Mendocino County Today: Saturday 6/21/2025

STRONGER west and northwest winds expected to continue for the interior through Saturday. Below normal temperatures are expected for the interior today. Temperatures warm Sunday and remain near seasonal norms next week. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): Happy First Full Day of Summer weather fans! We have some kind of overcast early this morning with 50F. Likely clear off by sunrise. It's looking like continued breezy this weekend before winds calm down next week.

CHANGE OF VENUE IN CUBBISON CIVIL CASE DENIED

by Mike Geniella

Mendocino Superior Court Judge Ann Moorman rejected a bid for a change of venue by attorneys for the County of Mendocino, who argued Friday that intense local news coverage of Auditor Chamise Cubbison’s contentious civil lawsuit against the Board of Supervisors prejudices the outcome.

Moorman brushed aside criticism in court filings made by a San Francisco law firm about local public scrutiny, including county lawyers raising questions about her own impartiality and that of other local judges.

“My fellow judges in this County and I decide outcome of cases based on the records developed during court proceedings,” declared Moorman. A judicial canon of ethics that demands judges stay “immune from public influence” is the bedrock of her judicial practices, said Moorman.

For now, the Cubbison civil case will continue in Moorman’s court. After denying the venue change, Moorman scheduled more legal briefings for August. She then put attorneys on notice that she wants to bring the case to a close by fall.

“I expect to hear oral arguments to be made by then,” said Moorman.

The Cubbison civil case has dragged on since December 2023.

Last February Cubbison resumed her duties as Auditor after District Attorney David Eyster filed felony criminal charges against her and the county’s former Payroll Manager Paula June Kennedy. The charges focused on $68,000 in extra pay for Kennedy. Moorman tossed the case at the end of a lengthy and frequently delayed preliminary hearing.

Cubbison’s attention then shifted to her efforts to recover 17 months of back pay and benefits from the County, and for damages to her professional reputation.

So far, the County has spent more than a quarter of a million dollars resisting her claims. Late last May the Board increased the contract value with Liebert Cassidy Whitmore in San Francisco where attorney Jacob is a managing partner from $200k, which they had exceeded at the time, to $400k, while extending the LCW contract for another two years to an amazing June of 2027.

The latest strategy was making a bid to move the Cubbison civil case to Marin County, creating more costly delays.

County attorney Morin Jacob of the law firm of Liebert Cassidy Whitmore did not respond to a written request Friday for comment on Moorman’s denial of the change of venue.

However, Jacob claimed in court filings on June 12 that a change of venue “is appropriate because of the extensive community and unfolding judicial bias against the County related to this matter.”

Jacob contended that the “overwhelming and slanted nature of the media coverage – regurgitating allegations of County misconduct without balance or scrutiny – has created a hostile environment that continues to intensify.”

“As this drumbeat of prejudicial reporting grows louder and more persistent, the risk to the integrity of this proceeding will only increase, making immediate transfer the only path forward to safeguard the County’s right to a truly impartial forum,” argued Jacob.

Cubbison lawyer Therese Cannata of San Francisco argued against the venue change, calling it “blatant forum shopping” in a formal court filing.

“It is driven by procedural gamesmanship and seeks to manipulate the legal system for strategic advantage,” said Cannata.

Cannata noted that a change of venue should be brought at the earlier possible time in a legal proceeding, instead of the County waiting 17 months.

Also, Cannata argued that “even if the County could demonstrate anything more than local news reports about events affecting a local elected official, the County cannot point to facts or legal authority to support transfer (of a civil writ proceeding) that will be decided by a judge, not a jury.”

Lastly, Cubbison’s lawyer ripped the County claim that news coverage and a judicial bias was creating public prejudice.

“The County appears to be claiming without a shred of evidence, that the judge hearing this civil writ proceeding has been influenced by local press coverage or community opinion,” said Cannata.

An irony is that Cubbison “was and is subject to the same, if not more public attention and potential bias.”

Cannata said the fact of the matter is that Cubbison was “scrutinized and her reputation smeared when she was suddenly suspended from her elected position and criminally charged with mismanaging public funds.”

County attorney Jacob in her most recent court filings wants the civil litigation to focus only on the narrow interpretation of a disputed county statute surrounding whether a “county treasurer” can be suspended if criminally charged. Jacob, who advised county Supervisors in October 2023, they could immediately suspend Cubbison without pay after she was criminally charged, seeks a “straightforward statutory analysis.”

Cubbison lawyer Cannata, however, contends the disputed state statute does not authorize a suspension without pay.

It also does not, Cannata argues in her formal response, “authorize the County CEO and District Attorney to withhold evidence that would have made the suspension illegal in all respects.”

Cannata said the Board of Supervisors’ hasty decision to order Cubbison immediately suspended without a duly noticed public hearing was wrong.

It “created a symphony of unlawful conduct for which the County now must be held to account,” Cannata concludes.

Moorman scoffed at the County’s complaints that comments she made in dismissing criminal charges against Cubbison, and the brief appearance of two judges in the courtroom at separate times during the preliminary hearing somehow constituted the entire court bench was biased against the Board of Supervisors.

Moorman said she personally doesn’t read local media accounts surrounding civil and criminal cases, and that she strictly adheres to the judicial canon of ethics.

Moorman is a widely respected attorney with experience in civil litigation and criminal cases in state and federal courts. She was elected in 2010 to the Mendocino County Superior Court and has been re-elected unopposed twice.

NO UKIAH ANNEXATION

Thank you to the over one hundred people who attended tonight’s Annexation Town Hall. When the crowd was asked “to please raise your hand if you support this annexation proposal,” not a single hand raised. There were many people who had questions tonight who didn’t get the answers they were looking for. It’s important that we hold our officials accountable and stop this power grab!

noukiahannexation.com.

ELISE COX (KZYX News):

At the Ukiah Town Hall on annexation Thursday night, Ukiah Deputy City Manager Shannon Riley laid out some unique ground rules — there were to be no statements or comments, only questions. Members of the audience asked that city staff would in turn ask the audience for a show of hands — who was in favor of annexation and who was against? Staff ignored the request. (It wasn’t a question.) Finally, someone from the audience took the microphone and asked the audience themselves. Not a single person raised their hands in favor of annexation.

NO THIRD CHANCES ON A VERY BAD DEAL

by Jim Shields

There’s an old saying that sometimes your second idea on something is oftentimes better than your first idea.

At the Board of Supervisors meeting this Tuesday, June 24th, the Supervisors are planning to take a second look at a land and tax grab promulgated by the city of Ukiah.

Here’s the story.

Exactly one year ago in June, the Supervisors, with the exception of John Haschak, voted 4-1 to approve a so-called tax-sharing agreement brought forward by the City of Ukiah.

At the time, I wrote a couple of columns and said on my Saturday KPFN show a number of times that Haschak was the only supervisor who figured out that Ukiah had hornswoggled the BOS with what looks like a very bad deal.

At the same time, Mark Scaramella, of the Anderson Valley Advertiser, weighed in with, “Lately it seems that Ukiah officials have realized that Mendo now has the most gullible and naïve board of Supervisors in County history. So Ukiah officials seized on the opportunity to rope Ukiah area Supervisor (and former Ukiah City Councilperson) Maureen Mulheren into their happy talk tax sharing sales pitch, aka an ad hoc committee Mulheren hosted out of public view. Predictably, Mulheren made coming up with a tax sharing agreement one of her top priorities, no matter how lopsided. And on Tuesday she got her wish: An agreement which would annex large chunks of unincorporated taxable properties on the outskirts of Ukiah into the City of Ukiah, thus transferring all applicable tax revenues — property, sales and bed taxes — from the County to the City of Ukiah, roughly estimated to be around $3 million per year. What does the County get in return? 1. Nothing tangible. 2. Nobody knows.”

Haschak explained his lone dissension on the scheme, saying, “Unfortunately, the Board approved a Master Tax Sharing Agreement without proper analyses done of how it would affect County services and finances. I was the lone dissenting vote. The tax sharing agreement allows cities to annex areas. This can be a fairly simple proposition in an area where there is just residential properties. However, when areas that are in the County have sales tax and Transient Occupancy Tax generating businesses, it becomes much more complicated and risky for the County. The County projects a loss of $3 million if, for example, the area north of Ukiah is annexed. This includes Raley’s, auto dealers, motels, and many other businesses (14 of the 25 highest sales tax generators in the County). Yet the County will still be responsible for coroner duties and other law enforcement activities, social services, mental and public health, and other services. This loss of income will affect the County’s budget unless there is a huge surge of economic development as the proponents claim.”

Moving forward to this past week, the UDJ’s Justine Frederiksen reported, “After a four-hour meeting full of discussion and public comments, the Ukiah Planning Commission decided Wednesday to continue a vote on whether or not to recommend four components of the city’s plan to annex a large number of neighboring properties that are currently under Mendocino County jurisdiction.

“My sense is that this whole thing was rushed, and there was a lot of people here with questions: how is this going to affect me, what is this going to do to my property?” said Commissioner Mark Hilliker after numerous residents expressed concerns about the annexation plan. “I think when people come storming in here and they’re unhappy about something, it’s because they don’t have information. The city needs to share and spread the information before they come to us to make a decision. I think that another public meeting, one that isn’t scheduled at 3 p.m. in the afternoon, is the best route to take.”

“This is a big bite to chew, and there’s a lot of questions that the City Council will have to answer about the city’s ability to provide services to all of the annexed areas, and whether the people in the city are going to see additional costs on their bills,” said Commissioner Rick Johnson of the city’s plan to essentially triple in size, explaining that he was not opposed to annexation, but to the amount of parcels that would be annexed. “And I don’t understand what the big driver for this is as well. Why does the city feel that they can do a better job of managing this area than the county can do?”

