Mendocino County Today: Monday 3/23/2026

By AVA News Service on March 23, 2026

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): 42F under clear skies this Monday morning on the coast. Mostly sunny the next couple days then more cloudy later this week. A sprinkle Tuesday night, maybe ?

DRY WEATHER and above average inland temperatures will persist this week. A weakening front will bring a quick chance of rainfall and a period of increased southerly winds Tuesday/Wednesday. Otherwise, dry and warm weather will persist, with periods of breezy northerly winds. (NWS)

JIM LUTTICKEN (Boonville):

Mark Scaramella’s report on the the community services district (CSD) meeting of 18 March includes facts presented by the CSD on both the proposed water system and proposed sewer system.

The facts presented gloss over much of the financial impact to the community. For example, although the installation of the sewer system will be paid for by the grant, the yearly maintenance and operation of the sewer system will be paid for by the parcel owners forever. Those yearly costs will most likely be passed on to any tenants living on those properties.

It is also not mentioned that parcel owners within the sewer district could have liens placed against their property if they cannot or will not pay the yearly cost of maintenance and operation of the sewer system, a system which many within the sewer district do not want nor need.

Another fact that is not mentioned about the water system is that in addition to the yearly cost of maintenance and operation, each parcel owner will be responsible for the yearly inspection and maintenance of the required backflow device. This is a device required to stop the flow of well water from any of the parcels to the drinking water system.

It is obvious to me, based on looking into both systems and on Mark‘s reporting about them, that there is much serious discussion needed about these issues before we move on.

MATTHEW STARKWETHER: My family is one of the apparently many facing significant financial hardship due to the County's surge in Supplemental/Escape assessments. It sounds like my situation is a bit different as my property was reassessed when purchased (2014) and again when we built our house in 2019. The County has been appreciating our house at 2% a year, which can only be done if it completes re: Prop 13. They are now claiming it was never enrolled as complete, reassessing at more than twice the 2019 value, backdating to 2021, and collecting 4 years of tax on that. Looking to brainstorm with others in a similar situation, or if anyone knows a Property Tax consultant who can advise. Thanks!

A COUNTY NOISE ORDINANCE?

Vineyard Wind Fans Exempt, Of Course.

by Mark Scaramella

Agenda Item R9 on Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors Agenda: “Discussion and Possible Action Including Introduction and Waive First Reading of An Ordinance Adding Chapter 8.100 to the Mendocino County Code Regulating Noise.

The Sponsor is listed as “County Counsel,” but the Item originated with former Wine Industry Supervisor Glenn McGourty and is now being carried by his recent replacement, Wine Industry Supervisor Madeline Cline.

“Summary Of Proposed Ordinance Ordinance Adding Chapter 8.100 – Noise Control Regulations

This ordinance adds to the Mendocino County Code provisions prohibiting disturbing noises. Noises prohibited include the playing or operating of any radio, loudspeaker, sound amplifier, or other musical device or instrument, or noise produced by any machine, or device, or by any other means, which impacts any residential property and exceeds sixty (60) dBA, constant or seventy- five (75) dBA intermittent, as measured from an adjacent property line using a sound decibel meter, if occurring between the hours of 10:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. The ordinance provides several exceptions to this prohibition. A violation of the ordinance constitutes an infraction. The ordinance is also enforceable by civil means. …

The following activities shall be exempt from the provisions of this Chapter:

…

(F) Activities protected pursuant to Chapter 10A.13 of the Mendocino County Code, Right to Farm ordinance” — aka any noise emanating from a vineyard.

“Enforcement. This Chapter may be enforced by the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office or Code Enforcement by using any applicable state or county law, including, but not limited to, Mendocino County Code Chapter 1.08, to achieve code compliance through administrative fines and Chapter 8.75 to declare an offending party or property a public nuisance, pursue available civil remedies, inclusive of injunctive relief, or applicable criminal enforcement mechanisms.”

EXECUTIVE ASSESSMENT CONTRACT EXTENDED

Consent Calendar Item C4 from the March 24, 2026 Agenda:

“Approval of First Amendment to Agreement No. BOS-25-189 with the Law Office of Charles J. McKee, in the Amount of $0, for a Total of $160,000, to provide Management and County Counsel Assessment Services, Effective December 16, 2025, through a New End Date of April 30, 2026 (Original End Date: March 31, 2026)”

Discussion:

“On December 16, 2025 the County of Mendocino Board of Supervisors approved Agreement No. BOS-25-189 with the Law Office of Charles J. McKee to provide management and County Counsel assessment services. Under this Agreement, the Law Office of Charles J. McKee assesses the County Counsel office's structure, workload and operational needs, and provides recommendations regarding the most effective long-term approach for the County. The proposed Amendment to Agreement No. BOS-25-189 extends the term of the Agreement to April 30, 2026, enabling the Law Office of Charles J. McKee to continue providing these services.”

As we wrote back on Feb. 19, 2026:

The contract with Mr. Charles McKee, the previously described $325 per hour South Lake Tahoe attorney/administrator who has been contracted to “assess” the County Counsel’s office and provide “executive management services,” ran out on March 31, less than a week before the application deadline the County has established for CEO applications (to replace outgoing CEO Darcie Antle). Mr. McKee’s contract will now be extended to April 30, 2026 without discussion. We still think this is an indication that Mendo has pre-selected its new CEO and is going through the motions of an unbiased recruiting process. After more than four months performing his ill-defined and wasteful “executive management services,” it’s highly likely that Mr. McKee will be able to claim that he can successfully accomplish the challenging and complicated task of “balancing” Mendo’s “Pacific coastline and redwoods to our vineyards and rural communities.” But if you want to help the County pretend that the CEO recruiting is open, merit-based and above-board, feel free to apply. The application deadline is April 6, 2026 and the “anticipated start date” is “July or August 2026.”

Back in December he County Counsel’s office (i.e., the recently rehired as “interim” County Counsel Kit Elliott) contracted (on the consent calendar with no discussion or rationale) with an attorney in South Lake Tahoe named Charles J. McKee to “provide Management and County Counsel Assessment Services,” from December 16, 2025 to March 31, 2026. The contract is for a whopping $160,000. Mr. McKee’s rate is $325 per hour. Again, that’s $160,000 for just over four months (almost 500 hours, equivalent to a full-time employee for 3.5 months) of “assessment services.” Mr. McKee is a former County Counsel/CAO (he held both positions simultaneously) for tiny Alpine County. According to the 2020 census, Alpine County is the smallest County in the state with a population just a little more than Boonville at 1,204, about 1,000 of whom are adults. About two-thirds of the homes in Alpine County are vacant, meaning mainly vacation rentals. Alpine County’s county seat is the town of Markleeville with a population of 191 in 2020.

Mr. McKee retired as CEO of Monterey County (Salinas) after 19 years, prior to which he had been Monterey County Counsel for 16 years. He has also been president of the Monterey County Bar Association and “legal advisor” to the California State Association of Counties.

According to the terms of the contract Mr. McKee will perform “general services,” “executive management services,” an assessment of the County Counsel’s office and its “structure, workload, staffing, effectiveness, service delivery and intra-County relations.” He will also “collaborate with and assist the Acting and/or Interim County Counsel on office operations and County legal issues,” and, of course, “assist with the recruitment and hiring of the next County Counsel.” Mr. McKee will also receive $100 an hour for travel time to and from South Lake Tahoe and full reimbursement for travel costs (but not meals).

As far as we can tell no other bids were solicited or sought for this “service,” even though it is well above the contract value that the State Auditor recently said required competitive bids. The Supervisors’ original approval and extension of this contract on the consent calendar without discussion proves again, if any more proof was needed, that the Supervisors are not paying any attention to what’s going on right under their noses or how much their “staff” is spending.

Prediction (again): Mr. McKee will recommend, recruit and hire himself as either the next County Counsel or the next CEO.

LIA HOLBROOK FROM MENDOCINO COMMUNITY FOUNDATION TO SPEAK MONDAY

The public is invited to hear Lia Holbrook from the Mendocino Community Foundation speak Monday at noon. She will talk about what MCF does, about how money can be invested with them that benefits our community and brings returns, and about what projects they invest with locally.

Lia will speak to the Soroptimist of Noyo Sunrise at the Senior Center community room (across from the cafeteria) 12-1. Public invited.

CHICKEN BONES IN COFFEE CANS

Full Moon Drum Circle April 1st, at 6 PM at Pudding Creek Beach

Spring has finally arrived. The next Full Moon Drum Circle at Pudding Creek Beach is happening on Wednesday, April 1st, Beginning at 6:00 PM

As usual, bring drums, shakers, tambourines, pots and pans, bells, and / or washboards, and flutes. If you may stay after sunset, you may want to bring a flashlight or headlamp. It will get dark at about 8PM

Everyone Is Welcome, Bienvenidos , Free

Rain will cancel.

Bring a friend and maybe bring a chair and bring a jacket.

We will have extra drums.

For more information, contact Sandy at 707 235-9080 or [email protected]

We will continue till around 7:30 PM

SMART TO BREAK GROUND ON ITS 9-MILE, $269 MILLION EXTENSION TO HEALDSBURG

by Austin Murphy

Crews work on the SMART tracks and the new platform in the background, looking north toward Healdsburg Friday, October 25, 2024. (John Burgess / The Press Democrat file)

Boring can be interesting — especially when it signals that SMART has broken ground on its much-anticipated nine-mile track extension from Windsor to Healdsburg.

Field work for that project is set to begin Monday, March 30, the Sonoma-Marin Area Rapid Transit agency announced Friday.

For this early phase of the work, which is expected to continue through April, technicians will use a drill rig to extract soil samples along the rail line’s right-of-way.

“Watch for crews drilling soil samples,” SMART posted on social media, “so the train will be on firm footing.”

Core samples pulled from various depths let technicians know what lies beneath the proposed rail line, said Bill Gamlen, SMART’s chief engineer.

“They’ll take cores out and you’ll literally see the layers of clay and sand and whatever else might be down there.”

Each of those layers behave differently under load.

Locations for the subsurface boring, SMART announced, will include Old Redwood Highway, Sargent Road, Syar Quarry, various spots between Matheson Street and North Street in Healdsburg, and the Healdsburg Station area itself, to be located at 300 Hudson Street — site of the historic Northwestern Pacific Rail depot that served the city from around 1891 until passenger service was discontinued in 1958.

SMART noted in its announcement that residents may notice “heavy equipment and flashing lights,” and may experience noise during drilling.

Collecting soil samples is especially important for those sections of the track going over water.

