Mendocino County Today: Thursday 10/17/2024

Cool & Breezy | Palace Bought | Power Shutoff | Local Events | Fire Investigations | Scofflaw Guilty | Coat Drive | Trestle Bridge | Elections Podcast | New Hires | String Quartet | Grape Harvest | Name-Changers | Bigfoot Article | Classic Sponsors | First Poet | Rusty Norvell | Yesterday's Catch | Off-Leash Dogs | San Francisco | Hotel Workers | Voting Decision | First Supermarket | Ongoing Massacre | Palestine Poetry | Private Road | Delta Tunnel | Bookstores | Great Novelists | Academic Freedom | Lead Stories | Two Flags | We're Screwed | Prairie Mirror | Political Economy | Fat Man | Whose Woods | Snow Riders

---

MUCH COOLER and drier air will move across the area today alongside gusty northerly wind, particularly on coastal ridges and in southern Lake County. Calmer and warmer conditions will return this weekend. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): The Hunters Moon - picture taken at it peak at 4:26am this morning.

The Old Farmer's Almanac, which first began publishing the names for the full moons in the 1930s, states the full moon was named as the "hunter moon" because it marked the beginning of hunting season and viewed as a signal for hunters to begin preparing for the approaching cold.

Our clear skies allowed for the picture today, it's 48F at 5am this Thursday morning on the coast. I got .04" of drizzle yesterday morning. Clear & windy today, then mostly sunny skies are forecast for a lovely weekend to come.

---

LOCAL CONTRACTOR SECURES TITLE TO HISTORIC PALACE HOTEL

By Mike Geniella

Tom Carter, a longtime North Coast contractor with experience in turning old buildings into new uses, said Wednesday he has secured title to the Palace Hotel, the historic downtown Ukiah landmark.

Carter bought Twin Investments LLC, a privately held company that owns the decrepit Palace and the downtown property from owner Jitu Ishwar. The transaction, which avoided the escrow process, includes a pending demolition permit issued by the City of Ukiah, according to Carter.

Carter said he has already approached city building officials about how to proceed to abate public safety issues that hang over the brick building which covers 66,000 square feet. A year ago, city officials declared the Palace a public safety issue, and ordered scaffolding placed around sections fronting public streets.…

https://theava.com/archives/254225

---

POWER COULD BE SHUT OFF for about 1,500 customers in Sonoma, Napa, Lake and Mendocino counties: PG&E

by Madison Smalstig

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. could shut off power to more than a thousand North Bay residents due to critical fire weather conditions beginning Thursday night and lasting into Saturday.

The National Weather Service early Wednesday issued a wind advisory in effect from 11 p.m. Thursday through 8 a.m. Friday. Twenty to 30 mph winds from the north are expected to impact the North Bay’s interior mountains, including the Sonoma, Mayacamas and Vaca ranges, as well as most of Napa County, except the valleys.

Gusts are expected to reach 50 mph and some isolated spots could experience a 65 mph gust. These will likely be the strongest winds during the red flag warning, in effect from 11 p.m. Thursday to 5 p.m. Saturday for most of the North Bay aside from the immediate coast.

Though some coastal drizzle was anticipated Wednesday, it was forecast to be less than one hundredth of an inch and “do nothing to damper fire weather concerns going into tomorrow,” meteorologists said in the weather service’s area forecast discussion.

PG&E shutoffs are “likely” for customers Thursday through Saturday across a large swath of Northern California and part of the Central Valley to prevent potential fire spread. Locally, that may include:

• Sonoma County: 707 customers, 19 Medical Baseline customers, who depend on power for medical needs
• Napa County: 649 customers, 17 Medical Baseline customers
• Lake County: 168 customers, 8 Medical Baseline customers
• Mendocino County: 10 customers, 4 Medical Baseline customers

Shutoffs may take place in northeast Sonoma County, just north of the Russian River, west of Santa Rosa and Sonoma, and in much of Napa County outside of the valleys.

The intentional blackouts could affect a total of about 28,000 customers, the utility said Wednesday, across the Bay Area, North Coast, Central Coast and Sierra Nevada.

(pressdemocrat.com)

---

LOCAL EVENTS

---

AV FIRE CHIEF ANDRES AVILA:

I reached out to CalFire regarding the status of the Mountain House Road multiple fire investigation and the Grange Fire investigation knowing full well that investigation information is appropriately kept confidential to ensure proper investigation techniques and confidentiality of processes are maintained. The Mountain House Road incidents [six separate roadside fires presumably all set by one person withing a short period] are still under investigation. Any public information that could help the investigation should be passed on to CalFire/Willits. (707-459-7414). Investigators have made good progress on the Grange Fire investigation and are completing some final testing before sending their report to the District Attorney for initial review. Submitting this report to the DA is the first step in many steps required by the judicial process and it will likely be some time before a final conclusion is made in the courts.

---

RESTRAINING ORDER SCOFFLAW FOUND GUILTY

A Mendocino County Superior Court jury returned from its deliberations Tuesday afternoon to announce it had found the trial defendant guilty as charged.

Defendant Thomas Anthony Thorson, age 39, generally of the Ukiah area, was found guilty of two misdemeanor counts of contempt of court by willfully violating a lawful restraining order.

The law enforcement agency that investigated both of the September crimes was the Ukiah Police Department.

The prosecutor who presented the People’s evidence to the jury was Deputy District Attorney Sarah Drlik. This was DDA Drlik’s first jury trial as both an attorney and as a Mendocino County deputy prosecutor.

Mendocino County Superior Court Judge Keith Faulder presided over the two-day trial.

(DA Presser)

---

ST. MARY OF THE ANGELS CATHOLIC SCHOOL HOSTS WINTER COAT DRIVE to spread warmth and kindness in the community

As the colder months approach, St. Mary of the Angels Catholic School is stepping up to support those in need by hosting a Winter Coat Drive under the theme “Coats of Compassion.” The drive aims to collect new or gently used coats and jackets to ensure everyone in the local community has the warmth they need this winter season.

The Coat Drive runs from October 1st through November 22nd, with donations accepted at St. Mary’s School, located at 991 S. Dora St., in Ukiah. This initiative is inspired by the Biblical message of compassion: “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none.” (Luke 3:11). The school hopes to embody this spirit of giving by gathering essential items for those who otherwise may not have access to warm winter clothing.

