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The California Second District Appellate Court unanimously declined to reverse the $1.1 million verdict against online blog CalCoastNews. On Jan. 29, the court ruled 3-0 to decline the website’s invitation to reverse a ruling from 2017 in which a unanimous jury awarded licensed hazardous waste transporter Charles Tenborg damages for libel.
SLO Truth’s December-January pledge is going strong — and our detractors can’t handle it. We’re nearing our fundraising goal. Chip in right now to deliver a strong message: “The truth is here to stay.”
So far, in 2018, we haven’t published a single news article or column, but we’ve already learned some of the people we’ve reported on are continuing to attack our readers. Readers they’ve targeted have either “liked” one of our posts or our page on Facebook.
CalCoastNews’ controversial co-founder Karen Velie and radio show host Dave Congalton have publicly accused our readers of participating in trolling activity by “demean[ing] women that don’t bow down” to someone they falsely assume is backing SLO Truth.
But as their mutual friend Julie Tacker once wrote on CalCoastNews, “‘Liking’ a page on Facebook does not make one part of a group; it merely allows their content to enter your Facebook feed.” Similarly, people who Facebook “like” something on our page or comment on our posts aren’t “trolls” or participating in troll-like behavior. That’s not to say our readers are exempt from criticism for their words and actions, but to personally harass people for reading us is harassment.
At one point, Velie was seen cyber-stalking District 3 Supervisor Adam Hill under an anonymous account her relatives previously used. Velie, who is currently suing Hill, has left a series of disturbing and clearly obsessed messages about him on social media. Some of which were directed at other people:
Truth is Adam Hill lives at the Country Club, has a new Volvo, is seen regularly dining out and posts about his frequent travels on Facebook, all while living alone on $90,000 a year before taxes. If he didn’t inherit any money how does he live his opulent lifestyle?
Adam Hill does not want the chairmanship so that he can help the poor, but so he has more power to threaten those in front of him with issues if they do not give him money. So Hill threatens to demean his fellow board members if they do not vote for him as chair, and he wants the public to believe he is asking on behalf of the poor. Just like Hill marches for women while his wife lives in an apartment across town and he dates a string of women. Hill marches for women while he and his trolls demean women who do not bow down to him.
Mr. Hill, you are a bully and a hypocrite.
Source: The Tribune (1/6/18)
[Redacted], this is another chance for you to attack and bully a women on the board. Adam Hill threatens to disgrace Lynn Compton if she doesn’t vote for him and you try to paint her as the bully. Wow! (This was supposed to be a reply to [Redacted].)
Compton hasn’t attacked anyone on social media or come out against Hill as chair. But the partisan male bullies continue to attack women, primarily Compton because a man who said he will vote lockstep with Hill is vying for Compton’s seat. Meanwhile, your allies are doctoring photos and attempting to show women they don’t agree with as brainless hotheads.
And the chair is not ceremonial, the chair controls the meeting and stops the bullies from lashing out at the public or others. John Peschong is quick to stop bullying and refuses to allow Hill to rant at public speakers he does not agree with. Aside from Hill’s frequent tantrums, the meetings are more professional and shorter.
Hill’s latest threats and juvenile online behaviors make it clear he is unfit for the chair position. Another year with Peschong would be the best choice.
In 2015, Velie emailed the employer of the commenter she’s addressing here and accused him of calling her a “clickwhore” on my Facebook page. An exhaustive search on the page determined the accusation was unfounded. Last May, Velie appeared on the “Dave Congalton” show and accused the commenter and others, who previously commented on my page, of participating in my “group” that demeaned women. Velie was permanently banned from the station after her unhinged appearance.
Source: The Tribune (1/5/18)
Congalton would attack the same commenter:
Why don’t you admit the real reason you don’t like Lynn Compton and John Peschong, [Redacted]? They torpedoed your handpicked replacement when you retired on your fat county government pension and brought in an outsider who would clean up the mess you left because you were too busy trashing people on Internet troll web sites, most likely on company time.
Source: The Tribune (1/5/18)
According to 920 KVEC station management, Congalton was personally reprimanded for allowing Velie to slander the commenter on-air.
Last month, Velie went after District 4 Supervisor candidate Jimmy Paulding for “repeating Hill.” In the same post, Velie once again attacked the same commenter:
Jimmy argues for whatever Supervisor Adam Hill votes for. It is clear he did no research into the housing issue, Jimmy just repeated Hill.
A vote for Jimmy is a vote for Hill’s agenda.
[Redacted], you sir are a sexist man. So you have determined Lynn Compton is not well because she does not agree with your views. It is good you are no longer running [redacted] and able to haras [sic] those you hate.
Source: The Tribune (12/30/17)
In fact, Velie’s pseudonymous harassment of our readers and supporters is nothing new.
Here are the facts.
SLO Truth supports women, including those unfairly and maliciously targeted by fake news extremists. Both Velie and Congalton have plagued the airwaves with misogynistic comments about women’s personal lives, romantic and sexual lives; insulted their personal appearance, their intelligence, and attributes that shouldn’t be publicly ostracized by public features in the media industry.
Velie is mistaken. We’re not criticizing her because she is a woman. We’re criticizing her because she lies about community members, harasses and tries to blackmail critics, abuses the legal process by using the courts to silence dissent and weaponizes fake news to influence our local elections. We’re taking a stand against a dangerous, unstable and influential “reporter” who is unfit to print, and any influential figure who condones her practices.
With your support, SLO Truth will strive to bring the best reporting to the Central Coast when others — who brag about “reporting” the news — haven’t.
Decades from now, will people actually remember CalCoastNews for their reporting or their legal issues?
Most likely it will be the latter.
I took two wonderful months off from writing columns.
For the most part, it’s been peaceful and quiet. I managed to clear my mind, read the news from a safe distance and focused on doing absolutely nothing except relax. I’ve had a rough couple of years, so it was nice to take a break from the daily drama.
920 KVEC radio show host Dave Congalton has hosted “Hometown Radio” for over two decades. He’s the person you go to if you’re looking to promote a nonprofit organization or a special event. Often times he’ll discuss local and national issues with a variety of guests.
He’s got a little bit of everything packed into four hours of programming. That’s a lot of time to fill every day from Monday through Friday. The last hour of his show is typically dedicated to his “Last Call” segment when he gives listeners an opportunity to call into the show and talk about anything that’s on their mind. In those quiet moments when the phones aren’t lighting up in the KVEC studio, a different Dave Congalton appears to take on the silence.
For his March 28 show, “Last Call” was originally going to feature Congalton’s take on the cultural differences between San Francisco and Los Angeles. But an hour after his segments were announced on KVEC’s Facebook page, that discussion on cultural differences was replaced with “Kevin Rice.”
Rice is a self-proclaimed activist who is known for his harassment and misinformation campaigns against his political adversaries. His newest stunt is trolling The Tribune’s website under the pseudonym “Patrick Rich,” and claiming he’s a member of the SLO Progressives while attacking progressives. As far as why he’s doing that, no one knows but Rice. A lot of the “activism” he partakes in doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Most of the time, his stunts backfire in the press. You have to admit: It’s strange to have a feature on San Luis Obispo’s Ballet Theatre and later feature Rice on the same show — the same Rice who just days before alleged on The Tribune that one of the county supervisors was a “drunken drug abuser” without any evidence.
Congalton brought Rice onto the show to discuss a recent interview FOX NEWS’ Sean Hannity did with veteran broadcaster Ted Koppel where Koppel affirmed that Hannity, in the words of Hannity’s own question, was “bad for America.” The implication is that highly politicized personalities on major networks and talk radio contribute to a growing rift in political discourse. Rice stated that personalities on the left and right of the political spectrum use their own facts and statistics to pursue a heavily biased narrative. Congalton stated that opinionated broadcasting was problematic because it’s difficult for people tuning in to discern between fact and opinion.
The interview between Hannity and Koppel was about the rise of politically charged vitriol in broadcasting since the Federal Communications Commission revoked the Fairness Doctrine in 1987. The Fairness Doctrine required public broadcasters to present controversial issues in a fair and honest manner. The doctrine was revoked because judging a broadcaster’s fairness and honesty is left to subjective interpretation. More or less, the overall idea behind the doctrine was to present both sides of a controversial argument and provide both sides equal time.
On March 17, Congalton dedicated a significant portion to the show to his reaction of the Tenborg v. CalCoastNews verdict. CalCoastNews is a controversial online tabloid that recently lost a defamation lawsuit and was ordered to pay $1.1 million in damages. Congalton brought onto his show attorney James Duenow — who was part of the legal team representing CCN — and CCN co-founder Karen Velie. Everyone featured on the show decried the verdict as a miscarriage of justice. They speculated that unscrupulous forces were secretly funding the lawsuit in hopes of shutting down the website. They named PG&E and District 3 Supervisor Adam Hill as potential backers of the lawsuit. At one point, Congalton took aim at Hill’s wife Dee Torres-Hill, claiming she texted him a photo of her raising a glass to celebrate the verdict. Torres-Hill denied sending him a text. Congalton claimed that she wrote her back and replied, “I’m sorry. I didn’t recognize you. You put on so much weight.”
It’s strange to fat-shame a county supervisor’s wife while hosting a segment about the importance of good manners on the same show. That on-air cognitive dissonance is a little harder to chew than the Pie of the Week that Congalton enjoyed from Linn’s of Cambria that same day.
Congalton regularly features CCN and their writers on his show to discuss their reporting. Those segments typically feature a string of unfounded allegations that the website is making with Congalton later reiterating those allegations over the airwaves as a matter of fact. The accused are not invited onto the show to counter or refute the allegations. When the accused are invited onto his show and decline to appear, Congalton retaliates.
Occasionally, Congalton will question the website and encourage them to strengthen their editorial process, but he doesn’t question the allegations as they’re levied on-air. He provides no active filter. Congalton’s concerns are always a fleeting afterthought. Nonetheless, Congalton stated that CCN is “still better than anything else in town, in terms of the type of subjects that Karen [Velie] is covering,” despite losing a case that calls into question the accuracy of all the other investigative pieces they’ve done.
It’s difficult to reconcile this side of Congalton with the Congalton that profiles rescue animals from Woods Humane Society.
“Hometown Radio” can’t live up to its name when hometown values are presented for half of the show and the other half is a blistering, one-sided rebuke of community members. It doesn’t have to be that way, and it shouldn’t, but it is, and just when you’d think it couldn’t get any worse, it does.
After 24 years of being on the air, it’s time for Congalton to step aside and restore the “Hometown Radio” brand. If people support the good things Congalton has done for the community on a part-time basis, they will also support those same hometown values when they hear them or where they hear them from.
It’s time to make a change.
This is part one of SLO Truth’s coverage of the Tenborg v. CalCoastNews defamation trial. Each part will cover approximately one week of events.
Before I document what happened in the trial, I want to make a few necessary disclosures. That way, I’m able to provide context for my personal observations.
Arroyo Grande businessman Charles Tenborg filed a defamation lawsuit against CalCoastNews (CCN) on May 10, 2013. The basis of the lawsuit was an article the website published nearly a year earlier, titled, “Hazardous waste chief skirts law.” The article accused Tenborg of illegally transporting hazardous waste, being “fired for undisclosed reasons” in the mid-1990s, encouraging municipalities to ignore proper protocols, among other things. The article also strongly insinuated that Tenborg and Integrated Waste Management Authority (IWMA) manager William Worrell were in some illicit contractual relationship, based on a no-bid contract that CCN suggested wasn’t legal.
Shortly after it was published, the article was distributed to an intranet mailing list called “Morning Coffee,” which had several subscribers from the waste management industry. Many of those subscribers knew Tenborg on a professional basis. The article, which remains online and untouched to this day, was spread among his professional contacts and clientele.
Shortly after the article was published, Tenborg and Worrell issued a detailed joint demand for retraction of the article to CCN. The website didn’t respond to the retraction demand. The failure to retract led Tenborg to file his defamation claim several months later. Tenborg is seeking personal damages for the tarnishing of his reputation.
Leading up to the trial — which started over four years after the article was published — CCN has argued that every assertion mentioned in the article is true based on discussions they’ve had with several of their sources, but ultimately conceded they had no notes, documentation or additional physical evidence to verify the claims Tenborg contested.
The website later pivoted to a defense strategy, asserting that Tenborg’s legal claim was a strategic lawsuit against public participation; that the lawsuit was attempting to stifle their free speech and prohibit them for producing stories in the public interest. The trial court ruled against that defense motion and ordered the case go to trial. The website appealed that ruling to the Second District Appellate Court in 2015, but was ultimately unsuccessful.
After their appeal was struck down, CCN unveiled a new defense. In support of their effort to raise money for legal expenses, co-founder and defendant Karen Velie claimed Tenborg’s case was a malicious lawsuit that was financially backed by District 3 Supervisor Adam Hill. She asserted on the website’s GoFundMe page that Hill “boasted in writing” that he is pushing the lawsuit against CCN “in an undisguised effort to destroy the eight-year-old online news agency.” None of the exhibits they’ve presented for their case provided a foundation for her claim.