Recently, Sheriff Matt Kendall shared his thoughts on Ukiah’s sketchy tax-sharing and annexation plans:

“Over the past couple weeks I have received a lot of calls from residents regarding the annexation the City of Ukiah is proposing. When these discussions began my understanding was the initial move on this seemed to be driven by a need for the consolidation of water agencies within the Ukiah Valley. Recently the proposed map of the annexation was made public, along with it were many questions which have yet to be answered. It became clear that this annexation will likely have serious implications for the county. Based on this map I also have concerns the city may be picking locations of revenue and cutting out locations which could be an expense. One thing is certain, there will be lost revenues to the county, and we will likely see reduced services within the proposed annexation areas. Business leaders in farming, construction, and manufacturing are seriously concerned regarding the proposal and there are a lot of questions which will need to be answered. I am concerned this annexation could be a lose-lose for everyone and may have a negative effect on all of Mendocino County due to the reduction in revenues from businesses as well as a reduction in services for those annexed into the city. These impacts will be felt from Gualala to Round Valley. This isn’t simply an issue for the residents of the Ukiah Valley; it will likely affect every resident of the county in one form or another. This process has been moving at a very rapid pace. Clearly, we are on the edge of a very large decision which could have implications we are not yet aware of. Therefore, I am hopeful we take an eyes-wide-open approach while looking at these proposals. I am also hopeful we can take a step back and deeply study what the impacts will be for the residents in the unincorporated areas as well as those within the proposed annexation. I am certain there will be a balancing point we can find, I’m also certain it will take some work to find it.”

At Tuesday’s BOS meeting, the Supes will consider a proposal to terminate the June 2024 Master Tax Sharing Agreement between the County and the City of Ukiah.

For sure, this time around the Supes need to get this deal done right.

If you’re fortunate enough to get a second chance, take it, you’ll seldom get a third.

(Jim Shields is the Mendocino County Observer’s editor and publisher, [email protected], the long-time district manager of the Laytonville County Water District, and is also chairman of the Laytonville Area Municipal Advisory Council. Listen to his radio program “This and That” every Saturday at 12 noon on KPFN 105.1 FM, also streamed live: http://www.kpfn.org.)

FRANK HARTZELL: A bunch of stuff going down in Albion…

https://mendocinocoast.news/big-changes-in-the-works-for-albion-headlands-albion-flats-long-closed-kerry-jane-market-a-public-trail-to-the-north-and-kristoffersen-ranch/

SPECIAL FORT BRAGG CITY COUNCIL MEETING - MILL SITE WORKSHOP - Cotton Auditorium - Thursday, June 26, 2025, at 5:30 PM - In Person - Live Stream on City Website and Facebook

Agenda Item 1A - Engaging the Community in Shaping the Direction and Content of the Mill Site Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) Through a Collaborative, Transparent Process Focused on Land Use Planning. The Agenda for Mill Site Workshop has been published.

UKIAH CONSTRUCTION UPDATE - PAVING GOBBI WEEK OF JUNE 23

We’re entering the home stretch for Gobbi Street improvements and, if all goes as planned, paving will be completed from Orchard to Dora by the end of next week (June 27)! Anticipate significant traffic impacts and temporary closures during the following work: West Gobbi

During the paving prep and first layer of pavement on West Gobbi, a number of areas of unstable base were discovered. These are typically sections of earth that are largely clay and/or sand; in order to create a smooth, long-lasting street, additional treatments are required to stabilize them before the final layer(s) of pavement can be placed. This is why the top layer wasn’t finished last week as originally planned.

On Monday and Tuesday, June 23-24, those sections will be dug out and repaired and another layer of pavement (base lift) will be applied. Residents in the affected areas will be notified in advance regarding access to driveways.

The top layer (final lift) of pavement is scheduled for the evening of Thursday, June 26, from 4pm to approximately 8pm.

Striping is scheduled for the following week.

East Gobbi

On East Gobbi, work is beginning with grinding out the old pavement on Tuesday and Wednesday, June 24-25. This work is noisy and dusty, and partial or full closures of the work areas will be required.

Paving will occur at night on East Gobbi, beginning at 8pm on Wednesday and Thursday, June 25-26. Affected residents will be notified in advance of impacts to driveways.

Striping will occur beginning the week of July 7.

Main Street

With Gobbi Street completed, the reconstruction of Main Street will begin roughly on July 3rd. The work of grinding out the old pavement and laying base rock will take roughly ten days, and will begin at Norton or progress to the south. There will be lane and/or block closures in the areas of construction, but the street will be driveable when work is not in progress.

Following grinding, there will be approximately eight days of laying base rock. Again, the street will be open when not actively under construction.

Paving is scheduled to begin on July 29th, and is expected to take approximately seven days total. Striping will occur in mid-August. Thank you for your patience during this transformative project. Please drive carefully around construction zones.

Thank you,

Shannon Riley, Deputy City Manager

City of Ukiah

300 Seminary Avenue

Ukiah, California 95482

w: (707) 467-5793

DEEP IN CALIFORNIA’S TRUMP COUNTRY, OUTRAGE OVER A GOP BILL

NorCal’s rural right pushes back on GOP plan to privatize public land…

by Matt LaFever

Cow Mountain recreation area in Ukiah, Calif. (Thomas Delgado/BLM California via Flickr/Public Domain)

Cow Mountain, rising between Mendocino and Lake counties, is a favorite of rural Californians who value freedom, firearms and open space. Just two hours north of San Francisco, it’s a place where lifted trucks, dirt bikes and side-by-sides tear through trails carved into federally managed wilderness. Hunters post up at dawn. Gunshots echo from the public range.

For many conservative locals — off-roaders, ranchers and gun owners — that’s exactly what Cow Mountain represents: a wild, working landscape managed by the federal government but used and loved by the people.

So when a Republican-backed proposal threatens to sell off large sections of public land, including places like Cow Mountain, it’s not just environmentalists raising the alarm. Some of the loudest concerns are coming from the very conservative voters who helped send those politicians to Washington.

“I’m not blindly following Mr. Trump’s administration,” said Allan Schrange, a lifelong off-roader, Republican, self-avowed Trump voter, and president of the Mendocino 4x4 Club. “If he does something that’s not right in there, I’m going to be the first to raise a stink about it.”

Nearly a century after Congress designated Cow Mountain for recreation, hunting and fishing, that legacy could now be at risk. A provision tucked into a federal budget reconciliation bill by Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee would authorize the sale of up to 3.3 million acres of public land across the West. Maps created by environmental nonprofit the Wilderness Society and Outdoor Alliance show the public land that could be eligible for sale under the bill. Cow Mountain is on the map.

“There’s no way, no how it can be touched,” Schrange said. But when asked what he’d do if the bill passed, he didn’t hesitate. “I’m going to be the first to stand on every rooftop and say, ‘That ain’t going to happen here.’”

Cow Mountain is managed by the Bureau of Land Management and spans about 50,000 acres. It’s been treated like a giant outdoor playground by generations of Californians. The terrain is split between motorized and nonmotorized use: 25,000 acres for rigs and motorcycles and 27,000 for hikers, horseback riders and hunters. It draws passionate users from both ends of the political spectrum.

That contradiction, the conservative movement’s love of public land and their support for the party threatening to sell it, is something outdoor writer Todd Tanner has been warning about for years.

“Millions of sportsmen take our public lands for granted,” Tanner told SFGATE. “They don’t really believe that anyone would be reckless enough, or stupid enough, to attack the places we love. But if those landscapes are sold off, or given away, that will change in a heartbeat.”

Tanner, a former fly fishing guide and lifelong hunter, has spent years trying to get conservative people who enjoy outdoor recreation to question their assumptions. Back in 2020, he asked in Newsweek if conservative hunters, fishers and others would vote “against their own self-interests.”

That tension is especially visible across Northern California. Mendocino County voted blue in 2024, but neighboring Lake County went red. Heading east and north toward the Oregon line, the political map becomes a sea of conservative support. While the Sierra Nevada has been a Republican stronghold, pockets throughout the mountains are turning purple and vote for Democrats. Public lands and right-leaning culture have long co-existed across the rural West. But now, that arrangement looks increasingly fragile.

Rep. Jared Huffman, who represents the Mendocino side of Cow Mountain, called the Senate proposal a “vulture capitalist’s playbook.”

“Cow Mountain, like so many BLM-managed lands across the West, belongs to the American people,” Huffman said in a statement. “… Privatizing them would shut people out, threaten wildlife and ecosystems, and hand over decisions about land use to private developers with zero accountability to the public.”

Rep. Mike Thompson, who represents Lake County, described the bill as a betrayal: “Every American, regardless of party stripe, should be absolutely outraged. I know I am.”

Local officials are also uneasy. At a June board meeting, Lake County Supervisor Brad Rasmussen said, “I’m thinking we’ve got 75, 80,000 acres in Lake County that may be up for sale if this were to pass. … Hopefully it doesn’t.”

Rasmussen told SFGATE he’s spent “countless hours” hiking and riding motorcycles on Cow Mountain. He sees it as a recreational resource and an economic asset.

“I don’t want to lose public lands,” he said. “This land belongs to everyone.”

Schrange and his fellow off-roaders have long volunteered to maintain Cow Mountain’s trails and keep the landscape clean. He said many in his community are deeply invested in environmental stewardship, even if they tend to vote Republican.