“We’ll be replacing most, maybe all of the (existing) railroad bridges, and we’re also going to be adding some pedestrian-bicycle bridges,” said Gamlen, who estimated the tally of new bridges in all at “seven or eight.”

“To design those foundations and piers, we need that additional geotechnical information,” he said.

The most ambitious of those will be a brand new span over the Russian River just south of Healdsburg.

SMART’s experts have determined the existing bridge can’t be retrofitted to meet modern engineering standards, and must be torn down.

How deep the augurs go depends on where the boring is done.

One extreme, said Gamlen, would be the Russian River.

“Those are long spans, so the piers supporting the ends of them are going to take a lot of load. We’ll be going pretty deep there, probably in the neighborhood of 40 to 60 feet.”

Asked about the sections of pre-existing rail line not near water, Gamlen said, “We’re in really good shape, because that whole railroad bank hasn’t been touched, it’s just consolidated nicely over the years.”

SMART, launched in 2017 and supported by a quarter-cent, voter-approved sales tax, operates on 48 miles of track serving 14 stations between Larkspur and Windsor, where service began in May 2025.

SMART’s Healdsburg extension is estimated to cost $269 million, according to the agency. Those funds have already been secured, through a combination of federal, state, regional and local grants.

On Monday, March 23, as a construction kickoff, SMART will host the “Healdsburg Project Open House,” from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Abel de Luna Community Center, 1557 Healdsburg Ave.

Community members are welcome to drop in and see detailed renderings of the planned new bridge over the Russian River. The span will include a section for the bike and pedestrian pathway.

SMART staff will be on hand to answer questions about the project. There will be children’s activities and light refreshments.

SMART anticipates opening the Healdsburg station for passenger service at the end of 2028.

(Santa Rosa Press Democrat)

SEIJ SUPPORTS STATE FOREST BILL

Editor,

In support of AB 2494…

This is a support letter for AB 2494 from SEIJ, a group of environmental and social justice activists long involved in environmental activism in Mendocino County, the site of Jackson Demonstration State Forest.

The alliance for Social, Environmental and Indigenous Justice (SEIJ, pronounced Sage) evolved out of activism to protect wetlands and the sites of many ancient Pomo villages in the footprint of the Cal Trans Willits Highway Bypass construction project. Priscilla Hunter, the Chairwoman of the Intertribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council was a member of and a spiritual and political advisor to this group. Ellen Drell, the Director of the Willits Environmental Center, and Madge Stronge, the former Mayor of Willits, are amongst our members, along with several other dedicated and brilliant environmental justice advocates.

Our local efforts have included participation in many state and local administrative hearings to build the record for litigation, community outreach and education on environmental and Native American social justice issues, advocacy for biodiversity protection, climate resiliency and Native American cultural resource protection, including defining and substantiating the area now called Jackson Demonstration State Forest as a Northern Pomo and Coast Yuki “cultural landscape” under CEQA, worthy of preservation and protection.

The members of SEIJ have been involved in the Save Jackson Forest Coalition since the very beginning of the local community uprisings that we believe planted the seeds for the eventual crafting of AB 2494. We have joined hands with tribes, climate scientists and organizations fighting climate change and pollution, both locally and statewide, along with recreation groups, native plant protectors, Pomo and Yuki Round House elders, high school students, Native basket weavers and herbalists, and the Democratic Party. (See attached Resolution from the Statewide Democratic Party in support of Tribal co-management and the application of traditional educational knowledge in the forward management of JDSF).

We write this letter in support of AB 2494 as a reflection of current state policy to encourage co-management by Tribes of state owned lands in their ancestral territory and its 30X30 climate change resiliency campaign. Saving the second growth old trees at JDSF will do much to save the quality of the air we breathe, and the habitat in which the critters roam. As well, changing the mandate from commercial logging will do much to protect the many Pomo/Coast Yuki cultural sites located at JDSF which have been severely and continuously adversely impacted by the logging, road building, and tractor skid trails at JDSF.

We do not believe that a sustainable forest habitat includes rotational logging every 20 to 30 years to pay for CAL FIRE salaries. Instead, the JDSF forest should be allowed to simply heal after so many years of clear cutting and Native American cultural site desecration. Take an aerial overview of JDSF and you will clearly see how ravaged the land is with slash piles, undeconstructed roads, and skid trails. We are glad that AB 2484 has developed a funding mechanism that will not require the extensive amount of commercial logging at JDSF that was undertaken to support CAL FIRE salaries.

We end with a quote from Priscilla Hunter, the Chairwoman, since its inception to her death of the Intertribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council, an organization of 10 Mendocino and Lake County Tribes which own 2,700 acres of their ancestral territory on Mendocino’s Lost Coast which they manage under a wilderness conservation easement. This organization believes that if they simply allow the forest to heal from several generations of clear cuts, it will regenerate itself into a forest of the diverse trees that were in place before the clear cuts. This forest restoration perspective is also supported by scientific studies. The science of restoration and conservation is very different from the past alleged science at JDSF that has focused on sustaining maximum logging production. It is time to change this paradigm in alliance with the Native management view of the Intertribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council. Here Ms. Hunter tells it like it should be regarding what Native American forest sustainability means:

The Jackson State Forest managers define sustainability in a manner completely at odds with our indigenous world view. “Sustainability” to them means being able to cut down redwood trees that can live for thousands of years and replant them in order to keep cutting the trees every few decades. The primary motivation for their sustainability model is money and job creation, not for forest health. In their rush to cut redwood trees, they fail to honor the vital life giving force of forests that are the very lungs of Mother Earth. Our view of a sustainable forest is a forest that sustains our culture, values and way of life, not one that is managed in order to be cut for profit. (Emphasis supplied)

This continues to be the view of the Intertribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council as witnessed by the Resolution they recently unanimously passed in support of AB2494. (See attached Resolution)

Even given this healing indigenous perspective of sustainable forestry, which SEIJ adheres to, there are still many forest lands in Northern California that are privately owned from which logs can continue to be extracted for profit as AB 2494 does not apply to privately owned lands. So the timber company outcry should be balanced against the virtue of honoring tribal sovereignty and co-management at JDSF as part of the reparative justice the state is now advancing from the Governor’s apology for a past of state sponsored genocide by way of his creation of the Truth and Healing Council. Our organization is grateful both to him and for the California Natural Resources Agency’s attention to Native American cultural resource protection concerns in its Policy on Native Stewardship that is currently being drafted.

This is a time for healing of wounds both to the forest and to the descendants of the local tribes whose ancestors were forcibly removed from their lands by violent citizen militias sponsored by the state. The savage history of clear cutting at JDSF went hand in hand with the brutality doled out to our local tribes. It is time to heal these wounds both to Mother Earth and to the Tribes. SEIJ listens to the voices of the Indian elders, including the voice of our dear departed sister in struggle, Priscilla Hunter, who would so enthusiastically support this legislation.

Thank you for your attention to this letter of support.

On behalf of SEIJ

Polly Girvin

Redwood Valley

KEEP THE HOUSE IN ORDER

Editor,

All of us, at one time or another, have had to make difficult financial decisions to keep a roof over our heads, food on the table and clothing for our bodies. Balancing wants versus needs is not easy-but is essential. Families who avoid those decisions eventually face far more painful consequences.

Our county now faces that same challenge. A proposed budget that does not balance, a State Audit identifying serious deficiencies, and public conversations about reducing services or even suggesting county bankruptcy is not an option. The status quo is not sustainable. Asking residents what they are willing to give up just to maintain basic services is not leadership.

Real leadership starts with clear roles and accountability. The Board of Supervisors must set policy and direction, while county staff must be empowered to carry out those policies without constant micromanagement. When those lines are not clear, efficiency suffers, morale declines and taxpayers lose confidence in their government.

With the retirement of the CEO, the county has the opportunity - and responsibility to hire a person that clearly understands their role, be given the tools to succeed, and be accountable for results. Most importantly that individual must have a concrete plan to address every finding in the State Audit and to restore fiscal discipline across county operations.

Protecting life and property must always remain the county’s highest priority. Money is the driver behind all decisions. That principle should guide every budget decision and every operational choice. Each county department must be responsible for balancing its own budget, distinguishing clearly essential services and those that are discretionary. Tough choices cannot be avoided – but they can be made fairly, transparently, and responsibly.

In any family, priorities are clear: you protect the most vulnerable first. The same principle must apply to county government. Frontline employees-the people in the field, behind the counters, and answering the phones-are the backbone of public service. Supporting them must come before expanding management layers or executive compensation. Strong organizations are built from the ground up, not the top down.

After more than thirty years working in municipal government, I have learned what works and what does not. Nothing was more challenging in my career than addressing the 2008 financial collapse, when balancing budgets had to be achieved under extraordinary pressure. Those moments demanded discipline, clarity and the courage to make the hard decisions. The same leadership is required now.

On June 2, voters have a clear choice. You can accept a path that leads to continued uncertainty, or you can demand responsible leadership that puts fiscal stability, accountability and essential services first. Choose a governing body that you trust to make difficult decisions with integrity-for you, your family and the future of our county.

Visit my website www.vote4evans.com or Facebook page Kevin Evans for Supervisor 2026.

Kevin Evans

Gualala

ANDERSON VALLEY WOOFERS

by Terry Sites

Everyone has probably had the fantasy of just picking up and leaving everything familiar behind. How great would it be to escape to somewhere new, get grounded and consider your options? Of course there are many obstacles to such a plan, which is why most people never get beyond the fantasy. The logistics are formidable and the expense considerable.

What if there was a way to accomplish this “time out” that was relatively simple? Would you do it?

By joining a program called WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities On Organic Farms) a good number of people have. Singles, couples and families are equally eligible. The WWOOF website explains, “Visitors (or WWOOFERS) participate in the daily life of hosts while receiving educational opportunities, meals and accommodations with no money exchanged.” The principle is simple. Without money very little complicated paperwork is required, removing one of the larger obstacles to a spontaneous adventure.

Visiting the WWOOF website will answer most of your questions about how to register and get started on your journey. There are both national and international hosts so you can stay close to home or travel the world. You are responsible for your own travel arrangements and expenses so it is important to keep that in mind. You will need to apply for a Visa for International placements. Once you arrive at your destination your daily needs for food and shelter will be taken care of by your host.

Each placement is unique so it is important to do your research before choosing your destination. The better you communicate your needs and expectations to prospective hosts the more likely it will be a successful match. If you are interested in organic agriculture you're a natural candidate. If you are looking for time and space to clear your head before making your next move in life, this program can serve you admirably too.