“We invite everyone in our community to join us in spreading warmth and kindness this winter,” said Principal Soria. “No act of generosity is too small, and your donated coats and jackets will make a big difference to families in need.”

How You Can Help:

Donate new or gently used coats and jackets for children and adults.

Bring your donations to St. Mary’s School, 991 S. Dora St., Ukiah.

The deadline for donations is November 22nd.

For more information about the Coat Drive or to learn about other ways to support St. Mary of the Angels Catholic School, please visit our website at www.stmarysukiah.org.

---

---

KZYX NEWS LAUNCHES ELECTIONS PODCAST

Imagine that you could sit down and have a cup of coffee with all the candidates you are interested in and just ask them questions. The next best thing is to cue up the KZYX Elections podcast. These are informal interviews with the candidates that touch on the most important issues and give listeners a chance to get to know the community members who have volunteered to serve.

Lead reporter Elise Cox said she plans to cover as many races as possible before the election. The KZYX Elections Podcast already has interviews posted for the California Assembly race and the Fort Bragg Unified School District race. On deck for early this week is the Congressional race, the Mendocino Coast Hospital District race, and Measure S. Next up is the Willits City Council race.

You can find the KZYX Elections Podcast by typing it into the search bar of your Apple podcast app, Spotify, or any other podcast distribution app. If you can't find it, please let us know (newsletter@kzyx.org) .

You can find additional election-related news, interviews, and analysis on the station by visiting the KZYX “Elections 2024” webpage and by listening to local news broadcasts as well as NPR’s regular newscasts and breaking news. Other KZYX offerings include an overview and background on the ballot propositions by co-hosts Annie Esposito and Karen Ottoboni on “The Discussion” on October 14, available on Jukebox following the broadcast.

---

NEW HIRES AT SHERIFF’S OFFICE

Sheriff Matt Kendall introduced the Sheriff’s Office’s newest Community Services Officer, Tristin Milani, at a ceremony this morning. Tristin comes from Mendocino County roots, and we are thankful he will be serving the community in which he grew up. The Sheriff also welcomed lateral Deputy Sheriff Steven Diaz and returning Deputy Sheriff Christopher D’Orazio. Both were sworn in this morning in the presence of loved ones and Sheriff’s Office staff.

If you are noticing a pattern, we are too! Peace officers with law enforcement experience are choosing the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office. For this we are very grateful and hope to continue becoming a destination agency for experienced peace officers.

Please join Sheriff Kendall in congratulating and welcoming our new and returning personnel to the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office.

---

HOT BUTTERED RUM AT ARENA THEATER THIS FRIDAY

Hot Buttered Rum String Quartet

Tickets: $30 online and at the door.

Performing bluegrass, reggae, folk, and jazz combined into a riveting blend of Americana as a four-piece string band! With Sonoma County singer songwriter Gillian Grogan. String bass and five-alarm fiddle merge with guitar, banjo, mandolin, drums and keyboards to frame the voices of its two contrasting writers, fueling a dance party with roots in Appalachia and its branches in California. It’s a sound that’s as tough to describe as it is easy to love.

The Arena Theater Bar and snack bar will be open.

Arena Theater, 214 Main Street, Point Arena, 707 882-3272 Office hours: Mon, Wed, Fri 10-3, closed on Tue, Thu, Sat, Sun. email: info@arenatheater.org

For tickets and event details visit www.arenatheater.org

---

---

OCTOBER TEACH-IN UPDATE

Change Our Name - Fort Bragg

Our next teach-in will be Tuesday November 12 at 6 p.m at Harbor Lite Lodge, 120 North Harbor Drive, FB.

Envisioned as a program to educate attendees about the issues involved in the name change and to hear neighbors’ ideas, the teach-in will last about one hour and will feature two speakers and a question and answer/discussion period.

Speakers will be:

Holly Tannen who sings traditional English and Scottish ballads and writes satirical songs about Mendocino and the Internet. She holds a master’s degree in Folklore from U.C. Berkeley, where she studied neo-Pagan music, the folklore of the AIDS epidemic, and the singing of Scotland’s Traveling People. She also wrote and performs The Braxton Bragg song which can be found on our website here.

Troyle Tognoli.

What was once intended as a two week visit, quickly turned into 47 years of Troyle living, working and raising a son in Mendocino County. Troyle formed and spearheaded Black Lives Matter Mendocino County chapter and currently serves on the City of Ukiah Equity and Diversity committee. Troyle rallied the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors to support the Mendocino County (PSAB) Public Safety Advisory Board. She served as the youngest member of the Mendocino County Grand Jury, She also served as President of SEIU local 1021. Recently retired, Troyle now enjoys an array of political, social and practical endeavors.

---

---

REDWOOD CLASSIC COMING SOON

Become a Sponsor for the 65th Annual Redwood Classic!

We’re excited to welcome 16 schools and their fans, families, and communities to this year’s tournament! With many local schools participating, it’s a great chance for your business to connect with the community.

For $200, your business will receive: Program Recognition; Logo Displayed in the Anderson Valley Gymnasium, PA Shoutouts at Halftime.

Join us in supporting our athletes and making this event unforgettable! For details, message us or contact jtoohey@avpanthers.org

These funds go to pay for the officials at the event and help bolster our student body sports fund throughout the school year!

Thanks Everyone!

The tournament starts 12/4

John Toohey, AV Panther Athletic Director

---

SHARON DOUBIAGO

I always say Jack Hirschman (and Neeli Cherry/Cherkovski) were my first poets, but in fact Robert Duncan was. About 1965, living in suburbia with my two very young children, Danny and Shawn, south of Clairmont. Very poor. I made my way, mid-afternoon, to that university to attend a reading by a poet named Robert Duncan. I hardly knew what poetry was, but something in reading the announcement in local newspaper caused me to attend. I hired a babysitter who i could not afford, dressed "fit to kill," thinking that was appropriate, made my way to the campus. When I found the classroom of the reading, it was packed, almost entirely of boys, dressed in Levis and close to long hair. There was only one empty desk seat at the front of the room, directly in front of the poet, Robert Duncan, who was yet to start. He may have signaled me to the desk. I made my high-healed, bee-hived hair way to it, very uncomfortably, in front of all those guys. The poet was cross-eyed but stared at me most of his "reading" about a poet named H.D. I hardly understood a word but something, SOMETHING moved me in a very deep way. Actually I had read H.D.in 1961 and like Duncan understood very little, but again was deeply moved.