In 2011, my father Ed and I were in preliminary discussions with CCN and a few other alternative news platforms to form a news aggregate network similar to the Huffington Post. Talks fizzled after I expressed concern about Velie’s reporting as a legal liability.
I covered the lawsuit since it was first reported in The Tribune in 2013. At the time the lawsuit was filed, I was employed as a writer for Information Press, a monthly newspaper. As someone investigating and fact-checking the website, I reported that CCN published unsubstantiated assertions about Tenborg. Approximately a year later, my employer heard from Velie, who claimed I libeled her by stating her claims about Tenborg were unsubstantiated. As a result of reporting on the case, Velie personally threatened my employer and my family. I’ve covered my experiences with CCN since then in this article.
“Disgrace to the Bar”: Circus Before Trial
More than four years after CCN published their article about Tenborg, the trial for Tenborg v. CalCoastNews began. As the New Times pointed out, the trial had a contentious start.
Appearing noticeably gaunt, disheveled and disoriented, CCN attorney James Duenow made disparaging comments about the law firm representing Tenborg, Kerr & Wagstaffe. Outside the courtroom, Duenow specifically took aim at Tenborg’s lead attorney James Wagstaffe and called him a “fucking disgrace to the bar” and a “motherfucker.” The insults were coupled with Duenow aggressively poking Wagstaffe. This behavior continued into the courtroom during a brief recess. Before leaving the courtroom, Duenow mused, “How about if I punch him?”
As he wobbled around in the audience, Duenow made a handful of claims that could not be independently verified. One of the claims was that District 3 Supervisor Adam Hill was “biasing” witnesses against the defendant. When pressed for evidence by presiding Judge Barry LaBarbara, Duenow failed to muster a response. The other claim was that an attorney from Kerr & Wagstaffe threatened one of the witnesses in the case had been threatened over the phone with a lawsuit. Judge LaBarbara pressed Duenow for a foundation to his claim, but he came up empty-handed.
Understandably irate, Wagstaffe informed Judge LaBarbara about the verbal and physical altercations with Duenow. LaBarbara hesitated to admonish Duenow, instead suggesting to help resolve the dispute in his chambers. Wagstaffe turned down the suggestion. According to two sources close to the case, Wagstaffe reportedly opted to file a formal complaint against Duenow, and discovered something peculiar. According to the State Bar of California, Duenow had a suspended law license from July 2016 until the first day of trial. According to archives of the San Luis Obispo Courthouse, Duenow has presided in several pretrial conferences during the time his license was suspended. On CCN, Duenow had two columns published during that time period that prominently mentioned he was currently practicing law as a “semi-retired” civil trial lawyer.
CCN decided to drop Duenow from their counsel. Records show that a criminal complaint was filed against Duenow for practicing law without a license, a felony.
Aside from the spat between Duenow and Wagstaffe, the trial addressed a number of pretrial motions.
In one motion, CCN attorney James McKiernon attempted to claim that Tenborg was a public figure, though the trial court previously ruled that he wasn’t. If he was ruled a public figure, Tenborg would have to show actual malice: that evidence showed the defendants knowingly attempted to tarnish his reputation. McKiernon argued that Tenborg was a public figure because he “injected himself in a public controversy,” but McKiernon could not identify the controversy. When that line of argument failed to sway LaBarbara, McKiernon focused on Tenborg’s involvement at conferences where he allegedly educated the public on hazardous waste management. Tenborg was called to the stand to clarify his public involvement, if any. Tenborg testified that his public involvement, which was mostly at waste management conferences, was limited to promoting his business and garnering clients. After hearing Tenborg’s testimony, LaBarbara ruled that Tenborg is a private figure.
CCN’s counsel touched briefly on another motion, which pertained to their trial subpoena of Adam Hill. According to LaBarbara’s tentative ruling dated March 3, CCN sought to examine Hill on four topics: (1) Whether Hill urged the plaintiff to file the lawsuit; (2) Whether it was true that Hill sent text messages to CCN advertiser/developer John King that stated he was behind the lawsuit; (3) Whether the purpose of the lawsuit was to put Velie out of business; and (4) Whether contracts with IWMA for more than $100,000 must be sent out to bid. LaBarbara ruled that the first three topics were irrelevant and the fourth could be gathered from other sources. LaBarbara also ruled that Tenborg’s alleged motivations were irrelevant to the case and the article in question.
It’s worth noting that Velie filed a lawsuit against Hill last month, alleging the supervisor conspired with other county officials and myself to ruin her reputation and shut down her business. The lawsuit, which remains active, is a slightly revised version of a claim Velie filed in federal court last year. The federal claim was dismissed with prejudice by the presiding judge, who ruled that Velie failed to furnish evidence of retaliation. There is a question of whether CCN’s subpoena of Hill constitutes an abuse of process claim, given the fact that CCN sought Hill’s irrelevant testimony in Tenborg’s lawsuit, and that testimony uniquely relates to her retaliation claim.
On the first day of trial, CCN’s counsel decided to withdraw their subpoena of Hill.
Who Were CalCoastNews’ Sources?
Once the jury was assembled, plaintiff’s counsel called Tenborg to the stand. From the onset, it appeared the counsel’s focus was to capture Tenborg’s personal and immediate response to the article. His attorney James Wagstaffe asked Tenborg to not only review the allegations, but also discuss the insinuations made in the article. For example, Tenborg answered yes when he thought the article’s headline, “Hazardous waste chief skirts law,” referred to him. Tenborg explained the implication was clear, given he was the subject of the article’s lead paragraph and five subsequent paragraphs. In later testimony, CCN claimed the “hazardous waste chief” was Worrell, not Tenborg, and that the article was about the IWMA, not Tenborg specifically.
A significant portion of Tenborg’s testimony focused on CCN’s claim that he was fired in the mid-1990s for undisclosed reasons from the SLO County Environmental Health Certified Unified Program Agency. Counsel admitted into evidence a memorandum of his resignation from 1997. Counsel also brought in Tenborg’s former employer at the time, former SLO County Director of Environmental Health Curtis Batson, to testify. Batson stated that Tenborg had a good reputation prior to his resignation and confirmed he wasn’t fired. Batson reportedly told Velie of Tenborg’s employment status shortly before the article was published. CCN attorney David Vogel sought to discredit Batson’s testimony on cross-examination, stating that it wasn’t proper protocol to discuss the nature of employment status of his subordinates; that he should have referred Velie to the personnel or Human Resources department. However, no records show that Velie made any attempt to contact Human Resources about Tenborg.
Later, when Velie took the stand, she stood by her reporting that he was fired, despite hard evidence showing otherwise. Velie claimed she relied on “several” sources that turned out to be three, two of them now deceased.
One living source, former San Luis Obispo city employee Doug Dowden, claimed that he heard Tenborg was fired, but didn’t have proof. Plaintiff’s counsel admitted into evidence an email Dowden sent to CCN, which stated exactly that. Counsel argued that the email showed, in no uncertain terms, that Dowden’s comments were hearsay and uncorroborated rumor. Velie claimed Dowden was credible because he was a “whistleblower.” CCN reported in Jan. 2011 that Wastewater Collections Supervisor Bud Nance reportedly told staffers to remove contents of the hazardous waste storage shed at the city corporation yard on Prado Road and empty cans in a nearby yard. Dowden blew the whistle on what happened, stating that city officials failed to report the illegal discharge as required by law. Tenborg was not involved in that incident.
The second source of Velie’s “firing” claim, Valarie Alvarez, was a criminal investigator employed by the California Dept. of Toxic Substances Control. According to Velie, Alvarez communicated to her that Tenborg was fired. Additionally, Velie claimed that Alvarez was investigating and “following” him. Alvarez passed away in Jan. 2016. In questioning Velie, Wagstaffe revealed during trial that she didn’t save any notes of her communications with Alvarez, so Velie’s claims could not be verified. Velie claimed she wrote notes that she later typed on the computer. Velie stated she subsequently threw away her handwritten notes once she converted them to digital format. However, her computer “broke” shortly after the article was published, and taken to the “shop [from] over there” — presumably in San Luis Obispo — but most of her files on the hard drive couldn’t be recovered, she claimed.
The third source was Aaron Wynn, a former employee of Tenborg’s. In his declaration, Wynn claimed that Tenborg illegally transported and disposed hazardous waste. Tenborg questioned the credibility of his testimony because Wynn was fired from his position and didn’t understand why, and he was denied a license to transport hazardous waste because of “an incident on [his] record where the authorities thought [he] was transporting a pipe bomb.” Following his declaration was a video Wynn posted on YouTube in 2014, which he narrated. The video showed Wynn walking around the Cold Canyon landfill where Tenborg hauled waste to, and made accusations that mirrored the ones he made in his declaration. Though he was shown collecting soil samples, nothing in the court records show that the samples were tested or that the soil was dumped onto the ground by Tenborg himself.
In 2014, Wynn committed suicide. On CCN, anonymous commenters supporting the website insinuated that Wynn was murdered, and that the murder was allegedly orchestrated by Tenborg and his supposed co-conspirators. CCN fueled the conspiracy theory in a Facebook post on their page dated Oct. 25, 2016, insinuating that Wynn died from a “gunshot wound” as a result of videotaping and reporting the “wrongful dumping” of PG&E waste.
The anonymous commenters that originally floated the conspiracy theory created a Facebook page called “Fire Adam Hill.” Shortly before CCN tried to subpoena Hill for a deposition on the same grounds, “Fire Adam Hill” claimed they had “evidence” that the County of San Luis Obispo and Hill were behind the lawsuit. Similar to CCN, the page offered no evidence.
Wagstaffe scrutinized the sources one by one, and determined that Velie relied on hearsay and uncorroborated rumor from a few questionable sources over the hard evidence provided by several sources. Yet Velie still maintained that she had “several sources,” some of whom she claimed were anonymous and confidential. When pressed about her creative interpretation of state laws governing no-bid contracts of joint powers agencies (namely the IWMA), Velie stated she “didn’t know what the laws were” specifically, and that she consulted “several attorneys” to confirm her claims.
However, CCN’s witness list had no attorneys listed and Velie could not name a single attorney that specifically assisted her in legal research. She did name her attorney, James McKiernon, as an attorney who allegedly reminded her that he spoke with her about the article at an unspecified time. Velie had also communicated with William Worrell and visited his office to discuss questions she asked about IWMA regulations. Worrell testified on the stand that he provided specific statutes that clarified her misconceptions about conditionally exempt small waste generators. Velie’s reporting contradicted the statutes Worrell personally provided her in email.
After she was thoroughly scrutinized over her sources, Velie reiterated her allegation that Tenborg dumped PG&E vault waste from the hillside of the Cold Canyon landfill, and that she personally witnessed Tenborg’s brother Maurice illegally transporting hazardous waste. The jury was not impressed.
Who Dropped the Ball?
Plaintiff’s counsel revealed the article was passed around CCN staff, including to co-founder/Senior Correspondent Dan Blackburn and editor Bill Loving. Blackburn and Loving assisted Velie by providing editorial notes. Some of the notes asked Velie to either elaborate and provide more information or cite her sources. The article went through several revisions prior to being published, but the claims Tenborg contested appeared in the final draft. For at least two months prior to the article being published on their website, CCN had focused their investigation on IWMA’s practices, not Tenborg or Worrell specifically. However, shortly after Dowden contacted Velie about Tenborg and his professional relationship with Worrell, the overall tone of the article changed.
Within an hour of Velie receiving the email from Dowden, Blackburn contacted a reporter at the San Diego Union-Tribune and stated as fact that Tenborg or Worrell were in an illicit contractual relationship. Blackburn contacted the San Diego Union-Tribune because Worrell once served San Diego County as their Deputy Director for the Solid Waste Division. According to “several sources,” Blackburn wrote in the article that Worrell had a “long list of questionable activities” during his tenure in the early 1990s.
On the witness stand, Blackburn scrambled with his narrative, stating initially that he may or may not have had information about Worrell/IWMA’s no-bid contract with Tenborg, but that he withheld publishing it. Blackburn stated the information would later appear in a follow-up to the Tenborg story, which wasn’t published because of Tenborg’s lawsuit. However, Wagstaffe revealed that Blackburn stated, in his 2013 deposition, that he had no evidence to show Tenborg and Worrell engaged in any wrongdoing by being in a no-bid contract.
Blackburn maintained that he worked on one half of the story, which covered Worrell’s activities in San Diego, and Velie worked on the other half, which mentioned Tenborg and the contested claims. Velie backed Blackburn’s testimony, adding she was responsible for her reporting and research. Likewise, Blackburn testified that he worked independently of her and was not intimately familiar with her reporting methodology for the story. Wagstaffe reminded both Velie and Blackburn that they share responsibility for the article since they share the byline. Additionally, Blackburn could not separate himself from the fact that he participated in rewrites and several revisions of the story, as evidenced by the various emails between him, Velie and Loving that were submitted into the record.
Though most of the article singled out Tenborg and Worrell extensively, Blackburn insisted the article was more about the IWMA.
In what appeared to be a move to reduce his personal liability in the article’s publishing, Blackburn testified that he has not been a business partner with Velie since 2010. This is true, since CCN announced at the time that he was departing the website to focus more on producing short news documentaries for his new website, KCCN.tv. According to state records, the only owner listed on CCN’s limited liability company forms is Velie.