“I’m all for my environment,” he said. “In my experience, many conservatives are huge environmental stewards.”

That nuance is what Tanner keeps pushing people to recognize.

“When people try to sell off, or develop, the places we hunt or fish,” Tanner said, “they’re attacking our outdoor heritage, and our families, and our way of life.”

For Indigenous communities like the Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians, the threat of privatization echoes a much older history: “This is part of our ancestral land,” said Jesse Gonzalez, the tribe’s vice chair. “We still have old traveling trails out there, thousands of years old.”

Gonzalez doesn’t share Schrange’s confidence that federal protection is enough. “We’ve always had to literally fight with this government,” he said. “And we’re not of the mindset that ‘they would never do that.’ We’re of the mindset: ‘Get ready, because they might.’”

If Cow Mountain were sold off, he added, it would be another page in a long history of dispossession.

“Would we ever have access again? Or is it just gone with the wind, like everything else?” Gonzalez said.

For Tanner, this moment is a test of loyalty, for voters, for hunters, for fishers, and for anyone who believes public land is part of America’s identity.

“When someone turns on you, or attacks you, you fight back,” he said. “No hunter or angler worthy of the name should ever support a politician who is trying to steal our public lands from us.”

(SFGate.com)

CHRIS SKYHAWK

TB?, 6-18, was the 7 year anniversary of my nearly fatal stroke, I’m pleased to say, that it WAS the anniversary, didn’t occur to me until several hours into my day. I’m pleased because maybe, over time, it will just become something that happened to me, I have learned a lot from the experience. And although I hope my body recovers more fully. I still don’t have use of my left hand, and my “walking” is a shuffling hobble, and I often use a walking stick. But the excitement of still being here after such a close call, is still strong, but the strange humor of this realm, the Universe is a very loving place. But it also inherently has a strange, dark humor to it. For example my stroke hit me on 6-18-18, during my runoff campaign for the 5th District Supervisor seat. They flew me to SF to place a drain in my head. That surgery saved my life, but in the weeks after I was not conscious and was experiencing a near death experience (NDE). The first thing I “remember,” I opened my eyes. I did not know where I was. There was a man to my left. I managed to ask: “Where am I?”

Man: “You are in the hospital”

Me: “What am I doing here?”

Man: “You had a stroke.”

Me: “You’re kidding me?”

Man: ”No.”

This interaction was in Late August, more than 2 months after the “event.” But I was later told I had been able to speak before that, part of my NDE. I was in a cave in Montana. Many things happened there. But when people visited me or Doctors asked me where I was I would answer, “Montana.” I don’t remember that at all. I can only remember the man telling me I was in the hospital! Strange humor, indeed!

KZYX NEWS

To our supporters, friends, and listeners,

This is a difficult time for small, community radio stations like KZYX&Z.

The Trump Administration has submitted its much-anticipated rescission package to Congress that seeks to claw back already approved funds for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) for the next two years. For KZYX that represents a potential loss of 25% of our operating revenues via the elimination of the CPB Community Services Grant program for FY 25/26 and 26/27.

As of this writing the House has approved Trump’s request and sent it up to the Senate where they can either approve it, negotiate parts of it and send it back to the House for an up or down vote, or leave it to expire unapproved. The entire process has to happen in 45 days.

To prepare for these potential cuts, the KZYX Board has prudently drafted a break-even budget for 25/26 making our own projected reductions and contemplating additional sources of revenue. The board is committed to regular budget evaluations throughout the year, enabling them to quickly adapt to evolving revenues and needs. Unfortunately, though, this potential reduction in critical federal funding does necessitate the need for adjustments to ensure the continued operation and long-term sustainability of KZYX.

What this means for our operations…

Because all our local music and public affairs programming is provided at no cost to KZYX via our amazing team of volunteer programmers, and because the only local content KZYX produces in-house is the local news, the difficult decision has been made to downsize our news structure and lay off KZYX News Director, Elise Cox.

I am so grateful for Elise and her dedication to keeping our listeners informed on issues that impact daily lives right here in Mendocino County. Her demonstrable enthusiasm for the news is evident to anyone who’s met her and we wish her nothing but the best.

What this means for the future of the news on KZYX…

Despite this challenging development, KZYX’s commitment to delivering vital local headline news to our listenership is absolute. We are proactively leading with innovative approaches and securing key partnerships with local news organizations to ensure that our listeners consistently receive the essential local information they depend on. This dedication drives us to fulfill our mission with unwavering resilience and creative ingenuity.

Thank you for your ongoing support and interest in KZYX. Please reach out at [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) .

Onward and Upward ~ Andre De Channes, KZYX GM/Director of Operations

LOCAL EVENTS (today)

THE LONGEST DAY OF THE YEAR, CALLS FOR A BEER!

Summer Solstice is here! A moment to pause, raise a glass and soak in that golden light. And what better companion for this day that reminds us better days are always ahead, than a beer brewed for the season itself?

Summer Solstice is our ode to easy days and warm nights right here in the Anderson Valley. Creamy, malty, and kissed with a hint of caramel, it’s smooth without being heavy: sunshine in a glass. No wonder it’s become a cult favorite over the years.

Whether you’re grilling, chilling, or just chasing daylight, this beer was made to be your companion. And while the solstice comes but once a year, the good news is Summer Solstice the beer is still flowing strong.

So here’s to an extra bit of day to lounge in, soft breezes coming over the hills, and a beer that tastes like summer feels.

www.avbc.com

We’ll be throwing a Red, White & Blue Luke party here at the Beer Park on the 4th of July!

Celebrate Independence Day, Anderson Valley-style—cold beer, hot grill, and killer live music in the Beer Park!

We’re firing up the barbecue and the taps starting at noon. Bring Your Own Meat and let us handle the grill, or grab one of our classic hot dogs and other tasty Fourth of July staples to keep you fueled.

From 2PM to 5PM, don’t miss Blue Luke, Ukiah’s legendary blues-rock shredder. A virtuoso guitarist with soul-drenched vocals and a magnetic stage presence, Blue Luke channels vintage blues, gritty rock, and funk-soaked swagger. Whether he’s riffing through originals or reworking classics with his signature fire, his live show is pure fireworks.

DJs will be spinning throughout the day to keep the vibes flowing. Come raise a glass, soak in the sunshine, and celebrate freedom with us. This is the Fourth done right.

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MENDO BASEBALL BACK THEN

by Andy Johnson

I started playing baseball at age 8 and still play in the Old Timers games in Laytonville every year but understand it may be over for now. We played ball at the same time. I often wondered if we ever played against one another. After college I played in a league called Redwood Empire Baseball League. There were teams from Fort Bragg, Laytonville, Point Arena, Willits, Novato, and Santa Rosa. Very competitive and fun. We also played SF teams like the SF Merchants, SF Spiders etc. — mostly black players plus some old vets, but all fun guys to play against.

I first played “summer ball” in Branscomb. The Harwood family made a diamond near their mill, and they hired a guy to take care of it full time. Grass infield, nice bleachers, and a very unique outfield which was 6 or 7-foot diameter logs laid end to end. As you know Branscomb is in the boondocks so teams, especially from the city were blown away when they saw that field. Lots of great memories there, especially one.

We were playing a black team from Oakland, and it was deer season. Well, everyone carried a gun then and if a buck happened by all hell broke loose.

So, it did, around the middle of the game a buck appeared on the hillside above centerfield and the guns came out. Down the foul lines the boundaries were lined with smaller logs so fans could pull up in their cars and watch the game while sitting on the hood having a cool one or whatever. Shots rang out, lots of them, even from a guy shooting from the dugout! Imagine what all the black players were thinking.

Eventually someone got the buck, and the game continued. I have told this story many times and people think what a bunch of BS. But there is proof. One of the Oakland players knew someone at the Chronicle and the story appeared in the sports section when it was green.

In addition to the nice field in the boonies, Arthur Harwood Senior had two sons Bud who went to Cal and played third and Jack who went to Stanford and played second. Arthur Senior had a real enterprise going at the mill and he would hire baseball players who his sons knew and offer them a summer job at the mill if they played ball. One of them was my high school coach Richard Matlock who pitched for San Jose State. The team was probably an A league caliber, and they killed everyone.

I mentioned Rich Robertson who was a freshman when I was in my second year at Napa. I thought I was as good as him, but the scouts did not agree. He got drafted after one year by the Giants who sent him to Santa Clara on a scholarship. He then went to the bigs and played for the Giants for several years.

I got my first baseball glove when I was 9, a Wilson A-2000. We had friends from San Diego who came to our ranch in Branscomb to buy split stuff every year and right next to their business was a boxing club. I was a fan of Rocky Marciano, and we talked about boxing a lot with them. They told us about the club next door and saw how interested I was, so on the next trip they brought me a present from that club. It was a card with a large picture signed by Archie Moore along with the baseball glove!

That’s all for now. I will continue with more stuff on baseball if you have not fallen asleep by now. I was a friend of the late, great Vern Piver and coached Jon DeSilva when I was pitching coach here in Fort Bragg. Vern was a great guy, and I have many stories coaching around him.

PS. Over the years I have read many things in the AVA that I would like to add to if you are interested. We both played baseball, pitchers no less. I pitched at Napa and enjoyed your articles on your past baseball prowess, one where you had, I don’t remember, 20 strikeouts? And especially the Giants. A teammate of mine pitched for the Giants in the 60s, the aforementioned Rich Robertson. Other things to mention are my employment with Mendocino County and people like Al Beltrami, Norm Vroman, Johnny Pinches (a good friend). I too went to Laytonville High, knew Reno Bartolomie, Budge Campbell et. al., the Bear Lady of Laytonville whom I was related to. I remember Jim Jones, Tim Stoen, all the older supervisors: Avila, Scaramella, Banker, Barra, et al, the Holmes Ranch in AV, the naming of Anderson Valley Way and how it came to be. Anyway lots of stuff over the years some of which may interest you.