---

REMEMBERING RUSTY NORVELL, 1930-2008

by Bruce Anderson

The last time I saw Rusty was the Friday after that first big January 2008 storm. He hadn’t had any electricity for several days. His place at The Woods, the oddly suburban senior housing complex in the Pygmy Forest of Little River three miles from the Pacific, was still strewn with down tree limbs. Mexicans were cleaning up. I asked him if The Woods could survive without Mexicans. “Hell, no. This country wouldn’t survive without them, either.” Rusty said so far as he was concerned the power could stay off permanently. He said he’d watched a lot of television in the year he’d lived at The Woods and “couldn’t believe how bad it was.” He said he was reading Montaigne and, I supposed, so deep in the 16th century that candlelight, good enough for ancient skeptics, was plenty good enough for modern ones like him, too. His cancer was in remission and he’d stopped talking like a man ready to die.

You don’t have to be Montaigne to know that other people are mysteries, unknowable. I’d known Rusty and his wife, Flo, since 1984. When I met them they lived in a forested enclave near Mendocino. Their second house was on the bluffs of Caspar vertiginously perched directly above the pounding surf.

Rusty was a book guy, I was a book guy. That was our connection. Books were our church, the Hamilton remainder catalogue our sacrament. We exchanged bargain tips. His collection took up all his wall space. Mine took over my house.

I visited the Norvells when I was out on the coast, they stopped by Boonville when they were on the road south. Rusty occasionally wrote for my newspaper; my newspaper supported the environmental involvement that was a large part of the Norvells’ lives.

But the longer I knew them, the less I knew them, and the longer I knew them the more I came to sympathize with Mrs. Norvell, came to regard my book friend as fortunate indeed to have such an unfailingly cheerful live-in nurse for the five decades she picked up the shards of her husband’s many shattered lives. I wasn’t surprised that Rusty got sick soon after Flo died, and wasn’t surprised that Rusty’s son Cove assumed Flo’s incessant responsibilities.

The last time I visited Rusty at The Woods he told me that Flo had come to see him. He may have been reading Montaigne but the skepticism had briefly abandoned him. “You know Bruce, it’s the damnedest thing. I was just sitting here right where I am now when I felt a hand patting me on the shoulder. I looked around and, of course, no one was there. But then Flo said to me, ‘It’s alright, Rusty. It’s alright,’ and she patted me on the shoulder one more time and then she was gone.”

I didn’t know at first that Rusty was an alcoholic. Other people told me. He kept his drinking life away from me. Flo never talked to me about it either. The Norvells were of the generation and social class where scandalous behavior was, insofar as possible, confined to its victims, in this case the family.

Today, of course, bad behavior is celebrated, but as generous and loyal as Rusty could be, and he often was very generous, he was, in the modern phrase, “a high maintenance person,” and it was his wife who did almost all the maintaining.

I’d call him and he wouldn’t be at home, and Flo, always discreet, always protective, would cheerfully say, “I’ll have him call you when he gets back,” as if he’d just gone out to the store for a carton of milk and not to the rear unit of the Fort Bragg motel where he’d stay for days at a time with a case of whisky, and Flo would send money to the man who managed the place who would throw an edible life buoy into whisky river for the drowning man who would eventually float by.

Rusty would dive to these motel depths several times a year, but in between he read books, listened to music — he knew all about jazz — and occasionally wrote an article for me or one of the coast papers.

Blessed by birth with Oklahoma oil money, Rusty and Flo were able to exist outside the economic pressures that otherwise would have doomed them given Rusty’s volatile drinking. Not that he didn’t work. In his way he worked hard. He worked at newspapering and teaching, but something would always “happen” and the Norvells would be on the road again. They traveled the world, having lived in Spain, Mexico, Japan, Manhattan, San Francisco, and, finally, Mendocino.

Rusty was a better editor than he was a writer. And he was a very good editor in the old fashioned sense because he was not only a big reader but one of the many jobs he’d held was editor and reporter for several daily newspapers in the long gone times when even newspapers tried to be both interesting and clear, when journalists and their editors appreciated a well-turned sentence, a well-told story.

Now, of course, most newspapers could simply be outsourced to, say, India, whose educated classes write better than most of the word processors processing the daily deluge of misinformation and tedious bilge force fed Americans these days. His own prose tended to get away from him in careless ways Rusty did not tolerate in others, me especially, and he’d phone me up almost every week to tell me how this or that story could have been improved. I seldom disagreed.

I’d challenge him. “Come on down here every Tuesday and go over this thing, Rusty. It’s no good after the fact, after it’s already out there.” He’d promise to “think it over,” but he really didn’t like doing what he was best at — making other people’s prose better.

Rusty liked teaching, too, and from the passion he invested in the numerous errors, conceptual and real, in the spoken and written word around him, I knew he must have been a truly excellent teacher. He was certainly in demand as a teacher in his youth, having been engaged by a series of elite private prep schools many of whose graduates would write to Rusty years later to tell him how much they’d benefited from his instruction.

Locally, Rusty taught at the old Whale School in Albion but, and probably out of the anxiety public school administrators seem to feel at the prospect of genuinely talented individuals in their classrooms, Rusty never taught in any of the other local schools, which meant one more lost opportunity for local children.

He often had mysterious errands for me. Once he had me take his watch to a San Francisco repairman, “the only guy left in this country who can be trusted with it.” When I arrived at the office of the Only Man Who Can Be Trusted With It, I was seven floors up in a non-descript building a block off Union Square. The door was locked. I knocked. A tremulous male voice asked me what I wanted. I said I’d brought Mr. Norvell’s watch to be cleaned. The door flew open and an instantly effusive old man, “a Spaniard from Spain” he later informed me, told me I was “most welcome.” He said it was “a great honor to be entrusted with such a fine instrument.”

I’ve owned a Timex or two, but I’d never possessed any object approaching “fine instrument” status. And I hadn’t opened the box I’d been entrusted with to look at the thing; I wasn’t curious about it even though Rusty had emphasized that the watch was too valuable to send through the mail.