However, since 2010, Blackburn has appeared numerous times on the 920 KVEC’s “The Dave Congalton Show” on behalf of the site and rigorously defended Velie’s reporting, including her reporting on Tenborg. In Dec. 2015, Blackburn appeared as a featured speaker at Freedom Force International’s “Operation Destination” workshop in Paso Robles. In the workshop’s press materials, Blackburn was listed as CCN’s publisher.
The Tenborg v. CalCoastNews trial offers a shocking inside look into a local tabloid’s journalism methods. The plaintiff’s counsel was able to create a revealing juxtaposition between a site that brags about being “non-partisan and adhere to the strictest journalism ethics and standards,” yet they recklessly abandon those standards in their delusional pursuit of scandal.
The delusional aspect comes from their willingness to value hearsay over hard evidence. It was intriguing to see Velie state unequivocally on the witness stand — in spite of hard evidence appearing before her, contradicting her published claims — that she has not retracted the story or corrected it, in any way, since it was published over four years ago. And yet, leading up to the trial, it was clear CCN knew they were in trouble. Prior to trial, CCN used the discovery process as a costly substitute for due diligence that they should have done for the story. They scrambled to find witnesses and connect dots they once connected in their written work, but not in reality.
CCN’s attorneys David Vogel and Berndt Ingo Brauer couldn’t muster a defense that CCN once promised would be “vigorous.” Vogel argued over the accuracy of page numbers in plaintiff exhibits while Ingo Brauer failed to cast reasonable doubt of plaintiff’s witness testimony during his listless cross-examinations. At times, their attorneys appeared resigned and withdrawn. For the trial’s second week, CCN is expected to bring in their witnesses, but it seems unlikely that their testimony will have a strong impact.
During one of the breaks, I overheard Velie complaining to her attorneys that the lawsuit was hurting her reputation. Given her incoherent, often rambling testimony, her narcissistic self-pity on display outside the courtroom and her rampant peddling of self-victimizing conspiracy theories, it’s clear to me Karen Velie has severe psychological problems. You have someone who is literally incapable of admitting to mistakes or making corrections. Velie’s legally and factually unjustified hubris has cost residents and taxpayers hundreds of thousands in litigation-related costs, despite her site decrying the fleecing of American taxpayers. That’s not taking into account the financial and emotional toll of those she’s maligned in her reporting.
Now, it seems karma has come to finally settle the score. Let’s see what happens in the second week.
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SLO Truth was launched in July 2016 as a political organization that combats political extremism in San Luis Obispo County. It started as a progressive platform. Over time, SLO Truth evolved and became a bipartisan-supported organization. In this post-“alternative fact” world, people on the left and right are tired of misinformation and disinformation that’s pervaded our public discourse.
Your donations resulted in a number of successful grassroots campaigns last year.
We used social media and directly engaged with District 3 voters and helped re-elect Adam Hill for Supervisor. We also educated and informed Los Osos residents of Julie Tacker’s record and costly public records requests. Voters responded. Tacker, who is now the subject of fraud and elderly abuse allegations, was unable to reclaim her director seat on the Los Osos Community Services District. Our #DropDontShop campaign educated residents on the controversial tabloid site CalCoastNews and informed them of advertisers supporting their defamatory and incendiary reporting. After launching #DropDontShop, consumers have taken their money elsewhere. CalCoastNews recognized the effectiveness of our campaign and introduced it as “evidence” in a lawsuit they filed against Adam Hill, which was recently dismissed with prejudice.
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This year, SLO County residents elected a deeply partisan majority on the board. For the past two weeks, their actions have betrayed their constituency. They are proudly in lockstep with the Coalition of Labor, Agriculture & Business (COLAB), a deeply partisan lobbying organization. The current board chairman, John Peschong, is also a lobbyist, having served as a political and public affairs consultant for decades. Your donations will support a robust grassroots campaign that educates and informs the public of what’s at stake by having a hyperpartisan majority on the Board of Supervisors. Any campaigns relevant to the Board of Supervisors would be coordinated with other local political organizations and concerned citizens.
We’re also seeking legal representation. CalCoastNews, which is backed by the SLO County Republican Party and former State Senator Sam Blakeslee, has shown a willingness to file frivolous litigation and use the legal system to curtain their opponents’ First Amendment rights. Though their “reporters” are board members of the local ACLU chapter, CalCoastNews has shown their intent to chill constitutionally protected criticism of their “reporting.” SLO Truth founder Aaron Ochs was targeted by the website. Last year, CalCoastNews deposed Ochs for a defamation lawsuit he was not involved in. The website published a falsified account of his testimony and is stonewalling attempts to release the deposition transcript. Legal counsel would fight to release the transcript and hold CalCoastNews accountable for their defamatory reporting practices and lack of transparency.
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Donate today and support SLO Truth. Together, we can make a difference in our community and take a stand against local extremism.
On Jan. 23, a federal judge dismissed CalCoastNews’ Karen Velie’s legal claim against District 3 Supervisor Adam Hill with prejudice. After the dismissal was made, I was able to access the court records, which are now public.
View the available case files here:
Karen Velie v. Adam Hill
Last October, Velie, the co-founder of CalCoastNews, filed a lawsuit against Hill, alleging that he and several “co-conspirators” personally harassed and threatened her because of her reporting. According to declarations provided in support of her case, Velie’s closest allies allege that they were targeted by Hill because of their association to Velie and support of her reporting. Velie claims that Hill retaliated against her by having the county deny access to “press releases, interviews, and County documents that were provided to other media outlets.”
Velie asserted that her constitutional rights were “deprived”; that Hill and several unnamed John Doe defendants violated the Bane Act; that defendants intentionally interfered with prospective economic relations and contractual relations; that Hill violated the Bane Act; that Hill and SLO County Sheriff Ian Parkinson threatened radio show host Dave Congalton for having Velie as a regular guest. As a result, Velie sought damages for loss of income, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
But On Monday, U.S. District Judge Dale Fischer methodically dismissed all of her claims and legal theories. Fischer decreed that he would not grant her the ability to amend her claim, citing the claim “fails as a matter of law; she cannot cure the defects in this claim by pleading it with more particularity.” In other words, she cannot file her claim again.
In other words, goodbye. Have a nice trip.
The “evidence” Velie supplied against Hill included heated email correspondence between her and Hill, between Hill and advertisers and random screenshots from the predecessor to SLO Truth, “Cal Coast Fraud.” Velie also solicited declarations from Congalton, CalCoastNews co-founder Dan Blackburn, Grover Beach city councilwoman Debbie Peterson and others. Each alleged that Hill threatened and/or harassed them over their support for CalCoastNews. What wasn’t disclosed was the fact that each person who filed a declaration had a long, personal grudge against Hill — and an affiliation with CalCoastNews. They weren’t exactly victims with clean hands.
I wasn’t surprised to see that I was mentioned in Velie’s court documents, but I was surprised to see how prominently I was mentioned. Allow me to address that.
Velie has long held the operating theory that I’m being paid by Supervisor Hill to criticize her and CalCoastNews, despite the fact that I’ve corrected her repeatedly with public statements and court testimony for several years. Velie provided screenshots of my posts as “evidence,” yet she showed no evidence that I was — what she called — a “business associate” of Supervisor Hill. The word “business” implies the existence of business transactions between us. For three years, she’s provided no evidence that it exists. There isn’t any.
But that hasn’t stopped Velie from trying to prove her conspiracy theory. In Oct. 2016, Velie attempted to subpoena Facebook for payment information associated with my Facebook pages. The subpoena was issued for a defamation lawsuit filed against them, which I have nothing to do with. The information they were seeking was completely immaterial to their case, yet Velie raised the specter of this frivolous pursuit in her lawsuit against Hill one month later. That is abuse of process.
Though no evidence exists, Velie and her supporters continued to perpetuate the lie, stating in declarations that I magically appeared to criticize them with “untrue” claims after Hill allegedly threatened them; that my comments echoed that of Hill’s. Not once did they consider that maybe, just maybe that I felt their public lynching of public figures was a matter of public interest. Not once did they float the possibility, in their ridiculously one-sided testimony, that I empathize with the people they’ve maligned because I was also maligned by them. To them, showing empathy is synonymous with collusion.
In his deposition, Blackburn claimed that I became Hill’s “apparent sudden friend,” appearing with him “in photographs taken at recent Hill parties and political functions.” Blackburn feels like he personally knows me enough to unequivocally state who my friends are, but he left out an important detail. I criticized CalCoastNews long before they began covering Hill with obsessive zeal. The relationships I’ve cultivated with people maligned by Blackburn and Velie is anything but sudden. I’m not surprised that Blackburn claims he has photographs taken of me, given the fact that he and CalCoastNews personally stalked me for three years.
U.S. District Judge Dale Fischer correctly reminded Velie that yes, her critics also have the First Amendment and it’s not exclusive to her, and it’s not up to her to decide who has free speech and who doesn’t. And when her defamation trial starts in March, we can only hope that the law will finally strike her down, and bring closure to the people she’s hurt.
I began covering the defamation lawsuit filed against CalCoastNews in May 2013. At the time I was working at Information Press, and asked the publisher if she was interested in the story; she was and I posted a link to public information about the case. Not only did the lawsuit validate my criticism of CalCoastNews, it also made San Luis Obispo County residents aware of their questionable and indefensible journalism practices. I always maintained the website rarely substantiated their salacious allegations. The lawsuit methodically revealed that Arroyo Grande businessman Charles Tenborg, the lawsuit plaintiff, reached out to correct them — only to be ignored and cast aside as the inconvenient truth. If you asked me to identify a widely discredited, vindictive tabloid, I wouldn’t hesitate to mention their name.
So I wasn’t surprised to receive a deposition subpoena from them on Sept. 1. This is the subpoena:
They’ve sent me threatening legal documents before. Nothing new. Through their attorney David Vogel, CalCoastNews subpoenaed me to be deposed as a “witness” for the defamation trial, though I’m not involved in the lawsuit. The subpoena didn’t explain why I was being deposed — only that my deposition would be videotaped and my deposition could be used in their upcoming trial, which is set for November.
Clearly their unfounded deposition subpoena is harassment in the form of a fishing expedition, and it perfectly exemplifies CalCoastNews. Here’s why.
In May 2014, CalCoastNews co-founder Karen Velie contacted, harassed and threatened my former employer. One of Velie’s many ridiculous complaints about me included my lawsuit coverage.
After being attacked by Velie in a series of defamatory articles on CalCoastNews, I published a column in the Tolosa Press’ Bay News, stating the website was successfully sued for defamation — meaning the case successfully passed the pretrial phase, and that’s uncommon for most defamation cases. After the column was published in June 2015, Velie sent me a letter, demanding a retraction and an apology for stating she was successfully sued. In the same letter, Velie also threatened to sue me.
Afterwards, I noticed a handful of anonymous accounts on CalCoastNews were discussing the lawsuit, making unsubstantiated allegations about Tenborg and the lawfirm representing him. I found it puzzling that CalCoastNews would host many potentially libelous comments about someone who is suing them for defamation. Given they allowed these anonymous comments to spam their site, I deduced that CalCoastNews and Velie were complicit. After all, they have a history of circulating their allegations anonymously.
These accounts accused District 3 Supervisor Adam Hill of assisting or bankrolling the lawsuit, but never once provided evidence. The same people accused me of somehow being involved in the lawsuit. I retained the same law firm that currently represents Tenborg, Kerr & Wagstaffe — one of the more prominent law firms in California that specializes in defamation cases — to issue a retraction demand to CalCoastNews. Naturally, CalCoastNews failed to comply and produced more defamatory articles about me with reckless abandon.
Last year, one of those accounts wrote the following on CalCoastNews: “When CCN published a story about Adam Hill’s internet troll, Aaron Oches [sic], guess who sent CCN threatening legal papers? James Wagstaffe, and he personally signed them,” wrote Velie. “It will be fun to see the list of cronies called to the stand for CCN!”
The operators of these accounts formed an anonymous Facebook page called “Fire Adam Hill.” In addition to sharing mostly CalCoastNews articles, the page posted more unsubstantiated allegations about Tenborg and his counsel.
Here is one screenshot I took on June 26, 2016 of a now-deleted post by “Fire Adam Hill.”
“If you have any information about about Kerr Wagstaffe accepting money from Team Adam Hill for filing a malicious lawsuit against any accredited news agency, please report to federal police,” wrote the page. Page organizers “tagged” — notified, in other words — several local organizations and the media about the post.
One month later, Velie launched a GoFundPage to raise money for CalCoastNews’ legal defense. In her GoFundMe page description, Velie wrote, “[Adam] Hill has boasted in writing that he is pushing the lawsuit against CalCoastNews in an undisguised effort to destroy the eight-year-old online news agency.” Naturally, Velie never revealed these written boasts from Hill.
Hours after the GoFundMe page was published, “Fire Adam Hill” paid money to advertise it throughout Facebook. In their ads, the anonymous Facebook page called the lawsuit “abuse of the legal system.”
Without a doubt, the deposition subpoena is abuse of the legal system. In addition to their bad “reporting,” CalCoastNews’ harassment of critics wholly disqualifies them from being a news source.