ED NOTE: We look forward to more of Mr. Johnson’s tantalizing recollections.

CATCH OF THE DAY, Friday, June 20, 2025

JEWELINA ACOSTA, 35, Ukiah. DUI, failure to appear, probation revocation.

BASILIO ANGUIANO, 44, Ukiah. Failure to appear, probation revocation, resisting.

TYLER BATES, 21, Garberville/Ukiah. Conspiracy, failure to appear, offenses while on bail.

TERRY COUNTERMAN, 56, Fort Bragg. Domestic violence court order violation.

RICHARD DEWITT, 44, Yorkville. Trespassing.

JARED KIDD, 33, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation violation. (Frequent flyer.)

LOREN LINCOLN, 39, Covelo. DUI with blood-alcohol over 0.15%.

JAIME MARIN-JUAREZ, 28, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

RHONDA MOTTS, 53, Fort Bragg. Probation revocation, resisting.

EDWINA NIDEROST, 64, Ukiah. Disobeying court order.

LATOYA RENICK, 43, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, failure to appear, probation revocation, unspecified offense.

MELISSA SUNDVOLD, 40, Willits. Probation revocation.

AILESH SURTI, 52, Sunnyvale/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

SHAWN TURPEN, 42, Eureka/Ukiah. Controlled substance, damaging wireless communications device.

KATELYN WALKER, 30, Fort Bragg. Possession of personal identifying info with intent to defraud.

PHILLIP WINTERS, 41, Fort Bragg. Domestic battery, concealed dirk-dagger, probation violation.

IT’S KIDNAPPING, NOT DEPORTATION

Editor:

What is happening to us? We wear hoodies and masks as we grab people off the streets, out of their homes, directly from their jobs. We’re even chasing them down in fields where they’ve worked for years. Then the people we scoop up and drag away are put into unmarked vehicles and sent off to where? Nobody knows for sure. We look and act no better than the gangs and criminals we say we need to deport. How can any of us be OK with this?

No one argues against getting rid of criminals and terrible gang members, but that’s not what is happening. Now we have even attacked our U.S. senator, Alex Padilla, for the “offense” of trying to ask Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem an immigration question at her press conference in a federal building in L.A. He clearly stated his name and said he is a U.S. senator, but to no avail. I am appalled, disgusted and angered. He was handcuffed for simply doing his job as our senator. And the gaslighting that’s going on about what I actually saw happen only deepens my concern and anger. I am not OK with any of this, and you shouldn’t be either.

Janet Collins

Cloverdale

MEMO OF THE AIR: Good Night Radio all night tonight on KNYO and KAKX!

Soft deadline to email your writing for tonight’s (Friday night’s) MOTA show is 5pm or so. If that’s too soon, send it any time after that and I’ll read it next Friday.

Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio is every Friday, 9pm to 5am PST on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg and KNYO.org. The first three hours of the show, meaning till midnight, are simulcast on KAKX 89.3fm Mendocino.

Plus you can always go to https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com and hear last week’s MOTA show. By Saturday night I’ll put up the recording of tonight’s show. You’ll find plenty of other educational amusements there to educate and amuse yourself with until showtime, or any time, such as:

Johnny, by surly-chic Croatian band Atomsko Sklonište. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cjdlOj6--c

Tch, real mature, Jalen Olson. https://twitter.com/WUTangKids/status/1934279261499556056

And Pirro and the magnet. https://www.weirduniverse.net/blog/comments/pirro_and_the_magnet

Marco McClean, [email protected], https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com

GIANTS YET TO SEE THE BENEFIT of Devers deal as they fall to Red Sox

by Susan Slusser

Boston Red Sox first baseman Abraham Toro (29) forces San Francisco Giants' Rafael Devers (16) out a first base during the fifth inning of a baseball game in San Francisco, Friday, June 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

When Buster Posey conducted his first San Francisco Giants shakeup on June 4, the team won seven straight.

San Francisco’s top baseball official then stunned the industry by acquiring slugger Rafael Devers on June 15, but the Giants have since lost four of five. Friday, the Red Sox — who dealt Devers away five days earlier — came to Oracle Park and stayed hot, earning their eighth win in nine games by downing San Francisco 7-5.

The Red Sox’s top home-run threat was, until Sunday, Devers. Friday, they got blasts from David Hamilton, a two-run shot in the third, and in the sixth, a solo homer by Ceddanne Rafaela.

“It’s baseball, it’s a business,” Boston manager Alex Cora said before the game when asked about Devers. “He’s not the first guy that got traded, he’s not the last guy that’s going to get traded. … From my end, I turn the page, man. I’ve got 26 guys in that locker room that are ready to go. We’re in a good spot playoff-wise. It’s still early in the season, but the boys are doing an outstanding job staying in the moment. We’ve got a big series here and our goal is to win.”

There was a little jawing after the game for no obvious reason. Wilmer Flores said Red Sox closer Aroldis Chapman had yelled something as Flores was running out a game-ending pop up to first, and Flores stopped to ask him what he’d said. Chapman took some steps toward him and was held back as teammates from both sides started to converge. The umpire crew and coaches quickly dispersed the players.

“I thought he said something, I wanted to know what it was,” said Flores, who is known for his even demeanor and is among the least likely players to start any fuss. “I still don’t know.”

A pitch-clock violation was called during the at-bat, which perhaps irritated Chapman. “I guess?” Flores said.

Devers got a standing ovation his first at-bat from the Giants’ fans, and a lot of Red Sox fans, too. In the third, he created a stir with a blast to left center, but Rafaela caught it just in front of the wall. Devers was 0-for-5 Friday and is 3-for-16 with two doubles, two walks and an RBI with San Francisco.

The Giants had zero homers and went 2-for-10 with men in scoring position, but they did interrupt a string of three consecutive games with just two runs scored by scoring three in the first two innings. They handed them right back in the third and fourth — then gave up more in the fifth, sixth and seventh. A poor plan of action.

“We feel like we’re in a good position and then just couldn’t hold them down really from the third on,” manager Bob Melvin said.

Hayden Birdsong was the Giants starter and he had his worst start since joining the rotation in mid-May.

He gave up the two-run homer to Hamilton, Boston’s No. 9 hitter, and a single run in the fourth. In the fifth, things just went south altogether. Jarren Duran led off with a single and stole second and with one out, Roman Anthony singled him in and took second when Jung Hoo Lee missed the cutoff man. Abraham Toro then reached on Christian Koss’ error at second, which allowed Anthony to score. The damage to Birdsong: five runs, four earned. He hadn’t allowed more than three in his previous five starts, but when he missed Friday, he was behind in the count and then left a pitch right over the plate.

“It’s kind of been the story of the whole year. Whenever things snowball, it’s because I’m not getting ahead,” Birdsong said.

Koss also hit into two double plays, not great, but both came with no outs and the bases loaded and sent in runs. On the first of those, Hunter Dobbins had thrown only one strike in the inning and started Koss off 1-0, but he scorched a 108 mph grounder to second on the next pitch, a fastball at the bottom of the zone.

“There was probably some early eagerness that I shouldn’t had, especially with that first one,” Koss said. “I definitely could have seen a strike hit and hit it hard, but it still doesn’t matter at the end of the day.

“We had opportunities. I specifically had a couple opportunities, and had a fielding mistake, too. It’s one of those things that happen and we’ll be ready to bounce back from it tomorrow.”

Said Melvin: “In his defense, he’s a guy that doesn’t play a whole lot. You’re up there trying to help your team out, you know,the guy has to throw a strike in that situation. But maybe we need a little bit more patience.”

The Giants also scored a run without a hit in the first, when Mike Yastrzemski led off by walking against Dobbins, went to second and third on groundouts and scored when Hamilton flat missed Flores’ big bouncer to second.

That’s three runs without hits; the first that came in on an actual hit, well, wasn’t much of one. In the second, Yastrzemski sent Casey Schmitt home with a sharp shot up the middle that Dobbins ill-advisedly swiped at, knocking it down in front of the mound. Only Flores’ line drive to center in the fifth, which scored Heliot Ramos, reached the outfield.

The Giants again loaded the bases with two outs in the eighth but Garrett Whitlock struck out Yastrzemski to end the inning.

Before the game, Devers and Cora both said they hadn’t spoken since the trade but planned to say hi at some point this series.

“Nothing in this business is personal,” Cora said. “That’s something that, throughout the years, Xander Bogaerts is in San Diego, it’s not personal. Mookie Betts is in L.A., it’s not personal. Rafi Devers is with the Giants, it’s not personal.”

(sfchronicle.com)

‘If he’s Irish and a prizefighter marry him right off. If he’s Irish without being a prizefighter he’ll fight anyway, and if he’s a prizefighter without being Irish he’s worth - well, serious consideration at least…

…One would think the things you read about prizefighters and the way you see them represented in the moving pictures, that a pugilist kept in training by firing his wife from kitchen into the parlour just about so many times a day. That’s all silly. The healthiest men are the kindest men and pugilists usually are healthy. My Mike is, I can tell you that.’