Keep in mind that hosts are very interested in the work that you can provide. A solid work ethic on your part is absolutely necessisary. The work can be hard so you really have to be prepared to put your shoulder to the wheel.

Cruising the Internet you will find many different opinions on the WWOOFING experience. Best to take online comments with a grain of salt. Your own personal communications with prospective hosts is your best road to a positive experience.

Where did all this come from? The idea surfaced in the UK in 1971. The focus was on teaching people to grow their own food sustainably. Sue Coppard was working as a secretary in London. She felt the need to connect with the countryside. It started out as weekend work parties. Soon longer stays were requested and accommodated.

Today there are independent WWOOF organizations all over the world. They have much in common, but each has its own way of operating. As of 2012 there were over 50 WWOOF organizations worldwide. There is a modest registration fee that varies depending on the country. There is an online newsletter that keeps members updated and informed.

Searching online for a locally posted work opportunity I found this description, which is fairly typical. “We are a small community tending an organic orchard nestled in the beautiful mountains of Mendocino County. We grow a large variety of fruit — cherries, apricots, pears, plums, apples, peaches, figs and persimmons. My name is Mario. I'll be your host. I am one of the owners and the person who has been caring for the orchard for 24 years. You will be a great fit if you are excited and interested in the opportunity to learn all about tending an orchard holistically, you enjoy camping and living outside, you would enjoy living somewhere wild and remote, you are community minded and excited to live and work with new people, you are flexible and able to go with the flow as farm chores can change daily, you enjoy having open-ended time and can be independent and you are excited to learn about holistic farming and forestry care.”

I have spoken with several Mendocino County WWOOFERS, both hosts and workers. One Boonville family traveled to Galicia in Spain and to the cloud forest of Columbia with their two young children. A Philo resident invited 15 different workers to her Philo School of Herbal Energetics including an Israeli and an Italian. One young woman started out in Chicago, and WWOOFed extensively in Boonville at the Anderson Valley Community Farm. Everyone I spoke with was positive about their experiences.

WWOOFING with their two young sons, Noor Dawood and Nat Corey-Moran are both Anderson Valley teachers. They feel that family participation works best if the host family also has children so childcare can be shared. In Columbia they helped to build housing using native bamboo and clay. Noor told me, “It was a unique way to experience day to day life from a broader perspective. It was a meaningful way to connect with other people and cultures.”

They brought home many recipes and wonderful memories. “Overall I think the most meaningful and memorable experiences of WWOOFING for us centered on good conversation over long delicious meals.” Lots of communication with their hosts before embarking using “What's App.” helped them to find the small farmsteads and intimate experience they were looking for. Her husband took a memorable predawn trip to a potato field with a team of locals who farmed potatoes together as the sun rose.

Remoteness presents challenges. In Columbia they took a bus to a small village where the host met them on his motorbike to lead them to a place where they could hire a “Willy” (jeep) to drive them and their luggage to the farm. Interestingly Noor found it easier to WWOOF when her kids were very little in 2018 (6 months and 3.5 years) than later in 2024 when they were older, shyer and more aware of the language gap. Noor described to me how it was a mixture of working hard, sharing philosophies and surprises. After a long hike to gather and bundle dry brush to burn in the village baking oven, neighbors appeared, one with a bagpipe. Their host pulled out his flute and they were serenaded as they worked. If you want to go as a family search the website for sites that welcome kids.

Small family homesteads are one way to go but for singles sometimes-larger operations that look for teams of workers works well. This set-up often appeals to younger WWOOFERS looking to work, live and share meals together.

Using modern technology, I was able to speak on Facetime with former WWOOFER Rose Flanigan. She told me she was calling from Oxford University and I could see a great hall with soaring columns in the background. Rose was 19 (2011-2012) when she came to Boonville from Chicago seeking some rural life experience. Working with Tim Ward, Renee Wilson and Alice Woolsey at the Anderson Valley Community Farm she learned first hand what it means to “go back to the land.” A very game participant, she lived at different times in a tent, a bakery truck and a camper van. She says, “It's a great thing when you're young and exploring to challenge your perceptions of the world and meet people. I'm really glad I did it.” Rose went on to WWOOF in Vermont and Maine ultimately spending four years in Nepal before ending up at Oxford.

Mary Pat Palmer told me that having young people in their late teens and early twenties around her was rejuvenating. The opportunity she offered to work and learn at her Philo School of Herbal Energetics was a popular one. She had lots of applicants. Her property included a separate building where her workers could live, cook and enjoy each other's company. This independence suited her and her crew. She points out that not every good worker is someone you would enjoy living in the same house with. Her volunteers stayed anywhere from a few weeks to a couple of years. She told me, “I was so grateful for all the help I got and for the people I met.”

There are other programs similar to WWOOF out there as well. One is WorkAway which you can check out on the Internet.

No matter what your age or circumstance if the chance to get your hands in the soil and take stock of your life appeals to you, this kind of life experience might be just the thing. At the end of the day all you really need is good health and a good work ethic and you're ready to WWOOF.

https.//wwoof.net

(This article first appeared in the locally produced and edited ‘Word of Mouth Magazine’s’ Winter 2025 issue.)

by Tommy Wayne Kramer

Because I was living in both NorCal and NorCaro, and because I wasn’t sure where I was registered to vote, and because I wanted to be careful not to accidentally cast a presidential ballot for The Cackler, I didn’t vote at all.

Last week I went out Low Gap Road to check on my status. It was not a surprise there were no long lines, or short ones, in voter registration; it’s a county office, y’understand. The lady was pleasant, efficient, asked me a few questions and gave me a form to fill out.

It was a long sheet with boxes to check, kinda like what you fill out at the doctor’s office but without having to lie about your daily alcohol consumption. I signed at the bottom and the nice lady tore off a small receipt stub and thanked me for coming by.

And I thought: Doesn’t she need to see a valid ID?

So I said: Don’t you need to see a valid ID?

“Oh no,” she said. “We have a copy of your signature on file. No ID necessary.” Well okay then!

As I left the big office I looked around. It has eight or ten desks on the floor, a series of private offices at the back, plus a fair number of female employees. I saw zero men.

I suppose that’s typical of most government agencies, including offices in the city of Ukiah and the other hives in the county.

But why? It can’t be talent or training or aptitude. That narrows it down to either discrimination or something I haven’t yet thought of. Either is possible, and at least one is illegal.

My New Car

Now that we are back among the walking living in Ukiah I decided I need a car, so I went out and got one.

It’s a used (2018) Ford and having spent perhaps 30 total minutes at the wheel I am completely certain that:

1) The car is smarter than me.

2) The car is better looking than me.

3) But my car is a hybrid so I can run faster than it.

It came with the original owner’s manual of more than 500 pages. That “five hundred” thingie is not a typo. When did you last read anything half that long? Only reading I’ve done that was close was the pre-nuptial agreement the wife made me sign many years ago.

Exciting stuff! The yacht, the house in Florence, the cubic feet of jewelry!

I should have had her sign one; I’d hate to be forced to give up my favorite baseball, the one signed by all the Cleveland Indians in 1961.

Any Coat In A Storm

There’s a good organization on the south side of Cherry Street that does plenty in helping put clothes on the backs of locals with wardrobe deficits.

Trophy the wife loaded up a big white plastic bag full of women’s clothing and had me drop it off. That I did, hauling the bag through a side door, into a laundry room and the waiting arms of a couple friendly women.

They opened the bag, took a deep sniff and handed it back. “Cigarette smoke. We won’t take anything that smells of cigarettes.”

And I wondered. I wondered what some underdressed woman standing in the cold and rain would think of having a warm winter coat, even if it suffered of Marlboro fumes.

It’s a policy that might be relaxed, or a new policy enacted where every donation gets run through the laundry.

Maybe not the mink coats or the Dolce and Gabbana evening gowns, but all the rest could spend an hour in the suds, then to the clothes rack.

Next stop: A wet, cold, coatless person.

Great Dog Option

Everyone, almost, should have a dog but a lot of people have legitimate reasons not to have one. I get it.

Oh, we’re too old, or Gee, we want to travel, or Golly, our house is too small. Whatever.

Out on West Clay Street the neighbors seem to have collectively and perhaps unwittingly come up a fine compromise of a sharing system. Although someone over there owns the dog, you could hardly tell by Blondie’s laissez faire approach to life.

Blondie is a good-looking gal of a certain age and doganality. She’s a quiet roamer who doesn’t stray far from home, whichever house that is. But the local folks look out for Blondie, and she pays them back with frequent unscheduled visits, and they pay her back with biscuits and treats, and she pays them back by not overstaying her welcome, and they pay her back by making sure she always feels welcome.

So there’s no need to worry about getting old or a vacation to Cleveland or the square footage in your home. All you have to do is buy a place on West Clay and wait for Blondie to come around.

CATCH OF THE DAY, Sunday, March 22, 2026

LORENZO CRUZ, 37, Ukiah. Burglary, petty theft with two or more priors, paraphernalia.

KATHERINE FOWLER, 45, Vallejo/Ukiah. DUI.

SKYLA GRINSELL, 28, Point Arena. Misdemeanor hit&run with property damage.

JONHY JUSTO-FERNANDEZ, 39, Ukiah. DUI.

KAMARA PAGE, 37, Ukiah. Ammo possession by prohibited person, bringing controlled substance into jail.

JUAN SANCHEZ-NUNEZ, 24, Ukiah. DUI.

MARCEL ZONIGA-PANTALEON, 46, Ukiah. DUI.

ONE EVER FEELS

Consider the veneer of nerve alongside
the lore of the ancient fern who is

its own lover. Or a wolf hiding
a howl up its sleeve. Whistle the whole while

the heist goes down and wish on your elevens,
owl. One lever starts the fete, one resists

the fetish verse. Take your role as silo or
foe and let the sun sing on that heft.

What can you do with gold? Above this filth,
this shit frees too. A slow kingdom arrives

just over the atmospheric river. Sing
the selfish river, the holiest thesis.

— Taylor Johnson

THE PISCES PARTY FOR RICHARD GIENGER

by Paul Modic

Here’s to Richard Gienger, my Whale Gulch homeboy and we both got out, congrats!

I moved up the hill to Richard and Nonie’s neighborhood in 1976.

When I visited they often gave me some weed to take home…

That was the year a lot of us started growing after hearing about $1000 manicured pounds the year before.

I kept getting poison oak, Nonie came over and noticed a branch of it right across my trail which I walked through many times a day.

One nice thing about Richard is he never seems mean, judgmental, and petty, like many of our peers, so kudos to him for going right to humor at any opportunity.

