner on the project.) With so much at stake — including social justice, human rights and this planet’s climate — Autumn 2020 is a time when people have the decisive opportunity to prevent the consolidation of illegitimate power by an authoritarian regime.

“We can do this on our own terms,” Not Him Us points out. “We can lend a hand to people’s organizations that are not just working to defeat Trump, but also working to upend an unacceptable status quo, defeat an out-of-touch political establishment, take on the powerful forces arrayed against us, and win the future for the many, not the few.”

(Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and the author of many books including “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.” He was a Bernie Sanders delegate from California for the 2020 Democratic National Convention.)

PREEMPTIVE ACTION

Before you make plans for what you’ll do if the worst thing happens, it’s good to make plans to prevent the worst thing from happening. And my hat’s off to all you who are already doing it. Because a hell of a lot of you are:

–First of all, by winning this election in a landslide, so everyone who’s doing get-out-the-vote, otherwise supporting robust participation and good candidates, flipping the senate, or working the polls, is my beloved hero right now. Donating is good for those so equipped to do it. A great election action guide is posted in the comments. 

–Second of all doing everything you can in every arena that matters (media, yelling at politicians, talking to your red-state relations) to uphold what a free and fair election should look like and how voter fraud is not a real problem but voter suppression is. And that this election will likely not result in an instant call on election night, but require days to check ballots. Asha Rangappa: “We have a process in place for elections. That process will be followed, whether he likes it or not. Every vote will be counted. Due to the high volume of mail-in votes, there will be delay in reaching a final result, which is proof that our process is WORKING.”

–Third by not sowing defeatism and despair, including by pretending you have the gift of prophesy and devoting it to prophecying doom. Or spreading things that might be false because you didn’t check them. Emotions are far more contagious than coronavirus-19, and hope is as contagious as fear. But also fear is as contagious as hope, and spreading it is optional.

Hope, as I keep saying, not as optimism that everything will be fine, but as an embrace of the uncertainty about what will happen and a commitment to try to shape it, to bend that arc toward justice. In that uncertainty is room to act. And maybe try to keep a sense of confidence in your own power and capacity to respond as situations arise, and whatever helps you remember that tens of millions share our views about this situation and will rise to the occasion, as needed. 

It is indeed anguishing watching this terrible threat to the democratic process and integrity of law, and not knowing how it will all unfold, but we just have to hold fast and persevere, and help each other through it, and remember why it matters. I believe that we can win. I do not believe it will be easy, if we do. It will be because tens of millions strove to make a future that is better than the present, because they were stubborn, because they were committed, because they were willing to try in the face of terrible uncertainty. The outcome of the election is, to a great, extent in our hands too.

As AOC told us last month: “Instead of asking ‘Where do we find hope,’ we should ask ‘How can we BE hope?’ in how we show up and live our life. In how we drink our coffee at the bodega each morning.”

Thank you and apologies for preaching.

p.s. Trump is floating balloons about stealing the election, partly because he wants to, and also needs to, to win, but also because it’s demoralizing and sows chaos and keeps us really busy, if we let him run the news cycle and our psyches. Or as Zarina Zabrisky, who know a lot about authoritarian regimes and how to survive them put it, “He is trying his best to defeat us by destroying our morale and it is up to each of us to stay calm, keep going and fight back.”

p.p.s. Two exceptional resources, one to prevent, one to respond:

–Daniel’s Guide to Taking Action in the 2020 Election https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XgjCe5YXxv9aI4Jk78YvqYN9Sa5o5M-vWpx5NKz3MDY/edit

–10 things you need to know to stop a coup https://wagingnonviolence.org/2020/09/10-things-you-need-to-know-to-stop-a-coup/

— Rebecca Solnit

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

[1] Seattle apparently is going ahead with its “Defund the Police” program, at least partially. What to replace it with? Well, the City has hired a Street Czar, a former pimp, who was convicted of luring white suburban teenage girls into Seattle, impregnating them, then forcing the girls into the work. The new “Street Czar” says that was all part of a past life, no longer relevant. The job pays $150k per year, with full benefits.

[2] They should see if Son of Sam is available. He might be able to advise women on personal safety in urban environments. Although New York State has a Son of Sam law that forbids criminals from profiting from their notoriety and criminal activties. Anyway, this is all remarkably stupid and insane. I have a theory that a lot of these people on the Left, the politicians and theorists, have antisocial personality disorders such as narcissism and sociopathy while the idiots in the streets have some kind of ODD, Oppositional Defiant Disorder and this case is just an expression of their hatred for and resentment of the normal people who feed and care for them and keep the air-con running. In other words, this is the infantile Left hacking up a huge golly and spitting it straight into the faces of the people who hold civilization together.

GEORGE HERRIMAN: Embarrassing Moments – 1931

IF YOU THINK…

Editor,

Pro-life president? Trump is “pro-life” right? Wrong. He used to be “pro-choice” but flip-flopped to gain votes in the last election. So he’s “pro-life” now, right? Wrong again. Trump has caused more abortions than anyone in the western hemisphere. So how could that be true? Because one of the first things Trump did after taking office was to reinstate the “global gag rule.” This ban withholds funding for any international women’s health clinics if they provide abortions and withholds funding for all services, not just abortions. This funding deficit affects entire rural villages where families without their contraception are forced into unintended and unwanted pregnancies resulting in increased need for abortions with no clinics to perform them. Since the Reagan era every Republican administration has instated this rule and every Democratic administration has removed it, causing the number of worldwide abortions to increase during Republican administrations and decrease under Democratic administrations. So if you hate women and helping families but think we need more abortions, then Trump is your guy.