— Mrs Cecilia McTigue, wife of Mike McTigue

SAN JOAQUIN RIVER RESTORATION PROGRAM SETS RECORD FOR RETURNING SPRING CHINOOKS, BUT SALMON ARE STILL IN CRISIS

by Dan Bacher

After Friant Dam on the San Joaquin River was finished by the Bureau of Reclamation in 1944, the once huge run of Spring Chinook Salmon became extinct. The federal government, in violation of the California Fish and Game Code, failed to construct a fish ladder or build a fish hatchery as mitigation for the loss of spawning grounds on the river.

Salmon returned to the river below Friant Dam for several years, but they had no way to get to where they once spawned and ended up dying in sloughs and canals and the run was no more. One CDFW biologist tried to save the remaining salmon before the run became extinct, but he received no support from state or federal authorities at the time.

But a group of anglers and environmentalists in the late 1980s began a movement to restore the run to the river. Twenty years ago, as a result of a court settlement to a lawsuit, flows were mandated to once again flow in a section of the San Joaquin River.…

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/6/18/2328775/-San-Joaquin-Restoration-Sets-Record-For-Returning-Spring-Chinooks-But-Salmon-Still-In-Crisis

The Indiana Fever have officially signed Gertrud Schlaghammer, a 6’8” former Olympic Greco Roman wrestling silver medalist and ex-German special forces operative best known for her role in Operation Quiet Fist that eradicated an invasive species of bears from the Alps without weapons.

Schlaghammer, 39, has not played organized basketball since middle school.

Known in international combat sports circles as “Esel-Halsschlag” (“Donkey throat puncher”), Schlaghammer isn’t expected to get many minutes until Clark is hard fouled. Then the plan is for her to not leave the court until she’s ejected.

“She doesn’t speak much English,” said Caitlin Clark, while removing an ice pack from her eye. “But when we first met she told me ‘No one touch you now tiny sexy bird lady.’ I cried.”

Schlaghammer will make her debut Thursday night against the Valkyries, assuming their players show up.

THE GREAT DISAPPEARING TRANS FREAKOUT

by Matt Taibbi

From the New York Times, on the Supreme Court ruling affirming a Tennessee ban on surgeries or the prescription of puberty blockers for minors. Note the language:

Here’s what else to know about the case, United States v. Skrmetti:

The treatments: The law prohibits medical providers from prescribing puberty-delaying medication, offering hormone therapy or performing surgery to treat the psychological distress caused by incongruence between experienced gender and that assigned at birth.

With the trans issue, even America’s ostensible paper of record has to speak in code, in its own pages. The Times couldn’t or wouldn’t use the word sex at the end of the above sentence, though it later used it appropriately when referring to a “federal policy requiring passports to reflect the sex on a person’s original birth certificate.” As if in protest, the paper swapped one preposterous bespoke language innovation (“sex assigned at birth”) for an even more nebulous and confusing one: “gender… assigned at birth.”

I’m an aging cis male without gender-fluid children, so according to current formulas of mainstream discourse my opinion counts as about 1/19th of a person. Still, I’d like to offer a meager observation. No topic in recent history has been language-policed more thoroughly than this one (I have friends who still won’t return calls because I reviewed What is a Woman?). However, because the “Kamala is for They/Them, Trump is For You“ commercial is widely credited with helping swing last year’s election, the usual Internet goon squads have gone mute of late, even after this week’s ruling. The Times even ran a think piece about the “new discomfort“ yesterday.

If we’re really at freakout’s end, let me be first to say, Ding, Dong, the Language-Policing Witch is Dead! This episode should be an object lesson in what happens when you try to tell people what they should think about things they can see with their own eyes, like a 6’4” biological male flashing the victory sign after double-lapping an NCAA pool full of bewildered young women. Awesome quantities of PR capital were expended denouncing those who booed as bigots. Still, the public wouldn’t budge, on that or related concerns, like the extant question of whether or not minors who can’t vote or drive have an absolute right to Lupron prescriptions. There were ways to talk sensibly and with sensitivity about all this, but no room was left to do so, and this is the result.

Unfortunately, it’s already clear no lesson will be learned, as was also made clear in The Times this week.

The modern version of the trans debate appeared as a scorching international controversy seemingly out of nowhere years ago. It was like opening your door to a seven foot stranger holding two huge theater trunks and asking to crash for a few years. Many in media were still in the not-wanting-to-be-rude phase of ideological engagement, and shrugged at a sudden cascade of op-eds and the addition of “T” at the end of LGB, assuming this was an extension of previous rainbow campaigns like gay marriage.

I can’t have been alone in assuming I was (like Ice Cube) Down For Whatever, only to learn we were actually being asked to co-sign an extremely involved proposition built on stacks of extraordinary new assumptions. A 2018 directive by the American Academy of Pediatrics explained something called the Gender Affirming Care Model (GACM). At the time, my first child was five and probably would have identified as a brontosaurus if I’d asked (which I didn’t, in the apparently mistaken belief it was too early for that sort of thing). If you go to a pediatric dermatology conference, which by chance I did around that time, you’ll see slide after slide of retch-inducing skin conditions followed by doctor-lecturers shrugging and saying, “Eh, just do nothing” for initial treatment. The AAP however now said, seriously, that “watchful waiting” for gender-distressed children was the same thing as conversion therapy for gay adults! Waiting was called “reparative” therapy. The feelings of the six- or seven-year-old in distress were to be obeyed so absoutely that birth certificates were to be changed, to eliminate all bureaucratic memory of the assigned-at-birth ex-person. This all seemed pretty hardcore. Could we be reading it wrong?

Nein! If you worked in media at this time you were constantly instructed not only in taxonomies of sexual identity more complex than German grammar, you were regularly told what parts of your vocabulary (and by extension, your being) were outdated and transphobic. Out of boredom years ago I started a bookmark folder called “Avoid the phrase…” to commemorate newly-exiled verbiage. It’s up to about sixty pages now. “Avoid the phrase sex change (see gender confirmation surgery below),” wrote GLAAD in one example, while the San Francisco Chronicle put readers in check with the headline, “Rejecting the use of ‘Latinx’ is Transphobic.” Another pamphlet helpfully advised, “Avoid the phrase ‘completed transition’ or any other language that implies that a transitioning person is ‘done,’ like a cinnamon roll in the oven.” Another suggested that in theoretical writing, “avoid only using old-fashioned ‘generic’ first names like Joe, Mary and Sue, which can sound singularly White.”

All this was accompanied by a confident belief that sex “assigned at birth” could be unassigned through a combination of hormone therapy, surgery, and social encouragement, which sounded nice until a product of affirmation therapy competed on a track or in a pool against oldthinking anachronisms. Once they could see it, the American’s general tendency to want to be understanding, and live and let live, collapsed under the weight of so many radical asks.

That should be clear by now, but isn’t. As the Court was preparing to hand down the ruling this week, the Times via Abundance author and podcaster Ezra Klein interviewed the “first openly trans member of Congress,” in a piece called, “Sarah McBride on Why the Left Lost on Trans Rights.” The discussion between Klein and the Delaware representative was jaw-dropping, both in its admissions about movement political tactics and the stance on Other People.

In the most revealing exchange, Klein (in the tone of a person expecting to be hit with a rolled-up newspaper for asking) wondered about “re-thinking and self-recrimination,” in the context of the loss to Trump:

I want to talk for a minute about the 2024 election and the aftermath. There’s been a lot of rethinking and self-recrimination among Democrats. One of the comments that got a lot of attention came right after the election when your colleague Seth Moulton, a Democratic congressman from Massachusetts, said: “Democrats spend way too much time trying not to offend anyone rather than being brutally honest about the challenges many Americans face. I have two little girls. I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.” What did you think when you heard that?

Here, even Klein had to speak in code. By “got a lot of attention,” he meant, “Moulton was ruthlessly dogpiled as a Trump-loving Nazi bigot until he repented.” Moulton’s campaign manager Matt Chilliak resigned in protest after his remarks, adding on X, “Millions of Americans today showed that they hate immigrants and transgender people more than they fear fascism.” A Massachusetts Democrat vowed to put up a primary challenger to Moulton, calling him a “Nazi cooperator“ in an email. Meanwhile, Moulton’s fellow Democrat Tom Suozzi was in the same boat after saying, “I don’t want to discriminate, but I don’t think biological boys should be playing in girls’ sports.” Left Voice denounced the “Democratic Transphobia” of both, writing, “One can see the cynical calculus: Would courting transphobic bigots yield more electoral victories than courting the exceedingly small transgender minority?”

Moulton protested repeatedly that while “some of the, you know, woke left just wants to cancel me,” there was also “a good number of them who agree with me.” In the end, both members took so much flak for “transphobia” that they voted against a House measure barring the participation of biological men in women’s sports.

This is what Klein really meant by “got a lot of attention.”

McBride’s answer was wild:

It wasn’t the language that I would use… The sports conversation is a good one because there is a big difference between banning trans young people from extracurricular programs consistent with their gender identity and recognizing that there’s room for nuance in this conversation. The notion that we created this “all-on” or “all-off” mentality, that you had to be perfect on trans rights across the board, use exactly the right language, and unless you do that, you are a bigot, you’re an enemy. When you create a binary all-on or all-off option for people, you’re going to have a lot of imperfect allies who are going to inevitably choose the all-off option.

What ends up happening is the left excommunicates someone who not only — Seth voted against the ban on trans athletes, but we would excommunicate someone who uses imperfect language — yes, again, not language I would use. But we would excommunicate someone who’s saying that there’s nuance in this conversation and use this language that we don’t approve of — yet still votes “the right way”? That’s exactly what’s wrong with our approach.

Translation: “So long as they bow to pressure on demand and ultimately vote the right way, we don’t have to excommunicate absolutely everyone guilty of ideological lapses.” When McBride said, “There’s room for nuance in this conversation,” what she meant, incredibly, is that a Democrat may temporarily express discomfort on the issue, provided he or she gets back in line in time to vote.