Yeah, we all started growing weed but Richard didn’t seem interested in chasing the Yankee dollar like the rest of us scammers.

I remember when Edwando said, “Richard refuses any government assistance, even food stamps. He’s a hard core hippie.” Hard core hippie, I like that…

The next year, 1977, we had a spring or summer meeting with Ranger Jennings on the Needle Rock road and that was the beginning of EPIC I’m pretty sure…

Richard began his lobbying for the environment in Sacramento taking multiple trips to the capitol…

That fall I got tossed in jail after being caught on the highway with the first pound I ever tried to sell and Richard and a couple others found out and went up to my cabin and removed all my hanging crop. When I got back and found my weed all gone I immediately went down the hill and found it hanging in the attic of Charity’s nursery school. I started drying it there and soon Charity sent over the enforcer, Ray Balliett who said, “Get your shit out of there and replace the firewood.”

The Sinkyone Wilderness State Park was named and created, protests blossomed and soon weed money mixed fluidly with environmentalism and tree hugging…

Once Richard and I had a head on collision on the twisting mountain road to town.

Our left headlights mashed together, I gave him forty bucks for being on his side of the road and we drove off…

He once said, “When we get to McNasty’s we get that feeling that we’re almost home.”

When Richard began lobbying in Sacramento for the trees and all that “cumulative impact” stuff, he would come back with his reports, there was a lot of information there and over the years he worked on his delivery, mixing in humor, often at the beginning of his talks.

He is a local hero, and did his own positive thing as the area went to pot.

So 80 wow, congrats old dude!

SUPPORT FAMILY CAREGIVERS

To the Editor:

My 102-year-old mother entered into hospice three months ago. While the hospice personnel were caring and professional, I realized that my mother’s care as she moved toward death would require more than our emotional support. We became experts in the two-person transfer to the toilet, administering medications and treating bed sores. All this 24 hours a day.

The hospice setting was exactly what my mother and we desired. However, the hidden assumption that her family would act as her primary caregivers showed that this system is flawed and not available to all who want it.

It is clear that my mother’s death at home was far less expensive than it would have been in a hospital. Some of those insurance savings should be allocated to provide more professionals available to support family caregivers.

Susan Jeffords

Palm Springs

WE?

Editor:

“When oil prices go up, we make a lot of money.” So said the president. “We” being oil companies, investors and campaigns they contribute to make more money. “We” the people pay more for the oil.

The president finds offshore wind turbines to be unsightly hazards for birds and whales, although he wants more permanent offshore oil drilling, to make up for the oil transport difficulties caused by his “temporary” war in Iran. That war has caused a spike in terrorism fears here in the U.S.

I don’t know if anyone in the “war department” at Mar-A-Lago is aware of the risk an offshore oil well presents for a terrorist attack, but given their usual response of “we knew it could happen and planned for it,” after it happened anyway, I wonder …

Anyone who remembers the cleanup from the Deepwater Horizon spill, or the Exxon Valdez, might be forgiven for being concerned about strategic, simultaneous sabotage of a few oil rigs along the California and Gulf coasts. Mix in some radioactive material, and … Yuck!

Maybe the president’s people have thought of it and planned for it, maybe not. Maybe it’s a risk they’re willing to take.

D.C. Galloway

Sebastopol

FUNDING TRUMP’S WAR

Editor:

To buy congressional votes to fund his illegal and immoral war, Donald Trump offers Americans relief from his illegal tariffs and cruel cuts to wildfire aid. Solving problems he manufactured — such an artful deal. Other funding ideas: ask his billionaire ballroom buddies to pay, using the trillion-dollar tax break in the Republicans’ big ugly bill? Ask fossil fuel owners who have done the most to stifle clean energy alternatives, the “oil-igarchs” who are the primary beneficiaries of Trump’s Iranezuela war-making? Ask his petro-state allies on the “Board of Peace,” or auction off that golden gavel he loves so much?

Bruce Hagen

Petaluma

MITCH CLOGG

3/22/26 - The periodic reappearance of this poem by William Butler Yeats is in itself a comment on the times. Yeats wrote it after the end of WW1, a hundred and seven years ago. It's as fresh as spring.

The Second Coming

By William Butler Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

It's tempting to offer some explanation, but your guess at the meaning of the various components of this poem is as good or better than mine. Yeats was a mystic, and the world's prospects, amidst the ruins of that particularly awful war, looked like doom (no less than today's prospects). "Spiritus Mundi" always stops me in my tracks, and the comments I read about the phrase don't help much. I settle for "spirit of the world," but that doesn't help that line be any clearer. I take it Yeats' lively spiritual concerns (he's from Catholic Ireland), which combined interests in religion with the tenets of mysticism, inspired this personification of a universal mind.

But--God!--is it just me or does "The Second Coming" suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome?

RETIREES, STATE WORKERS TESTIFY AND HOLD SILENT VIGIL URGING CALPERS TO DIVEST FROM FOSSIL FUELS

by Dan Bacher

Sacramento - Retirees, California State Workers, Third Act Sacramento and Fossil Free California members provided testimony and held a silent vigil with “Climate Lamentors” (see photo) inside the CalPERS Investment Committee Meeting on March 17 to urge CalPERS to divest from fossil fuel investments.

Ten people spoke at the public meeting at the Lincoln Park Auditorium in Sacramento about what they called “risky investments in gas and oil companies, while 15 activists dressed as “Climate Lamentors” in brown outfits displaying signs representing the impacts of fossil fuels.

The meeting came at a time when many pension funds throughout the country and world have recognized the risk of fossil fuel investments and have already divested from them, according to advocates.

“Globally, 1,667 pension funds with assets of about $40 trillion have made commitments to divest from fossil fuels,” according to a statement from Third Act Sacramento. “Full divestment commitments have been made by the State of Maine, the York City Employees Retirement Systems, NYC Teachers Retirement System, NYC Board of Education, District of Columbia Board, City of Chicago pensions, Baltimore pensions, Pittsburgh, San Diego, the Los Angeles Retirement System and the San Mateo County fund.”…

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/3/20/2374048/-Retirees-State-Workers-Testify-and-Hold-Silent-Vigil-Urging-CalPERS-to-Divest-from-Fossil-Fuels

A CALIFORNIA SHERIFF SEIZED 650K BALLOTS. Experts say it’s a big deal

by Raheem Hosseini

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco speaks at a news conference in Lake Elsinore, on Feb. 7, 2023.
Watchara Phomicinda/Associated Press

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco’s acknowledgement Friday that he seized more than 650,000 ballots in his inland county has drawn parallels to FBI raids in Georgia and Arizona and evoked a worst-case scenario for democracy monitors about how the Trump administration could undermine this year’s midterms.

Election security expert Gowri Ramachandran said the seizure by Bianco, a Republican candidate for governor investigating a group’s disputed claim of a 45,000-vote miscount in the November Prop. 50 election, resembled what happened in Fulton County, Georgia, where the FBI seized ballot boxes in January over President Donald Trump’s baseless claims of fraud in his 2020 loss.

As in Riverside County, the FBI based its Georgia investigation on claims by local election deniers and submitted an affidavit that was said to have omitted important information about those claims being deemed unfounded.

“The real danger is if this becomes some kind of norm or some kind of trend,” said Ramachandran, director of elections and security at the Brennan Center for Justice and a former law professor at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles.

Stressing that procedures already exist for requesting and conducting recounts by trained election personnel and under public monitoring, she added, “There should be a really high bar before people are allowed to take these ballots.”

In Ramachandran’s view, as well as the view of California’s top elections and law enforcement officials, that bar was not met by Bianco, polling third in the race to lead the state.

Bianco’s investigation has been criticized by both Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber, who called it “outside of the law,” and Attorney General Rob Bonta, who questioned the accuracy and completeness of affidavits submitted to a judge to obtain a search warrant.

Bianco confirmed during a Friday news conference that his office seized more than 650,000 ballots from the Riverside County registrar of voters and intended to hand-count every one as it followed up on a conservative group’s claims that November’s special election was marred by more than 45,000 excess votes.

Local election officials have repeatedly and painstakingly denied the group’s math, saying the Riverside Election Integrity Team’s self-described audit is a wildly misleading comparison of unofficial raw data with processed vote counts.

Accusing Bonta and Weber of trying to intimidate him, Bianco said, “The investigation will continue despite AG Bonta’s attempts to stop it.”

UCLA law professor Richard L. Hasen, an election law expert and director of his school’s Safeguarding Democracy Project, told “Fresh Air” host Terry Gross this month that the FBI raids in Georgia and Arizona previewed how the Trump administration could go about seizing ballots in future elections before they are decided.

In emails to the Chronicle Sunday, Hasen said such raids would amount to tampering with a foundational pillar of our democracy.

“Once the chain of custody of ballots is broken, we cannot have confidence in the outcome of the election,” he wrote. “Ballots could be added, removed, or changed.”

Outside of Trump’s unsuccessful bid for the Supreme Court to intervene, November’s statewide election in California has not been formally contested.

“No one tried to get a recount in the special election here in California because it wasn’t even close,” Ramachandran said.

Bianco said that his office had gotten a judge to sign off on a search warrant that allowed his officers to seize approximately 1,000 boxes of ballots, and an order allowing them to conduct a hand count under the supervision of a court-appointed master.

Bonta wrote Bianco three times expressing concern about his office’s investigation and asking him to pause it to “evaluate the legal and factual basis for your investigation.”

One issue that Bonta raised: It’s not clear whether Bianco articulated that an alleged crime occurred or that someone is responsible, the standard for establishing probable cause, the legal basis for conducting a criminal investigation.

Bianco said he didn’t know if a crime had been committed, and called his investigation “a fact-finding mission.”

“To be completely honest with you, I don’t want to find a $50,000 difference,” Bianco said, apparently meaning to say a 45,000-vote difference.

Though California has roughly twice as many registered Democratic voters as Republican voters, the crowded field of Democratic hopefuls has created a possible nightmare scenario for the Democratic Party, in which support is spread among so many candidates that two Republicans advance to the November general election. That means Bianco has a better shot at advancing — or even winning — than he would if there were fewer Democrats running.

Whether Bianco succeeds or fails in his gubernatorial bid, the fact that his elections office raid shares striking similarities with ones undertaken by Trump’s FBI indicates the president may have powerful sympathizers in California, where control of Congress could be decided in November.

“There is no better way to curry favor with Trump supporters in the gubernatorial election than by mimicking Trump’s unsupported claims of voter fraud and seizing actual ballots,” Hasen said. “Each episode raises the risks of intentional interference in an ongoing election to subvert its outcome.”