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On the southern slopes of the Baldwin Hills, just about 40 minutes away from downtown Los Angeles, lies Ladera Heights, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods on the Westside. Ladera Heights is an affluent, diverse residential neighborhood. Coupled with adjacent communities, it makes up one of the largest areas for wealthy African-Americans in the United States.
Ladera Heights is one of the most diverse neighborhoods on the Westside. It is home to 6,419 people, of which 68% are African American, 14% are white, and 6% are Hispanic. This area is home to an average median household income of $100,714, and more than 55% of the residents have a bachelor’s degree or higher. Ladera Heights offers residents a dense suburban feel, and most locals own their homes.
Ladera Heights, CA Homes for Sale
Ladera Heights is a great place to live due to the numerous types of property listings on the Ladera Heights real estate market. You’ll primarily find single-family homes, though some apartments and condos exist. There are also plenty of mid-century architectural homes here.
Are you looking to buy? Ladera Heights luxury homes typically fall between $1.5 million and $3 million. There are 15 homes for sale in Ladera Heights, ranging in price from $589K to $2.99M.
Based on our Ladera Heights real estate market research, homes in Ladera Heights sell after 67 days on the market compared to 35 days last year. If you want to purchase some real estate in Ladera Heights, get in touch with Mel Wilson and Associates, and we’ll make your home-buying experience pleasant.
You can browse Ladera Heights listings for open houses, foreclosures, price reductions, recently sold, new home constructions, and new home communities. What are you waiting for, discover homes for sale in Ladera Heights, CA!
Available Ladera Heights Real Estate Listings
More About Ladera Heights, Los Angeles, CA
The proximity of Ladera Heights to hot tech hubs such as Culver City and Venice is sure to drive prices in an already expensive market upward. Ladera Heights is bordered on the north and west by Culver City, on the east by View Park-Windsor Hills and Baldwin Hills, and on the south by Inglewood. Ladera Heights is a peaceful oasis on the bustling Westside, with a more professional class community than the attention-drawing celebrity residents of nearby Windsor Hills, Baldwin Hills, and View Park.
Since Ladera Heights is primarily residential, you’ll have slim pickings regarding shopping, dining, or nightlife. Ladera Heights is, however, situated within close proximity to plenty of restaurants, coffee shops, and parks. Ladera Heights has a below-average violent crime rate and is a very safe place, night or day.
Ladera Heights Housing Market Trends - Home values in Ladera Heights, CA
The Ladera Heights housing market is somewhat competitive. The average homes sell in 41 days for about 2% above the list price, while hot homes can sell for about 7% above the list price. The median listed home price in Ladera Heights is $1.4M as of September 2022.
Two homes were sold in September 2022, down from eight last year. The median listed price per square foot in Ladera Heights is $617, which has increased by 34.9% since last year. Ladera Heights home values have gone down 6.1% compared to the previous year, and Ladera Heights real estate experts predict they will increase by 29.5% over the next ten years.
In September 2022, Ladera Heights, CA, was a balanced market, which means that the supply and demand of homes were about the same. On average, Ladera Heights, CA homes sold for 0% above the asking price. Most Ladera Heights homes get multiple offers, few with waived contingencies.
Ladera Heights Rental Market
The median rental price of apartments in Ladera Heights, California, as of October 2022, is $1,881 per month. There are 186 rental apartments available in Ladera Heights, ranging from $1555 to $7000 per month.
If you’re looking for an apartment in Ladera Heights, you may also consider rentals in the nearby areas, such as Los Angeles, Blair Hills, Studio Village, Park East, Culver Crest, or Sunkist Park.
- Median Home Value$760K
- Median List Price /Sq.Ft.$617
- Median Sale Price$775K
- Median Rent per Month$1,881
Search Ladera Heights, Los Angeles, CA Neighborhoods