Klein didn’t blink at the idea that people with a point of view differing from activists are “imperfect” human beings, nor was there any embarrassment or regret about the idea of “excommunicating” people from something other than a church. That means no apologies to Canadian Dr. Kenneth Zucker after he was fired and denounced as a conversion therapist for suggesting occasional “Watchful waiting,” or to biologist Colin Wright after he was tossed from PayPal or Etsy for selling “Reality’s Last Stand” merch, or to any of the folks who were dismissed or reprimanded for putting a signature on the Harper’s Free Speech Letter with J.K. Rowling and fifty other people. As for admitting the possibility of actual wrongness (as opposed to political error), on any of these issues, that remains competely and utterly excluded. I lost another friend over the Shrier review because I’d “fallen for” Shrier’s premise that this era saw an explosion of interest in transition among young girls. When the British government commissioned a study into the causes of this “surge,” Shrier should have been vindicated, but her “social contagion” thesis was considered so ideologically abhorrent it could not possibly be right, no matter what the numbers said.

This issue from the start has been been presented as a single battle over “transgender rights” as opposed to what it was, a diverse list of wildly varying new demands. There’s a huge difference between denying an adult the right to transition and putting men with penises in women’s prisons. There’s also a big difference between opposing housing or employment discrimination against transgender adults and demanding the use of terms like “birthing persons.” Society was asked to accept all changes at once, and when voters said no to some, like eliminating the concept of “biological sex,” they were the ones deemed “imperfect,” not the activists who overshot the mark.

The Boston Globe in March took the (for them) extraordinary step of asking if Moulton was owed an apology ”now that so many publicly agree.” McBride and the Times got halfway to yes this week. The full concession, to Moulton, will come eventually. The rest of the country, meaning those who aren’t Democratic members of Congress, will have to wait longer. In a true culture war, it can take a long time to get to sorry, and an even longer time to take ownership of damage done to your own cause.

ON LINE COMMENT: I think the day my jaw dropped was when the NBA cancelled an All-Star game in NC because the state’s citizens voted for biological restroom usage. I couldn’t believe the NBA would have any stance, much less one to mollycoddle a group made fun of every 2.6 seconds in the league’s locker rooms.

MAKE AMERICA GRATEFUL AGAIN

by Russell C. Ball III

We live in the most materially prosperous era in human history. Over the past half-century, child mortality has fallen by two-thirds in the United States, medical advances have made lives longer and more comfortable, education rates have soared, and material comforts like air-conditioning, plumbing and internet access abound. Although our country faces many challenges, the progress of the past decades has ushered in conveniences and opportunities that previous generations could scarcely imagine.

Yet we are anxious, restless and often enraged. Why?

It’s not only about our circumstances. It is about how we perceive our lives. Although technology has elevated our standard of living, it has created a warped lens of comparison. Americans’ many anxieties — about the state of our democracy, among other pressing worries — are increasingly born out of envy. Rarely has envy been so easily provoked, profitably spread or deeply embedded in daily life. This collective envy runs the risk of cutting the threads that hold our democratic system and civil society together.

In his “Divine Comedy,” Dante Alighieri described envy not just as a personal sin but also as a societal toxin. In “Purgatorio” the envious are punished by having their eyes sewn shut — blinded to their own blessings, tormented by the success of others, which they can still hear about. That poem was written more than seven centuries ago. Today our punishment is the inverse: Our eyes are forced open, flooded with curated illusions of friends and strangers alike on social media. We scroll through images of other people’s vacations, seemingly perfect families, luxury homes and effortless success, and we start to feel that we’re falling behind, even if we are objectively thriving. There is a strong argument that social media can provide access to important information and a sense of community. However, the consequences of this technology and the slow drip of dopamine it administers present massive dangers to the well-being of our society.

Social media didn’t invent envy, but it industrialized it. It turned comparison into a business model. The average teenager spends almost five hours per day on platforms whose algorithms are finely tuned to monetize discontent. We have handed over the emotional development of an entire generation to corporations with an incentive to keep them scrolling and feeling less and less content.

Into this fragile emotional landscape stepped Donald Trump. His genius was not policy but narrative. He told millions of Americans what they already felt: You are losing. Someone else is winning. And it is not your fault. Others are to blame. He named villains — immigrants, China, coastal elites. He successfully rebranded envy as righteous anger. His political project was never about making America great again. It was about explaining why other people seemed to be doing better.

Ironically, essentially no one is taking advantage of America. The United States built the postwar order and wrote the rules of the global game. Our government designed the trade agreements and a financial system that benefited Americans. That’s why the U.S. gross domestic product is almost 60 percent larger than that of its nearest rival, China. American companies have historically dominated in science, technology, aerospace and defense. They lead the way in banking and capital markets, media and entertainment, biotech and pharmaceuticals, professional services and higher education.

But politics is emotional. It thrives not on facts but on feelings. When you live in a world where everyone’s life — viewed through the screens in front of you — looks better than yours, feelings of resentment abound. And they are easy to manipulate.

There is a real problem that fuels much of this envy, of course. America’s widening wealth gap is a major threat to our prosperity. That wealth gap, though, is not the result of foreign exploitation, government inefficiency or generous entitlement programs. First and foremost, it is a consequence of asset inflation. Over the past two decades, those who held real estate and stocks watched their net worth explode. Those who didn’t didn’t. Trump-era policies — tax cuts, deregulation, capital gains preferences — further widened this chasm under the false promise of economic populism. As those tax cuts are extended and expanded, the wealth gap — and the envy it inspires — will grow.

Americans are angry not because America is failing but because our current system does not feel fair. We are measuring our lives against an algorithmically amplified social media elite. Today we are less grateful for what we have and more bitter about what we think we lack. Out of this bitterness we are exposed constantly to hostile and tribal political discourse in which any notion of the common good has been lost. Compromise is now framed as a failure. We are left feeling as if the fabric that once bound us together is being irreconcilably pulled apart.

As in Dante’s vision of purgatory, our only path out begins with humility and an appreciation for the good fortune we do have. We must teach our children — and remind ourselves — that life’s meaning is not found in someone else’s social media posts. There will always be someone smarter, richer, more athletic or more attractive. Life is short and uncertain. Happiness and satisfaction are the most precious commodities. We cannot turn over the stewardship of our emotional well-being to companies that seek to make each of us feel inadequate in order to sell more advertising and boost profit margins.

We don’t need to make America great again. Instead, we must remember to be grateful for the many gifts bestowed on each of us who are fortunate enough to be the citizens of this great country.

(Russell C. Ball III is the chief executive of Wind River Holdings, a private investment company.)

WHEN JERRY LEE LEWIS married his 13-year-old cousin, Myra Gale Brown, in 1957, it sent shockwaves through the press and the public—and not just because she was a child. Myra was also his first cousin once removed, and the marriage took place while Lewis was still legally married to another woman. What followed was more than just a tabloid scandal—it was a cultural reckoning with power, gender, and the way fame can blur moral boundaries.

At the time, Lewis was at the height of his rock ‘n’ roll fame, a piano-pounding wild man whose swagger and raw talent had earned him comparisons to Elvis. But the moment British journalists uncovered the truth about Myra’s age during a promotional tour in England, his career crumbled almost overnight. Concerts were cancelled. Radio stations stopped playing his music. Fans and critics alike recoiled—not just at the age gap, but at the cavalier attitude Lewis displayed about it. “She may be young,” he reportedly said, “but she’s a woman.”

For Myra, the reality was far more complex and disturbing. She wasn’t simply a girl swept up in a love story—she was a child who entered a marriage where the balance of power was starkly unequal. In later interviews, she described a life that often felt frightening, with Lewis exerting control and sometimes violent dominance. Her voice has become one of the most important in telling the real story of what it meant to grow up in the shadow of a man celebrated for his rebellion but shielded from accountability by his fame.

The marriage lasted over a decade, and Myra would later build a life and career of her own. But her story—often overshadowed by Lewis’s legend—serves as a painful reminder of how girls’ lives have been treated as collateral damage in the making of male icons.

CARL VINSON

by Fred Gardner

Carl Vinson was a racist Congressman from Kentucky who in 1937, as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, helped push the prohibition of “marihuana” through Congress. (The US government had to teach those Mexicans how spell.)

Dr. William Woodward, a veteran lawyer/physician representing the American Medical Association, had testified before the committee that the herb might have medical uses and the state prohibitions were sufficient, there needn’t be a federal ban. Vinson kept insinuating that Woodward was speaking for himself, not the AMA. His harassment of Woodward was nasty and relentless.

On June 14, 1937, the prohibition bill —the “Marihuana Tax Act”— came before the full House. Carl Vinson was its leading advocate. Only four representatives asked for an explanation of the bill’s provisions. In response, Vinson recounted the Congressional finding that marijuana inspired violence and criminality. Commissioner Anslinger’s testimony was reported to the full Congress as undisputed fact. The question of whether the AMA agreed with the bill was answered thus by Congressman Vinson: “Our committee heard testimony of Dr. William Wharton (sic) who not only gave this measure his full support, but also the approval from the American Medical Association which he represented as legislative counsel.”

The Marihuana Tax act passed without a roll call and was enacted into law in September of 1937. As World War Two ended, Carl Vinson was put in charge of the conversion to a peacetime economy. He was named Secretary of the Treasury by President Truman in July 1945. Vinson helped create the International Monetary Fund and the U.S.-dominated new world order. In 1946 he was named Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. He died of a heart attack and was succeeded by Earl Warren in 1953.