“My father gave it to me,” Rusty had said. “It means everything to me.” In that case, I thought, I had zero business transporting it, but I knew if I’d asked him for a favor Rusty would have instantly agreed, so…

The old Spaniard, speaking as reverently as if I held a lock of hair from Christ’s suffering head, said the watch was Patek Phillipe gold and more than a hundred years old. Bowing his head, his voice lowering unctuously, the old man added, “and probably worth more than $40,000.” I pantomimed tossing the box out the window. The watchmaker was unamused. “I will call Mr. Norvell when it is ready,” he said, carefully removing the box from my clownish, irresponsible hands with both of his. I’ve wondered how that watch survived its owner’s many misadventures, and I hope now that Cove Norvell will own it.

One sunny summer day Rusty appeared at the paper’s Boonville office. It was a Tuesday, production day for us, and not a day for distractions. Rusty had roared up in his big bomber of a Buick, one of the last really big ones Buick made. He was driving. Leonard Cirino, the Albion poet, sat in the passenger seat. We’d heard them coming up the driveway because, as always, Rusty was driving too fast for conditions, in this case the dusty forty-foot length of our driveway. I met them at the door. Rusty, in what we called his seaweed hat, a cowboy Stetson with a length of kelp in place of the usual hatband, was so drunk he wobbled. Cirino grinned that unnerving, maniacal grin he seemed to reserve for encounters with me. Rusty pulled a garbage bag of clothes from the back of his Buick 707 or whatever it was. “Keep these here for me, Bruce, I’m on my way to Nashville.”

Nashville? Nashville, Tennessee? I asked, incredulous.

“That’s the only Nashville there is, buddy,” Cirino said, his deathhead’s grin managing to out-shine the afternoon sun.

I told them to come in out of the heat and rest awhile because I wanted to get them away from the car so I could snag the keys out of the ignition. But the keys weren’t in the ignition, they were in Rusty’s pocket. I told Rusty he wouldn’t make it to Yorkville let alone Nashville in the condition he was in.

“I’ve never known you to be judgmental, Bruce,” Rusty said with audible disappointment.

I’ve never known you to be suicidal, my friend, I replied.

The upshot was that I called the CHP, hoping the cops would head him off at Cloverdale. If he got that far. I knew in my bones he’d kill someone in that big Buick, and wouldn’t my friends in the local media like that. “Enabler Editor’s Pal Kills Family In Head-On Crash Near Boonville. Anderson Admits He Knew Friend Was Too Drunk Too Drive, But…”

Somehow Rusty got all the way down 101, all the way through the city, all the way to SF International, all the way onto the airplane, all the way to the only Nashville there is.

Months later my wife sold the garbage bag full of his clothes at a garage sale. She’d washed them, carefully folded them, arranged them on a table with the real cheap stuff where, she reported long after they were gone, “They went real fast. Where’d they come from anyway?”

Months after his Nashville run Rusty called me to ask where his clothes were, which is when I discovered their fate. Flo laughed about it every time I saw her right up until the last time I saw her, and if ever there was a martyr to holy matrimony it was that lady.

According to a terse press release issued by the CHP the following week, “Russel S. Norvell of Little River died Sunday afternoon, February 3rd, in a single car accident on Highway One near Gordon Lane, south of Mendocino at mile-marker 48.50. The accident occurred at 2:40pm under cold, cloudy conditions, following several days of rain. Norvell was southbound in a 2001 Toyota Prius when he lost control of the vehicle and ran off the road into a dirt drainage ditch, spinning backwards into a eucalyptus tree. Norvell was not wearing a seatbelt at the time.”

“At the time” Russel Norvell died of a broken neck from driving backwards into the tree at about 50 miles an hour.

I’d talked to Rusty the Wednesday before he died. The power had been out again at The Woods, and he was still reading Montaigne. He told me his cancer was in remission, that he was feeling a lot better, that he was going to write the article on his illness he’d promised me. He was happy, optimistic. He wanted to go on living.

Rusty leaves behind his son Cove Norvell, Cove’s wife Lorraine, and granddaughter, Elizabeth.

All of us who missed Rusty gathered the following Sunday in the Abalone Room of the Little River Inn at 2pm to remember him.

---

CATCH OF THE DAY, Wednesday, October 16, 2024

MICHAEL FREEMAN JR., 30, Covelo. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, vandalism, disobeying court order.

SERJIO GONZALEZ, 48, Ukiah. Parole violation.

ANDREW HAWKES, 38, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

LOREN LINCOLN, 39, Covelo. DUI-alcohol&drugs.

CHERRI ROBERTS, 48, Ukiah. Unlawful camping in public park, storing camping equipment, resisting. (Frequent flyer.)

MATHEW RYAN, 42, Ukiah. DUI with blood-alcohol over 0.15%.

---

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

As a life-long dog owner I’ll simply say that if you are in an area where dogs are supposed to be on leash and yours aren’t, you are being an asshole. Somewhere around one-third of the “he’s friendly” off-leash dogs I encounter with mine end up being aggressive towards my dog. Not necessarily attacking, but barking/growling or lunging at her. Most of the rest seem to be content chasing wildlife, which is another reason why leash laws exist.

---

---

STRIKERS TELL SUPERVISORS, ONE JOB SHOULD BE ENOUGH!

by David Bacon

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - 10/8/24 - Striking San Francisco hospitality workers marched from the three high-end Union Square hotels in the heart of the city's tourism district to City Hall, where they asked the Board of Supervisors to support them. UNITE HERE Local 2 struck the hotels on September 22, and workers have announced they won't go back to work until they have a new contract. In the meantime, guests have been fleeing the hotels as service inside has bottomed out, while outside the strikers pound on drums and any other available sound-making instrument to dramatize their action.…

https://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com/2024/10/04-strikers-tell-supervisors-one-job.html

---

THE BANE OF CURIOSITY

Editor,

Human development occurs in stages. The physical part is the least demanding, but the cognitive part is the most. During some phases of our youth, various phenomena attracted our attention, and our egos tried to make sense of them. I remember the stove. When I was too far from it, it provided little relief from the morning chill, but its heat grew from ineffectual to pleasant and unbearable as I neared it. Even though I should have, I did not realize what touching its surface would be like. In that event, the first incident was the charm, but I have had some problems that took many lessons to understand. Those mishaps caused me to associate learning with sacrifice and pain. Not only physical but a variety of emotional traumas: embarrassment is my biggest fear. And that is why I would not say I enjoy second-guessing myself, but I do because I do not value making any mistake more than once.