domain: geography


text:
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domain: finance


Tomorrow is the final meeting of this County Council, and with two important bills on the agenda — shoreline setback and removing experimental crops from the ag dedication — it remains to be seen what legacy this body will leave for Kauai.
The key policy issue in the shoreline bill is this: Should the building setback be just 60 feet from rocky shorelines, as the current bill proposes, or 100 feet, as coastal and community advocates desire?
The key policy issue in the “agronomics” bill is whether thousands of acres with actual, legit crops in the ground should lose their agricultural dedication because bill sponsors Councilmen Tim Bynum and Gary Hooser are on a vendetta against the seed companies.
The bill eliminates the ag tax credit for all experimental crops — including biofuel and hemp, which could be problematic, seeing as how Grove Farm has state-designated Important Ag Lands in biofuel. I smell a lawsuit if this bill passes — and curiously Councilwoman JoAnn Yukimura and County Attorney Al Castillo are in a tug-of-war over whether his legal opinion on the bill should be publicly released.
The key political issue is this: Should a loser and near-loser, neither of whom reflect the will of any majority, be setting policy with important, long-ranging ramifications for development and agriculture on this island?
Meanwhile, Hooser, the near-loser, sent out a gloating email that chronicled his “happy dance” upon learning he barely eked out a dead-last win. In it, he opined:
My good friends in the chemical industry were for sure high fiving, whooping it up and celebrating my demise during the first and second print-outs (insert facetious smirk).
Actually, Gary, it was those of us with no ties to the industry who were joyously — and, sadly, prematurely — celebrating the demise of a demagogue whose lies have polarized communities across the state, infuriated and alienated thousands of decent citizens and wasted hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars, with no end to the carnage in sight.
Gary went on to make it clear his hubris far exceeds his meager vote tally, while his overweening political ambitions will leave him hard-pressed to fulfill his Kauai County duties:
We need statewide buffer zones, full disclosure, a targeted health and environmental study and a temporary statewide moratorium on the growth of this industry until we can determine and mitigate the impacts on the health and environment of our community.
Mmm, why not advocate for more money for state ag inspectors and health department studies, seeing as how those agencies have insufficient funding to do their jobs?
And why focus solely on agriculture, when Civil Beat yesterday reported Ken Kakesako, deputy director of the Department of Agriculture, as saying (emphasis added):
About 1,600 people or companies have licenses to apply restricted-use pesticides, and only 25 percent of them are farm-related.
The rest include professional pesticide applicators, such as exterminators that fumigate homes to get rid of termites and other pests.
“It’s misleading to only look at agriculture,” Kakesako said. “It shouldn’t be such a central focus if the conversation is truly about pesticides.”
But, of course, the conversation never has true, nor about pesticides. It's anti-GMO all the way, baby.
Kakesako's comment also reveals the lie that Tim and Gary used to rationalize both Bill 2491 and the agronomics bill: the seed companies should be singled out and punished because they're exposing more people to restricted use pesticides than anyone else.
Will that rationale hold up in court if the landowners sue over the agronomics bill?
Meanwhile, the “Maui Miracle” — to use Gary's term for the the GMO crop moratorium that narrowly passed, against the wishes of a majority of Molokai residents — is tied up in court, along with the Big Island's GMO crop ban. And though Gary is claiming “three of the four counties are all-in,” the political realities are a bit different.
Big Island friends tell me their County Council is considering a repeal of their bill, and would likely be emboldened if the new Kauai County Council also repeals Bill 2491/Ordinance 960, which is dead unless an appeals court resurrects it.
And there's no indication that Oahu folks are on board with any of this — anti-GMO marches there got small turnouts — and they still call the political shots in Hawaii.
So it's not too late to stop this political theatre, which benefits only a few grandstanding politicians and mainland-based advocacy groups, and address this issue in a sensible manner: fully fund the state Ag and Health departments so they can do their jobs, not just with pesticides, but invasive species, substance abuse, an obesity and diabetes epidemic and myriad other legitimate concerns.
To close on a note of levity, I'll leave you with the essay, “A small scale organic farmer wants you to know a few things,” which begins with the line:
Welcome to the farmers' market.
My favorite part:
No, the fucking chickens aren’t grass-fed. Because they aren’t fucking ruminants, that’s why, not because I’m part of a secret rural conspiracy to disrupt the endocrine systems of America’s urban masses.
You get the drift….