JACK PERRY: I will say this again: if you turned on the news in 1975, when I was 14, the news would be dominated by the same tiresome subject, the fate of this tiny little country on the other side of the world, which American taxpayers have been subsidizing since its founding. United States has been sucked into one war after another at least in part as a result. This is after the United States along with the Soviet Union stopped the genocide of the Jews. So in addition to stopping the Holocaust, apparently is the obligation of every American taxpayer to subsidize the Jewish people in Israel until the end of time up to and including going to war. I AM SICK OF IT. You can craft every imaginable argument why it’s okay, but I AM SICK OF IT. And I know I’m not alone, I hear Dave Smith and a lot of other American Jews who consider themselves to be Americans and not crypto citizens of Israel. This is about dual loyalty in the end. I’m not an anti-semite. I have many very close Jewish friends and love them. But it’s one thing to demand not only prosperity and to some degree dominance in America and one or two other countries and at the same time the perpetual subsidization of this artificially created Jewish state.

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

The chance of this ending with Iran surrendering after a couple of bunker busters take out their underground nuclear facilities is very slim. So then you’re left with a longer war and either an open-ended occupation or a failed state at the end of it. As with Afghanistan and Iraq there is no endgame in sight. We’ve seen this movie before and know how it (never) ends.

LEAD STORIES, SATURDAY'S NYT

Sheltering in a Bunker, Iran’s Supreme Leader Names Potential Successors

Israel Kills Iranian Commander as Both Countries Trade Strikes

As Iran and Israel Battle, the Rest of the Mideast Fears What’s Next

An Iran Deal in Two Weeks? Hard to Achieve, Even if Trump Really Wants One.

Trump and the Great Wait for Israelis and Iranians

Trump’s Rebuke of Gabbard Signals an Uneasy Moment

ONLY 16% OF AMERICANS think going to war against Iran is a good idea. But the Democrats still can’t come out against it. (You know why.)

ACCORDING TO HIS OWN Government Ethics Office, Trump hauled in $57,355,532 for his stake in his World Liberty Financial crypto-scam, launched last year and another $12 million from a variety of grifts, including selling sneakers, colognes, watches, guitars and Bibles…

— Jeffrey St. Clair

ROLLING APOCALYPSE UPDATE

Iran sent a barrage of missiles into Israel on Friday that struck in several places, according to Israeli broadcasters and the country’s main emergency service. Two people were severely injured in the northern city of Haifa, the service’s director said in a television interview, and broadcast footage showed debris near one of the impact sites in central Haifa.

Both sides traded fire even as European ministers were meeting with Iran’s top diplomat in Switzerland to try to cool the week-old conflict. Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, said Tehran was not interested in negotiating an end to the war until Israel stopped its attacks.

“How dare you ask the international community to protect you from the consequences of your own genocidal agenda,” Israel’s ambassador to the U.N., Danny Danon, said to Iran’s U.N. ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani, in a tense Security Council meeting. Danon slammed Irvani, who criticized Israel’s attack just minutes before, for “playing the victim.”

Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Saar, suggested he did not believe a diplomatic breakthrough to curb Iran’s nuclear program would be achieved over the next two weeks, the period of time President Trump said he had allocated to give diplomacy a chance.

“I don’t trust their intentions,” Saar told reporters in Haifa, near where an Iranian missile hit earlier on Friday. “I don’t trust their honesty.”

(NY Times)

ANXIETY ATTACK

by James Kunstler

“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.” —Marcus Aurelius

You must have noticed by now how this Fourth Turning bidness disorders the collective mind. The churning zeitgeist is hard on the nerves, while something strange is birthed by mankind, the end of one way of life and the beginning of another. Everybody’s got a story, and most of them are pretty spooky — A-I Globalist hell… de-pop and neo-slavery…chemtrail death… lizard people…. caliphate on-the-march across Western Civ…World War Three…escape to Mars…. Mercy!

The last thing you might imagine is a tranquil evening in the town square among happy and prosperous neighbors, the dogs frisking and the children chasing each other as lights begin to twinkle against the lovely violet sky. Rather, you have to wonder just when is that hard rain a’gonna fall? When will some obdurate enemy try to bust a cap in your country’s ass? And at the center of this psychic maelstrom, the provocative visage of Mr. Trump.

So, let’s stipulate that it’s natural to be alarmed by events. But must you lose your mind? Many did during the Covid set-up, and they have not recovered. Most particularly the political Left. The Covid operation was supposed to rid the world of DJ Trump for good, and it flopped. What it accomplished politically for four years was to demonstrate that the Left cannot be trusted to run our national affairs. That, and the cumulative failures of lawfare, have made the Left crazier than ever — while the Democratic Party goes broke and bleeds out support-wise.

Meanwhile, the political Right struggles to hold things together, especially the morale of the people. The great national megaphones — CNN, The New York Times, et al. — are no help at all. They only multiply the mental disorder. And they will do everything possible to undermine the efforts of MAGA to reform a system that foundered under corruption and delusion. Where there is not gridlock these days, chaos breaks out. . . violence of action and opinion.

The focus of all this angst for the moment is Israel. Suspicion runs deep that Israel “owns” America, bends us to its will, treats us like a mere lackey in its quest to dominate the world. It does this, they say, through AIPAC, its chief lobbyist, stuffing money into every pocket and every campaign treasure-chest in DC. In reality, political payoff-wise, AIPAC, at $3.3-million (according to OpenSecrets.org) doesn’t hold a candle to the National Association of Realtors at $63.5-million, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, at $30-million, and the US Chamber of Commerce, at $29.6-million.

Of course, the AIPAC suspicion tends to redound upon plain-old, age-old hatin’ on the Jews. (Full disclosure, yours truly is one.) It’s true enough, for such a low percentage of the US population, Jews seem to run an awful lot of things here: Wall Street firms, Ivy League universities, medical research, Silicon Valley, Hollywood, Broadway, the news media. How to account for that? Well. . . it is said that in the shtetls of old Europe, the richest fathers married off their daughters to the smartest young men in the village. Hence, their offspring sailed into Ellis Island with a certain advantage. It could be as simple as that. What else might it be? Luciferian magic, some seem to think.

So now, obviously, Israel is engaged in trying to beat the crap out of Iran in order to persuade them to discontinue that country’s quest for deliverable nukes. Every other means of persuasion has failed, you understand, while Iran has never ceased to advertise its wish to “wipe Israel off the map” — a leitmotif not subject to disambiguation. Strange to relate, this has utterly inflamed the political Left against Israel and the Jews. Strange especially because until the day-before-yesterday the political Left in America was dominated by Jewish orgs, Jewish money, and Jewish individuals.

As we speak, Jewish Democratic Party lawyers run the Lawfare endeavor: Norm Eisen, Marc Elias, Benjamin Wittes, Michael Bromwich, Brooke Goldstein (Exec Director of The Lawfare Project org). Marc Elias has served as the Left’s chief election law finagler through three national elections, while Norm Eisen coached Special Counsel Jack Smith, New York AG Letitia James and Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg in mounting their cases against Donald Trump.

Now, ironically-to-the-max, The Lawfare project is battling against the wild outbreak of antisemitism on Ivy League campuses (surprise, surprise) — Harvard, in particular, where the antisemitic frolics are presided over by the university’s Jewish president, Alan Garber. So, now it’s Jew-on-Jew, which is just another angle on the political Left eating itself alive. In case you’re wondering, I consider the Jewish lawfare ninjas a disgrace to my ethnic group, for the simple reason that their years’ long exploits against Mr. Trump have been altogether garishly dishonest. The lawfare gang has done much more damage to our country than AIPAC ever has.

And also now, at this inflection point in the Fourth Turning, Mr. Trump stands by in Israel’s campaign to put Iran’s nuke project out-of-business. This dilemma has inflamed both ends of the political spectrum. Looks like Mr. Trump is very reluctant to commit the US to an act of war. He is apparently unconvinced that our bunker-buster MOABs can successfully penetrate Iran’s nuclear Fordo mountain stronghold. For the moment, he is playing for time, probably hoping that Israel alone can “finish the job” (de-nuke Iran) somehow without US intervention. There is even some reasonable hope that Iran’s mullah theocracy can be tossed out, at best by the Iranian’s themselves.

Israel is much-resented for beating up on its enemies. It left Gaza for dead after the horrific Oct 7, 2023, rape, murder, and hostage attack. The American Left has labeled Israel “Hitler 2.0” for that. The American Left is insane of course. The news media is working the story hard that Israel is now hated by everybody in the world, even Ol’ Tucker Carlson. The Jewish lawfare ninjas are just layin’ low on this one, which seems a bit churlish for such otherwise combative punks. Only Alan Dershowitz dares speak up for Israel, and he’s not associated with the Left anymore. It remains for Mr. Trump to keep a clear head about this while everybody else runs around with his and her hair on fire.

I will make a bold prediction: Iran will be successfully de-nuked. The world will be better for it. Eventually, world opinion about Israel will shift. The world will be grateful that Israel dared to take on this problem. Eventually, too, the lawfare ninjas will find themselves in court — but, this time, sitting at the defendant’s table on a seditious conspiracy rap. That will toast my bagel.

TULSI GABBARD IS A WARMONGERING FRAUD

by Caitlin Johnstone

President Trump has twice thrown his own intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard under the bus, repeatedly telling the press that the national intelligence director was wrong when she told Congress in March that the American spy network does not believe Iran is attempting to obtain a nuclear weapon.