(sfchronicle.com)

NEW POLL SHOWS CALIFORNIA VOTERS ARE ‘DISENGAGED AND LARGELY UNENTHUSIASTIC’

by Grace Hase

With a little over a month-and-a-half before ballots hit mailboxes, a large swath of the California electorate is “largely unenthusiastic” about the crowded field vying to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom, according to a new poll from the Institute of Government Studies at UC Berkeley.

“I’ve never seen a gubernatorial election quite like this with so many voters disengaged,” Mark DiCamillo, the director of Berkeley IGS Poll, said.

The poll, which was conducted March 9-15, reinforced much of what other recent public polling has already shown: voters have yet to rally around a favorite — even as Election Day quickly approaches.

The top lines of many of those surveys seem to remain the same, albeit some minor jockeying between candidates with differentials often smaller than the poll’s margin of error.

The Berkeley IGS poll, which surveyed 5,019 registered voters — 3,889 of whom are considered likely to vote in the June 2 primary — also found that virtually every

one of the ten candidates had a higher unfavorable image rating than favorable among likely voters. Former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter and billionaire philanthropist Tom Steyer, both Democrats, had the highest unfavorable image rating at 37%.

Former Fox News host Steve Hilton, one of two prominent Republicans in the race, led in the IGS Poll with 17% support followed by his fellow GOP contender Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco at 16%.

Among Democrats, East Bay Rep. Eric Swalwell and Porter tied at 13%, followed by Steyer at 10%, former health secretary and Attorney General Xavier Becerra at 5%, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan at 4% and former State Controller Betty Yee and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond at 1%. The poll found 16% of likely voters are either undecided or are voting for someone else. The poll had a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points.

DiCamillo attributed the disengagement and lack of enthusiasm among voters to many of the candidates being unknown — only three have ever held statewide office, and they weren’t even topping the poll — as well as the wide range of issues at the forefront of Californians’ minds.

“I think none of them have been able to make the case that this is what I’m running on and this is what’s important,” he said.

Candidates could get that chance at two upcoming televised debates, though organizers are limiting who is on stage — a move that has sparked pushback from some of the excluded candidates.

Nexstar Media Group’s debate, which is being held on April 22, instituted a 5% polling threshold that invited only Swalwell, Hilton, Bianco, Steyer and Porter to the debate stage.

The March 24 debate hosted by ABC7 and the USC Dornsife Center for Political Future used what they called an “independent and objective criteria” to assess viability — a metric that produced the same candidates that will be in Nexstar Media’s debate plus Mahan.

Villaraigosa called the inclusion of Mahan, a centrist Democrat who was a late entrant into the race, a “biased and bigoted action by USC to manipulate the date to exclude every qualified Black, Latino and API candidate in favor of a less qualified white candidate.” Becerra also said he was “fighting for answers” about his exclusion from the USC debate.

“They figured out a way to bootstrap (Mahan) into the debate,” he said in a video posted to social media. “How? They rigged the formula.”

USC has defended its methodology saying that the formula for scoring the candidates was done blindly.

Villaraigosa’s attorney, though, sent a letter to debate organizers on Tuesday, criticizing the methodology and asking for them to “rectify” the former mayor’s exclusion or they’d have to pursue “other legal remedies.”

Despite the inability for some candidates to catch the electorate’s attention, Hilton and Steyer saw significant momentum between the most recent IGS poll and the one conducted in October. Hilton increased his support from 8% to 17% while Steyer, who has dumped more than $80 million of his own money into his bid, grew from 1% to 10%.

Melissa Michelson, a political science professor at Menlo College, said that while Hilton has increased his support, so has Bianco — potentially undercutting any confidence that Democrats may have had in a recent poll that appeared to show Republicans coalescing around Hilton. With the top two vote-getters regardless of political party set to move onto the November election, Democrats have worried that their candidates will fracture the vote enough that Hilton and Bianco will capture both spots.

“Whatever small sigh of relief Democrats may have been expressing in the last set of numbers is gone now because that risk of Republican versus Republican runoff is very much alive,” she said.

Porter used the poll results as an opportunity to fundraise, warning that Democrats could be locked out of the November election and making a case for why she’s the “best positioned” candidate to prevent that scenario.

Among Democratic candidates, Michelson said that it’s clear that Steyer’s money has paid off based on his surge in the polls. But for Mahan, who quickly amassed a sizable war chest and has two tech-backed independent expenditure committees supporting him, she said that he isn’t making “much of an impact” on voters compared to the “hype” around his entry into the race.

The IGS poll found 64% of likely voter said they had no opinion about the San Jose mayor compared to 15% who had a favorable view and 21% that had an unfavorable view.

The poll was completed just days before Mahan made several notable appearances on East Coast-based media shows including MS Now’s “Morning Joe” and “The Daily Show.” Michelson said that while most of “The Daily Show’s” audience is outside of California, voters are more tuned into national news than state or local news these days.

“There is still probably millions of Californians watching ‘The Daily Show’ so you’re still getting in front of all those California eyeballs,” she said.

Mahan also picked up the support this week of Majority Democrats — a group formed last year that brands itself as the next-generation of leaders who are willing to break with the party status quo.

“There’s a growing movement of Democrats getting back to basics and focusing on what it will take to ensure that government makes life better for working people,” Mahan said in an interview this week.

The group has a slew of other well-known Democratic centrists in its ranks including Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin and Texas Rep. James Talerico.

(San Jose Mercury News/Ukiah Daily Journal)

FROZEN IN TIME: THE DAY THE FERRY BUILDING CLOCK STOOD STILL

On the morning of March 22, 1957, San Francisco was jolted by its most powerful earthquake since the catastrophic 1906 disaster. Known as the Daly City earthquake, the magnitude 5.3 temblor struck at 11:44 a.m., centered just off the coast near the Westlake district. While it lacked the destructive force of its predecessor, the 1957 quake served as a terrifying reminder of the city’s geological vulnerability, sending a "primordial fear" through a new generation of residents who had never felt the ground move with such intensity.

The most symbolic moment of the event occurred at the San Francisco Ferry Building, where the massive mechanical clock tower suddenly ground to a halt. At exactly 11:45 a.m., the four 22-foot dials froze, marking the first time the historic timepiece had stopped due to a seismic event since the 1906 earthquake. This "frozen moment" became the defining image of the quake, as the city's most iconic landmark once again served as a silent witness to the San Andreas Fault's power.

Socially, the quake triggered immediate chaos and a frantic "duck and cover" response across the Bay Area. In Daly City’s Westlake district, at least 1,000 residents were forced to evacuate after a reservoir ruptured and homes suffered cracked foundations and collapsed chimneys. San Francisco's telephone exchange was so overwhelmed with calls that Mayor George Christopher had to plead with the public to stop using the lines. Even the courtroom was not spared; a high-profile murder trial of Rose Lucas, accused of killing her husband, a California Highway Patrolman was interrupted when the defendant shrieked for her children, and the judge, reportedly "pale as death," was forced to recess the proceedings.

Economically, the impact was relatively contained but significant for the era, with total financial losses estimated at approximately $1 million. Most of the damage was non-structural, consisting of shattered windows at San Francisco State College and merchandise strewn across the floors of department stores like the Emporium. However, infrastructure took a hit; landslides blocked portions of Highway 1, and a footbridge at Lake Merced partially collapsed into the water.

Today, the 1957 earthquake is often called the "forgotten" quake, overshadowed by the massive events of 1906 and 1989. Yet for scientists, it remains a critical case study because it was one of the first major quakes captured on modern strong-motion instruments, providing invaluable data on how the San Francisco Peninsula reacts to seismic waves. The Ferry Building, having since undergone extensive seismic retrofitting, continues to stand as a testament to resilient engineering, with its clock now powered by electric motors to ensure it stays on time, even when the ground does not.

CALIFORNIA NEARING NEXT DROUGHT

by Tom Philp

If California is entering its next historic drought, the weather cycle would begin precisely like this, with a stretch of summer-like weather before it is even officially spring.

A meager Sierra snowpack hovering at less than 50% of average is on track to melt away under a scorching sun and all but disappear in the coming days to near record-low levels. Temperatures in Southern California last week reached into the triple digits. In Redding, peak heat was more than 20 degrees above average.

In terms of whether this becomes a drought, “this could be that marker of year one,” said Michael Anderson, the state climatologist with the California Department of Water Resources.

California has enjoyed three above-average precipitation years with healthy snowpacks in a row. This abnormally wet pattern has lulled us collectively into a false sense of water security. That is all changing now, and rapidly.

Long-timers of the state are accustomed to the rhythm of these cycles. Reservoirs exhaust their reserves in the first year. Farmers in the San Joaquin Valley begin to pull even more heavily on groundwater. And governors declare a drought long after its onset, and only because there is some water management regulation in Northern California that requires an emergency exemption.

But this drought, should it be truly beginning, would feel different from any in the past. It would put western water management to the test in new and unprecedented ways. And it’s far from clear whether we’re up to the task.

The Colorado River is the backbone of the western water grid. It serves seven states and Mexico. It is the difference between Las Vegas and Tucson being vibrant societies or empty swaths of desert.

The heat dome stalled atop the Colorado watershed. For years, water agencies and various presidential administrations have failed to figure out how to permanently reduce water use. And now, its massive reservoir straddling Utah and Arizona, Lake Powell, is emptying rapidly.

The massive turbines inside the dam have reliably produced electricity for four western states for more than half a century. But the receding lake could render these turbines dry and inoperable sometime later this year, absent an unscheduled delivery of water from an upstream dam that ironically is known as Flaming Gorge.

What was once the unthinkable is the coming new normal.

“Droughts are usually where you kind of look at your big picture,” Anderson said. Looking about, our water picture is increasingly perilous and combative.

President Donald Trump and his federal Bureau of Reclamation operates the Colorado River. In California, his Central Valley Project manages some of the most important water infrastructure in the state, including Folsom Dam in Sacramento and Shasta Dam, the state’s largest, north of searing hot Redding.

The Colorado River has operated for nearly 20 years under rules that expire this year. Trump, of all presidents, gets to rewrite them in the coming months.

In California, the Central Valley Project is supposed to provide the necessary environmental flows through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta along with its sister system, the State Water Project, originating on the Feather River. And as an important aside, my spouse, Karla Nemeth, operates the State Water Project as director of the California Department of Water Resources.

“We can get through this year, not perfectly, but certainly without serious difficulty,” Anderson said. But next year, if it’s dry?