Before you vote in this election, please do not let your emotions rule your decision. Make your choice based on reliable information, even if your heart would have you do otherwise. The road to Enlightenment has consequences; many are difficult to endure, but they give us factors that improve our chances of making better decisions.

Tom Fantulin

Fort Bragg

---

---

END FUNDING FOR GAZA WAR

Editor:

Oct. 7 was the anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israeli civilians in which 1,200 people were killed. It was a horrific attack, but it does not justify the past year of war against the Palestinian people. More children (16,900) have been killed than Hamas operatives (13,000). This is not a war waged against Hamas; it is a war waged against the Palestinian people. Schools, hospitals and aid workers are bombed. The Israeli government tells people to go to safe zones and then bombs the safe zones. People who want to leave are not allowed out. This is not defense, this is an ongoing massacre, and it needs to stop. There is no excuse, and the U.S. is complicit in our unwavering support for the Israeli government. The U.S. needs to stop giving lip service to a cease-fire while providing military support. The U.S. has an opportunity to show our leadership and humanity by stopping funding for war and providing humanitarian relief.

Amy B. Jolly

Santa Rosa

---

JONAH RASKIN:

Monday, October 15 attended a marathon poetry for Palestine event at Bird & Beckett. Read a poem of mine which I will post here and heard my friend Christopher Bernard read and also heard an 11-year-old read a poem about his Palestinian uncle who was assassinated in the 1970s. Many poets read with passion and conviction.

In the exercise room

On the bike, breathing fumes, the Blue Angels in the sky

frightening the birds, Homid,

my Iranian neighbor, says.

His wife smiles reluctantly

as though she knows

these walls have ears

while I peddle silently and watch the storied

cities of the Middle East turn to dust and

its citizens to pillars of stone.

---

---

THE DEEP WATER CHANNEL MOVING INTO THE NORTH DELTA

by Dan Bacher

The struggle by tribes, environmental organizations, fishing groups and California residents to stop construction of the controversial Delta Conveyance Project, or Delta Tunnel, just heated up with the submission of a formal statement to the State Water Resources Control Board that highlights the “fundamental flaws” in the process.

The Delta Tribal Environmental Coalition, or DTEC, represented by the Environmental Justice Law and Advocacy Clinic at Yale Law School — along with the California Indian Environmental Alliance, San Francisco Baykeeper and Golden State Salmon Association — put forward the statement that claims to expose the flaws of the hearings concerning petitions submitted by the Department of Water Resources in February 2024. DWR had asked the State Water Board to modify water rights permits issued back in 1972, and change them in a way that would allow DWR to use them now to construct and operate the Delta Tunnel.

“In August, DWR also quietly added a request to extend the construction deadline for water storage and conveyance facilities under those permits by fifty-five years, from 2000 to 2055,” the Delta Tribal Environmental Coalition said in a statement. “The permits DWR is requesting to use for [the tunnel] expired decades ago and cannot be resurrected. The group calls on the State Water Board to hold DWR to the same policies and processes as other water users, requiring them to submit an application for a new water right — allowing the public to provide comments and the State Water Board to sufficiently analyze whether there is sufficient water available for this unprecedented water export project.”

The Delta Tunnel is a proposed 40-foot-wide underground conveyor with the capacity to siphon 6,000 cubic feet per second of water—the equivalent of roughly 245 Olympic swimming pools every hour—from the Sacramento River in the North Delta and send it directly to corporate agribusiness water users in the San Joaquin Valley.

The construction of the Delta Tunnel will only hasten the extinction of Central Valley salmon and steelhead and imperiled Delta fish species, according to scientists and fish advocates.

“Meanwhile, the State Water Board’s continued delay in updating water quality standards is worsening conditions in the Bay-Delta,” the DTEC continued in its public statement.

“The tunnel would reduce flows to even more dangerously low levels, adding another chapter to the state’s history of trammeling on the rights of Delta Tribes, overlooking the interests of disadvantaged communities, and sacrificing the ecological integrity of the Bay-Delta for the profits of Big Ag.”

The project comes at a time when imperiled Central Valley salmon populations and Delta smelt, longfin smelt and other fish species have collapsed, due to massive water exports to corporate agribusiness and Southern California water agencies, combined with the impacts of toxics, pollution and invasive species. No Delta smelt — once the most abundant fish species in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta — have been caught for six years in the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Fall Midwater Trawl Survey.

In addition, a weekly survey by the US Fish and Wildlife Service targeting Delta smelt caught only one smelt this summer.

“A late April IEP juvenile fish survey (the 20-mm Survey) caught several juvenile Delta smelt in the same area,” noted scientist Tom Cannon in his blog on the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance website: calsport.org

The State Water Board remains under investigation by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, for discriminating against Delta tribes and disadvantaged communities in its mismanagement of Bay-Delta water quality controls.

The coalition of tribes, environmental groups and fish-protectors urges the State Water Board to “reject DWR’s petitions and require the completion of the Bay-Delta Plan and the conclusion of EPA’s investigations into Board discrimination before taking further action.”

A broad group of Delta cities and counties and other stakeholders have also submitted statements to the State Water Board expressing similar concerns with the Delta Tunnel proceedings.

Representatives of the tribes commented that the DWR’s continuing campaign to build the Delta Tunnel comes at the expense of Native American rights, fish populations and the public trust.

Gary Mulcahy, Government Liaison for the Winnemem Wintu Tribe said, “As the tribe has stated before, the Department of Water Resources attempt to extend expired water rights permits by a significant 55 years is unlawful. DWR has wasted public money now for 24 years on the basis of an expired permit and a version of a zombie project rejected by the public since 1982. DWR can no longer skirt the law and must go through the actual process of filing for a new water right permit.”

Malissa Tayaba, Vice Chair for the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians, stated,

“While tribes continue to be impacted by unhealthy rivers and watersheds, the Department of Water Resources is trying to rush forward with a tunnel project that would divert more water out of our rivers and Delta eco-cultural systems. We need a transparent and fair process that prioritizes our tribes, our rivers, and cultural landscapes. We should not allow DWR to play by a different set of rules that further harms us.”