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Designed by Daniel Rybakken & Andreas Engesvik
Light Tray: 21"L x 14 1/5"D x 8"H
Light Tray Mini: 15"L x 10 1/2"D x 6 2/3"H
Materials: White lacquered metal tray, glass domes
Made in Sweden
The LIGHT TRAY lamp is the ultimate expression of functionality and design. Created by Daniel Rybakken and Andreas Engesvik, the pair set out to re-examine the design of the traditional table lamp. A tray with hand-blown glass cups acts as an artificial surface, both concealing the unit’s electronics and creating the illusion that the lamp has no external power source.

domain: artistic


President Obama won North Carolina by about 14,000 votes in 2008. But Rick Thames, editor of the Charlotte Observer, says Obama faces a challenge to win the state this year.
The Observer’s new poll of voters shows that 23 percent of white Democrats surveyed voted for Obama in 2008, and this year only 9 percent indicate they will.
Thames says as a swing state, North Carolina is very important to Republican party nominee Mitt Romney, who can’t win the White House without it. The President is expected to fight to hold onto North Carolina, so Thames expects a pitched battle there.
- Rick Thames, editor of the Charlotte Observer


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Beautifully handcrafted ceramic bowls with a dark turquoise color on the inside and natural clay on the exterior.
Handmade ceramic bowls are sturdy and durable. They're made with non-toxic glaze and are safe to use in the microwave and clean in the dishwasher.
My handcrafted small-batch ceramics may have perfect imperfections from the handmade process and variations in the size, shape and color of each piece.
Made in Barcelona
I create each unique piece with love in my studio in Barcelona, Spain. If you're in town, you're welcome to make an appointment to purchase my work in person.
Living sustainably is important to me. My electricity is generated from renewable sources. I follow strict reduce/reuse/recycle practices in my studio and for shipping methods. I do my best to reuse & recycle bubble wrap, boxes and other shipping materials in perfect condition. Otherwise, I purchase recycled shipping materials.


These two games will mark the official start to our PNG Rugby League season.
Our two champion teams – Digicel Cup premiers Lae Snax Tigers and Queensland Intrust Super Cup premiers SP PNG Hunters - begin their defence against quality opposition.
In a statement, PNGRFL CEO, Reatau Rau explained that both games are equal in status with the first game between the Tigers and Nadi Aviators not dubbed as a curtain raiser but the first of the international double header for the day.
Lae Snax Tigers will be playing to retain the Melanesian Club Championship Cup. This is a RLIF sanctioned game and national anthems of PNG and Fiji will be sung before kick -off at 12:45pm.
The pre- season trial between the SP Hunters and Brisbane Broncos is the second game of the double header.
This will be the only trial fixture before the season proper for the Broncos starts 12 days later against St George Dragons while our SP Hunters’ hunt to defend the premiership begins 14 days later against Ipswich Jets at home.
Tickets for the International Double Header go on sale at 9am this Saturday February 10 at the Ticketmaster’s outlets in Port Moresby.
“We thank Digicel for taking these two international games to every Papua New Guinean who will not be able to attend. Footages of the game will be shared with the other networks for news purposes only,” said Rau.