To be clear, when Gabbard made this statement she was not voicing her personal opinion, she was repeating verbatim the findings laid out in the 2025 Threat Assessment of the intelligence agencies of the United States, which said “We continue to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that Khamenei has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003, though pressure has probably built on him to do so.”

Despite this, Trump has been publicly expressing disdain for his intelligence director, flatly saying “she’s wrong” when asked about Gabbard’s testimony on Friday, and saying “I don’t care what she says” when asked the same question about Gabbard’s statement earlier this week.

Rather than push back on the president’s crude dismissal, Gabbard took to social media to tell everyone that Trump is actually right about Iran, and that everyone who thought she said Iran isn’t seeking a nuclear weapon is imagining things.

“The dishonest media is intentionally taking my testimony out of context and spreading fake news as a way to manufacture division,” Gabbard said on Twitter. “America has intelligence that Iran is at the point that it can produce a nuclear weapon within weeks to months, if they decide to finalize the assembly. President Trump has been clear that can’t happen, and I agree. My full testimony below:”

Bizarrely, Gabbard accompanied this text with a video clip of her congressional testimony in March which in no way validates anything she says in her post. Nowhere in the clip does she utter anything about Iran being weeks to months from a nuclear weapon, and she explicitly says the words “the IC [Intelligence Community] continues to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and the Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized a nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003.”

A recent report from CNN says that according to US intelligence sources Iran is not “weeks to months” from a nuclear weapon but years, reporting that Tehran is “up to three years away from being able to produce and deliver one to a target of its choosing.”

This kind of post-truth society behavior, where one tells people they’re not seeing what’s directly in front of their eyes, is the kind of thing you only expect from Donald Trump and his most obsequious bootlickers. And what we are witnessing here is Tulsi Gabbard getting down on her knees and putting tongue to leather.

Tulsi Gabbard is a warmongering asshole, and a liar. She is helping to deceive the world into yet another horrible middle eastern war, and if she and her fellow warmongers succeed her words will go down in history as among the most depraved lies ever told.

This is the same person who tweeted back in March, “President Trump IS the President of Peace. He is ending bloodshed across the world and will deliver lasting peace in the Middle East.”

This is also the person who attacked Trump’s hawkishness on Iran constantly while campaigning for president as a Democrat in the 2020 primary race.

“Intel officials & politicians led us into Iraq war,” Gabbard tweeted in 2019. “Now Trump’s using the same playbook to lead our country into war with Iran. The cost in lives & treasure will be infinitely greater than the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, & Syria, and will undermine our ntnl security.”

“The main responsibility of the president is to keep Americans safe. Trump has failed — undermining our national security by tearing up the Iran nuclear deal, threatening military action, bringing us closer to war with Iran that will be far worse than war in Iraq,” reads another 2019 tweet.

“They are setting the stage for a war with Iran that would prove to be far more costly, far more devastating and dangerous than anything that we saw in the Iraq War,” Gabbard said of the Trump administration during a 2019 interview on ABC.

This fraudster has built an entire political career out of pretending to oppose war and militarism in order to win the support of Americans who are sick of pouring blood and treasure into the US slaughter machine, opportunistically drifting to whatever corner of the political spectrum would offer her the most power, and then when she got as high as she can go she sold all her stated principles to the furthest extent possible at the earliest opportunity.…

(caitlinjohnstone.com.au)

18 Comments

George Hollister June 21, 2025

The only end game with war in the Middle East is to keep it there.

- Jurgen Stoll June 21, 2025
  
  What if we didn’t come and quit supplying the weapons?
  
- Kirk Vodopals June 21, 2025
  
  That’s been the game plan for decades: keep the war going in the Middle East, perpetually. It’s the only business America is good at.
  Kunstler paints a rosy picture. Everyone else doesn’t.
  Trump disses on Cheney and the like but he follows a similar playbook to foment war, but Trump has an even more transparent facade. The Emperor of Peace has no clothes
  
bharper June 21, 2025

64

- Eli Maddock June 21, 2025
  
  +1
  
  - Eli Maddock June 21, 2025
    
    Oops, I had another look.
    I’m switching to 68
    
Rick Swanson June 21, 2025

68

- Matt kendall June 21, 2025
  
  Sorry fellas I came up with 64
  Sides 18
  Base and top 14
  Total 64
  
  I poured a foundation for a house that looked a little like that while in my 30’s
  Take a guess at how square it wasn’t!
  
  - Houndman June 21, 2025
    
    I agree with the Matt the old nail bender: 64
    
  - Eli Maddock June 21, 2025
    
    Gotta add the little drop onto the 8 & 12 on the left. I missed it at first.
    14+14 top and bottom +
    8+12+4 left +16 right =
    68
    Ready to be corrected though! My kiddo gave up and he’s a wiz with this stuff
    
    - Matt Kendall June 21, 2025
      
      Correction I looked again it’s 60
      The right side unmarked is 16 because it’s twice the length of the 8 marked on left
      The rest is laid out 14 top and bottom
      Equals 28
      16 right and left 32
      32+28=60
      
- Bob Abeles June 22, 2025
  
  Rick and Eli have the correct answer. The trick to solving this puzzle is to not assume that the drawing is proportional. Since it’s clearly not proportional, we’ll solve it algebraically.
  
  The perimeter is the sum of the lengths of the enclosing line segments. So, working clockwise from the bottom side we have this algebraic equation for the sum of the line segments. I’ve assigned letters to the unknowns:
  
  perimeter = 14 + 8 + a + b + c + 12 + d + e
  Further, we can see that the following hold true:
  14 = a + c + d
  e = 12 + 8 – b
  e = 20 – b
  20 = e + b
  Re-arranging and substituting these into our original equation gives:
  perimeter = 14 + 8 + 12 + (a + c + d) + (e + b)
  perimeter = 14 + 8 + 12 + 14 + 20
  perimeter = 68
  
Harvey Reading June 21, 2025

THE GREAT DISAPPEARING TRANS FREAKOUT

Why I stopped reading Taibbi. Much ado about about nothing. Grow up, people.

Harvey Reading June 21, 2025

“…Into this fragile emotional landscape stepped Donald Trump. His genius was not policy but narrative.

He has no “genius”. He was just born wealthy. Otherwise, the bum would have been found dead in a New York gutter before the end of the 70s.

Brian Wood June 21, 2025

68

James Tippett June 21, 2025

Re: Andy Johnson’s memories

Richard Matlock, the summer star pitcher of the Harwood Sawmill team returned to Laytonville as a teacher, starting in the one room schoolhouse up on Bell Springs where his first duty was evicting the family of feral hogs living under the schoolhouse. He went on to become Laytonville Elementary School principal, a position he held for many years. After his purchase of a BMW one fall was misinterpreted by his breakfast companions at the Laytonville Inn, as success in the local illicit agriculture, he took to morning coffee in the Laytonville Schools bus barn with Ron Peterson. As the bus mechanic at the time, I often sat in on those morning get-togethers where Richard would tell stories from Laytonville’s past.

One I distinctly remember dealt with a baseball game held in Fort Bragg. Serious baseball rivals, Harwoods and Union Lumber. The Harwood team was down and Matlock was pitching. During a batting rotation half-way through the game, Bud Harwood Senior came down to the dugout. He said, “Matty, we gotta win this one I just bet the [mill] payroll on the game.” Well, thanks to Matlock’s talent on the mound, Harwoods won. After the game, Bud came back down to the dugout and quietly handed Matty a bag stuffed with cash.

That was just how the game was played back then. I always liked Mr. Matlock.

Marco McClean June 21, 2025

New CEO Andre of KZYX wrote: “Because all our local music and public affairs programming is provided at no cost to KZYX via our amazing team of volunteer programmers, and because the only local content KZYX produces in-house is the local news, the difficult decision has been made to downsize our news structure and lay off KZYX News Director, Elise Cox.”

Look, this just means that all along, up to now, the various manager/CEOs of KZYX, have been easily able to pay at least a pittance to all the local airpeople and simply chose not to while pocketing and cashing their own $5,000/month salary checks, as the current CEO will continue to do, won’t he, no matter what, because he can. See that.

KZYX has, for all the years of its existence, been swimming in rich donors’ money and tax-derived money and shenaniganly mismanaging it to flush through its system /more than three times what it actually costs to maintain the station./ They’ll be fine. But, speaking of news, many years ago I suggested just reading the AVA aloud on the air for an hour a day, and so cover local, county and world news and culture. When the AVA was a paper, that would’ve cost four dollars a month. Now that it’s a web publication it’s only two dollars a month. Easy. I’ll pay that myself, out of the $1000 a year KZYX will pay me for joining part of my live all-Friday-night KNYO and KAKX show, which arrangement can start right away with a few mouse clicks of KZYX’s automation techie and bookkeeper. I’m ready; I’ve been doing the show on various stations since February of 1997 with no reasonable complaints, and I already have uses in mind for the money, as I’m sure all the local airpeople at KZYX do. A couple of tires, car insurance, groceries, phone/internet access, maybe a movie once in awhile, the usual. What people do with money they’re paid for their work.

Marco McClean, [email protected], https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com

Jim Armstrong June 21, 2025

I have no idea what else Timothy said, but he was right about the love of money.
There has never been a time when it was truer.
With so many money lovers now holding more than just economic power all around the world, we have end-game size trouble.
Eight billion humans might have been the carrying capacity of a healthy Earth biosphere, but the degradation of that capacity by humans looks to be well past its righting.
The humans least interested making corrections, led by Donald Trump, have gotten control of ….

Well shit, the asshole just bombed Iran, so to hell with this comment.
Shameful!

18 Comments

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