Don Phillips

Manchester

ON-LINE COMMENT ABOUT THE CENSUS:

Almost exactly my experience, except with “only four “visits” afterward. After filing on line on March 22, I was visited “only” four times, once when I was not at home.

At the first “visit”, when I was out, the clown contract worker left a packet tied to my front screen door, then trespassed into my back yard AND left another packet on the railing of the causeway connecting house and two-story garage, where it lay waiting for the Wyoming wind to blow it away. I tossed both, as instructed in the confirmation page (as I had tossed the mail-in form that arrived after I filed on line).

The next visit was from an old woman, who insisted on repeating her questions (the same ones I had answered on line) and was not at all interested in seeing my printed copy of the on line confirmation page. I answered none of her questions, and finally she left.

Next visit was from a retired game warden. I had seen him parked in front of the house of my neighbor to the north and heard him holler to the neighbor across the street that he was next on his list. Since my neighbor to the north lives at 211, and the neighbor across the street lives at 208, I breathed a (short-lived) sigh of relief. The contract worker drove away after speaking with the neighbor across the street. After lunch, he returned to “visit” me. At least he looked at the confirmation form and looked puzzled. I told him I had assumed I was not on his list since he had left earlier. His response was to tell me that then his radio telephone-computer-camera- flashlight had informed him of my on line filing, but that, after lunch, it did not show the confirmation (apparently the whole mess was contracted out). He was puzzled and left.

The last “visit” was from another old retired guy. He explained that the problem was that they needed to know who lived on the second story of my garage (an unfinished storage area that has electrical wiring as its only improvement and serves me just fine as a storage area for items I rarely use). I, as calmly as I could, explained that to him and he left. This last contact was on August 24, but I am still keeping my crossed with regard to another “visit”, probably from Fatherland Security.

In short, I am convinced that this census is not valid and I am fed up with government contracting for work that could be done at less cost by government employees. Screw the Professional Managerial Class (PMC)!

— Harvey Reading

MARCO STRIKES GOLD!

A LISTSERVE POSTER’S POST encourages me to quit putting it off and finally reply with my bank information to Mrs. Ogilvy Of Cote d’Ivoire A Widow with stage 4 Cancer and receive $26.5M USD to further the Word of the LORD GOD as her Agent in U.S.A., now that her late huband’s greedy family have taken out a Murder Contract on her Innocent Nephew to keep the money for Themselfs, which would I accept Nephew as my Son and see him educated properly (also in THE LORD) as she hopes and prays. 

It’ll be so great. I’ll be able to buy KUNK and rip out all the automatic crap and turn it back into KMFB with real people there all the time. Mrs. Ogilvy’s nephew can hang around the radio station and run the socially distanced baseball games and have his own show every week, why not? I don’t know about the raise him as my own son thing, but a young person could do way worse that grow up in a real radio station. He’ll be prepared for anything the world can throw at him. 

But there’s so much money left over after that. We could put in a pizza oven. A tandem zipline down to the water (with a winch to zip right back up). Just anything. Think of a thing a radio station could have, and we’ll have it, including a 200-foot-tall RKO-Radio-Pictures-style Eiffel-Tower-shaped antenna tower with step-animated neon-tube radio waves coming out in circles from the top, that you could see for miles even in the fog. Absolute heaven. 

It’s too bad about Mrs. Ogilvy and all, but wow! This is terrific! 

— Marco McClean

THE U.S. DROUGHT VULNERABILITY RANKINGS ARE IN: How Does Your State Compare?

If asked where in the United States is most vulnerable to drought, you might point to those states in the West currently suffering under hot and dry conditions and raging wildfires. However, according to a new NOAA-funded assessment, what makes a state vulnerable is driven by more than just a lack of rain: it’s a combination of how susceptible a state is to drought and whether it’s prepared for impacts. And the most and least vulnerable states could surprise you.

These maps show each state’s overall drought vulnerability (red) and how it ranks in the three individual categories that make up the score: sensitivity (blue), exposure (yellow-orange), and ability to adapt (purple). Darker colors show higher overall drought vulnerability and a greater degree of factors that increase the state’s vulnerability. 

Sensitivity is the likelihood of negative economic impacts, which is based on the percentage of agricultural land, number of cattle, how much the state relies on hydropower, and recreational lakes. The exposure score reflects how often a state experiences drought and what assets, like the number of people and freshwater ecosystems, are at risk when it occurs. The ability to adapt score ranks how well the state can cope with and recover from drought, which depends on whether the state has a drought plan, how equipped it is to irrigate its land, and whether it is financially strong overall.

By this scoring system, the most vulnerable states are Oklahoma, Montana, and Iowa, while Delaware, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and California are least vulnerable to drought. Oklahoma gets its high vulnerability score from having an outdated drought plan and limited irrigation (low ability to adapt), as well as extensive agricultural activities and cattle ranching (high sensitivity). Despite facing recurring multi-year droughts (relatively high exposure), California ranks very low in drought vulnerability. Thanks to a strong economy and well-developed adaptation measures, it’s better prepared for an extreme drought when it occurs than most other states.

climate.gov/news-features/featured-images/us-drought-vulnerability-rankings-are-how-does-your-state-compare

TRUMP PREACHED WHITE SUPREMACY in Minnesota, America Barely Noticed

Touting “the racehorse theory” and the superiority of the genes of white Minnesotans, Trump explicitly embraced eugenics

rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-white-supremacy-racehorse-theory-1064928/

FOUND OBJECT

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