Naji Thompson, certified student attorney with the Yale Environmental Justice Law and Advocacy Clinic, said that the Board must first resolve “critical threshold questions about its jurisdiction and the rights and interests of Bay-Delta Tribes and communities.”

“It is essential that the Board rejects DWR’s attempts to sidestep procedural safeguards, which are designed to protect the voices of those who will be forced to live with the long-term impacts of the DCP’s construction and operations for generations to come,” Thompson argued.

Gloria Alonso Cruz, Environmental Justice Advocacy Coordinator for Little Manila Rising, agreed.

“The approval of DWR’s petition will force historically marginalized Bay-Delta communities to continue to endure generations of ecosystem disruption, an unjustifiable act, and proceeds to neglect the voices of Tribal and marginalized communities,” said Cruz. “The State Water Board has the authority to hold DWR accountable and prioritize protections for communities and the Bay-Delta environment.”

The tribal statement was submitted during the second year in a row of a complete closure of recreational and commercial salmon fishing on the ocean and recreational salmon fishing in all California rivers, due to the collapse of Sacramento River and Klamath River fall-run Chinook salmon populations.

“Extending water permits for 55 years isn’t a ‘minor change’—it’s a major blow to California’s already struggling salmon populations,” emphasized Scott Artis, Executive Director for the Golden State Salmon Association. “The Delta Conveyance Project will devastate the fishing industry and Bay-Delta watershed that communities and tens of thousands of people and businesses rely on, all while bending the rules for big water interests.”

Cintia Cortez, Policy Manager for Restore the Delta, echoed similar concerns.

“DWR is requesting the Board bypass proper review to extend expired permits without standing,” reported Cortez. “Yet, it’s been two years since Delta communities, that continue to live with degraded waterways and toxic algae, requested relief from the state. By continuing this process, the Board prioritizes serving special interests and gives DWR cover to please the Governor.”

Eric Buescher, Managing Attorney for the San Francisco Bay Keeper, said laws have to apply to everyone, including DWR under the Newsom administration.

“The State Board’s processes matter,” Buescher concluded. “How the Board handles this water rights proceeding will have impacts on the ecosystems and people who depend on a healthy San Francisco Bay, Delta, and watershed. The State Board needs to act fairly, justly, and quickly to address the crisis in the Delta before it considers whether to grant DWR the authority to further degrade conditions throughout the watershed over the next five decades.”

---

BOOKSTORES

In a world dominated by digital technology and e-books, the sight of a 95-year-old man running a bookstore six days a week is nothing short of extraordinary. This grandpa’s passion for literature and the tactile experience of turning a page in a well-worn book represents a dedication that’s becoming increasingly rare. His story is a testament to the power of perseverance and love for books, even as the modern world moves in different directions.

Bookstores have long been places of knowledge, reflection, and community. In an era before the internet, they were often the primary source of information and entertainment, where customers would browse shelves for hours in search of their next literary escape. But for this particular bookstore owner, the journey goes far beyond the simple transaction of selling books. At 95 years old, he opens his doors each morning not just to make a living, but to share his lifetime of experience with others.

Imagine the stories he’s accumulated over the years—books that have passed through his hands, customers he’s befriended, and the transformations he’s witnessed in the publishing world. From the golden age of print to the rise of digital media, this grandpa has seen it all. His bookstore, no doubt, stands as a time capsule of different eras, with vintage tomes sitting side by side with modern works, catering to readers of all tastes and ages.

What sets him apart is not just his longevity but his passion. In a profession where many might have retired decades ago, his love for the written word keeps him energized. His bookstore, filled with antique furniture and vintage decorations, likely exudes the same nostalgia that has kept him opening its doors day after day for decades. The quiet hum of visitors browsing and the distinct smell of old pages contribute to an atmosphere that simply cannot be replicated by online retailers.

In today’s fast-paced world, where instant gratification is often valued over thoughtful contemplation, this grandpa’s bookstore serves as a reminder of the slower, more deliberate joys of life. It’s not just a business; it’s a sanctuary for those who seek refuge in the world of literature. His presence behind the counter, perhaps offering recommendations or engaging in conversations about classic works, adds to the richness of the experience for his customers.

Such dedication to a craft is rare, and his story resonates with people not just for its uniqueness but for the wholesomeness it embodies. Here is a man who, despite his age, continues to work with purpose, inspiring others with his unwavering passion. It’s not difficult to imagine that his bookstore is filled with regulars, those who return time and again not just for the books, but for the wisdom and warmth that he offers.

This grandpa’s bookstore is more than just a shop; it’s a living piece of history. It reflects the traditions of past generations while adapting to the needs of the present. And it reminds us all that the true beauty of life lies in the passion we bring to our work and the connections we make along the way.

(Vintage Books)

---

---

THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA: AT WAR WITH ITS OWN PROUD SPEECH TRADITION

New FOIA disclosures from UC Irvine show school faculty and administrators struggling with its own famed commitment to academic freedom

by Matt Taibbi

In his new “FOIA Files” writeup of the 1,400 pages of Freedom of Information documents Racket received from the University of California, Irvine, James Rushmore highlights an extraordinary Academic Advisory Board meeting, convened at the height of the pandemic in December, 2020.

In it, UC faculty members are so angry about academics defying Covid-19 consensus, they start to re-think academic freedom. They single out Hoover Institute fellow Scott Atlas at Stanford for questioning consensus on lockdowns, social distancing, masking, and other policies. Atlas was described as someone who’d “hit us very hard… in the area of public health,” being on the “wrong” side of a “clear ‘right’ and ‘wrong’.” One UC San Francisco medical professor raised a question pitting “‘academic freedom’ vs. institutions passing on their obligation to deal with faculty who say and do things with significant chance to harm the public,” asking, “What is freedom of speech in this context?” In other words, how much can freedom can we really tolerate?…

https://www.racket.news/p/the-university-of-california-at-war

---

LEAD STORIES, THURSDAY'S NYT

6 Takeaways From Harris’s Contentious Interview on Fox News

Trump Faces Tough Questions From Hispanic Voters, but Largely Defends or Dodges

Archdiocese of Los Angeles Agrees to Pay $880 Million to Settle Sex Abuse Claims

Liam Payne, 31, Former One Direction Singer, Dies in Fall in Argentina

Italy Criminalizes Surrogacy From Abroad, a Blow to Gay and Infertile Couples

Zelensky Pitches His ‘Victory Plan’ to Ukrainian Lawmakers

---

---

CATASTROPHE AT THE BALLOT BOX

by Jim Kavanagh

The United States of America is on the verge of World War III in three different theaters. Its social economy and infrastructure are in tatters. It’s actively engaged in genocidal ethnic cleansing — killing tens if not hundreds of thousands of mainly children and women and spitting on every precept of humanitarian and international law — on behalf of an atavistic settler-colonial project.