There is a tradition of the Central Valley Project and the State Water Project collaborating closely to manage with less water and balance obligations between the environment and its human customers. The alternative to partnership is a form of operational chaos, the systems operating under conflicting sets of reservoir releases and pumping regimes in the Delta, leaving it to courts and regulators to resolve conflicts. Are we mere months away from that?

Most Californians are blissfully unaware of the state’s many water predicaments. The reliability of water flowing from the tap lulls us into a false sense of security. For the insiders and experts like Anderson, droughts are hopefully teaching moments that test whether California can manage better in moments of shortage.

Here’s a scary thought. We could stay warm through Halloween.

Climate change, says Anderson, can mean “getting robbed in your spring and your fall.”

The weather is out of our hands. Our politics, however, are entirely manufactured. What is now missing, if we are truly entering a drought, is any sense of collective resolve among our leaders to withstand our future together.

(Sacramento Bee)

SOUND POLICE AT THE OSCARS

by David Yearsley

Friedrich Hollaender Platz, Berlin, Germany. A refugee from Nazi Germany, Hollander, who died fifty years ago this year, was nominated twice for the Academy Award for Best Original Songs: “Whispers in the Dark” (1937) and “This Is the Moment” (1948). Photo: David Yearsley.

A decade ago, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences at last summoned the annually assembled Oscar orchestra into the Dolby Theatre to play for the annual awards ceremony in the auditorium where the industry, come mid-March, doles out the gold-plated statuettes that give their name to, and provide the pretext for, this grinding epic of self-praise and promotion, bromides, and the occasional political broadside. The musicians have been in the house for awards night ever since, now not even hidden in an orchestra pit, but elevated for all to see at the back of the stage, even if through a scrim.

Before 2016, the Oscar musicians had been “live” only in the most tenuous sense. Holed up as they were a mile down Hollywood Boulevard in a studio in the RCA Building, their offerings were piped into the self-aggrandizing goings-on on the Dolby stage. The synchronization demanded by this demeaning off-siting was made possible through technology—that two-edged, supposedly budget-slashing sword that might seem to expand timbral possibilities and augment productivity, but that increasingly threatens to render costly human performance utterly redundant.

During the televised ceremonies that took place up to 2016, contractual obligation, it seemed, forced the Oscar host to acknowledge the orchestra and its conductor. An embarrassed shot of the banished musicians would flicker across screens at home and above the Dolby stage.

Broadway musicians went on strike to fight for their “liveness,” along with better pay and working conditions, back in 2004. Subsequent walkouts have been threatened as members of the union—the American Federation of Musicians—in New York and Los Angeles have sought to protect their professions from replacement by the pre-recorded and the real-time robotic. A 2024 agreement between the movie studios and the union holds until the beginning of next year and protects the actual from incursions of the artificial.

As the expiration of that contract comes closer, the AFM staged a rally in Times Square in Manhattan just a few days before Oscar night. At the top of the list of objectives on the union’s website was “Protecting Human Artistry from AI Displacement.” One of the key battles is over music’s century-long servitude to the moving image since, as the AFM declares, “Musicians provide the scores for films, the soundtracks for series, and the audio for the world’s digital content.” The New York demonstration went unreported by all major media outlets.

Aside from the Oscar producers’ purported wish to enhance the “human atmosphere” of the ceremony, one of the main reasons given for the relocation of the orchestra to the Dolby back in 2016 was the increased effectiveness of the in-house musicians in silencing and “playing off” those award winners who go on too long while at the microphone, clutching their Oscar. These efforts have often been thwarted, most anti-heroically by Adrian Brody after he won the Best Actor award last year. He shouted down the on-stage sound police and went on to evade arrest and smash the record for the longest speech.

The 2025 Oscars ran to nearly four hours. The latest show squeaked in under three. This year’s viewer numbers were down nearly 10% anyway. Maybe the off-script, refreshingly disastrous speech is actually the main draw, rather than coy crosstalk comedy bits by mismatched pairs of movie stars stumbling through their flat gags before they finally get to the task of opening the envelope.

As for the enrichment of humanity that only live music can supposedly provide, it was ironic that last week’s ceremony sought most drastically to slash the event’s running time by dispensing with performances of the nominees for Best Original Song.

Perhaps another reason for this decision was to prevent Barbra Streisand’s tribute to the late Robert Redford from being overshadowed. From behind a podium rather than front-and-center at an exposed microphone, her spoken reverie was bafflingly underscored by the orchestra. The sonic shroud only masked and muddied Barbra’s words before surging with symphonic ardor as she seamlessly segued into a breathy rendition of “The Way We Were”—that high-water mark of tear-jerking Hollywood sentiment. There was not a wet eye in the Dolby. Streisand’s lament queried not so much the difference between the live and the canned, but between the live and the moribund.

An unavoidable concession to the dictates of the world market, the only exception to the best-song blackout came with the production-number performance of “Golden,” the global chart-topping hit from the animated movie KPop Demon Hunters. The song’s co-writer and queen crooner, Ejae, led a trio of detective divas in front of a packed chevron of dancers waving golden flags. The entire Dolby audience waved along with light sticks.

The space and time allotted to this literal showstopper, with its crowdsourced, interactive choreography, left no doubt that when the Oscar for their category was announced sometime later in the broadcast, the K-poppers would be the winners. The be-gowned Ejae mounted the stage, escorted by the half-dozen other composers of the winning tune. Too many cooks had clearly not spoiled this high-energy hotteok—the sugary street-food pancake that the super-slender demon hunters are seen to eat in the movie.

Choking back tears, Ejae spoke of her youthful dreams of becoming a K-pop star that she pursued despite derision of her voice and talents. She ended her comparatively concise remarks by claiming the award as recognition not of success, but of resilience. One of her co-writers, Yu Han Lee, then replaced her at the microphone, but the report of percussion echoed from the back of the stage, the lights dimmed, the microphone feed was cut, the orchestra started up, and the frustrated jumpings and gyrations of the cohort were silhouetted and silenced.

Earlier in the show, after one of the winners for Best Live Action Short had foiled an orchestra attempt to shut him up, the host Conan O’Brien remarked on returning to the stage that “I know we’re tight, but to retract a microphone on a man as he’s speaking… is hilarious.” Clearly, he didn’t think it funny at all.

O’Brien had nothing to say, however, about the gagging of the “Golden” collaborator. The producers must have told him backstage to stifle any comment.

Earlier in the evening, O’Brien had made a quip about the AI menace, slipping in a remark that this would be the last Oscar ceremony with a “human” host. The show’s final, pre-recorded segment called back to this crack with a parody of the scene from One Battle After Another, which had just been named Best Picture. In this spoof, O’Brien was made Oscar “Host for Life,” then shown to his office and gassed through the air-conditioning vent.

Music is sometimes hailed as a universal language, praised for its supposedly unique immediacy and capacity to express emotion and nourish human connection. After an OpenAI Korea celebration last September, one of the employees tweeted that his “fav moment from the launch celebration was hearing singer/songwriter Vince share that ChatGPT helped him write ‘Soda Pop’ from KPop Demon Hunters! It apparently gave him ideas to make it sound ‘more bubbly’.”

Strenuous denials followed from the creative team. AI may have helped with some brainstorming, but these aids to the imagination, if indeed they were used, apparently don’t count as cheating or a violation of the terms of the union deal of 2024. Autonomous artistic authorship of “Golden,” claimed along with the Oscar by no fewer than seven composers, was not to be doubted.

Yet it was both strangely fitting and bitterly ironic that the live musicians in the Dolby Theatre earned their paycheck from powerful entertainment corporations partly by silencing songwriters who may have been flirting with large language models, even as the models onstage are skinny indeed.

The Academy Awards centenary is two years away. Let’s see if live music on the movies’ big night makes it to 100.

Before he announced the winner for best song, Lionel Ritchie, who won the Oscar for “Say You, Say Me” from White Nights forty years ago, claimed in his potted lead-in that “stories cannot be told without music.” Oh, but they can.

(David Yearsley is a long-time contributor to CounterPunch and the Anderson Valley Advertiser. His latest albums, “In the Cabinet of Wonders” and “Handel’s Organ Banquet” are now available from False Azure Records.)

CESAR CHAVEZ SCANDAL DRIVES HOME WHY BLM, OCCUPY AND INDIVISIBLE DON’T RELY ON ICONS

by Joe Garofoli

One of many gut punches in the recent investigation detailing sexual assault allegations Cesar Chavez came from the young accuser who told her mom after she said the civil rights icon assaulted her: “Cesar Chavez is just a man.”

The young activist understood that truth decades before the #MeToo movement revealed that countless lionized leaders in virtually every industry had used their power to sexually abuse women and compel them to remain silent.

“There are comparable or similar horrors in basically every American institution in our history: politics, religion, business, academia, entertainment, media,” said David Meyer, a professor of sociology at UC Irvine and author of “How Social Movements (Sometimes) Matter.” “So you wouldn’t expect interest groups and social movements to be all that different, even if they claim that they want to be.”

But the era of iconic movement leaders has largely faded.

Meyer said he sometimes hears the frustrations of people who question why the pace of social progress is slow and “ascribe that to the absence of the charismatic leader. But (having an iconic leader) is a double-edged sword.”

While it can be easier for the public — and donors — to be drawn to a magnetic leader, being too reliant on one is a reason contemporary social movements often prefer to be leaderless or to decentralize power. The Sunrise environmental movement of young climate activists, Black Lives Matter and Indivisible are among those that empower local activist groups to carry their message instead of a single figurehead.

Plus, this generation of female activists is much more willing to call out abusive men than the women who suffered silently — putting their movement’s health before their own — during the social movements of the 1960s.

In a statement posted online, Huerta, who co-led the farmworkers movement with Chavez on a seemingly equal basis for decades, said she kept her secret for the past 60 years “because I believed that exposing the truth would hurt the farmworker movement I have spent my entire life fighting for.”

Contemporary activists, meanwhile, are concerned that “if the leader becomes discredited, the movement collapses,” said Rory McVeigh, director of the Center for the Study of Social Movements at Notre Dame University.

That nearly happened with the Women’s March, which organized one of the largest national demonstrations in history the day after President Donald Trump was first inaugurated in 2017. In the days thereafter, a coordinated Russian bot campaign targeted Linda Sarsour, one of the four women who co-led the organization, with specious online attacks aimed at crippling the fledgling movement. A 2022 New York Times investigation found that “Russia’s troll factories and its military intelligence service put a sustained effort into discrediting the movement by circulating damning, often fabricated narratives around Ms. Sarsour, whose activism made her a lightning rod for Mr. Trump’s base and also for some of his most ardent opposition.”