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Christina Stoppel was back in Boston, and she wasn’t at all sure she liked it.
Boston was her hometown, not just where she was born and grew up but where she’d made a life for herself afterwards. She had the typical hometown pride you’d expect from anyone around her, and as a member of the Police Department she’d made it her life’s work to try to keep the place feeling safe.
But after almost three months away, the city seemed entirely changed - although she knew all the change was in her.
She’d left the city in a hurry in May, and left her job behind at the same moment. Having worked to put a mind controller behind bars, Christina had been left with the lingering idea of his control in her head - only to realise before too long that her vague sensation that another mind had hold of her strings was nothing compared to the effect he’d left on a few true slaves still in Boston.
She’d been confronted by them, tricked, and captured. Marcie, the Thoughtsmith’s slave, had done her homework and decided that the woman who took him down should be part of his rescue plan. She’d found a device that was enough to twist Christina’s head temporarily into exactly the shape she wanted it to be, and Christina had rescued the Thoughtsmith before he could stand trial - and they had then fled the city, allowing Christina the opportunity to be firmly brainwashed into her new slavery.
Christina had discovered a purity of purpose that had been lacking for years now. As with many police officers, she was all too aware that there were problem elements in her department, and that the culture would make testifying against them a bad idea. She still believed in the duty she’d signed up for, but she knew that almost no case was as simple as that under the circumstances, and knew she was having to turn blind eyes to things that might be OK or might be awful - and there was often no good way to tell.
A few years trapped in that complicated mess of motivations would muddy anyone’s sense of purpose, even their belief they were contributing to anything worthwhile. But anything she did for her Master was worthwhile, and right, and made the world better. Loving him. Serving him. Acting as his enforcer as he carved out a little space for himself, or as he looked to other criminal organisations to make money - that had clear value. It was for her Master, so it was always going to be the right thing to do.
And she served alongside her old partner. Now known as Ellie, her redheaded colleague and she had grown closer than ever after Master decided they should pleasure each other into new levels of conditioning.
And so, yes, Boston was the city most sacred to Christina’s thoughts, most important to who she was. It was also hunting her Master (and, much less importantly, herself). It was, in many ways, her enemy.
It was perhaps not so surprising that Christina wasn’t entirely comfortable with the place anymore. Walking along the street, hands deep in the pockets of her bulky leather jacket, blonde ponytail protruding from under a Sox baseball cap pulled low, she was hopeful she was going to be pretty much unrecognisable, but the shadows in the streets she passed seemed darker, somehow, and full of a threat she couldn’t remember feeling before.
In theory, this was just a recon mission. After a couple of months in which he gritted his teeth and just dealt with it, Master had decided he wasn’t willing to accept being unable to influence Boston. Like many other big coastal cities, it effectively became a nexus point for both legitimate business and crime in a radius around it. Not being able to risk setting foot in the city was an active hindrance for the Thoughtsmith’s lofty ambitions.
(Not that he had spelled these out clearly for Christina, hardly thinking her submissive station made her a suitable confidante. But she was a well-trained detective, originally, and could draw her own conclusions from the half-formed asides he would make from time to time, and from the order and attitude with which he asked new criminal slaves who they knew and had worked for.)
Master’s thinking was clear. Before returning to a city which knew about him and would have taken precautions, he needed a woman on the inside. In fact, two - possibly three; that was part of the reason recon was called for.
Even with the ability to take over the mind of anyone who meets your gaze, you can’t take over a city without planning. You need to be inside its security systems, so you can avoid suspicion or shut it down when it starts. You need to do that without any suspicion starting up - or you need to crush it so fast it can’t blossom.
And all of that needs doing before you can consider yourself safe.
The security systems of Boston included a legal side - the police - and an illegal side in the bigger local criminal organisations. The police was the one that never went away, had better funding, and (for the most part) better equipment. The bigger criminal organisations tended to have better foresight.
Christina had already offered her Master a solution to the question of the police. Her job here was partly to assess how viable that solution was - or, put another way, how easily Christina’s own sister could be added to her Master’s harem of useful women - and partly to assess what solutions might be most appropriate regarding organised crime.
The city of Boston itself made Christina uneasy, but offering Jillian to her Master hadn’t. She still remembered the thrill that ran through her when she first voiced the idea; it had been a betrayal of family, but that had been a pleasure, not a regret. She would do anything for her Master and, unless he was foolish enough to allow his control over her to lapse, she would never regret any action that made his life easier or better.
Being busted back to uniform and put strictly on desk jobs handling paperwork was not, of course, something the PD had done to Jillian because of her sister. Obviously.
Obviously not officially, anyway. To Jillian the connection was painfully obvious. And for all that Christina was supposedly under mind control, Jillian blamed her sister. If she’d had the will to hold on, none of this would be happening, and both Stoppels’ careers would be in a much better place.
Their parents hadn’t been in law enforcement, but Christina had set her heart on the job of a policewoman from the age of eight, and she’d never budged. Six and impressionable, Jillian had followed along for a while, and though in her early teens a burst of rebelliousness had seen her consider other careers - stuntwoman, vet, weather woman (meteorologist not having been in her vocabulary at the time and, honestly, only barely in her vocabulary now) - the amount of study needed or the likelihood of success had sent her back toward the police every time.
It wasn’t exactly hero worship - they were too close in age for that - but Christina’s respect had always been important to Jillian, and the pair had always been close. When Christina went to the Academy, stories of training and her eager explanations of the logic behind things and, later, her firsthand accounts of the encounters she’d been allowed to ride along on with her instructing officers had just made the job seem all the more important.
The problem had been that her sister had been a goddamn prodigy of law enforcement. She graduated top of the class. She didn’t beat the record for traffic violations or get the most arrests in her first year with the department, but she did get the record for the most arrests that stuck in court - which mattered more to, not everyone, but a few of the people who’d mattered most; her precinct commander, her shift captain, and a number of sergeants.
Nobody enjoyed the lectures that came after a bad arrest, either, even if that got saved up until after it fell apart in pretrial or court. Christina didn’t get in trouble often and any squad she’d worked with had seen better results and a big uptick in praise and support, and her fellow officers knew it. She wasn’t the golden girl of the department - for one thing, well, she was a girl, and it’d take a few more years seniority before the rest of the force could overlook this glaring and obvious deficiency - but it was still pretty clear that she was a rising star.
She was already rising by the time Jillian started at the Academy, and if having a textbook officer for a sister had made her path to that point easier, it made things more challenging afterwards. Jillian only found out toward the end of her course that the strange, quiet, sour expression many of her instructors wore after an exercise where she’d scored well didn’t indicate failure, except by the standards of her sister. Toward the end, driven to make her instructors swallow those frowns, she’d started bettering her occasionally.
But Christina was already several steps ahead, and with that lead, graduation hadn’t been enough to stop Jillian from always feeling pushed to compete. It hadn’t worked out at all the way she’d hoped.
Jillian had persevered anyway - it wasn’t in her family’s nature to give up on anything, or so she’d thought until recently - and she’d thought that she had it under control by the start of the year, which was when she started to actually look at the state of her personal life.
Hobbies that had been neglected were revisited. She checked her old dating profile and found almost nothing she was interested in; she punched it up, updated it, and tried again. Many fewer men make approaches when your profile clearly states you’re a cop but, honestly, Jillian was OK with that; those who made it through had already had a chance to opt out and hadn’t.
There were more than enough uniform fetishists in her new profile to mean she still had some work to do to weed out problems from the field, but she’d had a few good dates, and a couple of men were out there in Boston probably (she fondly imagined) who might be thinking of making things a little more official and wrapping her up exclusively.
Which was, honestly, the thought that had kept her going through a dull, frustrating Thursday afternoon seated at a desk catching up on paperwork for her team. This wasn’t what she’d taken the sergeant’s exam for; she also was none too happy to be back in uniform (not that she minded how it looked on her, but it took her further from the parts of the job she enjoyed the most).
This was, at least, the last punishment she’d have to endure in keeping up with her older sister. Once she finally crawled out from under the collective embarrassment of the entire Boston Police Department, she’d be able to forge a path that wasn’t going to be compared to Christina.
The problem was that it was already July and she was starting to think she wouldn’t be clear of the punishment until the next January at least. A whole year of her career wasted - no, worse than wasted; she’d still be looking for opportunities to climb back where she’d been at the end.
She clicked save on the work she’d been doing, set the original paper copies back in their folder, and sat back, giving vent of a long sigh she hoped would take her tension away with it. It… helped, at least. She glanced at the clock; another twenty minutes before she could consider her shift over.
At least there was that benefit from desk duty. She almost never had to work late.
…Why was Christina even on her mind today, anyway? It had been months, but somehow she’d been dwelling on her sister again, and it hadn’t been because of any reference she could think of.
As she let herself into Jillian’s apartment, Christina held her breath. Like many cops, both sisters had installed proper security systems; not the most expensive and full-featured on the market, because police salaries didn’t run to that, but nothing to sneer at either.
Christina was hopeful this was going to be simple, but she was aware she might be running soon, just to ensure her recon mission didn’t create too much risk for the original goal. It all depended on whether Jillian had updated her security code since Christina learned her true purpose.
As she punched in the code, she thought back to her quick surveillance of her sister earlier. Covered up in jacket and ball cap as she’d been, she was pretty sure Jillian’s eyes had slid over her without recognition - there’d certainly been no sign of it. She might just have written her sister off as gone and never coming back…
The alarm system subsided and Christina sagged slightly in the doorway, relieved. A tiny part of her - the frustrated cop, fighting against her programming, hoping to resurface one day if Thoughtsmith screwed up and failed to restore his hold - felt a sick weight in her belly at the clear evidence that Jillian had written her off, but the part of her which drove her was delighted that her quarry had made a mistake.
She slipped inside, closing the door behind her, and moved through the house, checking for signs of current occupancy. It wouldn’t do to try digging for information at her sister’s apartment if she’d effectively moved in with a boyfriend; likewise, if a lover had moved in, Christina would have to be as quick as she could.
No extra toothbrush, about the usual amount of underwear - just one shower gel bottle and only three or four shampoos; that felt like just Jillian. Checking the kitchen she found the dishes clearly hadn’t been done in a couple of days; Jillian had always been focused more on other questions than on keeping her place perfect, but if she had guests over regularly Christina would expect a little more care based purely on personal pride.
It also proved that Jillian was still living here.
Christina smiled to herself. This was going to be the capstone to a very successful day’s research. She should still have a couple of hours to check for opportunities before-
She heard a key in the door and stiffened. Thank Master she’d thought to lock it while she was inside; Jillian might not have changed her codes but she’d definitely be on her guard if she came home and found her door unlocked.
All the same, fuck. Jillian’s shift was barely over; she should have been handing paperwork for another hour or more yet.
Christina scrambled to get into shadow, tucking herself away in the corner of Jillian’s bedroom - figuring her sister would want to grab a drink first, or maybe use the bathroom. It would give her a chance to escape…
Jillian shut and locked her front door and stood there for a moment. She swept the hat from her head, hung it on a hook, and leaned forward, resting her forehead against the door, where she closed her eyes and exhaled slowly. There had been plenty of things about the day which might have driven her to this level of frustration, she freely acknowledged, but probably the biggest was that her next day off wasn’t until Tuesday.
For only the second or third time, all within the past month, Jillian asked herself if staying the course on this career was worth it. She could walk away, start again on a new career path, and never have to deal with her sister’s name being the first thing anybody heard of again.
She’d followed her sister into the career. Did she really have the passion for all this, if competition wasn’t enough to pull her along? Or was this just the doubt of someone having a shitty day?
Even rock stars said there were days that felt like hard, frustrating work. It was no wonder a cop might feel even worse after a run of quiet punishment from her superiors.
Tugging at her tie, she made her way into her bedroom. The sooner she could get out of uniform and into something comfortable, the happier she’d be… at least for the evening.
She could figure out if she was actually experiencing career regret later.
Making her way over to the inbuilt closet on one wall, she finished untying her tie and hung it over the open door. She stood at the closet’s door, unbuttoning her blue dress shirt.
She was tired, exasperated, and her mind was half on whether she could be bothered to cook anything worth eating that night. She didn’t notice the woman she’d walked past, her eyes on a different destination, until a floorboard creaked a pace or so behind her.
Instantly Jillian was wide awake again. Her fingers abandoned her shirt buttons after undoing just three, and one hand dropped to her hip, where she still wore her service weapon. One foot slid back a step. She was already spinning into a turn when whoever else was in the room slammed into her, springing forward and bearing her into the door of her closet. The hinge audibly cracked but Jillian couldn’t complete her turn, couldn’t see who it was, and her gun hand was twisted painfully around her back, away from the weapon.
Something stung the back of her neck. For a second Jillian wondered if she’d been bitten, but that didn’t make any sense.
She felt a heat start to throb outward from the sting; not just an odd warmth but an arousal, a need, a lust. Jillian tried to wrench herself free of her assailant, but the unseen attacker held on. Jillian heard a soft voice counting seconds, very hushed. Her attacker was a woman, then.
Another shiver of arousal ran down her spine. Her vision began to swim. She’d been drugged.
She stopped fighting her assailant. Focused, as best she could through the heat, on the pressure she was being held by, on the positioning of her opponent.
As soon as she felt the pressure lesson, her back foot went up then came back down, stomping on her opponent’s instep. She threw all her strength into a twist at the hips that threw her attacker forward over one shoulder, and she turned, scrambling away.
Intent and training both said: get a couple of steps away, draw, turn, aim. She stumbled her couple of steps’ distance from an assailant she knew would be stunned having crashed into her closet (and with any luck she’d be tangled up in a power suit and a little back number).
That was as far as training and intent could carry her. Bringing her arm back down toward her pistol, the edge of her thumb brushed her buttock, and she shuddered and spasmed as the heat the drug filled her with coursed through her again. She dropped to one knee, gasping in shocked euphoria, and her gun hand flew out to brace her.
She stayed like that, breathing ragged, for perhaps four or five seconds before her mind emerged from the warm, heady fog enough for her to will her other hand around, looking for a cross body draw.
But, again, her lust-driven body betrayed her wishes. Rather than reach her holster, her hand went straight between her legs, thumb squeezing against her crotch through her uniform trousers and her panties. A tiny part of her panicked further, knowing her attacker was still at large and could probably strike at any time. But the rest of her, the part of her that was driving, let out a needy moan.
She went to two knees, sat back on her heels. Her hands didn’t seem to be acting under her own initiative when they tore at her belt, strength more useful than technique in springing the buckle open. Her clumsy, needy attempts to undo her pants were accompanied by her own ragged, frantic breathing and the sound of strained fabric ripping. One hand plunged inside her soft, wet black panties as soon as she had access, two fingers sliding inside her, taking up their well-loved, familiar place without her feeling as if she had any say in it at all.
There was an attacker in her room. Someone who’d drugged her. And, as her other hand slid into her open shirt to find and tease a rock-hard nipple, that was completely irrelevant to her. What mattered was her body’s need. Only the tiniest part of her mind even tried to protest as pleasure nerves up and down her body fired and sizzled with passion.
This was like no drug she’d ever heard of, and she had no idea how to handle it.
Christina had felt reasonably confident once Jillian didn’t notice her on entry. She could hopefully dose her (although it would be one less for tomorrow’s work, and she’d already had to use more than she’d intended today) and maybe even learn something worthwhile.
She’d just… underestimated her sister’s combat awareness, and her attempt to compensate for that had been well below the level it should have been. Frankly, she’d deserved to be taken down like that, and her head ached from her impact with the door.
Still… by the time she untangled herself from her sister’s clothes, Jillian had been incapacitated by the serum. Christina still had no idea where her Master had found it, but he had a briefcase of the stuff in the overlarge house he’d taken over as his HQ, for use when he sent agents into the field who might need to meddle with the heads of outsiders.
Christina held her breath and watched her sister finger herself to orgasm, and beyond that, into the trancelike stupor which always followed. The intensity of the drug experience left a mind just barely able to register and respond to external stimuli and well below the capacity for independent action, once the pleasure had burned the brain out.
It wasn’t a long window - the human psyche is resilient, and the serum’s designers hadn’t been able to provide much resiliency against the human immune system either. But it would be enough… for whatever ‘enough’ ended up being.
She heard her sister’s cries of pleasure, watching impassively. Jillian might be a blood relation, but all Christina saw her as right now was the next addition to a harem her Master had commanded. As the cries subsided and Jillian’s thoughts burned away, she watched her sister start to slump backward, and hastily reached forward to catch her before her head could hit the floor.
There were already too many indicators of a break-in; she didn’t want it to be made any worse.
She lifted her sister from the floor and lay her on the bed, one hand still in the waistband of her panties, one arm flopping free, shirt half-open, pants torn around the fastening, eyes unfocused, staring glassily past and through the ceiling.
Then she perched herself at the foot of the bed, well out of Jillian’s line of vision. As little as she expected her target to remember of all this, the best thing she could possibly do was avoid showing herself in her sister’s subconscious.
“Can you hear me?” she asked softly.
“Yes,” Jillian breathed. Her lips barely moved enough for Christina to see them twitch. Her body was almost entirely unmoving, lying there basking in the afterglow of the serum.
“Are you seeing anyone?”
“Would they miss you if you stopped?”
In her drugged stupor, there was no emotion to the answer. No lament. A tiny part of Christina wondered idly if her sister would be happy about that or not.
She didn’t bother asking if work would notice. It was work’s job to notice. She did, however, ask her shift patterns, and confirmed when Jillian would next have an actual day off.
“On Tuesday, your phone will ring at ten a.m. All you’ll hear when you answer it will be a location. You’ll go to that location for two p.m.,” Christina instructed, taking a liberty and hoping her Master would be pleased with her inspiration. “You’ll convince yourself it’s your own idea.”
Silence. Christina felt her heart beating loud in her chest, caught in the worry she’d pushed it too far. She wasn’t an expert in manipulating the minds of others. That was her Master’s skill, and she wouldn’t dream of considering herself on his level.
“Right?” she prompted.
“Yes,” Jillian agreed dreamily.
Christina breathed a sigh of relief, and decided that pushing her luck any further wouldn’t benefit her Master.
She tiptoed to the door, let herself out, replaced the spare key, and left.
Perhaps two hours later, Jillian blinked. Her eyes - and her mouth - were dry, and she was lying on her bed, half-undressed, hand in her panties…
She sat up and glanced at her closet. Her clothes were in disarray, some having been dislodged from their hangers. The door stood open and listed slightly at an odd angle. It looked almost like there’d been a fight…
She drew her weapon, got up, and padded through into the hallway. She checked the door, which was locked, and proceeded to search the apartment room-by-room in as close to the approved manner as can be done when you have no partner to back you up.
Nobody anywhere, but also no sign of disturbance. She checked her couple of secure hiding places; some emergency cash was still in the tea caddy under the full coffee caddy. Her backup weapon was still taped to the wall directly behind the sofa, and hadn’t been unloaded or tampered with. Her jewellery was on her makeup table.
The idea there’d been an intruder and all they’d done was mess with her closet was blatantly ridiculous, and her heart rate dropped a little.
She couldn’t remember a thing since getting in the elevator to come up to her apartment. Or could she? She’d made that trip hundreds of times now. There was never any security issue. Was she just failing to remember doing so today because it had faded into the background as so many did?
Had she just come home, gotten halfway-undressed and nodded off?
That didn’t seem like her, but nor did anything else in this weird situation.
And it had been a very, very weird day.
No, she decided. This was the last straw. If she was so worked up she was losing time, if she was only in the job because of a sister who she was best off forgetting, if… and of this… then the job wasn’t for her.
She’d work another two months and give notice to end at the end of her fifth year, she decided.
And in the meantime she should probably brush up her resume.