It is more than ever despised and less than ever feared in a world escaping its control. And in this catastrophic conjuncture, the U.S. political and media culture throws up two of the most incompetent figures imaginable to vie for the role of leading us into the abyss.

The U.S. electoral system is insultingly anti-democratic. Built around donor control, a pastiche of opaque voting and tabulating systems including black-box proprietary electronic machines that could allow undetectable fraud, and, topping it all off, the Electoral College.

Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are the two most perfectly clownish figures to lead this election circus, which appears guaranteed to end up in a fight over the result.

The proper response to this should be an organized public, political boycott.

The ruling class doesn’t much care about which duopoly clown emcees the circus; the majority of the people not voting, sapping legitimacy from the system, is what it fears most.

Trump recently said:

“Just as I promised I recognized Israel’s eternal capital and opened the American embassy in Jerusalem, Jerusalem became the capital. I also recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. You know, Miriam and Sheldon would come into the White House, probably almost more than anybody outside of people that work there, and they were always after…

And as soon as I’d give them something, always for Israel, as soon as I’d give them something, they’d want something else. I said, give me a couple of weeks, will you please?

But I gave them the Golan Heights, and they never even asked for it. You know, for 72 years, they’ve been trying to do the Golan Heights, right? And even Sheldon didn’t have the nerve. But I said: You know what? I said to David Friedman, give me a quick lesson, like five minutes or less. on the Golan Heights. And he did. And I said: Let’s do it. We got it done in about 15 minutes, right?”

This was even worse than his notorious answer as a candidate at the Republican debate in 2015:

“Q: You’ve also supported a host of other liberal policies, you’ve also donated to several Democratic candidates, Hillary Clinton included, Nancy Pelosi. You explained away those donations saying you did that to get business related favors. And you said recently, quote, when you give, they do whatever the hell you want them to do.

TRUMP: You better believe it… I will tell you that our system is broken. I gave to many people. Before this, before two months ago, I was a businessman. I give to everybody. When they call, I give. And you know what? When I need something from them, two years later, three years later, I call them. They are there for me. And that’s a broken system.

Q: So what did you get from Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi?

TRUMP: I’ll tell you what. With Hillary Clinton, I said, be at my wedding and she came to my wedding. You know why? She had no choice! Because I gave.”

Trump — the purported anti-Swamp candidate — is telling us that, as president, he had his biggest donors at the White House “almost more than anybody outside of people that work there,” always after something, “always for Israel,” and he was eager to give them anything they wanted, contravening decades of fundamental U.S. foreign policy and international law to do so.

In fact, he was so eager to please, he gave them a contravention of longstanding national policy and international law “they never even asked for” — recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. That was an issue of national policy and international law about which, he tells us, he was entirely ignorant, and was content to radically overturn after a lesson of “five minutes or less” from an uber-Zionist.

Donald Trump is telling us that the president of the United States is, and he as POTUS was, a figurehead who, in return for their money, takes orders from his donors like a servant, and uses the apparatus of the United States government and his position as overseer of a global empire to literally “give” those donors parts of other countries.

Because “when they give, you do whatever the hell they want you to do.” He is telling us that, as a politician and president, he became exactly the kind of swamp creature he criticized his opponents for being in 2015. Donald Trump 2024 is confirming for us, and bragging about how well he embodies it: “that’s a broken system.” You better believe it.

Can you say “dictatorship of the bourgeoisie”?

I dare any MAGA disciple to deny that s/he would renounce as a traitorous swamp creature any Democrat s/he heard bragging about how they let “George and Alex” Soros (rather than “Miriam and Sheldon” Adelson), as his/her most frequent guests, run around and run the White House, ordering up changes that overturn longstanding national policy and international law — and then try to deny that Trump is exactly the same kind of creature.

I’m sure any MAGA disciple will say: “But Biden/Kamala/the Democrats do the same thing! They’re just not as obvious about it.” And they are right. And that’s the point, the entire point, of the duopoly choice. And it’s the reason, the principal reason, for the dominant faction of the ruling class’s antipathy to Trump.

The Democrats obscure and gloss over their obsequious fealty to the rulers with gentler, kinder, “progressive” rhetoric and insistent claims to champion the “middle class” (“working class” is so 20th-century). Trump, who’s captured the Republican Party, keeps saying what’s supposed to be the quiet part out loud.

He is comfortable bragging about his mega-donors running around the White House because he considers himself one of them, born into their club, so what’s wrong with that? The Democrats take a quieter, more humble posture when being invited to manage their master’s domain.

There are many people, including longtime Democrats, who are so rightfully angry about the incompetence, failure, and betrayal of Biden-Harris and the Democrats, that they’re considering voting for Trump, just to shake things up. One of my readers succinctly captured the reason for Trump’s appeal beyond his MAGA base: “The fact remains that there is something in Trump that the deep state thinks it cannot control.” That appeal was only enhanced by the two assassination attempts.

There’s no denying the Deep State distrusts him, and for good reason: No one, including Trump, knows what he will do or say next.

He’s got no firm political ideology, just stubs of ideas, a few of which are not bad. But he doesn’t have the intellectual capacity or political facility for executing them. And he has a ton of bad ideas.

Sometimes both at the same time — like ordering an attack on Iran and calling it off at the last minute. Narcissism and confusion mask insecurity. Precisely contrary to how he wants to be seen, Trump is actually a weak, insecure political actor, susceptible to being pushed around — especially by those he perceives as rich friends or tough guys, and who know how to handle his narcissism and need.

And they tend to come from the Deep State creatures (capitalist moguls, military/intelligence operatives, and neocon warmongers) he surrounds himself with. They, and the donors, will get him to do whatever the hell they want.