The attacks splintered the Women’s March, and the ensuing controversy kneecapped its initial momentum.

The Russians were following a playbook U.S. officials had established decades earlier. For several years in the mid-1960s, the FBI conducted extensive surveillance of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., hoping to gather compromising information that would hurt the civil rights movement. King wasn’t alone. The bureau’s Cointelpro program, which ended in 1971, conducted covert and illegal surveillance on many of that era’s leaders who it considered subversive, including Malcolm X, the Black Panthers and Chavez’s United Farmworkers.

Aimee Allison, founder of She the People, an organization that elevates women of color in politics, said today’s young activists learned from the previous generation, which was “expected to make a Faustian bargain that if you want this (movement) to advance, you have to protect this leader.”

Allison said that because social movements often “attract a lot of true believers who hold so tightly to a shared vision,” many find themselves in that predicament. But that is changing.

“They’re saying, ‘You know what? We can hold on to a vision of a society that’s transformed in the way that we want, and we can demand accountability for people who abuse other people who commit these crimes. We can have both,’” Allison said.

Over time, movements began to de-emphasize having a sole representative. When the Occupy movement burst onto the scene more than a dozen years ago, calling attention to the broken political and economic systems that favor the 1% of richest Americans, its organizers made a point of saying the movement did not revolve around a single person. Instead, its motto emphasized: “We are the 99%.”

Initially, it worked well. The Occupy protests were structured as a leaderless, highly democratized body, where decisions were made by consensus. While that was attractive to those repelled by traditional politics, the structure made it a challenge to collaborate with more traditional organizations, such as labor unions.

The movement began to falter after splinter groups repeatedly hijacked its largely peaceful demonstrations by breaking windows of small businesses, lighting fires and clashing with police. An Occupy-led general strike in Oakland in 2011 drew national attention after splinter groups caused damage in the city’s downtown.

The clash highlighted a downside of leaderlessness movements: Nobody takes responsibility when a person or group causes damage in the name of the group — or confronts them by demanding that they stand down. The events in Oakland also showed that it is harder to control a group’s message when there is no leader. Ultimately, the repeated chaos repelled more people from joining the protests and broadening the movement’s appeal.

Allison said the good news is that the young women of color she works with now tell her that they understand that older activists internalized a message that they should make a sacrifice on behalf of something larger, even if it meant enduring abuse or covering up a crime. Younger activists tell her that they interpreted that to mean, “You sacrifice your dignity, your safety or even your body. They say, ‘I’m not willing to do that.’”

WHAT HAPPENS AFTER THE BOMBS DROP: SCIENTISTS REVEAL THE TERRIFYING GLOBAL AFTERMATH OF NUCLEAR WAR

by Rob Waugh

As the threat of a nuclear war intensifies, the terrifying reality of what could happen after the bombs explode may cause more fear than the initial cataclysm.

For decades, worst-case scenarios have projected that tens of millions could perish within minutes as nuclear warheads struck major metropolitan areas such as New York, Washington, Chicago and Los Angeles.

However, each of those fireballs have long-lasting consequences for the planet and everyone within range of their deadly radiation clouds.

Scientific research has suggested that the conditions caused by a series nuclear detonations around the planet would be catastrophic for human health, the environment and almost all other living organisms that some might consider being vaporized in the atomic blast a less painful fate.

Specifically, years of studies on the effects of nuclear explosions and the ensuing fallout have found that such a war, even an isolated conflict, would burn away the ozone layer, spread disease from unburied corpses and expose millions to a fatal illness called Acute Radiation Syndrome.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, a Chicago-based nonprofit that created the infamous Doomsday Clock, warned in January that the world has never been closer to total annihilation.

Recent events have only moved that timeline further along, with the war in Iran threatening to spiral out of control as nuclear-armed Russia has allegedly begun supplying Iran with military intelligence on US forces.

Meanwhile, the last remaining nuclear arms treaty between the US and Russia, called New START, officially ended on February 5, leaving no barriers on either nation's ability to build and test weapons of mass destruction.

Diseases ravage the planet

Following a nuclear war, diseases such as salmonella, dysentery, typhoid, malaria, dengue fever and encephalitis would spread widely among the survivors, according to a 1981 report in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Not only would survivors not have clean water, but insects would multiply rapidly, feeding on the corpses littering the streets.

Along with untreated sewage carrying more diseases, the rise of trillions of radiation-resistant insects would allow these pathogens to be carried from dead humans and animals to those who still living around the globe.

Medical equipment running on electricity may also be useless without generators in areas struck by blackouts.

A 1986 report entitled The Medical Implications of Nuclear War warned: 'Many familiar barriers to the spread of communicable disease… will be seriously compromised in the post-attack environment In their absence.'

'A host of enteric diseases not yet encountered by most Americans may be expected to spread widely,' the report continued.

According to the National Library of Medicine, these illnesses would include hepatitis, a viral liver infection that can cause inflammation and jaundice, and E. coli, a potentially fatal bacterial gut infection often leading to severe diarrhea, cramps and dehydration.

The ‘ultraviolet spring’

Nuclear war could strip away the ozone layer, leaving survivors to be blasted by cancer-causing ultraviolet radiation from the unfiltered sun. The sun’s intense rays could also kill off much of the remaining food supply.

Researchers first realized in 1970s that nuclear fireballs would produce nitrogen oxides, which would be carried high into the stratosphere and chemically destroy ozone molecules.

A 1975 study by the National Academy of Sciences, nuclear explosions could reduce the ozone layer by up to 70 percent in an all-out nuclear war where 10,000 megatons of weapons detonated.

However, that amount of damage is far beyond what the combined nuclear arsenals on Earth currently possess.

John W. Birks of the University of Colorado wrote: 'Once most of the smoke and dust was removed from the atmosphere and sunlight began to break through, the biosphere would not receive normal sunlight but, rather, sunlight highly enriched in ultraviolet radiation.'

The resulting increase in UV-B radiation would cause more skin cancers among surviving humans, and also have devastating effects on crops and wildlife.

Recent research suggested that the effects of even a ‘small’ nuclear war between, such as a hypothetical conflict between India and Pakistan, could potentially destroy up to 40 percent of the ozone layer.

Michael Mills, chief study author from CU-Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics said: 'We would see a dramatic drop in ozone levels that would persist for many years.'

'At mid-latitudes the ozone decrease would be up to 40 percent, which could have huge effects on human health and on terrestrial, aquatic and marine ecosystems.

The ‘black rain’

In Hiroshima, Japan, fires created by the first atomic bomb dropped in World War II carried ash and radioactive material into the clouds. The result was 'black rain,' which falls with an oily consistency almost like tar.

The rain fell on the city in the hours after the bomb exploded, leading to severe radiation burns in some cases.

The effects of the weather on radiation can be unpredictable, with the 1953 Nevada bomb tests leading to 'hot spots' where large amounts of radiation lurked.

Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found that lethal amounts of fallout could spread hundreds of miles from the site of an explosion.

Fallout is the radioactive dust and particles that fall back to Earth after a nuclear explosion. Carried by wind, it can mix with dirt or debris from the blast site and contaminate everything it touches.

Researchers writing in The Medical Implications of Nuclear War suggested that up to seven percent of the US could be covered in enough fallout to deliver a dose of radiation large enough to kill within two days.

Global starvation

Up to five billion are projected to die of hunger after a full-scale nuclear war.

Soot from burning cities would soar high into the air, encircling the planet. The vast cloud of smoke would rapidly cool the planet, reflecting sunlight back into space.

This would cause crops to wither and make it impossible to plant those same foods at least for the next year, according to a 2022 Nature study.

Firestorms would kill people even in bomb shelters

Doomsday preppers and other survival experts have long noted that the safest place to be during a nuclear attack is in a well-shielded fallout shelter or some type of underground basement.

However, scientists have argued that those in shelters could actually be killed by the fires started in the explosions.

Collapsing buildings and ruptured fuel tanks or gas lines could combine to ignite what researchers called a 'firestorm.' This type of 'fire wind' would rapidly rise to gale force, blowing inwards from all directions.

The research in the Journal of Public Health Policy suggested that even in bomb shelters and basements, temperatures would rapidly rise to fatal levels during the firestorm on the surface.

The fire would completely consume available oxygen, the researchers added, meaning that those who were not burnt to death would suffocate.

(DailyMail.uk)

"THE TV BUSINESS is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason.

"Which is more or less true. For the most part, they are dirty little animals with huge brains and no pulse. Every once in a while they will toss up a token human like Ed Bradley . . ."

— Hunter Thompson, ‘Generation of Swine’

LEAD STORIES, MONDAY'S NYT

Israel’s Missile Defense Under Scrutiny After Iranian Attack

Tehran Is Defiant After Trump Threatens Power Plants

Trump Says U.S. Attacks on Iranian Energy Infrastructure to Be Postponed

Gas Prices Have Jumped More Than 30% in Some States in Two Weeks

At New York Airports, Long T.S.A. Lines and Frustrated Travelers

The Supreme Court Could Make It Harder to Vote by Mail in the Midterms

Meteorite Crashes Through Roof of House Near Houston

More Air-Conditioners Crank Up as Heat Wave Wilts Large Part of U.S.

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

"Growing up" requires seeing and accepting that life isn't fair, you can't control everything, not everyone gets the pony, your feelings and subjective perceptions don't matter, actions have consequences, etc. We've been following an indulgent (and arguably a toxic femininity) parenting playbook for a few generations now and we've painted ourselves (and the next gen) into a fearful and emotionally weak corner with it.

*Night in the Desert* (1902) by Maxfield Parrish

23 Comments

Me March 23, 2026

Quite a depressing issue today. Quick, someone post some good news, please!

Reply
- Bob Abeles March 23, 2026
  
  While out for my morning walks of late, I’ve soothed my soul by reciting these lines penned long ago…
  
  The Canterbury Tales: General Prologue
  
  By Geoffrey Chaucer
  
  Here bygynneth the Book of the tales of Caunterbury
  
  Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,
  The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
  And bathed every veyne in swich licóur
  Of which vertú engendred is the flour;
  Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
  Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
  The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
  Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,
  And smale foweles maken melodye,
  That slepen al the nyght with open ye,
  So priketh hem Natúre in hir corages,
  Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
  And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
  To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
  And specially, from every shires ende
  Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
  The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
  That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.
  