domain: literature


Gator Blade l
The Gator Blade 1 & 2 features arched blades on opposite ends. The blade design allows more scraping pressure for around rear defrosters and for adhesive removal on surfaces where metallic razor blades would scratch surfaces. It contours to the shape of auto glass so that it efficiently removes debris & old adhesive. It also aides in pushing down fingers and removing creases.


The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) identify, investigate and analyze data collected from aviation accidents to determine the root cause. It has been determined that most aviation accidents do not happen in isolation; rather, they are caused by a series of events, most of which are avoidable.
Earl Weiner’s Aviation Automation Research Unveils Hazards in Human Factors
Earl Wiener, leading NASA’s Ames Research Center, is a pioneer in human factors and automation research in aviation. Since the 1970s he has been researching the intertwining roles of automation in aviation with pilot errors and accidents. In his research, Wiener identified several disturbing cases where automation created an environment that allowed pilots to be complacent and careless, leading to delayed decision making in dangerous and emergency situations. One of the most troubling cases Weiner reviewed was the 1983 crash of Korean Air Lines Flight 007, which was shot down by the Soviet Union after it veered hundreds of miles off course. Later official reports would site the crew’s “lack of alertness” as the reason for the tragic incident that killed all 269 people on board when the plane plummeted into the Sea of Japan.
As aviation manufacturers expanded technological improvements and specialized automation functions in airplanes, pilots were being freed of their responsibilities and were becoming bored behind the wheel. Instead of improving the rate of accidents due to human error, piloting was becoming more hazardous. Aviation automation improves flight path coordination, eliminates certain human variables, offers economical utilization of machines and increases productivity. It was designed to prevent mistakes brought on by pilot fatigue, inattention and other human errors. Automation of aviation is intended to offer pilots the opportunity to make better strategic decisions and gives pilots more time to focus on details.
Automation in Aviation Offers False Sense of Security
Some pilots are not using automation technology appropriately and instead are relying too heavily on it without scrutinizing the data, are missing silent failures and are accepting a false sense of security without monitoring the automated systems more carefully. Weiner interviewed pilots to identify the underlying issues. One pilot admittedly reported, “I know I’m not in the loop, but I’m not exactly out of the loop. It’s more like I’m flying alongside the loop.”
Weiner had envisioned the aviation industry making slow and careful innovations calibrated to pilots’ abilities and needs. Instead, aviation companies increased automation to address particular errors but not necessarily in accordance with the needs of the pilots. Later in 1990, Stephen Casner added a new perspective to Weiner’s research. A graduate of the University of Pittsburg, Casner’s doctorate was in Intelligent System Design, for which he explored the human psychological aspect of automation in aviation. He came to similar conclusions after conducting his own research for two years.
Casner found that cockpit systems were not well understood by the pilots who used them. This is especially the case with junior pilots who rely heavily on the automation system. It was also discovered that the amount of automation a pilot relied on during a flight directly affected the way the pilot performed his or her own work with the flight system in conjunction with the automation technology. About 21 percent of the pilots surveyed were not using their additional time to focus on higher-order computations; rather, they spent their time on commonplace issues, and some even lost the sharpness of their skill set.
In a recent example, pilots heavily relied on the automation system to make a strategic judgment call that cost three passengers their lives and injured 187 more on board when Asiana Airlines Flight 214 crashed in an attempted landing in San Francisco in July 2013. All four pilots on board missed the crucial judgment call that the plane was coming in too slowly. Because they relied on the automation system to tell them if something was wrong, they believed the plane would keep flying at a disastrously low speed. The NTSB cited the lack of training on the Boeing 777’s new complex automation system and the pilots’ lack of judgment in landing the plane as direct causes of the fatal accident. The recent missing Malaysia Air Flight was the same Boeing-manufactured 777 airplane.
The false sense of security among pilots who count on aviation automation to safely get the plane to the destination creates hazardous conditions. Without hands-on directives, some pilots fail to maintain or develop the skill to determine the best course of action. Pilots should utilize the automation system in conjunction with their sharp skill set to proactively enhance their abilities to determine the safest flight conditions. When pilots fail to use the automation system in combination with complex cognitive decision making, innocent passengers and crew members may be at risk.
To learn more about how you and your loved ones can be protected from a catastrophic aviation accident, contact the aviation law firm of Slack Davis Sanger at 800.455.8686 or www.slackdavis.com.


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Spring Music Concerts
The Band, Orchestra, and Vocal Music programs will be having their spring concerts in May. The band concert will be held on Tuesday, May 21st in the Merrill gym. 6th grade will begin at 5:30pm and 7th, 8th, and Jazz bands will begin at 7:00pm. The orchestra concert will be held on Monday, May 20th in the Roosevelt auditorium beginning at 6:00pm. The vocal music concert is May 23rd for 7th & 8th grades beginning at 6:30pm in the Merrill gym. The 6th grade music students will be having their musical on Friday, May 17th at 2:00pm in the Merrill Gym. 6th grade families are welcome to attend. If you have questions about the concerts, please contact Mr. Morgan for band, Mrs. Graham for orchestra, or Mrs. Copic for vocal music!


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I never knew street names existed only directions given using landmarks, buildings and people’s houses. I lived across from the baptist church. There was only one so never any confusion there. Nonie's house was across from the Pioneer school. I was finding a cousin's house recently and the directions given to me were, "Turn right on the middle road across from the jr. High and go up by the old barn." I drove right to it. I still can remember certain phone numbers and P.O. Boxes when half the time I can't even recite my own cell number. Just like the sticker I can feel in my toe from walking across the cemetery yesterday. You can't see it, you can't even feel it on the outside to get it out. But every step you know it's there and it reminds you painfully at times.
Yesterday I was only in town for a few hours. One of those life long friends lost her mother, unexpectedly. And maybe it was only a few heartfelt hugs I could offer, you show up and you're there if merely just to show you care and offer support because that's what growing up small town is about. Sitting there in the chapel that I grew up in, singing from the hymn books I held back then. I realized once again how short and unpredictable life can be. And how lucky I am to be able to share. To share my heart, my stories or maybe even just a smile or a hug. That's what it's all about. You put yourself out there and you love, grow, influence, cry, laugh, celebrate, make mistakes, be unforgettable, be YOU.
(Monica is the daughter of John Naegle and Marsha Sowder; Her "Nonie" was Bernice Naegle)