OK, maybe nine out of 10 times. As the writer Keaton Weiss has said, betting on Trump is like playing Russian Roulette with five bullets in the gun. But the idea that Trump will be different this time, in any programmatic sense — that he’s going tp embrace and fight for someone else’s program of free speech or Making America Healthy Again versus his stated program of making America, and Israel, “powerful” again — is wishful thinking, as futile as the idea that someone’s going to push Kamala left.

Please, did you forget he already was president for four years? Did anything fundamentally change? Do you think he’s not the same guy who prosecuted Julian Assange and assassinated the Iranian general, Qasem Soleimani?

Trump is an ignorant, arrogant, narcissistic scion of the ruling class, who brags about being all of those things in ways that often embarrass, and can undermine support for, the capitalist dictatorship and the U.S. empire.

He tells us he’s going to “Make Israel Great Again” (‘cause he, too, thinks that’s the job of the U.S. president), blow Iran to smithereens, intimidate Russia and China into submission, make American women stop thinking about abortion rights, and, yes, “close the internet.”

He thinks he should be president because he is who he is, and he’ll talk his way out of it if he makes his arrogance too manifest.

Of course, the Democrats, now led by Harris, are supercilious, hypocritical defenders of the ruling class, American imperialism, and Zionism, who adopt whatever rhetorical strategies might fool disaffected constituencies into thinking they’re something else. Bur many people are fed up with their game and don’t believe anything they say.

Kamala has been the darling of the Democratic donor elite since she was anointed at a 2017 meeting in the Hamptons “with Hillary Clinton’s biggest backers,” where, “already said to be the Democrats’ top fund-raiser,” she “expand[ed] her influence and ambitions” and was “talked about as a 2020 presidential hopeful.”

Unfortunately, she didn’t get any votes from actual people and, after her blistering attack on Joe Biden — Don’t worry, ”It was a debate!” — dropped out of the race before the Iowa caucus. Don’t worry, the donor cabal got her on the ticket in 2020 and got her as the presidential nominee this year — no votes needed.

Kamala tells us nothing much about what she will do because she has no idea what she will do. Her vacuity and opportunism are on display with her word-salad responses to specific questions that leave even Oprah wide-eyed and her bizarre attempt to pretend she’s a newcomer who hasn’t been part of the Biden administration for the last three-and-a-half years.

Kamala thinks she should be president because she’s not Trump and has proved herself a compliant minion of the donors. She might get herself into the presidency by talking as little as possible and allowing wishful thinkers to project what they’re looking for onto her.

Advice to both candidates: “Better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.”

Homes and caskets and people are floating around North Carolina and Tennessee, Israel is continuing to kill and maim hundreds of people per week in Gaza and is bombing and invading Lebanon, Iran has just sent a salvo of hundreds of ballistic missiles into Israel, the U.S. has sent 40,000 troops into an undeclared war, and we are waiting to see how the disasters unfold from here.

Both of these ignorant, imperialist and rabidly Zionist candidates are trying to keep the growing number of Americans, who are rightfully angry because they are getting nothing from American capitalism and imperialism, safely enclosed in the duopoly corral, where they can be blown to smithereens in WWIII or ground down as their infrastructure and social economy are drained away by profit-seeking vampires.

Blackstone is now buying up mobile home parks, to suck more money-blood out of struggling people living in the very last bastion of affordable housing. But don’t worry, Israel and Ukraine got $8 billion each.

In the midst of all this consequential chaos, we have no idea who’s actually running the country. The fact that the president is a figurehead for the ruling class and the deep state apparatus has never been more apparent, nor more blithely accepted. Woodrow Wilson and Ronald Reagan had to hide their enfeeblement. Now the whole world knows Joe has checked out, and it’s a big yawn. The president is a zero.

Still, there have been some presidents who were smart. Or at least competent. Or at least articulate. Or at least persuasive. Roosevelt, Kennedy, Obama, even early Reagan to an extent. These two are none of that. In a context where intelligent statesmanship has never been more necessary, it will be worse than zero.

One of these two will become president of the United States. To think either of them is an anti-establishment, anti-war, free-speech candidate who will save democracy, or drain the swamp, or avert the disasters we face, is to be inflicted with either Trump Derangement Syndrome or its mirror image, MAGA Personality Cult.

Believe what the presidents of the United States have told you about themselves and this country. With either of them, as Biden said: “Nothing would fundamentally change.” This country will still be, as the other man said, an “oligarchy with unlimited political bribery.” And, as the other other man said, most recently and succinctly, they will both do “whatever the hell their donors want them to do.”

We’re screwed. The demise of America seems irreversible. Whoever becomes president, it will be a catastrophe — for us and for the world.

(Jim Kavanagh taught Literary and Cultural Studies at Princeton, Carnegie Mellon and Wesleyan Universities and writes political analysis for independent media. He is a frequent guest on The Critical Hour and Political Misfits on Radio Sputnik, and on PressTV. His work can be found on his Substack and his YouTube and Rumble channels. He was a co-founder of NYC Free Assange.)

---

---

POLITICAL ECONOMY

by Karl Marx

Karl Marx's "Capital: Critique of Political Economy" (often referred to simply as "Capital") is a foundational text in Marxist theory and economic critique. Here are five key lessons from the book:

1. Labor Theory of Value: Marx argues that the value of a commodity is determined by the amount of socially necessary labor time required to produce it. This theory critiques the classical economic view that value is derived from utility or market demand.
2. Surplus Value: A central concept in Marx's work is surplus value, which is the difference between the value produced by labor and the wages paid to laborers. Marx contends that this surplus value is extracted by capitalists and is the source of profit in a capitalist system.
3. Capital Accumulation: Marx examines how capital accumulates and grows through reinvestment of surplus value. This process leads to the concentration of capital in fewer hands and can result in economic crises and increasing inequality.
4. Commodity Fetishism: Marx introduces the concept of commodity fetishism, where social relationships between people are masked by relationships between commodities. This leads to a distorted understanding of the nature of economic exchanges and human relations.
5. Historical Materialism: Marx uses historical materialism to explain how economic structures and class relations shape historical development. He argues that the mode of production (how goods are produced) determines the social, political, and ideological structures of society.

These lessons highlight Marx's critical analysis of capitalist economics and its impact on labor, value, and social relations.

---

---

STOPPING BY WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING

by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

---