  Bifil that in that seson on a day,
  In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay,
  Redy to wenden on my pilgrymage
  To Caunterbury with ful devout corage,
  At nyght were come into that hostelrye
  Wel nyne and twenty in a compaignye
  Of sondry folk, by áventure y-falle
  In felaweshipe, and pilgrimes were they alle,
  That toward Caunterbury wolden ryde.
  The chambres and the stables weren wyde,
  And wel we weren esed atte beste.
  And shortly, whan the sonne was to reste,
  So hadde I spoken with hem everychon,
  That I was of hir felaweshipe anon,
  And made forward erly for to ryse,
  To take oure wey, ther as I yow devyse.
  
  Reply
  - Chuck Dunbar March 23, 2026
    
    A perfect response to Me’s morning (mourning) plea–Good one, Bob.
    
    Reply
- Paul Modic March 23, 2026
  
  Don’t read the depressing stuff, just check out the headline, sigh, and move on, well, it works for me…
  Dog Park Shit
  I was walking in the park yesterday and passed a guy standing awkwardly watching over his dogs. I went on and thirty yards away saw a very fresh dog turd on the trail and thought hmm…
  I walked on passed the guy’s car and only later did I think what I could have done: Go over to the nearby dispenser and get a dog shit bag, go back and bag his turd and then put the bag on the hood of his car. Then he would get the message, right?
  Though things are usually not what they seem: he could be planning to pick it up on his way back to the parking lot, it’s slightly possibly it’s not his, and there’s always plausible deniability because when your dogs jump around and run free (against the rules no one follows) he might have missed the shit.
  
  flock of birds greet me
  munching in dawn’s sweet delight
  river view window
  
  Reply
- cellist March 23, 2026
  
  FAKE A SMILE works, too…
  
  Smiling acts as a natural drug-free high, triggering the brain to release a cocktail of “feel-good” chemicals—specifically endorphins, dopamine, and serotonin—that boost mood, reduce stress, and lower blood pressure. Even forced or fake smiles can trigger these neurotransmitters, lowering cortisol and acting as natural painkillers.
  
  Physical Health Benefits:
  Reduced Stress: Decreases cortisol levels in the body.
  Lower Blood Pressure/Heart Rate: Induces a calmer state.
  Immune System Boost: Positive chemistry strengthens immunity.
  Long-term Health: Associated with increased longevity.
  
  Key Brain Chemicals Released:
  Endorphins: Act as natural, mild pain relievers and reduce stress.
  Dopamine: Creates feelings of pleasure and reinforces the urge to smile again.
  Serotonin: Acts as a natural antidepressant, regulating mood.
  Neuropeptides: Small molecules that facilitate neuron communication and fight off stress.
  
  There’s more?
  The Psychological Study of Smiling – Association for Psychological Science – APS https://share.google/KSdg0ksmnQlzBaI8M
  
  Reply
  - Paul Modic March 23, 2026
    
    Apparently ping pong is the latest mood elevator and cognitive enhancer…
    (see the nytimes story from yesterday)
    https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6900944/2026/01/22/ping-pong-why-athletes-should-play-more-table-tennis/
    I can’t fake a smile but my real ones make me realize how good life sometimes is…
    even when i try to fake one, just now, it turned genuine instantly, hmm…
    
    serene spring morning
    transplanted kale yesterday
    glowing and grinning
    
    Reply
    - cellist March 23, 2026
      
      Ping Pong at the Senior Center in Fort Bragg, CA
      Tuesdays Wednesdays and Fridays
      Tues 10am-12:45pm Wed 1:00-3:00pm Fri 11:15am-2:30pm
      Come join the fun! Beginners welcome! Friday time is subject to change due to special events.
      
      707-964-0443
      Redwood Coast Seniors | Activities https://share.google/KRJzYknIRpDXrV6EQ
      
      Reply
      - Paul Modic March 23, 2026
        
        I think the most important thing about the ping pong influence is
        that you are hanging out and doing something with someone, the rest follows…
        (i started going to a local game last winter, I’m the worst player but i enjoy the
        palaver which erupts often and stops the action… after a few hours of practice i’m
        ready to keep score for a game, but just like to volley around the best…)
        
        Reply
  - Marco McClean March 23, 2026
    
    Also loud forceful swearing has been shown to increase stamina, grip strength, and tolerance of pain. Getting a dog has numerous health and well-being rewards. And tea or coffee does a power of good for an hour or so. But then it all catches back up to you again when you’re bored of swearing or the dog gets old and dies, which they all do. And every once in awhile you skip the coffee and the withdrawal headache and bitter lethargy falls on you like a house. That would be when to resort to smiles, I guess. You could mix the techniques up, or rotate them on a schedule. I understand that some people smoke weed.
    
    Reply
  - Fred Gardner March 23, 2026
    
    Charlie Chaplin wrote the beautiful, bittersweet tune. It’s the soundtrack for the hopeful last scene of Modern Times (1936, the depths of the depression). Lyrics added later by John Turner and Geoffrey Parsons
    
    Smile, though your heart is aching
    Smile, even though it’s breaking
    When there are clouds in the sky
    you’ll get by
    If you smile through your fear and sorrow
    Smile and maybe tomorrow
    You’ll see the sun come shining through
    for you
    Light up your face with gladness
    Hide every trace of sadness
    Although a tear may be ever so near
    That’s the time you must keep on trying
    Smile what’s the use of crying
    You’ll find that life is still worthwhile
    If you’ll just
    Smile
    
    Smile
    
    Smile, though your heart is aching
    Smile, even though it’s breaking
    When there are clouds in the sky
    you’ll get by
    If you smile through your fear and sorrow
    Smile and maybe tomorrow
    You’ll see the sun come shining through
    for you
    Light up your face with gladness
    Hide every trace of sadness
    Although a tear may be ever so near
    That’s the time you must keep on trying
    Smile what’s the use of crying
    You’ll find that life is still worthwhile
    If you’ll just
    Smile
    
    Reply
    - cellist March 23, 2026
      
      Thought Jimmy Durante wrote Smile, ha.
      
      My father had a love/hate relationship with Jimmy Durante. We grew up watching him.
      
      My father thought Jimmy Durante should of retired, when he didn’t.
      
      I love Jimmy Durante’s version of the song.
      
      Reply
Norm Thurston March 23, 2026

Charles Mckee is retired from Monterey County after having served as County Counsel, and then CEO. He now lives at Lake Tahoe, and has a lucrative consulting business. I am not sure what his motivation would be to become the CEO of Mendocino County. But let’s say he is wrangling for the position. Would that be such a bad thing? He’s got the experience, and apparently he was well regarded in Monterey County. People move back and forth between consulting jobs and business/government jobs all the time. Just as long as he is fulfilling his contractual obligations, I don’t see it as an problem.

Reply
- Mark Scaramella March 23, 2026
  
  It’s the process and the cost that bothers me. Not the person. If this is just “consulting,” why are they paying $160k without the slightest discussion? The consent calendar? Come on.. There’s no mention of why the County Counsel needs this, what alternatives were available, or what the work product will be. If it’s pre-employment, it sounds like an underhanded way to recruit an executive, paying someone to get an inside track. And the timing: CEO about to leave, County Counsel is temporary… Inherently fishy.
  
  Reply
  - Chuck Dunbar March 23, 2026
    
    Exactly to all your points, Mark, especially the fact of no discussion. How could that make any sense? WTF?
    
    Reply
  - Norm Thurston March 23, 2026
    
    More transparency? Yes. Evidence of nefarious activity? I haven’t seen it yet.
    
    Reply
Katherine Houston March 23, 2026

Where are the pictures? AVA without color.

Reply
- Bob Abeles March 23, 2026
  
  Hi Katherine — Something you might try is right clicking on one of the blank areas and selecting “Copy Image Link”. Now paste that into the URL bar of your browser and press return. That will either display the image or give you a more useful diagnostic. If you’re unable to do that, try clicking on this URL: https://i0.wp.com/theava.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Night-in-the-Desert-1902-by-Maxfield-Parrish.jpg?w=888&ssl=1 which should then display the Maxfield Parrish painting or give you an error message.
  
  Graphical assets are cached separately from AVA text on a WordPress server. When the AVA page loads, your browser should follow the links embedded in the page to download the asset. Failing to do so could be a timeout (slow connection), browser plugin that blocks the domain wp.com, or a blocklist in your system or router that blocks wp.com.
  
  Reply
James Luther March 23, 2026

Thank you Tommy Wayne for the bit about Blondie and the old West Clay Street neighborhood. Quiet cheer, getting to be the best kind.

Reply
Koepf March 23, 2026

The Second Coming. Yeats
What it means: a warning that when order collapses, something dangerous takes its place. For Yeat’s’ time and era, Stalinism and German Fascism. For the concluding current era: probably the 1960s and virtue as it manifests in varied forms of righteous activism.

Reply
Mike Jamieson March 23, 2026

Re: the prospects of a nuclear war exchange on a global level, and MCT relaying the aftermath picture:
There are multiple types of players here that are needing to be factored in, as a reassuring measure. There are now-well documented events at American and Russian nuclear weapon/missile sites where advanced craft have intruded and at times turned off, and in one incident in Russia, briefly turn on, missiles with nuke warheads.

Those exhibitions over the decades are seen by many as messaging.

Here’s a link to a reporter’s statement when testifying to Congress last September….scroll down to Russian Papers for the info related to the Russian incident (Knapp was given documents by Col. Sokolov from the Ministry of Defense in a 1993 visit to Russia).
https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/George-Knapp-Written-Testimony.pdf

“They” often tell those humans they encounter that they dont generally intervene in our affairs because that would have a negative impact on our development. Even though clear govt records indicate unusual craft much faster than what we had in early 1945 were checking out Hanford as the first 2 A Bombs were being built there, the use in Japan didnt represent a threat to biological resources worldwide. Those resources are the key reasons that “others” are active here with various projects. (Evident from thousands of close encounter of 3rd and 4th kind reports.)

Since world war 2 “they” have been emerging in steps, in tandem with our tech development. I suspect with so many human pathologies roaring acutely to the surface, we may be empowered or able to outgrow them and thus be welcomed into a Galactic milieu.

Reply
- Harvey Reading March 24, 2026
  
  Utter propaganda.
  
  Reply
Me March 24, 2026

Thank you everyone for your thoughtful responses to my plea :-)

Reply
- Paul Modic March 24, 2026
  
  Now all you have to do to really go over the edge of worry and terror is read what Tristan Harris (co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology) has to say about Ai:
  (but really, don’t…
  why not have some lightness here and there, now and then
  to balance out the relentless negative rants?
  Per your request…)
  
  rainy kale wanders
  ate eggs three times yesterday
  good Ukiah trip
  
  Reply

Mendocino County Today: Monday 3/23/2026

23 Comments

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