mortality and mercy in Mendocino

One of the things I've been peeking at lately is a small newspaper's "investigation" (I use the term loosely) of what could arguable be called an attempted murder. In 1990, radical environmentalist Judi Bari and a companion were in her car in Oakland, CA when a pipe bomb detonated inside the car under her seat. This event, and the lives of the people involved in it, have spawned a host of investigations, documentaries, books, vitriolic press conferences, radio shows, op-eds, you name it.

Check out the archive. You may even be compelled to rethink your own sense of where you stand on the environmental movement (or movements -- there are many different stripes and temperaments) and the law as it pertains to violent behavior. This stuff is about as close to libelous as I'd think it would get.

Reading this demented yet entertaining stuff reminds me of Thomas Pynchon's novel Vineland, which, like the events of the Bari bombing, take place in rural northern California. I'd always thought I'd want to live in this area (I lived in San Francisco for two years, which, though only a couple of hours south, is in many ways worlds away), but the more I read about it, the more I want to stick with my own brand of hep urbanism. ;-)

The newspaper itself makes for an interesting read. Fill out their simple form online and you can get a free honest-to-goodness real paper trial issue. It's sort of like Dr. Dobb's Journal meets the Socialist Worker, with a smattering of Emma Goldman thrown in to make things somewhat indendiary.